Authors: Charlie Higson
‘In a minute,’ said Marco.
‘At least we don’t have to look no further,’ said Felix. ‘We know what’s happened to Olivia. Perhaps we should put it in a bag, or something?’
‘Put what in a bag?’ asked Marco.
‘The head,’ said Felix. ‘Olivia’s head.’
‘What for?’
‘I don’t know, to show the others. To show Paul.’
‘He don’t want to see that,’ said Marco incredulously. ‘Why would he want to see that?’
‘It’s proof, isn’t it?’
‘He don’t need proof. We just tell him we found her body.’
‘But we ain’t found her body!’ Felix protested. ‘Only her head.’
‘If you was her brother,’ said Marco, pointing at the table, ‘would you want to see that?’
‘No.’
‘Right.’
‘So what are we going to do with it?’ Felix asked. ‘Maybe we should bury it?’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Marco, with a cutting edge to his voice. ‘A tiny coffin with a head in it. That’ll be lovely.’
‘Marco …’
‘Felix!’ Marco interrupted him. ‘That thing on the table ain’t Olivia. Olivia’s gone and there ain’t nothing we can do about it.’
‘Please, please, please, let’s get out of here …’
Felix turned to the whimpering boy with the expression an adult might make to a baby and grabbed the face of one of the dead boys at the table. He worked the mouth so that it opened and closed like a ventriloquist’s dummy, making it speak.
‘Oh, diddums,’ he said in a grating, comedy voice. ‘Is this all too much for you?’
Then the dead boy’s lower jaw came away in his hand and a shower of rotting flesh and maggots dropped on to the table. Felix threw the jaw away and jumped back, laughing hysterically and wiping his hands on his trousers.
‘You’re sick,’ said the museum kid.
‘No,
he’s
sick,’ said Felix, pointing towards one of the boy’s friends, who was puking on the floor. He then shifted his attention to the jawless body at the table. ‘But I think this guy is the sickest,’ he said. ‘He really needs to see a doctor.’
‘You moron,’ said Marco. He was torn between laughing and screaming. He knew what Felix was doing. He was trying to avoid the pain and hurt and fear by making a joke of it. None of them could really face what was going on in their world, and they’d all developed their own ways of coping.
But Felix had gone too far. He was really freaking the museum kids out.
‘Leave it,’ he said. ‘Hide Olivia’s head so there’s no danger Paul might see it. Then we’ll search the other rooms on this floor, and please, Felix, don’t think it might be funny to tell Paul about the head. We keep shtum about that. All he needs to know is that we found her body.’
‘Yeah?’ said Felix with mock innocence. ‘Where is it?’
‘Shut it, Felix.’
‘You shut it.’
‘I can’t do it,’ said the museum boy. ‘I can’t stay in here any longer. I want to go outside.’ His face was wet with tears and he was shivering badly.
Marco grabbed the front of his sweatshirt.
‘You stay with us,’ he said. ‘You’ve been given an order. We stick together. We’re a group and we have to follow orders. OK?’
The boy gulped and nodded his head, taking strength from Marco’s military attitude.
‘I’m OK,’ he said. ‘I’m OK. We’ll stick together. I won’t let you down.’
‘Good boy,’ said Marco. ‘Now let’s look in the other rooms. And be careful. We don’t know where the fat father is, where he might come from, and we don’t know if he’s alone or not. He might have some other friends about the place.’
‘Yeah,’ said Felix, sniggering. ‘He might have invited some kids over for tea.’
DogNut’s group had come to the end of the line. The sitting-room with the old TVs and computers and the sagging sofa where the Collector slept. At first DogNut thought he wasn’t there. He could see no sign of him and there was a great mound of grubby newspapers on the sofa where his body should have been.
He absentmindedly read one of the headlines.
‘Floods devastate York.’
Those were different days.
But as he looked at the writing he realized that the papers were gently rising and falling.
‘He’s under there,’ he said. ‘Under the newspapers.’
‘We should just put a match to him,’ said Ryan, pushing into the cramped space behind DogNut and Jackson. ‘End of.’
‘End of all of us,’ DogNut snapped. ‘I told you – no fire. We’d never get out in time.’
‘OK, so what do we do then?’ said Paul, his voice high-pitched and hysterical. He raised his knife, shaking sweat everywhere as his hand juddered in the fetid air.
‘What do you reckon?’ asked Courtney. ‘Could we stab him through that lot? All do it together. Might have some chance of hitting his heart, or his liver, or something.’
