Crawlers (21 page)

‘I don't know if you can hear me,' said Robert. ‘I don't know how this works, or if you can even understand what I'm saying. But in case there's any of you left in there, Ben, I have to take this chance . . .'

Ben's ears noticed a soft mechanical sound to his right somewhere, but he paid it no mind and certainly didn't turn. At that moment his eyes were rooted on Robert's feet.

On seeing Robert, Ben's wonderful certainty had wavered. Now he felt anxious. He should have attacked Robert on sight but he had hesitated:
why
? For a time Ben hadn't been able to think of an answer, which only made him
more
anxious. Now, however, he had hit on a way to be certain again.

Protect the Queen
. So far, Robert had posed no threat: that was a reason not to attack. But he was on the last step now. If the toe of his shoe touched the floor at the bottom of the stairs, there would be no choice. If Robert set foot in Ben's kill zone, Ben would go for his throat.

‘I just want to say
sorry
,' Robert said, still standing on the bottom step. ‘We don't want to hurt you.'

The knowledge that there was something wrong with this statement was just penetrating Ben's mind when the noise to his right became suddenly identifiable as running footsteps.

‘This isn't personal,' said Robert.

Then something crashed into Ben and he was knocked to the floor.

For a second he was so surprised that he didn't even react. There were hands on him. Someone was wrestling him and struggling with him, turning him on his back, trapping him under their weight. It wasn't Robert: Robert was still standing on the bottom step, looking anxious. Another face reared up in his vision. Josh.

While Robert had come down the stairs, Josh had used the lift. While Robert had been talking, keeping Ben distracted, Josh had snuck out of the lift then charged into Ben and tackled him to the floor. He was sitting astride Ben's chest, with his knees on Ben's arms – the classic playground fight position of dominance. And now . . .

‘Now, Josh! Hit him! Knock him out!' yelled Robert.

Ben watched Josh's right fist swing down into his face.

The fist connected with Ben's left cheek, just on his lower jaw. His head, which was lifted forward at the time, flew back under the impact and bounced off the floor, but as it came up Josh was ready with another punch. A left this time, the punch connected with the right underside of Ben's chin and gave his neck a savage wrench as his head twisted helplessly under the blow. By chance the side of Ben's tongue happened to be between his teeth: upper and lower molars clashed together on it, crushing a centimetre-size chunk. His mouth filled with
blood. When he turned to look up, Josh's right fist was already coming down again: Josh hit him a third time, then, breathing hard now, a fourth. Ben didn't resist, just took it. Josh was pulling back for a fifth when—

‘Wait!' yelled Robert from the stairs. ‘Maybe that's enough!'

Silence, broken only by the harsh gasp of Josh's breaths.

Ben opened his eyes, looked up at Josh, and smiled.

One of Ben's teeth felt loose, and his face was already starting to swell. It hurt him to smile at Josh, but the pain was worth it for the answering expression he saw on Josh's face. Josh had looked so determined while he'd been hitting Ben – the way he'd stared down at him, so fierce. Now, as Ben smiled up at him, he watched Josh crack again, his face revealing the ugly uncertainty and fear behind it once more.

Fight for the Queen. Die for the Queen
. Ben opened his bloody mouth and screamed with joy.

Josh was kneeling on his arms, sitting on his stomach. But that wasn't going to hold back Ben. He gathered the electricity that had been building in his body and started to use it. With two short wrenching movements he freed his arms, planting his hands on the ground, elbows bent, to either side of himself. Then he began to sit up.

As soon as Josh felt the awful, remorseless strength inside Ben now he started hitting him again. But the punches were
wild and desperate and Ben barely felt them. While Josh kept swatting at him, Ben sat all the way up. Ben planted his left hand on Josh's chest and continued to force him back – as if Josh's entire body weight was nothing. Josh had stopped hitting him now and was trying to wriggle away, trying to keep his balance as Ben pushed him, shrinking from Ben's touch, knowing what was going to happen. But Ben tightened his grip, bunching Josh's school shirt in his fingers. He got his knees underneath himself and climbed to his feet, lifting Josh with him.

