“Don’t do it!” The words were roared from behind us in a familiar deep voice and I dropped the box as if it burned. Roosting birds, disturbed by the shout, burst from the cliffs. We spun round and stared as a team of five guys pounded towards us along the shingle. Dawn had turned the sky red behind them.
There was nowhere for us to run. We were trapped.
Will raised his pick. The team were still a distance away, but there was no route around them.
“Hold this,” Will growled. Automatically I closed my hand around the checkpoint box as he thrust it at me. Sparks flew from rock as he used his pick to smash the links of the chain. Separated, the chain slithered back into the pool. Then he snatched the box from me.
“Grab the one you dropped,” he yelled as he ran towards the sea.
I obeyed and followed him, trying not to think about exactly what was thumping against the cold metal in my hand.
“Oi! What’re you doing?” I looked over my shoulder to see the other team running faster, powering after us.
The headland shattered into rocks. Will leaped on to the furthest. We were at the very end of the island. He balanced there and dangled the box with the coordinates over the water. I stood behind him and did the same, suspending the geocache over the waves.
The other team skidded to a halt.
“Cheats.”
Will shook the checkpoint box. “You want this?”
The guy who had spoken was a redhead like me, but his face was so freckled he looked almost tanned. Patches of white skin stood out like islands on his forehead and chin. He grimaced. “You gonna drop it, mate?”
In answer, Will gave the box another shake.
“Stop him, Curtis,” one of his mates said. He was the smallest and thinnest of the group. He wore thick glasses over pale eyes that glittered with a familiar sharpness. I glanced at Will.
“All right, what d’you want?” Curtis demanded.
“We want you to let us past, unharmed,” I snapped.
Five faces glowered at me.
“What’s yer name?” Curtis asked.
“Does it matter?” I licked my lips.
“What’s in the box?”
“We haven’t looked.”
“You put the box down and we’ll let you walk past.” Curtis glanced at his mates. “Right?”
They all nodded, expressions unreadable.
“Bull.” My voice came out higher than I’d have liked. “I don’t know what’s in here, but I know what was in the last box and none of you have given up an ear.” I shook the box and it came open in my hand. I yelped and leaped back as something thudded on to my foot and then rolled towards the sea.
Curtis lunged forwards, his arm outstretched, but froze when Will gave a jerk, as if to throw his box.
Carmen’s hand teetered on the edge of the rock. Her delicate fingers were curled into rigor mortis, one of them missing.
I threw up. Sick spattered into the sea.
“I-it’s Carmen’s hand.” I looked at Will. “Look at the tattoo. Do we t-take it back to her? Can they … sew it back on?”
One of the lads behind Curtis swallowed loudly. “Don’t you watch telly, mate? It’s gotta be on ice.”
“It’s too late,” Will agreed.
We all stared at the hand. Curtis raised his hatchet; I brandished my axe. “Stay back!”
“What now?” Curtis asked.
“You all go stand over there.” I pointed to the rock face beneath the nesting birds. “Or I’m going to kick Car— the hand into the sea.”
Curtis jerked his head and his mates backed away.
“This is out of control, Curt, mate,” the lad with the bruised face muttered loudly. “A tooth … even an ear … not so bad, innit? But this is a hand. I mean, there’re two more checkpoints left. What’s in the last one? A head?”
“Shut up, Kyle.” Curtis stared at me. “Now what?”
“We take the box with the clue and the coordinates as far as that rock.” I pointed to a rock shaped like a curved beak, sticking out from the cliff, further along the beach. “You stay right where you are. When we get there, we’ll put the box down. You can pick it up when we’ve gone.”
“How do we know you won’t take it with you?”
“You don’t.” Will raised his eyebrows. “But you have no reason not to trust us.”
“You were gonna chuck it,” Curtis yelled.
Will looked at me. “Well, now we’re leaving one box here and the other one over there. Right?”
I carefully put the empty box beside Carmen’s hand, trying not to look at it.
“All right.” Curtis gestured. “Go on, then.”
“You make any sudden moves and I toss the box as far out to sea as I can,” Will warned.
“We’re staying right here.”
My heart pounded as we stepped off the rocks and edged past Curtis and his team. They watched us with hunters’ eyes. When we were past, Curtis gave a nod and two of his friends went to retrieve Carmen’s hand and the box that had held it.
“I don’t like leaving her hand with them,” I groaned.
“I know.” Will’s arm was still poised ready to throw. He didn’t take his eyes from Curtis. Eventually we reached the rock I’d pointed to. Slowly, as if he was holding a bomb, Will put the box down.
Curtis’s team started sprinting after us. Shouts chased us down the beach and I could hear the crunching of their pursuit.
Will grunted as a rock bounced off his right shoulder, but he didn’t stop. He turned and grinned at me, his eyes alight.
