Chaos Walking Read online

  “Yelling, Todd,” Manchee barks.

  “Awwghh!” I shout, putting my hands over my face. I take them away and nothing’s changed. That’s the thing I’m learning about being thrown out on yer own. Nobody does nothing for you. If you don’t change it, it don’t get changed.

  “We gotta keep going,” I say, picking up my rucksack all angry-like. “You ain’t caught it yet, so maybe just keep yer distance from me and you’ll be okay. I don’t know but that’s all there is so that’s what we gotta do.”

  Rock, rock, rock.

  “We can’t go back so we gotta go forward and that’s that.”

  Still rocking.

  “I KNOW you can HEAR me!”

  She don’t even flinch.

  And I’m suddenly tired all over again. “Fine,” I sigh. “Fine, whatever, you stay here and rock. Who cares? Who ruddy cares about anything?”

  I look at the book on the ground. Stupid thing. But it’s what I got so I reach down, pick it up, put it in the plastic bag, back in my rucksack, and put my rucksack back on.

  “C’mon, Manchee.”

  “Todd?!” he barks, looking twixt me and the girl. “Can’t leave, Todd!”

  “She can come if she wants,” I say, “but–”

  I don’t even really know what the but might be. But if she wants to stay here and die all alone? But if she wants to go back and get caught by Mr Prentiss Jr? But if she wants to risk catching the Noise from me and dying that way?

  What a stupid world.

  “Hey,” I say, trying to make my voice a little gentler but my Noise is so raging there’s really no point. “You know where we were heading, right? To the river twixt the mountains. Just follow it till you come to a settlement, okay?”

  Maybe she’s hearing me, maybe she ain’t.

  “I’ll keep an eye out for you,” I say. “I understand if you don’t wanna get too close but I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

  I stand there for another minute to see if it sinks in.

  “Well,” I finally say. “Nice knowing ya.”

  I start walking away. When I get to the big stack of shrubs, I turn back, giving her one more chance. But she ain’t changed, just rocking and rocking.

  So that’s that then. Off I go, Manchee reluctantly on my heels, looking back as much as he can, barking my name all the time. “Todd! Todd! Leaving, Todd? Todd! Can’t leave, Todd!” I finally smack him on the rump. “Ow, Todd?”

  “I don’t know, Manchee, so quit asking.”

  We make our way back thru the trees to where the ground dries out, to the clearing and up the little bluff where we ate our breakfast and looked at the beautiful day and I had my brilliant deducshun about her death.

  The little bluff where her bag still lies on the ground.

  “Oh, goddam it!”

  I look at it for a second and it’s one thing after another, ain’t it? I mean, do I take it back to her? Do I just hope she finds it? Will I put her in danger if I do? Will I put her in danger if I don’t?

  The sun’s well up now and the sky as blue as fresh meat. I put my hands on my hips and take a long look round like men do when they’re thinking. I look at the horizon, look back the way we came, the mist mostly burnt off by now and the whole swamp forest covered in sunlight. From the top of the bluff, you can see out over it, over where we drove our feet into oblivion by walking it all. If it were clear enough and you had powerful enough binos you could probably see all the way back to town.

  Powerful binos.

  I look down at her bag on the ground there.

  I’m reaching for it when I think I hear something. Like a whisper. My Noise leaps and I look up to see if the girl’s following me out after all. Which makes me more relieved than I want to say.

  But it ain’t the girl. I hear it again. A whisper. More than one whisper. Like the wind is carrying whispering on it.

  “Todd?” Manchee says, sniffing the air.

  I squint into the sunlight to look back over the swamp.

  Is there something out there?

  I grab the girl’s bag and look thru it for the binos. There’s all kinds of neat crap in there but I take the binos out and look thru them.

  Just swamp is all I see, the tops of swamp trees, little clearings of swampy bits of water, the river eventually starting to form itself again. I take the binos away from my face and look them over. There are little buttons everywhere and I push a few and realize I can make everything look even closer. I do that a coupla times and I’m sure I can hear whispering now. I’m sure of it.