Ben looked Josh in the eye, pulled back his right fist, and let fly.

The punch took Josh on the point of the chin. His head jerked back, the rest of his body went after it and he hit the floor.

Ben stood over him, fingers flexing. But Josh didn't move.

One punch was all it had taken to stop Josh:
one punch
. Ben howled his frustration. He wanted a
fight
. He wanted to rip Josh limb from limb, dance in his blood, force his fingers in through his ribcage and crush the life from his heart.

But then Ben remembered. He turned, looking for his other enemy.

Robert was standing at the bottom of the stairs, cradling his arm. When Josh first tackled Ben, he had taken the last step. He was now standing on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, his mouth hanging open.

Robert had trespassed and doomed himself. He was in Ben's kill zone – a legitimate target. He was a danger to the Queen and Ben had to act accordingly. Oblivious to the way it made the blood drip down the front of his school shirt, Ben grinned his widest grin.

Then he sprang.

‘Am I not beautiful?' said the Queen, through Lauren's mouth.

Lauren's arms stretched wide. Behind her the creature that held her gave a delighted wriggle, quaking a full ten metres of milky blubber.

‘Am I not
gorgeous
?' asked the Queen. ‘Am I not truly the loveliest thing you ever saw in your life? Be honest now.'

Frozen in place, unable even to gag at the stench that surrounded her, Jasmine could not reply.

‘
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
' a scream was forced from Lauren's lips. A burst of mechanical-sounding laughter followed – ‘
HAHAHAHAH!
' – and four great whoofing blasts of foul breath boomed from the Queen's own tube of a mouth.

‘You find me repulsive,' the Queen stated. The prehensile tongue extended, lowering Lauren's face towards Jasmine's. ‘But I
love
you, Jasmine. Of all my subjects so far, I love you the best. Walk with me.'

Grunting with effort, the Queen heaved the last of her bulk up out of the pit. Then (
RAAASP
, wheeze, moan) she set off towards the other steel door Jasmine had noticed earlier. Jasmine went with her. She had no choice.

To Jasmine, the Queen, big as she was, looked a lot like a maggot. She moved like one too: the grey hoops of muscle down her sides alternately swelled and contracted, manipulating different sections of her body to pull her along. The
RAAAASP
was the sound the Queen's rubbery flesh made as it dragged across the brickwork; the moaning and wheezing was a sign of how much effort that took. With each lurch forward, gobs of slime sprang out like sweat droplets all over the Queen's body.

‘All this locomotion.' Lauren's mouth sneered in distaste. ‘Most irksome. But necessary. This place is no longer safe. Fortunately an escape route has been provided.'

They were approaching the other steel door. Beyond it lay a passageway of dripping brickwork, and an intensifying stink of human waste that rivalled even the Queen's distinctive odour. As Jasmine's helpless steps took her over the lip of the door, she realized she'd been right: she
had
smelled sewage earlier.

The sewer was bigger than Jasmine had expected, perhaps fifteen metres across. Also, unusually for a sewer, it had lights: more of the same globes she'd seen in the pit chamber had
been placed along the ceiling, leading away to her left. But a sewer was unmistakably what it was: a dark and reeking stream ran along a sunken concrete trough in its centre.

Still carrying Lauren, the Queen squeezed through the door after Jasmine. Turning her bulk with an effort, she started off up the tunnel, following the lights. Jasmine walked along at her side, unable to do anything else.

‘You need to understand what I am giving you, Jasmine,' the Queen said. ‘So now I will tell you something of who I am, and how I came to be here.

‘Like you, in a way, I am a chosen child of fate. But I am the lone survivor of
trillions
. In the final cataclysm of her death my mother scattered us like seeds across the universe. Our chances were slim. Many us of were destroyed – crushed to nothing by the vagaries of gravity, or scorched to dust by angry stars. Many, many more of us simply drifted for ever, falling through blackness endlessly, to nowhere. Of even those few that made safe landing, most fell on barren ground – desolate places, devoid of life. But I, Jasmine, fell somewhere
far
more promising . . .

