Crawlers Read online

  ‘But,’ said Samantha, ‘that means it must’ve had its teeth in her the whole time!’

  ‘That’s horrible!’ wailed Lauren.

  ‘That’s rank!’ agreed Samantha.

  ‘That must be the way these things work,’ put in Jasmine, trying to keep everyone on track. ‘Maybe they bite you on the back of the neck if they can. But if they need to hide, if they need not to be seen, then . . .’ She gestured downwards.

  There was a long silence.

  ‘But what are we going to do with her?’ asked Josh. ‘We can’t just . . . keep her like that – can we?’

  ‘I tell you,’ said Hugo. ‘She’s a lot stronger than she looks.’

  ‘We could tie her up,’ said Lauren.

  ‘What with?’ asked Ben.

  ‘I can hear you, you know,’ said Lisa, making everyone jump. She grinned up at them, shook her head, and in a completely normal voice said: ‘Idiots.’

  Everybody looked at each other.

  ‘You can’t resist her,’ Lisa told them. ‘In fact, why do you even want to?’

  Nobody answered. Looking at Lisa, nobody knew what to say.

  ‘She has given me strength,’ said Lisa. ‘She has taken all my weakness and my hate and she has turned it into love. That’s why I did what I did. That’s why I want to stop you trying to fight her – because I love you.’ She smiled. ‘Yes, even you, Samantha. I love all of you, because she loves me.’

  ‘Who?’ said Jasmine. ‘Who are you talking about?’

  ‘The Queen,’ said Lisa. Tears trembled at the corners of her eyes. ‘The Queen loves each and every one of us. Soon you will all feel her love, the way I do. I’d do anything for the Queen. Anything. And soon,’ she repeated, ‘so will you.’

  ‘This is too weird now,’ said Lauren. ‘This is freaking me out. I don’t want to hear it. Make it stop!’ she shouted, pointing at Lisa.

  Samantha reached down.

  ‘Wait!’ said Jasmine. ‘No!’

  Samantha grabbed the crawler and pulled it from Lisa’s body. With a soft, wet sound that Ben found unforgettably repulsive its long twin probosces came after it.

  The creature’s legs were now dangling from between Samantha’s fingers, twitching. Samantha looked thoroughly disgusted. But Lisa’s eyes had now rolled up in their sockets. She lay there like a discarded rag doll.

  Hugo put a hand to Lisa’s neck.

  ‘Is she . . .?’ asked Jasmine.

  ‘She’s breathing. Pulse is slow, but steady,’ said Hugo. He sat back, looked at Jasmine and shrugged bleakly. ‘I learned first aid with the cadets,’ he explained. ‘But she needs a doctor really.’

  ‘Great,’ said Jasmine, infuriated. ‘Great!’ She rounded on Samantha. ‘What were you thinking? You could have killed her!’

  ‘And Lisa tried to put one of these things on you,’ Samantha reminded her, gesturing with the crawler. Held from behind, its rubbery legs grasped at the empty air. ‘Now, where shall I put this? Unless you’d like to hold it for a while?’

  ‘Throw it out,’ said Josh. ‘Throw them all out. Frankly,’ he added, shuddering as he stood up, ‘I don’t know what we thought we were doing trying to keep the vile things in the first place.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Robert, with feeling, from beside his wastepaper basket, which was still upturned over Lisa’s hand.

  ‘Slinging ’em out’s got my vote,’ said Samantha.

  ‘Too right,’ said Lauren.

  ‘Wait a second, though,’ said Ben, standing up too. ‘Throw them out where? Where are we going to put them, exactly?’

  ‘The passage, of course!’ snapped Josh. ‘It’s not like there’s anywhere else they can go, and it’s too dangerous to keep them any longer.’

  ‘But it’s dangerous to open the door,’ said Ben, ‘isn’t it? Maybe you forgot, but there’s a whole load of adults out there. What’s to stop them rushing us?’

  ‘We’ll keep the barricades close to the door, obviously,’ said Josh. ‘We’ll just lift them for a minute, open the door just wide enough, then slam it shut again with the lockers back behind it. Job done.’ He shrugged. ‘What’s your problem?’

  ‘My problem is that it’s a big risk,’ said Ben. ‘I think we should discuss it first.’