  I find the gash in the swamp, the ditch, find the wreckage of her ship, but there’s nothing there except what we left. I look over the top of the binos, wondering if I see movement. I look thru them again, a little nearer to us where some trees are rustling.

  But that’s only the wind, ain’t it?

  I scan back and forth, pressing buttons to get closer and farther away, but I keep coming back to those rustling trees. I keep the binos trained on a kinda open, gully-type thing twixt me and them.

  I keep the binos there.

  I keep the binos watching, my guts twisting as maybe I’m hearing whispering, maybe I ain’t.

  I keep watching.

  Till the rustling reaches the clearing and I see the Mayor himself come outta the trees on horseback, leading other men, also on horses.

  And they’re heading right this way.

  The Mayor. Not just his son but actually the Mayor. With his clean hat and his clean face and his clean clothes and his shiny boots and his upright pose. We don’t never actually get to see him much in Prentisstown, not no more, not if yer not in his close little circle, but when you do, he always looks like this, even thru a pair of binos. Like he knows how to take care of hisself and you don’t.

  I push some more buttons till I’m as close as I can get. There’s five of them, no, six, the men whose Noise you hear doing those freaky exercises in the Mayor’s house. I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME, that kinda thing. There’s Mr Collins, Mr MacInerny, Mr O’Hare, and Mr Morgan, all on horses, too, itself a rare sight cuz horses are hard to keep alive on New World and the Mayor guards his personal herd with a whole raft of men with guns.

  And there’s Mr bloody Prentiss Jr, riding up next to his father, wearing a shiner from where Cillian hit him. Good.

  But then I realize that means whatever happened at the farm is definitely over with. Whatever happened to Ben and Cillian is done. I put the binos down for a sec and swallow it away.

  I put the binos back up. The group’s stopped for a minute and are talking to each other, looking over a large piece of paper that’s gotta be a way better map than mine and–

  Oh, man.

  Oh, man, you gotta be kidding.

  Aaron.

  Aaron comes walking outta the trees behind ’em.

  Stinking, stupid, rutting, effing, bloody Aaron.

  Most of his head is wrapped in bandages but he’s pacing the ground a little way back from the Mayor, waving his hands in the air, looking like he’s probably preaching even if no one looks like listening.

  HOW? How could he have lived? Doesn’t he ever ruddy DIE?

  It’s my fault. My stupid effing fault. Cuz I’m a coward. I’m a weak and stupid coward and cuz of that Aaron’s alive and cuz of that he’s leading the Mayor thru the ruddy swamp after us. Cuz I didn’t kill him, he’s coming to kill me.

  I feel sick. I bend over double and hold my stomach, moaning a bit. My blood is charging so hard I hear Manchee creep a little ways away from me.

  “It’s my fault, Manchee,” I say. “I did this.”

  “Your fault,” he says, confused and just repeating what I said but right on the money, ain’t he?

  I make myself look thru the binos again and I see the Mayor call Aaron over. Since men started being able to hear their thoughts, Aaron thinks animals are unclean and won’t go near ’em so it takes the Mayor a coupla tries but eventually Aaron comes tromping over to look at the
map. He listens while the Mayor asks him something.

  And then he looks up.

  Looks up thru the swamp trees and sky.

  Looks up to this hilltop.

  Looks right at me.

  He can’t see me. No way. Can he? Not without binos like the girl’s and I don’t see any on the men, never saw anything like ’em in Prentisstown. Gotta be. He can’t see me.

  But like a great pitiless thing he raises his arm and points, points it directly at me, like I’m sitting across a table from him.

  I’m running before I can even think, running back down the bluff and back to the girl as fast as I can, reaching behind me and pulling out my knife, Manchee barking up a storm on my heels. I get into the trees and down and round the big mess of shrubs and she’s still sitting on the rock but at least she looks up as I run to her.

  “Come on!” I say, grabbing her arm. “We gotta go!”

  She pulls back away from me but I don’t let go.

  “No!” I shout. “We have to go! NOW!”