Despite my fear, I grinned back; we were outpacing Curtis. His team were bigger, slower and hadn’t taken the time to ditch their rucksacks. We were getting away.
When they were finally out of sight I stopped. “Will, did you hear what that guy said – about the last checkpoint maybe having a head in it?”
Will nodded.
“What do you think?”
Will said nothing.
It was past half past five when we got back to the cave.
“Did it work?” Grady greeted us the second we ducked inside.
“It worked,” Will answered and he smirked as he put down his pick.
“You’re glad I brought the gummy bears now, huh?”
“I was glad before,” I said. “How’s Carmen?” There was no way I was telling her about her hand.
“We think the fever’s broken.” Lizzie stretched as I sat beside her with a sigh. “She seems calmer. We’ve just dosed her up.”
“Hey.” Carmen stirred sleepily. “Are we moving out?”
“We need a rest, Car,” Will said. “Give us a couple of hours to sleep and then we’ll go on. The next checkpoint isn’t too far from here. Then only one more and we’ll be at the end.”
I nodded. “It’ll still be early when we set out.”
Grady grinned. “We’ve got a chance, then. We can still win.”
“Only if we can steal a full set of geocaches,” Will reminded him without looking at me.
“And we’re only doing that if no one is going to get hurt,” Lizzie added.
We crept out of the cave and into a bright day that was just starting to warm up. Carmen was able to walk, but Will hovered beside her, one hand on her elbow and the other on his weapon.
Lizzie’s ankle had healed enough for her to put weight on it and she didn’t seem to miss her broken crutch. She had removed the knife from the end of the spear and it was now tucked in her belt; her hand hovered close to it.
Grady had left more of his equipment in the cave – he moved faster under the lighter pack, his face grim.
“I still think this could be aliens,” he said to Lizzie, apparently continuing a conversation Will and I had missed. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. It’s a test – to see how humans react to a super-stressful situation. They could be finding out how we work, how we think, how easily we turn on one another.”
Carmen stared at him with horror.
“They’re finding out how to kill us,” Grady concluded.
Lizzie shook her head. “Grady, if aliens filled the geocaches, they already know how to kill us.”
“They don’t know how we think though – not how we work as teams, or react to danger or stress.”
Will studied Grady closely. “Do you really believe this stuff?”
Grady frowned. “I…”
“I get your Kennedy-assassination theory, the Russian infiltration of US politics, your Diana conspiracy, even the faked moon-landing. But you’re talking about aliens – that’s a whole different kind of thing.”
Grady halted. “There’s so much we don’t know, you guys. Is it such a stretch to believe that there are creatures hiding among us who are more intelligent and powerful? I mean, there must be ancient species out there, evolving on their planets for millions of years, in forms we’d never recognize, and technologically light years ahead of us.” He stopped. “I find it just as strange that you don’t believe in the possibility.”
We had reached the loch. Morning mist clung to the water and I pulled out my binoculars. We kneeled behind the cover of a gorse bush as I checked the area.
“Can you s—” Lizzie was cut short by a scream to our left. I spun round. Across the moor, on the other side of the river, a kid was sprinting with his head down, shrieking as he ran. On either side of him, like African hunting dogs, were An’s team. They were wholly focused on the running figure. Two of them had found another way around and were waiting for An to drive the boy towards them. He looked up, saw that he was boxed in and hurled himself at the river.
The tall girl came up behind and tackled the boy so that he landed half in the water, half out. He screamed again and tried to drag himself into the river, but they pulled him back.
Will grabbed Carmen and drew her close, covering her ears and eyes as best he could. Lizzie grabbed my hand. Grady gaped. I hadn’t seen the boy before and there was no sign of the rest of his team. Had they run and left him, or had they got separated?
An’s team held the boy in place as An drew a serrated knife.
“Let me go! Please,” the boy begged. “I don’t want to die.”
“S-should we help him?” Lizzie’s voice trembled.
Suddenly the boy howled and thrashed wildly. Lizzie lunged towards the river, but her instinct to protect was too late; the knife flashed.
“What was it?” Carmen whispered, visibly shaking in Will’s arms. “What did they do?”
“His ear,” Grady whispered. “They’ve got his ear.”
“They’re behind us then,” Will said with satisfaction.
“Will!” Lizzie gasped. “How can you think about that now?”
We watched in silence as An dragged the sobbing boy to his feet. He was clutching his head and blood ran between his fingers.
They consulted their map and then An turned and looked in our direction. He knew we were there. I stood and we glowered at one another across the moor. An said something I couldn’t hear and the rest of his team turned to look. The tall girl waved. Then An jerked his head and they moved off into the trees, dragging the wailing boy with them.
“I want this to be over,” Carmen sobbed.
“One more checkpoint after this one.” Grady patted her shoulder awkwardly.
“Where is this one?” Will looked at the loch.
