Belinda Bauer - Blacklands

He’d hoped for casual but his question sounded horribly loud and desperate to his ears as it hung over them in the still morning air. He felt sick that he’d asked it. Sick and clammy.

Avery turned to look at him carefully and Steven met his eyes, hoping the man couldn’t see through them into the dark pit of fluttering fear that lay behind.

The silence stretched out around them until Steven could swear he felt it creak under the strain.

Then Avery merely shrugged. “Around. About. Who knows?” He smiled a little smile at Steven and dug about in the bag. “You want something to drink?”

Steven wanted to kill him.

He jerked to his feet. He picked up his spade to go, but Avery gripped the shaft hard and looked up at him, his face suddenly cold and dangerous.

“I’m going to need that,” said Avery quietly.

And when he looked into the man’s milky green eyes, Steven knew he’d lost the battle to keep the book of his mind closed—and Avery’s ruby lips split into a crooked white grin as he read the boy like a billboard.

Steven cried out as if he’d touched something dark and slimy.

He let go of the spade, making it rebound hard into Avery’s bloody arm.

Then he turned and ran.

As he hit the track, he heard Avery come after him—close, too close, he should’ve made his move before, when he’d have had a head start!—then he felt a sharp pain in his back and fell to the ground, winded.

He felt Avery grip the back of his best T-shirt and lift him like a bad puppy; his feet scrabbled for purchase as he almost staggered upright, then collapsed sideways to his knees against the man’s legs.

Still gripping his shirt, Avery stooped to pick up the spade and Steven’s remote brain informed him dully that that was what had hit him in the back. Uncle Jude’s spade. Felled by his own weapon just as he’d been caught in his own trap.

Because he was just a stupid, stupid boy. Not a sniper, not a cop, not even a grown-up. He’d played at being a grown-up and this was how it was ending. Him dead on the moor in his best red T-shirt with LAMB on the back. And the papers reporting not his triumph but his pathetic, lonely, weak little-boy death. A death that would reduce him to initials on a map and a blurry old photo in a fading newspaper. Not even a good photo, he’d bet. Probably the one from school that Mum had on the mantelpiece, which made him look like a refugee. Not the photo he’d dressed for this morning when he still thought he could be a hero.

Fear, shame, and nausea mingled inside him and he sagged against Avery’s cold jeans.

Avery pulled him away and slapped his face.

“You know who I am?”

Steven nodded dumbly at Avery’s black rubber-soled shoes.

“Good.”

He yanked Steven to his feet and half pushed, half dragged him back up the mound, wincing and cursing at the newly opened pain in his arm. Halfway up, Steven started to sob. He wished he didn’t know about Arnold Avery. Knowing was worse than not knowing. Knowing what he’d done to the others. Knowing that he’d do that to him too. It didn’t even seem possible—what Avery had done—but he’d read it in the papers so it must be true. He was about to find out. The thought drew fresh tears of fear.

“Shut up,” said Avery. “And get down.”

Steven just stood, arms slack, head down, hitching with sobs.

“I said get down.” Avery shook him again and pointed at the patch of white heather where he’d been sitting, back when Steven had still had a choice; still had a chance of escape.

“Down?” Steven sounded confused. He was confused; the word “down” seemed just a noise to him. It did not compute.

“Down. On your knees.”

Steven nodded stupidly but did not get down.

Avery leaned forward and put his lips close to Steven’s ear, making him shudder.

“Get down or I’ll make you.”

“Okay.” But he still didn’t move. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Shouldn’t. Standing up was better. Getting down was worse. The lower he got, the less chance he had. He’d prefer to stay standing. These thoughts were simple and definite in Steven’s head. Once he got down, he felt sure he’d never get up again.

“Down, I said!”

“Okay.” He stopped sobbing on a soft burp that brought tomato-flavored bile to his throat.

But he still didn’t move. Maybe if he just kept agreeing to get down but didn’t actually do it, Avery would get bored with asking.

Avery did get bored with asking. Steven only heard a small grunt of warning before the spade swung into the backs of his knees, making him roll into a ball, clutching at his legs in agony.

“You little shit!” Avery clutched and grimaced at his own arm—wet with fresh blood.

Then once more Avery pulled him up by the scruff, positioning him carefully on his knees.

“Now stay there. Understand?”

Steven nodded and swayed but stayed where he was. He could feel a little trickle down his back and thought it must be sweat or blood where the spade had hit him when he tried to run. No sooner had he thought about sweat than he felt his face go tingly as sweat broke out on him. He swayed again; he wanted to lie down in the heather where it was cool and he wouldn’t feel so dizzy. But kneeling was bad and lying down would be lower and therefore even worse. He had to try to hang on, although quite what he was hanging on for, he was afraid to examine too closely. He had to hang on, and he had to try to make Avery move as slowly as possible towards killing him. Not because he thought he could avoid it entirely, but because delaying his own death seemed the sensible thing to do.

His own death.

He was going to die. He had nothing left to lose, not even his life; it was a foregone conclusion. The thought brought with it a kind of perverse freedom.

“Did you kill my uncle Billy?”

“What do you think?”

Steven looked up at Avery in surprise. He hadn’t expected to be asked his opinion.

“I think you did.”

“You want to know how?”

Steven didn’t. He felt sick at the thought of knowing how. But it was another delay.

“Yes.”

Avery stood in front of him now and touched his hair with one hand, almost gently.

“He’d just come out of the shop. I asked him for directions. I had a map…”

He stopped and Steven looked up and saw the gleam of fond memory in Avery’s eyes.

“I had a map. I asked him to show me on the map. And he leaned in the window and I… just… grabbed him—”

Steven cried out as Avery’s hand tightened around a chunk of his hair.

“It was so easy. So fucking easy. And he was so scared. I had to hit him straight away to stop him screaming. You should’ve seen his face when I did! Like he’d never got a good smack before! It was very funny.”

He grinned at Steven, then looked away across the moor of his memory again.

“I played with him, you know? I played with all of them first. Before I killed them. Just like I’m going to play with you.”

Steven twisted as the grip on his hair tightened again. He bit back his whimper of pain; he didn’t want Avery to remember he was here, kneeling before him; the longer he was remembering Uncle Billy and the others, the longer he, Steven, would stay alive. But it was hard. The pain in his head was more than discomfort and he was still shaking and nauseous. But he had to do it. He had to stay still and quiet and keep hoping for a way out. There was only one alternative and Steven didn’t want it. Didn’t want to find out what it was like to be “played with” and tortured and killed while he cried for his mummy. Just that thought made tears roll easily from his eyes again. Not crying with shame or fear; this time he really was crying for his mummy; but quietly—so as not to distract Avery.