Plain Or Pan

A young boy is caught shoplifting and is offered the choice of 8 months hard labour or taking part in a new reality TV show. Having never been on TV, this is his preferred option. The show is an elimination show but unknown to the public who watch every night and interact via social media 24 hours a day, the show is not what it seems. When the boys learn the true meaning of the word ‘elimination’, everything changes.

Aimed at readers aged 11-14, The Elements is a novel very much in need of an agent and a publisher and quite possibly a sympathetic editor – three things that have so far proven impossible to find. Rather than let the words sleep forever in a folder on my desktop, they’re being serialised at Plain Or Pan.

I appreciate you’re not quite the intended demographic for the book, but it’d be great if you could read it through the same eyes that first landed on a 2 Tone sleeve or a Topical Times Football Book. Positive comments welcome. Any and all offers of publication will be considered.

All previous chapters of The Elements can be found here.

The Elements

by Craig McAllister

Chapter 17

In full view of Stephen, the man picked up the box of baseball bats – ‘he really means this’ thought Connor, still hoping this was all an elaborate joke – and walked towards a door behind the screen. Cameron opened it for him and the man went through. Cameron continued to hold the door. Stephen happily followed. The other boys held back. They looked at one another. No-one said a thing. Fear was etched on every face. Eyebrows were raised. Quizzical looks exchanged. Staring eyes. Tense neck muscles.

Harrison was the first of the eight to go. Slowly, the others followed behind. Connor was last through the door, welcomed into this new room by a relaxed and smiling Cameron. It was a sterile white room. No windows. The only door in and out was the one they’d just used. There was no furniture and definitely no tables of canapes and sparkling water. The man spoke again.

“Mr McPherson. We will leave you here to say your final goodbyes.”

Stephen looked puzzled.

“There’s no time for food and drinks, boy,” said the man. He stepped aside, allowing Stephen to see the box of baseball bats.

Stephen continued to look puzzled.

“While you were away galivanting with the press, I gave the other contestants a short lesson in Roman history. Do you know, McPherson, where the word ‘decimated’ has its origins?”

Stephen looked puzzled still.

“Burgess. Remind McPherson for me, will you? There’s a good chap.”

Burgess remained silent.

“Mr Burgess. I asked you to tell Mr McPherson the origin of the word ‘decimated’.”

Burgess lowered his head

“Mr Burgess! Are you awake, boy?! Then answer me!”

Burgess kept his head lowered and shook it.

“No? What do you mean, ‘no’? ‘No’ as in, you don’t know the answer or ‘no’ as in you won’t say.”

Burgess said nothing and continued shaking his head.

“Very well, Burgess. Cameron?”

There was a sudden, shocking crack. Burgess fell to the ground, a pool of blood spreading slowly from where he’d been shot in the neck. He was dead, of that there was no doubt. The boys, Stephen included, cowered together.

The man began to shout.

“Look what you’ve made me do! This wasn’t part of the plan! Burgess! Pfffft! Now I’ll have to come up with an elaborate story to cover your untimely death, you irresponsible little bastard. Does anyone else, ANYONE ELSE, plan on following in Burgess’s footsteps?”

The man, wild-eyed and nostrils flared, dared the assembled group to defy him. An edgy silence took hold. Connor wanted to look at the crumpled form of Burgess but dared not even blink. Cameron continued to lean on the wall by the door, as if nothing had happened. Only the gun, still smoking silently in his right hand gave his actions away.

“So, now, McPherson.” The man was calmer again. “The other contestants will bid you farewell. Cameron and I shall leave you all in peace.”

Cameron opened the door and the two of them left.

Connor dared himself now to look at the poor, dead body of Burgess. His neck was pooling quickly, crimson blood spreading slowly across the stark white floor. He looked quickly away, catching the eye of McPherson.

“Wh-what the fu-fuh is going on?” asked Stephen, looking first at Connor, then at Reilly and continuing around the group until he’d looked at them all. No-one dared eyeball him or reply.

“Is this s-s-some sort of s-sick j-joke?”

Silence.

“Are you going to…?” He couldn’t bring himself to say what he was thinking….couldn’t believe he was thinking what he couldn’t say.

More silence. Grayson coughed. A terrified Alan could feel warm, fresh urine cloud across his groin. Connor searched his mind for the right words to say. Harrison spoke first.

“Yeah. He wants us to kill you. And I say we do. Cos if we don’t…” Harrison looked at the corpse of Burgess, lying dead in his own blood. He didn’t need to finish his sentence.

Stephen’s face twisted in silent anguish.

“What? No! NO! They told me my mum and dad would be here to pick me up in an hour!”

Stephen now began to cry. Angry, uncontrollable crying. Proper snot ‘n slevvers stuff, punctuated by incomprehensible babble and jerking gulps. The group remained silent, despondent, ineffective. All except Harrison. By now, he’d picked up one of the baseball bats and was holding it out in front of him, testing its weight, finding its sweet spot. Without even being aware of doing so, most of the boys took a step back. Harrison began to swing. Whoosh! Whoosh! The others now fanned out as far away from him as possible. Whoosh! Whoosh! In his haste to get to the wall, Fowler clumsily limped through some of Burgess’s blood and slid. He was lucky not to fall into the mess on the floor. Whoosh! Whoosh!

Harrison approached Stephen with menace and intent. Stephen hardly noticed or, if he did, he hardly seemed to care.

“Whoah, Harrison!” Connor suddenly found his voice and said aloud what everything else was thinking. Harrison wheeled and stared him down.

“Shut it, you, or you’ll be next!”

“He’s right, Harrison,” said Reilly. “Put it down, man.”

Harrison turned and swung the bat in front of Reilly. Whoosh! Whoosh!

“I’ve a good mind to batter you first, Reilly. ‘Can’t read a map! Ha! Ha! Ha!’ Aye – can’t read a map, but I can swing (whoosh!) a base (whoosh!) ball (whoosh!) bat (whoosh!)!!”

With that, Harrison swung a full swing in Reilly’s direction. He hit the wall. A chunk of white plaster fell. A tennis ball-sized indent remained, jagged cracks of plaster zipping out of it like the cracks on the shell of a hard-boiled egg, Reilly’s head a few centimetres from the epicentre.

Harrison looked at the damage on the wall and the terror on Reilly’s face.

“I’ll finish with you later.”

With that, he turned again to Stephen and without warning cracked him low across the kneecaps. Stephen screamed in agony, falling at once to the floor. Harrison raised the bat above his head and was in the process of bringing it down on McPherson’s skull when Reilly blindsided him and tackled him from the side. Harrison and bat parted company and he and Reilly went skidding across the floor. The other boys became animated. Grayson pinned Harrison’s ankles. Alan held him down at the neck, pinning him with the dropped baseball bat, a hand at each end. Rhys kneeled on Harrison’s back with all his weight. Harrison tried to wriggle free, of course, but strong as he was, he wasn’t strong enough to out-muscle the three other boys.

Connor sat with Stephen. Both legs were smashed and broken, hideously jutting out at wonky angles from the knees. Stephen was hysterical. Crying, shouting, wailing incomprehensible words and noises.

