The Rise of the Phoenix (4 page)

“Do you think that makes me bad?”

“I don’t know. Does it make you bad?”

“Do you think I kill things? Eat them alive?”

The boy didn’t know. He imagined so. That was what his parents said to him. “Maybe,” he replied. “Can I just use the phone to call my dad?”

“They killed my sister, you know. People like you.”

“Maybe she had done something wrong,” the boy suggested. “They don’t just kill
Others
for no reason.”

Robert laughed. “Really? My dad says we should turn you all and see how you like it.”

“You can turn us? Like for real? Make me into a wolf like you?”

Robert nodded. A smile played on his lips, but there was ill intent in it. The innocent boy didn’t pick up on it, however.

“How?”

“Just a bite. A nick. Nothing.”

“It hurts?”

Robert shook his head, his eyes gleaming malevolently. “Do you want to see?”

“Will it be forever?”

Robert shrugged unperturbedly. “I don’t think so. My dad says
Other
blood knows better and gets the hell out. So maybe it just goes away.”

“You can do it?”

“Yes. You want to? Give me your arm and I’ll show you.” Robert grinned then and the boy watched as teeth elongated from the top of his gums, until they were like that of a small dog. His eyes had shifted, too. It made the boy excited, but a little afraid as well. “It won’t hurt, probably won’t even work,” Robert said, but with difficulty now, his teeth making it hard to talk. “Your arm?”

The boy chewed on the inside of his lip for a moment and stared at Robert’s eyes and then his teeth. Wouldn’t it be great to do it? “Okay, but I don’t want my mum to know,” he breathed. He slipped off his wet coat and then unbuttoned his shirt to allow it to slip from his shoulder. He offered his bare upper arm to Robert, his stomach twisting in excitement.

Robert stepped forward, opened his mouth and sunk his teeth into the boy’s young flesh.

FIVE

The rain had gone. The solid rays of the sun shone down through the clouds and touched the wet ground like spotlights. The boy stared at them, bewildered. He turned his head slowly one way and then the other, eyeing each of them with fascination. The rays were so bright, as if they could be walked upon. He traced along one, but it ended somewhere in the trees to the side of the road. Was it like with a rainbow? If he found the end, would there be something wondrous there? 

His mother was just ahead of him. She stood watching as Robert’s father secured the new wheel on the car. She didn’t appear to have noticed her son standing just a little behind them, or if she had, she didn’t acknowledge him. He didn’t mind, though. He was happy just to stand and watch. The world was slower than it was before. The boy imagined that if he heard someone talking, their voices would sound like a 45 record on 33 speed. As if in a trance, he lifted his arm in front of him, in a way expecting it to float up on its own. A fly buzzed around the boy’s head, zipped down, bounced against his hand, and then around it went again. He watched it for a moment, the soft buzzing filling his ears. It swirled around in front of him, flying in some haphazard way with no real purpose. He reached out and plucked the fly from the air as if it had just been sitting stationary on a shelf.  He clasped it in his closed fist, but not enough to kill it. He could feel the fly in his hand, its desperate plight as it bashed and buzzed to get out. The boy slowly unfurled his fingers, and after a moment’s hesitation, the fly was gone.

The world around him was moving in slow motion. The trees and their branches danced lazily on the breeze, rippling up and down as if caught on invisible waves. A bird above flapped its wings, its speed as slow as everything else.

Had he just opened his eyes? That was how it felt. He had no idea or any recollection of how he had got back to the road. Did he walk? Could he walk now? He attempted to lift one heavy foot, but it was weighted down by nothing he could see. He closed his eyes. What was happening? His skin grew cold and his mind began to race. His mind searched desperately for answers as to what had just happened.

“We’re done.” The sound of his mother’s voice snapped him awake. He was standing by his mother and Robert’s father, but he had no recollection of having got there. He was sure he hadn't been standing there a moment ago. He turned to glance back at where he thought he had just been standing, as if maybe by looking he would see something that would confirm he had been there.

“Are you okay?” his mother asked him.

The boy nodded, slow and lazy, like the bird he had just seen. He couldn’t quite place what was happening or why. He had been in the house. How had he got here suddenly?

