Well, that plan failed. So depressed now.

—

I don’t get it. It’s always worked before. Even when I was only joking around. What went wrong this time?

Still bummed out.

—

Okay, I should probably explain what I did, if only so that you don’t think I’m some sort of weirdo. It’s bad enough that Simon and Schroeder are looking at me like they suspect I’m fried from the heat.

So what I did was this:

After I stopped writing I flung the notebook and pen aside and scrambled out of the sofa fort. Simon and Schroeder barely glanced at me, until I balled my hands into fists and yelled at the sky, “Don’t fail me now, Sikes! Sikes, Sikes, Sikes!”

Nothing happened.

Schroeder said irritably, “What was that all about?”

“Don’t mess it up!” I yelled at him. “Shush! Sikes! Come on, Sikes! Here boy!”

Nothing.

“SIKES!”

“Seriously, Morgan, what are you doing?” said Simon as he lowered his hands from his ears.

“I don’t get it!” I said. “He’s always come before!”

“Wait a minute,” said Schroeder. He stared at me incredulously. “Are you saying that you actually expect him to show up? In the middle of the ocean?”

“We made a deal! He agreed to help me! Where is he?”

Schroeder grunted. “I still don’t get why he made that deal with you and not with any of the rest of us. What makes you so special?”

That was actually a good question. But I only gnawed my lip and said, “Something must have happened to him. I hope he’s okay.”

“Middle of the ocean, Red.”

“I know that!”

“What’s he going to do, swim all the way?”

Schroeder… really doesn’t get it sometimes.

I still don’t know what might have happened to him. Sikes, I mean. He’s always rushed to my assistance before, even for the really stupid stuff. I didn’t see what happened to him him after he chased Miller through that portal. Maybe she killed him on the other side of it. No, he’s too tough for that.

I wish he carried a cell phone so I could text him. I wish my own phone was working so I could text anyone. I wish I wasn’t stuck on this dumb sofa, adrift at sea. I wish Simon never dragged me into Hinterland. I wish I was home.

—

Starting to mope. Moping is stupid. It doesn’t help anything. It doesn’t change anything.

I need to write. I need to write about funny, violent things. I really feel like either laughing or killing something right now. So I’ll write about what happened at the warehouse.

As you may recall, when I broke off last time some little kid named Joe had just run up and told us that Schroeder and Noelle had been caught. Well, here’s how that went over:

“Noelle has been what?!” yelped Doris.

Joe blinked at me, like he was startled to see me there. That ratty windbreaker of his had to be about five sizes too big for him. What a cute kid. All big-eyed and flappy-coated.

“Who’s this?” he said.

“Forget her!” said Doris. He grabbed Joe by the front of his coat. “What happened? How did they get caught? Is Noelle okay?”

“Jack got a letter from Brier Street about twenty minutes ago! A gnome sent it. Cyril and the Henchmen trapped them in that old warehouse. We think they’re still in there.”

“Then they’re not actually captured?”

“Um, no! Not yet.”

Doris let him go. “But Noelle was out on patrol! What was she doing down by the river?”

“Jack doesn’t know! She isn’t texting him back. Graham and Schroeder were down there too. Only Graham made it home.”

“Is my mom at the warehouse as well?” said Simon.

Joe spooked. Simon had been standing so quietly that I don’t think he even noticed he was there.

“Um, I don’t think so?” he said nervously. “Um, the gnome only said it saw Cyril?”

“I bet she’s on her way,” I said. “With a can of gasoline and a lighter.”

“I’d better get down there,” said Doris. He jabbed a finger at me. “Joe! Take Morgan home and tell Jack what I’m up to.”

“Now hang on a minute,” I said.

“Do you want Graham and Jean to come down and help you?” said Joe.

“No! God, no. Graham and Jean couldn’t help their way out of a paper bag. I’ll handle this myself.”

“Hold it!” I said loudly. “I’m going with you.”

“What?” said Simon. “No! No, you’re not!”

“Yes I am!”

Doris gave me a skeptical up and down look. “I dunno if you’re up to this, new girl.”

“I’m up for anything. Just watch me.”

