The Hunted (6 page)

‘Why have you brought me to Legoland, Face-Ache?’ Ella squealed. ‘Are we having a treat?’ And she laughed at her joke. Scarface didn’t laugh. He just tilted his head to one side and stared at her through his good eye.

Ella had come here with her family, with Mum and Dad and Sam. A long time ago it seemed, but she remembered some of the rides, how scared she’d been, how she couldn’t go on them because she was too small and had cried, even though she was secretly glad, because she was really too frightened.

Frightened? Of a silly Lego ride?

That was a different world.

The past was Legoland. The future was Zombieland.

‘There’s the shop!’ she shouted, and before Scarface could stop her she ran off towards a sign saying
Turret Shop
. The doors to the shop were open and inside everything was as it’d been left, the shelves piled high with Lego toys. Dust and dirt and dead leaves and rubbish had blown in through the doors, birds had been in there and made a mess, but Ella didn’t mind. She ran down the aisles, looking at the brightly coloured boxes. She picked out a castle set, with a king and a queen and a princess and some knights, and held it out to Scarface.

Scarface sniffed, and then took the box from Ella and
squashed it into the top of his backpack, with the end sticking out. She thought he might be cross with her, having to carry toys like this. Her mum and dad had never let her buy anything in any of the shops when they’d come here. ‘It’s a rip-off, darling. Too expensive.’ Well, now everything was free.

‘Can I get something else?’ she asked. Scarface looked at her. He might be really angry now. But he didn’t lose his temper; instead he went over to a rack and picked up a full-size Lego knight’s shield, with the same wolf’s head on it as she’d seen outside.

He sort of smiled. At least that’s what Ella thought he was trying to do as his face twisted and wrinkled. She held the shield in one hand and her club in the other. The shield was just made of rubber, wouldn’t really protect her, and the club … Well, she was never going to use it, was she? But it made her feel good, like a real warrior. She grimaced and roared at Scarface.

He made a weird gurgling sound.

Maybe he could laugh after all.

She was about to give another roar when Scarface put his finger to his lips and went very still. In a blink she was out of Legoland and back into Zombieland. Forget theme-park rides: this was what it was like to be frightened. When you didn’t know what was going on. When you didn’t know where the enemy was. When you knew that there were things out there. Monsters. Real monsters, who wanted to kill you. Who would eat you if they could. Cannibals. Flesh-eating sickos.

Scarface made a movement with his hands that Ella understood –
Go carefully, keep quiet, stay behind me
– and walked out of the shop.

Not that she needed to be told to be careful.

Scarface crept on, hunched over, his spear held out in front of him. She stayed in his shadow, making herself small.

They made their way through the theme park, Scarface listening, listening, listening, although Ella could hear nothing. None of the paths here were straight; they wound through the trees and past the attractions, so that it was very hard to know what might be up ahead.

At last they rounded a corner and there ahead of them was Miniland, a sort of shrunk-down version of the world with all the famous places made out of Lego bricks, with buildings and roads and mountains and cars and people and rivers and boats … and sickos.

Three grown-ups were walking through it, looking lost. She heard Scarface sigh. Was this what they’d been tracking all this time? These three? Was it really worth coming all this way?

But, to be fair, she was glad there weren’t more of them.

They were going the other way and hadn’t seen Scarface and Ella. Scarface crept closer. Ready for the kill. Ella had seen dogs behave like this. All stiff and concentrating. There was going to be blood. Ella could see the colourful box of the Lego set sticking out of Scarface’s bag. It was always the same. Good things then bad things, good things then bad things.

Scarface got closer and closer, and still they hadn’t seen him.

The grown-ups were crossing London now; they’d passed the weird skyscraper called the Gherkin and were going past the Tower of London towards St Paul’s Cathedral. They looked like giants, or monsters from an alien
invasion film, trampling the city. One of them, a big father wearing a long, dirty coat, brushed against Nelson’s Column as they crossed Trafalgar Square. When they got to Buckingham Palace, Scarface suddenly ran in and attacked, stabbing one in the back.

Ella looked away.

She didn’t want to see any more blood, any more killing, even though it had to be done. Every last grown-up had to die.

She heard the sounds of the fight – grunting, hissing, thudding – and when she looked back one of the grown-ups was lying half in the River Thames, turning it red, and another was lying across the Houses of Parliament. The third, a mother, had made it to the pathway and was lying there, her arms and legs sort of wriggling. Scarface was squatting over her, cutting her with one of his knives. He spotted Ella watching him and scowled at her so that she looked away again.

If only it would be that easy to kill all the grown-ups in London. If only the three giants were all they ever had to deal with and Scarface was Jack the Giant Killer.

But Ella knew this wasn’t the end. Not by a long way. This was just Legoland.

The next few days were the same. Wake with the sun. Feed the chickens and clean out their run. Check the traps. Follow trails. Track down grown-ups.

Kill them.

The grown-ups mostly went about in ones and twos. Sometimes there were more, sometimes there was only one of them, and every time Scarface was able to sneak up on them and kill them without being seen, without getting hurt. Most of them were asleep, hiding inside buildings, and Ella would wait outside while Scarface went in and did what he had to do. She would sit there, nervous, hoping there were no others nearby. She would try not to listen to the sounds of Scarface clearing out the nest, the sound of fighting, things crashing and breaking. Then Scarface would come out all covered in blood.

But sometimes the grown-ups were wandering lost and confused in the daylight. And every morning there were more out in the fields, standing like the first scarecrow. Arms stretched out. Once Ella saw a crow sitting on the head of a father, pecking into his earhole, and he didn’t move at all.