“F-f-f-f-f-f-f-Euuurrrggh! Aaaagggh! Y Y Y You b-a-a-a-st-a-a-a-d. Gnnnn, schh, pfffff….”

His ginger hair was matted to his forehead. Tears and snot caked his cheeks and lips. Connor tried to soothe him, but Stephen needed a doctor, not an arm around him.

Fowler spoke.

“Calm it! Everybody!” He held his hands in front of himself in defence. “This is totally messed up. I say we ask them to get a doctor for Stephen. And Burgess. Although….” His voice tailed off. “And he (pointing at Harrison) needs to go too. He needs to be kept well away from the rest of us.”

“I agree,” said Connor. “Stephen needs to get to hospital now!”

Alan, still at Harrison’s neck spoke next.

“They’ll kill us all! They will! When they come back in here, we’re all dead.”

Harrison tried to speak now, but with Alan still holding him down with the baseball bat, it was impossible.

“Let him speak, Alan, pal,” suggested Connor. Reilly selected a bat from the box on the floor and stood menacingly over Harrison, just in case.

“It’s what I tried to tell you, idiots,” snarled Harrison, his cheek still held fast to the floor by Alan’s baseball bat. “It’s kill or be killed.”

Outside, the man and Cameron could hear parts of the conversation – not every word, but enough to know that their idea for elimination wasn’t quite going to plan.

“We’ll give them another couple of minutes, Cameron. I was quite encouraged by the banging and shouting a minute ago. Less so now. We’ll let the group decide on their course of action and, if necessary, we’ll step in. Do you have those photos on your device?”

Cameron nodded in the affirmative.

Inside, Rhys offered a suggestion.

“How about we wait for them to come back in and we ambush them with the baseball bats – four boys on each of them…” Looking at the carnage around him, he corrected himself. “Three or four boys on each of them. They’re armed, but we’ll have the element of surprise.”

Connor thought this was a reasonable option.

“What does everyone else think?” asked Connor.

“I agree with Rhys,” said Alan.

“So do I,” said Connor.

“Me too,” said Reilly. “But I think we’re wasting our time.”

The others – Grayson, Harrison and Fowler were non-comital.

“I think,” said Fowler after a pause, “that we need a doctor for Stephen. Surely when they come back in, they’ll see what’s happened and stop it. They’ll need to get a doctor – this will be being streamed live. They can’t let us fight one another until people die.”

“People are already dead!” shouted Connor.

“And we’ll be next!” reiterated Alan.

“There’s no way this is going out online,” said Rhys. “The man shot Burgess dead! They’ll never show that.”

“No. No, they won’t.” It was the man. He and Cameron were now back in the room. “None of this will ever be seen on any screen. What happens in here will remain in here forever.”

The man surveyed the scene. Harrison was on the floor, a crimson trail smeared between his left knee and Burgess’s neck. Campbell was kneeling beside him, gripping a baseball bat. Alan was still holding Harrison’s neck down with his bat too. Burgess lay dead in a pool of blood. McPherson was propped, half-sat, against the wall, his legs broken and bent and totally useless. The others were infighting and arguing amongst themselves. They were fragile and ripe for the taking.

“Why is this boy even still alive?” the man queried, pointing to Stephen. “I asked you to kill him.”

Harrison tried to speak once more, but Alan kept his weight on the bat. The man ignored both of them and selected a bat from the box.

“You!” He pointed it at Grayson. “Take this and beat him.” He threw the bat towards Grayson and Grayson, more out of surprise than compliance, caught it.

All eyes fell on Grayson. He held the bat limply by his side. Stephen watched silently and fearfully from the other side of the room.

“Beat him!” The demand came loud and clear a second time. Grayson flinched at this.

“Go on!”

Grayson looked at Stephen. His swollen, red eyes pleaded him not to acquiesce with the man’s command. Grayson held the bat out as Harrison had done before, letting it bounce up and down in his hands until he got the measure of it. All eyes were on Grayson and what he was about to do. He took two steps forward and, just when it appeared he might actually carry out his order, he stopped. Stephen audibly moaned. All other boys held their breath.

“Beat him, boy! One hit and pass the bat on. We’ll all have a shot until McPherson is dead.”

With this, Stephen let out a long, low feral moan. He started to speak more words. Most were incomprehensible but one or two could be understood.

“N-n-n-n-no! Gzzzzht! Spffflnjja. N-no. Ma-ma-ma-ma-mum. Gzzzht! Ma-ma-ma dad. Puh-puh-puh-puh-leazzzze.”

“Your mummy and your daddy aren’t coming to rescue you, I’m afraid, McPherson. Y’see, around the time you were being voted boy least likely to by your global fanbase, your parents were involved in a terrible car crash. There’s no easy way to tell you this, but they both died at the scene.” The man paused, savouring the reaction. “They’re gone, McPherson. As you too will shortly be yourself.”

Visibly irritated by the banshee howl of despair that followed, the man paused until he had everyone’s attention again. Confusion mixed with silence and wounded animal noises from the injured boy made for a charged atmosphere. Had they really killed Stephen’s parents, wondered Connor. Really?

“Cameron. Bring me your device, thank you.”

Cameron stepped into the middle of the room and handed the man the tablet with the photographic proof of the car crash. The man jabbed and tapped at the screen, bringing up the images.

“It’s a Ford Spectacular your dad drives, McPherson, is it not? Registration WK67 CSM?”

Stephen’s choked gargle was enough to confirm, but the man showed him the first picture all the same. Stephen looked at the digital image of the twisted former car, front end crumpled like an accordion, stuck in a tree that had half fallen over, the hatchback boot sprung open. The driver’s side window had a spider’s web crack all the way across it.

“U-u-uh-huh,” sobbed Stephen.

“And is this your father?”

He swiped the screen then showed Stephen the slumped form of his dad, head at an unnatural angle across the steering wheel, his right eye obscured by dark blood.

Stephen continued to sob.

“And is this your mother?”

She lay back in her seat, nose pointing north, her mouth agape, seat belt mostly embedded in her neck, as dead as Stephen’s dad beside her.

“So, you see. No-one is coming to rescue you, McPherson. In fact,” the man turned to talk to the others, “no one is coming to rescue any of you. You are all only children, yes? None of you has brothers or sisters?”

Connor had no siblings. He looked around the assembled boys. Their nods confirmed the man’s statement.

“As you are eliminated, so too shall your parents. When the voting comes through at the completion of each stage, the losing contestant will not only lose his place in the contest, he will also lose the two people who are dearest to him. The people who he has relied upon all his short, dishonest life, the people who he will be hoping can somehow make it to Kimble and liberate him, will be dead even before he is. Who’s going to miss a couple of old folk and their troublesome teenage son? No-one, that’s who! As soon as the voting elects a loser, the machinations begin to roll, and your unsuspecting parents meet an untimely and unfortunate end. It may be a car crash. It may be an electrical fire, or a botched mugging, or a freak drowning. I’m sure we’ve only just scratched the surface of the multiple ways in which your parents’ deaths can be made to look like tragic accidents.”

