Читать книгу Afterworlds: The 13th Horseman - Barry Hutchison - Страница 7

DRAKE KNEW IT wasn’t the frogs’ fault. It couldn’t be. They were, after all, only frogs.

And yet, if it hadn’t been for them, he wouldn’t be here now, standing before a jungle of tall grass and weeds, holding the smooth wooden handle of an ancient lawn mower. Then again, if it hadn’t been for him, the frogs would never have exploded, his science teacher, Miss Pimkin, would still have her hair, and the top two floors of his school would still be where they were supposed to be. All things considered, he’d probably come off best.

He’d been marched to the headmaster’s office before the dust had settled. By the time the fire brigade had finished beating Miss Pimkin’s flames out, he’d been expelled. And all because he’d tried to help those frogs. So much for good deeds.

Moving school had been bad enough, but the only school he could move to was twenty-five kilometres away, and that meant moving house too. His mum hadn’t been happy about that, and he’d been trying to make it up to her ever since.

The grass was the latest attempt. He’d promised he’d cut it the day they moved in. That was four days ago, and it was still standing as tall as ever. After a night spent lying awake, worrying about his first day at the new school, Drake had got out of bed at six-thirty, and decided the grass’s time had come.

The back garden was fairly small – about the length of an average-sized bus. That was the good news.

The bad news was that the previous occupants didn’t seem to have ever set foot in it, much less made any attempt to keep the grass in check. A tangled wilderness swayed gently in the summer breeze. Two-metre-high weeds waved slowly forward and back as if beckoning him in.

“OK,” he said below his breath. “Here goes.”

By the fifth push, Drake realised that the lawn mower was not doing what lawn mowers were meant to do. He knew that the purpose of a lawn mower – the entire reason for the existence of lawn mowers – was to cut grass. No one, it seemed, had bothered to tell that to this lawn mower.

It was an ancient, weather-beaten contraption, with five blades set into a barrel shape, so they spun as the mower was rolled forward. Or, at least, that was the theory. But the entire mechanism had rusted solid, meaning the blades remained completely motionless as Drake shoved the thing further into the jungle of grass. The effect was that he wasn’t cutting the grass so much as temporarily flattening it down, only for it to spring back up the moment he’d passed, none the worse for its ordeal.

Still, he refused to go back into the house without having made some progress, so he tightened his grip on the handle, dug his toes into the soft ground, and pushed on until he was swallowed by the overgrown undergrowth.

His arms and shoulders quickly began to ache from the strain. Tiny insects with enormous appetites dive-bombed him, tormenting him with their teeth. Clenching his jaw, he heaved the lawn mower another half-metre up the garden, briefly pushing over yet another patch of head-high grass.

And then, without warning, the weeds parted and Drake and the lawn mower emerged into a neatly kept clearing. The grass beneath his feet was a deep, lush green – not the wishy-washy grey of the other stuff – and just a centimetre or so long. It looked like a putting green at a golf course, cut into a pattern of perfect straight lines.

A raised flower bed stood off to one side of the circular space, sprouting with all the colours of the rainbow. A single bee bumbled lazily from flower to flower, happily checking for pollen, and appearing not in the least bit bothered when it found none. Nearby, birds sang songs of joy and harmony to one another, and to anyone else who cared to listen.

But Drake noticed none of these things. Instead, what he noticed was the shed.

It stood in the centre of the clearing. Or perhaps slouched would have been a more appropriate word, considering its condition.

The shed was about two metres wide by three long, with a door taking up most of one of the narrow ends. The walls were a smooth, dark timber that appeared to be immune to the early morning sunlight. Shadows hung over the planks like camouflage netting. Contrasting with the cheerful brightness of the clearing, though, the effect was exactly the opposite of camouflage: the shed stood out like a big square sore thumb. With a little red roof.

A cool breeze blew at Drake’s back as he stepped away from the lawn mower and further into the clearing. Turning, he looked back at the house. He had an unobstructed view of his bedroom window from here, which meant he should’ve been able to see this place from up there too.

And yet, he hadn’t. He hadn’t noticed the neatly cropped circle. He hadn’t spotted the shed. All he’d seen was grass and weeds and hours of thankless hard work.

“There’s an explanation,” he told himself quietly. “No idea what it is, but there’s an explanation. There’s always an explanation.”

Drake believed most things could be explained. He knew ghosts were tricks of the light, and UFOs were usually helicopters, or balloons, or far too much alcohol. He knew there was an explanation for this too. And he knew where he’d find it.

He hadn’t noticed the birds tweeting or the bees buzzing, so Drake didn’t notice both fall silent as he approached the shed door. Nor did he hear the breeze hold its breath, or see the flower heads twist slowly in his direction as he turned the handle, eased the door open, and quietly stepped inside.