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“I can handle Davy bloody Prentiss.”
“He has a gun,” I say. “You don’t.”
Ben comes up to me. “Todd,” he says.
“No, Ben,” I say, my voice getting louder. “I ain’t listening.”
He looks me in the eye and I notice he don’t seem to be having to bend down any more to do it.
“Todd,” he says again. “I atone for the wrong I’ve done by keeping you safe.”
“You can’t leave me, Ben,” I say, my voice getting wet (shut up). “Not again.”
He’s shaking his head. “I can’t come to Haven with you. You know I can’t. I’m the enemy.”
“We can explain what happened.”
But he’s still shaking his head.
“The horse is getting closer,” Viola says.
Thump budda-thump budda-thump.
“The only thing that makes me a man,” Ben says, his voice steady as a rock, “is seeing you safely into becoming a man yerself.”
“I ain’t a man yet, Ben,” I say, my throat catching (shut up). “I don’t even know how many days I got left.”
And then he smiles and it’s the smile that tells me it’s over.
“Sixteen,” he says. “Sixteen days till yer birthday.” He takes my chin and lifts it. “But you’ve been a man for a good while now. Don’t let no one tell you otherwise.”
“Ben–”
“Go,” he says and he comes up to me and hands Viola the binos behind my back and takes me in his arms. “No father could be prouder,” I hear him say by my ear.
“No,” I say, my words slurring. “It ain’t fair.”
“It ain’t.” He pulls himself away. “But there’s hope at the end of the road. You remember that.”
“Don’t go,” I say.
“I have to. Danger’s coming.”
“Closer and closer,” Viola says, binos to her eyes.
Budda-thump budda-THUMP.
“I’ll stop him. I’ll buy you time.” Ben looks at Viola. “You take care of Todd,” he says. “I have yer word?”
“You have my word,” Viola says.
“Ben, please,” I whisper. “Please.”
He grips my shoulders for a last time. “Remember,” he says. “Hope.”
And he don’t say nothing more and he turns and runs down the hill from the sematary to the road. When he gets to the bottom, he looks back and sees us still watching him.
“What are you waiting for?” he shouts. “Run!”
I won’t say what I feel when we run down the other side of the hill and away from Ben, for ever this time cuz how is there any life after this?
Life equals ru
“Come on, Todd,” Viola calls, looking back over her shoulder. “Please, hurry.”
I don’t say nothing.
I run.
We get down the hill and back by the river. Again. With the road on our other side. Again.
Always the same.
The river’s louder than it was, rushing by with some force, but who cares? What does it matter?
Life ain’t fair.
It ain’t.
Not never.
It’s pointless and stupid and there’s only suffering and pain and people who want to hurt you. You can’t love nothing or no one cuz it’ll all be taken away or ruined and you’ll be left alone and constantly having to fight, constantly having to run just to stay alive.
There’s nothing good in this life. Not nothing good nowhere.
What’s the effing point?
“The point is,” Viola says, stopping halfway thru a dense patch of scrub to hit me really hard on the shoulder, “he cared enough about you to maybe sacrifice himself and if you just GIVE UP” – she shouts that part – “then you’re saying that the sacrifice is worth nothing!”
“Ow,” I say, rubbing my shoulder. “But why should he have to sacrifice himself? Why should I have to lose him again?”
She steps up close to me. “Do you think you’re the only person who’s lost someone?” she says in a dangerous whisper. “Do you forget that my parents are dead, too?”
I did.
I did forget.
I don’t say nothing.
“All I’ve got now is you,” she says, her voice still angry. “And all you’ve got now is me. And I’m mad he left, too, and I’m mad my parents died and I’m mad we ever thought of coming to this planet in the first place but that’s how it is and it’s crap that it’s just us but we can’t do anything about it.”
I still don’t say nothing.
But there she is and I look at her, really look at her, for probably the first time since I saw her cowering next to a log back in the swamp when I thought she was a Spackle.
A lifetime ago.
She’s still kinda cleaned up from the days in Carbonel Downs (only yesterday, only just yesterday) but there’s dirt on her cheeks and she’s ski
And she’s telling me she’s all I’ve got.
And that I’m all she’s got.
And I feel a little bit how that feels.
The colours in my Noise go different.
Her voice softens but only a little. “Ben’s gone and Manchee’s gone and my mother and father are gone,” she says. “And I hate all of that. I hate it. But we’re almost at the end of the road. We’re almost there. And if you don’t give up, I don’t give up.”
“Do you believe there’s hope at the end?” I ask.
“No,” she says simply, looking away. “No, I don’t, but I’m still going.” She eyes me. “You coming with?”
I don’t have to answer.
We carry on ru
But.
“We should just take the road,” I say, holding back yet another branch.
“But the army,” she says. “And the horses.”
“They know where we’re going. We know where they’re going. We all seem to have taken the same route to get to Haven.”
“And we’ll hear them coming,” she agrees. “And the road’s fastest.
“The road’s fastest.”
And she says, “Then let’s just take the effing road and get ourselves to Haven.”
I smile, a little. “You said effing,” I say. “You actually said the word effing.”
So we take the effing road, as fast as our tiredness will let us. It’s still the same dusty, twisty, sometimes muddy river road that it was all those miles and miles ago and the same leafy, tree-filled New World all around us.
If you were just landing here and didn’t know nothing about nothing you really might think it was Eden after all.
A wide valley is opening up around us, flat at the bottom where the river is but distant hills begi
No sign of Haven ahead neither but we’re at the flattest point of the valley and can’t see much past the twists in the road either before us or back. Forest still covers both sides of the river and you’d be tempted to think that all of New World had closed up and everyone left, leaving just this road behind ’em.
We go on.
And on.
Not till the first stripes of dawn start appearing down the valley in front of us do we stop to take on more water.
We drink. There’s only my Noise and the river rushing by.
No hoofbeats. No other Noise.
“You know this means he succeeded,” Viola says, not meeting my eye. “Whatever he did, he stopped the man on the horse.”
I just mm and nod.
“And we never heard gunshots.”
I mm and nod again.
“I’m sorry for shouting at you before,” she says. “I just wanted you to keep going. I didn’t want you to stop.”