by John Barlow
Tah opened his mouth to say something.
At that moment there was an almighty roar. Two roars, accompanied by the gabbling, shrieking noise of fiercely clucking hens and the mad beating of wings. Amid all this came the raucous voices of Bad an’ Worse.
“You!” they were shouting, having caught sight of Sawyer as they made their way back to the cottage, surrounded by about a dozen chunk-hens. “You piece of...” they cried, and, “Oh, we remember you! And now we’ve got you on your own...”
“No!” Terra shouted, in vain, as Worse ran towards Sawyer, sending chunk-hens flapping up into the air, and grabbed the poor melted man by the neck.
“Nooooooooooooo!” Terra yelled again, seeing that Sawyer was in danger of being turned into several very bruised pieces of Sawyer, of becoming an ex-Sawyer.
Worse held the big, fat man right up against the wall, lifting him clean off the ground, as the hen-frenzy around his feet intensified. Clouds of brown feathers flew into the air, as Sawyer’s legs began to kick feverishly.
Tah, Terra and the others watched, amazed. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing: Worse was actually holding this incredibly heavy melted man off the ground with one hand. Bad, meanwhile, was flexing his knuckles, warming up for a good bit of target practice. With a grim snigger he eyed up the fat man’s body, deciding where to begin: the twins were going to tear Sawyer apart.
“That’s amazing,” said Tah, apparently no longer concerned for the melted man’s safety. “It’s plain amazing! That boy’s lifted Sawyer up with one hand.” He stared, incredulous, and blinked several times. “Hey, Sawyer, how much do you weigh these days?”
“Agh...” spluttered the melted man, his face beginning to turn from wobbly, sickly yellow to a quivering, blotchy purple. “Wha.... urgh...”
“Yeh,” said Worse. “I picked him up with one hand. An’ now I’m gonna punch his lights out with the other hand.”
“Oh, no! Young man!” Tah said, snapping out of his amazed stare. “Hey, you there! Stop it!”
Worse paused, with Sawyer still up in the air, legs dangling above the ground, feathers in his hair, birds beginning to peck him out of curiosity.
“Now, look here,” Tah continued. “Normally I enjoy nothing more than seeing an agent of Sullivan’s get a good thrashing. Oh yes, best entertainment going. Nothing better. But in this case, the particular agent who you are about to pulverize to smithereens is about the only friend you’ve got in the world, present company excepted,” he said, bowing to Terra.
“What? This scumball tried to...” Worse started saying.
“This, young man, is a friend. And in this topsy-turvy world, he is your best friend. I promise you that. Put him down, you Rottweiler. Put him down now.”
“Terra?” Worse said, looking confused.
“He’s right,” Terra said. “Put him down, Worse. Please! And if you could stop those birds biting him, that’d be great.”
“Damn it!” the twins muttered in unison.
Sawyer flopped to the ground, where he landed with a flubbering squash, like a bathful of jelly tipped from an upstairs window.
“Well, you could at least say sorry for trying to abduct us,” said Silver a few minutes later.
They had eventually separated Sawyer from the chunk-hens, which waddled off, looking for someone else to nip. So everyone went inside the cottage and sat down on the floor together.
“He’d better say sorry!” Bad added.
Sawyer was shaken after his close encounter of the Worse kind. But he was in no mood for apologies.
“Sorry, eh?” he said, straightening out his overalls, and retrieving one or two feathers which had found their way into odd places. “You hear that, Terra? Tah? You hear! Sorry! Long time since I heard that word! Welcome to the world of Mr Jack Sullivan, my friends! The place that sorry forgot!”
“Why are you here?” asked Coby suddenly, a cold, serious look in his eyes.
They were all surprised to hear him speak. But he was right. What was Sawyer doing here?
The melted man drummed his fingers on the floor, noticing the remnants of a pretty decent meal which lay spread out in front of him.
“Things are bad,” he said, his jowls trembling. “Things are really getting... Ah-hem, is that cheese going begging?”
