All this for me to get away.
“C’mon, Manchee,” I say again and we run the last few metres to the river. Then we take a right and start following the river downhill, keeping away from the rushes at the water’s edge.
The rushes where the crocs live.
I take the knife from its sheath and I keep it in my hand as we move along fast.
“What’s on, Todd?” Manchee keeps barking, which is his version of “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, Manchee. Shut up so I can think.”
The rucksack’s banging into my back as we run but we keep going as best we can, kicking thru river shrubs and jumping over fallen logs.
I’ll come back. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll come back. They said I’d know what to do and now I do know. I’ll go to the swamp and kill the Spackle if I can and then I’ll come back and help Cillian and Ben and then we can all get away to this somewhere else Ben was talking about.
Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.
“Promised, Todd,” Manchee says, sounding worried as the ridge we’re going along is getting closer and closer to the rushes.
“Shut up,” I say. “I promised to keep on going but maybe keep on going means coming back first.”
“Todd?” Manchee says and I don’t believe it either.
We’ve gotten outta hearing distance from the farm and the river veers away east a little before it enters the top of the swamp so it’s taking us away from the town, too, and after a minute there ain’t nothing following us as we run ’cept my Noise and Manchee’s Noise and the sound of the running river which is just loud enough to cover the Noise of a hunting croc. Ben says that’s “evolushun” but he says not to think about it too much around Aaron.
I’m breathing heavy and Manchee’s panting like he’s about to keel over but we don’t stop. The sun is starting to set, but it’s still light as you please, light that don’t feel like it’s going to hide you. The ground is flattening out and we’re getting down closer to river level as it all starts turning to marsh. Everything’s getting muddier and it’s making us slow down. There’s more rushes, too, can’t be helped.
“Listen for crocs,” I say to Manchee. “Keep yer ears open.”
Cuz the water from the river is slowing and if you can keep yer own Noise quiet enough you can start to hear them out there. The ground’s got even wetter. We’re barely making walking pace now, sloshing thru mud. I grip the knife harder and hold it out in front of me.
“Todd?” Manchee says.
“Do you hear them?” I whisper, trying to watch my step and watch the rushes and watch out for Manchee all at the same time.
“Crocs, Todd,” Manchee says, pretty much as quiet as he can bark.
I stop and I listen hard.
And out there in the rushes, out there in more than one place, I can hear ’em. Flesh, they’re saying.
Flesh and feast and tooth.
“Crap,” I say.
“Crocs,” Manchee says again.
“C’mon,” I say and we start splashing along, cuz we’re in muck now. My shoes start sinking with each step and water’s coming up over the top of ’em and there’s no way to go ’cept thru the rushes. I start swinging the knife as we go, trying to cut any rush that’s in front of me.
I look ahead and I can see where we’re going, up and to the right. We’ve made it past the town and it’s the bit where the wild fields come down by the school and meet up with the swamp and if we get thru this marshy bit here we’ll be on safe ground and can get onto the paths that head into the dark of the swamp.
Was it really only this morning I was here last?
“Hurry up, Manchee,” I say. “Almost there.”
Flesh and feast and tooth and I swear it’s getting closer.
“C’mon!”
Flesh.
“Todd?”
I’m cutting my way thru rushes and pulling my feet outta mud and flesh and feast and TOOTH.
And then I hear Whirler dog–
And I know we’re done for.
“Run!” I yell.
And we run and Manchee lets out a frightened yelp and leaps past me but I see a croc rear up outta the rushes in front of him and it jumps for him but Manchee’s so scared he jumps even higher, higher than he really knows how, and the croc’s teeth snap on empty air and it lands with a splash next to me looking mighty pissed off and I hear its Noise hiss Whirler boy and I’m running and it jumps for me and I’m not even thinking and I’m turning and I’m pushing my hand up and the croc comes crashing down on top of me and its mouth is open and its claws are out and I think I’m about to be dead and I’m thrashing my way back outta the muck up onto the dry bit and it’s on its hind legs coming after me outta the rushes and it takes a minute of me yelling and of Manchee barking his head off before I realize that it’s not actually coming after me no more, that the croc’s dead, that my new knife is right thru its head, still stuck in the croc and the only reason the croc’s still thrashing is cuz I’m still thrashing and I shake the croc off the knife and the croc falls to the ground and I sort of just fall over too in celebrayshun of not being dead.
And it’s when I’m gasping for air from the rush of my blood and Manchee’s barking and barking and we’re both laughing from relief that I realize that we’ve been too loud ourselves to hear something important.
“Going somewhere, young Todd?”
Aaron. Standing right over me.
Before I can do nothing he punches me in the face.
I fall backwards onto the ground, the rucksack digging into my back and making me look like an upturned turtle. My cheek and my eye are just singing with pain and I haven’t even moved properly before Aaron’s grabbing me by my shirt front and the skin beneath and lifting me to my feet. I yell out from how much it hurts.
Manchee barks an angry “Aaron!” and goes for Aaron’s legs, but Aaron doesn’t even look before kicking him outta the way hard.
Aaron’s holding me up to look him in the face. I can only keep the one non-painful eye open to meet his.
“Just what in the name of God’s bounteous, glorified Eden are you doing down here in the swamp, Todd Hewitt?” he says, his breath smelling like meat and his Noise the scariest kinda crazy you never wanna hear. “Yer sposed to be at yer farm right now, boy.”
With his free hand, he punches me in the stomach. I try to bend over with the pain of it but he’s still holding on to my shirt front and the skin below.
“You gotta go back,” he says. “There’s things you need to see.”
I’m gasping for breath but the way he says it catches my ear and some of the flickers I’m catching in his Noise make it so I can see a little bit of the truth.
“You sent them,” I say. “It wasn’t me they heard. It was you.”
“Smart boys make useless men,” he says, twisting his gripping hand.
I cry out but I ruddy well keep talking, too. “They didn’t hear the quiet in my Noise. They heard it in yer Noise and you sent them to me to keep them from coming after you.”
“Oh, no, Todd,” he says, “they heard it in yer Noise. I just made sure they did. I made sure they knew who was responsible for bringing danger to our town.” He grits his teeth into a wild smile beneath his beard. “And who should be rewarded for his efforts.”