The Last Wild

by Piers Torday

  The branches hang so low and thick, in knotted swags, that eventually we have to get off the stag and walk. Polly shivers behind me as we trudge along in the twilight, and then gives a start – tripping over something in the bracken.

  She pulls out a long, strange-shaped stick.

  ‘What’s this, Kester?’ she asks.

  I look at the branch as she turns it over in her hands – long, curved and yellowy-white.

  The branch that’s a bone.

  I wave at her angrily to put it down, but it’s too late. The stag fixes Polly and the bone with his glittering eyes, sniffing the air suspiciously. Then Wolf-Cub bounds over from behind us, a smaller white stick clenched between his jaws.

  *Look what I found, Wildness,* he says proudly, but I just reach down and carefully pull it out of his jaws. I drop it on to the ground, where it lands with a clatter.

  Bones shouldn’t hit soft forest floors with a clatter.

  I hurriedly stand back, scuffing the ground as I do, revealing that beneath our feet, beneath the light coating of dry leaves, there are more bare white sticks, exposed and catching the light.

  The floor of the silent forest is covered with bones.

  *I knew we should not have come this way,* says the stag, looking daggers at the pigeons.* When animals know they are going to die they withdraw here, so they may do it in peace.* I think of what Sidney said about making her final journey. *This forest must be where all those we have lost have come to spend their last days.*

  And now I understand why we haven’t seen any of the remains of other animals taken by the berry-eye. This is where they come, to die.

  I look around at the pillars of black trees just visible in the gloom. I shudder to think how many animals lie beneath them.

  I wheel the stag around to face the direction we came from.

  *In that case, pigeons, lead us another way, back out of here.*

  But they don’t move from the drooping branches above our heads, ruffling their wings and turning their heads away from me.

  *It will take too long now – this wood runs as far as we can see in any direction.*

  Even the white pigeon stays quiet, with nothing to add. He won’t look at me either. Wolf-Cub stares at the ground.

  *Come on, this is no time to give up,* I say to the stag. But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t reply, doesn’t even look me in the eye; just stares straight ahead.

  *No living animal will ever walk through a Forest of the Dead.*

  I look at the mouse, who does a very short and stiff Dance of Respecting The Dead on the stag’s back, sticking her legs out at awkward angles in turn, before silently shaking her head. *Yes, well, I’d love to join you, but I’ve got this new dance I want to learn, you see …* Her voice trails away. The Dance of Cowardice, I reckon.

  Polly touches me on the shoulder. ‘What’s going on, Kester?’ She picks up the bone again, examining it, picking bits of moss and leaves off – then I see her begin to understand. ‘You mean they won’t come because they’re scared?’

  I nod. There’s only one thing for it.

  Pushing past, I start to march on down the path, further into the wood – and they cry after me, but I don’t look back.

  I made a promise to these animals, to lead them.

  I have to show them there’s nothing to be scared of.

  Alone.

  I haven’t gone very far away from the eyes of the wild before I suddenly feel very cold. Rubbing my arms to stay warm, I keep on walking, as the path twists and turns beneath my feet. There is no wind, no other sound apart from my own breathing, faster than it was. It’s pitch black, only the faintest streak of light on the glossy leaves fringing the path.

  We don’t have long before the red-eye claims more for their final journey, at the Ring of Trees – I am sure of that. I have to hope this will work. So I begin to listen for any sound, any cries or rustling, but there is only stillness.

  *If anyone out there is alive,* I say into the stillness, *then come out. Don’t be scared. I’m the Wildness. I’m going to take you to the city and find you a cure.*

  Nothing.

  I try again, this time louder. But nothing comes back, not even a whisper. So I say it again, and again, repeating my words over and over, louder and louder – there must be some left. Everywhere we have been, even though we’ve been told all have gone, we’ve always found some still alive.

  Even in a graveyard. There must be.

  If only I knew how to find them.

  All I can hear is my own voice echoing inside my head. All I can see is the deathly darkness all around. If only the pigeons hadn’t brought us here in the first place, if only –

  The pigeons. Of course. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.

  Their call.

  Slowly, trying to copy their sound, I begin to imitate the song the pigeons sang by the river after we lost Sidney. *It is how we let other animals know our deepest feelings,* they said. And that is what I will do. I know I might be out of tune, but I sing the same call, the same list of lost birds, hoping that any sick animals who might still be alive will hear, and come and join our wild.

  My voice starts to waver, but I keep singing, humming where I can’t remember the words. And then –

  There’s a scuffling sound in the bushes to my left, then another to my right.

  I keep on singing, my voice growing shakier and shakier, when there is another rustle from the shadows to the left, closer this time. And then one to my right. Behind me. And in front of me.

  I call out to the noises in the shadows of the forest. *Show yourself, whoever you are. We are not afraid.*

  Nothing comes in reply.

  Slowly I sing again, and the scuffling starts. Quick, breathy noises, moving quickly either side of the track, faster and faster.

  *I am Kester Jaynes, and this is my wild,* I say to the scuffle in the shadows. *We are going to the city to find a cure for the virus. If you have something to say, show yourself now.*

  And then there is a voice, a voice from the bushes.