‘His fat gut more like,’ said DogNut.
‘I’m gonna stab him,’ said Paul, and DogNut held him back.
‘Chances are you won’t kill him, just vex him. His fat’s like a suit of armour.’
‘I don’t care if I make him angry,’ said Paul. ‘He killed my sister.’
‘Fair enough. We do got to make him angry, I guess,’ said DogNut. ‘Only enough so’s he chases us outside, though. Once he’s out on the street we can deal with him properly.’
‘I’m gonna do it,’ said Paul, who didn’t seem to be listening. ‘I’m gonna stab him.’
‘Then you’d better hurry,’ said Jackson. ‘I think he’s waking up. I told you we should have kept the noise down.’
Indeed, the mountain of newspaper was beginning to rise, and as it did so sheets slid off it like drifts of snow from a melting roof. The next thing they knew Paul had run forward with a terrible scream and stabbed down double-fisted with his knife at the rising bulk. His hands smacked into the paper and the knife stuck fast. Then a great meaty paw reached out from under the papers and took hold of Paul’s arm. It jerked him to the floor and he yelped as his face slammed into the black and sticky carpet. The Collector still had hold of him, and, as Paul tried to twist free, Jackson stepped forward and slashed at the sicko’s arm with the point of her spear, then kicked it with a heavy brown work boot. There was a grunt from under the newspapers and the Collector loosened his grip. Jackson kicked his arm again and the Collector finally let go of Paul who scrabbled away, slipping on the greasy carpet. He careered into the table holding up the biggest television and it crashed down on top of him.
Now the Collector erupted upwards, throwing off the rest of the paper. All except for a few sheets that were pinned to his gut by Paul’s knife like notes on a corkboard. There was a filthy rag stuffed into the hole in his side where Felix had stabbed him last night. The skin round the wound was purple and smeared with pus. He glared at the fallen television, appalled at what he was seeing, and then hissed and lunged at Paul, but Jackson deftly nipped in and jabbed her spear at his neck, just below the ear, in a quick in-and-out movement. DogNut was satisfied to see a spurt of blood pump out.
The Collector could be hurt after all.
DogNut yelled at him, to attract his attention, and slowly the huge father turned and lumbered towards the other kids. Paul seized the moment and picked up a broken table leg. He staggered to his feet and started to pummel the Collector on the back. The Collector barely seemed to notice; without looking round he swung one arm and smashed Paul across the room where he hit the wall with a wet slap. He slid to the ground, stunned.
‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ DogNut shouted. Ryan’s hunter was already gone. Ryan and Jackson didn’t budge.
‘You get Paul,’ said Jackson. ‘We’ll distract him.’
Now Jackson and Ryan both slashed their weapons at the father, but there wasn’t the space to do any real damage. DogNut moved in and pulled Paul to his feet. He was groggy and confused so DogNut had to physically drag him into the maze.
‘Run!’ he bellowed.
They were all scared, panting, gasping, blundering through the maze as the Collector came after them. They could hear his feet thudding on the floorboards, hear him snorting and wheezing.
Paul was dazed, barely able to walk, let alone run. He was holding DogNut back.
‘For God’s sake,’ DogNut snapped. ‘Get your act together, man.’
Paul managed to pick up speed as his head cleared and at last they reached the stairs and went clattering up them.
‘Everybody out!’ DogNut howled as he neared the top. ‘He’s on the move!’
They burst from the cellar entrance just as Courtney came down the stairs from above and they all collided. It was a miracle that nobody was hurt because they all had their weapons at the ready. They quickly sorted themselves out and made for the front door. As the hallway had been made so narrow by the stacks of newspaper, it created a bottleneck. In the confusion and panic they were getting in each other’s way.
Paul was fully alert now, but had a crazy, feverish look about him. He stopped in the middle of the hallway and shook DogNut.
‘Where’s Olivia?’ he cried. ‘Has anyone found her?’
‘Get outside,’ said DogNut. ‘We’ll sort it.’
‘Where is she? Where’s my little sister?’
‘She’s dead, Paul. Now get your arse out of here.’
‘Where’s her body? How d’you know she’s dead?’
‘You think she could live in here? We’ll all be dead if we don’t move it.’
Jammed in the hallway, the two of them were preventing anyone else from leaving the building. The trapped kids were yelling and shoving. They could feel the walls vibrating as the Collector clumped up the stairs.
‘We’ll come back for her body!’ DogNut shouted. ‘But please shift, Paul.’