  She starts hitting out with her fists, clonking me a coupla times on the face.

  But I ain’t letting go.

  “LISTEN!” I say and I open up my Noise for her. She hits me once more but then she’s looking, looking at my Noise as it comes, seeing the pictures of what’s waiting for us in the swamp. Check that, what’s not waiting for us, what’s making every effort to come get us. Aaron, who won’t die, bending all his thoughts to finding us and coming this time with men on horseback. Who are a lot faster than we are.

  The girl’s face squishes up, like she’s in the worst pain ever and she opens her mouth like she’s going to yell but nothing comes out. Still nothing. Still no Noise, no sound, no nothing at all coming from her.

  I just don’t get it.

  “I don’t know what’s ahead,” I say. “I don’t know nothing about nothing but whatever it is, it’s gotta be better than what’s behind. It’s gotta be.”

  And as she hears me, her face changes. It clears up to almost blankness again and she presses her lips together.

  “Go! Go! Go!” Manchee barks.

  She holds out her hand for her bag. I hand it to her. She stands, shoves the binos in, loops it over her shoulder and looks me in the eye.

  “Okay, then,” I say.

  And so that’s how I set off running full out towards a river for the second time in two days, Manchee with me again and this time a girl on my heels.

  Well, past my heels most of the time, she’s ruddy fast, she is.

  We go back up the hill and down the other side, the last of the swamp really starting to disappear around us and turning into regular woods. The ground gets way firmer and easier to run on and it’s sloping more downhill than it is up, which may be the first piece of luck we’ve had. We start catching the proper river in brief glances off to our left side as we go. My rucksack’s bashing me in the back as I run and I’m gasping for breath.

  But I’m holding my knife.

  I swear. I swear right now before God or whatever. If Aaron ever comes in my reach again, I will kill him. I ain’t hesitating again. No way. No how. I ain’t. I swear to you.

  I will kill him.

  I’ll ruddy well kill him.

  You just watch me.

  The ground we’re running on is getting a bit steeper side to side, taking us thru leafier, lighter trees and first closer to the river and then away from it again and again as we run. Manchee’s tongue is hanging out of his mouth in a big pant, bouncing along as we go. My heart’s thumping a million beats and my legs are about to fall off my body but still we run.

  We veer close to the water again and I call out, “Wait.” The girl, who’s got pretty far in front of me, stops. I run to the river’s edge, take a swift look round for crocs, then lean down and scoop up a few handfuls of water into my mouth. Tastes sweeter than it really should. Who knows what’s in it, coming outta the swamp, but you gotta drink. I feel the girl’s silence lean down next to me as she drinks, too. I scoot a little ways away. Manchee laps up his share and you can hear us all taking in great raking breaths between slurps.

  I look up to where we’re going, wiping my mouth. Next to the river is starting to become too rocky and steep to run on and I can see a path cutting its way up from the riverbank, going along the top of the canyon.

  I blink, as I realize.

  I can see a path. Someone’s cut a path.

  The girl turns and looks. The path carries up and along as the river drops below it, getting deeper and faster and turning into rapids. Someone made that path.

  “It’s gotta be the way to the other settlement,” I say. “Gotta be.”

  And then, in the distance, we hear hoofbeats. Faint, but on their way.

  I don’t say another word cuz we’re already on our feet and running up the path. The river falls farther and farther away beneath us and the larger mountain rears up on the other side of the river. On our side there’s a thick forest starting to stretch back from the clifftops. The path’s clearly been cut so men would have a place to travel down the river.

  It’s more than wide enough for horses. More than wide enough for five or six, in fact.

  It ain’t a path at all, I realize. It’s a road.

  We fly along it as it bends and turns, the girl ahead, then me, then Manchee, running along.

  Till I nearly bump into her and knock her off the trail.

  “What’re you doing?!” I shout, grabbing onto her arms to keep us both from falling off the cliff, trying to keep the knife from accidentally killing her.

  And then I see what she’s seeing.

