“I’M JUST SAYING: maybe it would have been nice if someone had reminded me my bike was there before I blew it up.”
Arkle was pacing in his socks: a trace of his explosive had burned a hole in his Converse sneaker and left a scorch mark on his ankle.
“It was you who left it,” said Mack. “I don’t see how this is our fault.”
“Don’t give me your shit, Golden Boy,” said Arkle. “And, oh! Great! This is my last cigarette! Isn’t that just peachy?” He tapped it from the packet and pulled it away with his lips. “Why do the worst things happen to the best people?”
“You know,” said Hadley, “Roxburgh’s dead. You just blew up Lamb’s barn. The box is draining my strength. Sep’s had a tooth ripped out, his feet all cut, and he was bitten by a zombie dog.”
“Yeah yeah yeah,” said Arkle, lips tight as he leaned down to light his cigarette on the gas ring.
“We need to go back to the box—now,” said Sep. “We have to finish this.”
Lamb was staring into space, her face blank. “He just . . . blew it up,” she said, then made a popping-bubble sound.
“Seriously. We need to get out of here,” said Sep. “Do you think there’s any chance someone didn’t see that fireball?”
“We’re definitely doing this now?” said Mack. “I mean, it’s dark, and the rule says—”
“The rule says not to open it after dark, right?”
“Right, that’s what I’m—”
“But you didn’t close it last time, did you?”
Mack furrowed his brow. “No,” he said after a moment, “that doll came, and we ran away.”
Sep nodded. “That rule doesn’t apply to us now, does it? So we’re doing this on our own terms—tonight.”
They looked at each other. Each of them appeared scorched and bruised, and their singed eyebrows gave them an air of considered surprise.
“Your new sacrifices, then,” said Sep. “What have you got?”
Mack went to his pocket and produced a tight triangle of plastic.
“Garbage?” said Lamb.
“No! It’s an empty popcorn packet.”
“So . . . garbage,” said Lamb, narrowing her eyes.
“It’s not,” he said, holding it up. “Look at the stripes—it’s Wilko’s popcorn!”
“Dude,” said Arkle.
“You can’t even buy this anymore! This is from that summer—it’s the popcorn wrapper from our movie night! I kept it!”
“That’s perfect!” said Sep. “Jesus, Mack, I can’t believe you did that.”
Mack shrugged, smiling happily. “I told you. I missed you guys.”
“All right, what else have we got?” said Sep.
Lamb dropped a pebble on the table. “It’s from the time we went swimming,” she mumbled, avoiding their eyes.
“What?”
“I said it’s from the time we went swimming!” she shouted.
Sep gave her a huge smile. “You big softy,” he said.
“Don’t—” she started.
“This is Sep’s book,” said Arkle, reaching for his back pocket. “The Shining. I—I couldn’t read it. It was too long and too scary, but he gave it to me that summer, and I’ve always thought of him when I saw it under my bed.”
They looked at the crumpled paperback, sitting on the edge of the table.
Sep laughed. “I didn’t give you this,” he said. “You must have taken it without asking me. I’ve actually been looking for it. Like, a lot.”
“Well,” said Arkle, stubbing his cigarette into the sink, “that act of casual theft made me think fondly about you for the last four years. I’m glad to sacrifice your property.”
“Hadley?” said Lamb.
Hadley stood with difficulty, leaning on her chair. “The mixtape from the box,” she said.
“What? It has to be something to do with each other,” said Mack. “About how we’re friends.”
“This is!” she said. “I was surprised no one recognized it before.” She pulled it out of her pocket and showed it to Sep. “Don’t you remember? The handwriting’s smudged, but you can still tell it’s yours.”
They all looked at him.
“Mine? But—” He picked up the cassette, reread the label. “I made this for you,” he said, remembering. “We listened to it—”
“On the beach. We toasted marshmallows.”
“All right,” said Arkle, puffing out his cheeks. “Last one, Sep. What have you got?”
Sep went to his pocket, felt the piece of paper inside. “No,” he said. “I don’t think I should.”
“Come on,” said Lamb. “It can’t be any more lame than my swimming pebble. Show us!”
