The Hunted (3 page)

Ella wasn’t dead. That was the first thing she thought when she woke up.

Not dead
. Alive. Not dead.

And the second thing she thought was,
Why not?

Why aren’t I dead?

She was lying on her back, in long grass, looking up at the stars. They were a mess. She’d never been able to make out any constellations. She couldn’t see any pictures there, just a lot of random dots.

So why wasn’t she dead?

She closed her eyes. Felt for any pain. There was none. Only a slight tiny soreness in one wrist. It was more like the memory of pain than an actual feeling. Someone must have held on to her by the wrist, pulled her. She couldn’t remember that. The last thing was …

Ella opened her eyes in panic.

The grown-up. The ugly one with the chewed face. Where was he? She was too scared to move anything except her eyes. She rolled them around, trying to see where she was.

‘It’s all right.’

She turned towards the voice without thinking. There
was someone next to her. Lying on the ground. She recognized the voice. It was Monkey-Boy.

‘Are you alive?’ Ella asked.

‘Yes … But it hurts.’ Monkey-Boy said this very quietly, and he sounded sad. ‘Are you hurt?’ he added.

‘I don’t think so.’ Ella thought of mentioning her wrist, but decided not to. It wasn’t really important.

Monkey-Boy was just a dark shape on the ground. There was a faint line of starlight across his cheek. The last time she’d see him the grown-up had been holding him and they were still inside the hotel. Nothing made any sense to her. How had they got out here? Ella wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She was quite enjoying just lying there not hurting. Not knowing. In the dark.

‘He saved us,’ said Monkey-Boy.

‘Who?’

‘The grown-up.’

‘What? You mean the one with the mashed-up face?’

‘Yes. He wasn’t with the other ones.’ Monkey-Boy’s voice sounded croaky, wobbly, weak. ‘He attacked them. He saved us.’

‘Why?’ asked Ella and immediately wished she hadn’t. The grown-up had probably captured her and Monkey-Boy to keep them both for himself. Like a lone wolf fighting off other wolves to get to a killed deer or something.

And now she heard herself asking the question she never wanted answered.

‘What happened?’

‘I woke up,’ said Monkey-Boy and now Ella could hear that his voice was all wheezy and bubbly as well, like he needed to clear his throat. All full of phlegm.

‘And then what?’

‘I needed a wee. I was desperate. I didn’t want to make any noise. Maeve and Robbie had told us to keep quiet, and stay hidden.’

‘You needed a wee?’

‘Yes, I was bursting. It was horrible. I didn’t want to wet the bed because you and Maeve were sleeping in it. I was embarrassed.’

Ella wished yesterday had never happened. She wished she’d never left London and all her other friends. Maeve had promised her, though. She’d been so sure. That she’d take them to a better place, in the countryside, with fresh air and fresh food and no grown-ups. A new life. They’d only got as far as a hotel on an island in the river. Monkey Island. That had felt right, a place for the boy who loved to climb, for the Monkey-Boy.

They found a room and settled down for the night. Just the four of them. Her and Monkey-Boy and Maeve and Robbie. Robbie who couldn’t even walk properly because of his wounded leg. What chance did they have? Stupid. Stupid. You needed an army.

Ella fought to stop herself from crying.

‘I thought I was going to explode,’ Monkey-Boy went on. ‘Lying there in the bed for hour after hour. I couldn’t sleep. In the end I got up and tried to find the door for the bathroom. It’s what you call an ensuite. It means that …’

‘I know what “ensuite” means,’ Ella snapped. ‘It means you have a loo and bathroom right next to your bedroom. I’m not dumb.’

‘Sure. OK. Sorry. I thought I had the right door. Maybe I did and they were hiding in the bathroom, or maybe I
opened the door to the corridor by accident and they were waiting out there.’

‘Who?’

‘The grown-ups. They were waiting. Quiet in the dark. They came in quickly. I don’t know how many. Quickly and quietly. I couldn’t make a sound, or shout for help. They were well clever; one of them smothered my face in his stomach. It really stank. I thought I’d be sick. I did wee myself then. And he dragged me away. Up the corridor. He did things to me. He hurt me. He bit me. And two more grown-ups came out with Maeve. She was already dead. I couldn’t watch what they did to her. I went all unconscious. I don’t know how long for, but he did worse things to me when I was asleep.

‘And then the other grown-up arrived. The one whose face is all scarred. There was a fight and he easily beat the one who hurt me. He killed him. I saw him. He was ferocious. With knives and everything. He cut him to pieces and then he picked me up, and he was carrying me away when you came running down the corridor with more grown-ups behind you. Scarface tried to help you, but you fainted and you banged your head. And then he had to fight the new grown-ups. He didn’t waste any time. No way. He killed them quicker than you can imagine, and he brought us here. ‘I don’t know what he’s going to do. He comes and goes.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘He went back inside the hotel, I think. For more killing.’

‘And where are we?’

‘Just on the grass, near some trees, by the river. You can see the hotel over there.’

Ella looked over and saw the big square black shape of the building against the stars. Her eyes were getting used to the light and she was seeing more and more. All the time wishing she was still asleep where she was safe. Eyes closed. In the dark.

‘What will he do when he comes back?’ she said.

‘I don’t know. He just sits there. Like he’s keeping watch.’

‘He’s going to do something bad to us,’ said Ella. ‘We have to get away from here. We have to run away.’

‘I can’t,’ said Monkey-Boy and now Ella could see that his face was all shiny and wet. He was crying.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

‘I can’t move,’ said Monkey-Boy. ‘It hurts too much.’

