Anthony Horowitz - Nightrise

The boys reached the main road and suddenly the darkness of the parking lot gave way to the brilliance of the Reno night. The casinos were illuminated by a thousand lights: flashing, spinning, rotating, cascading, doing anything they could to draw people in. There was the casino called Circus Circus with its huge clown, pink and blue plastic, ten metres high. It was holding a lollipop that rotated in its hand, advertising the games inside. The Eldorado was further down the street on a corner, its entrance illuminated by a neverending firework display of multicoloured lights. Jamie couldn’t see anyone on the pavements, but there were a few cars, their headlights pushing back what little night remained. Which way? Jamie looked around him desperately. He had no idea. He didn’t know how many people were chasing him and there was nowhere to hide.

Scott cried out. The front doors of the theatre had burst open and the two men who had started it all had emerged into the street. Jamie was prepared to run but then he saw that his brother was standing quite still, one hand against his chin as if he had bad toothache. His face was completely white. Slowly, the hand fell and Jamie saw the black tufts of a dart, sticking out of his cheek.

“Oh no…” Jamie whispered.

“Run, Jamie,” Scott said.

“No. I’m not leaving you.”

“Just do it! You can’t help me if they get you…”

Of course it was true. There was nothing else he could do. If he stood there, they would simply grab both of them. Jamie hesitated just one second more, then turned and was about to run when he felt something like a wasp sting, high up on his right shoulder. Instantly he knew that he, too, had been hit. The two men were twenty metres away. It was the bald one who had fired the shot. Jamie saw him lower the gun. He had stopped moving, knowing the chase was over. Jamie heard another man shouting something in the parking lot. The motel alarm was still screaming. There was the thud of rubber shoes against concrete. Scott fell to his knees. Dully, Jamie looked at him, knowing he would be next. In a way he was glad. Whatever was going to happen, he’d stay with his brother after all.

And then there was the screech of tyres and a second car came out of nowhere, veering across the path of the oncoming traffic. Jamie heard the blast of horns. The neon lights were blurring and the whole night seemed to be folding in on itself. He thought the car was going to run him over and he wondered what would be the point of that. Drug him and then kill him? It didn’t make any sense.

The car shuddered to a halt. One of its tyres had mounted the pavement. The car was between him and the two men – just as the German shepherd had been earlier. A door swung open and a voice called out to him.

“Get in!”

The dark-haired man had produced a second gun. But this one didn’t fire darts. There was a sharp crack and one of the car windows shattered, the glass frosting before it collapsed out of the frame. A second shot and the mirror disintegrated.

“Get in!” the voice urged again.

Jamie took one last look at his brother. Scott was lying face down on the pavement, one hand outstretched, the other folded beneath him. The dart was still hanging out of his cheek. His eyes were closed. There was nothing Jamie could do for him. He fell forward into the car.

He wanted to know who was driving but he didn’t have the strength to look up. He was half in the car, half out, but already they were moving. He felt his feet being dragged along the road and reached out with one hand, searching for something to hold onto, something to help pull him in.

A hand reached down and grabbed his arm.

“Hold on!” the voice commanded.

They were reversing. Jamie heard a third shot then a howl of an engine and more blaring horns as other cars swerved all around them. But the traffic had lost its shape. To Jamie the other cars were just blurs of colour, ricocheting off each other, firing off in every direction. The neon lights spun round and round. He thought he saw four huge playing cards – the aces of hearts, clubs, spades and diamonds – light up, one after the other. The giant lollipop turned in the hand of the clown. A bright red shop sign flashed on and off. EZ CASH SUPER PAWN. Somehow he was in the car. He could feel soft leather pressing against his face but his feet seemed to be clear of the road.

After that, he remembered nothing more. As he drifted into blackness, all he knew was that, somehow, he had got away.

Don White was waiting in his office when Mr Banes got back. Kyle Hovey was with him. His jacket was torn and blood had spread all the way up his arm.

“Did you get them?” Don asked.

“We got one of them,” Banes replied.

“That’s too bad.” Don had a half-bottle of Bourbon. He poured himself a glass. “You’re still going to have to pay me for two.” Neither of the two men said anything. Don White assumed that meant they agreed. He lifted the glass and drank. “What happened?” he asked.

“You never told us about the dog,” Banes murmured.

“I didn’t know about the dog.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Banes said, slowly. “We have one of them. And the police will be looking for the other.”

“Oh yeah? And why is that?”

“He’ll be wanted for murder.”

Don White looked surprised – or tried to. It was always difficult to read emotion in his face. There was too much flesh. “Whose murder?” he asked.

Banes smiled. “You shouldn’t have asked.”

The sound of the bullet was very loud in the confined space of the office. Banes had shot Don White through the heart. For a few seconds, the man that Jamie and Scott had known as Uncle Don inspected his whisky as if acknowledging the fact that, sadly, he would never now drink it. Then his hand fell. The liquid spilled. He sat back, unmoving, in his chair.

Colton Banes took one last look at the corpse. Then he slipped the gun back into his pocket and the two men left the room.

Jamie opened his eyes and saw that he was no longer in Reno. He wasn’t even in America. Somehow, impossibly, he had been transported to a deserted beach that stretched out along the edge of a black, lifeless sea. Was it day or night? He looked up but the sky seemed to be caught somewhere between the two. Jamie gulped for breath. He was still in the grip of his first panic, the knowledge that he was somewhere far away and utterly strange, that he was on his own. There was nobody in sight. Nothing. Just the beach and the sea and, in the distance, what might be an island, rising up to a needlepoint high above the waves.

“Scott!”

He called out the name but the single word seemed to die on his lips. That was more frightening than anything. He could shout as loud as he liked but there was no one to hear him. He wasn’t just lost. He was completely abandoned. Where was he? Even the deserts of Nevada had offered more life and colour than the place where he now found himself.

And yet…

He had been here before. He knew where he was. Jamie drew his legs towards himself, wrapping his hands around his shoulders: not so much to keep himself warm but to create a sort of protective cocoon. He forced himself to take a deep breath, to relax. Yes. It had been a long time ago, maybe years, but he knew this place. The island… The last time he had come here, there had been two boys making their way towards him in a boat made out of straw. He had wanted to meet them – he didn’t know why – but he had woken up before they arrived. And he hadn’t been alone: Scott had been here with him.

And, standing next to them, there had been a girl.

“This is a dream,” Jamie muttered to himself. His voice still sounded very small but it was reassuring to hear anything at all. The waves were hitting the shore right in front of him, but they were sluggish and hardly made any sound, as if someone had turned down the volume.