Grayson was jolted back into action. He swung, not for Stephen as instructed, but for the man. No sooner had he felt the satisfying dull thunk of baseball bat on upper shoulder than he felt the burning pain of his flesh being ripped apart at the thigh from a bullet from Cameron’s gun. And no sooner had he registered that he’d been shot than he was shot again a second time. The second shot proved fatal. The bat fell from his grip, Grayson collapsed where he stood and he too began to bleed out from the neck, lying spread-eagled on the floor. The room erupted in chaos once more.

In the melee, Harrison had pushed past a petrified Alan and was standing again, wielding his baseball bat. Not at Cameron, who had just shot Grayson dead, or the man, who had not long ago killed Burgess. He was bearing down on Stephen. As Stephen placed his skinny arms out in front of him, Harrison cracked him hard across the ribs with a full swing. No-one would ever know how many ribs Harrison had broken with that one swing. Stephen passed out with the shock and pain and for almost half a minute, the room fell into silence. Most were convinced that Harrison had dealt the fatal blow to Stephen until Stephen began to cough up foamy, thick blood. As Harrison readied himself for another swing, Fowler attacked him from the side, scattering Harrison one way and the bat the other. They rolled on the bloody floor, smearing Burgess’s and Anderson’s blood on one another. They stopped fighting only when the man fired a shot straight into the ceiling.

“STOP!” he yelled, and they did.

Stephen continued to cough blood, drawing attention to himself.

“We now have TWO DEAD BODIES in this room! And the only person in this room who should be dead,” continued the man, “is this boy here.” He pointed a well-manicured finger at Stephen. “Now. Either you all follow the lead of Mr Harrison here and take a turn at finishing the job so we can all leave this room, or I finish it for you, and none of you will ever leave this room alive.” He stared them down. He wasn’t kidding. “What shall it be?”

Alan began quietly sobbing. Connor was numb. He had no idea what to think.

Without waiting for an answer, the man threw the bat towards Reilly. Already holding a bat of his own, he failed to catch it and watched it bounce across the hard floor, it’s echoing rattle reverberating loudly. The man might’ve been annoyed at Reilly’s failure to catch the bat, but he never showed it.

“It’s your turn, Reilly. Make it a good one.”

Reilly looked at the bat lying on the floor, dropped the one he was holding and contemplated his options.

“PICK IT UP!” screamed the man without warning and once more, through compliance rather than fear, Reilly picked up his own bat again.

Against the wall, Stephen continued to cry and moan and whimper and bleed. One of the broken ribs had punctured a lung, not that he knew this, and so, he was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe. His vain cries of defence were shallower and quieter to the point of whisper. He began to cough blood again, more painful than ever.

“Pick a spot and hit him with it, Reilly. It’s not that difficult.”

Reilly walked towards Stephen.

“I’m so sorry, man,” he said quietly to him, then changed tack. Instead of beating him with the bat, Reilly swung it limply and grazed the soles of Stephen’s feet. He dropped the bat and turned away. Cameron tutted in exasperation and fired a single shot into Reilly’s ankle. Reilly wheeled and screamed in pain.

“DO IT AGAIN!” screamed the man at him. “Hit him properly or Cameron’ll finish you off as well!”

Struggling to stand on his one good ankle, Reilly once again held the bat. He hobbled towards Stephen, who was clearly trying to say something to him. Had he been able to decipher the shallow gasping babble, he’d have known that Stephen was begging for him not to hit him. Reilly had no option though, and with a better swing than he should’ve been able to muster under the circumstances, he brought the bat crashing down between Stephen’s neck and his left shoulder. A sickening crack told everyone that he had hit him good. Stephen grunted an animal-like grunt and slumped further down the wall. “I’m really sorry, man,” acknowledged Reilly, tears streaming down his face. He found a corner that was free of violent TV hosts and dead bodies and wept quietly.

“Fowler! You’re up!” The man shoved the box towards him. “Choose your weapon.”

Fowler hesitated then limped towards the box of bats. He’d made up his mind that when it was his turn, he’d crack the man over the skull with the biggest bat he could find before turning it on Cameron, but after seeing what had happened to Anderson and Reilly, he’d had immediate second thoughts. Fowler had no idea what he was going to do, but he had no intention of contributing to McPherson’s death.

“Hurry up, boy. We don’t have all day.”

“I’m just seeing which bat is best,” stalled Fowler.

“They’re all the bloody same!” retorted the man, extremely impatient and eager to get things finished.

To reinforce things, or perhaps just to speed things up a bit, Cameron clicked the safety catch from his gun.

Fowler selected a bat. It suddenly felt deadly in his hands.

He hated it.

Fowler limped towards Stephen, who was definitely now more dead than alive. Ignoring the faint protestations from Stephen’s bloody mouth, Fowler swung the bat low, from waist height, catching Stephen on the top of the arm. “I’m really sorry, mate,” sobbed Fowler. He threw the bat away and found a spot near Reilly. Stephen slid in slow motion down the side of the wall to his left. The back of his matted, ginger hair left an arced brush stroke of blood as it went on its journey.

“See, that wasn’t so difficult after all, was it, Fowler? Who’s next?”

Connor prayed he was invisible.

“Who’s not been yet?” The man looked around the room at the boys. “Campbell. Stewart. Alan.”

Connor stared steadfastly at his feet.

As their names were mentioned, each boy’s heart beat a little faster, a little louder. Their mouths became that bit drier, their hands a touch sweatier. Alan began sobbing uncontrollably. Big, sniffy, child-like sobs.

“You’ll get your turn, Alan, don’t get upset, boy! Right after Stewart – up y’come, Stewart.”

Connor’s heart dropped.

His feet felt leaden. Each footstep was a gigantic effort. He wasn’t sure if the man had offered him a bat or if he’d picked one of the remaining ones from the box himself, but suddenly there was a baseball bat in his hand and it felt like it might be too heavy to hold, let alone swing. His ears rang. He had a sudden watery, metallic taste in his mouth. His vision began to blur and whatever the man was saying to him was drowned in a sea of ringing in his ears.

“…all day, Stewart. We don’t have all day! Beat him and be done with it.”

Connor gathered himself. He looked at Stephen, pathetic and slumped, near dead, beaten and broken by his own friends. He wasn’t so sure that Stephen hadn’t already passed away. He hadn’t moved. Hadn’t made any further noises in protestation at what was happening to him. It didn’t look as though his chest was moving anymore. His red and swollen eyes remained closed, dirty track marks of tears running from them, down his cheeks, around the contours of his crusted, bloody mouth.

“I think he’s dead now,” said Connor softly, to no-one in particular.

“Best give him one more decent thump for luck, Stewart. Make certain of it.”

Connor let the man’s sick demand sink in. There was going to be no way out of it. He had to hit him. With tears in both eyes he shuffled through the pool where Burgess’s blood and Anderson’s blood had now converged. He stood two metres from where Stephen was slumped, the bat wavering in his grip. He thought of Stephen on the trip through the woods, the times they’d shared cooking at the campfire, the friendship they’d created that was now suddenly and unexpectedly cut short. Blinded by tears, he stepped forward and brought the bat crashing swiftly down on Stephen’s head. As he dropped his weapon, he was sure he heard Stephen exhale for the last time.

Connor didn’t look back, didn’t look at the man, didn’t look at Cameron. He found a spot at the side and wept in anguished silence.

