Bite Risk, page 4
‘I’m not even sure you’re trying,’ Harold scolds me.
‘Sorry. Bit distracted today.’
‘That’ll be Sequest experimenting on your brainwaves,’ he says. That at least raises a bubble of laughter from my chest.
‘Yeah, probably.’
But he’s not laughing. ‘They’re up to something,’ he insists. ‘Did Pedro take a look at that drone?’ For the first time, I feel a twist of doubt about my friend. His Sequest rants are funny, but I hope he’s not turning into some kind of actual conspiracy nut.
He winces.
‘You all right?’ I ask.
He twiddles his hearing aid. ‘Headache.’ For a moment I worry he’s about to attribute that to Sequest as well, but then he smiles wearily. ‘Just the doldrums. And I’ve been out all over town running errands – think I’ve overdone it.’
‘It’s worse lately, isn’t it? The doldrums.’ Elena reckons I’m imagining it, but it definitely is. The nausea, the headaches, the general out-of-sorts-ness. ‘Do you want a painkiller?’
‘No, it’s all right, don’t make a fuss.’
‘How about one of your juice drinks?’ I lift one of the little glass bottles from the newly delivered box on the floor. He mixes his own recipe non-alcoholic punch for the monthly Howler parties held in the town square before Confinement nights. He orders all sorts of interesting juice and soda concoctions off the internet. Most of them taste like cough syrup, although they’re very popular. It’s frowned upon to drink alcohol in the twenty-four hours before Confinement – drunk is dangerous when you’re supposed to go into your cage nice and quietly.
He waves it away. ‘Not now, thank you. Come on.’ He nods at the cards in my hand. ‘Your go.’
I select a three of spades and drop it on the table before realizing it was a stupid choice. I’ve just thrown away a trump. But Harold doesn’t seem to notice – he’s staring into the distance, frowning.
‘Ingrid was in such a rush before dusk.’ He shakes his head. ‘Do you mind if we check on Dora quickly? I want to make sure she’s locked in properly. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to her.’
Harold is very protective of Dora, despite the fact she’s horribly rude to him, and incredibly nosy. He regularly finds her poking about in his room. He just takes it, though. She’s pretty much as unpleasant as Ingrid except seventy years older so she’s had more practice. In that way Ingrid is the perfect Caretaker for her. They deserve each other.
If you so much as pass Dora’s room when the door’s open and glance in, she’ll jump down your throat in a way her Ripper self would be proud of. She guards her room as though she’s got diamonds in there instead of a load of flowery cushions and lacy doilies and whole series of books with wartime nurses on the covers. She just about puts up with Ingrid locking her in, because she has no choice, I suppose. But she shouts at her a lot, according to Harold. I can understand why Ingrid doesn’t hang around.
We open the door to Dora’s room quietly, as though we’re afraid of waking her up, even though Rippers don’t sleep. She’s standing in the centre of her cage, all bony and stiff, very still, a low growl simmering in her throat, having heard us coming. Her fur stands out in untidy greying tufts, the knees of her back legs bowed towards each other awkwardly. There are low voices, and it takes me a moment to trace them to the speaker on a shelf – she’s put an audiobook on. I listen for a few seconds while Harold bends to check the padlock. Two characters are discussing what they’ll do when a baby is born and worrying what will become of them. I struggle to imagine Dora caring enough about anyone to follow this kind of story. I guess there’s always more to people than you think.
I quickly lose interest and absent-mindedly take hold of one of the cage bars to give it a test rattle. Dora immediately goes for my hand, causing me to jump back, banging into the small bedside table.
‘Watch out for her teeth!’ Harold gasps.
‘It’s okay. She didn’t get me,’ I reassure him.
‘No, her teeth.’ Harold gestures behind me, where I’ve jolted the bedside table, sloshing a full tumbler that I now see is home to a set of dentures, grinning pinkly in their watery lair. I grab a few tissues from the box and quickly clean up the spill. For some reason the sight of Dora’s false teeth makes me sad: all neat and orderly in the cleaning fluid where she put them before dusk made her a monster.