  A voice that is dry and cold, a voice that gets right under my skin and chills me to the bone.

  *I know who you are, Kester Jaynes.*

  *Who are you?*

  The voice gives a dry laugh. *That does not concern you. But know this – you say you lead animals. You say you speak for animals.*

  *I was appointed Wildness—*

  *Silence!* Suddenly the voice is on the other side of the path – how did it get there? *You are a human. You will never speak for us.* The voice spits and stings at me with rage from the blackness. *You think you can command all creatures with your voice? You think all animals will love and praise you for what you are doing?* The voice laughs, mocking, echoing around me. *You have never been more wrong about anything in your life.*

  I look around frantically in the dark. *Then why not show yourself?*

  *We will, Kester Jaynes, when the time is right – have no fear of that.* The voice grows quiet, like wind in the trees. *Yours is not the only wild to survive. There is another. We will come when you least expect it. We will come in plain sight. You have been warned.*

  The scuffling around me grows louder and louder. I take a step back, and then – the noise stops.

  *Hello?*

  But nothing comes. The wood is as silent as it was before.

  And then bursting through the undergrowth directly on to the path in front of me … is a ghost.

  The ghost of a rabbit bouncing down towards me through the bushes.

  A ghost in a graveyard. But ghosts don’t come right up close to you so you can touch their fur, feel their whiskers, hear their heart hammering away. See their red eyes burning. His body is stick thin – but he is alive.

  *Was that you?* I say fiercely. *Was that you who spoke to me like that just now, Rabbit?*

  He looks alarmed.

  *I never said a word,* he assures me in a soft, old voice. Definitely not the voice that just
spoke to me. *I came here to complete my final journey. I thought my time was done. And then I heard your call.* He twitches his whiskers. *If you don’t mind very much, I’m a hare – a brown hare.*

  *Sorry – I just thought you were – something else. Someone else.* I scratch my head, confused. *But you’re not a bird either.*

  *A call of loss is a call of loss,* he says simply.

  It works. It actually works.

  So I try to forget about the voice in the bushes, and sing the call again. As I do, the hare starts to join me, his voice reedy and thin, and he adds words of his own. More strange new names that I copy and learn to call for myself. He calls:

  O hedgehogs, dormice and red squirrels.

  Polecats, pine martens and otters.

  Pipistrelles, long-eared bats and brown bats …

  As our voices rise and fall, out of the bushes rolls … a large mouse covered in sharp spikes, but with bare patches here and there.

  She rubs her dry nose and turns her pink eyes towards me.

  *Hedgehog,* she says simply. *You called.*

  The hare and I look at one another, and we sing some more.

  Then a whole family of long, furry white-faced creatures, spilling out in a mess, fighting over each other, the youngest ones nothing but bones and skin, introducing themselves as polecats. They can only just stand, but when they see me standing on the path singing with the hare they start singing the call too, until we must be making enough noise to wake the dead. And we stand there, me and these animals that everyone thought were dead, singing and singing a call for those that still live to find us – and we sing till no more come.

  *

  *Ha!* says the General, as they all see me trudging back up the path. *The ghosts of those who sleep were too much for you, were they?*

  The stag hangs his head, and even the wolf-cub looks at the ground.

  *No, General,* I say. *But what if they are not yet asleep?*

  I wave my hand, and up behind me come the hare, polecats and hedgehog – along with some rabbits, pine martens and even a few bats flitting around our heads, some of them so small, but more real than any ghost. If any of them was the creature that spoke to me from the bushes, they don’t speak up.

  Polly looks like she can’t believe her eyes.

  The wolf-cub bounds up to me. *You are the best waker of the dead in the world, Wildness.*

  And slowly the stag lifts his head towards me, and nods. For a moment he stares deeply into my eyes, and I wonder whether to tell him about the voice in the bushes – but then I think better of it.

  *There is nothing to fear in these woods. Listen.* I start to sing the pigeons’ call again, and all the new animals in the wild start to sing the same call. My wild rejoin me and the new recruits, and they all start to sing together (although the white pigeon appears to be singing the call backwards). I even hear the General sing for the first time, as he calls out for tawny earwigs, diving beetles and sedge jumpers, great blues and chequered skippers, damselflies and hoverflies.

  We march on through the Forest of the Dead, singing the pigeons’ call.

  I listen out, but I don’t hear any more nasty voices, and instead –

  Slowly, surely, some more animals begin to come as we sing. I record each new arrival on my watch, with flash after flash. As the path runs along the leafy bank of a little stream a toad joins us, singing out in reply and hopping along the bank. I give Polly the toad to hold in her lap, and she screams out loud. But the toad doesn’t scream out or actually do anything gross. He just sits there, cool as you like in her lap, watching the world go by. When I next turn around Polly has him cupped safely in her hands.

  She is the only person not calling, because she can’t hear or make the words. But every time I glance at her, the toad sat in her lap, butterflies and bees now buzzing calmly around her hair, she smiles and I realize – animal or not – she is as much part of this wild as the rest of us.