“Thank you again,” his mother said to Robert’s father, catching the boy’s attention once more. The man wasn’t paying his mother any attention at all, though. The boy’s eyes met the man’s, locking onto each other with a new kind of recognition. Something stirred inside the boy, an echo of himself, a shadow of which he was a part. Something … something he didn’t understand and couldn’t place, but it was there all the while. Could the man see it? Was that why he stared? The man’s eyes flickered with shades of gold and blue, like book covers that reveal a different picture when you turn it one way and then the other.

“Thank you,” the boy whispered, echoing his mother’s words, only his were more nervous. For some reason, he wanted to leave. Something in the man’s gaze grated against the boy’s skin. The air grew dense and the hairs on his nape pricked. Robert’s father wiped his hands on a handkerchief, his eyes never leaving the boy. He reached out slowly, as if wanting to touch him. The boy’s heart sped up and he took a hasty step backwards. He quickly darted around the man to the passenger side of the car. He didn’t know if the man was going to grab him, thank him, or simply point out he had scuffs on his shoes or something. But whatever it was, the boy didn’t care. Something in his gut told him that they needed to leave. Now.

“Can we go?” he urged his mother. He scrambled into the passenger seat. “
Please
.”

“Are you okay?” His mother looked at him with a worried expression on her face. She showed no intention of starting the engine and getting them out of there. If she waited any longer, the boy was going to reach over and turn the keys himself.

“I’m cold,” he lied. His desperate mind couldn’t come up with anything cleverer. He wrapped his arms around himself in an attempt to be more convincing. The truth was he was far from cold. If anything, he could feel the start of a fever at the nape of his neck - but damn it, he needed her to get them out of there.

He watched in the wing mirror. The man was still in the road, but he had moved so that he was on the boy’s side of the car. He wrung his hands in the handkerchief, twisting it around plump, shovel-like hands. Then, with eyes glinting menacingly, the man lifted the handkerchief in front of him and tore it in two, the fabric tearing like paper. The boy’s breathing ratcheted up a notch at the sudden malicious intent clear on the man’s face. He pushed the lock down on his door and kept his eyes on the mirror as his mother set off.

The countryside was dense woodlands that seemed to go on forever. He was sure that the man was in there somehow and following them. But not only that, he was sure he was keeping up, too. The shadows seemed to run along with them. Each second they slowed, the boy expected the man to leap out and jump against the car like a movies-style monster, who would then rip the door from its hinges and fling the boy out onto the side of the road, where he would gut him. It was only when they got to the main road, the one that was closer to their town than to the lanes and the countryside, that he started to calm a little. They were safe … safer ... now.

He dared to look at his arm. It felt numb, that feeling when it’s been leant on for too long and only now was the circulation coming back. The tingle was in his fingertips. His arm had started to burn. It was a weird burn, though. More like something that burned cold rather than hot. His neck was getting warmer, too, the clammy heat of a fever spreading down his back and around his chest. He fingered the collar of his jacket and then his shirt, pushing them both down so that he could see.

“What are you doing?”

The boy shot upright. He had forgotten that his mother was there. He had got lost inside his head again, just like before when it had felt as though he had only just opened his eyes. They were on the main road close to home now. It was near where he went to school, just down the long hill and then around the roundabout and home. “Nothing,” he replied quickly, trying to pull his shirt back up.

His mother reached over before he could stop her and hooked her fingers into his collar, yanking his sleeve down. He tried to move back but there was nowhere to go. The bite wasn’t bleeding any longer, but the large, dark wound, which was now bubbling at the surface, had his mother shrieking.

“
Jesus Christ
, what the
hell
is that?”

He looked at her guiltily and her expression went from shocked to stricken.

“Your eyes.” The words were uttered in a bare whisper.

Before he could say anything, a movement outside caught his attention. A car had suddenly appeared from out of nowhere. Time slowed once more and he looked on helplessly as it got closer and closer. Everything else outside had stopped and frozen in time. He watched as the hood of the green car inched forward as if in slow motion. Confusion clouded his brain. Why was it there? Why was it moving?

