Roderick Gordon: Deeper

Another sighting of the mysterious doglike animal took place in Highfield Common over the weekend. Mrs. Croft-Hardinage of the Clockdown Houses was out walking her basset hound, Goldy, on Saturday evening when she spotted the beast in the lower branches of a tree.

"It was chewing the head off something I thought was a children's plush toy until I realized it was a rabbit and saw the blood everywhere," she told the Bugle . "It was huge with horrible eyes and nasty-looking teeth. When it noticed me, it just spat out the head, and I could have sworn it was looking straight at me."

Reports of the animal are confused, some describing it as a jaguar or puma, similar to the sightings of a large cat at Bodmin Moor, which began in the eighties, while others say it is more doglike in appearance. Kenneth Wood, recently supervised a search after a local man claimed that the beast made off with his miniature poodle, tearing the leash from his hands. Other residents from the Highfield area have reported that their dogs have gone missing in recent months.

The mystery continues…

With aggressive jabs, Sarah began to doodle in the margin by the article. Although she was only using an old ballpoint, before long she had drawn an intricately detailed picture of a moonlit cemetery, not that different from the one in Highfield where she had taken refuge when she'd first escaped to the surface. But there the similarity ended, as she sketched a large, blank headstone in the foreground. She stared at it for a while before, using his Topsoiler name, she eventually wrote:

Sarah frowned. The anger welling up inside her from her brother's death was so powerful, she felt as if she were being swept along on a wave. And when she arrived wherever it was taking her, she needed someone to blame. Of course, at the root of it there were the Styx, but now she allowed herself to think the unthinkable: If it really was true about Seth, then he was going to pay, and pay dearly.

Still staring at the sketch, she tensed her hand and the pen snapped, sending slivers of clear plastic shooting over the hotel bed.

With grim faces, the boys clung to the side of the railroad car, the tunnel wall flashing past them in a terrifying blur even though the train was decelerating as it negotiated a sharp bend.

They had already thrown the backpacks out, and Chester had been the last to hoist himself over the side and join the other two. He let his feet scrabble down until they found a ledge, then held on for all he was worth. Will was just about to shout to the other two boys when his brother beat him to the punch.

"JUMP!" Cal yelled, and let loose a howl as he thrust himself off. Will watched as he vanished into the darkness.

Will had no option but to follow his brother. He gritted his teeth and then pushed himself off, twisting around as he did so. For a split second he seemed to hang in the wind. Then he landed on his feet with a bone-jarring jolt and pitched forward into a helter-skelter sprint, running at a crazy speed with his arms outspread as he tried to keep his balance.

Everything was a confusion of acrid smoke as the enormous wheels ground just feet away from him. But he was going impossibly fast and had hardly covered any distance when his own feet tripped him up. He went flying, falling first onto one knee, and the next instant flipping onto his chest. He skid along, his body plowing up dust in its wake. Coming to a halt, he slowly rolled over onto his back and then sat up, coughing out a mouthful of dirt. The huge train wheels continued to trundle past, and he thanked his lucky stars that he hadn't fallen under them. He pulled a light orb from his pocket and began to look for any sign of the others.

After a while he heard a loud groaning coming from farther up the track. As he watched, Chester emerged from the smoke-ridden darkness, crawling on all fours. He raised his head like an ill-tempered tortoise and, spying Will, sped up.

"All right?" Will shouted at him.

"Oh, just brilliant!" Chester shouted as he plunked himself next to Will.

Will shrugged, rubbing the leg that had taken all the impact of his fall.

"Cal?" Chester asked.

"Dunno. Better wait for him here." Will couldn’t tell if Chester had heard him, but his friend didn't seem inclined to go and look for the boy, anyway.

Some minutes later, as the train continued its relentless passage past them, Will's brother emerged through the smoky gloom with a rucksack on each shoulder, strolling jauntily, as if he didn't have a care in the world. He squatted next to Will.

"I got the bags. You all in one piece?" he yelled. There was a large scrape on his forehead, and little droplets of blood were collecting and running down the bridge of his nose.

Will nodded and looked past Cal. "Get down! The guard's car!" he warned, pulling his brother close to him.

Tucked into the tunnel wall, they watched the light looming toward them. It was streaming from the windows of the guard's train car, forming broad rectangles on the walls as it went. It shot past them, blasting them with a split second of illumination. As the train sped into the tunnel ahead and the light receded, growing smaller and smaller until there was nothing of it still visible, Will had an overpowering sense of finality.

In the unaccustomed silence, he got up and stretched his legs. He'd grown so used to the rocking of the train that it was a novelty to be back on terra firma again.

Will sniffed and was just about to say something to the other two boys when the train whistle blew in the distance.

"What does that mean?" he said eventually.

"It's coming up to the station," Cal answered, his eyes still on the darkness where they had last seen the train.

"How do you know that?" Chester asked him.

"My… our uncle told me."

"Your uncle? Can he help us? Where is he?" Chester fired the questions at Cal in rapid succession, his face filled with anticipation at the thought that there might be someone who could come to their rescue.

"No," Cal snapped, frowning at Chester.

"Why not? I don't understand—"

"No, Chester," Will interjected, shaking his head urgently. His friend could tell he needed to keep his mouth buttoned.

Will turned to his brother. "So what happens now? They'll find out Chester's gone when they unload the train. What then?"

"Then nothing." Cal shrugged. "Job done. They'll just think he's bailed out. They know he won't survive for long on his own… After all, he's only a Topsoiler." He laughed humorlessly and kept on talking, as if Chester weren't there. "They won't send a search party or anything."

"How can you be so sure about that?" Will quizzed his brother. "Wouldn't they assume he'd head straight back to the Colony again?"

"Nice idea, and even if he did happen to make it all the way — on foot — the Blackheads would just pick him off as soon as he showed up," Cal said.

"Blackheads?" Chester asked.

"Styx — that's one of the names the Colonists call them behind their backs," Will explained.

"Oh, right," Chester said. "Well, anyway, I'm never going back to that foul place again. Not on your life!" he added firmly to Cal.

Cal didn't respond, instead putting on his backpack as Will picked up the other one by its straps, testing its weight. It was heavy, stuffed to the brim with their equipment and the extra food and light orbs. He lifted it onto his back, wincing as the strap dug into his injured shoulder. The poultice Imago had applied to the wound had done wonders, but any pressure was still incredibly painful. Will tried to adjust the rucksack so that most of the weight was on his good shoulder, and they set off.