The Hunted

by Charlie Higson

  ‘We should go the other way, Lewis. Really we should.’ Trio was sounding very anxious.

  ‘Didn’t we just pass a turn-off?’ Ebenezer asked.

  ‘That was for the M25,’ Ed explained, and he double-checked his map. ‘If we go that way we have to do a big loop up to the M40 and along before we can get back to where we want to be.’

  ‘Then I vote we ram them,’ said Kyle. ‘Ten points for each one you splatter, Lewis. This’ll be just like one of them challenges off of Top Gear.’

  Ed wished Will was here. He’d know what to do. He always thought things through, worked out the consequences.

  Will wasn’t here, though, was he? Ed had to make the decision alone. He looked at Lewis.

  ‘Might as well give it a try, I suppose.’

  ‘Hold on to your hats,’ Kyle shouted. ‘It’s going to be a bumpy ride!’

  35

  Lewis nodded.

  ‘Cool.’

  He’d got away with it so far. They hadn’t called him out on his driving. He’d only driven a real car a couple of times before. He’d picked up most of his driving skills from his PlayStation. He loved driving games. Used to have a state-of-the-art steering-wheel controller. Man, he missed that PlayStation.

  The two times he’d driven a real car it had been totally illegal. He’d had a mate called Altan who’d been obsessed with cars, kept nicking them, and twice he’d let Lewis have a go. Only up the street and back. Altan had got himself killed riding a stolen scooter one night and after that Lewis went off the idea.

  He hoped the others hadn’t noticed what a crap driver he was. They hadn’t said anything, too focused on other things. At least he hadn’t crashed.

  ‘Look at the bastards,’ said Kyle, leaning forward between the front seats.

  ‘Sickos?’ said Lewis. ‘Is what you call ’em, yeah?’

  ‘That’s what they are,’ said Kyle. ‘Not human no more, just bags of pus and bad blood.’

  ‘Sickos. Yeah … I get that.’

  It was a good name for them. Felt right.

  And now Lewis had to steer into them.

  Driving into a mob of people. That was something else. Wasn’t sure if he could pull this off. He’d give it a go, though. Never let anyone know you had any doubts. That was the game. Stay cool.

  He looked in the rear-view mirror. Trey and Trio had their hands clamped over their ears and were rocking in their seats, muttering to themselves. They’d tried to warn him. Maybe Lewis should have listened to them.

  Ed was giving him instructions, and he was only half listening.

  ‘Not so fast that you lose control and damage the car … Not so slow that they can crowd in on us …’

  Lewis’s throat felt dry. He needed something to get him through this. And then he remembered the CDs he’d brought along. Had kept them all these months in his backpack, in case he ever got the opportunity to hear them again. He jabbed the power button on the radio. There was a hiss of static, then he dug a CD out of his pocket, snapped the case open and slotted the disc into the little slit. After a quiet start ‘Crank That’ by Soulja Boy Tell ’Em started to blast out and the car was magically filled with noise.

  He heard Ed tut, but the other kids cheered.

  Lewis was ready.

  Stay cool.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said and pressed his foot down on the accelerator.

  The mothers and fathers ahead had seen the car, but hardly reacted to it. They knew where they were going and nothing would tell them otherwise. They were staying cool too. Focused. Marching forward, following the call, whatever heavy bass throb was drawing them in. It was pretty clear, as the car got nearer to them, that they were not getting out of the way.

  Lewis had seen a video on YouTube once of these crabs migrating on some island somewhere. They were all red and there were millions of them. Crazy. They just set off and crawled from one side of the island to the other, across roads, through gardens, schoolyards, fields and forests. Nothing could stop them, and so cars would drive over them, crushing them under the wheels. And still those crabs kept going. Off to spawn.

  These grown-ups, these sickos, were no different.

  Closer and closer the car got and Lewis was holding his breath. Should he go faster or slower? The grown-ups were pretty tightly packed.

  ‘I’m gonna need more speed,’ he said.

  ‘Go for it.’ Ed sounded wound up tight.

  ‘You’re the boss. This is your gig.’

  A little faster. More pressure on the pedal. Just a little …

  ‘There’s too many!’ Trio shouted.

