The Hunting Ground

by Cliff McNish

  She suddenly slapped my hand away. ‘No! Why are you so close? Get away! I’m not safe. Stay away from me!’

  ‘I trust you,’ I told her.

  She laughed bitterly. ‘Don’t you get it? It’s not just me you can’t trust. If you stay here, you can’t trust yourself. He’ll use you too if he can, Theo. He’ll use Eve and he’ll use you. You’ve got to leave Glebe House now. You’ve got to convince your parents.’

  Janey staggered to the window. I saw winds stir. I sensed it was the ghost children, crowding the glass, trying to support her, and at first I thought Janey wouldn’t let them. But out of some instinct to survive she did, pushing the window wide and almost throwing herself out, but instead letting them in, letting the children catch her and hold her up.

  *

  24th December. Nearly Christmas, but we’re not celebrating. Janey warned me that Cullayn had got inside her when she was in the East Wing, but I refused to believe he could control her until today.

  It was Mum who spotted Eve walking on top of the fence overlooking part of the lake. The fence is about ten feet high but only four inches wide. If she fell on our side she’d probably be OK. If she fell on the lake-side, she was bound to hit the sharp rocks in the shallows under the ice.

  I could see that Eve didn’t want to be out there. She was crying. And directly on her heels, walking behind her, equally terrified, was Janey. I knew at once that it must be one of the games Janey said Cullayn was so fond of. Neither girl was in charge of whether they would fall. Would they? Wouldn’t they? A game. Cullayn was in control.

  Janey was barefoot behind Eve. Sobbing with fear, she was concentrating hard, balancing herself with her arms. In front of her Eve was shrieking, but as long as she kept looking where she was going I thought she’d reach the end of the fence OK and be able to clamber down. Every now and then Janey let one of her hands drift towards Eve, helping to guide her and keep her true.

  Mum waited until both of them were safely off the fence before she started shouting at Janey. ‘No,’ she raged, furious when Janey couldn’t explain. ‘Janey, how could you? Endangering Eve like that!’

  Janey just kept staring tearfully at me, a terrible wounded apology in her eyes. Then with a great howl she ran back home.

  ‘Not one more word with that girl,’ Mum said to me. ‘I mean it.’

  She immediately banned Janey from coming near the house. It was hard for Mum to do that. She’s grown so fond of Janey. She’s been like a second mum to her, really. A proper mum.

  But I couldn’t leave it like that. I had to make sure Janey was OK.

  Ignoring Mum’s order, I went round to her house. I’m looking out of my bedroom window right now, hours later, and I’m still scared to look towards Janey’s place. I don’t know what she might be doing in there.

  Janey appeared ordinary enough when she let me in. It was only when I was inside her room that I saw the huge portrait of Vincent Cullayn over her bed. She must have stolen it from Glebe House. My heart filled my mouth as Janey turned away from me and stood in front of the portrait. She pressed close up against it. There was a small knife in her right hand. I saw her shoulder tense as she scratch-scratched at something in the picture.

  I didn’t wait for her to finish. I ran towards her. I was trembling. So was she, but with enjoyment. As I approached, she grunted and moved aside.

  Cullayn’s head was now missing from the portrait. At first I thought that was a good thing – she’d defaced it, damaged it. Good. Then I saw what she’d carved in its place. Knife lines in the shape of her own face. His body, her face. It could just as easily have been his face, her body. In the painting Janey was Cullayn. In the room, Cullayn was Janey.

  The portrait showed Cullayn/Janey chasing Alice up the slope. I knew it was Alice because Janey had cut that cruel verse stating her name into the painting. Janey looked happily at the picture. Then she looked at me, as if to say What do you think of this? and I’d never been more scared in my life.

  I knew it was Cullayn. He was here, inside Janey. The hunter frightening his prey. This time the prey was me. I could see how pleased Janey was to have surprised me. It wasn’t her, though, not really. That expression wasn’t hers at all. It was his protruding lips Janey was mimicking. But I knew then that even if it was only for a while Janey had lost her fight against Cullayn, and I ran from the room.