“Cameron,” said the man. “Check his pulse, please, thanks.”

Cameron confirmed to the man that Stephen was now dead. The man began muttering expletives under his breath. Shaking his head, he looked first at Stephen, then at Anderson then finally at Burgess. He let out a long sigh. He looked at the three weeping boys along the wall. Disgusted with them, he looked at the rest. They too – even Harrison – were also in tears. This was not supposed to have happened. The man thought that, with a bit of a pep talk and the underlying threat of violence if they failed to comply, they would carry out his instructions swiftly. How wrong he was. He now had three dead bodies on his hands. He needed time to think.

“Contestants,” he said, trying to keep his voice neutral. “Get out of here. Go to your rooms and await instructions. Cameron, remain here, thank you.”

The boys bowed their heads and made their way slowly from the awful room. Connor stole a last glance at each of the three bodies as he exited, a hellish sight that would live with him for as long as he lived.

(more to follow in the future)

A young boy is caught shoplifting and is offered the choice of 8 months hard labour or taking part in a new reality TV show. Having never been on TV, this is his preferred option. The show is an elimination show but unknown to the public who watch every night and interact via social media 24 hours a day, the show is not what it seems. When the boys learn the true meaning of the word ‘elimination’, everything changes.

Aimed at readers aged 11-14, The Elements is a novel very much in need of an agent and a publisher and quite possibly a sympathetic editor – three things that have so far proven impossible to find. Rather than let the words sleep forever in a folder on my desktop, they’re being serialised at Plain Or Pan.

I appreciate you’re not quite the intended demographic for the book, but it’d be great if you could read it through the same eyes that first landed on a 2 Tone sleeve or a Topical Times Football Book. Positive comments welcome. Any and all offers of publication will be considered.

All previous chapters of The Elements can be found here.

The Elements

by Craig McAllister

Chapters 15 and 16

Chapter 15

A few hundred miles north, a car was returning home. The man and woman inside had just completed their weekly trip to the supermarket. For the past few weeks, they’d bought far fewer items – no cans of fizzy drinks, hardly any crisps, just a couple of packets of chocolate biscuits. Their teenage son loved fizzy drinks and crisps and chocolate biscuits, but with him being away filming this new TV show, they’d not needed to buy nearly as many.

The boy’s mum was just saying to the dad how they were spending less at the supermarket each week and, as they neared a corner, the dad nodded in silent agreement. The mum reached out to turn up the volume on the radio – a favourite song of hers had just come on – and as they sang tunelessly together, the car’s brakes unexpectedly failed. The car shot off the road, down a grass verge and ploughed into a tree. Both the driver and his passenger were killed instantly. When the police arrived, they discovered the driver was a Mr Donald McPherson. His wife Marjory was beside him. One constable pointed out that it was strange that the airbags hadn’t been triggered on impact. On closer inspection of the car, it appeared that the brakes had been tampered with – sabotaged, even. Their only son Stephen would need to be informed.

Chapter 16

The evening meal came and went. The food was of the usual high standard, but two thirds of the boys sent back almost untouched plates. Connor found himself getting increasingly annoyed watching Fowler’s table, the three of them joking and laughing as they ate, relaxed and carefree and still very much Elements participants. Connor’s table ate, or rather didn’t eat, in silence. The three boys shoved uneaten food around their plates before pushing the almost-full plates into the middle of the table. They were no sooner cleared away than the man entered, Cameron by his side as usual. He was quick and to the point.

“Contestants. It is almost 1900 hours. Voting is about to close and one of you will be eliminated. Please meet in the conference room once you have finished your meal.”

The conference room was laid out in the usual way, except there were nine chairs in a semicircle, with none laid out for Pamela and the other two girls. On the screen, the Elements logo spun lazily. The boys sat in their usual seats and, at the same time, the man took his place behind the lectern, Cameron close behind.

“Contestants! It is now 1903. Voting is definitely closed, and we definitely have a loser.”

The man scanned the room, enjoying the uncomfortableness his presence created.

“Let me tell you, it was an extremely close call. In fact, only a few hundred votes separate the three contestants who occupy the bottom three places.”

He leered at the boys, a glint of mischief? excitement? power? In his eyes.

“So, without further ado…”

Connor’s heart pounded to the point of caving in. He needed to pee. His palms and neck were oily with sweat. He couldn’t look at the man or Cameron or the screen or the other boys. He focused his gaze on a black rubbery mark on the floor at his feet and began rubbing it off with the sole of his own shoe. He was aware of Rhys’s left leg beside him, jerking rapidly up and down of its own accord. Stephen on his other side was totally silent and motionless.

“…let me announce the three contestants with the least number of votes.”

The logo on the screen disappeared and, as it did so, three images faded in. They were full-length video images, similar to the ones they used for football players when they showed big football matches on television.

Reilly.

McPherson.

Stewart.

There was a strangled gasp from somewhere behind. Stephen swore under his breath. Rhys’s leg stopped shaking. Connor lost all focus. He looked at the screen. Looked away. Returned his gaze. Blinked rapidly. He was one of the three. The man spoke, but he could hear no words. His ears rang with a high-pitched whistling noise. His brow was dripping. His t-shirt was sucked to his soaking back, cold and clammy. Slowly and steadily, the man’s words were pulled back into focus.

“…three hundred and thirty-seven votes. That’s how close the margins are, contestants. If only you’d Babbled just once more, it might’ve made all the difference.”

The man paused and looked at the three boys, his eyes flitting from one to the other and back again. He enjoyed the drama he was creating.

“Contestants. It is my duty to announce that the first contestant to be eliminated from The Elements is..”

As he spoke, two of the images pixelated and faded, leaving just one boy left.

“…Stephen McPherson!”

Connor exhaled far louder than he thought possible. Behind him was a muted cry of ‘Yes!’ Beside him, Stephen stood immediately. The man looked surprised but allowed him to continue.

“Aw, boys!” said Stephen, turning to face them all. “I suppose someone has to be first out, eh? And if you can’t be the winner, you might as well be the first loser.” He smiled a wry smile and opened his arms to Connor.

“Connor, mate! It’s been a blast!” They hugged tightly, Connor blinking away tears of relief. Stephen went along the line. He hugged Rhys and shook hands with the other boys, wishing them luck as he went. Finished, he turned to the man.

“So? What now? Do I go and get packed? Does someone pick me up and take me home? What happens?”

The man stepped out from behind the lectern.

“Questions! Questions! Yes! You must pack immediately. Cameron will assist you with anything you may need.”

Stephen said that he’d pack quickly. The man told him he had 15 minutes to gather his stuff – he should leave all The Elements-branded items of clothing – and he should return by 7.30pm.

Once Stephen had left, accompanied by Cameron, the man spoke once more to the boys.

“There’ll be a short press conference for Mr McPherson. He’ll stop for pictures, answer some questions, give the quotes that will see him trending online half an hour from now. When the press conference is over, you will have your own chance to say a…special goodbye… to him.”

The man softened his voice.

“I must attend now to the ladies and gentlemen of the world’s press and media, but I shall be back shortly. Please feel free to chat amongst yourselves until I do.”

In the man’s wake, a buzz of conversation filled the air. Connor turned to look for Reilly.

