The Killing (8 page)

He decided the best strategy was to stay where he was, counting out the minutes until the exercise ended and hoping that no one would stumble into him. He glanced at his watch again, as his mind fixed on the cold drink he hoped to get hold of in a hundred and thirty-two minutes.

The last hours of the exercise contained nothing like the full-blown battles of the evening before. James suspected that most teams had run low on equipment. Ammunition, working rifles and eggs were in short supply; most importantly, so was the energy required to fight. Only the sounds of occasional light skirmishes disrupted the morning birdsong.

To pass the time, James messed with Kerry’s rifle. Although he’d smashed it against the wall and knocked a lump out of the wooden stock, it only took a light clean and a few adjustments with the attached
multitool
to get the firing mechanism running. The trouble was, he still didn’t have any ammunition.

He stretched and massaged the tender area of his back and took a pee in the hallway outside, but after an hour boredom got the better of him and he decided to explore. He started off checking out the rest of the house. He found a couple of discarded ammo clips. Occasionally, people will drop a clip with a few shots left and replace it with a full one if they’re heading into action, but all he found were empties.

The back of the building had a small garden, and James crept outdoors with the intention of jumping over the waist-height wall into the next one. But as he raised his leg, he came over light-headed and for a moment thought he was going to be sick. He lay out on the grass and raised his visor a couple of centimetres to breathe some fresh air.

James was slightly worried. By CHERUB standards this wasn’t a particularly tough training exercise, but he felt weak.

A half-hour before 8 a.m., he recognised Lauren and Bethany cutting along the alleyway behind the garden wall. They were the first figures he’d seen in more than an hour, so he decided it was safe to expose his position with a ‘Meow’.

‘Woof,’ Lauren replied.

James was happy to see them, despite the humiliation of having no eggs or ammo while the girls’ confident air suggested that they were doing OK. As they clambered over the wall, James made a rough count of the splats on their uniforms and realised they’d each taken six or seven hits, about the same as him.

‘What’s up with you?’ Lauren asked. ‘You’re all stooped.’

‘I was tired before we even started. Then I got a killer shot in the back and Kerry thumped me in the same spot with her elbow. It’s agony.’

Bethany laughed. ‘Lovers’ tiff.’

James ignored the jab. ‘I lost my canteen,’ he said. ‘Have either of you got any water left?’

Lauren nodded as she pulled her pack off her shoulder and handed James a metal canteen with a long plastic straw on top. ‘We found a standpipe inside one of the houses and topped our bottles up.’

James grabbed the canteen, fed the straw up through the base of his helmet and began to gulp.

‘Don’t drink it all, greedy guts,’ Lauren gasped, snatching her canteen back.

‘So, have you got any eggs left?’ James asked.

Lauren nodded. ‘I’ve got two, Bethany’s got four. You?’

James shook his head. ‘Have you seen Dana and Jake?’

‘We met up with them at about four a.m.,’ Lauren said. ‘They reckoned Kerry and Gabrielle were after them.’

‘Were they getting on OK?’ James asked.

‘Dana seemed her usual surly self,’ Bethany said, shaking her head. ‘But I actually got the impression that my psychotic little brother had started to enjoy himself.’

James nodded. ‘It might be fun if it was paintball or laser tag; but this simulated ammunition is too damned painful.’

‘I guess that’s the whole point of the exercise,’ Lauren said. ‘We’re supposed to be learning how to act when we’re tired and under lots of stress, not having some jolly shoot-up.’

James nodded. ‘I just hope we don’t get that ten-kilometre run for finishing last. Mind you, I’m wringing under this suit, so I could probably live with the cold shower.’

*

As soon as the siren went off, James, Lauren and Bethany ripped off their visors and took in giant gasps of fresh air. As they headed towards the square in the middle of the compound where they’d been instructed to meet at the end of the exercise, the three of them unzipped their overalls and pulled their hands through their sleeves, leaving the thickly padded arms dangling down behind their legs.