  Next a pair of otters emerge dripping out of the water and slink along behind the wolf-cub. Some more birds, calling their own names in reply, join the pigeons up in the sky as the sun begins to set – shrike and yellowhammer, redpoll and woodpecker.

  The bank gives way to a sandy shore, and we all scramble down to drink from the stream trickling over a bed of flat pebbles. As the stag bends his neck to the water, Polly and I slide off, scooping handfuls up into our chapped mouths and splashing it over our heads, washing the soot of the fire clean away.

  Back on the shore a red squirrel hops down to us, bringing some nuts for me and Polly. The stag lies down against the bank, and Polly and I huddle close together, leaning against his furry belly, the others lying all around.

  They are not many. They are only a fraction of the names we called, but –

  The forest isn’t so frightening now.

  PART 6: WELCOME TO THE CITY

  The next morning, as we begin our journey again, it feels like the dark forest will go on forever – every single one of us still calling as loud as we can – when we are suddenly pushing through the thorns and twigs into an open field. Underneath the weight of Polly and me, the stag pants for breath. He’s growing weaker by the hour. Every now and then his back shudders, or he trips, groaning in pain as he does.

  But what we can all see is that beyond the hedge, at the edge of the field, there is a cliff –

  And below the cliff, a road –

  And at the end of the road, lying spread out beneath us – like someone whipped away the carpet of green – is a plain of buildings and bridges, signs and billboards and barriers, all leading to one place –

  A forest of glass towers, rising out of the ground, like they were forced up from the earth’s crust. Towers with domed roofs and red lights, blinking like eyes through the cloud, rows of windows glittering from top to bottom. Glowing homes and offices and factories of more people than have ever lived together before on this planet. Lights that are always on, pulsing day and night, rays and beams reflecting off the glass roofs and walls, rising up into the sky above, brighter than even the stars themselves.

  My head is swirling like the swollen clouds in the sky above. I don’t know if what Ma said about Dad is true. I don’t even know if we will find him here – and even if we do, whether or not he will have a cure.

  I know that I am taking these animals to the most dangerous place I could.

  But for now – for this one moment, looking down over the glass and lights – none of that matters because I realize that after all this time …

  I’m finally coming home. To where I belong, to where everything started.

  Premium. My city.

  Before we go any further, I count all the animals.

  1 stag (very tired)

  1 wolf-cub (the least tired animal in the whole word, according to him)

  1 large cockroach (in my pocket, asking why I didn’t take a roll-call before now)

  1 harvest mouse (still doing the Stationary Dance of Very Long Sleep)

  Ninety-nine grey pigeons (although hard to count exactly as they keep moving around all the time)

  One white pigeon (who has just started singing again, on his own, now everyone else has stopped)

  Other birds (nicer sounding than the pigeons, about twelve in total)

  Two otters (still wet, even though we left the river hours ago. Do they ever dry off?)

  1 brown hare (very old) & assorted rabbits

  6 polecats

  4 pine martens

  A red squirrel (good for nuts)

  A toad (really likes Polly)

  A hedgehog (keeps himself to himself)

  Lots of flies and butterflies (different kinds, haven’t had time to ask them all their names)

  Not as many wasps

  Various bats (who do not like flying during the day)

  Beetles, earwigs, etc. (wolf-cub refuses to carry them).

  Well over a hundred animals. Nearly as many as the wild we left at the Ring of Trees.

&n
bsp; Not every animal died.

  A breeze blows in over the top of the cliff, ruffling our hair, making me dig my hands inside my pockets for warmth. Over there, among the towers and lights, there are other people – working, living and, in the middle of it all, somewhere – Dad.

  I hope.

  I pull my scarf tight around me as the wind starts to grow stronger.

  Together we all slide down a path zigzagging along the side of the cliff towards Premium’s outskirts.

  Polly puts her hand in front of her face, against the wind. The toad waddles off her lap to take shelter behind her back. This wind has grown cold as well as strong – it feels like it is stripping the skin off your face. With every step, it gets harder and harder to walk into, but at last we reach the bottom of the cliff.

  There’s no shelter down here, nothing but bare earth and chunky chips of gravel, the wind blowing clouds of dust along the top, between us and the wire fence which surrounds the city.

  I look over the wasteland at the brightly lit windows of the towers. Normal people living normal lives. I can see some of them, distant figures silhouetted in window frames. Perhaps the wolf-cub can even smell them.

  All the animals go very quiet.

  I stroke the stag’s dripping flank. He’s so warm, even in this chill wind. Up above, the birds – old and new – are tossed about in the air. The General digs around inside my pockets, hiding from the gale. I look at the wolf-cub. He stands next to the stag and me, eyes narrowed, but the wind is pushing at his lips, pulling them back, blowing his fur and ears flat.

  *I have never known wind like this. This must be the coldest wind in the world. We will defeat it though – it is only wind!*

  But just as we start to see the towers close up, the shapes of the domed roofs and the gleaming walls, the stag sinks to the ground – throwing us off in a jumble. Picking myself up, I can see his legs splayed out, his horns resting on the ground.

  *What’s wrong?*