“You OK, man?” he asked. “I was sure it was going to be me.”

“So did I,” admitted Reilly. “In fact, I’m still not sure how I escaped that vote. I thought McPherson was popular.”

“Yeah, so did I,” replied Connor. “It’s a relief, isn’t it, knowing you’re still in.”

“Eh, I think so!” came the reply, Reilly not entirely convinced that it was a good thing to still be here.

The boys talked amongst themselves. Rhys muttered a grudging ‘well done’ to Connor before turning to chat with Reilly. The relief in the room was tangible. All that though was about to change.

The man returned almost as quickly as he had gone and without being asked, the boys’ conversation stopped.

“Contestants? Do you like history? Wars and battles and heroes and villains and stuff like that?”

The man didn’t wait for an answer.

“My favourite period in time is the Roman Empire. They were such a clever civilisation, the Romans. Mathematicians. Engineers. Scientists. Much of what they did is still very much a part of our lives today. You’d know that already though if you were paying attention at school. Ask yourself this – will you leave such a mark on society? It’s unlikely, isn’t it? Not impossible, but very unlikely.

I love the words the Romans gave us. Viaduct. Testify. Legacy. All words that derived from their civilisation. Are you familiar with the word ‘decimate’?”

The man looked at the assembled boys, an encouraging look on his face. Alan raised his hand, half up and half down and spoke when the man nodded with a smile towards him.

“Does it mean something that’s totally destroyed?”

“Yes! It does! As in, ‘the storm decimated every house in the village.’ Every house was totally destroyed by the storm. Yes! Very good. Thank you, Alan.”

He eyed the boys again.

“Are you familiar with word origins? That word testify, for example? You know that testify is something you do in court, yes? Well, of course, you do! You’ve all done just that recently, haven’t you?! You were asked to tell your version of events, you swore to tell the truth and proceeded to tell it. That was you testifying.”

The man nodded, seeking non-verbal feedback from his audience.

“The word testify comes from the word testes. Testicles. I’m sure I don’t need to explain what they are. If you were up for trial in a Roman court, they’d ask you to literally put your testicles on a block of wood. A swordsman would be standing close by. If the judge thought you were telling the truth – testifying – he’d let you go. But if he thought you were lying…”

The man paused, enjoying the audience reaction.

“…swoop! Down would come the sword and chop! Off would fall your testicles!”

The boys sat in sniggering near-silence.

“Luckily for you, we no longer conduct trial by swordsman nowadays, eh? There’s a room full of boys here who’d have been testicle-free by now, am, I right?”

Connor felt himself blush and determinedly avoided eye contact with the man. Most of the others did likewise.

“So. What about the word ‘decimated’. Where might it have its roots?”

He looked out to eight blank faces. He carefully spelt the word out.

“Think of the first part – dee, ee, cee. Those letters are a common prefix in our words today. What words begin with dee, ee and cee? They sometimes make a ‘deck’ sound, as well as a ‘dess’ sound.

“Decade!” shouted Grayson, surprising himself more than anyone.

“Decimal!” said Fowler.

“Yes!” encouraged the man. “Keep going! I’m thinking of an athletics event…”

“Decathlon!” interrupted Grayson again.

“Spot on, Anderson! Spot on! Now, what do all these words have in common? The prefix is the same dee, ee, cee, but what does that mean?”

He waited to allow the boys to answer, but none was quick enough for his liking.

“How many events in a decathlon?”

“Ten!” someone shouted.

“Yes! How many years in a decade?”

“Ten!” came the answer again.

“So, what does the ‘dec’ prefix mean then?”

“Ten?” replied Alan hesitantly.

“Yes! Top of the class, Alan! Top of the class! The ‘dec’ part means ten.”

“But what about December? That’s the twelfth month!” Alan was wishing he hadn’t said out loud what he was thinking.

“Aha! Yes! A very good observation. December is indeed the twelfth month…but it was at one time the tenth. The Romans, as vain as their emperors were, added a couple of months in the middle of the calendar to celebrate two of their most popular leaders. But I’ll leave you to work out which two were added.

Back to ‘decimated’. The word relates somehow to the number ten. Would anyone care to guess where the word originated?”

The lack of response told the man that, no, no-one cared to guess. A mix of fear of getting it wrong and not wanting to look too smart in front of their peers meant that no boy dared rather than cared to answer. The man didn’t mind. He was enjoying giving his impromptu history lesson.

“The Roman army, contestants, was the most-feared army in history. They were extremely well-drilled, super-fit and could march hundreds of miles before engaging in combat. They were rarely beaten. It was a matter of great honour to each Roman soldier that he won in battle, so much so that should an army be beaten in combat, the Centurion would be asked to select ten of his legionaries at random. Those ten legionaries would then be clubbed to death by the others. It served both as a punishment for losing the battle and as a strong warning never to lose in battle again. The group of soldiers would be decimated. Totally destroyed. That’s where the word comes from. Nowadays, we say that the garden was decimated by the weather, or that the cat decimated the bin, but the word has far more sinister origins.”

The man stepped out in front of the lectern again, his audience rapt and interested.

“Contestants. We shall adopt the Roman way for our little TV show.”

The boys shuffled nervously in their seats, waiting for a punchline, or a hearty, jokey laugh from the man, but none was forthcoming. The realisation of what they might be asked to do began to creep up on them. The man’s steely gaze confirmed what they all now were thinking. He watched in sick amusement as puzzled looks were replaced with speechless faces of horror and terror, colour draining as quickly as water down a plughole.

The man moved behind the curtain at the side where Cameron usually stood. He dragged a heavy cardboard box from behind it and pulled out a wooden baseball bat.

“When McPherson returns from his press conference, we – or rather you – will ensure his total elimination, not just from The Elements, but from life itself.”

The man swung a theatrical swing of the bat, the air singing gently as it moved smoothly from over his right shoulder to over his left and back again. You could tell it was a heavy bat when the man dropped it unnecessarily with an echoing rattle on the shiny floor. His voice became unpleasant once more.

“Let this be a warning to you. Win at all costs or face the ultimate penalty. This just might toughen some of you little mummy’s boys up. Any questions?”

There were none, of course. Just a stunned, shared and confused silence. No-one knew what to think. Muffled voices told them that Stephen was returning. He and Cameron came into the room, Stephen jocular and swaggering. He was laughing at what he’d said to a journalist and how the room had laughed with him. Cameron massaged his ego by asking him to tell him again what he’d said to that woman from the Daily Mirror. He did so with characteristic hur-hr-hurring and unnecessary guffaws. Poor Stephen had no idea what was really going on.

The man took control again.

“Aha! Mr McPherson! I trust the ladies and gentlemen of the press were kind to you? Did you give good quote? Show your best side for the photographers? I bet you did! Are those French girls still asking for you? Give them my regards, will you?”

Stephen grinned. He looked at the other boys. They responded with a mixture of ashen faces and avoidance.

“Alright?! Jeez! Who died?”

Eight faces looked to the floor and eight pairs of shoes simultaneously shuffled.

“Mr McPherson. Before you leave us, we’ll have a short farewell party. We have some food and drinks laid out in one of our reception rooms. Grab a bite to eat, say your fond farewells and we’ll see you on your way.”

