Belinda Bauer - Finders Keepers

His seatbelt was frayed.

He should have sent Rice. Too late.

Leaving the ground was like climbing a rope ladder – a dizzy, lurching ascent. Lee and the pilot, whose name he hadn’t caught, were up front. He was behind them with a jolly, overweight air-support officer who had been introduced as Tuckshop. Reynolds couldn’t bring himself to use the name, but tried to sit as close to his own door as possible to stop the chopper yawing to one side.

They had barely left the big H before they were over Exmoor – the neat fields and Toytown cows giving way to brown patches and yellow and purple swathes of gorse and heather.

They passed over ponies, which did not look up, and deer that scattered. Reynolds peered between the seats at the thermal-imaging screen and watched a small group of them explode in a fountain of bright dots, like Pong gone mad.

The other three men shouted at each other and laughed, but Reynolds couldn’t make out a thing they were saying. If they were looking at him when they laughed, he just smiled and nodded and hoped they weren’t calling him a wanker. He seemed to be the only one who was taking this seriously. No wonder they hadn’t found anyone on their previous sorties.

The children could have been taken a long way off, of course. They could be dead. But if they weren’t on Exmoor, then there were no clues as to where they were. Exmoor was their only lead and it made a dull kind of sense to keep searching it.

Now, up ahead, on the top of a hill, Reynolds could see a small grey collection of utilitarian buildings. He consulted his map but couldn’t tell what he was looking at until Tuckshop’s nailbitten finger jabbed the paper and he shouted, ‘Hunt kennels!’ at full volume.

Reynolds nodded. It made him think of Jonas Holly and his dog theory.

The huntsman came back.

Jonas let it happen. He was so small, what else could he do? He kept his eyes closed and smelled that smell, and felt himself getting sick and wobbly.

‘Get up.’ The voice was in charge and Jonas tried to obey, but the chain pulled him back and he sagged against the fence with his long legs folded under him like a faun’s.

‘Get up.’

He tried again. The sound of the helicopter was louder now.

‘Get up !’ The huntsman gripped the tether chain and pulled.

Jonas staggered out of the safety of the kennel.

The ride on the trolley was brief. Then the sun on his back winked out and the cold was so sudden that he opened his eyes on blackness.

‘ Stay .’

He stayed. There was the sound of chains and metal and the grunt of the huntsman moving something heavy. A squeal of something not oiled. Jonas wasn’t sure whether his eyes were open or shut, but then started to make out shapes in the dark. Long, pale shapes, swaying gently.

He was tugged off the trolley and fell to his knees. Strong fingers bound his wrists before him, and a cloth that tasted of dirt was wound around his mouth, pulling his lips painfully against his teeth. He flinched as cold chain was looped around his chest and suddenly there was a mechanical whine and he was being raised from the floor. He half staggered into a standing position just as the chain went slack, and he fell on to his side on a stone floor that was wet with cold.

‘Shit,’ said the huntsman. ‘You’re too big.’

Jonas tried to stand but something heavy and cold bumped his face and he nearly fell again. The huntsman steadied him by the collar.

Jonas was dragged and jerked – feeling smaller all the time – back out into the warmth, but on his feet now. He closed his eyes against the brightness.

The helicopter was close. Close and low. It brought no hope to Jonas. Nothing could save him, not even the police. Even as a child he’d known that.

The huntsman pulled harder and Jonas stumbled across the concrete in his bare feet, until his knees hit something metal.

‘Get in,’ said the huntsman.

Jonas looked down at the horse trough, its deep green water as smooth as marble. Getting in seemed a foolish thing to do.

The helicopter beat so close that Jonas raised his head, but he couldn’t see it. The very act made him dizzy.

‘ In! ’ said the huntsman, and pushed him roughly. The metal edge of the trough caught the side of his knee and he twisted awkwardly.

Off balance.

The huntsman shoved again and this time Jonas felt himself falling.

It took for ever. Falling and trying not to.

He splashed into the trough on his back – one leg still over the sharp metal side. He flopped back in the water and he saw the sky was cool green then cold olive then freezing brown, before the back of his head finally clunked on contact with metal.

He kicked and flailed for the edge of the trough. The water was up his nose and he needed to breathe. He pulled himself up from the brown through the green, towards the clattering roar…

Something pressed into his chest and pushed him back down where it was coldest. His groping hands felt the wiry bristles of a yard broom, pricking and pressing his naked skin. He was desperate to breathe. His chest hurt inside and out. His head might explode. He looked up at the dim sky pulsating in time to the whirring arms of the rotor blades.

Lucy looked down on him.

Lucy!

He’d found her at last, here in the water.

Or she had found him.

Her hair swayed on the surface like kelp, her lips moved – trying to tell him something he couldn’t hear because the helicopter and his heart were pounding so hard and his lungs hurt so badly.

With the last of his strength, Jonas reached out to hold her, just like in his dreams.

But before he could touch her, everything went black.

Steven opened his eyes but it was still dark.

The sound of the helicopter was disorientating.

He was freezing.

At first he thought he was underwater, but when he tried to swim he found he was compressed by something tight and cold.

Had he been rescued? Was this what it was like to be strapped into a cradle and airlifted across the moor? Cold, cold air and the blades clattering overhead?

But something that was not fresh air stank so badly that his stomach rolled and his mouth filled with thin saliva. He tried to spit and found that he was gagged. He panicked for a moment, and struggled as he worked to swallow without choking. Some of whatever was wrapped tightly around him yielded, some was hard and sharp. His knees were drawn up; he couldn’t feel his left leg at all. When he turned his face half an inch one way or the other he felt something slimy press against his cheek. He thought his left leg must be trapped under him and he guessed he was upright, although whatever his right foot was pressing against was far from solid.

Steven had a sudden mental image of a chrysalis hanging from a twig and felt his bowels contract sharply. He’d been captured by a giant insect, bound in sticky thread, and could only wait helplessly to be liquefied and sucked out through a sharp proboscis—

Proboscis was a good word.

That thought calmed him. Brought him back from the edge of panic. Allowed him to become aware of his own breathing again and to work on bringing it under control.

Yes, he was hanging up inside something disgusting, but a giant insect was major bollocks. He wasn’t a child; he mustn’t let childish fears stop him thinking straight. As his breathing slowed, he became aware once more of the stink that surrounded him. It was the same stink that came from the bones Jonas Holly never ate. That were left to lie in the sun for the flies to shit on…

He was inside meat.

Instantly he knew he was right. This was why Charlie had screamed about meat. This was what had scared him so. Steven had seen the huntsman skin the animals – the shaggy Exmoor pony, the cow with the empty eyes. He’d seen him drag the pink-and-grey carcasses through the dark door at the back of the big shed. He’d heard the clank of chains and the brief sounds of an electric winch.