  Janey didn’t follow me. She just hissed like a snake. A single word burst through her clenched teeth. ‘Eeeeeeeeve.’

  *

  25th December. Christmas evening. OK. I’m going to record the time because somehow it seems important. It’s 8.46p.m., and it’s been dark for hours. I’m trembling as I write this, but sitting here outside the East Wing I’m going to make myself record every detail of the hunt, in case anything happens to me. If it does, this diary had better survive, because

  The third diary fragment ended on that word because. Someone had deliberately torn away the bottom half of the page to hide what was written after it.

  Dad shook his head at the final entry, hardly able to contain his fury.

  ‘Is that it?’ he yelled. ‘Is that all we’re being offered? Is that meant to be our help?’ He turned to Elliott. ‘One hour. Do you understand? I’m going in there on my own to find Ben and if I’m not back in an hour I want you to ring 999 and tell them there’s been a terrible accident. They won’t believe a ghost story, but they’ll believe that, and you’ll get help fast. Do you understand?’

  Elliott was barely listening. He’d noticed something.

  A sketch had been drawn on the back of the last diary page. It showed Ben standing in an East Wing corridor. His pose was carefree, relaxed. The drawing had definitely been done today as well, because he was wearing the clothes he’d put on this morning. Ben’s laid-back attitude in a place as scary as the East Wing was bad enough. Nothing, Elliott knew, could better have shown how much he needed their help. But of course Cullayn liked his games too much for it to be merely a sketch. Clustered tightly around Ben were a series of points. Each had a number next to it. There were eighty-four numbers in all.

  As a joke Cullayn had done the sketch in the form of a children’s dot-to-dot picture.

  Dad found a pencil and rapidly linked the lines between the numbers. When he finished – and saw the grinning bearded figure hidden behind Ben – he immediately ran across to the East Wing. A loose plank of wood lay on the floor outside the entrance. Snapping it across his knee, Dad made a portable weapon with a jagged end. He hefted it.

  ‘One hour,’ he rasped. ‘If I’m not back make the call.’ He hesitated, came back to Elliott, hugged him, snatched a torch from a shelf at the back of the hall, then crashed through the entrance to the East Wing.

  *

  Elliott watched him set off. Too tall to stand upright, Dad was forced to run bent-over down the entrance corridor. That was bound to be a disadvantage when he got further inside.

  Elliott thought of Janey. Nice old lady. Cups of tea. Community-minded. Yeah, yeah. Except they now understood what Cullayn had done to her, didn’t they?

  Numb with fear, Elliott lowered his face. So the diary had merely been holding out hope to them, only to dash it. Another joke. But Cullayn had also used the diary to inform them of his victory, of course. That was its main purpose. To gloat. Janey had been the brave, gifted girl who’d dared come after Cullayn. Instead, he’d stretched out his eager hunter’s arm and grabbed her. How sweet a victory that must have been, Elliott realised. To conquer Janey. Not to kill her, but to enslave her. To master her.

  And now Dad was inside the East Wing. Elliott wondered how long it had been since Cullayn crossed wits with an adult? A true hunt that would be. A match, strength on strength. A man.

  19

  THE LOVELY QUIET AND DARK

  The shadows of the East Wing swallowed Elliott’s father whole. They tucked him in darkness. They shrouded his body, pinched him inside and lost him forever.

  Dad had no idea what
he was facing here, so he did what any decent man would have done in the same situation. He raised his torch. He kept the sharp-edged plank ready. He called out for his son.

  ‘Are you there, Ben?’ Then he yelled it: ‘Ben! Son! Can you hear me?’ And, to make the owner of Glebe House show himself: ‘Cullayn! You coward! Is it only children you hunt, then?’

  Dad hated naming the owner out loud that way. He sensed that an admission of his power was just what Cullayn wanted – proof that Dad acknowledged him at last. But Dad realised that he had to let the owner know he took his threat seriously if he was to bring him out into the open.

  ‘Give me my boy back or I’ll destroy the East Wing,’ he said calmly. ‘I’ll bring it down. Brick by brick I’ll do it. Are you listening to me, Cullayn? I’ll destroy your home. I’ll hire fifty men and demolish it in a day.’