James was feeling slightly better and forty minutes’ chatting with the girls had helped refocus his mind away from his aches and pains, but they’d run out of drinking water.

Bethany scratched beneath the sweaty grey CHERUB T-shirt stuck to her belly as she walked. ‘God, I’m thirsty,’ she gasped.

‘Tell me about it,’ James said, as he pulled his T-shirt over his head.

‘You should be all right,’ Lauren huffed. ‘You drank most of mine.’

The morning sun felt nice on James’ bare back, as the T-shirt weighed heavy in his hands like a wet flannel.

‘You know what?’ he said exuberantly. ‘I’m so thirsty I could drink my own sweat.’

He held the T-shirt in the air over his head, poked out his tongue and gave it a squeeze. Bethany recoiled in horror as salty drips rained down on James’ face and tongue.

Lauren screamed out and gave her brother a shove. ‘James, stop that
 
now
. That’s the grossest thing ever.’

‘Don’t you want a drop then?’ James giggled, as he flung the soggy shirt at his sister.

Lauren dodged and the shirt
splatted
harmlessly against the pavement, but she still closed up and gave her brother a brutal kick on the ankle.

‘You’re disgusting,’ she raged. ‘We could go on a field trip to a sewer and you’d still lower the tone.’

James laughed as he picked up his T-shirt.

‘That bruise on your back is so bad, James,’ Bethany said.

James tried to get a look over his shoulder, but it was impossible without a mirror. ‘I expect we’ve all got a few of them,’ he said.

They rounded a corner into the square and were delighted to see seven kids from various teams standing in front of a fold-out table covered in bottles of mineral water. James shoved his way between a couple of smaller kids and grabbed two bottles. He drank half of the first one and was pouring the remainder over his head when he spotted Kerry. She’d stripped off her boots, socks and overalls. Her long black hair was soaking and she had drips trickling down her face.

They looked awkwardly at one another, unsure how to react after what had passed between them during the night.

Kerry smiled a little. ‘No hard feelings?’

James smiled back and gave her a quick kiss. ‘Nah, course not.’

‘Have you heard about Kyle?’ Kerry asked.

‘No, what?’

‘Took a hit in the neck. They had to take him to the hospital.’

‘These simulated rounds are bad-assed,’ James said, shaking his head. ‘Look at my back.’

‘Matches mine,’ Kerry said, lifting up her vest to reveal a giant red welt next to her belly button.

‘You’ve got a couple of bad ones down your legs, as well,’ James noted.

‘So,’ Lauren interrupted, looking at Kerry. ‘How many eggs has your team got left?’

Kerry’s tone turned serious. She was always competitive and there was the unpleasant prospect of a ten-kilometre punishment run hanging over their heads.

‘All my team are back,’ she said dejectedly. ‘We’ve only got five eggs between us.’

Lauren snapped her head towards James and grinned. ‘I’ve got two, Bethany’s got four and Dana and Jake aren’t even back yet.’

Kerry allowed herself to smile. ‘I wouldn’t hold out much hope on that score; me and Gabrielle caught up with them.’

James couldn’t help smiling. ‘Who cares?’ he grinned. ‘We’ve still got more eggs than you, Kerry. You’d better hope either Kyle’s team or Team B have less than five eggs.’

‘Some of Kyle’s team are over there,’ Lauren pointed. ‘Kyle’s out, but they’ve got at least eight eggs.’

Kerry looked seriously troubled. ‘I can run ten kilometres easy, but how am I gonna get my little red-shirt through it?’

‘I’m sorry,’ James said solemnly.

Kerry didn’t seem to believe him. ‘I
 
bet
 
you are,’ she tutted, as she swivelled on her bare feet and headed anxiously towards Gabrielle for an emergency conference.

‘You can’t blame me,’ James shouted after her; though he knew she would because he’d broken her eggs.

Lauren looked up at James. ‘I wouldn’t worry, you know how moody she gets.’