  ‘We need to clear them out the way,’ said Kyle.

  ‘Is my plan,’ said Lewis and he pressed harder. The car sped up and …

  Thump. They hit their first one. A father. He was batted off to the side. Kyle cheered. And then they were in among them. Grown-ups were smacked off left and right. Behind the first row were some teenagers, thump, thump, thump. The car forced its way through them. Then a mother went down and there was a lurch and a bump as the wheels went over her. Kyle cheered again. Macca joined him.

  ‘Nuts,’ said Lewis. ‘They won’t move for us.’

  The car was surrounded by grown-ups now. Lewis finally had their attention. They saw the car as a threat and started to crowd in on it, pawing at the windows. Shutting out the light.

  ‘Faster, Lewis.’ That was Ebenezer in the back. He was a tough kid, not much fazed him, but he sounded worried, scared even.

  ‘Can’t go no faster,’ said Lewis. ‘Is like driving through heavy mud, man. Like driving through trees.’

  ‘This is stupid,’ said Brooke, and Lewis looked at her in the rear-view mirror. ‘We need to get out of this.’

  You’re telling me, thought Lewis. Trying to speed up didn’t make any difference. There were just too many of them. A mother was right up on the bonnet, squatting there, legs bare and scabby, and she was beating on the windscreen with her fists.

  More grown-ups climbed up next to her. Lewis turned to his side window. It was jammed with faces, pressing against the glass, gums exposed, smearing their head juices everywhere.

  And then the car started to sway from side to side.

  Lewis remembered the riots. Watching TV footage of police vans being rocked. Tipped over.

  ‘Go back!’ Brooke shouted. ‘Lewis, go back. Get it in reverse. We can’t drive through this. This is crazy.’

  Lewis didn’t need to be told twice. He pulled the gear lever back, finding reverse. Trying the accelerator. Nothing much happening.

  Nobody was talking inside the car now. Everyone was feeling the tension, worried that they’d be trapped. Lewis turned the volume up on the sound system to drown out the thunder of beating fists and skulls and boots and whatever else the sickos were slamming against the car.

  The engine whined as the car slowly eased its way backwards. There were more bumps underneath as they went over fallen grown-ups.

  Stay cool.

  He could see nothing out of the rear window. It was black with bodies. The three kids on the back seat were twisted round, hoping to see daylight, a break in the wall of flesh.

  ‘Sod this!’ Kyle shouted, and before anyone could stop him he wrenched his door open and was jumping out of the car, clutching the big battleaxe he’d had between his knees.

  36

  Chaos. Kyle butting grown-ups with the axe handle. Shouts from the other kids. Ed trying to call him back. Trio screaming. Trey telling her to shut up.

  There was a spray of blood across the back window. The flash of a blade chopping down. Light was getting through. Had Kyle cleared a path? Only thing was, if Lewis sped up and reversed away there was a danger he’d leave Kyle behind.

  ‘What do I do?’ he said.

  ‘Bloody Kyle,’ Ed muttered. ‘Bloody idiot.’

  ‘There he is!’ Brooke shouted and Macca leant across between the seats and grabbed hold of Kyle as he tumbled back in through the open door.


  ‘Floor it, man!’ he yelled and Lewis stamped down hard. The car surged backwards. More thumps, bumps and rattles underneath. It skidded and swerved.

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Ebenezer. ‘The road is clear. Kyle did it.’

  ‘Ebenezer’s right,’ said Trio. ‘It’s empty; you can go.’

  Lewis pulled the steering wheel round and the car slewed sideways into the crash barrier in the centre of the motorway. He shunted the gear into drive, gave it some gas and they steamed forward, taking a wide arc across the tarmac. Slamming into some grown-ups who’d caught up. Spilling them off to the side.

  ‘Just go,’ Ed shouted. ‘Head for the M25 turn-off.’

  ‘I’m going, man,’ said Lewis, staying calm. Staying cool.

  ‘Bad call. My fault,’ Ed added. ‘We should have gone that way before. No more risks.’

  ‘Was worth it,’ said Kyle. ‘Worth a try, and at least now we know our limitations – this car ain’t no tank.’