Elderly Rippers are weaker than younger ones, but it’s all relative. You still wouldn’t set one free, not unless you want it on your death certificate that you had your intestines torn out by a pensioner. Under the moulting, patchy fur, there’s a sinuous flex of muscle, and Ripper skin is so tough that even mosquitoes can’t puncture it. That’s why the X50 darts are so strong.
Harold straightens up, reassuring the irritated Ripper now pacing up and down, hissing and yowling. ‘All secure. There we go, Dora, sorry to disturb you.’ He sighs, his gaze roving around the room for a moment, sweeping the shelves with a slight frown, as though he’s got the feeling something’s out of place. Then he gives himself a little shake, and we head back to his room to restart our game.
We’ve barely played another hand when—
Ping
My alert bracelet vibrates on my wrist and I stare at it in surprise. Eddie leaps to his feet and starts yapping until Harold puts a calming hand on his back. ‘That sounded like an alert.’
It is. An escape. I’d forgotten what they sound like, we haven’t had one for so long. Anyone can send an alert, but the system grades them according to how many it’s received for the same incident, in the unlikely event that someone has just sat on their bracelet and managed to select an address randomly. This one is flashing red, which means there have been multiple reports. It’s real.
To my shame, my first thought is that I hope it isn’t near here because then I’ll have to do something about it.
Then I read the alert and my stomach lurches, like I’ve just stumbled off a cliff.
It is nowhere near. It’s all the way across town:
15 Albermore Terrace
My address.
Harold sees my expression, the way I grip the arms of the chair as I stand up unsteadily. ‘Sel?’
‘Mum,’ I croak. ‘It’s Mum.’
CHAPTER SIX
I make it across town in record time, my trainers punishing the pedals on my bike so viciously I’m scared they’re going to fly off. My mind is filled by a single question. How did this happen? I distinctly remember clicking the lock shut, seeing the red light come on, wishing Mum a good night, then tugging at the door to check.
Doesn’t matter. Just get there.
I push myself so hard that when I finally reach my road, there are sparks floating at the edge of my vision and my breath is coming in harsh rasps. By some miracle my bike chain has stayed on.
There are a few kids spaced out, their backs to me, tranqs pointed down the side alley of my house, where we keep the bins. The closest two – Asim and Rudy – turn around briefly when they hear the spin of my wheels, then shift their focus ahead again. I toss my bike to one side as Asim nods towards the alley.
‘There. She went for Rudy but ran straight into the stun pops, got flamed and backed off behind there.’
I glance at Rudy, heart in my mouth. He’s standing just outside my front garden, legs planted apart like we’ve been taught. His heaving chest is the only sign of what just happened.
I need to shut her down before she makes another move. Those three stun pops have left a gap plenty big enough for her to get through if she tries again at the same point.
Our front door is hanging off one hinge. I don’t see the graphene net, so it must have been triggered, but for some reason it didn’t stop her.
A clattering from the side of the house reminds me this is not a question for right now. I raise my own tranq. This is my mess. I need to clean it up.
‘Safety off,’ someone says from behind me.
Right. I flick it.
The gap down the side of our house is a dead end – Mika’s house next door has an extension that goes right up to our wall at the back. The alley is covered in shadows as I approach. If Mum’s down there, she’s quiet and still, which is not a normal state for a Ripper. She might be hurt. If the stun pops got her, she might—
Some instinct gives me a millisecond’s warning before a furry body launches at me from the darkness and I lose my footing in panic, slipping and letting off an uncontrolled volley of darts into the night sky. The big bin goes flying and lands on top of me just before the Ripper does, knocking the breath from my lungs. The hinged lid smacks open onto my face, forming a barrier between us, Mum’s jaws snapping behind the other side of the flimsy plastic. I have about half a second to live.
There’s a snick sound, and a yelp, and almost immediately the movement stops, and Mum goes slack. The pressure on my chest subsides as she slides off the bin, collapsing onto the rubbish now strewn on the ground from torn black sacks. I struggle up and kneel at her side.
