Piers Torday - The Last Wild

But we aren’t going there. After the bridge we turn left –

Then left — left again –

To where there are no towers of any kind, just a street with houses set back from it at the top of long drives, sealed off behind fences and walls and cameras and lamps that come on as you walk past. The wind seems to have followed us, curling down the roads. And now it’s not just a cold wind –

But a wet one as well.

We all look up at the clouds in the sky as spots of rain begin to explode on my hands. The rain that can mean only one thing.

The drops grow bigger and colder and wetter as we go past the lines of cars, raindrops now speckling the dark windscreens and shiny bonnets. I start to hurry, half running, Polly pulling her T-shirt over her head like a hood, trying to keep up as we turn at a polished kerb, into a big circle of a dead end.

My street — it’s my Culdee Sack, as Mum used to call it.

I know I should wait for the others, but I start to run.

‘Kester!’ yells Polly. ‘Where are you going? Wait for us!’

I’m not listening to her. All I can hear is the blood pounding in my head, the rain hammering on the pavement.

I glance at the different names of the houses flashing by on their shiny letterboxes, trying not to slip on the pavement growing slicker and wetter under my feet –

Until I reach the gates right at the end.

The gates of a low white house, standing on its own, the sheets of water bouncing off the glass roof that slides down one side, into the garden. Everything is just as it was six years ago. There are no lights on apart from the security lamps along the drive, like it’s a runway. I feel like a tiny kid again. Not for the first time, I wonder whether Dad is actually going to be pleased to see me.

‘Shall I come with you?’ Polly’s stopped a little way behind. She’s struggling to make her voice heard over the wind and the rain.

I shake my head, spraying wet everywhere — I have to do this by myself.

I wipe as much water as I can off a small metal box on the wall next to the gate, and type the code into the keypad …

Nothing happens.

I try again, wiping more water off, pressing harder this time — and to my relief the gates slither noisily back. He hasn’t changed the code. It’s only a small thing, I know, but it makes squelching up the long drive — in the glow of the security lights — easier than I thought it would be.

Because there’s a knot in my stomach, tangling up, growing warm in my belly.

I find myself pulling up my trackies, trying to flatten my hair despite the rain, wiping the worst of the mud off my face, straightening my sodden scarf. Here I finally am, six years later, standing on the doorstep of our own home in the rain, with a girl and over a hundred animals.

I count to ten, and press the doorbell.

It rings, but no one comes. I press it again.

Then a light comes on — at the end of the hall.

I can hear him coming down the passage.

Another light, a shadow appears behind the frosted glass, and all I’m thinking is, Open the flipping door —

A rattle and clunk of locks, a chain slides back, the door opens and –

‘Hello, childrens,’ says Captain Skuldiss. ‘Well, this is a nice surprise and how do you do.’

And everything goes black.

I’m back in Spectrum Hall, back in my room, right at the beginning. My window is broken again, rain and wind blowing on my face. I feel for my arms, my watch. I can’t see anything, everything is dark, but I am still — alive.

I know this because I’m in pain. There is pain all over, throbbing in my head, in my arms and in my legs. Pain I’ve felt before — from a metal crutch. I groan, try to move and a thousand nerves scream at me.

Then, just as before in my room, there are pigeons pecking at me, pulling my hair, pulling at my clothes, my ears and nose –

*Wake up! Wake up, Kester! We can’t do this alone! Help us!*

I open my eyes instead — because I can do that.

At first I can only see the darkness of the sky above, the rain still pouring on to my face. Where has the roof of my room gone? And then slowly, painfully, I realize where we are and I twist my head round on the wet road, to see what is happening at the end of it. To see what is happening in our drive, our street. I know it’s home, but it doesn’t feel like it any more.

Captain Skuldiss is standing in our open gateway with his back to me, lit by the security lamps. He flicks his wet hair back and flexes his fingers together with a nasty crack. I hear a scream from the other side of the road.

Polly. I can’t speak. I can’t move.

The pigeons fuss and pull at my hair.

Skuldiss points his crutch at the sky. I flinch. But there’s no shot. Instead a fierce glare fills the street. Tall floodlights, that I hadn’t seen in the dark, hidden in the shadow of the big houses, behind their high walls and gates, all blasting at once with a light as strong as a midday sun.

Skuldiss points his crutch again. An explosion of noise follows the explosion of light.

A van, splashing its way down the road. I can hear it screech and hiss to a halt at the entrance to the Culdee Sack. A door slides open and people are jumping out into the road with heavy boots.

I don’t need to see them to know who they are.

The van we last heard on the road from the farm.

Cullers.

There is no stag to stop them now. Skuldiss and the cullers’ van have blocked the only way out. My wild are surrounded by high walls and gates. Pain shoots through my neck and spine, but I force myself to turn and watch.

The Captain leaps further into the road, and Polly runs forward to meet him.

They’re arguing. Then Skuldiss grabs Polly and pins her to him with one crutch, before pointing the other directly at the wild.

The street falls quiet, not a sound from anyone, just the rain splashing down in sheets.

‘So, little girls,’ I hear, ‘as you can see, Captain Skuldiss always finishes his job.’ He swings his crutch round and round, pointing at and naming all the different animals in turn — at otters and polecats and rabbits — like they’ve ever done anything to him. Then he turns to her, and as if he’s asking her to choose her favourite colour, says –

‘So which one would you like me to kill first, please, little girls?’

Polly doesn’t reply to Captain Skuldiss, but just gives a little gasp of pain, as he squeezes his other arm tighter round her neck. There is no smile in his voice now.

‘Just go and bring me the dirty animals you would like to die first, and be quick about it, please.’ He shoves her back into the road, where I can see her facing the wild in the rain. ‘And remember, Uncle Skuldiss is watching, so no funny tricks, my little chickadee,’ he says, waving the gun-crutch at her.

I don’t know how long Polly stands there, just looking, the wild staring back at her.

I’m trying so hard to move, to speak, but nothing –

‘I’m wai-i-ting!’ sings out Captain Skuldiss.

She shakes her head.

He swings the crutch and jabs her in the back. ‘The very clever thing about these here bullets, you know, is that they work on little childrens just as well.’

Polly begins to sob, but she doesn’t raise an arm or point a finger. She doesn’t even look at the wild now and just stares at the ground.

Skuldiss stamps a crutch on the ground crossly. ‘Very well, have it your way,’ he says. And then starts to have a conversation with himself. ‘Oh! What’s that you say, little girls? You chose this sick beastie over here?’