  ‘There’s something wrong,’ said Trey quietly.

  ‘There’s a whole lot wrong,’ said Kyle. ‘Tell me something new.’

  ‘Are we OK?’ Brooke asked. ‘Have they done any damage?’

  Lewis shrugged. ‘She’s handling OK.’ As if he knew what he was talking about. It did seem to be all right, though. It was steering straight and felt like it was responding to the pedals properly.

  ‘There’s more of them,’ said Trey. ‘I can feel it.’

  ‘We keep moving, we’ll be OK.’ Ed leant over and turned the music down a little. The guy was just like a parent or a teacher. He had his head on straight, but Lewis wondered if he’d be any good in a fight. Somebody had certainly got the better of him one time. Given him that ugly, dirty scar down his face. He was posh and all. Not from the streets of Holloway where Lewis had grown up. Still, if a hench kid like Kyle could accept him as the boss man, he must have something going for him.

  That had been some stunt the big guy had pulled. Leaping out like Thor and cutting a path.

  Cool.

  Lewis kept the car at a steady speed and they soon arrived at the M25 turning. It was a little complicated getting on to the slip road as they were approaching it from the wrong direction and there were no signs, but they managed it OK and were soon heading north.

  ‘Keep on here until we get to the M40,’ Ed explained. ‘That’ll take us west again and then we’ll look for a turn-off that’ll swing us back south.’

  ‘Whatever you say.’ Lewis settled back in his seat, feeling the tension ease away. It was an open road again. Danger over. Close one, though. Real close.

  ‘We’re still not safe.’ Trinity had been banging on about danger all the way. Lewis was tired of it. Wanted to tell them to shut up. In the end Macca did it for him.

  ‘You’ve made your point,’ he said. ‘So how about you change the subject? I mean, it’s not as if any of them tossers are gonna be able to keep up with us. I’d like to see that – a hundred-mile-an-hour sicko.’

  They cruised on to the M40, but it was a good few miles before they found a way off it, a turning to Beaconsfield, Amersham and Slough.

  ‘This’ll do us fine.’ Ed was consulting his map again. ‘We’ll try Slough first. It was on my list, one of the places to check out.’

  They left the motorway and were very quickly into countryside, narrow roads, fields and hedges and trees and woodland off to the sides. Long grass, huge weeds and bright wild flowers growing everywhere, even up through cracks in the road, so that they brushed the underside of the car with a swishing noise as they drove over them. Lewis hadn’t been anywhere like this for months, years even, had almost forgotten that the rest of the world even existed, he’d been so used to buildings all around him. The city. Now nature was taking over. He relaxed another couple of notches. He liked it here. Was glad he’d come.

  ‘Look at that,’ came Macca’s voice from the back.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Stop a minute.’

  Lewis slowed the car and brought it to a halt in the middle of the road. Didn’t have to pull over to the side. No danger of any other vehicles coming along here. Ed switched the power off on the music system. Silence.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘What did you see?’

  ‘Over there,’ said Macca. Lewis could see in the mirror that he was pointing to something.

  ‘What am I looking for?’ Ed asked.

  ‘Smoke.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Lewis could see it now, a thin grey column rising up above the trees in the distance and fading out as it blurred into the sky.

  ‘What you reckon?’ said Macca. ‘No smoke without a fire, they say, don’t they?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Brooke, pretending to be impressed. ‘They do say that, don’t they?’

  ‘And a fire means people,’ said Kyle, ignoring her sarcasm.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Ed butted in, peering at the smoke. ‘Could just be … like, I don’t know. A tree on fire. Fires start.’

  ‘Usually, though,’ said Macca, ‘a fire means someone’s lit it. And these days that means kids. Sickos ain’t got the brains for it.’

  ‘Brains …’ said Brooke, impersonating a cartoon zombie.

  ‘Is it worth checking out, do you think?’ Trio asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Ed didn’t sound convinced. ‘My plan was to check the towns out first.’

  ‘We’ve come to find people, ain’t we?’ said Kyle. ‘I vote we check on the smoke. Otherwise we’re just driving around blind.’