  Josh rolled his eyes and gave a short sigh. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘By all means, let’s discuss it. But I will say this: there’s no point hesitating just because we’re scared.’

  He stared straight into Ben’s eyes, and smirked.

  Ben gaped at him. This really was classic Josh. There were a number of methods that he used to secure his position as ruler of their school year, but humiliation – making anyone who disagreed with him appear to be doing so simply out of some kind of weakness – had always been Josh’s favourite.

  ‘I’m not scared,’ said Ben.

  ‘Really,’ said Josh drily. ‘It’s odd you say that, because I seem to remember you making the same kind of fuss when the crawlers were trying to climb in.’ He paused, grinning at Samantha and Lauren who (Ben was annoyed to notice) grinned straight back. ‘When we came to help you before there was nothing there, remember?’ He sneered. ‘Well, maybe this won’t be as bad as you’re making out, either.’

  ‘I’m not standing around holding this thing all night,’ said Samantha, ‘that’s for sure.’

  ‘You tell ’im, babes,’ said Lauren.

  ‘I . . .’ Ben tried again – but he felt a touch on his arm: Jasmine.

  ‘All right,’ she said coolly. ‘I agree. Let’s get rid of them. They’ve caused enough trouble. But then we need a proper discussion about whatever we’re going to do after that. Right?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Josh, all politeness. ‘OK, everyone, time to get organized. First, let’s get all these horrors together and accounted for. Which reminds me: what, dare I ask, has happened to the other two that Jasmine was examining?’

  Ben blinked. He’d been so wrapped up in the business with Lisa that he’d completely forgotten about them. He wasn’t the only one, either, as he could tell from the worried looks from Lauren and Robert.

  He checked the sink. Relief.

  ‘They’re in here.’

  ‘Well that’s something, at least,’ said Josh. ‘Wouldn’t want any more of them to go walkabout, would we?’ Still looking at Ben, he grinned nastily. ‘Pick ’em up, Freeman.’

  ‘What?’ said Ben.

  ‘Pick them up,’ Josh repeated. ‘Unless you’re still feeling scared, of course?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Ben, doing his best to smile back and hide his fury. ‘No problem.’

  He looked back at the sink’s contents, and gulped. He’d already seen one of these creatures come back to life. He had no wish to risk it happening again while he was holding one himself – let alone two.

  But Josh was waiting behind him, along with Jasmine and everyone else: there was no backing out now. He reached in over the sink’s stained chrome sides.

  The crawlers’ flesh was rubbery beneath his fingertips: it squidged a little as he touched them. Their skin, he noticed, was faintly waxy, almost damp. The urge just to hurl the creatures away and scrub their contact traces off him was almost unbearable. But – keeping carefully clear of their undersides, where the probosces were – Ben forced his fingers to close around the bodies and take their weight. Composing his face into a mask of outward calm he lifted them both clear of the sink and turned back to face Josh.

  ‘All right,’ he said, as casually as he could, ‘where do you want ’em?’

  ‘We could stick them in the bin,’ put in Hugo before Josh could answer. ‘Get them all in there, like a bucket. Open the door, toss the bin out, shut the door again.’

  ‘That’s got to make more sense than throwing them out one at a time,’ said Ben (and not just, he told himself, because it meant he wouldn’t have to hold the crawlers any longer than necessary). ‘I mean, we want that door open for the minimum amount of time possible – right?’

  ‘
Good idea,’ said Josh to Hugo. Then: ‘Robert?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Robert. ‘Right.’ Blinking rapidly, licking his lips, he gingerly righted the upside-down bin. Revealed again, the crawler on Lisa’s palm twitched one of its broken legs, making it loll horribly. But Robert picked it up by a leg and, shuddering, dropped it in.

  Samantha’s followed it.

  ‘Now yours, Freeman.’

  This was one order from Josh that Ben was glad to follow: his two crawlers went into the bin. Then he rubbed his hands on the sides of his scratchy school trousers, hard.

  ‘Right,’ said Josh, looking at the bin’s contents with distaste. ‘Who’ll volunteer to carry them?’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Hugo, getting up.

  ‘Good man,’ said Josh. ‘Then let’s get these lockers shifted. Freeman? Robert?’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Jasmine. ‘Don’t you think we ought to have someone check what’s going on in the passage on the cameras first?’