‘For tens of millions of years I lay hidden, waiting for your kind to become worthy to serve me. By sixteen sixty-six (by your current calendar) your species was ready. Perhaps
too
ready: before I could establish my rule, the Corporation discovered my existence and took their steps to stop me. But
they were greedy and secretive, and they coveted my power for themselves. Though the Great Fire razed huge swathes of London, the Corporation succeeded in flushing me out and capturing me without the general population ever realizing the Fire's true purpose. In the Corporation's furtiveness shall lie my strength. Now, when the mass of humanity knows me, it will be because they will already have become my subjects.

‘Before her death sent me on my journey, my mother was Queen of Everything. I am her heir. With your help, Jasmine, I will claim my birthright. And this world shall be my capital.'

Robert backed away, holding his good hand palm out to ward Ben off. His foot caught on the bottom step: he tripped and fell flat on his back up the stairs.

Howling, Ben pounced. His knees were either side of Robert's chest. His hands closed eagerly around Robert's throat.

Robert's pudgy features, pocked with sweat, loomed up in Ben's vision. Disgust engorging his fury, Ben dug his thumbs into the loose flesh under Robert's jaw: he felt little rolls of neck-fat swell out between his fingers as he began to squeeze.

Robert's cheeks reddened quickly. His eyes bulged and turned bloodshot. His neck was hot under Ben's crushing hands,
and Ben imagined the breath and the life that were trapped there. Robert's lips were moving, mouthing something. Ben stared into Robert's eyes, at the pleading in them.

He hesitated again.

Ben's orders were clear. The love of the Queen depended on him carrying them out. But while he had been more than happy to fight for her against Josh, fighting Robert was a different story. All his certainty was gone. In its place was churning nausea. Something inside himself was . . . resisting.

Ben didn't understand it. Until a moment before, everything had been simple: no decisions, no consequences. All he had to do was obey, and obedience was joy.
Kill him
, said his brain.
Kill him now, and make things simple again
.

But somehow Ben just wouldn't do what he was told. Following all orders unquestioningly, like a good subject, just . . . wasn't in Ben's nature.

He frowned, and in that moment Robert reached up with his good hand and yanked the crawler from Ben's neck.

Ben's eyes rolled back in his head. His hands went slack and he sank forward, insensible.

For several seconds there was silence. Robert just lay there breathing. Pain was like a grinding white light in his skull and something was wrong with his eyes. The bare concrete ceiling
above him was only visible at the wrong end of a telescope full of darkness that juddered with the pulse of his blood.

Ben's head lolled with grotesque intimacy over Robert's left shoulder: Robert was trapped. Worse still, Ben was lying on Robert's broken arm, which Robert had been holding across his chest when he'd fallen. When he foolishly tried to use the arm to shift Ben, the pain flared and the darkness in his eyes threatened to swamp him. If it hadn't been for what he was holding in his good hand, he might have passed out.

Robert's hand was at his side, palm up, so the crawler was upside-down. It was twitching madly, thrashing its legs as it tried to right itself and find another victim – which, if he didn't keep a good grip on the vile thing, would certainly be Robert himself.

He took some more deep breaths. He counted to ten. Then he got going. Wriggling and twisting his hips, he managed to get himself out from under Ben, who rolled over, arms flopping. Then, still holding the crawler, Robert sat up on the steps.

Oof
. The telescope effect in his eyes screwed inward and an ominous wave of sweaty cold ran through his body. But he still didn't pass out, so carefully, deliberately, he put his wriggling burden under one of his thick-soled shoes and pressed down, hard.

The creature gave a satisfying
scrunch
, but Robert had
stomped one of these things before: he wasn't going to be tricked a second time. Keeping pressure on his foot, he grasped one of the crawler's finger-like legs – and pulled. He had to tug quite hard, twisting it and bending it back and forth, but eventually, with a snap, it came free and Robert tossed it into a far corner. With a lot of effort, he proceeded to do the same to the other four. Then he lifted his shoe off the squashed, legless body, swung his foot back, and booted the creature's remains away as far as he could.

All this time, Ben lay on the stairs beside him. Josh still lay where he'd been felled by Ben's punch. Wiping his hand on his school trousers, Robert looked from one to the other.