  A bridge, way on up ahead of us. It goes from one cliff edge to the other, crossing the river what’s gotta be thirty, forty metres above it. The road or path or whatever stops on our side at the bridge and becomes rock and dense forest beyond. There’s nowhere to go but the bridge.

  The first shades of an idea start to form.

  The hoofbeats are louder now. I look back and see clouds of dust rising from where the Mayor is following.

  “Come on!” I say, running past her, making for the bridge as fast as I can. We pound down the clifftop path, kicking up our own dust, Manchee’s ears flattened back, running fast. We get there and it’s way more than just a footbridge, two metres wide at least. It looks like mostly rope tied into wooden stakes driven into the rock at either end, with tight wooden planks running all the way to the other side.

  I test it with my foot but it’s so sturdy it don’t even bounce. More than enough to take me and the girl and a dog.

  More than enough to take men on horseback who wanted to cross it, in fact.

  Whoever built it, meant it to last.

  I look back again down the river at where we’ve run. More dust, louder hoofbeats, and the whispers of men’s Noise on its way. I think I hear young Todd but I’m only imagining it cuz Aaron’ll be way behind on foot.

  But I do see what I wanna see: this bridge is the only place where you can cross the river, from back where we’ve run to miles on farther ahead as you look.

  Maybe another piece of luck is coming our way.

  “Let’s go,” I say. We run across and it’s so well-made you can’t even see twixt the gaps in the planks of wood. We might as well still be on the path. We get to the other side and the girl stops and turns to me, no doubt seeing my idea in my Noise, already waiting for me to act.

  The knife is still in my hand. Power at the end of my arm.

  Maybe at last I can do some good with it.

  I look over where this end of the bridge is tied to the stakes in the rock. The knife has a fearsome serrated edge on part of the blade, so I choose the likeliest looking knot and start sawing on it.

  I saw and saw.

  The hoofbeats get louder, echoing down the canyon.

  But if there suddenly ain’t no bridge–

  I saw some more.

  And some more.

  And some more.

  And I’m just not
making no progress at all.

  “What the hell?” I say, looking at where I been cutting. There’s hardly a scratch there. I touch the serration on the knife with my finger and it pricks and bleeds almost immediately. I look closer at the rope. It looks like it’s coated in some kind of thin resin.

  Some kind of ruddy tough, steel-like resin that ain’t for cutting.

  “I don’t believe this,” I say, looking up at the girl.

  She’s got her binos to her eyes, looking back the way we came down the river.

  “Can you see ’em?”

  I look down the river but you don’t need binos at all. You can see ’em coming with yer own two eyes. Small but growing larger and not slowing down, thundering their hooves like there’s no tomorrow.

  We got three minutes. Maybe four.

  Crap.

  I start sawing again, fast and strong as I can, forcing my arm back and forth hard as I can make it, sweat popping out all over the place and new aches forming to keep all the old ones company. I saw and saw and saw, dripping water down my nose onto the knife.

  “C’mon, c’mon,” I say thru my teeth.

  I lift the knife. I’ve managed to get thru one tiny little bit of resin on one tiny little knot on one huge effing bridge.

  “Goddam it!” I spit.

  I saw some more and more and more. And more and more than that, sweat running into my eyes and starting to sting.

  “Todd!” Manchee barks, his alarm spilling out all over the place.

  I saw more. And more.

  But the only thing that happens is that the knife catches and I smash my knuckles into the stake, bloodying them.

  “GODDAM IT!” I scream, throwing the knife down. It bounces along, stopping just at the girl’s feet. “GODDAM IT ALL!”

  Cuz that’s it, ain’t it?

  That’s the end of everything.

  Our one stupid chance that wasn’t a chance at all.

  We can’t outrun the horses and we can’t cut down a stupid mega-road bridge and we’re going to be caught and Ben and Cillian are dead and we’re going to be killed ourselves and the world is going to end and that’s it.

  A redness comes over my Noise, like nothing I ever felt before, sudden and raw, like a red-hot brand pressing into my own self, a burning bright redness of everything that’s made me hurt and keeps on hurting, a roaring rage of the unfairness and the injustice and the lies.