Simon flailed.

“But you can’t go to the warehouse!” he said. “You hit your head! You need to rest!”

“I rested! On Sikes’ couch!”

“That wasn’t resting!”

Doris stepped back and said, “If we’re leaving, we’re leaving like right now.”

“Adios, muchacho,” I said to Simon.

He slumped. His face was pale. He opened and shut his mouth and said, “Oh… all right. Be careful. Maybe I’ll see you again.”

“Maybe?” I said later, when Doris and I loped down another dark side street. “Does he think I’m going to get myself killed or something?”

“Hey, it’s happened,” said Doris.

Yikes.

Running together, we made our way through town all the way down to the Milestone. It was eerie how different the river looked at night. During the day it was brown and sluggish. In the darkness it seemed to roar and churn like a living thing, a watery serpent. Doris made us both jump down onto the rocky bank so that we could run unseen by any cars on the street, our shoes slipping over the wet scree.

We didn’t even have a flashlight to see by. Doris led the way over the slippery rocks, using nothing but moonlight to see by. After a while he slowed to a halt and held up his fist.

“There’s the warehouse,” he said.

I peered around him. Sure enough, I saw a familiar building on the river shore ahead. Headlights flickered along the street in front of it.

“Uh oh,” I said. “Looks like company.”

“That’ll be Cyril and the Henchmen,” said Doris. “I bet they’re looking for a way in.”

“That’s easy. There’s a broken window at the back we can climb through.”

“How did you know that?”

“Hey, I get around.”

As we crept towards the back of the warehouse I said, “What did they used to store in this place anyway?”

“We’re not sure,” said Doris. “I’ve only broken in here once before. I think it might have been coats. There are a bunch of scissors living in it now.”

“Scissors.”

“Yeah. And, uh… maybe some shears.”

“So sharp and pointed utensils, basically.”

“Ah… yeah.”

“And everything in this Coching is alive, you say?”

“Well, not everything, but…”

Doris trailed off. I said, “And people ran into this building for safety?”

“Any port in a storm,” he said. “Okay, show me this window of yours.”

I took point as we scuttled through the weeds. I squinted. The rain and the darkness somehow managed to make the decrepit old building look even more pockmarked and water-stained than it did in the daylight. Or maybe it was Hinterland itself that twisted things into uglier versions of themselves. Either way, it was creepy.

“There it is,” I whispered. I pointed to the broken window that I had crawled through the day I met Simon. It was still lined with shards of broken glass.

“Wow,” said Doris. “This is a suspicious bit of good luck.”

“Don’t jinx it!”

I put my hands on the sill and leaned inside. Things creaked and groaned up in the decaying rafters.

“Ladies first,” said Doris.

When I was halfway through the window I paused. I straddled the sill and frowned.

“What’s that sound?” I said.

“What sound?” said Doris.

We listened. I could still hear the cars prowling up and down the street. But now there was another noise as well. A voice, murmuring in the darkness. A soft crooning from the weeds. I tensed and strained my ears.

“Mumble mumble mumble. Mumble mumble streaking cold…”

“An old man wandering lonely!”

“Shit!” said Doris.

From out of the weeds roared the sky-blue sedan, its headlights springing alight. It leapt out of hiding and pounced like a cat, a giant Buick Skylark cat, crashing onto the spot where Doris had been standing an instant before. Over the sound of its blaring radio I heard Doris yelling his head off.

I was so shocked I fell backwards into the warehouse. I landed on my butt and scrambled away from the wall. Headlights strobed wildly as the car roared past the window. Then it was gone, its radio screaming into the night.

I sat and panted. I hoped Doris was a fast runner. Or could at least climb trees.

I shakily got to my feet. The inside of the warehouse looked just as it did when I met Simon, only… darker. Murkier. Rainwater lay in dank pools across the floor. Plastic sheeting and dangling wires swayed in the stormy breeze.

Nervously, I shuffled through the rubbish. There was a door on the other side of the room, behind some collapsed drywall. I shoved it aside and slipped through the door.

