The Long Weekend (9 page)

'Lloyd, I've got to go out for a second,' Sam whispered. 'Just for a second. I promise. I'll be back in a minute. You'll be fine.'

Lloyd didn't reply. He was curled up in a tight ball, shivering, silent. He needed a hot bath and a warm, cosy bed to snuggle up inside, but all Sam could give him was a hard, damp floor and some empty words of hope. It wasn't much.

'Don't make a sound – no matter what you hear. And . . . and just in case anything does happen, there's a back door over there. Use it if you have to, and then run like mad,' Sam added. He suddenly realised he didn't sound like an eleven-year-old any more. He sounded more like a dad, or something, which felt crazy. Mad.

He didn't think Lloyd had heard anything he'd said, but he hoped he had. If the man was somewhere outside, Sam's great plan, which wasn't really a great plan but the only thing he could think of, was to lead him away from Lloyd. There was no sense in them both getting caught, and Lloyd could get away and hide in the woods until someone came looking for them. They had to be looking for them, didn't they? They'd been missing for a whole night. The entire police force would be out searching for them, asking everyone questions about them. Someone had to have seen the big, shiny, flash set of wheels whisking them away, and how many big, shiny, flash sets of wheels could there be in this area? There couldn't be many.

Sam opened the door a crack, but not wide enough to be able to see much of the ground. He had to open it wider, but very, very slowly, inch by inch with no sudden movements that might attract the eye,
his
eye. He waited a minute and then opened it another few inches, and after another long pause, another couple of inches. It was a bright autumn day outside, the leaves glowing rich russets and oranges and golden hues, the sky a bright, cloudless blue, the air crisp. Perfect day for a walk. But there was nothing perfect about the walk Sam was going to have to take. For a start it wasn't going to be a walk, it was going to be a sprint, and it was probably the stupidest thing he could have done, but it made sense to him.

Okay, now he could see the whole clearing. He scanned it for the bloody towel. It should have been easy to spot. Bright red and drenched with blood. Sam saw it, but it wasn't bright red any more, more of a reddish brown colour. It was over by the tree stump in the middle of the clearing. He knew he had to get it. He knew it was the only thing that would tell the man where they were hiding. He had to get it. The thing was, it was just so far away.

He hesitated; no, it wasn't hesitation, he was being cautious; no, he was being clever, that's what it was. And maybe a bit afraid. Maybe a lot afraid. Count it out, Sam, he told himself, it was the only way he could make himself leave the safety of the shed. On the count of three he was going to belt across the clearing, pick up the towel, and belt back, and he was going to try and do it in less than five seconds. That was a heck of a challenge, but Sam quite liked racing: well, he used to.

He took a deep breath, his eyes on the path that led from the garages down through the trees and into the clearing, willing it to stay empty for the next several seconds. Then he counted to three. Then he ran. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, he was halfway across the clearing; four Mississippi, five Mississippi – he hadn't made his target, but he'd got the rag and he was on his way back. Seven Mississippi, eight Mississippi, nine and he was back at the door, out of breath and the blood screaming in his ears.

He checked the clearing and the trees for any movement before stepping back inside the shed, resisting the temptation to slam the door shut and block it up with everything he could lay his hands on. He closed the door very slowly, keeping watch until the crack was too small to see through. Then he went to the window and kept a lookout from there.

No one was going to creep up on them without Sam knowing about it.

The next time he looked at his watch it said twelve thirty, which didn't feel right. Had he been keeping watch at the window for that long? He must have been. His fingers were completely numb and he couldn't feel his feet at all. In his left hand a dull throb had replaced the excruciating pain he'd woken up with, so at least the cold had been good for something. There had been no movement from outside at all, which meant the man was searching other areas of the grounds, or maybe he was still searching the house. Sam looked out one more time and then tore himself away from the window and went to check on Lloyd.

Lloyd was as Sam had left him: curled up with his arms hugging his knees and his head resting on top of them.

'I got the towel. It was in the clearing outside, but it's okay. No one saw me.'

Lloyd blinked in response.

'I think we'll be safe here for a bit,' Sam continued.

Suddenly he felt completely drained. He needed to sit down. He crawled under the tables and chairs and nestled up close to Lloyd. They shivered together.

