Chaos Walking: The Complete Trilogy (27 page)

I look at Viola. I know she sees what he’s thinking, what’s in his Noise, the pictures that ooze out of it. I know she does cuz I can see her face closing right up. I bump her arm and I flash my eyes over to our right, just about the only possibility we have for an escape.

“Oh,
please
run, boy,” Mr Prentiss Jr calls. “Please give me a reason to hurt you.”

The horse is so close we can hear its Noise, too, jittery and crazy.

There’s no farther down we can crouch.

He’s nearly on top of us.

I grip the knife and squeeze Viola’s hand once, hard, for luck.

It’s now or never.

And–

“NOW!” I yell.

We jump up and a gun blast rings out, splintering the branches over our heads, but we run anyway.

“GET!” Mr Prentiss Jr shouts to his horse and here they come.

In two bounds, his horse turns and jumps back to the road, following along it as we run. The strip twixt the road and the river ain’t getting any thicker and we can see each other as we go. Branches snap and puddles splash and feet slip and he pounds along the road matching our every step.

We ain’t gonna get away from him. We just ain’t.

But we try, each of us taking a twisty path up and over logs and thru bushes and Manchee’s panting and barking at our heels and the rain’s splashing down on us and the road’s getting closer and then it suddenly veers sharply towards the river and we got no choice but to cross it in front of him to get to the deeper woods on the other side and I can see Viola leaping over the boundary and onto the road with her arms pumping and Mr Prentiss Jr rounding the bend and he’s twirling something in his hand and we make a dash for the other side but the horse is roaring down on us and suddenly I feel something grab my legs, binding ’em so fast and so tight I fall right off my feet.

“Aaagh!” I yell and I hit my face into muck and fallen leaves and the rucksack goes over my head and nearly rips my arms off as it flies off my back and Viola sees me fall and she’s nearly cross the road but I see mud curling up from where her feet are digging in to stop herself and I shout, “NO! RUN! RUN!” and she locks my eyes and I see something change on her face but who knows what it means and as the horse bears down she turns and disappears into the woods and Manchee runs back to me and barks “Todd! Todd!” and I’m caught I’m caught I’m caught.

Cuz Mr Prentiss Jr is standing over me, breathing hard, high on his white horse, rifle cocked and pointed. I know what’s happened. He’s thrown a rope with weights at either end right at my legs and they’ve twisted round and caught me, expert, just like a hunter after swamp deer. I’m stuck down here in the mud on my belly, caught like an animal.

“My pa sure is gonna be glad to see you,” he says, his horse nervy and stepping side to side.
Rain,
I can hear it thinking, and
Is it a snake?

“I was just sposed to see if there were rumours of you on the road ahead,” Mr Prentiss Jr sneers, “but here you are, in the real honest-to-God flesh.”

“Eff you,” I say and do you think I say eff?

I’ve still got the knife in my hand.

“And it sure is making me quake with fear,” he says, moving the rifle so I’m looking right down the barrel. “Drop it.”

I hold my arm out away from me and drop the knife. It splashes in the mud and I’m still on my belly.

“Yer little lady sure didn’t show you no loyalty, now did she?” he says, hopping off his horse, calming it with his free hand. Manchee growls at him but Mr Prentiss Jr just laughs. “What happened to its tail?”

Manchee jumps, his teeth bared, but Mr Prentiss Jr is faster, kicking him away with a vicious boot to the face. Manchee yelps and cowers into the bushes.

“Friends abandoning you right and left, Todd.” He walks over to me. “But that’s the lesson you learn, eh? Dogs is dogs and women turn out to be dogs, too.”

“You
shut
up,” I say, clenching my teeth.

His Noise goes all fake sympathy and triumph. “Poor, poor Toddy. All this time travelling with a woman and I’m guessing you never figured out what to do with one.”

“You stop talking bout her,” I spit. I’m still on my belly and my legs are still tied.

But I find I can bend my knees.