I pointed. Just on the other side of the water, there was a small wooden jetty. Under it, easily visible from our vantage point, the box was chained to a piling.
“Let’s get this over with,” Lizzie said.
We hiked slowly, carefully, around the water. There was nowhere to hide, but nowhere for other teams to take us out from either.
“Unless they’re underwater,” Grady said suddenly.
We all froze.
Then Will laughed. “I doubt anyone’s brought scuba gear.”
I laughed too, but nervously. Now I was picturing a team lying inside the loch, ready to spring up in a shower of spray as soon as we came within reach.
We reached the jetty. Our boots rang on the wood with hollow booms and Will leaned close to me. “How far behind d’you think Curtis is?”
I licked my lips. “They’ve got to get someone’s hand … or something of equal value.” I shuddered. “They have to be ages away.”
Will nodded, but he kept his eyes on the hill that hid the headland.
Leaving Will on watch and Grady looking after Carmen, Lizzie and I took off our boots and waded into the water. I pulled the box up by its chain. It was smaller than the last one. Lizzie pressed her thumb on the scanner and the screen lit up. I typed the letter X and the locked-room game appeared.
“What do we do?” Lizzie looked at the closed door. “Our clue is X.”
“Swipe from top left to bottom right and then top right to bottom left,” Grady instructed.
Lizzie made an X on the screen and the box opened. The lock clicked and the box gaped slightly.
Lizzie handed it to me. “You do it.”
I swallowed and took the box, the chain trailing between my feet.
“Hurry up, chico,” Carmen hissed, her eyes on the horizon.
I opened the box. Inside, etched on to the lid, were the new coordinates – the final coordinates – and the riddle.
I read it out. “We hurt without moving. We poison without touching. We bear the truth and the lies. We are not to be judged by our size.”
“Write it down, Grady.” Lizzie threw over her notebook and pencil.
“Where’s the final checkpoint?” Carmen looked at us.
Will held the map so I could see it.
“Of course.” I snorted. “It couldn’t be anywhere else.”
“Where?” Grady frowned.
“The highest point on the island.” I gestured south. “The most difficult place to reach and not that far from where we started. It’s … poetic.”
“And the geocache?” Grady asked. “What’s in the box?”
“I don’t want to know.” Lizzie shook her head.
“I don’t either.” I stared at the lid, picturing Carmen’s hand, ragged on that rock, a finger missing. “It’s small. It’ll be something gross.”
Will didn’t turn round. “It’s an eye.”
“What?”
“It’s small. What else is left?”
I opened my mouth and shut it again. He was right. There was nothing else it could be. Stomach churning, I began to put the boxes back.
“Throw it away,” Will said suddenly. “Like you were going to with the last one. We can’t destroy the coordinates, they’re etched into the lid, but without the geocache the next teams will be stuck. They can follow us, but they won’t have a full geocache collection either.”
Grady grinned. “If nobody has a full set of geocaches, then they might take the team with the best time.”
Will raised an eyebrow. “There’re teams ahead of us,” he reminded him.
“Just get rid of it,” Carmen snapped.
I pulled back my arm and threw the little box as far out into the loch as I could. It plunged through the mist, splashed into the water and sank. Ripples circled my thighs, one after the other.
Lizzie locked the outer box and pushed it back under the jetty, then we climbed out of the water and put our boots back on while Will and Grady kept watch. Carmen leaned against the piling, cradling her arm. She had black circles under her eyes.
I stood up. “Still no sign of them?” I asked Will.
He shook his head. “Once they find the geocache box gone, they’ll be after us fast.”
I nodded.
Lizzie gasped and I turned. She was pointing. “There’s the group ahead of us!”
I looked through my binoculars. She was right, a team had just come into view on the distant hill.
“Wait,” she frowned. “They’re not going up, they’re heading west.”
“Then they’re going in the wrong direction,” Grady whooped.
“Are they, chico?” Carmen asked. “Or are we wrong?” She glared at me. “Did you check the coordinates properly, Ben? Or did you just assume, because the location made sense to you?”
“I…” I closed my mouth. Was I sure I’d read the map correctly?
“You didn’t ask me to write the coordinates, Lizzie,” Grady said, with worry in his voice.
“I’ll climb back in and double-check.” I bent to undo my laces.
Will raised his hand. “No time! There’s Curtis.”
Curtis’s team raced over the hill; they had a direct line of sight to us. Shouts smashed the morning calm.
“Run!” Lizzie leaped to her feet.
“We have to check the coordinates,” Grady cried.
“No!” Lizzie spun him round by his pack and shoved him towards the path. “If we’re still here when they arrive, they’ll make us tell them what was in that box. Then they’ll use one of our eyes. We’ve got to keep ahead of them.”
“Where do we go?” Grady wailed as he stumbled forwards. “South or south-west?”
“Trust Ben.” Lizzie was pushing Carmen now. “South.”