‘Mum…’
I run my hands through her fur, surprised at how soft it is, and realize it’s the first time I’ve ever really touched her as a Ripper. My fingers press against the warm skin underneath – her side moving up and down under my hand. She’s alive, just knocked out.
‘You hurt?’
Mika rolls forward up the garden path towards me, flicking her fringe out of her eyes. She lowers her tranq to her lap.
I manage to shake my head.
‘Sorry I couldn’t get her before she went through the stun pops. That’s gonna hurt tomorrow.’
I look where she’s pointing, at Mum’s hind leg. There’s a large, charred section of fur with blood seeping out at the edges.
I can barely speak due to my bursting lungs, and to shame. It chokes me. What have I done?
‘Mika, thank you. I…’
‘Sure.’ She shrugs like she’s only done the washing-up for me. If it wasn’t for the tremble in her voice and the haunted look on her face, I’d think she was fine with it. She’s not fine with it. Tonight is going to feature in her nightmares.
What have I done? Not just to Mum, but to my friends. My neighbours. Now it’s all over, there’s a small crowd of them standing around.
‘You better get her inside.’
Rudy and Asim pass us, hoisting a tarp between them, all business.
A couple of people head down the side of the house to find the darts I let off – hopefully they’ll just be embedded in the fence, not lying on the ground waiting to jab someone in the foot. A clean-up team will be dispatched tomorrow, but it’s better if those darts are found sooner rather than later. I shudder as I realize I could easily have killed someone with my panicky trigger finger.
It takes eight of us to roll Mum on the tarp and slowly manhandle her back through the front door, her head bumping sickeningly and tongue lolling as we descend the stone steps to the cellar.
Once she’s finally inside the cage and we close the door, we pause to get our breath back and I see the others surreptitiously taking her in.
She’s beautiful. A silver-grey top layer of fur, each hair tipped with black, a delicate coppery tinge over the shoulders and down her spine. Her eyelids are slightly open, irises glinting gold through the slit. No one gets to check out a Ripper like this, normally. They’re in constant movement, have inhumanly quick reflexes and are perpetually full of violence. Now, the sheer size of her, the muscular legs and neck, the razor teeth… everyone drinks it in, fascinated. Them seeing Mum this way, utterly helpless, feels indecent. I almost snap at them to stop staring, but I owe them more than I can ever repay. They did their jobs when I failed to do mine.
I really hope the wound will have disappeared by tomorrow. Sometimes they do, but Rippers usually only have little grazes from throwing themselves against the cage all night. This one’s almost certainly going to persist through her Return and need treatment.
The other kids gradually peel off back home, except for Elena, whose arrival I hadn’t even noticed. She goes outside and brings in the graphene net, which she found in a flowerbed. It’s got a huge hole in it.
I sit on the floor of the cellar, unwilling to leave Mum alone yet. Elena comes to sit right next to me, arm round my shoulders, and then the sobs break free. My whole body shudders with the enormity of what’s happened.
I’ve been so stupid. Complacent. I put everyone in danger.
None of them have told me off, none of them judged me or asked how the cage door got open – the lock worked fine when they shut it just now. None of them wanted to know where I’d been or did so much as tut. That will come tomorrow, for sure, when the adults wake.
For now, though, the horror and the disgust are all mine.
CHAPTER SEVEN MAY – 29 DAYS TO NEXT CONFINEMENT
I get a visit from Sergeant Hale the following day. It’s a Saturday, so I wouldn’t be at school anyway, thank goodness. I’m not ready to face that just yet.
Hale comes down to the basement to see our set-up to figure out what went wrong. Mum stays upstairs on the sofa – her leg is really hurting. It’s got a big dressing on it that she’ll have to get changed twice a week at the Wellness Centre so that it doesn’t get infected. She insists she’ll be able to work on Monday.
I think she might be in shock. Or maybe it’s the after-effects of the tranq. She hasn’t been angry. She doesn’t even blame me. It’s much worse than that – she blames herself.
Back upstairs, Sergeant Hale sighs and gets his notebook out. We wait, subdued, while he writes in it, ignoring the hammering and clattering at the front of the house as Mika’s mum attaches a new door for us.