At this, the man acknowledged Cameron with the slightest of nods.

“Follow me, everyone!”

(more to follow in the future)

A young boy is caught shoplifting and is offered the choice of 8 months hard labour or taking part in a new reality TV show. Having never been on TV, this is his preferred option. The show is an elimination show but unknown to the public who watch every night and interact via social media 24 hours a day, the show is not what it seems. When the boys learn the true meaning of the word ‘elimination’, everything changes.

Aimed at readers aged 11-14, The Elements is a novel very much in need of an agent and a publisher and quite possibly a sympathetic editor – three things that have so far proven impossible to find. Rather than let the words sleep forever in a folder on my desktop, they’re being serialised at Plain Or Pan.

I appreciate you’re not quite the intended demographic for the book, but it’d be great if you could read it through the same eyes that first landed on a 2 Tone sleeve or a Topical Times Football Book. Positive comments welcome. Any and all offers of publication will be considered.

All previous chapters of The Elements can be found here.

The Elements

by Craig McAllister

Chapter 13

The journey back to Kimble was long, silent and, for most, troublesome and anxious. All nine of the boys and what was left of their possessions were packed into a large minibus for the journey. Harrison’s team had no tents and no love lost between them. The last team to arrive at the flag, they’d kept the others waiting almost three hours. It would’ve been longer too, had they not succumbed to the ‘Mayday’ option on the app. A team of production assistants picked them up in an Elements-branded jeep and brought them to the others just as dusk was falling. Bedraggled and arguing amongst themselves, they were beyond care that they were the last team to finish.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” said Harrison directly to Connor, Stephen and Rhys, “’cos it’s the two losing teams where someone gets eliminated. We were last, yeah, but it might be one of you three that gets put out…”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Connor could hear a faint recollection of this very fact, yet for the entire journey he and the others had convinced themselves that as long as you weren’t last, you were safe. Right on cue, the man spoke to the assembled group.

“Ah, boys, boys, boys! Let us bicker not of first and last and eliminations. It is true that one from six will be gone by this time tomorrow, but that is for the public to decide. In the meantime, I suggest you use the journey home to rest and maybe update your socials. It’s not too late to influence public opinion….which reminds me! Stewart!”

Connor’s heart leapt at the sound of his name being spoken by the man.

“I believe this is your mobile phone, yes?”

The man held up Connor’s phone, a snake-like grin pursed on his thin lips. To his side, Cameron smiled a smugly.

“It was found in the woods by one of our production assistants and, given that your social media postings recently have been sparse to non-existent, I surmised that it was probably yours. What do you say?”

“Eh, thanks. Yes, it’s mine. I think it fell out my pocket when we were packing up our camp for the night. I only noticed the next day after we’d walked miles and miles. I thought it was gone forever. Thanks!”

Connor reached out his hand and took back his phone. It felt cold yet familiar. The man was lying about how the phone had come into his possession, Connor was lying about how the phone had come to be lost, and both the man and Connor knew the other knew, but the charade played out for the unsuspecting other two teams to see.

“OK then. Contestants! All aboard! Rest, sleep, socialise. We’ll be back in Kimble quite late. There’ll be no early alarm in the morning. Tomorrow is a rest day. Sleep as long as you need.” The man ushered the boys onto the bus.

As they queued, Rhys sidled up to Connor and whispered a hiss.

“You shoulda covered me when I went for the flag instead of sissy-hiding in that hole with Stephen. We’d have won if it wasn’t for you.”

“Aw, come on, Rhys. That’s not fair. You wanted me to get shot at so you could get the glory of getting the flag!”

“I did get the flag, you coward! But you weren’t there to help me when the other team beat me up for it. And now there’s every chance that one of us is going out because of it. Some team-mate you are.”

Rhys bumped his shoulder against Connor’s and boarded the bus. By the time Connor was aboard, Rhys had taken a double seat to himself, his expression suggesting his pal wasn’t welcome anywhere near him. The winning trio had taken over the seats at the back, the Elements flag stuck up against the window. Connor found his own seat and as he settled back, a jerk and a hiss of steam brakes announced the journey back to Kimble was underway.

Connor replayed the end of the journey over and over on his mind. Could he have acted differently? Yes, he could have, but it was dangerous to do so. Should Rhys have been angry at him for staying in the hole? He was, now, but then, he was all about the glory. They wouldn’t have had the conversation had Rhys managed to keep a hold of the flag. They wouldn’t have had the conversation had it been the last team to finish that would see a team member leave. As it turned out, finishing second was really just ‘best of the losers’ and you were still equally in with a chance of being eliminated. There was nothing they could do now, save ensure their online profiles were interesting enough to the public to garner the votes required to stay in The Elements.

Connor updated Babble and Olé with pictures copied from Stephen and Rhys’s accounts. He turned some into memes of his own. He took content from the YouTube channel and made GIFs from it. He thought about re-posting the videos of Harrison looking gormless with his map and decided against it. A cheap laugh, perhaps, but he wanted to present himself as a team player, a hard worker, a do-gooder. He couldn’t have anyone think he was a coward or a person that couldn’t be relied upon. He was tired – shattered, actually – but he had a lot of social media catching up to do. He needed the public on his side. He would sleep once back at Kimble. Right now, as the others slept around him, was his chance to make his online presence count.

What Connor didn’t know was that the ambush – it had been the man and Cameron, he was sure of it – they’d shot at them from the viewing tower after all – was unknown to anyone out-with the immediate circle of those involved. Cameras filmed much of the three teams’ journeys which was then broadcast on a slight time delay to the Elements official YouTube channel,  but the footage of the attack had been conveniently consigned to an electronic file that no-one would ever find. As far as the Elements was aware, it had never happened in the first place. The millions of global viewers who had watched the first event were none the wiser. Imagine the outcry if they had broadcast footage of three young boys being shot at by two unknown men?! No! Those grey men in grey suits in the office at the far end of Kimble would never allow that to happen. The Elements was rapidly becoming the most-watched, most interactive TV programme/social media phenomenon/social experiment in history. Advertising revenue had passed the £100 million mark. A second season was already at the planning stage. There was a waiting list of companies eager to product place on the show. Celebrities, sports stars and even Prime Ministers and Presidents were sharing content on their own social media feeds. Yes, boys might drop out or even disappear from the show, but if it were presented in a clever way, there would be no outcry. And no outcry meant more revenue. Which meant those grey men would be wearing the very best in grey suits for a long time to come.

Chapter 14

Connor slept well into the next day. It was almost three in the afternoon before he was fully awake. His legs, his back, his shoulders, all of his body, ached. He enjoyed a powerful shower, dressed and made his own way to the dining area.

A small peg board at the entrance announced that today only was self-service. Connor looked into the empty room, saw that his usual table was set and, picking up a tray, went to the heated metal trays in the serving area and piled his plate high with food; bacon, sausages, hash browns, potato scones, pancakes. Unhealthy but required. He piled them into a wonky tower and sat the plate at his table. He returned to the serving area for a mug of tea and a glass of apple juice, which he drank in one go and then refilled before sitting down to eat.

Silence.