Behind it was a rickety stairwell that led upwards into dust and moonlit gloom. There was another door in front of me. I crept up and opened it a crack.

There was a spacious room on the other side, with tall windows partially covered by slatted boards. More rotted debris littered the old hardwood floor. Over the drum of the rain I heard an odd noise, a sort of gentle shh-shh-shh sound. Something glinted up in the rafters and I regarded it curiously. Then I screamed and flung myself backwards, throwing the door shut behind me.

THOCK! A metal point burst through the rotten wood at eye-level. I tripped and fell backwards onto the stairs. The metal point wiggled itself loose and disappeared again, leaving a tiny hole in the door behind it.

Scissors!

I scrambled to my feet. This time I put my ear to the door first. Then I turned the knob and cracked it open, just a sliver.

I could barely see into the big room. I stuck my face next to the crack and said, “Hey. Hey! Can anyone hear me?”

Something rustled on the other side of the room. A girl’s voice said, “Oh my god, Alex? Is that you?”

“No, it’s Morgan. Is that Noelle?”

“Yes! Oh my god! Are you that girl I met under the bridge?”

“That’s me. Are you okay?”

“Yes! But what are you doing here?”

I grimaced. “Uh. Helping you?”

A long silence followed.

“Did anyone else come with you?” said Noelle.

“Some guy named Doris was here. But then we got attacked by a car and I was the only one who made it inside the warehouse.”

“Oh no. Where’s Doris?”

“If he’s smart he’s halfway across town by now.”

More silence. This time I thought I heard a whispered conversation taking place behind a mound of rubble and wooden pallets on the other side of the room.

“Okay,” said Noelle. “Okay. This is what we need you to do. Look up. Can you see the rafters from where you are?”

“I think so,” I said.

I craned my head back. I was afraid to open the door any wider lest I get a pair of scissors rammed into my eye, but I was able to look up into the iron girders than spanned the ceiling. There was a lot of old electrical wiring up there, and some rusty ventilation ducts. And a balcony that looked down over the ground floor. Huh.

I squinted. Perched among the rafters was a flock of shiny metal things that glinted whenever the car headlights flickered past the windows. Some of the scissors stood on their pointy ends, while others perched on the edge of the beams with their shears opening and shutting like metal beaks.

“Holy crap,” I said.

“Do you see them?”

“There are like a hundred scissors up there!”

“Yeah, we noticed. Look, we’re pinned down over here. They attack us every time we stick our heads up. But now that you’re here we’re going to make a break for it. Can you hold that door open in time to let us through, then shut it immediately behind us?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I can do that.”

“Great! Okay, here we come. Get ready!”

Lots of thumping and banging. All at once a junked desk shot up from the rubble. Dust streamed off it as it righted itself, clambered down off the pile, and began to trot towards the door. I almost laughed when I saw two pairs of mismatched human legs scuttling beneath it.

“This way!” I said as it veered around the room. “Over here! Run towards the sound of my voice! No, this way! Oh, look out!”

The scissors went berserk. With a noise like… well, a hundred scissors going crazy they swooped down upon the desk in a silvery flurry. They slammed into the desk from all angles, buffeting it from side to side. Some of them hit and lodged like arrows. Out of fucking nowhere flew a fire axe. It slammed into the desk so hard it teetered sideways onto two legs and hopped a few strides. I held my breath until it thumped down onto all four feet and bolted towards me, the axe still stuck in the side.

It hit the doorway just as I yanked the door open. Two kids tumbled out from underneath it. The flock of scissors flew at us, gnashing.

“The door!” snarled a boy’s voice. With one arm shielding my eyes I grabbed the door and flung it shut.

Panting, we fell back into the stairwell. A muffled storm of thuds beat against the other side of the door. Good lord. When a loud CRACK rang out we jumped. A rusty metal point as long as my forearm had just speared through the door. It gnawed at the wood and we all backed away with our hands raised.

“There is a special place in hell,” growled the boy, “for garden shears.”

“Upstairs!” said Noelle.

