The Imaginary (8 page)

‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘Look, I'm sorry I've upset you.'

Then, in a quick surprising dart, with just the sort of sudden leap that had saved her from tigers and aliens all summer, she ran out from between the cars intent on giving Rudger a friendly punch on the arm (she was not the sort of girl who hugged).

She reached him a split second before an old blue car screeched, smoked and shuddered to a halt exactly where she'd just run. If she'd been slower or had started running a moment later, she'd be flat like toast right now, knocked down by the car, run over while running over to Rudger.

Her heart was beating faster than she could remember. It hammered in her chest. She hadn't run far, just a matter of metres, but she was strangely, unexpectedly out of breath.

She felt cold, as if the sun had suddenly gone behind a cloud. Looking up, she saw the sun had gone behind a cloud.

‘Oh, Amanda,' Rudger said putting his arm round her, ‘that car …that car…it almost hit you.'

‘Little girl,' said the driver climbing out, his worried voice wavering. ‘I didn't see you run out. I got such a fright, a dreadful
fright.
Are you intact? Are you unhurt? Is your dear mother nearby in the vicinity?'

Rudger and Amanda looked up together and saw a large tall bald man leaning with one hand on his open car door. His red moustache fluttered with each word and his Hawaiian shirt looked out of place on such a damp, grey morning.

‘It's him, isn't it?' Rudger said.

Amanda caught her breath and said, ‘Yes.' Then to the man she said loudly, ‘She'll be back in a second, me mum. She's getting a ticket. And thank you very much for not running me over, but I'm all right now.'

The man nodded. ‘Good,' he said. ‘I'm glad that you came to no harm. I have no wish to hurt you. In fact, as it happens, I have no interest in you at all. But I see your friend.' He looked at Rudger. (Rudger had never been seen by a grownup before. He felt slightly sick.) ‘And I notice…' The man, Amanda remembered him saying his name was Mr Bunting, lifted himself on tiptoe and looked back across the tops of the parked cars. ‘…that there is rather a queue at the car park pay and display ticketing machine. I suspect your mother will be a little while yet.'

Rudger didn't know what made him turn round. It wasn't a crunch of gravel, because no gravel crunched; it wasn't a scent carried on the breeze, because she wore no perfume; it wasn't even a feeling that suddenly weighed his heart down, because…well, maybe it
was
something
like that. Whatever the cause, Rudger turned to look behind him, down the passage between the parked cars, and he saw her.

She was stood at the end of the car-walled alleyway, still and silent. She looked as if she was blocking their only means of escape, but she wasn't.

‘Amanda, run!' Rudger shouted, pushing her out past the big man. ‘Get to your mum!'

Amanda saw the sense and, without looking back, ran past Mr Bunting's blue car. She skidded her hand across its damp bonnet and sprinted up the ginnel between her mum's car and the next, heading over towards the ticket machine. She was sure Mr Bunting and the girl wouldn't follow if they knew they were running to her mum. They'd be safe with her. Wouldn't they?

But then she glanced behind and saw she was on her own. Rudger wasn't there. And she paused for a moment, and saw that
no one
was there. No one had followed her. Not just Rudger, but no one else either.

Rudger pushed Amanda, sending her running off. He'd meant to set off after her and get away from the odd couple, but a cold hand snapped round his wrist before he could take a step.

The girl had moved faster than seemed possible, the whole length of two cars in the blink of an eye, and her grip on him was tight. He kicked out, but that didn't help, and then she had his other wrist.

Although
he struggled, her hold on him was cold and draining. It was as if she'd injected him with some sort of soothing but nightmarish drug, as if he were a fish she'd landed, whisked out of his element and left to flounder hopelessly on dry earth. He fell numb, limp and dirty.

He was kneeling in a puddle. His knees were cold, but hardly colder than his insides. He tried to push the girl off him, to kick out, but his attempts, while being tough and manly in his mind, landed on her like the blows of a jellyfish fighting off a shark.

And then a shadow fell across his face.

The man, Mr Bunting, was kneeling down, like a man might kneel to do up his shoelace, and his moustache was ruffling. It's funny, Rudger thought, when you're in a sticky situation, facing who knows what sort of fate, the things you notice. Mr Bunting's moustache was ruffling, but he wasn't speaking.

Instead, he opened his mouth up, wider than any normal person would open their mouth, unhinged it almost, snake-like, and a hot breath wafted into Rudger's face. It smelt like a desert might smell, dry and reddish and rotten with spice. It cut through the damp air, the overcast grey sky, the puddled tarmac. It filled Rudger's world.

With his mouth open so widely, so weirdly, Rudger saw that Mr Bunting's teeth weren't like those of a normal person. They were blunt and square, identical to one another, and circled round and round. They ran back and back into his head in neat rows. In fact, Rudger thought, it looked like a white-tiled tunnel running
off
into the far distance, with a pinprick of pitch darkness at the end of it. It went so far it should have come out of the back of Mr Bunting's head, but obviously it didn't, that would be mad. It went, instead, which Rudger realised was no less mad,
somewhere else
.

And then the dry spicy wind that had been blowing gently into his face vanished. Mr Bunting began to suck, and at the same time the girl let Rudger go and scuttled away. He lay there on the tarmac, his back against the cold hubcap of a car wheel, and felt something of himself being dragged up, being pulled along with the wind.

He felt as if the world had tipped on its edge and instead of being a tunnel leading off into some unknown distance, Mr Bunting's mouth had become a pit, a hole, a shaft or well that he was on the very edge of falling into.

And then he heard a voice he knew and loved calling his name.

Amanda saw Mr Bunting leaning over Rudger. The weird silent girl was huddled to one side, staring blankly at them, but slowly rubbing her hands together.

Amanda ran at them and she kicked the large man's ankle as hard as she could. Twice.

He huffed and puffed as he heaved himself upright. He put a hand out to lean on the bumper of the car beside him. The car creaked and wobbled under his weight. Mr Bunting slowly turned to face her, a smirk underneath his bushy moustache.

‘
You came back, little Amanda,' Mr Bunting said slowly, horribly. ‘How very sweet you are. How kindly.'

Rudger scrambled up on to his feet, and, dodging round the big man's legs, grabbed hold of Amanda's arm, and they ran.

They ran together.

They ran, away from Mr Bunting and the girl, ducking down between cars, heading back the way Amanda had come, over to where the ticket machine was.

Amanda didn't dare look round. Through a break in the cars to her left she saw something dark flit past, something fast, something keeping up with them a row over. It was the girl, she just knew it, but this time Rudger was in front of her, she knew he was safe and she kept running. They had to get to her mum.

Thunder grumbled above them and the first spots of rain hit their faces as they ran. And then she and Rudger burst out from between the last pair of cars and from their right, the way they weren't looking, a moving car came out of nowhere.

It wasn't going fast, just pootling round the car park, but sometimes slow is fast enough.

Rudger bounced off the bonnet and rolled with a thump to the ground. He hit his elbow and scuffed his knee, but it didn't hurt, not much. He clambered to his feet, knocking gravel off his jeans with his hands.

‘Amanda,' he said, looking round. ‘Amanda?'