'The police will be looking for us. It won't be long before they find us. Maybe we should stay here until they do. What do you think, Lloyd?'

Lloyd shrugged. It wasn't much of a response, but then there wasn't much of a choice: hide out there, or hide out somewhere else. That was it.

'I don't know either,' Sam sighed. He was too tired to think. He closed his eyes. He needed to rest them for a few minutes.

He must have drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep because the little nudge woke him with a start. The shed was darker. It must have got cloudier outside or maybe it was late and he'd slept all day. Sam glanced at Lloyd. He had his finger pressed against his lips, and only then did Sam become aware of the shuffling outside. Someone was out there. Someone was looking for them, and he didn't think it was the police. There would have been lots of them, all calling their names loudly. This sounded like one person. Sam felt trapped now. They should have gone into the woods and found a tree, or a hollow to hide in, or dug a hole and buried themselves inside it.

They both held their breath, and neither of them moved, not even to blink their eyes. The sound of footsteps went round the shed, passing behind them, and then they disappeared. Still, neither boy moved, or spoke, or breathed. The footsteps returned, and then the shed door opened. Lloyd reached for Sam's hand and clutched it hard. Sam could feel Lloyd's fear mingling with his own.

Please don't make a sound, Lloyd. Please don't make a sound, Sam cried fervently inside his head. If they kept quiet, the man wouldn't hear them and he would go away and search somewhere else. He didn't know they were hiding there. Or had he guessed?

They heard his heavy tread on the wooden boards of the shed. The boards creaked and made snapping noises underfoot; he was coming further into the shed. There was scraping and bumping noises as he shifted bits of furniture, looking, searching.

'Come out, come out, wherever you are,' he sang.

Sam felt the spasm of fear and loathing that shot through Lloyd. He clutched his hand harder and looked directly into Lloyd's eyes, telling him to make no sound, telling him to make no movement. But Lloyd's lips were quivering uncontrollably.

'Come out, Lloyd. Time to go home,' the man said. 'Come on out, Lloyd.'

Lloyd closed his eyes, but his body leaned forward as though he was about to get up and crawl out of the cubbyhole. Sam panicked and held onto his friend hard. He had to stop him because Lloyd wasn't thinking straight. When the man was around, he just did whatever the man told him to do.

Sam was sure the man didn't know they were there, but he wished he would stop singing that stupid song. He was just trying his luck; trying to entice Lloyd out with promises of going home. Did he really think they were stupid enough to believe his lies? The man hadn't bothered calling for him though, Sam thought. Maybe he thought Sam had got away, or maybe he knew that Sam wasn't afraid of him in the same way Lloyd was. He had no power over Sam, not like he had over Lloyd.

The footsteps went backwards and forwards a few more times, but after a few minutes, they clomped back towards the door, and didn't come back again. Sam kept hold of Lloyd for a long time, even when Lloyd's body went limp as the fear seeped away. The man had gone, but he had left the shed door wide open. Sam let go of Lloyd and saw that his watch said quarter to five. He had slept all day. And no one, other than the man, had come looking for them. They'd been missing a whole night and a whole day now. How much longer would they have to wait before they were rescued? Would they even be rescued?

They had had a close call, and Sam had no idea whether the man would come back to the shed again. What should they do? Should he take Lloyd into the woods and hide out there. But it was a freezing cold night. What to do, where to go? Sam let his head fall into his hands and he cried. He hadn't cried since the night before, but now all he wanted to do was cry and cry and cry. He did it quietly, without making a sound. He didn't want the man to hear; he didn't want him to come back to the shed. After a while the tears stopped. Lloyd hadn't said a word.

Sam wiped his nose on his sleeve, and said, 'You hungry, Lloyd?'

Lloyd shrugged, and Sam took that to mean yes. He had stuffed a muffin and a banana in his coat pocket at lunch at school. Yesterday. It had only been yesterday, but it had been the longest weekend of Sam's life – and it was only Saturday evening. The banana and the muffin would have to keep them going, as he hadn't thought of swiping any food from the kitchen in the house. All he'd thought about then was finding a sharp knife. He dug into his pocket and found the battered muffin and bruised banana, but they were edible and that's what mattered. He divided them out between them.

'Just have to imagine they're something else,' Sam suggested.