He sucks his teeth. ‘Seems like you just didn’t lock it properly, Sel.’
‘But… I did. I definitely did.’ I swear I clicked it into place. I remember doing it, just as I’ve done it hundreds of times before. ‘The little red light came on, like always.’
‘Maybe it’s faulty,’ Mum offers. ‘It’s my mistake, I bought it. I fell for those ads that said it was super secure. I’ll get an old-fashioned padlock immediately.’ She sounds so apologetic. I can’t bear it.
Hale shrugs. ‘Sure, as an additional measure it would be wise. But ultimately, this is on your Caretaker.’ He fixes me with a significant look.
‘What if someone let her out on purpose?’ I speak the thought the moment it occurs to me. Ingrid’s hateful face swims into my mind.
Hale stiffens. ‘That’s a serious accusation. Who else knows the lock passcode, apart from you and your mother?’
No one does, except for Elena, but I’m not telling him that.
He takes my silence as an answer.
‘So where were you, Sel?’
‘Just messing about with friends. You know. Riding my bike. I wasn’t… far away.’ It’s the same thing I told Mum. I don’t want to get Harold in trouble. It’s not his fault – he’s never pressured me to visit on Confinements; it’s my choice.
‘What friends? Elena, right?’ Hale flips over a page in his notebook.
‘No.’ It comes out louder than I intend. He glances up in surprise.
‘No? You two are pretty close, right? Always hanging out, from what I hear.’
‘No, I mean, yeah, but no, we weren’t… on this particular occasion. She had other stuff to do.’ I lick my lips. For some reason I feel like I’m lying, even though I’m not. What does he mean, from what I hear? Who’s he been talking to? Why are Elena and I even a topic of conversation?
‘So she was busy? Out as well? Doing what?’
I shrug dramatically. ‘No idea. Why don’t you ask her?’ As soon as I’ve said it, I want to take it back. Great job keeping her out of it, Sel. But Hale presses on.
‘So who were you with?’
‘It was just… you know, random kids from school. I can’t remember. I don’t really know most of them.’
He lets the silence grow for a moment, giving the lie some space so we can all appreciate what a whopper it is. Even the hammering noise from fitting the doorframe stops for a few seconds. Everyone at school is intimately acquainted with the details of each other’s lives, whether they want to be or not. We know extended family histories, daily routines, favourite foods, birthmarks, test scores, toilet habits.
Hale’s pencil scratches on his notebook. What can he possibly be writing that takes this long? He’s probably just doodling to make me uncomfortable.
It’s working.
‘Ingrid,’ I add, sweating. ‘I was with Ingrid Rossi.’ Mum’s eyebrows draw together sceptically but she says nothing.
The pencil pauses, then scratches again. Ingrid’s name. My stomach twists with a nauseous mix of spite and shame.
‘Derek,’ Mum says, ‘this doesn’t have to go any further, does it?’
‘I’ll have to make a report, I’m afraid, Mrs Archer.’ Mum flinches at his formality. ‘It’ll go to Police HQ in Hastaville but I doubt there’ll be consequences as it’s his first offence, and no one else got hurt. And frankly, they’ve got bigger problems in Hastaville, as you know. Murderers and robbers round every corner.’ He waits for me to look at him, and I notice that his eyes are puffy underneath like he doesn’t get a lot of sleep. ‘You’re a good kid. I get it. We have it easy here, you forget how important it is to be careful. I hope last night reminded you that Caretaking is life and death. We leave you kids alone for one night a month, that’s all. Just… from now on, do what you’re supposed to do. Got it? Maybe get yourself on the next New Caretakers course for a refresher.’
There’s a lump in my throat that stops me speaking. Mum jumps in and apologizes again and says, ‘Yes, we will.’ We will.
‘That wasn’t true about Ingrid, was it?’ Mum says, the moment Hale is gone.
‘She was there!’ I insist, slightly too loudly. ‘Making my life a misery, as always.’ It’s barely a lie – it just wasn’t precisely last night, that’s all.