Courtney screamed as the Collector emerged from the top of the stairs, his yellow eyes staring, drool spilling from his open mouth, blood bubbling from the wound in his neck. He smelt of shit and decay and death. The light from the open front door fell on him and as Paul got a proper look at him he became paralysed with fear.
DogNut made a quick decision. He punched Paul hard in the belly, and, as he doubled over in agony, he hoisted him on to his shoulders in one swift movement. He then staggered towards the door and out of the house, the rest of the kids following in a frenzied bundle. He made it into the centre of the road where Robbie’s gang was waiting, not quite sure how he was able to carry Paul’s weight, coasting on adrenalin and fear and a crazy kind of strength. Then he collapsed to his knees and dropped Paul on the tarmac.
‘What happened to him?’ Robbie asked, frowning. ‘Did the sicko get him?’
‘No,’ said DogNut, fighting for breath. ‘I did. Had to hit him.’
‘You hit him? What do you mean?’
‘Never mind all that,’ DogNut gasped. ‘I hope you lot are ready because there is one very angry fat man about to come out of there.’
The kids formed a long straggly line, tensed, weapons raised. The hunters’ dogs were at either end, tugging at their leads.
But for a minute nothing happened. The Collector didn’t appear.
Nobody moved. Nobody said anything until Courtney broke the silence.
‘He’s not coming out. No way am I going back in there again.’
She fell silent as a shudder passed through the waiting kids and one or two swore as the Collector’s great shape appeared in the doorway. He stood there, angry and confused, studying the kids, trying to work out who they were and what he was going to do.
He blinked five times, and then slowly, slowly, slowly he shrank back into the darkness of the house as if he was sinking into a bog. He became a vague dark shape in the hallway and then there was just blackness.
DogNut spat. Swore viciously. Was about to say something when a hideous racket started up – banging and shouting and clanking.
What now?
Smoke wafted from the house and the next moment the Collector came staggering out as if he’d been shoved from behind. He squealed as bright sunlight hit him and he raised an arm to shield his eyes. The sheets of newspaper were still incongruously pinned to his belly, like a napkin in a gimmicky restaurant. They flapped in the breeze.
Marco and Felix and the three museum boys now burst out of the front door, banging pots and pans together. Felix had a rolled-up newspaper that he’d set light to. He waved it at the sicko and the boys threw their pans at him. He tottered across the pavement. The fire, at least, seemed to frighten him and Marco was goading and prodding him with his spear, all the while yelling and screaming like a mad person.
The waiting kids now formed a circle round the sicko and began jabbing at him with their own weapons, and they, too, shouted, hurling obscenities at the huge father who tried to ward them off with his massive arms. Every now and then he would let out a long high-pitched wail and try to charge out of the circle, but every time he was driven back into the centre, the dogs snapping at him.
Sharp blades flashed and flickered at him, ripping his clothes. The newspaper was getting shredded. Patches of blood were appearing on his filthy, darkened skin.
‘Do him!’ someone shouted, and the kids laid into him with greater ferocity.
Paul went over to Felix and Marco.
‘Did you find her?’ he begged. ‘My sister. Where is she?’
‘Yeah, we found her,’ said Marco softly. ‘She’s dead, mate. I’m sorry. Weren’t nothing you could have done for her.’
‘I want her body.’
‘No you don’t,’ said Felix. ‘Leave her be.’
‘No …’
Paul made a move towards the house, and Felix and Marco held him back.
‘Leave her be!’ Felix repeated.
Paul fought his way free of them and turned on the Collector.
‘I’m going to kill him …’
Courtney stepped back from the circle of flailing kids. She couldn’t bear it any longer. The Collector was disgusting. He’d killed and mutilated God knows how many children, but to see him like this, a trapped animal, she couldn’t help but feel pity for him. She couldn’t watch as he was worn down by a thousand tiny cuts. The kids’ faces looked insane, drugged, worked up into a frenzy of bloodlust, every vile word they could think of spitting from their twisted lips.
This must have been what it was like to watch bear-baiting or a bullfight.
Hideous.
Still the cruel darting blades plunged into the father. Still the dogs’ teeth nipped at him. He was making a circle of blood in the road, stamping it into the ground with his bare feet as he kept up a horrible shrieking, crying sound. His strength was seeping away from him. He couldn’t last much longer. He fell first to his knees and then on to his side, and the kids just hacked and slashed at him and clubbed him and swore at him even more.