  For a second a booted step thundered menacingly through the East Wing. Then it faded again. Good, Dad thought grimly. At least he’s listening.

  The nearest portrait on the wall showed Cullayn hunting a man. The painting brought a tight smile to Dad’s lips. Too much time occupied with frightening children, he thought. If Cullayn reckoned pictures like this would scare him maybe he wasn’t quite the hunter he believed himself to be.

  A coughing noise came from a closed door to his left.

  Warily, Dad opened it.

  He found himself in a bathroom. At the back of the bathroom was a large circular mirror. Cautiously stepping forward to take a closer look, Dad saw that there was scrubbed-out writing and a large finger-wide X on the surface. His own reflection was also caught in the glass. Something else was there, too.

  A figure. Crouched. A man as big as he was. Announcing himself.

  Dad lifted his weapon in response, but by the time he turned Cullayn had vanished in a low ripple of laughter.

  Staring at the wooden shard in his raised hand, Dad had an unnerving sense that he’d passed a critical threshold. By bringing this improvised weapon inside – and showing that he was prepared to use it – had he somehow brought even more danger to Ben?

  Just beyond an intersection point, he heard a child’s voice coming from a room. The child sounded like it was crying.

  Dad entered the room, holding the plank above his head, ready.

  A young person was on the mattress of the bed, hiding under the bedspread. At least it was the size of a child, its head tenting the blankets, and rising as if trying to stand up.

  ‘Ben?’ Dad whispered.

  ‘Boys and ploys and toys,’ said a voice. It was singsong, and came from the air all around him.

  ‘Eve?’ Dad murmured.

  He was still watching the small rising head under the blankets when Eve sighed behind him. With a sharp intake of breath, Dad spun round to face her, but he looked too low – at a girl’s height – and she was already mounted on Cullayn’s invisible hand.

  With a great whip-like crack Eve swiped at his skull.

  No ordinary child could have hit him so hard.

  Dad fell, spinning, then immediately attempted to get up again. Eve’s arm, guided by Cullayn, hit him twice more.

  The blows knocked Dad most of the way across the room. Reeling from them, he scrambled upright, his legs buckling under him. The room swam. The torch, which he’d managed to grip all this time, dropped from his hand, landing with a spongy thud on the bedroom carpet.

  Dad touched the side of his head. It was slick with blood. The blood flowed freely, but he was far from done. If Cullayn had intended to kill him with Eve’s blows, he’d failed.

  Staggering around until his head cleared, Dad slowly felt strength return to his legs. He wiped the blood out of his eyes, watching for Eve. She’d vanished as suddenly as she’d appeared. With a bleary stare, Dad found the plank of wood again. Gripped it. Picked up the torch. Surveyed the room. If he had to strike Eve to defend himself would he do it? Yes, he decided. If she gave him no choice. He prepared himself for that.

  A child, he thought. My God, a child! The boys were right.

  Dazed, he stumbled from the bathroom and down another corridor. For several minutes he yelled for Ben, but gradually he slowed. He was weakening. Loss of blood. Got to find him soon, he realised. Before you’re too far gone.

  Moments later he came across a message, thickly scrawled on a wall.

  What will I do with your sons?

  With his heart galloping in fear, Dad stared all around him.

  There was no sign of Cullayn. Instead, a piece of paper lay on the floor by his feet. At first Dad thought it was another part of the diary. He was wrong. It was a sketch meant just for him. The sketch was hand-drawn, but the style this time was not at all like Eve’s. In the sketch Cullayn was standing at the centre of his hunting ground. He was wearing his leathers and peering around a tree trunk. Hanging off one of his arms was a whip. Hanging off the other arm was a mesh with hooks. Bunched across his shoulders was a coiled whip, a belt stuffed with knives and three or four other weapons Dad couldn’t even name.

  Elliott and Ben were also in the picture. Elliott was half way up the slope, trying to get away, running his heart out. Ben had already been caught. Cullayn had restrained him with a rope, and was now gazing at Elliott in anticipation of the chase to come.