We ran up the staircase. At the very top was another big room, eerily lit by what little moonlight filtered down through a filthy skylight. It was mostly empty save for a few busted desks and garbage bins, and partially divided into cubicles by rotting partitions. Cobwebs draped between the bars of the railing that overlooked the warehouse floor.

Noelle held her finger to her lips as we crept towards it. Without a word we all looked over the balcony.

Sure enough, the scissors were still milling about below. They didn’t appear to notice that we stood above them. I guess when you’re an animated pair of scissors you aren’t exactly blessed with a whole lot of brains.

“What now?” I whispered.

“Doesn’t look like we’re getting out that way,” said Noelle. “How about the roof?”

“Can’t get to it from here,” said the boy. He was a tall and rangy kid with messy brown hair and scars on his face. “I’ve tried.”

“That’s great,” I said. “So how do we get out of here?”

“I’m thinking,” he said. Then he narrowed his eyes. “Wait. Who the hell are you?”

“This is the girl I told you about,” said Noelle. “The one with Simon at the bridge.”

That earned me a cold look. “Good friends with Simon Miller, are you?”

“You got a problem with that?”

“Guys!” hissed Noelle. “Not a great time for this! Let’s concentrate on finding a way out.”

I opened my mouth, then paused.

“What’s that noise?” I said.

We all frowned at each other and listened. I heard the sound of an engine revving, something big and snarly and mean. It got louder and louder, and a shadow fell across the floor-

SMASH!

I kid you not, a motorcycle blasted right through one of the tall windows below. It hit the floor amidst a shower of broken glass and splinters and slammed on its brakes, its back tire screaming as it whipped around in a smoking half-circle. Glass went flying everywhere.

The boy was the first one to uncover his head and grab the railing.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” he screamed.

I looked down. The motorcycle sat in the middle of the warehouse with its engine sputtering, framed in moonlight. It was like something out of an old World War II movie – all olive green tanks and fenders and canvas side-bags, with this one big white headlight out front and a web of chrome spokes in each wheel. A man in a heavy oilskin coat sat upon it, covered in glass and dust. One big booted foot was down on the floor to prop the bike against. He even wore an old war helmet too, one of those green steel ones with dents all over it. The chinstraps dangled about his jaw.

The scissors went nuts and swooped up towards us. But the man barked something at them and they all circled over him instead.

He thumbed up the brim of his helmet and squinted at us. I was surprised to see that he was an older gent, with dark salt and pepper hair and a stubbly chin and a neatly clipped moustache. When he spoke it was in a growly voice.

“Schroeder, for god’s sake, give up already,” he said. “This is getting tiresome. We’ve got the building surrounded. Be reasonable and come down.”

“Reasonable?” hollered Schroeder. “Reasonable?! I’m not the one who just ramped a motorcycle through a boarded up window, you psychopath!”

I heard Noelle gasp. Other men were lumbering through the broken window now, big hulking men in more of those shapeless oilskin coats. They all wore army helmets with their coats buttoned all the way up to their noses, so all you could see of their faces were two glittering eyes. They moved clumsily, not even bothering to wince when they snagged an arm on a shard of broken glass.

Cyril pointed to them with his thumb.

“See that?” he said. “There’s plenty more of them outside, boy. Time to stop playing around. You can either come out with me now, or you and your friends can stay here under guard and starve to death.”

Schroeder’s hands tightened over the railing. “Playing around? That motorcycle you’re on, that – monster killed Roger!”

“Yes, I heard. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I hear he went down fighting.”

“Shut up! Don’t you dare tell me you’re sorry! You think I’m going to go, ‘oh, well, that Cyril, he acts gruff but he’s good at heart because he feels bad about these things’ just because you tell me you’re sorry? You cosy up with Miller, you take every murder she commits on your head as well!”

“Morgan!” said Noelle. “Help me!”

I whirled around. Unnoticed, Noelle had slipped back to the staircase door and slammed it shut, her back thrown against it.

“They’re coming up the stairs!” she said. “Quick, we’ve got to barricade this!”

I cast about wildly until I spotted an old desk that didn’t look too badly wrecked. I dragged it out from underneath a bunch of rotten ceiling tiles and struggled to push it over to the door. It screeched and groaned and left a wide trail in the dust on the floor.