Sep shook his head, backing away from the table. “I can’t. I’ve written something—”
“What? That’s like a homemade Christmas present!” said Arkle. “You can’t give it that!”
“Yeah, that sucks,” said Lamb. “You’re the one who said it’s all about love. How can you just write something?”
“I know, but . . . I didn’t keep wrappers or pebbles or tapes—or steal things from your houses. Everything I feel about you guys is just . . . in my head. In my heart. All I could do was try to make that into something I could hold in my hands. It says everything I’ve ever wanted to say. Do you trust me?”
“Are you going to cry?” said Mack, looking at the ceiling. “Because if you are, that would just set me off, man, and I don’t think I can even—” He broke off and fanned his eyes.
“Okay,” said Arkle, “Okay. Yeah! I trust you! I trust you! Let’s do this!”
Lamb looked at Hadley. She nodded. “We trust you,” she said.
“Good,” said Sep, smiling gratefully at them. “Because we need to go now. Like, now now.”
“Right,” said Hadley, making a fist with her uncut hand. “Let’s do it.”
“Well . . .” said Sep.
“What?”
“Just,” said Sep, looking to the others for support, “it might kill you—you could die just by going near it. Maybe you should—”
“You’re not serious?” said Lamb.
Hadley shook her head. “You need me.”
“Yeah, Sep. If we’re going to make sacrifices for each other, we all have to be there,” said Lamb. “We have to do it together, or not at all.”
“But she might—”
“I can look after myself,” said Hadley. “It’s my own fault I gave it blood. I’m going to do what I can to stop it, same as the rest of you.” She pulled back her shoulders and gave him a defiant look.
“All right,” he said. “But you have to tell us if you need help—even if it means we go back and try another time.”
“Fine.”
Lamb looked Sep up and down, then shook her head. “The state you’re in.”
“I’m okay,” said Sep, examining himself. His feet and the bite wound in his leg had stopped bleeding, but his white undershirt was spattered in gore, and he was covered in mud and scratches.
“Wait!” said Arkle. “What am I going to do?”
“What do you mean?” said Hadley.
“Well, I’ve got no shoes, my clothes are covered in fertilizer, and I blew up my bike.”
“What shoe size are you?” said Lamb.
“Wait, can I have shoes too? I’m an eleven,” said Sep, turning back from the doorway.
“I’m a five,” said Arkle.
“A five?” sniggered Mack.
Arkle gave him a warning stare. “Yes, Macejewski. A five.”
“Darren I can help,” Lamb said. “He can wear my hockey boots. Sep, my dad’s only a nine. I’m sorry.”
“So I need to go barefoot?”
“Class!” said Arkle. “What about the other things?”
“Borrow some more of my dad’s gear from the basket—don’t look at my underwear—and you can take my sister’s old bike. I’m pretty sure it’s in the shed.”
“You’ve got a deal,” said Arkle, lifting the lid from the basket. He nodded. “I’ll take these clothes, your boots, and your sister’s bicycle.”
As he was changing, the others gathered in the courtyard. Sirens sailed through the sky, their alarms mangled by the rain that lashed the ground and splashed in the wet earth.
“Are you all right?” Sep asked Hadley.
She tucked Elliot into her basket and tightened the dog’s shawl. “Yes,” she said. “It’s kind of gone past that, hasn’t it? I mean, it doesn’t matter how we are—look at everything that’s happened because of us.”
“I know.”
She pointed at his feet, slashed and bare. “Will you be okay?”
“Like you said—I’ll have to be.”
She looked up at the stars, visible through a torn strip of cloud. Raindrops beaded on her glasses. “Do you still feel insignificant?” she said.
Sep allowed the way she made him feel to flow over him in heady, perfumed waves, washing away all the stains of the past and leaving him whole and clean and strong. He smiled. “Not really.”
Arkle emerged from the house, clacking on the stone with Lamb’s studded boots, the sleeves of her dad’s rugby shirt rolled to doughnuts around his wrists.
“I’m shitting myself,” he admitted as they looked over. “If I die dressed like this, they’ll think some buff guy shrunk in the wash.”