“Yes, all right!” Terra said. “But talk while you eat. We don’t have time to watch you feed yourself.”
“Right you are!” Sawyer said, picking up a big rind of cheese, popping it into his mouth in one go, and chomping it straight down. “They’re after you!” he said, spitting bits of cheese out into the air as he talked.
“We know that!” said Terra. “You and your thugs came to my house yesterday, remember?”
Sawyer shook his head. “That bread going to waste, is it?” He didn’t wait for answer. “Not us, Terra. Stun commandos,” he said, then snaffled a crust of bread.
Terra’s face went white. She looked at Tah. He let out a long, tired gasp.
No one spoke. The sound of Sawyer chewing the bread was like a ticking clock, a sort of click-clack-click-clack that echoed around the room. Then he swallowed, and was about to reach for a nice ripe tomato that lay near his feet, when he looked up and saw that everyone was staring at him: two of them in horror, the other four in utter incomprehension. And it was these four who were in danger.
“Sullivan knows something’s going on,” Sawyer said, looking at Silver and the others. “He’s looking for you now. Right now.”
“Where?” asked Terra.
“The commandos? Out east. But he’s put out a general alert. He wants ’em brought to the Complex. He’ll send more commandos if he has to. He won’t stop.”
“Stun commandos to round up a few unfounds!” Tah said in disbelief.
Terra swapped glances with Tah; they didn’t know how much to tell Sawyer, or what he knew, or had guessed. Silver saw all this, every flick of the eye, every tone of voice... And she did what all intelligent people do when they realize that things are more complicated and dangerous than they understand: she shut her mouth and said nothing. The others took their lead from her, and buttoned their lips.
“Unfounds?” Sawyer said, just the hint of a smile across his mouth, which was covered in breadcrumbs and smears of half-chewed cheese. “That’s another thing. He’ll not believe they’re unfounds, not for much longer. A pack of healthy, adventurous kids on the loose? How long is it since the last unfounds turned up, eh?”
“Of course they’re unfounds!” Terra said, not very convincingly. “What else could they be?”
Sawyer raised an eyebrow. “You tell me! You tell me where this lot are from!”
He waited. They all waited. Silver wanted to tell him. She was convinced that beneath that big, misshapen body there was a gentle and kind man. But with an almost painful act of will she kept her mouth tight shut.
Sawyer waited. He waited...
Finally, Terra said:
“We can’t tell you who they are. Is that enough?”
“If you tell me that, my dear, then I already know too much.”
There was another long, uneasy silence. It was clear that Sawyer had something else to say. Eventually he gathered together what was left of the dinner, a few tomatoes, some strawberries, and a crust of bread.
“I can take these with me, can’t I?” he asked, as he struggled to his feet. “By the way, if you are going to try and rescue Ben...”
“What!” screamed Silver. “How do you know about...”
“Yeah! What’s this?” Bad roared, getting to his feet.
The melted man wasn’t worried, though. He was here to help, and he knew that they knew it, too.
“Your friend Ben is in the Complex. Think I can’t count? There were five of you, and now there are four. Plus,” he grimaced, as if what was coming next was not good news, “a little informer of mine tells me that he’s been seen very close to the Control Tower, asking questions. That’s what my little informer sa
ys. Young man with a scar down here,” and he tickled his own flabby chin. “She was quite taken with this Ben, I think!”
“Oh, crap!” Terra hissed.
Sawyer’s face turned very serious. He swallowed, hardly daring to look up at Terra.
“Is it...” he said, the words low and almost fearful. “Is it really him? Brewer?”
Terra didn’t need to answer.
“John Brewer’s son!” he whispered.
“God, this is dangerous,” Terra said, unable to hide her fear. She searched her pockets for a cigarette, but she had none.
“Sullivan has no idea who Ben is,” Sawyer said. “Not yet. But if you are going into the Complex to get him back, make it soon, because I don’t know how long we can keep it a secret. Sullivan has his... ways. He’ll find out. He always does. Make it soon, Terra. I’ll get you inside, but then it’s up to you. I can’t do any more than that.”