  Ed turned to look at Trinity.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ he asked. ‘Can you sense any big crowds of sickos around here?’

  ‘There’s something out there,’ said Trio. ‘But the signal’s thin. Not crowds … I don’t know what. We should be careful. I mean, we’re never alone.’

  ‘You’re never more than two metres from a rat,’ said Kyle. ‘Or a sicko.’

  ‘What would any sickos be doing around here?’ Macca asked. ‘Except maybe camping.’ He laughed at his joke.

  ‘He’s right,’ said Brooke. ‘Except maybe camping.’

  ‘If there’s kids around there’s likely sickos too.’ Ed really was a cautious type. ‘That’s what they prey on. Everyone’s after the same thing. Food and water. Staying alive. Lewis, what do you think?’

  ‘Worth a look,’ said Lewis. ‘We got the car, we’re mobile. If it’s a waste of time we can move on quick. And if it’s dangerous no probs, we easily just roll away.’

  Ed pressed the power button and brought the music back up, but still keeping the volume down.

  ‘Head for the smoke,’ he said and Lewis set the car rolling forward.

  37

  It took them some time to find where the smoke was coming from. It wasn’t as easy as they’d assumed. There were too many trees in the way to get a clear view and it felt to Lewis that for a lot of the time they were driving around in circles. It didn’t help that none of the roads went in a straight line and they had no idea of just how far away the smoke was. But eventually they thought they had a beam on it.

  The road they were on went through thick woodland. Their view was cut off as they got nearer, so they had to trust that they were heading in the right direction. When they finally came to a junction and broke clear of the trees, they saw a gateway in a high wall leading on to a private road. It was trashed. A car had driven into one of the posts and knocked the gate down. It must have started a fire because the sign explaining where the road led was all burnt and blackened. There were the charred remains of two skeletons in the front seats.

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s a good sign,’ said Macca. ‘Very welcoming. What is this? The gates to hell?’

  ‘If this was hell there’d be a three-headed dog waiting for us,’ said Trio.

  ‘Yes, well, you would know all about that,’ Ebenezer muttered.

  ‘What are you saying?’ Trio sounded none too pleased with Ebenezer’s comment.

  ‘I am not saying anything.’
/>   ‘Oh, OK, fine,’ said Trio with heavy sarcasm. ‘Only a more sensitive person than myself might have thought you were making a comment about us having three heads.’

  ‘I didn’t mean anything by it.’

  ‘It’s the law of threes,’ said Trey.

  ‘Oh, don’t start on that,’ said Trio.

  ‘Cerberus, the dog with three heads,’ said Trey. ‘Or there’s the Chimera, with the head of a lion, a snake’s head for a tail and a goat’s head coming out of its back. Or the three Furies, the three Norns, the Morrígan, Hecate? The Holy Trinity. Take your pick. Which do you want us to be, Ebenezer?’

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

  ‘Me either,’ said Lewis. ‘You want me to drive on?’

  Ed slapped his hand on the top of the dashboard. ‘Let’s do this,’ he said.

  The driveway wound along through trees. The weeds and wild flowers had grown up all around and were starting to invade the road from both sides, leaving only a narrow strip to steer down. At the end of the drive was a big old house with smoke rising from one of the chimneys.

  ‘Don’t look much like hell to me,’ said Kyle. ‘Unless the devil’s inside getting his butler to toast sinners for him.’

  ‘Toast crumpets more like,’ said Brooke.

  Lewis drove up to the front of the house where there was an overgrown parking area. He switched off the engine. Studied the building. It was tall and grand, three floors high, with a wide, square porch held up by six big pillars. It looked to Lewis like a shrunk-down version of Buckingham Palace. The white painted walls were grubby and streaked with dirt and rain.

  There were blinds and shutters and net curtains covering all the windows at the front of the house, and no sign of any lights inside, so it was impossible to see if there was anybody in there. Lewis had to admit, though, that if he was hiding out anywhere around here this was the sort of place he’d have chosen. It was solid and well built. A brick wall enclosed the gardens. There were clear lines of sight all around. Only thing was – if he’d been living here he’d have repaired that gate. So what was up?