The Little Friend

And here he was. He took a step up the ladder, and stopped. He thought of going down again, to see if he could find the thing that had hit him, and then realized that it would only be a waste of time. What he’d done there, down below, was done: what he had to do now was keep climbing, focus on getting to the top. He did not wish to be blown up, but if I am, he thought desperately, looking down at the bloody car, fuck it.

There was nothing to do but keep going. He rubbed the sore place on his head, took a deep breath, and started to climb again.

————

Something in Harriet snapped to, and she found herself in her body again, lying on her side; and it was like returning to a window that she’d walked away from, but to a different pane. Her hand was bloody. For a moment she stared at it without quite knowing what it was.

Then she remembered, and sat up with a bolt. He was coming, not a moment to waste. She stood, groggily. Suddenly a hand shot out from behind and seized hold of her ankle, and she screamed and kicked at it and—unexpectedly—broke free. She lunged for the trapdoor, just as Danny Ratliff’s battered face and blood-spattered shirt rose up behind her on the ladder, like a swimmer climbing from a pool.

He was scary, smelly, huge. Harriet—gasping, practically weeping with terror—clattered down towards the water. His shadow fell across the open trapdoor, blocking out the sun. Clang: ugly motorcycle boots stepped on the ladder overhead. Down he came after her, clang clang clang clang.

Harriet turned and threw herself off the ladder. She hit the water feet-first. Down she plunged, into the dark and cold, down until her feet struck bottom. Sputtering, gagging from the filthy taste, she pulled back her arms and shot up to the surface in a mighty breaststroke.

But just as she broke the surface, a strong hand closed fast on her wrist and hauled her up out of the water. He was chest-deep in the water, holding on to the ladder and leaning out sideways to grasp her by the arm, and his silvery eyes—glowing light and powerful in his sunburnt face—pierced her like a stab.

Flailing, twisting, fighting as hard as it was possible for her to fight and with a strength she’d never known she had before, Harriet struggled to get away but though she raised a tremendous spray of water it was no use. Up he hauled her—her waterlogged clothes were heavy; she could feel his muscles trembling from the strain—as Harriet kicked fan after fan of nasty water up into his face.

“Who you?” he shouted. His lip was split, his cheeks greasy and unshaven. “What you want with me?”

Harriet let out a strangled gasp. The pain in her shoulder was breathtaking. On his bicep squirmed a blue tattoo: murky octopus shape, a blurred Old English script, illegible.

“What are you doing up here? Speak up!” He shook Harriet by the arm until a scream burst unwilling from her throat and she kicked around desperately in the water for something to brace herself on. In a flash he pinned her leg with his knee and—with a high, womanish cackle—caught her up by the hair of the head. Swiftly, he pushed her face down into the filthy water and then hauled her up again, dripping. He was trembling all over.

“Now answer me, you little bitch!” he screamed.

————

In truth, Danny trembled as much from shock as anger. He’d acted so fast he hadn’t had time to think; and even though the girl was in his grasp, he could hardly believe it.

The girl’s nose was bloody; her face—rippling in the watery light—was streaked with rust and dirt. Balefully, she stared at him, all puffed up like a little barn owl.

“You’d better start talking,” he shouted, “and I mean now.” His voice boomed and ricocheted crazily inside the tank. Sunbeams filtered in through the dilapidated roof, breathing and flickering heavily on the claustrophobic walls, a sickly, remote light like a mine-shaft or a collapsed well.

In the dimness, the girl’s face floated above the water like a white moon. He became aware of the fast, small noise of her breaths.

“Answer me,” he screamed, “what the hell are you doing up here,” and he shook her again, as hard as he could, leaning out over the water and holding tight to the ladder with his other hand, shook her by the neck until a scream burst from her throat; and as tired and frightened as he was, a surge of anger twisted through him and he roared over her cries so ferociously that her face went blank and the cries died upon her lips.

His head hurt. Think, he told himself, think. He had her, all right—but what to do with her? He was in a tricky position. Danny had always told himself he could dog-paddle in a pinch, but now (chest-deep in water, hanging on to the flimsy ladder) he wasn’t so sure. How hard could it be, swimming? Cows could swim, even cats—why not him?