“We’re setting off tomorrow morning,” Terra said.
“Make it early, very early,” the melted man said. “And don’t use the east gate. It’s too dangerous.”
“Then how?”
“There’s a gap under the fence about half a mile to the south. I’ll make sure there’s no patrol on that section.”
“What time?”
“At first light. Go to Moon and Davy’s house. I’ll tell them you’re coming. If there’s any more news, I’ll make sure Moon and Davy know.”
“Who are Moon and Davy?” Silver asked.
“Old friends,” said Terra. And Sawyer nodded. “They live on the inside now, like everybody else.”
Sawyer walked to the door. “By the way,” he said, looking across at Bad. “Are you as strong as your brother?”
Bad shrugged. “Course I am. We’re twins.”
“How old are you?”
“Nearly fourteen.”
“Born during the war? On the mainland?”
“They can stop a bullet pig in its tracks!” Tah said, interrupting.
“I remember when I could do that,” Sawyer said, and his face turned sadder still, looking at the floor. “Parents soldiers were they, lads? Out in the western zone...?”
“That’s enough,” Terra said, getting suddenly to her feet. “We don’t have time for history lessons. Just make sure the fence is safe for us. We’ll be there at dawn, won’t we?”
She turned to Silver and Coby, who were still sitting on the floor. They nodded slowly.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ben tossed and turned in his extraordinarily comfortable bed. At first he couldn’t even close his eyes. But eventually exhaustion washed over him, and he drifted into a deep, dream-filled sleep...
...he was staring at the plasma screen. Lara Croft stood there. A cigarette hung from her sneering lips. Throwing down her gun, she thrust a hand into the pocket of her faded jeans. She looked older now, that smooth, beautiful face more experienced, worn down and slightly dangerous. It wasn’t Lara. It was Terra. Behind her was a bright yellow door with a black cross on it. She let the paper flutter to the ground, where it burst into flames.
Ben tried to shout, but only a desperate retch of silence came from his mouth.
Her face had changed.
“Who are you?” she said. She looked younger now, a lot younger “Who are you, country boy? Who are you, Ben?”
He tried to say something, but he couldn’t. The words stuck in his throat, choking him.
“He buries his enemies out on the west road,” she said, laughing cynically. “Don’t go there!”
He called out to her. But already she was changing. It wasn’t Terra any longer. Her face was melting, like plastic in a fire. He looked at her. And screamed...
He was tied, tied up like a prisoner. He struggled, but his arms were bound so tightly that he could hardly move them. The yellow door pulsated, brighter and brighter. Behind him he could hear the footsteps of stun commandos, their heavy boots drumming on the ground, approaching quickly, a mass of them. He tried to turn, but he couldn’t.
Her face was changing.
It was his mother.
“No!” he cried, tears running down his face. “Mum, please...”
“Your dad was a hero,” she said. “But you know what happens to heroes, Ben? They get killed!” Her eyes were old and tired, her face sunken with worry and misery. “Damn you, John Brewer!” she said, her voice croaky. “Damn you!”
“No!” he shouted...
He sat up, petrified, covered in sweat, his eyes puffed up and stinging. Where was he?
The bed sheets were soft against his skin, and he heard the constant rumble of music from the fun-fair below.
He knew where he was.
And what he had to do.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Several miles away in an abandoned village the rest of them were walking. Five humans, a mutant pig, and a gaggle of chunk-hens. For breakfast they’d had some strawberries from the van. And then they were off.
“It’s so dark!” Silver said, still half-asleep, as they stumbled out of the village.
“Come on,” said Terra, trying to hurry them along. “Let’s get this over with. It’s not going to be fun.”
“I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” Worse said to his brother as they followed Terra. “I’m not scared.”
As if to prove the point, he ruffled the feathers of a chunk-hen that was trotting next to him.
“You think you’re so brave?” Silver said.
“Who fought off the sea snakes?”
