And it can only be coming from our farm.
Ben lets me go right quick. He ain’t saying nothing but his Noise is screaming Cillian all over the place.
“I’ll come back with you,” I say. “I’ll help you fight.”
“No!” Ben shouts. “You have to get away. Promise me. Go thru the swamp and get away.”
I don’t say nothing for a second.
“Promise me,” Ben says again, demanding it this time.
“Promise!” Manchee barks and there’s fear even in that.
“I promise,” I say.
Ben reaches behind his back and unclasps something. He wriggles it for a second or two before it comes unlatched completely. He hands it to me. It’s his hunting knife, the big ratchety one with the bone handle and the serrated edge that cuts practically everything in the world, the knife I was hoping to get for the birthday when I became a man. It’s still in its belt, so I can wear it myself.
“Take it,” he says. “Take it with you to the swamp. You may need it.”
“I never fought a Spackle before, Ben.”
He still holds out the knife and so I take it.
There’s another BANG from the farm. Ben looks back towards it, then back to me. “Go. Follow the river down to the swamp and out. Run as fast as you can and you’d better damn well not turn back, Todd Hewitt.” He takes my arm and grips it hard. “If I can find you, I’ll find you, I swear it,” he says. “But you keep going, Todd. You keep yer promise.”
This is it. This is goodbye. A goodbye I wasn’t even looking for.
“Ben–”
“Go!” he shouts and takes off, looking back once as he runs and then racing off back to the farm, back to whatever’s happening at the end of the world.
“C’mon, Manchee,” I say, turning to run, tho every bit of me wants to follow Ben as he’s running across the fields a different way, just like he said, to confuse anyone out looking for Noise.
I stop for a second when I hear a bunch of smaller bangs from the direkshun of the house which gotta be rifle shots and I think of the rifle that Cillian took from Mr Prentiss Jr and all the rifles that Mayor Prentiss and his men have locked away in the town and how all those guns against Cillian’s stolen rifle and the few others we got in the house ain’t gonna be much of a fight for very long and it gets me to wondering what the bigger bangs were and I realize they were probably Cillian blowing up the generators to confuse the men and make everyone’s Noise so loud they can’t hear even the whisper of mine way out here.
All this for me to get away.
“C’mon, Manchee,” I say again and we run the last few metres to the river. Then we take a right and start following the river downhill, keeping away from the rushes at the water’s edge.
The rushes where the crocs live.
I take the knife from its sheath and I keep it in my hand as we move along fast.
“What’s on, Todd?” Manchee keeps barking, which is his version of “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, Manchee. Shut up so I can think.”
The rucksack’s banging into my back as we run but we keep going as best we can, kicking thru river shrubs and jumping over fallen logs.
I’ll come back. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll come back. They said I’d know what to do and now I do know. I’ll go to the swamp and kill the Spackle if I can and then I’ll come back and help Cillian and Ben and then we can all get away to this somewhere else Ben was talking about.
Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.
“Promised, Todd,” Manchee says, sounding worried as the ridge we’re going along is getting closer and closer to the rushes.
“Shut up,” I say. “I promised to keep on going but maybe keep on going means coming back first.”
“Todd?” Manchee says and I don’t believe it either.
We’ve gotten outta hearing distance from the farm and the river veers away east a little before it enters the top of the swamp so it’s taking us away from the town, too, and after a minute there ain’t nothing following us as we run ’cept my Noise and Manchee’s Noise and the sound of the running river which is just loud enough to cover the Noise of a hunting croc. Ben says that’s “evolushun” but he says not to think about it too much around Aaron.
I’m breathing heavy and Manchee’s panting like he’s about to keel over but we don’t stop. The sun is starting to set, but it’s still light as you please, light that don’t feel like it’s going to hide you. The ground is flattening out and we’re getting down closer to river level as it all starts turning to marsh. Everything’s getting muddier and it’s making us slow down. There’s more rushes, too, can’t be helped.
“Listen for crocs,” I say to Manchee. “Keep yer ears open.”
Cuz the water from the river is slowing and if you can keep yer own Noise quiet enough you can start to hear them out there. The ground’s got even wetter. We’re barely making walking pace now, sloshing thru mud. I grip the knife harder and hold it out in front of me.
“Todd?” Manchee says.
“Do you hear them?” I whisper, trying to watch my step and watch the rushes and watch out for Manchee all at the same time.
“Crocs, Todd,” Manchee says, pretty much as quiet as he can bark.
I stop and I listen hard.
And out there in the rushes, out there in more than one place, I can hear ’em. Flesh, they’re saying.
Flesh and feast and tooth.
“Crap,” I say.
“Crocs,” Manchee says again.
“C’mon,” I say and we start splashing along, cuz we’re in muck now. My shoes start sinking with each step and water’s coming up over the top of ’em and there’s no way to go ’cept thru the rushes. I start swinging the knife as we go, trying to cut any rush that’s in front of me.
I look ahead and I can see where we’re going, up and to the right. We’ve made it past the town and it’s the bit where the wild fields come down by the school and meet up with the swamp and if we get thru this marshy bit here we’ll be on safe ground and can get onto the paths that head into the dark of the swamp.
Was it really only this morning I was here last?
“Hurry up, Manchee,” I say. “Almost there.”
Flesh and feast and tooth and I swear it’s getting closer.
“C’mon!”