“Well, saddle up, short-ass,” said Lamb, wheeling something around the side of the house.
“Wait,” said Arkle, “isn’t your sister older than you?”
“Yeah, she moved to the mainland, like, five years ago.”
“So what is she, a pygmy?”
Lamb handed him the little pink bike. “She took her racer with her. This is her old one.” She put her head on one side and smiled at him. “I used to be so jealous of the tassels.”
“This isn’t funny,” said Arkle as the others laughed. “You know I saved our lives by blowing that thing up, right? I should be celebrated, not slagged off!”
“That’s all there is. You want to walk?”
“No,” said Arkle, climbing onto the little bike and pushing off, pedaling twice as fast as the rest of them. “I just wish the basket didn’t have a pony on it, that’s all.”
“He could have taken my dad’s bike, obviously,” whispered Lamb as she passed Sep, “but this is way more fun.”
The sirens had grown louder by the time they reached the gate.
Sep looked toward the town. The tide was in, the water tight around the island. From here the bay looked closed and sharp. Like a claw.
He turned toward the forest track, and lightning split the sky with a jagged pink fork. They froze.
“It’s dangerous to be near trees in a storm,” said Hadley.
“It’s dangerous to stay here,” said Sep. He nodded to them and pushed off, ready to fight through the pain in his leg and his mouth to lead them against the box.
The tree line blew apart.
At first he thought it was a landslide, and fear sped his heart—then he saw the pincers, and terror stopped it.
“Go!” he shouted, stamping on the pedals and shooting off down the hill, away from the battalion of crabs, and he turned and saw the others doing likewise, even Arkle speeding away with a tinkle of his bell. All except Hadley.
Her chain had slipped. She’d climbed from her bike and was keeping the frame between her and the crabs, Elliot clutched in her arms.
Sep jumped clear, leaving his wheels clicking backward, and ran at the horde, lashing out with his feet and knocking away their terrible limbs.
“Sep!” she shouted, backing away down the path.
The sirens were closer, almost at the bottom of the hill.
He reached her, grabbed the bike, and pushed it at the nearest crab. It backed off, moving its pincers like a lofted blade.
“If we push them with the bike, they’ll keep backing off!” he yelled.
He stepped the bike forward, the wall at their backs, making a safe barrier between them and the grabbing claws.
“Sep!” shouted Arkle. “Are you all right? Did you get Hadley?”
“We’re fine!” shouted Sep, moving the barrier another step. “We’re coming back!”
“Hurry up! The police—your mum, she’s almost here! I can see the lights!”
“We’re nearly at the top,” Sep grunted. “Be ready to run.”
She nodded, holding the dog against her chest.
“Run!”
Sep shoved the bike onto the crabs’ massed spikes and turned, watching Hadley bolt past the last crab’s desperate snap, and as he went to follow, he felt a pull, and turned to find his jeans snagged on the chain.
The first crab cut his chin. The second cut his arm. The third pulled out a chunk of his hair, and then he heard only the snap of their claws and Hadley’s distant cries as the weight of them tumbled over him, the stink of the sea thick in his nose.
He gritted his teeth, waited for the claws to find his throat, and thought of his mum arriving in her squad car to find him, bloodied and torn and still.
But then something else was there beside him, something small and strong, pushing snarling past him; and he grabbed the thick, warm fur of the fox, his fox, as it leaped in among the crabs, its quick jaws snapping at their shells and legs.
He held on to it, pulled himself to his knees, and grabbed the next pincer that came at him.
It closed violently, slicing off the top of his index finger.
Sep roared, tore the claw in half, then lifted the crab and swung it at the others.
But as he ran free, he saw them crowding instead around his fox, their claws already stuck with its fur as it leaped once—then fell back.
“No!” he shouted.
Hadley grabbed him. “The sirens, Sep! We have to go!”
Sep turned away, closing his ears as they tore his fox apart.
Hadley stowed Elliot in Arkle’s pink basket, then jumped onto the back of Sep’s bike. They took off again, tears streaking across Sep’s face as they swooped away from the flashing blue lights and into the cover of the trees.