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“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!”
Flesh.
“Todd?”
I’m cutting my way thru rushes and pulling my feet outta mud and flesh and feast and TOOTH.
And then I hear Whirler dog–
And I know we’re done for.
“Run!” I yell.
And we run and Manchee lets out a frightened yelp and leaps past me but I see a croc rear up outta the rushes in front of him and it jumps for him but Manchee’s so scared he jumps even higher, higher than he really knows how, and the croc’s teeth snap on empty air and it lands with a splash next to me looking mighty pissed off and I hear its Noise hiss Whirler boy and I’m ru
And it’s when I’m gasping for air from the rush of my blood and Manchee’s barking and barking and we’re both laughing from relief that I realize that we’ve been too loud ourselves to hear something important.
“Going somewhere, young Todd?”
Aaron. Standing right over me.
Before I can do nothing he punches me in the face.
I fall backwards onto the ground, the rucksack digging into my back and making me look like an upturned turtle. My cheek and my eye are just singing with pain and I haven’t even moved properly before Aaron’s grabbing me by my shirt front and the skin beneath and lifting me to my feet. I yell out from how much it hurts.
Manchee barks an angry “Aaron!” and goes for Aaron’s legs, but Aaron doesn’t even look before kicking him outta the way hard.
Aaron’s holding me up to look him in the face. I can only keep the one non-painful eye open to meet his.
“Just what in the name of God’s bounteous, glorified Eden are you doing down here in the swamp, Todd Hewitt?” he says, his breath smelling like meat and his Noise the scariest kinda crazy you never wa
With his free hand, he punches me in the stomach. I try to bend over with the pain of it but he’s still holding on to my shirt front and the skin below.
“You gotta go back,” he says. “There’s things you need to see.”
I’m gasping for breath but the way he says it catches my ear and some of the flickers I’m catching in his Noise make it so I can see a little bit of the truth.
“You sent them,” I say. “It wasn’t me they heard. It was you.”
“Smart boys make useless men,” he says, twisting his gripping hand.
I cry out but I ruddy well keep talking, too. “They didn’t hear the quiet in my Noise. They heard it in yer Noise and you sent them to me to keep them from coming after you.”
“Oh, no, Todd,” he says, “they heard it in yer Noise. I just made sure they did. I made sure they knew who was responsible for bringing danger to our town.” He grits his teeth into a wild smile beneath his beard. “And who should be rewarded for his efforts.”
“Yer crazy,” I say and boy is it ever true and boy do I wish it wasn’t.
His smile falls and his teeth clench. “It’s mine, Todd,” he says. “Mine.”
I don’t know what this means but I don’t stop to think about it cuz I realize instead that both Aaron and I have forgotten one important thing.
I never let go of the knife.
A whole buncha things happen at once.
Aaron hears knife in my Noise and realizes his mistake. He pulls back his free fist to make another punch.
I pull back my knife hand and I wonder if I can actually stab him.
There’s a breaking sound from the rushes and Manchee barks, “Croc!”
And all at the same time, we hear Whirler man.
Before Aaron can even turn, the croc is on him, clamping its teeth onto his shoulder and grabbing him with its claws and pulling him back towards the rushes. Aaron lets go of me and I fall to the ground again, clutching at all the bruises he’s left on my chest. I look up and I see Aaron thrashing in the muck now, fighting with the croc and the sails on the backs of other crocs heading his way, too.
“Outta here!” Manchee’s barking, almost shrieking.
“Too effing right,” I say and I stumble to my feet, the rucksack knocking me a little off balance and my hurt eye trying to peel open but we don’t stop and we run and we run and we run.
We get out of the marshes and run along the bottom of the fields to the start of the swamp path and we run into the swamp along it and when we get to the log that Manchee always needs help over he just sails right over it without even stopping and I’m right behind him and we’re ru
And the knife is still in my hand and my Noise is thudding so loud and I’m so frightened and hurt and mad that I know beyond any shadow of a thought that I am going to find the Spackle hiding in his Noise hole and I am going to kill him dead dead dead for everything that’s happened today.
“Where is it?” I ask Manchee. “Where’s the quiet?”
Manchee’s sniffing away like mad, ru
“Hurry!” I say. “Before it runs–”
And it’s barely outta my mouth before I hear it. The rip in the Noise, as big and horrible as life itself, I can hear it a little bit away, behind the Spackle buildings, behind some bushes.
It ain’t getting away this time.
“Quiet!” Manchee barks, all keyed up, and he runs past the buildings and into the bushes.
And the quiet moves, too, and tho I can feel the pressure in my chest again and the terrible mournful things coming into my eyes, this time I don’t stop, this time I run after my dog and I don’t stop and I take in my breath and I swallow away the pressure and I wipe the water from my eyes and I grip the knife and I can hear Manchee barking and I can hear the silence and it’s just around this tree just around this tree just around this tree and I’m yelling and I’m going round the tree and I’m ru
And I stop.
I stop right there in my tracks.
I don’t, I do absolutely not put down the knife.