  ‘Whatever,’ said Lauren, rolling her eyes.

  ‘Let’s just get these things out of here, yeah?’ said Samantha.

  ‘Fine,’ said Jasmine. ‘I’ll go check the cameras then. Give me a second.’

  But as soon as she was through the door, she realized there was a problem.

  ‘Well?’ called Josh from the other room. ‘What can you see? What’s going on out there?’

  ‘I . . . I can’t tell,’ Jasmine admitted.

  ‘What? Why not?’

  ‘Because,’ said Jasmine, ‘I changed what’s on the screens. And now . . .’ She stabbed at the buttons fruitlessly. The screens in front of her cycled through the views from hundreds of cameras all over the Barbican complex. But they stubbornly refused to show the one she wanted.

  ‘Now you can’t get the view of the passage back,’ said Josh, from behind her. ‘Brilliant.’

  Startled, Jasmine turned. Josh’s face was full of contempt.

  ‘What did Hugo say?’ he asked. ‘What did we say?’

  ‘Er . . .’ said Jasmine.

  ‘We told you and Freeman not to touch anything!’

  ‘What? Look, there were riot police a minute ago. I wanted to see what was going on.’

  ‘I don’t care! You should’ve asked first!’

  ‘Why?’ asked Jasmine, getting annoyed.

  ‘Because,’ said Josh, ‘like it or not, I’m in charge. You and Freeman, you’re as bad as each other! You’re a – a bloody menace, the pair of you!’

  ‘Um, Josh?’ called Hugo from the other room, before Jasmine could reply.

  ‘What is it now?’

  ‘It’s the crawlers, mate,’ said Hugo. ‘They’re moving again.’

  ‘For God’s sake . . .’ Josh turned on his heel and left the monitor room. Giving up on the console for the time being, Jasmine came after him.

  Hugo was standing in the centre of the room, holding the bin. ‘They’re waking up, mate,’ he said. His voice was calm but his eyes betrayed his tension, and the truth of his words was underlined by the fact that at that moment the tips of two of the crawlers’ legs were just beginning to protrude over the lip of the bin.

  They were trying to climb out.

  Lauren made a whimpering sound and backed away.

  ‘All right,’ said Josh, ‘we’ll have to chance it. Freeman? Robert? Get ready to shift those lockers when I say. Hugo, you get near the door. Be ready to chuck those things out as soon as it opens.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Hugo, with feeling.

  ‘Then let’s do this,’ said Josh.

  Frowning with effort, Ben and Robert lifted the lockers from the door.

  Everyone fell silent – waiting and watching. Ben had been half expecting the door to burst inward as soon as their improvised barricade was removed but, for now, it was still.

  ‘Here we go,’ Hugo murmured, stepping forward. Taking one hand off the bucket, he reached past the lockers to the door handle.

  There was enough space for the door to open about a foot. Robert and Ben were poised behind the lockers. The view out of the door was blocked for everyone else by Hugo himself.

  ‘How’s it look out there?’ asked Josh.

  ‘They’re still there,’ said Hugo, in a low whisper. ‘Still . . . frozen. Just standing there, like statues.’

  ‘Don’t let nothing else in,’ murmured Lauren softly, from behind him.

  ‘Don’t hang about, mate,’ Josh agreed. ‘Just chuck the bin out and let’s get this over with, eh?’

  ‘Right,’ said Hugo.

  Everyone held their breath. Hugo swung his hands back towards himself, then swung them forward.

  But just when he was about to let go and throw the bin and what was inside it as far away as he could:

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘One of them’s . . .’

  ‘What?’ asked Josh.

  For a second more Hugo stood there, his eyes widening, his arms still sticking straight out of the door. Then, with brutal suddenness, he disappeared from sight.

  He’d been yanked out of the room.

  ‘HUGO!’ Shock pushed Josh’s voice up to a shrill squeak, which was drowned out by a piercing scream from Lauren.

  Ben just stared, stunned, at the place where Hugo had been standing. Hugo might not be too hot on taking the initiative, but over the evening he had proved to be one of the stronger and braver people in the group. With his loss, hysteria spread through the room until the air seemed to ripple with it. Everyone yelled, swore, shouted Hugo’s name.