Schroeder appeared beside me. “Don’t tell me a big girl like you can’t move a desk.”

“Shut up!”

Noelle yelped as the door thudded behind her. “Guys, hurry it up!”

Mouldy papers and staplers and all kinds of crap flew out of the desk drawers when we flipped the thing over and leaned it against the door. “Stand back!” said Schroeder, and Noelle and I jumped out of the way as he threw a couple of chairs against it as well.

The desk shuddered as something collided against the other side of the door. There was a slam, and another. We all backed away.

“Well, we’re trapped now,” said Noelle.

“We’re going to have to jump out a window.”

“We’re two stories up, Schroeder!”

I said nothing. Couldn’t think of a thing to say. My heart was thudding. Pushed off a roof, almost kidnapped, attacked by cars, ambushed by scissors-

‘You call my name and I’ll be there in an instant. In a heartbeat. I’m not joking.’

Splinters burst into the air as the door flew open with such violence that the desk and chairs were smashed into pieces. The door tore off its hinges and flew across the room. It smashed through a window and tumbled into the night. Goons in helmets jostled one another as they all tried to lurch through the doorway at once. Without hesitation I screamed, “Sikes!”

“I’ve got this,” said Sikes.

Schroeder and Noelle and I gaped as he barrelled straight into the men stuck in the doorway. He hit them head on and they all fell backwards into the stairwell, tumbling and crashing down the stairs. From somewhere below I heard Sikes let out a muffled war whoop, while Cyril yelled.

I was the first one to recover from the shock. Sikes had come out of nowhere. He had literally flown out of thin air!

“What the hell just happened?” said Schroeder.

We ran back to the railing and looked down. Sikes stood in the middle of a bunch of sprawled goons. He wore a police hat now that barely put a lid on that bushy hair of his.

Cyril was stunned.

“Sikes!” he bellowed. “How in god’s name did you get in here?”

Sikes laughed and bared his fists. “Tell your mistress I’m not as crippled as she thought I was.”

“Hey!” I yelled. “Less banter, more battle!”

Cyril jabbed a gloved finger in my direction.

“Don’t you brats dare move an inch!” he said. “I’ll take care of this washout, and then you’re next!”

“Get ready to run, kids,” said Sikes.

“No! Stay where you are!”

“Back window?” I muttered.

“Back window,” said Schroeder.

As one, we bolted down the stairs. A handful of goons lay at the bottom and we leapt over them awkwardly, while in the distance the warehouse rang with the roar of the motorcycle.

While Schroeder and Noelle ran for the window I hesitated, suddenly curious. I edged towards the door and peered into the room where Cyril and Sikes were squared off. A bizarre sight met my eyes. The scissors were swarming about Sikes now, but they were not attacking him. He stood in the centre of the whirlwind and watched Cyril, whose own motorcycle seemed to be trying to throw him. It reared up onto its back tire, its engine screaming. Only a death-grip on the handlebars prevented Cyril from being hurled off.

I stared. What was going on?

Something grabbed my ankle.

I screeched and leapt backwards. One of the goons on the floor had me by the ankle. Lifeless eyes glittered at me from the dark space beneath the brim of his bashed in helmet.

I kicked him in the face. I might as well have kicked a brick wall. The goon didn’t even flinch.

“Sikes!” I yelled.

He whirled around. “Morgan? Oh Christ! Don’t move!”

He made this strange gesture at me, a sort of karate chop. And I swear that every pair of scissors flying above his head swooped around and rushed straight at me.

I screamed again and flung up my arms. A blast of wind whooshed past and the floor shuddered. I heard a noise – tho-tho-thock! When nothing hit me I peeked through my arms.

The goon was pinned to the floor by a perfect outline of scissors. They were embedded right through his coat and trousers. He did’t even flinch or make a sound, just strained to push himself off the floor. The scissors did not budge an inch. Some of them were sunk up to the handles.

“Morgan, get out of here!” said Sikes.

“Hold it right there!” bellowed Cyril over his howling motorcycle.

