The cave was crammed with all of us inside. Will and I had made a barrier across the entrance with our bags and we had every torch on, chasing the shadows into corners.
Lizzie was pacing, swear words tumbling from her lips. “Who did this?” she pleaded. “Why?”
“What do you think, Will?” My voice trembled.
“Well…” he said. “I’m wondering what’s in the second geocache box.”
Lizzie stopped and took off her glasses. “What do you mean?”
Will leaned back. “We figured the geocache boxes would contain normal stuff, even after the tooth. But what if we were wrong? What if the next box contains something like a tooth but … bigger?”
“You mean … a hand?” Lizzie replied faintly.
“Something like that.”
“You honestly think someone cut off Carmen’s hand to put in a geocache box?” I stared.
Will looked at me curiously. “You don’t?” He shrugged. “Either someone decided to raise the stakes of the first geocache box … or all the boxes are going to keep on containing things like this, because they’re meant to.”
“What do you mean ‘they’re meant to’?” Lizzie slid her glasses back on with shaking hands.
“The boxes could all contain body parts,” Will said.
Lizzie sat down beside me with a thump. “But the Gold Foundation organized this – there’s no way.” She shook her head.
But Grady groaned. “I should’ve known. A big corporation like that.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, Grady.” Lizzie glared at him. “What reason could they possibly have?”
Even Grady had no answer.
“Lizzie’s right, Will, that doesn’t make sense. Maybe there was another reason.” I took Lizzie’s hand. “What if someone had to do that to Carmen … and left her here to keep her safe.”
“Why would anyone need to cut off—”
“I don’t know, OK, Grady? Maybe she had a … a snake bite, or it was being crushed under a rock and she couldn’t escape. We won’t know until she wakes up.”
Grady hung his head.
“If it is the boxes,” Will said eventually, “you realize they left her here for safekeeping? When they know what they need next, they’ll be back.”
Lizzie bolted upright. “We need weapons.”
“We need to get out of here!” Grady rasped. “But … we can’t.” He looked at Carmen, then at Lizzie. “Can we?”
She glared at him. “No. We can’t.”
“I’m getting Will’s axe.” I crawled to his pack.
“I’ve got my stick.” Lizzie huddled it against her.
“Here.” Will pulled string from his jacket pocket and tossed her his penknife. “Attach that to the end. Make a spear or whatever.”
“I-I’ve got a pick. For rock climbing,” Grady mumbled.
“Perfect.” I rolled his bag towards him. “What about you, Lizzie, where’s your climbing stuff?”
“My pick’s in the bottom, on top of the rope and crampons,” she said.
“Give that to Will.” I clutched the axe to my chest. It wasn’t big, but the blade would cut through wood. If I swung it hard, it would do someone a real injury. Could I do that?
“How could anyone hurt Carmen?” Lizzie whispered as she wrapped string around the knife. “She’s a good person. She’s going to be a vet.”
I caught my breath. “Can she do that now?” I asked.
Will shook his head. “I don’t think she can.”
In Year Four, we went on our first residential trip. Two nights at Oxley Farm Outdoor Centre. Mum had panicked about letting Will out of her sight, but he’d learned how to charm by then, so he went with the rest of us.
On the first day, we were introduced to a climbing wall. Lizzie was delighted, as was our friend Tommy.
“I’m going to beat you up there,” Tommy called to me.
I laughed. Will didn’t.
When we got to the wall, Will insisted on going first. Tommy went after him. I followed, then Lizzie.
I had just started to enjoy the climb, looking down to see how far below me my other mates were and waving at them, when I looked up and saw Tommy overtake Will.
I put on a burst of speed, trying to catch up, but I’d been messing around and was too far behind. Tommy reached the top first.
My brother looked at me, his face flushed. I climbed like the devil was after me, but I was too late. I didn’t see what happened exactly, but somehow Tommy’s rig got unhooked.
He screamed as he tumbled past me. One of his feet hit Lizzie in the back and she spun out, caught by her rope. When Tommy hit the ground, we all heard the crack as his wrist snapped.