  In answer, a forest of arms reached in around the side of the door. They seemed to sprout from the gap, thrashing like tentacles: hands whipped wildly for purchase, snatching at whatever they could find. At the same instant, Ben, Robert and the barricade lockers were all rocked back by a concerted shove from outside.

  ‘The door!’ shrieked Jasmine. ‘Shut the door!’

  At last Josh lunged, adding his weight to that of Robert and Ben. The wall of lockers toppled forward.

  It stopped before the door could be closed again. Too many arms had been pushed through the gap. They were crushed there in a bunch; the arms’ owners – if they cared – would have some horrible bruises, maybe worse. But the door was still open. The hands were still grasping gamely. Even with the three boys pushing them, the lockers began to rock back again under the pressure on the door from outside. And as if all that wasn’t enough—

  ‘Robert, look out!’ Jasmine warned.

  Three, four, five hands snaked around the edge of the door and grabbed hold of Robert’s left side – three taking his arm, one latching onto his waistband, one snatching at his leg. Their knuckles whitened.

  ‘Wha—?’ said Robert. He staggered sideways round the side of the lockers. With the loss of his weight and strength the barricade lurched upright. Then the lockers were tipping back into the room. As well as the adults pushing from outside Ben and Josh were now struggling against the weight of the barricade itself.

  While Lauren just kept screaming, Jasmine stepped forward and grabbed Robert’s other arm. And Samantha . . .

  ‘Gaaaaaaaah!’

  Bellowing, Samantha launched herself bodily against the barricade – and everyone and everything else in her way.

  ‘AHH!’ There was an answering yelp of agony from Robert. Samantha’s charge had occurred at the exact moment when his left arm was sticking out through the gap in the door: the combined weight of Ben, Robert, Samantha and the lockers crunched into it behind the door’s hard edge – and stopped there, as the door failed to shut for a second time.

  ‘Get out! Get out! Get out!’ shrieked Samantha, smashing into Ben, the locker, Robert’s arm, everything, again and again. Twice more the door failed to close. But on the last ‘Get out!’ several things happened at once.

  The hands holding Robert let go. He fell back, taking Jasmine with him; the two of them hit the floor in a heap. Something similar must have been happening outside because the hands in the doorway retreated for a crucial moment. The
door slammed shut. The lockers fell back against it with a crash.

  Then there was silence.

  10:49 PM.

  ‘How – how did that happen?’ asked Samantha, panting, pointing at the door. She looked around the room, eyes wide, waiting for an answer. ‘What just happened there? Can anyone tell me?’

  ‘I guess they were waiting for us,’ said Jasmine, sitting on the floor.

  ‘You “guess”,’ Samantha echoed.

  Jasmine shrugged, too numb to face an argument. ‘Who can say for sure?’

  Samantha scowled. ‘You know what, Jasmine? I’ve heard enough words from you for one night. I don’t want to hear any more “I guess” – not from you, not from anybody. I want to hear some facts, and I want to hear them now. What the hell are we going to do? How are we going to get out of this? I mean, one second that boy was standing there by the door, and then . . .’ She lashed out at the lockers with her foot: blam!

  Everyone flinched.

  ‘We’re getting picked off here – that’s two of us down now. Who’s going to be next, do you think? Who’s next?’

  ‘OK, Samantha,’ said Josh, ‘that’s enough.’

  ‘What did you say?’ said Samantha heavily, rounding on Josh, eyes flashing.

  ‘I said, that’s enough.’

  ‘No,’ said Samantha, pointing at Josh and smiling mirthlessly. ‘No, no – you don’t get to say anything. I mean, whose idea was it to open the door in the first place? Who sent him out there? Whose fault is it that Hugo’s gone?’

  ‘Now – now just wait a second . . .’ Josh stammered. ‘We all agreed we wanted to get rid of the crawlers, right?’

  Nobody answered.

  ‘We all agreed,’ he repeated, with great emphasis. ‘You can’t turn round now and say it’s my fault. You just can’t!’

  Still nobody spoke. Everyone was staring at Josh – Ben included. He had never before seen Josh look less than completely confident and certain. But now . . .

  ‘How was I to know that was going to happen?’ asked Josh. His voice had gone high and scratchy, and his lower lip was trembling. ‘How was I to know they were going to grab him like that?’ He shook his head. ‘It’s not my fault! It’s not! It’s not my fault!’