Occasionally they found more scarecrows on their
travels, and always Scarface would cut them down. They were the easiest ones.

Ella got to know the area around the farm very well on her travels. There was a big park nearby with trees laid out in long, straight lines. And lots of lakes – there seemed to be lakes everywhere. Sometimes in the distance she saw what looked like a city, with a real castle watching over it, but Scarface never went near it. He seemed to want to avoid towns and houses, unless he had to go in to find hiding grown-ups.

Ella thought they weren’t really in the countryside at all, not the faraway countryside. There were roads everywhere, criss-crossing the fields and woods, with grass and weeds beginning to poke through the tarmac.

She spent the whole time feeling tired, but she was growing stronger every day, and was able to walk further without her legs feeling like they were going to crumble. At least Scarface had good food. The best she’d eaten since she’d moved out of Waitrose all those weeks ago. There were eggs every day, sometimes a chicken. Sometimes animals Scarface had trapped. Rabbits and ducks and pigeons. Sometimes fish. Scarface had nets and traps all over the place in the lakes and rivers. He also had stores in another barn. There were big sacks of flour, and dried beans, a pile of potatoes, and onions hanging up.

When they were out, he picked lots of wild leaves and what looked like weeds. They tasted bitter, but Ella chewed them and swallowed them down because she knew they were good for her. Scarface even made a sort of flat, hard bread.

Ella was beginning to wonder if this was how her life was going to be from now on. Just him and her, not ever
seeing another child again. Never having a proper conversation again. It wasn’t too bad. She felt safe with old Face-Ache. He knew how to look after himself and how to look after her. But she did feel lonely and bored a lot of the time. She cheered herself up by reading some of the books on his shelves. She never saw him read; instead he would sit by himself for hours and hours, just staring at nothing.

And then one day they saw some other children.

Ella and Scarface were returning from a hunt and it had been a big waste of time. They hadn’t seen any grown-ups, not even a scarecrow, and in the end Scarface had given up. They were a long way from the farm and it was starting to grow dark, so they’d turned and headed for home. Ella was looking forward to getting back: they always had something warm to eat, usually soup of some sort. Scarface was always cooking up chicken bones and stuff. Ella was picturing the two of them sitting by the fire as the smoke went up through the hole in the roof, getting nice and warm and cosy. Like how her mum had used to make her a mug of hot chocolate when she came home from school in the winter.

These thoughts had kept her going, and they were nearly at the edge of the woods when Scarface froze, as suddenly as if someone had paused a DVD. One moment he was walking along and the next he was still as a statue, in a sort of half-walking position. He stayed there like that, one hand on Ella’s chest to stop her moving. Then, without any warning, he quickly pulled her to the ground. They lay there, peering out from behind some dead, scratchy brown bracken.

Ella couldn’t see anything at first. She had no idea what they were supposed to be looking for. Some grown-ups probably. Though she had never seen Scarface act like this before.

And then she saw them.

A group of kids striding through the fields, passing alongside the woods. They carried spears and clubs on their shoulders, and were laughing and chatting, one of them swiping the grass with a long blade as he went. They looked like kids just coming back from the sports field after a game of something, carrying their rackets and bats.

Ella wanted to shout out to them. She raised her head, but Scarface clamped his hand over her mouth and squashed her down into the dirt.

What are you doing?
she wanted to say. She struggled, but it was no good, he was too strong. She could hardly move at all.

What are you doing
?
They’re children. Only children. I can go with them!

And then she remembered what Scarface was. What he looked like. They’d try to kill him. When he was just …

What was he?

He wasn’t an enemy, that was for sure. He could have killed her ten times over if he’d wanted. Instead he looked after her. She managed to wriggle round a bit and tap him on the arm. Got his attention, looked into his face, trying not to concentrate on his bad eye, the bloody one with the scars all round it. She tried to show him with her own eyes that it was all right, that she wasn’t going to shout out, that he could remove his big, sweaty, mashed-up hand. He didn’t let go, though, wouldn’t take the risk. He waited until the kids were long gone before freeing her.

‘I wouldn’t have done anything,’ Ella said. ‘Not once I thought about it. I wouldn’t have given you away. You’re safe with me.’ Even as she was saying it, though, she pictured herself up and running through the long grass towards the kids. Wished she was going with them. Scarface wasn’t her friend, he was a monster. A gnarly freak. She couldn’t bear the thought of spending the rest of her life with him. Looking at his ugly face day after day. She started to cry, and he tilted his head like a dog then got up and left her to it. Turning his back on her and staring off into the woods.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ella said, with a big sniff. ‘You must think I’m a baby.’

Scarface gave a little shrug, slipped his backpack off, and then squatted down and waited for Ella to climb on. Halfway home she stopped crying and let her mind go empty and numb. Tried to pretend she’d never even seen the other kids. That life was the same as it had been this morning.

That evening, as they sat with bowls of chicken soup, staring at the red glow in among the white ashes of the fire, she allowed herself to think about the children again. At least she knew now that there were others around. There was more out there than just grown-ups. There must be other farms. Other safe places. This wasn’t the end. Ella would wait. Maybe plan a way to run off, once she knew where the kids were. That gave her something to think about. Making a plan. Even if she never did anything about it, it would stop her from getting bored. She could lie there in the dark and have fantasies.

She just wished she’d been able to see them better, to talk to them. Even if only for five minutes. One minute.

She found a chicken wishbone in her soup and picked it out, sucked the scraps of meat off it and then, when Scarface wasn’t looking, held it behind her back and gently broke it. Made a wish, with all her heart, that she would see some more children soon.

The next day she got her wish.

But like all good things.

It came with bad things.

Very bad things.