“Yeah,” Silver replied. “And threw away the oars? Smart move, boys!”
“We might not be smart, but we’re...” Worse said.
“What d’you mean we’re not smart?” cried Bad, annoyed at his brother.
“All I meant was...”
Meanwhile, Coby was striding out with Terra up front. Ugly Pig trotted along between them.
“Let ’em squabble,” Terra said. “It’ll keep their minds off things.”
They walked on for a while in silence.
“Terra,” Coby said, whilst behind them the voices of Silver and the twins got louder, “can I tell you something?”
“Yeah, what is it?”
“I’m scared,” he said, speaking low so that the others wouldn’t hear. “I mean, I want to save Ben. He’s my best friend. I’d do anything for him. It’s just... I’m really scared.” He couldn’t help it: a couple of tears trickled down his cheeks. “God, this is embarrassing!” he said, wiping the tears away.
He felt her arm reach across his shoulders. Terra pulled him close to her as they walked.
“Can I tell you something?” she whispered. “I’ve been scared stiff for thirteen years. All day and all night. Every night.”
“And you’re on your own.”
“That’s right, kid!” she said. “No one to be scared with.” She squeezed his shoulder. “Come on, let’s get this over with and you can all go home!”
“And you can come with us!” Coby whispered.
She said nothing.
When they reached the main road, it was illuminated with bright orange lights. Some lights were smashed. They buzzed, spitting out sparks of electricity where their cables were exposed to the air. But most of the lights worked, and a string of orange dots ran away into the distance, warming the dark sky with their electric glow. At the end of the orange string was the Complex, just a feint smudge of light far ahead of them.
“That’s it,” Terra said. “That’s where Ben is!”
The others, meanwhile, were now debating the exact meaning of being brave.
“You see,” Silver was saying, “there’s brave, and there’s foolhardy. Being foolhardy is when you’re so brave it’s stupid. Only the truly wise person knows the diff...”
“Are you calling me a fool,” Worse said, jabbing a finger in her direction, “because...”
“I am quoting the great philosophers...”
“Is that right! Well, any philosopher who calls me a
‘foolhardy’ gets a fist in his philosopher face.”
“Ha-ha!” Bad sniggered at his brother. “Foolhardy, foolhardy!”
“Watch it! They don’t call me Worse for nothing.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah!”
“Ooh!” Bad said. “Scary old Worse! Look, I’m messin’ my pants here!”
Worse grabbed his brother by the neck. Around them, the chunk-hens flapped and scurried, eager not to be trampled on, as the twins began to fight.
“Stop it!” Coby yelled.
He threw himself between them, his arms flying up, trying to untangle the two brothers, putting himself right where Worse’s big, bony fist was about to land.
Out of sheer surprise, the twins stopped.
“Stop it!” Coby said, exasperated. “And you, too!” he shouted, looking at Silver.
“Me!” she said. “What have I done?”
“Arguing. All of you. Stick together. We’ve got to stick together, whatever happens. You should be looking out for each other, not arguing! Not fighting!”
Worse, though, had stopped listening. “What the...” he said, looking down the main road behind them.
The chunk-hens began clucking, louder and louder, dancing on the road, bumping into each other. Then, all at once, they scuttled off, jumping up, flapping their odd, mutant hen-wings, and rising into the sky.
“They really can fly!” Bad said, watching the birds move off into the dark sky.
But no one else was watching the hens.
Something was coming towards them. Moving fast. Sweeping down the road like a black wave.
“Stay still,” Terra said. “Completely... still.”
It wasn’t a wave.
A strange, scratching, sniffing sound filled the air.
It was a pack of rats. Big rats. Their thick tails were like rope, scraping behind them on the surface of the road. They ran quick, shoulder to shoulder, rearing up into the air, their claws scraping and clawing one another as they went.
Ugly Pig’s snout was twitching madly, his ears pointed straight up. The rats’ tiny black eyes never blinked once, and their creamy brown teeth flashed from inside their mouths.
