Free Berserk by Tim Lebbon Page B

beneath the fence.
    Not that way! Bad man, nasty man, big bad Wolf!
    “I’m not hearing this.”
    This way, another way, please Daddy !
    “I’m not your—”
    He’s come to kill you and —
    “You can’t know this.”
    A loaded silence again, filled with a promise of something incredible. I know so much more, the little girl said. And though she still sounded scared and panicked, her words held power and control beneath the surface.
    “I’m leaving.” But even as Tom set off across the Plain, he heard the distant sound of a car engine from beyond the artificial boundary bank.
    That’s him, the voice said, quieter and more controlled. He’s a bad man. Very bad. He has only death in his head.
    “And you have life?”
    No, freedom. I don’t want to be here anymore, Daddy! Please come and get me, pick me up, hold me and hug me and I’ll tell you where to take us to be safe. The man’s coming now! I can feel him. Mister Wolf!
    Tom heard the engine’s tone change as the vehicle came to a stop. It rumbled on for a moment and then cut out. He strained to hear the car door opening and closing, but it was too far away. I could be doing this to myself, he thought, making this up to try to cover what I’ve done. He looked down at his filthy hands and clothes, tainted with soil from a grave. The back of his hand still bled. The blood was startlingly red against the mud drying across his pale skin. Autumn colours.
    What would he tell Jo?
    I’ll help you find Steven, the little girl said. My name is Natasha.
    “How do you know my son’s name?”
    It’s at the front of your mind. And Jo, as well.
    “My wife.” In my mind . . . so what else does she see, know of me?
    Please, take me out of here, out of the hole. Come and take me, and I’ll show you what happened here. I can, you know. My real Daddy told me how. If you touch me I can show you, even though I’m . . .
    “What?” Tom asked, scanning the fence for any signs of movement. “What are you? Dead? Dead and wrapped in chains?”
    Wrapped in chains because I’m not dead, the little girl’s voice said.
    “Not dead.” Tom turned and looked back at the dark hole in the ground, the fragmented bodies arranged beside it.
    Please, I’m very scared. And lonely. Take me, hold me, and I’ll show you everything. And if you believe, I’ll try to help you find Steven. Please!
    “Why would you do that?” He was talking to the air, the Plain, the sinking sun, and yet already he was certain he would receive an answer. Tom felt peculiarly comfortable with his newfound madness. Perhaps acceptance was insanity in its purest form.
    Because my Daddy loved me, and I think you love Steven the same way.
    “Where is your Daddy?”
    Daddy! the voice shrieked, and Tom winced as if he had been punched. Daddy is here! With me! He’s here in these chains, and Mummy and my little brother, all dead now, with —
    “With their heads cut off.”
    Natasha was silent for a few seconds, and Tom heard her sobbing again. They wanted me to be alive. Down here, alive, with all the crawling things. She sounded so vulnerable, so small, such a child.
    “They?”
    There’s time to tell . . . but not too much. Not now. No time now!
    Tom looked back over his shoulder at the mound, the small woods where he had found the crawlspace beneath the fence, and he wondered how he could explain this new madness to Jo. He had always been the strong one, the one to comfort her when tears came and memories shadowed the present. Now, covered in mud and with the stench of old corpses on his skin, how could he possibly explain?
    In the dusky light he saw someone climbing the fence.
    It’s him! Mister Wolf! Help me, please, don’t let him put me back in!
    Tom tried to imagine being buried alive, thrown down into the pit with all those bodies, surrounded by dead family. But the thought that galvanised him into action was the certainty that if he were discovered, he would never get away from here. He had