They ate slowly. Both of them knew there wasn't anything else to eat after this.

'It'll keep us going until tomorrow,' Sam said. 'The police will find us by then.'

'No, they won't,' Lloyd said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Sam turned to face Lloyd. 'Yes, they will, Lloyd.'

'You don't have to pretend any more, Sam.'

'I'm not pretending,' Sam insisted. 'They're looking for us, and they're going to find us. It's just a matter of surviving until they do.'

'We're going to die here.'

'Don't be stupid! ''Course we're not!' Sam hissed angrily. 'We're getting out of here alive!'

'If you say so, Sam,' Lloyd replied, his voice had dropped to a whisper. He sounded defeated.

'I do. I do,' Sam repeated.

They sat without speaking for a while. Outside it got darker and then night fell. The shed door still stood wide open and there was nothing Sam could do about it. He desperately wanted to get up and shut it, but he knew he couldn't do that. They moved closer together as the air turned chilly. It was going to be a clear night, which meant frost, which meant it was going to get colder and colder. Would they freeze to death? Sam wondered. Maybe that was what the man was hoping: that they were in the woods and would freeze to death, and he'd come out in the morning and find their frozen bodies. He wouldn't have to bother killing them then.

They weren't going to die. Help was coming, but what if it came too late for them?

Sam needed another plan.

A good plan. Easier said than done, Sam thought. What were their options? To stay in the shed, or to leave the shed. They couldn't stay in the shed forever. Why not? asked the other voice in Sam's head. The man might come back and tear the place apart and then he'd find them, or he might torch all the sheds, or there might be guard dogs in a kennel somewhere in the grounds and he might set them loose on them. The man was capable of anything. He was a monster. Sam thought he might be hallucinating now, but were they such far-fetched theories? Sam didn't think they were, although now he thought about it maybe there weren't any dogs because if there were, he would have heard them barking.

Sam needed the loo, even though he hadn't drunk anything since the night before. Lloyd probably needed the loo, too. Well, they could always find a corner of the shed to piss in, so they didn't have to leave their hideout for that. Sam rubbed his temples with his good hand. His head had started hurting and it made it really hard to think properly.

He just wanted to stay where he was. He didn't want to go out into the cold, dark night – not with the man somewhere out there searching for them.

He'd ask Lloyd. 'We need a plan, Lloyd,' he said.

Lloyd shifted his position next to him, but didn't say anything. Sam had expected that.

'We need to get out of here. Out of the grounds. We need to find the road, or some houses, or something. No one knows we're here.'

'
He
knows.'

'Yeah, but he doesn't know we're hiding in here,' Sam replied.

'He'll find us.'

'No. He won't. He's already looked here once. He won't come back.'

'How do you know?'

'I just do.'

'He won't give up.'

'I know. That's why we need to get out of here,' Sam said. 'We need an escape plan.'

Lloyd lapsed into silence again, which Sam took to mean he couldn't think of anything either.

'I've already gone round the fence most of the way round the edge of the grounds, and there was no way through it. It's too high for us to climb, but we could dig under it, maybe. What do you think? Lloyd?'

After a long pause when Sam thought Lloyd wasn't going to answer, Lloyd said, 'Okay.'

'Okay,' Sam repeated. If Lloyd hadn't said okay, Sam would have happily stayed in the shed. But Lloyd had said okay, so now Sam had to sort out the rest of the plan. Digging stuff, implements, weren't going to be a problem as Sam knew where they were kept. Getting them wasn't going to be too special though as Sam would have to go alone. He didn't
have
to go alone, but it was the sensible thing to do. He couldn't drag Lloyd round on a tour of the sheds.

'I think there are shovels and stuff in the other big shed. I'll go and get a couple and meet you round the back of this shed. Count to a hundred, that'll give me enough time to get the stuff, and when you get to a hundred come out. Use the back door, and just wait for me. We'll head into the woods together. If you hear him, go back and hide in the cubbyhole, or if it's too late for that, then head for the woods without me. Have you got that?'

'Yes,' Lloyd said. 'But . . .'

'But what?'

'Can't we do it in the morning? When it's light?'

'He'd see us, wouldn't he? He can't see us in the dark.'

'But we can't see him either.'