A loud, deafening noise reverberated all around them, a sound that would stay embedded in the boy’s memory forever from that point on. The sickening crunch of metal hitting metal. He slammed his hands onto the dashboard at the impact. Desperate horns shrilled loudly. Their car spun around. Glass smashed somewhere in the distance. The seatbelt yanked against his chest, jerking him back with bruising force.

He fought the black dots on his vision. They swam like thousands of moths in the light. They knitted together in front of his eyes until they formed a darkened veil that blinded him. He was sinking, falling backwards into some kind of oblivion. Then suddenly, he was floating.

Everything was silent. The boy opened his eyes again. The car door was gone and a man was standing there. He was talking to him, but he couldn’t make any sense of the words. He blinked, but for that instant when his eyes closed, the darkness seemed to grasp for him and try to pull him down.

“Open your eyes,” the voice said. “Stay with me. What’s your name?”

“My name?” Why was he asking his name? What a stupid question. He knew his name, of course. “It is … it is … My name. It is …” Like a stuck record, he was unable to form the last part of his sentence. He didn’t have the answer.

The boy tried to turn his head, but the man rested a hand against the side of his face. “Look at me. Keep your eyes this way. What’s your name?”

“Where’s my mum?” the boy asked, panic starting to set in.

“She’s getting some help,” the man said. “You were in an accident.”

He tried to turn his head again. It hurt, his neck was stiff, but he wanted to talk to her and ask what was happening. Instead, a woman came and crouched down by them. Like the man, she took the boy’s face in her hands and kept him facing forward so that he couldn’t see anything else.

“Just keep looking this way,” she said gently.

SIX

Twenty-one days since that day.

Fourteen days since he had begun his walk.

Five hundred and thirteen thousand steps marked in his book.

One heart that wasn’t sure it would ever be repaired. It was tired and weary, like everything else about him. He had walked from south to north, Swindon to Hamble. He had walked through towns and places, so many of them that it was too much to remember them all. Some of them he bore a memory of. He had written down signs he saw, marking them next to the number of steps. He stood now, at the end of another long day. His arms hung down by his sides. His tattered bag rested limply against his leg. His dirty fingers held it loosely, no energy left in him.

Tears pricked at the back of his eyes, but he was too tired to weep. He felt the ache in the back of his knees and the burn in his calves, but he was too weary to move and sit. The soles of his shoes were worn and wasted, with holes where he had pressed heavily on them. His feet were blistered and his starved
wolf
had long since lost the power to heal them anymore. His clothes hung loose against his skin now, barely fitting him - not that they had fit much before. They were torn and tatty and beyond repair, giving the appearance that he might have lived in them forever. His blonde hair was now matted and dark. It clung to his head with the grime and dirt of so many unsavoury places he had found to lay down in. He just wanted to sleep forever. He feared that he might if he were to close his eyes.

Just in front of him were a couple of shops. The lane he had just walked along ended in a T shape. One way seemed to go downwards into a valley and fields, the other way went up. There were trees as far as the eye could see. It was darker that way, too. It called inside to him.

One of the two shops just ahead was a video rental shop, but it doubled up as an arcade. Around the edges, he could see pinball machines. In the centre was a pool table, where a group of boys around his age were playing. Next door was a convenience shop, no doubt selling everything from washing powder to the latest newspapers and magazines. He had seen the headlines on papers as he travelled. There was a child missing. Not him. A young boy whose family had been searching desperately for him. He had been found, battered, beaten, torn apart, and dead. The news headlines had read along the lines of
Others strike again
and
How can we keep our children safe?
Some images had shown movie-like half-men, half-wolves with snarling snouts and dripping teeth. Another way to evoke fear into the hearts of the
Humans
and to have them demand once more that the abominations they called
Others
should be culled for the sake of humanity.

That was why no one was looking for him. There were no pictures of sobbing parents on the front of the broadsheets. No school picture of him smiling with delight. No one was looking for him. No one cared if he was safe or not. Yet here he was alive and well. It didn’t seem fair that that boy would die and he got to live. The other boy was wanted, and he was not. It should have been him who was dead.