Only the metallic clank of cutlery on porcelain broke it. That and the occasional slurp of tea. Connor scrolled through his phone, a pleasing series of thumbs up and love hearts and smileys and positive messages blurring past with every smudge of his thumb. Somewhere amongst them he hoped would be a comment or even just a like from his parents, but he wasn’t about to go through the hundreds of thousands of interactions to find it. He hoped they knew he was OK, that he’d survived the first event. He’d still to survive the public vote, though he was fairly confident that he’d get its seal of approval. Despite his ineptitude at leading his team, Harrison was super-popular. Both Reilly and Alan had less followers and likes and re-shares than Connor. Alan would probably get the sympathy vote, which left Reilly in last place. Of his own team, Stephen was the most popular. Rhys was probably about level pegging with Connor but perhaps his heroics at the flag pushed him a touch ahead. As he ate hungrily and considered all of this, the less confident Connor became that he’d escape elimination and his anxiety levels began to rise in inverse proportion to the food left on his plate.

Finished and worrying, Connor returned his dishes to the hatch at the serving area and stacked them beside another set of empty plates. He made his way into the recreation area. Fowler was there by himself, absent-mindedly clacking two pool balls together at the pool table. He was wearing shorts, his lower left leg heavily bandaged. As he looked towards Connor, Connor noticed he was sporting a black eye. As he got closer, he saw too that Fowler had a cut on his chin.

“Jeez, Fowler! You’ve had better days!”

Fowler smiled a sad smile.

“My left leg was shot. When we were fighting your lot for the flag, someone shot me.”

Fowler looked cautiously around the room and lowered his voice.

“I think it was the man!”

Fowler looked at Connor, eyes like saucers, the purple and black bruising around his right eye giving him a cartoonish appearance. Connor wasn’t sure what to say.

“Was it sore?” he asked.

“Total agony. Like a burning, ripping sensation tearing through your flesh.”

Connor looked on.

“….and I don’t think he was aiming for me, either,” continued Fowler.

Fowler continued to stare straight at Connor, afraid, yet not so afraid that he couldn’t voice his opinion.

“…I think the bullet was meant for Campbell on your team. If he’d wanted to shoot me, he could’ve got me when I was climbing the hill. He could’ve shot anyone on the hill. It was only after Campbell had the flag and we were fighting him for it that he shot. I don’t think,” Fowler continued, “that the man wanted your team to win.”

Fowler let his quietly whispered words hang in the air.

Connor turned things over in his mind. Fowler might well be right. He looked around the room, making sure they were the only two there.

“We were shot at! In the woods! We were about halfway to the flag and had stopped for a rest.”

Fowler leaned closer, still clacking the pool balls, perhaps unselfconsciously, or perhaps as a noise distractor should any microphones be picking up their conversation.

“We were in a clearing next to a river. We sat down and almost straight away, the three of us fell asleep.”

Connor continued, egged on by Fowler’s rapid nodding and wide eyes.

“I was wakened by someone coughing. I woke the others. When I told them someone was hiding in the bushes, they didn’t believe me at first. Then whoever it was started firing at us. It was non-stop. Terrifying. We grabbed our stuff and ran for it. That’s when I lost my phone.”

Fowler looked on, wide-eyed once again.

“The man gave you your phone back at the minibus last night!”

“…Rhys reckoned there were two gunmen, not just one.”

“The man and Cameron!” whispered Fowler.

“It has to be,” said Connor.

“And it looks like they really don’t want you to win…”

Connor mulled this thought over in his overactive mind. If the man didn’t want anyone on his team to win, and it certainly looked that way, then surely he could just fix the vote so that whoever he wanted out was ‘voted’ out. Maybe, thought Connor with returning horror, he would find himself voted out later. Unlike other reality TV shows, ‘out’ didn’t mean being sent back home to your loved ones with a ‘hard luck’ and a ‘well done’ ringing in your ears. ‘Out’ in The Elements meant something sinister. Out for good, perhaps. To be ‘taken out’ was hit-man terminology, wasn’t it? No-one had discussed this. It really didn’t need discussing. The inference had been there since the start. Connor didn’t want to be voted out. No-one wanted out. No-one really wanted to be ‘in’ either. Connor’s mind flashed suddenly back to that time in Mr Szczęsny’s shop. What an idiot he had been.

Somewhere, back in the room that the boys would never know about, the man and Cameron sat and listened. Despite the intermittent clack of pool balls, they’d heard everything that Fowler and Connor had discussed.

“How’s voting going, Cameron?”

Cameron prodded the smart screen in front of him and swiped with his thumb until he had the information.

“Right now, it’s looking like Reilly.”

The man considered this then spoke.

“But that can change, yes?”

Cameron smiled in agreement and returned to his screen, thumbs and forefingers going to work.

The boys drifted into the recreation room one by one. Burgess was limping. He and Fowler went off to sit and chat, Fowler shooting Connor a conspiratorial nod before limping off, two limpers together. Grayson arrived, asked aloud if food was available and left immediately for the dining area. Others appeared. Alan and Reilly. They took up a game of half-hearted pool. Stephen, absent-mindedly scratching his upper leg scanned the room. He flopped on a sofa. Rhys was next. He nodded an ‘alright?’ to Stephen and sat beside him. He ignored Connor’s gaze and focused his attention on his phone.

Harrison was last to enter. He stood just inside the door. He wore a close-fitting grey Elements t-shirt that accentuated his upper-arm muscles. His trousers were tightly belted, possibly a notch further than was strictly comfortable, but this gave the impression of impressive upper body strength. His boots were laced all the way to the top and he stood, legs shoulder width apart, arms by his side, fingers moving agitatedly. His left hand held his mobile phone.

“Anyone,” he shouted for everyone’s benefit, “who makes fun of me again on social media is going to wish they hadn’t.”

Harrison waited for everyone’s full attention. Reilly played a pool shot, the rattle of the ball going into the pocket breaking the silence. Harrison looked in his direction, the stare enough to momentarily end the game.

All eyes were now on Harrison.

“Reilly. Anderson. Alan.”

Harrison looked at each boy as he spat their names, stopping at Alan.

“When your own team-mates make fun of you to gain a few extra likes, you know it’s every man for himself. I don’t care who’s on my team. From now on, everyone is an enemy to me.”

Harrison looked at each boy, his anger magnified by the savage haircut on his head.

“You.”

He turned and pointed.

“You.”

He turned again, jabbing his forefinger.

“You. And you. And you too.”

He turned once more, singling out each boy in turn.

“You.”

Jab.

He did this until he’d pointed out every boy individually.

“Starting from now, it’s me against you.”

He stared them down for a good few seconds.

“…and there’s only going to be one winner.”

Harrison made his exit. The room collectively breathed out.

Back in that room that the boys would never know about, the man laughed out loud.

At half past five, the man summoned the boys. There’d be an evening meal, he said, someone’s last supper. He’d made a joke of that part, but really, it was no joke. At 1900 hours, the voting would close and someone would be eliminated. Voting was tight, he said, and it would be an unlucky contestant who found himself voted out, but that was the nature of the game. Despite the man’s suggestion that they took to social media to try and garner a few extra votes, none of the boys had the appetite for self-promotion. The winning trio had no need for it and the other six were sick to the stomach with worry. Perhaps only Harrison was confident of remaining in the process. The majority of the boys had come to accept that what would be would be. Connor considered that getting put out now could actually be the best option. He was sure that over time, every boy would meet the same unavoidable fate. Why prolong the agony of the worst possible outcome?