'We'll take it in turns to dig while the other one keeps a lookout from a hiding place in the trees,' Sam suggested. 'That way he won't be able to sneak up on us. And besides we'll be armed with a shovel. He won't know what's hit him. Okay? Lloyd?'

Lloyd nodded.

Sam crawled out of the cubbyhole first and Lloyd followed. He directed Lloyd towards the far corner where the back door was and headed towards the front to the open door himself. Outside it was pitch black. Sam couldn't see anything. He suddenly didn't want to go out through the open door, but he knew he had to. Lloyd was already counting to a hundred. Sam stepped out of the shed, his back hugging the wall. He half-expected a torch to be switched on in his face and someone to say, 'Gotcha!', and just the thought of that paralysed him for a minute. Fear did that to you, even just the thought of it. It stopped you from functioning. But Sam couldn't let it stop him now.

He moved quickly towards the other shed and threw himself across the open space between the two sheds. He squatted down and crawled through the wide-open door. Propped up against the wall was a collection of gardening implements. Sam groped through them, looking for two shovels. He found one and laid it down on the floor beside him. Lloyd must have got to about sixty now in the count and Sam still couldn't find another shovel. He found a small trowel and a potting fork and laid them down next to the shovel, counting in his head from sixty. When he got to ninety, he gave up looking and picked up what he had. It was time to get going.

He crawled out of the open door and went round the side of the shed before standing up. Then he ran, hunched over, to where Lloyd was waiting behind the other shed, except when Sam got there, Lloyd wasn't there. He dropped the stuff on the ground next to the wall and tried the door. It was locked or bolted from the inside.

'Lloyd? Lloyd?' Sam whispered through the door.

There was no response.

Sam thought he heard a twig snapping underfoot somewhere behind him and swung round. There was no one there. He bent down and picked up the potting fork. Now he was armed. He kept it in his right hand while he made his way round to the front of the shed and back through the open door.

'Lloyd? Lloyd? It's me, Sam.'

'Sam, it's locked,' Lloyd whispered back from the darkness.

Sam had assumed it wouldn't be locked. Why would you lock one of the shed doors and leave the other one unlocked? It didn't make sense. Sam didn't have time to make any sense out of it.

'I'll take you out the front. Hurry up,' Sam whispered back.

Sam kept watch while Lloyd made his way through the shed. It was too dark to see much, but if a shadow flitted through the trees then Sam would have seen it.

'Follow me,' Sam said.

He clutched Lloyd's arm and led him round to the back of the shed. The garden tools were lying where Sam had left them, but he had to let go of Lloyd's sleeve to pick them up. He started heading towards the trees, and a minute passed before Sam realised that Lloyd hadn't moved. He ran back for him.

'Lloyd, you've got to follow me. I can't hold onto you. My hands are full. Do you understand, Lloyd?'

In the darkness, Sam couldn't tell whether Lloyd had nodded or shaken his head.

'Come on. Stick close.'

Sam stepped away from the shed and this time Lloyd followed close on his heels. The trees were densely packed on this side of the grounds, which Sam thought was a good thing. Even if the man did see them, it would be hard for him to follow, and impossible for him to know which tree they were hiding behind.

It was cold, and the cold bit through their coats, through their clothes, and through their skin right down to their bones. They needed fleeces, and woolly hats, and gloves, and boots. Maybe Lloyd had been right and they should have stayed in the shed. It had been much warmer in there, in their snug little cubbyhole. It was too late to go back now, Sam thought. Or was it? No, it wasn't. But . . . To go back was almost like admitting defeat, and Sam didn't know if he'd have the courage to leave the shed again, especially in daylight. He felt more vulnerable in daylight. It was true you could see everything, but everything could see you.

Sam headed on straight through the trees. He couldn't see the fence yet, or even where the trees ended, but he knew it was only a matter of minutes before they reached the perimeter. He hefted the shovel over his shoulder and wished for the hundredth time he could swap it over into his other hand. His rucksack was weighing him down too, but he was reluctant to get rid of anything in it just in case he needed it later.

Unlike the other side of the grounds where there was a space between the end of the trees and the fence, here the trees went right up to the fence, which was why Sam almost knocked himself out on it. He had been looking back to check on Lloyd, who had dropped too far back, and walked smack bang into it. He doubled over as the pain blinded him, and he had to let it abate before he could do anything.