I didn’t need to be told twice. I turned and ran. The last thing I saw was the motorcycle lunging at Sikes on its rear tire, and Sikes stepping forward to meet it with another one of those weird karate chops.

The room with the broken window was still empty at least. I hit the window at a dead run and sailed through it. Schroeder was still hanging around outside, and I sailed right into him too.

“Get off me!” he snarled. “Noelle, where are the Henchmen?”

“Coming around the east end!” she called out from the corner of the building. “We’d better run!”

“Into the river!”

The Milestone was freezing cold. I stumbled on a rock and water surged over my head. Spitting and sputtering I floundered through the rapids, fighting madly against the tow of the waist-high current.

We dragged ourselves on the far bank, where we flopped onto the grass and lay panting, drenched to the skin.

“Are they following us?” I wheezed.

“Nah,” said Schroeder. He lay on his back beside me, water draining out of his shorts. “Henchmen don’t like the river for some reason. They won’t come near it.”

“Good thing for us,” said Noelle.

“What are those things?” I said. “They shamble around like zombies!”

“Miller’s henchmen,” said Noelle. She struggled out of her hunting vest and wrung it out. “Hence the name. Nobody knows who or what they are, or where she even gets them from. I don’t think they’re human.”

And I thought, fucking hell. First cars that drive themselves, then pipe-smoking lawn ornaments, and now this.

“Speaking of inhuman shenanigans,” said Schroeder. He heaved upright and glared at me. “You! Red!”

“It’s Morgan!” I snapped.

“Whatever! How the hell did you get Sikes to come here so fast?”

“How should I know? He told me to call his name if I ever needed him, so I did! Go ask him yourself if you want more specific details than that.”

Schroeder looked at Noelle. “Has he ever said anything like that to you?”

Looking bemused, Noelle shook her head.

“Direct quote,” I said. “He probably followed us from the police station and jumped out when I shouted for him.”

“Do it again,” said Schroeder.

“Huh?”

“Do it again! Shout his name!”

“What? No! I’m not yelling for him just because you want a private demonstration!”

Schroeder held up one fist. “Do it now!”

I did likewise. “Piss on you, pal! You want Sikes, you hustle him up yourself!”

“Hey, hey, hey,” said Sikes, clapping his hands. “Children! What are we fighting about?”

We all screamed and scrambled backwards up the bank. Sikes stood up to his ankles in the eddying river, his fists on his hips.

“Sikes!” gasped Noelle.

“How the hell did you get here?” said Schroeder.

“Cyril won’t bother you for the rest of the night,” said Sikes. He looked smugly over his shoulder. “I sent that damn motorcycle of his on a bit of a tour, with Cyril still on it. By the time he gets it back under control he’ll be in the next county. Ha! Serves the old buzzard right.”

“How’d you do that?” I said. I made a sort of twisty gesture with one hand. “You know, that thing with the scissors? That was badass!”

“You liked that, eh? I told you I come if you ever needed my help, pet.”

“You never said anything like that to us!” said Schroeder. “How did you-”

But Sikes was already gone. I didn’t even see him vanish. He just – I dunno, poof, disappeared. Gone in a heartbeat.

We stared at the little ripples left behind in the water. Then Schroeder threw up his hands and stormed off into the night.

“Fuck this shit!” he yelled. “That’s it! God! I’m going home. Screw all of this. I’m going to bed. Holy hell!”

Noelle put her hand over her eyes and sighed.

“Come on, Morgan,” she said wearily.

But before I followed her into the brush and trees along the riverside I hung back and cast a furtive glance around myself.

“Hey, Sikes?” I whispered.

“A mysterious stranger to summon at will is not a toy, Morgan,” said Sikes testily.

—

So there you go. The reason why I was so sure that Sikes would just magically come and rescue us from this floating hellhole even all the way out in the middle of the ocean. Because he can.

I don’t think Schroeder really gets it. From what I gather Sikes has never offered to help out the other kids the way he helps me.

Which makes me kind of wonder why. Why me? Why does he choose to make that deal with me, over everyone else here?

And it makes me wonder…

Just what exactly is he?