‘Where does it hurt?’

‘All over. I’m bleeding a lot.’

‘Badly?’

‘I don’t know. It feels bad. I feel bad. All hot and cold and shivery. I’ve got pins and needles in my fingers and my feet.’

Well, that doesn’t sound too bad
, thought Ella, and she shuffled closer to him. It was cold out here. That was why he was shivering. She was shivering too, her teeth clacking together. Her body shaking. Or maybe she was just scared.

‘Let me see,’ she said, squinting in the dark, kneeling over him, her shoulders hunched, as if she was expecting something to swoop down out of the sky and attack her.

‘I can’t hardly see,’ she said and touched Monkey-Boy’s jumper. It was soaking wet. Sticky. She held her hand to her face. It looked like it was covered in black ink. Ella knew, though, that if there was more light it would look red, not black.

And then she remembered the torch she kept in her backpack. She quickly felt her shoulders. The straps were there. Robbie had told them all to sleep with their packs on in case they needed to make a quick getaway. She slipped the pack off her back and rummaged around inside it until she felt the familiar hard plastic. It was a wind-up torch and she always kept it wound. She pressed the button and the light shone right into Monkey-Boy’s face. He winced and shrank away from it, blinking.

He was breathing very fast. Panting like a dog. His face very white and splashed with blood. She moved the beam down his body. He was absolutely soaked and there was more blood puddling in the grass around him. How much blood was there in a human being? Her teacher had once told her it was eight pints. She wasn’t quite sure how much a pint was, let alone eight, and surely children would have less blood than adults? How much of his blood had he spilt, though? It looked like a lot.

He was holding his hands over his stomach. His forearms were all scraped and scratched, the skin raggedy and torn, and there was more blood oozing up between his hands and fingers. It was steaming in the chilly night air.

There was a smell coming off him, like the smell of a grown-up. Like bad toilets and old bins. This was worse than pins and needles. He was being very brave. If it was her she would have been just screaming and screaming.

‘It’s all right,’ she said, using the same words he’d said to her earlier. Had he been lying too?

‘I don’t want to move my hands,’ he said. And she saw that there were bubbles coming from inside the blood. Inside his body.

‘If you move them a little I can see how bad it is,’ said Ella.

‘It’s very bad,’ said Monkey-Boy and she could hear the crying in his voice. ‘He bit me. He was trying to eat me, Ella. Trying to eat me alive.’

‘Well, he didn’t!’ said Ella angrily. ‘We were saved, remember. You were saved – you’re going to be all right. Just move your hands a little and I’ll see …’

Then he did and she wished he hadn’t because she saw stuff. Awful stuff. Coming out of him. Like a nest of fat worms, grey and blue and brown and white. And then she screamed as something knocked into her hard, the torch was grabbed off her and shut down. She felt a hot hand pressing over her mouth so that her scream was strangled into silence. She was crushed to the ground, the smell of grass and mud filling her nose, and she knew that soon she would be like Monkey-Boy. She waited for it. The teeth in her skin, her bones snapping …

Eaten alive …

But the body on top of her didn’t move. Just lay there all hot and still, the hand holding her mouth closed. She could hear his breathing, harsh and raspy through his nose … She remembered the nose, how it had looked all mangled, the nostrils open like in a skull. She felt a calm come over her. If this was the end then she would never be scared again.

She waited. The man breathing in her ear.

And nothing happened.

She was still alive. In the dark. A little disappointed that she would have to carry on being scared, carry on struggling. At last, slowly, slowly, the thing rolled off her, still holding her in one strong arm. She could see
Monkey-Boy. He hadn’t moved. He was very still. And, beyond him, moving figures. Three people, adults, coming towards them. The grown-up who had hold of her turned her head so that she was facing him – he had his fingers to his lips, shushing her.

She swallowed and nodded. He let go of her. Moved his hands and the next thing he was holding two knives, their blades glinting.

Were they for her?

She didn’t think so. There had been something in his face. Something almost friendly.

Ella heard a noise and turned back to see the three grown-ups had almost got to Monkey-Boy, and he still hadn’t moved. Was he playing dead to fool them?

One of them, a father – she could see now – stooped over Monkey-Boy. And then, in a flappy rustle of clothing, Scarface was up and running, crouching low. He punched out at the father who dropped to the ground. One of the other two grown-ups, another father, hissed and swung his arms wildly, but Scarface dodged them, went under, then up, stabbing at his face. The father fell over backwards. The last of the three was a mother. She was holding her hands up to protect herself, fingers like claws. Scarface easily darted round her, and stabbed twice at her side. She squealed, holding her stomach, and ran around in circles. Finally Scarface did something to her that Ella couldn’t see and she went down with a thump.

It was very quiet and still now. Scarface waited there, as if listening, raised his face, sniffing the air, then moved among the three dead bodies. Finally he came back over and looked at Monkey-Boy. His shoulders dropped. He touched Monkey-Boy’s face. Knelt there in silence, and
then came over to Ella. He gave her back her torch then jerked his head as if to say, ‘Come along.’

‘What about my friend?’ said Ella, nodding towards Monkey-Boy. Scarface shook his head.

Ella felt a great weight of sadness crash down on her, forcing tears out of her eyes and down her cheeks.

It wasn’t fair
. Monkey-Boy had never wanted to hurt anyone, he just loved to climb things. Now Ella was all alone in the world.

Except for this creature. This Scarface. And she had no idea what he wanted from her.

But she got up and followed him as he walked away.