Any other time what had just happened would have been funny. Lloyd would have rolled around laughing and Sam would have felt extremely stupid for a while and then joined in with the laughter. Lloyd came up beside him and didn't seem to find it funny, and Sam wasn't laughing either. He straightened up. Nothing was broken, only a collection of bruises added to the list of injuries, but Sam didn't care any more. They were at the fence.

'Pick a tree with a wide trunk and keep a lookout, Lloyd. I'll start digging,' Sam said. 'If you hear anything whistle, and then hide. Worse comes to the worst you can always climb up a tree and hide there. He'll never think of looking up.

'Um, I can't whistle properly, Sam,' Lloyd mumbled.

'Then hoot, like an owl. There are lots of them in the woods. Hoot twice, that'll be our signal.'

'Okay.'

Sam turned back to look at the fence. It wasn't quite as he had remembered it. He had thought every railing was anchored in the ground, but it wasn't. It was every tenth railing, with a connecting bar running along the bottom of the fence. The horizontal bar was about three inches off the ground, which meant that Sam didn't have to dig too deep. All he needed was another several inches, and they'd be through.

Sam set the shovel to the ground with gusto. He'd never done any digging in his life, but he knew what to do. He just wasn't expecting the ground to be so hard. Solid, compacted earth. He pushed the shovel into the ground and stamped on it to get it into the ground. Then he levered the handle of the shovel backwards. He didn't get much earth out of the ground for all the effort that went into it. Several times, he made the mistake of hammering the shovel into the ground too hard and then he couldn't lever it out. He learnt slowly that moving a smaller quantity of earth with the shovel worked better even though it felt like he wasn't getting anywhere. Several inches hadn't sounded like a lot, but now it felt like it was miles away. He'd barely scraped the surface.

Then the owl hooted twice.

Sam kicked some leaves over the fresh soil he had exposed and ran back to where Lloyd was hiding.

'What is it?'

'Over there?' Lloyd pointed back to where they had come from, towards where the sheds were.

Sam watched, but he didn't see anything. His watch said ten twenty. It was late. Didn't the man ever sleep? He waited with Lloyd until his watch said ten thirty, and said, 'I think he's gone a different way. We're okay for now. Do you want to take over the digging?'

Lloyd shook his head. 'I-I-I'm sorry, Sam. I can't go out there. I just can't.' He moved closer to the tree, as if the tree was his protector.

Sam wasn't sure what Lloyd meant because where Lloyd was standing was
out there,
but he kind of had a vague inkling and he didn't want Lloyd to get all upset.

'It's okay. I'll do the digging, you do the looking out.' Sam looked up at the tree Lloyd had chosen to hide behind. It was an old oak with nicely spaced branches, and it hadn't lost that many of its leaves yet. 'Good choice, Lloyd. Do you think you can climb it?' he asked.

Lloyd looked up at it. 'Don't know.'

'Give it a go while I'm standing here. I'll give you a leg up.'

Sam linked his fingers together and got ready, but Lloyd didn't move.

'Come on, Lloyd. It's much safer up there than down here, unless you want to help me dig!'

'Your hand, Sam,' Lloyd said pointing at Sam's cut.

'Oh. Yeah. I forgot about that. Thanks.' Sam realised his cut would open up again if he helped Lloyd up that way.

'Okay, I'll bend over and you climb on top of my back. You should be able to reach the first branch. Ready?'

Lloyd nodded. Sam steadied himself against the tree trunk while Lloyd climbed up. It didn't take him long to get several feet up in the tree. Sam had to get back to digging. Time was passing fast. It was almost eleven o'clock.

'Don't forget to signal if you see anything.'

'Sam?'

'Yeah?'

'Be careful.'

'I will.'

The digging went slowly, very slowly. Sam couldn't swap hands because he couldn't use his left hand, and he couldn't use his right ankle, although he had tried, because of his earlier fall. Every now and then he would straighten up and survey his work. He
was
making progress, but literally inch by inch. The hole was still too small to slither through. It had gone past midnight, and Sam kept digging and scraping the earth back. He hadn't taken a break for ages and his back was screaming with pain. It was a job just to stand up straight without crying out. He was just wondering whether Lloyd had fallen asleep in the tree when the owl hooted twice.