I slid backwards, to put Will between myself and the entrance to the cave.
Once we were armed, we kept our ears tuned to the outside, but the day wore on, Carmen didn’t wake and all we heard were the cries of gulls.
“Do you think it’s lunchtime yet?” Grady asked.
“Why? Are you hungry?” Lizzie frowned.
“No…” There was still the faint smell of cooked flesh in the cave. “Just thinking that we should be on our way to the third checkpoint by now.”
I looked at Grandad’s watch. “It’s half eleven.” My shoulders sagged. We’d lost any advantage gained by completing the second checkpoint and waking early. I pictured all the teams passing us and probed the throbbing gap in my teeth with my tongue. What a waste.
My gut felt empty and not because I was hungry. I could feel my future slipping away.
Then I looked at Carmen and jerked. I shouldn’t even have been thinking about the competition right now.
“We should go home,” I said.
Will frowned at me.
“We’re already half a day behind. We aren’t going to win and … would you really want to?” I pointed at Carmen. “What if you’re right and the other geocaches are worse? What then – would you start giving up body parts?”
Will shook his head. “No, but—”
“But nothing,” I snapped. “What did you think would happen if we carried on?”
Grady swallowed. “We could—”
“What? Do what this team did?”
“No! Steal from another team’s stash.”
I paused.
“Wasn’t that what we were planning to do anyway?” Grady frowned.
“That was before this.” I indicated Carmen, who was groaning in her sleep.
“You’re forgetting something, Ben.” Lizzie squeezed my hand. “We can’t go home. Not yet. The crossing is raised every three days. If we try and get to Fetlar without it, there’s quicksand and who knows what else. We can’t call anyone to come and get us. Whatever we decide about the competition, we’re stuck on this island for now.”
“We’ve got flares,” I said stubbornly.
“Right.” Grady looked at the bags. “But…”
“But what?”
“But if we set off flares, the other teams will know where we are. They’ll know we’re weak.”
“One team already knows where we are – or at least where they left Carmen.” I bit my nail.
“One team,” Grady said. “That leaves another eight. Who knows how many of them are out there looking for ‘body banks’ too.”
“Do you really think they are?”
“I don’t.” Lizzie took off her glasses again and rubbed her bloodshot eyes. “I’m sure Will’s wrong – the other checkpoints won’t be like the last one. We won’t know what really happened to Car until she wakes up, but I don’t believe someone amputated her hand for a geocache. That’s just sick.”
“Then what do you want to do?” I looked at them.
“There’s only one thing to do,” Lizzie said. “We’ve got to reach the last checkpoint. I know we have to do the course alone, but there’s bound to be someone at the end, waiting for the winners – if we find them, we can get help.”
She put one hand on Carmen’s hip and leaned on my shoulder.
Grady lowered his voice and spoke to Will. I couldn’t make out his words, but Will nodded.
I opened my mouth to ask, but a distant scream silenced me. I clutched my axe tighter and put an arm around Lizzie.
“How’s Carmen doing?” I whispered to Will.
He looked over at her. “She’s crying in her sleep.”
We ate a subdued lunch: cold beans, packets of trail mix, corned beef, sweets.
“Did you know,” Grady said quietly as he unwrapped a chocolate bar, “a lot of leading scientists think reality is a huge computer game?”
“I read that.” Lizzie snorted.
“It would be nice to think so right now, wouldn’t it?” I put a tin of beans to one side. “We could do with a reset.”
Will looked towards the cave entrance. “I wonder how many lives we get?”
I was silent.
“Give us another one, Grady.” Will laid the pick on his knee and put his hands behind his head. “One we haven’t heard before.” He stretched his legs. “Go on.”
Grady checked Carmen’s temperature, then leaned back. “There’re some who reckon dinosaurs never existed.”
“Seriously?” Lizzie lifted her head from my shoulder.
Grady cracked a slight smile. “They were made up by the CIA to discourage time travel.”
Lizzie shook her head. “That one’s more insane than usual. How would the bones have been planted inside cliffs?”