His Noise gets uglier, louder, but his face is all blank like a terror from a dream. “What you do, Todd,” he says, squatting down to get closer to me, “is you keep the ones that’re whores and you shoot the ones that’re not.”

He leans even closer. I can see the pathetic hairs on his upper lip, not even made darker by the rain coming down. He’s only two years older than me. Only two years bigger.

Snake?
thinks the horse.

I put my hands slowly down on the ground.

I push a little into the mud.

“After I tie you up,” he says, turning it into a whispering taunt, “I’ll go find yer little lady and let you know which kind she is.”

Which is when I jump.

I push up with my hands and kick forward hard with my legs, launching myself right at his face. The top of my head hits his nose with a crunch and he falls backwards, me coming down right on top of him. I hit him hard in the face with each fist while he’s still too surprised to react and then ram my knee into the man’s place twixt his legs.

He curls up like a bug and lets out a low, angry moan and I roll off him back over to my knife, picking it up and getting to my feet and I kick the gun away and I jump in front of the horse screaming “Snake! Snake!” and waving my arms which does the trick instantly and it turns and runs back down the road with a terrified whinny, riderless into the rain.

I look round and
BAM!
Mr Prentiss Jr hits me across the bridge of the nose with his fist but I don’t fall and he yells “You piece of–” and I swing my arm out with the knife in it and I make him jump back and I swing it again, water pouring outta my eyes from both the punch and the rain and he steps away from me, looking for his gun and limping a little and he sees it in the mud and he turns his body to fetch it and I’m not thinking at all and I jump on him, knocking him back down and he hits me with his elbow but I don’t fall off and my Noise is screaming and his Noise is screaming.

And I don’t even know how but I’ve got him on his back and the point of my knife held up under his chin.

We both stop struggling.

“Why are you after us?!” I shout into his face. “Why are you chasing us?!”

And him and his stupid pathetic non-moustache
smile
.

I knee him again twixt his legs.

He groans again and spits at me but I’ve still got the knife which has now made a little cut.

“My father wants you,” he finally says.

“Why?” I say. “Why does he want us?”

“
Us?
” His eyes go wide. “There’s no effing
us
. He wants you, Todd. Just you.”

I can’t believe this. “What?” I say. “
Why?
”

But he’s not answering. He’s looking into my Noise. He’s looking and searching.

“Hey!” I say, slapping him cross the face with the back of my hand. “Hey! I’m asking you an asking!”

But the smile’s back. I can’t effing believe it but the smile’s back.

“You know what my father always says, Todd Hewitt?” he leers up at me. “He says a knife is only as good as the one who wields it.”

“Shut up,” I say.

“Yer a fighter, I’ll give you that.” Still smiling, still bleeding a little below his chin. “But you ain’t no killer.”

“Shut
up
!” I yell but I know he can see in my Noise that I heard those exact words from Aaron.

“Oh, yeah?” he says. “Whaddya gonna do about it?
Kill
me?”

“I WILL,” I shout. “I’ll
KILL
you!”

He just licks some rain from his lips and laughs. I have him pinned to the ground with a knife up under his chin and he’s
laughing
.

“STOP IT!” I scream at him and I raise the knife.

He keeps on laughing and then he looks at me and he says–

He says–

He says
this
–

“You wanna hear how Ben and Cillian screamed for mercy before I shot ’em twixt the eyes?”

And my Noise buzzes red.

And I clench the knife to strike at him.

And I’m going to kill him.

I’m going to
kill
him.

And–

And–

And–

And right at the top of my swing–

Right at the moment when I start to bring it down–

Right at the moment when the power is mine to command and do with as I please–

I hesitate–

Again
–

I hesitate–

Only for a second–

But goddam me–

Goddam me forever and forever–

Cuz in that second he kicks up his legs, throws me off him and elbows me in the throat. I lean over choking and I can only feel his hand wrench the knife away from my own.

As easy as candy from a baby.

“Now, Todd,” he says, standing over me, “let me show you a thing or two about wielding.”

