Read The Crash of Hennington Online
Authors: Patrick Ness
It had healed over. Where the wound had always been was now a bright pink scar, tender still, now that he knew where to touch, but definitely there. No smell came from it, no blood or clear liquid. Just a frightened little scar that seemed to shrink from the bright sunlight. Maggerty touched it tenderly, with awe, even. He traced the smooth edges with the lightest brush his suddenly trembling fingertips could manage. He held his breath out of sheer disbelief.
Healed.
He brushed his fingers over the spot for the millionth and last time when he saw the ominous approach of Thomas Banyon in his electric cart.
Maggerty ran.
She smelled the approach of the thin creature long before she saw him. The smell grew stronger by the second. She heard the stamping of running feet along with an electric whine in the background somewhere. Then the smell, which had so briefly been tolerable, clogged the air, changing into the most ancient smell of all. Fear. Her nose filled with the dank, dirty scent of another’s fear.
(Thomas yelled with a jolly smile as he drove his cart towards the fleeing Maggerty. This was an unexpected pleasure. He was feeling better already.
—Come back here, you flea, you vermin, you shitrag!)
Though physically stronger than he had ever been, Maggerty
ran with a sort of anti-grace that it hurt the eyes to see. He had fear on his side, though, and he was fast. With unconscious purpose, he ran beseechingly into the herd, his friends and protectors for so long. His arms were out, and he made a terrible moan for sympathy. He saw the lead animal and ran straight for her.
She heard the rumble of feet as the members of the herd shifted, startled once again as the strange-smelling thin creature ran wildly through them. She heard his lighter, faster steps as he ran towards her, finally catching sight of him rounding two of the larger males. The smell grew rapidly. She took an alarmed step back.
Maggerty unknowingly chanted a desperate whisper as he ran.
—Help me, help me, help me, help me.
(Thomas steered his cart wildly to avoid the animals in his way, driving Maggerty farther into the herd.)
Too fast, too fast,
too fast.
She thrust up with her horn, the instinctive reaction to threat.
—Oof.
(Thomas slammed the brakes of his cart, nearly lurching forward out of it at the sudden stop.
—Sweet God Almighty.)
The smell of blood was danger. She shook her head violently to get the weight off, and then she ran, three thousand pounds at thirty miles an hour. The herd thundered after her at full gallop, not knowing exactly what had happened except that when she ran, it only meant they should follow without hesitation. She could not see. There was blood in her eyes. She simply charged. She didn’t miss the fence opening by more than ten feet, but the wood was no match for her momentum. She tore out a section without even slowing her stride. The rest of the fence collapsed as the full force of the
herd rammed through it. They disappeared down the city streets into a rising cloud of dust.
Maggerty lay on the ground. Such pain in his abdomen. From what he could see by raising his head, he could tell that his body was not shaped the way it should have been. He tried to lift himself up but failed. He slowly moved his right hand to his left side, his fingers at last failing to find the wound or even the scar. He saw Thomas Banyon drive up alongside him in the golf cart. Everything took on a terrible grayness.
(Thomas Banyon lifted a – still, despite all the years and pain and money – bowed leg out onto the green. He looked toward Hennington. The cloud of dust swarmed up into the blistering sun. Thomas did not hear Maggerty die because even if there was a sound, it was too quiet to hear over the machinery that was suddenly whirring away in his brain.)
When they lifted the blankets off her and she squinted into the afternoon sunlight, Jacki was surprised that there were two of them, a shorter one with cropped hair and a mustache and a taller one with sideburns and a potbelly.
—Did you both drive?
The shorter one grinned.
—Not at the same time.
—She just called you and you came?
—Yes.
—She has that much stature?
—Not in and of herself. There are others, too, who we would help. And we are but two among others who would help as well.
—So a whole network of you?
—I can’t really say.
—But—
—Please. It keeps our danger level down, ours
and
yours, if you know less. We’ll leave you here, but we’ll return. You’ll have food and water. And you’re safe here for now.
—For now?
—I’m sure you’ll be moved again if there’s danger. Whoever you are, you’ll be protected.
—Yes, all right. That’s fair enough.
They wouldn’t tell her where they had brought her. It was obviously some kind of warehouse, but that was all she knew. Fine. The illusion of safety was easier to embrace if danger could be imagined at a distance, accurately or not. They also didn’t tell her their names, which was perhaps less fine, but
she could understand their caution. If small, gentle-featured Davis had received a broken jaw at the hands of Thomas Banyon, a man three times her size, there was ample reason to believe that he saw himself as being outside of the normal boundaries of propriety. If Thomas found her, then, for better or worse, she was the only one who would bear the brunt of his wrath, not these friendly, anonymous men.
For the best part of two days, she remained alone in the little clearing they had made for her in a large room with access to a small bathroom and sink. The rest of her new home was filled with piles of furniture, very
nice
furniture, hidden underneath tarpaulins or in towering stacks that reached a ceiling almost eight meters up. All kinds of burnished, polished chairs, tables made of heavy, dark wood, a whole delicate maze of mirrors twice as tall as herself. The warehouse was large but not huge. She wove her way around, wandering between rows of beautiful couches, armoires, ottomans, even bedsteads and sinks. At first, she assumed they were hiding her away in the warehouse for a furniture store, but a persistent feeling of déjà vu dogged her until, late on the second day, she realized what was causing it. She recognized the furniture.
—I’m in the winter storehouse, aren’t I?
The shorter one had returned alone to refresh Jacki’s food and water stores. Jacki’s face was so fierce, her voice husky with a tensile fear so pure that he answered her immediately.
—Yes.
—How could you bring me
here
? Didn’t they tell you who I was running from?
—Yes, that’s why this is the safest place.