“Anyway,” I added, “the first dinosaur bones weren’t found in America.”
“That’s what we’re told.” Grady folded his arms. “Remember, you can’t believe anything you don’t see for yourself. You should question all the time.”
“But you believe these nutters on the Internet,” I said. “Why don’t you question them?”
“If I could time-travel,” Will said, “I’d quite like to go back and see the dinosaurs. I mean, I’d take some really big guns with me…”
Suddenly my watch started a shrill beeping. Quickly I switched it off.
“What’s that?” Lizzie tilted her head.
“My alarm. The tide’s going out. Exactly two days till we can use the crossing.”
Lizzie wrapped our rubbish and put it in her rucksack. “What have we got that Carmen can eat when she wakes up?” She tugged out her washbag. “I’ve got my daily multi-vitamins – can she have a few of those?”
“Can you overdose on vitamins?” I looked at Grady, who shrugged.
“Ben and I have jerky,” Will said. “What else?”
“There’s Peperami, too.” I nodded at Will, who pulled out our cook pack and handed it over.
“And we’ve still got bacon from earlier.” Lizzie bit her lip. “But she can’t eat it raw and we can’t cook it in here. What did you bring, Grady?”
We looked at his huge rucksack.
“Have you got any beef stew left?” I asked. “That’d be good.”
Grady wiped his hand over his forehead. “I’ve got another couple of tins. Some ravioli, cocktail sausages. The rest is … well, mainly sweets,” he admitted. “You know what I’m like. I’ve got lots of gummy bears…” He tailed off.
Lizzie put her finger to her lips, and her eyes widened. “Listen!”
I gripped my axe. Voices drifted faintly from the other side of the hill.
“They’re trying to get into the checkpoint box,” she whispered.
“You mean there are still teams behind us?” Grady lifted his head.
I frowned at him and gestured at him to keep quiet.
“They’re fighting.” Lizzie clutched her stick.
“Did they get into the box?” Will slid towards the barrier of bags, listening.
The yelling was louder now. A higher male voice was screaming at other, deeper, voices.
“They want his tooth.” Will picked up his weapon, but moved no nearer to the daylight.
I put my hand to my face; my gum still ached.
The yelling intensified. We could hear grunts, calls of encouragement, shouts and cries. Lizzie shivered.
Suddenly, from behind us, a scream ripped through the cave. Carmen had woken up.
Grady scrambled to cover her mouth, but she writhed, arched her back and struggled to escape Grady’s grasp. With her one hand, she clutched at her bloody wrist. Tears dampened her cheeks and she made terrible sounds: half-scream, half-sob.
“Carmen, it’s us,” Lizzie whispered.
I joined my voice to Lizzie’s. “Car, whoever they were, they’ve gone. It’s Ben.”
Carmen calmed slightly, but still writhed and sobbed under Grady’s hand.
“Tell her to be quiet,” Will snapped. He remained by the entrance. “If they hear us…”
“Carmen, I know it hurts, but you’ve got to hush.” Lizzie was crying too now. “There’s another team on the hill – we don’t know what they’ll do if they find us.”
Carmen’s brown eyes met Lizzie’s blue ones. Her chest rose and fell in pain, panic and her efforts to be silent.
“Painkillers, Grady.” I grabbed a water bottle and Grady pushed the medical kit towards me with his free hand.
I fumbled the Tramadol out of the packet. “Take these, Car.”
Grady took his hand from her mouth as she twisted towards me, her teeth gritted. I pushed the pills past her lips and forced her mouth open. She gagged and I poured water into the corner of her mouth. “Swallow them, please.”
She gulped awkwardly and then gripped Lizzie’s collar with stiff fingers. “They thought … I was … you!”
“Say that again.” Will turned to stare at her.
“They wanted … to stop us … from…”
“Opening any more boxes,” Will finished with a nod. “Without Lizzie’s thumbprint we’d be screwed. Clever!”
“And … they wanted … my fingers … for geocaches.”
Then Carmen’s eyes rolled back in her head and she passed out again.