‘Yeah,’ James nodded, breaking into a relieved grin that he made sure Kerry couldn’t see. ‘I probably won’t be getting my tongue in her mouth for a few days, but at least we’ve avoided the ten-K run.’

Lauren backed away with a look of disgust. ‘
Eww
, what an image: your horrible
gobby
tongue.’

A few more kids had arrived at the water table, including Dana and Jake, but it was the arrival of Team B that caught everyone’s attention. Whereas the other teams arrived in dribs and paint-splattered drabs, the Bs were all together. Their protective suits were unmarked and they held their helmets under their arms as if they were a NASA crew about to board the space shuttle.

‘We were fighting all night long,’ James gasped. ‘They’re not even sweaty.’

Lauren racked her brains. ‘I can’t actually remember
seeing
any
 
of that lot. They must have hidden out, while the rest of us massacred each other.’

‘God they all look so smug,’ James said. ‘I bet they haven’t lost a single egg.’

*

And they almost hadn’t. The instructors, Mr Large and his assistants Pike and Greaves, arrived in three open-backed Land Rovers, blasting their horns and sending a shower of kids diving across the paved square. Large divided the teams up and began carefully inspecting every egg for the
minutest
sign of a crack.

Though Kyle himself wasn’t there, Team A scored eight. Mr Large actually broke into a smile after he’d finished inspecting Team B.

‘One slight crack means twenty-nine out of thirty eggs. It’s not often you brats impress me, but that
 
is
 
impressive.’

Team B was led by a fifteen-year-old girl called Clara Ward. She was in a couple of James’ science classes and he couldn’t stand her because she was well behaved, always handed her homework in on time and always got brilliant marks.

‘Thank you
 
very
 
much, sir,’ Clara said, as she made James hate her even more by smiling at Mr Large and saluting him.

James made a gagging noise, then whispered in Lauren’s ear, ‘What a crawler. Cherubs don’t salute.’

‘I know,’ Lauren whispered back. ‘What does she think this is, the army?’

‘So how did you do it?’ Mr Large asked.

Clara smiled. ‘Sir, I rode up here on my bike a couple of days ago and checked out the compound. I found two easy-to-defend buildings on the northeast side, next to the lake. They’re only accessible via a narrow alleyway. We ran there as soon as the mission started and fortified our positions by moving some of the cars parked outside. The only resistance we encountered was one brief exchange of fire with a couple of members from Team D.’

‘Good work,’ Mr Large said crisply as he moved on to Team C and stopped in front of Kerry.

‘Oh
deary
,
deary
, dear,’ Mr Large said, when he saw the five eggs Kerry held out in a single polystyrene box. He took each egg out and carefully inspected it for cracks. ‘Five eggs,’ Large said solemnly. ‘Extremely poor. Even in the unlikely event that another team does worse than you, you can still expect me to write a negative report on your leadership skills.’

Kerry looked miserable as Mr Large strolled onwards with his two assistants in tow. James tried giving his girlfriend a sympathetic smile, but he couldn’t catch her eye.

‘So, Team D, led by The Addams Family,’ Mr Large said, allowing himself a dry laugh at his own little joke.

‘Six eggs, sir,’ James said, holding out the full box.

James had checked the eggs for cracks less than two minutes earlier, but his heart still thumped as Mr Large ran his eye over them.

‘They’re all OK,’ James said edgily.

Mr Large picked out the first of Lauren’s two eggs. ‘Whose eggs are these?’ Large snapped.

Lauren stepped forward with a sense of dread. ‘Sir,’ she said weakly.

‘It has Lauren Adams written on these eggs,’ smirked Mr Large.

‘That
 
is
 
my name,’ Lauren said, too knackered to manage a sarcastic tone.

‘No it isn’t,’ Large grinned. ‘Your name is Puke. I’m not counting these eggs, because they haven’t got your correct name on them. Four eggs for Team D. You finish
 
last
.’