I deserve it. I’ve done everything wrong. I deserve it. If I had the knife back I’d kill myself with it. Except I’d probably be too much of a coward to do that, too.

“Yer some piece of work, Todd Hewitt,” Mr Prentiss Jr says, examining my knife.

I’m kneeling now, knees in the mud, hand at my throat, still trying to get my breath.

“You had this fight won and then you went and just threw it away.” He runs a finger up the blade. “Stupid as well as yella.”

“Just finish it,” I mumble into the mud.

“What was that?” Mr Prentiss Jr says, the smile back, his Noise bright.

“Just FINISH IT!” I shout up to him.

“Oh, I’m not gonna kill you,” he says, his eyes flashing. “My pa wouldn’t be too happy with that, now would he?”

He steps up to me and holds the knife near my face. He puts the tip of it into my nose so I have to hold my head back farther and farther.

“But there’s lots of things you can do with a knife,” he says, “without killing a man.”

I’m not even looking round no more for ways to get away.

I’m looking right into his eyes which are awake and alive and about to win, his Noise the same, pictures of him in Farbranch, pictures from back at my farm, pictures of me kneeling in front of him.

There ain’t nothing in my Noise but a pit full of my stupidity and worthlessness and hate.

I’m sorry, Ben.

I’m so, so sorry.

“But then again,” he says, “you
ain’t
a man, are ya?” He lowers his voice. “And you never will be.”

He moves the knife in his hand, turning the blade towards my cheek.

I close my eyes.

And I feel a wash of silence flow over me from behind.

My eyes snap open.

“Well, looky here,” Mr Prentiss Jr says, glancing up over the top of my head. My back is to the deeper woods opposite the river and I can feel the quiet of Viola standing there as clearly as if I could see her.

“Run!” I yell, without turning round. “Get away from here.”

She ignores me. “Step back,” I hear her say to Mr Prentiss Jr. “I’m warning you.”

“Yer warning
me
?” he says, pointing to himself with the knife, the smile back on his face.

Then he jumps a little as something smacks him in the chest and sticks there. It looks like a bunch of little wires with a plastic bulb on the end. Mr Prentiss Jr puts the knife underneath it and tries to flick it off but it stays stuck. He looks up at Viola, smirking. “Whatever this is sposed to be, sister,” he says, “it didn’t work.”

And
SMACKFLASH!!

There’s a huge clap of light and I feel a hand on the back of my collar yank me back to the point of choking. I fall back and away as Mr Prentiss Jr’s body jerks into a spasm, flinging the knife out to one side, sparks and little flashes of lightning flying out of the wires and into his body. Smoke and steam comes from everywhere, his sleeves, his collar, his pantlegs. Viola’s still pulling me back outta the way by my neck when he falls to the ground, face first in the muck, right on top of his rifle.

She lets go and we tumble together on a little bank by the side of the road. I grab my neck again and we lay there breathing heavily for a second. The sparks and flashes stop and Mr Prentiss Jr twitches in the mud.

“I was afraid –” Viola says twixt deep breaths “– all this water around –” breath “– that I might take you and me with him –” breath “– but he was about to cut–”

I stand without saying nothing, my Noise focused, my eyes on the knife. I go right to it.

“Todd–” Viola says.

I pick it up and stand over him. “Is he dead?” I ask without looking at Viola.

“Shouldn’t be,” she says. “It was just the voltage from a–”

I raise the knife.

“Todd, no!”

“Give me one good reason,” I say, knife still hovering, eyes still on him.

“You’re not a killer, Todd,” she says.

I spin round to her, my Noise roaring up like a beast. “Don’t SAY THAT!! Don’t you EVER SAY THAT!!”

“Todd,” she says, her hand out, her voice calming.

“I’M why we’re in this mess! They’re not looking for YOU! They’re looking for
ME!
” I turn back to Mr Prentiss Jr. “And if I could kill one of them, then maybe we–”