The boy slumped down on a patch of grass next to a public bench. He sat on the kerb and put his feet down into the gutter. It was dry today, like the last few weeks. The sun had seemed relentless recently. Ants had taken residence in the gutter. He watched them, listened to them. He was getting accustomed to his enhanced hearing. He could hear the ants as their tiny feet scratched against the concrete, the sound like the low hum of a machine. He supposed that’s what they were, like everything else in the world. Just a cog going about its business, making everything turn. Maybe he was nothing more than a discarded spare part with no purpose of existing any longer.

With a heavy sigh, he tucked his backpack under his legs and then leant forwards to rest his overly tired head on his knees. He wrapped his arms around himself, a position he had taken every night recently when he slept. It kept him warm curling up so tight, but it kept his things safe, too. He hadn't intended on falling asleep this time. He just needed to rest and to stretch his aching back. But sleep swallowed him within seconds of putting his head down. It was only when he felt a sharp pain in his ribs that he jumped awake, his sleep-filled, unfocused eyes darting around in alarm. He blinked rapidly, trying to shake off the sleepy haze.

It was darker than when he had originally sat down. He must have been asleep for quite a long time. His back was stiff and his eyes swollen and drowsy. Five boys stood around him. The one in front with braces grinned, and the boy to his left jabbed him with a stick in the ribs again. He reached out to grab the stick from him. “Stop it,” he shouted. The boy sneered and then did it again. He jabbed the way someone might do to a dead animal that they had found at the side of the road.

“You don’t get to sleep here,” Braces said. “This is
Human
land. You belong over there with the pigs.” He pointed to a field just to the back of them. Only, there weren’t pigs there, but sheep.

“He’d probably just eat them,” Braces laughed. He was a tall boy, older than the rest, but twice as skinny. Bones jutted out visibly under his clothes.

“Is that right? You’d eat them?” said Stick boy and jabbed at him again. “Think it would be your right to just come here and eat our livestock?”

“No.” He held his hands up to try to defend himself from the jabs. The other boys stood around watching. The one next to Braces was smaller; he held a skateboard under his arm. To the other side of Stick boy was a fat boy. Sweat beaded his forehead and he could smell the fear dripping from him. It was acrid and stung his nostrils, making his
wolf
lift up its head in attention. Next to Fat boy was a younger boy - much younger. Maybe one of the boys’ siblings.

He had his bag.

“Hey, that’s mine,” he cried. He tried to snatch it back but an awful thwack with the stick had him pulling his hands back again in pain. The small boy scuttled backward and hugged the bag to him as if it were some prize.

“It’s Billy’s now,” Stick boy said and laughed. The others sniggered and laughed too. He tried to stand, but Stick boy shook his head. “Not until we tell you you can.” He shoved him back down onto the grass.

Under his skin, his
wolf
came alive. Hot fur prickled under his skin.  It ran along the inside, letting him know that he was there. His
wolf
- he had hated it. Or so he had thought, at least. But now, that wolf he thought he abhorred was ready to protect him. “Give me back my bag,” he growled.

“Only
Humans
can have possessions,” Stick boy grinned. “And last time I checked, you were not
Human
.”

The boy was about to correct him and tell him that he was
Human
, but then he remembered that that was no longer true. He clamped his mouth shut, fury starting to blaze inside. He sat back, appearing relaxed, but he was anything but. Inside, the
wolf
was beginning to rage. His father’s words echoed in his mind.
Take the big one out first. The rest will run.
The big one he supposed was the boy with the stick. He was the one in charge, at least.

“You need to give me back my bag,” he commanded, staring Stick boy in the eyes. “I’m not joking.”

“Oh, he’s not joking,” Skateboard boy mocked, making the others guffaw loudly.

He pushed off the grass a little harder, almost managing to stand. His hands grabbed one of the buckles of the bag, but Billy held on tight, pulling it back with determination. But looking at the young boy, he realised he was wrong. It wasn’t determination he could see in his eyes. It was fear - deep fear.

“Give me the bag,” he said in a deadly quiet voice. “And I won’t hurt you.”