  ‘Cullayn!’ Dad roared. ‘Where are you?’

  But he suddenly knew that Cullayn was everywhere. The owner of Glebe House wasn’t restricted to any one part of the East Wing. His presence swirled in the dust and the plaster of the walls. The entire East Wing was his kingdom and manipulation.

  Rhymes were being whispered in the closest corridors. Cullayn’s essence enlivened them, ramped up their volume. The verses were brought to Dad’s ears by two children. He recognised Eve’s voice from the higher pitch. He also recognised Ben’s.

  ‘Boys and toys and ploys, right and left, round and round his father goes, and down and down …’

  Dad tried to listen only to Ben’s voice. He thought he heard a catch, a hesitation. Then it sounded like Ben was pleading. As Dad lurched to where the voice was coming from, it faded. Moments later he heard it again to his right – again pleading. Twice more Dad heard it. Twice more it faded.

  Cullayn’s leading me on, he realised. This is one of his games.

  There was no way Dad could even be certain it was really Ben’s voice he was hearing. But how could he walk in any other direction when it might be?

  ‘Wha—’

  Abruptly Dad lost his torch, snatched away by a smaller hand.

  All around him it was suddenly black. Dad twisted around, bringing his hands up to defend himself.

  No attack came, but now he was alone in the dark.

  He shuffled his way onward as best he could. Tiny shafts of daylight in the ceiling guided him. Corridors fanned ahead.

  And inevitably, of course, he came to one that descended. That led to a small set of steps. To a dark passageway with a bare, unlit wall.

  Without hesitating, Dad took the descending corridor.

  He powered down the steps.

  ‘Ben?’

  No answer, but the corridor beckoned. As Dad walked inside, the rhymes sung earlier sprang up again. Eve and Ben were hissing them.

  ‘… and right and left, and round and round, and down and down …’

  Dad suddenly wondered how long he had been inside the East Wing. More than an hour? Had Elliott made that call yet?

  The dark passage awaited him.

  Did he dare walk into the middle of it?

  Yes.

  As Dad took the first steps his pulse suddenly raced, the hair all over his body standing on end.

  ‘Ben!’ he screamed into the darkness. ‘Answer me!’

  The wall to his left was pale and pictureless, lit up by a sliver of ceiling light. Something about that wall frightened him. The opposite wall was not lit at all. It wasn’t logical, but Dad wanted to keep to the darker side of the wall where the portraits were. He was afraid of the lighted, blank wall.
The dark wall was scary only because it was dark. The blank wall was scary for a reason he could not understand.

  He walked up to the blank wall and felt it. Smooth. It was very smooth. The corridor was quiet and so, the rhymes abruptly ceasing, was Dad.

  A strangely terrified feeling fluttered inside him. He couldn’t identify the reason for it. Then he realised it was because the worst thing had not yet happened. The worst thing was in one of the sketches Eve had done all those years ago. It was to be hunted down by those you loved.

  Moments later Ben stood in front of him. Pushed from a side doorway, he waited only a few metres away, shivering.

  As Dad turned towards him, recognising Ben’s shape if not his face in the near-dark, something with a long reach thrust from a hidden partition in the blank wall. It was a fist. Covering that fist was a metal-studded glove. The glove clenched a bludgeon – one of the weapons Elliott had failed to pick up earlier. The bludgeon caught Dad with a crushing blow this time, ringing his temple.

  Dad clattered to the floor, his legs folding under him.

  ‘Ben,’ he murmured, the word barely emerging. And as it died on his lips, Cullayn’s voice loudly, impressively, rippled from the darkness.

  ‘Yes, he’s here. And, Janey willing, I’ll have your other son as well.’

  Dad made a huge effort to get up, could not. Feeling himself beginning to lose consciousness, he forced his stinging eyes to focus for a second. Ben and Eve were both standing over him. Neither did anything to help. Ben, though, looked uneasy. That was the only heartening thing Dad could take from the moment, so as he felt himself slipping from consciousness he took it.