—Have you lost your mind? It belongs to the man who’s hunting me!
—It’s the dead of summer. Hennington Hills won’t be
wanting this furniture for the winter makeover for another three months. History has proven that the best place to hide is right under your enemy’s nose. He won’t think to look here because he won’t think anyone’s foolish enough to hide here. Plus, the place is guarded. He won’t think we could get past the guards.
—How
did
we get past the guards?
—They’re on our side.
—All right. Okay. All right. I’m calming down. I guess I can see your point. No one bothers the winter furniture until November. By then—
—By then, you either won’t be here or the situation will be resolved however it’s going to be resolved.
—I can’t imagine it being resolved at all just now. Isn’t that something?
—Everything’s going to be fine.
—And you can promise me this how?
—We’ve gotten others away before you.
—There’ve been others?
—Yes.
—What others?
—Ma’am, please, the less you know the better. For everyone. Trust me, you’re safe here. I don’t mean to be shifty, but you really don’t have any choice other than to trust me anyway.
—I suppose.
—It’s true.
—I have one more question.
—All right, maybe.
—How did there get to be ‘sides'? You said the guards were on our ‘side'. How did that happen? How did I end up on a ‘side'?
—I can’t really explain. Things just happen. Over time, they accumulate. Bad attracts bad. Good attracts good.
Eventually there are sides. The members flux, sometimes the boundaries are gray. Good and bad are sometimes not the point. It happens. For now, concentrate on the fact that you’re safe and that you’ll get out of this.
—Because I will.
—Because you will, yes.
He left her a surprisingly large number of sandwiches and a slightly less generous pile of fresh bananas and sweet lemons, as well as another cask of water. Time passed quietly, and she had only her thoughts for company. Maybe what the shorter one had said was all true. It made a certain amount of sense, and the hints that all this had happened before with success was also a surprising and welcome addition. She was part of something larger, that was clear. Where had this food come from? And the two men? Then again, if fortune had decided to step in and grace her with some good luck, then maybe it was about time, right?
The lights in the storehouse cast most of the room and furniture in stark shadows and sometimes plain blackness. She munched a banana. Somehow strength had sneaked back into her body, and she realized that several days had gone by without a single thought spared for Forum. She toyed with the desire in her brain, testing its potency. It was still there, still lurking, and she didn’t focus on it for long. But still, a bunch of days in a row.
She threw away her banana peel and pulled back a few tarpaulins. All the stacked tables and chairs made a terrific ad hoc playground. Kids could have a grand old time let loose in here. She tried squeezing herself underneath a table, making a cave out of it, but even with all the weight she’d lost, she couldn’t quite get deep enough to hide, deep enough to pretend she was spelunking miles away from the world outside. This is a pastime for a child, she thought. A child. She allowed
a thought to germinate and take hold in her mind. Could fortune stand a test? How much luck was presently available? If she grabbed for some more, would it be there? On the run from a dangerous man who was spending an unseemly amount of resources to find her, suffering life-threatening withdrawals from a life-threatening drug, out of a job and any discernible future: for God’s sake, fortune owed her one.
When he arrived again, she was ready with her request.
—Can you get me a phone?
To the Editor,
I write not, as you might expect, as a Candidate for Mayor of Our Great City of Hennington, though unlike my opponent, my stake in my Candidacy has never wavered due to personal doubts, nor did I re-enter the Race when I found it personally expedient to do so. I have remained in the Race since declaring my Candidacy because I intend to win by standing on my Principals [
sic
], by showing fortitude in this Contest, and by addressing the Issues and Concerns of the People. Not for me the hem and haw, should I or shouldn’t I, back and forth that might bring into question my Character and my Dedication. No, I have stated my intention to run for Mayor, and running for Mayor is what I’m doing without reservations.
No, I write to you and to this fine newspaper as a Citizen of Our Fair City of Hennington, as a Tax-Payer, as someone with an active interest in the Future of Hennington. I write because it is my duty as a Citizen, not as a Candidate, to participate in the Civic Activities of my Chosen Home. In this instance, I write to you because of my deep, deep concern about an Issue that has plagued this City for years, an Issue about which there has been much disagreement, an Issue that because of recent Events now needs a resolution more than ever.
I write to you about The Crash. I write to you because it is my deeply felt Belief that the time has come to control these wayward animals, to protect the Citizens of Hennington from what has now proven to be a menace and a danger to Our Beloved City, to place the right to Safety of our Citizens over the ‘concerns’ of a handful of City Officials for the so-called ‘autonomy’ of a herd of three-ton rhinoceros. As a City, we have given them free rein to wander in and out of whatever avenues and byways, private and public property, fields and roads that they choose. It is my opinion, and I believe the opinion of many of the other Citizens of Our City, that the time has come to end this freedom in the interests of the Public.
I am not a fool. I know this is not a Popular Issue. I know the risk I take to my Candidacy by demanding that something be done, but I am also a man of Integrity, a man of Probity, a man who is willing to Sacrifice Secular Ambition for my own Personal Convictions. If this costs me the Mayoralty of Hennington, then I rest in the knowledge that my Conscience will at least be clear because I will have stood up for what I believed to be true.
I ask my Fellow Citizens to hear me out.
Everyone knows by now about the death of harmless Maggerty the Rhinoherd on the horn of what is generally acknowledged to be the lead animal of The Crash. I had the terrible personal misfortune of actually bearing witness to the events of Maggerty’s untimely passing. The whole action unfolded on the southern golf course at Hennington Hills Golf Course and Resort, a facility of which I am lucky enough to be President and CEO. I was taking my normal drive through the grounds, making sure they were up to the professional standard that we like to uphold at Hennington Hills, when I saw that The Crash had wandered deep onto the tenth green and were grazing away.