Billy hesitated. He wanted to open his fingers and let the bag go, the boy could see that. Unsure, he glanced to Stick boy and Braces.

“Don’t you dare, Billy,” Braces said.

“You don’t ever let one of these take from you,” Stick boy said with disdain. “You know what we do to them when they try to take from us.”

The boy’s eyes shifted. The world changed and shimmered brightly in warm shades. “Give me the bag,” he growled. His voice was no longer that of a thirteen-year-old boy. It was deep and unhuman.

It was Stick boy who struck first, bringing the stick down onto the boy’s arm with all his might. “It is not yours,” he yelled in all his fury. The boy rolled back to get out of the way as Skateboard advanced. The boy managed to half stand, but Skateboard brought his board down in a swing that took the boy in his stomach and sent him flailing backwards. 

Fat boy and Billy moved backwards, but Braces, Skateboard and Stick boy moved forwards. It was Stick boy and Skateboard that grabbed his arms and held him up between them.

“Do you think you can take from us?” Braces screamed. “Do you think that you can tell us what to do?” He slammed clenched fists into the boy’s stomach. He would have doubled over, but all he could do was raise his legs as the other boys held him in place. Braces thumped him three times until the boy couldn’t breathe and was spitting blood out of red-marked teeth.

“You take this as a lesson,” Braces spat. “We are
Human
and you are nothing.” He turned to face Fat boy and Billy. “Get here, Terry,” he shouted, motioning to Fat boy. Fat boy shook his head. “God damn it, Terry. Don’t be a coward and get here or you're gone. We’ll leave you with this here.”

The fat boy was shaking. His scent was stronger than Billy’s. Fingertips spilt open and claws slowly unsheathed. The bones in the boy’s hands started to realign, and he felt them separate. His teeth moved and bigger ones slid down. His cheeks bulged, making his eyes sore. Fat boy came closer. The boy glowered at him.

“Look at him,” Braces called out. “He dares to stare at you. Show him what we do.” He grabbed Fat boy and thrust him forwards.

The boys all started to chant. “Terry, Terry, Terry …” Fat boy’s face twisted with forced hate and anger. His pudgy fists clenched. Skateboard and Stick boy thrust the boy forwards and let go of him, giving Fat boy no choice but to fight or have the boy land on him. The two of them went down. Someone kicked the boy so that he was forced to get off Fat boy. Fat boy stood up again. He brought his foot against the boy’s gut. He brought it back, once, twice, three times. He was grinning now and screaming with his rage. The boys chanted on and on. “Terry, Terry, Terry ...” they jibed.

The boy could do nothing but curl his arms around his head and bring his knees up. Blood squirted out of his nose. The copper taste filled his mouth. His stomach ached. He was going to vomit. Parts of himself moved and realigned and his mind floated away. All of them were kicking him now. He couldn’t even feel their blows any longer. Everywhere was bruised and hurting.

The boy didn’t think. They were one now - boy and
wolf.
He was in a partially shifted form, hands deformed paws with claws. One snatched out, fast. It connected with cloth and flesh. Guttural screams pierced the air. The boy didn’t let go. He dug deeper, thrusting his hand up and out. He wrapped his clawed fingers around something soft, warm and wet, and then he pulled with everything he had in him. He let out a feral scream of his own. Blood spurted all over him, covering his face, going into his mouth and igniting the hunger that he had denied for so long.

The boy was beyond it now. The
wolf
had emerged fully. His nostrils flared as he rolled onto his side. Hunger so deep drove his mind to the brink of madness, and he brought his hand to his mouth and bit down onto what he was holding. Desperation made him force flesh and tissue into his mouth. Pushing each part in until he was almost choking. He pushed in more than he could ever dare to chew, but his mouth changed shape, the large teeth now forcing his mouth open. His bones pushed out, forming a wolf’s snout. He could hear screams and cries, but he could no longer feel the blows against him. He rose up - half boy, half wolf. His bag was on the ground and next to him lay Fat boy ... his stomach torn open, his arms and legs twitching.

Almost retching, the boy snatched up his bag and ran.