Hope.

That was the reason. Connor hoped that despite his inner fears and worst-case scenarios, it was possible to win The Elements. Or at least survive it. Yes, it was unlikely, but it wasn’t impossible to envisage himself the last boy standing. It was this hope that made Connor yearn for enough votes to enable him to stay.

(more to follow in the future)

A young boy is caught shoplifting and is offered the choice of 8 months hard labour or taking part in a new reality TV show. Having never been on TV, this is his preferred option. The show is an elimination show but unknown to the public who watch every night and interact via social media 24 hours a day, the show is not what it seems. When the boys learn the true meaning of the word ‘elimination’, everything changes.

Aimed at readers aged 11-14, The Elements is a novel very much in need of an agent and a publisher and quite possibly a sympathetic editor – three things that have so far proven impossible to find. Rather than let the words sleep forever in a folder on my desktop, they’re being serialised at Plain Or Pan.

I appreciate you’re not quite the intended demographic for the book, but it’d be great if you could read it through the same eyes that first landed on a 2 Tone sleeve or a Topical Times Football Book. Positive comments welcome. Any and all offers of publication will be considered.

All previous chapters of The Elements can be found here.

The Elements

by Craig McAllister

Chapter 12 (part 2)

All three boys fell asleep. They were sheltered and safe from the weather and found it very easy to drift off. So asleep were they, they failed to stir when a family of squirrels approached cautiously, before scurrying away into the dense undergrowth. So asleep were they, they failed to stir when a crow squawked and flapped suddenly in the treetops directly above them, startled by the man and Cameron who’d taken up position nearby. The three boys were well within firing range and the man’s trigger finger was itchy. He was a fair man, but he was getting impatient. So asleep were they, the man and Cameron began to wonder in whispered voices if they shouldn’t wake them up themselves. They yielded, rationalising that big game hunters needed to be patient.

Connor dreamed of home. He was at his kitchen table, his father sitting opposite. His mum had a slice of toast in her hand that she hadn’t yet bitten into. It hung limply from her hand, drenched in yellowy butter, half a second from a slow collapse. She was angrily waving a football magazine in Connor’s face. In his dream, Connor couldn’t hear what his mum was saying, but he knew how upset she was with him. His dad stood behind his mum, one hand on her shoulder, the other covering rifling his hair in frustration. Connor now realised that the kitchen table was covered in magazines to the point where none of the varnished wood of the table-top could be seen underneath. Suddenly Mr Szczęsny appeared in the kitchen, walking through the same multicoloured strips that separated his shop from the little storeroom where the police officers had spoken to Connor. Mr Szczęsny was shaking his head at Connor and throwing magazines at him until quickly there was a mound of magazines piled accusingly in front of him. As they collapsed under the frictionless hold of their glossy covers and began tumbling onto the floor, Connor woke up with a gasping start. Confused, he looked around and immediately remembered where he was and why he was here. The other two boys slept nearby, Stephen still wearing his backpack, was curled into a foetal position and out for the count. Rhys lay flat out and motionless save the slow and steady rise and fall of his chest. Connor scratched, rubbed stray pine needles from his face and automatically reached for his phone. As he photographed his two sleeping teammates and updated his profiles, he heard the sharp snap of a twig. Or, maybe he hadn’t. He sat for a moment, telling himself he must have imagined it. He turned his attention back to his phone.

Nearby, under cover of the luscious undergrowth, the man elbowed Cameron and nodded encouragingly at him. It was his turn to “freak the boy Stewart out.” Cameron coughed. A low, quiet, throat-clearing cough, but a recognisable human cough all the same.

Connor’s heart missed a beat. He froze. It had been a snap. And now a cough! Someone was nearby. Maybe it was one of the other teams. As he tried to convince himself that somehow, a team had wandered so off-course they were now travelling to the flag in the same direction as them, there was another snap of twigs, followed closely by a rustling in the bushes. His adrenalin kicked in, but he had no idea what to do. Scrambling on all fours, still wearing his backpack like a giant, petrified tortoise, he reached Rhys and kicked his feet.

“Rhys! Rhys!” he hissed, quietly but loud. “Rhys!”

Rhys stirred, turned on his side and, with a wet smacking sound from his lips, went back to sleep.

“Rhys! Rhys, man! Wake up! I think there’s someone there!” He kicked him again and moved to Stephen.

From between bushes and bracken and low-hanging branches, the man and Cameron watched, supressing their laughs as Cameron repeated his actions at Stephen. The man rustled the undergrowth in front of him and made a hooting, owl-like noise.

By now Connor was beside himself with fear. Stephen had stirred immediately but wasn’t yet properly awake. Connor shook him by the shoulders and stage-whispered in his ear.

“Stephen! Wake up! Stephen, please! There’s someone out there! Listen!” He shook him again and Stephen sat up, rubbing his eyes and squinting as Connor came into focus.

The man and Cameron, watching everything from their hideout, took it all in. “Patience, Cameron, patience!” said the man under his breath.

“Stephen, man!” Connor whispered, eyes like saucers. “I heard a cough. Noises! Twigs snapping! And the bush shaking! Someone’s hiding nearby!”

“What?!” said Stephen in surprise.

“Shhh! Just wait and listen.”

They waited and listened. There were no further sounds. For now.

“You’re imagining it, mate,” said Stephen in a normal voice. “We’ve been out here walking all day and your mind has started playing tricks on you. You just need a decent sleep, that’s all.”

Connor considered this. He’d been having that weird dream when he woke up. Maybe it was all imagined after all. Maybe he…

…snap!

This time it was Stephen who lost his cool.

“F…Woah!” The two boys were on Rhys in a shot, shaking him awake.

“Rhys! Rhys! Wake up, for God’s sake! Someone’s hiding in the bushes!”

Rhys was awake quickly this time and sat bolt upright. He was suddenly instantly alert.

“Somebody? Where!”

“Just wait,” said Connor. “And listen.”

In the undergrowth, the man nudged Cameron. He coughed again.

The three boys looked in surprise at one another, none of them exactly sure of what to do. Rhys turned this way and that, trying to establish where the cough had come from. Stephen and Connor looked at one another for some sort of reassurance. There was another snap of a twig, quickly followed by more rustling of the bushes. Rhys stood up and walked in the direction of the noise.

“Rhys! Rhys! Don’t be daft!” hissed Connor loudly. But Rhys ignored him.

“Whoever’s there, make yourself known, please.” His voice was assured and confident. As an extra measure, he raised his hands in the universally recognised ‘I come in peace’ manner.

Deep in the undergrowth, thirty or so yards away, the man, bored of this game, keen to show off in front of his protégé and take things up a notch, cocked and loaded his rifle. The loud click that emanated from it was unmistakable. Rhys froze in his tracks. Stephen sat rigid with fear. Connor thought he might wet himself. The man took aim at a tree above and beyond Rhys’s left shoulder. He squeezed the trigger and instantly the bullet fired from the chamber with a loud airy crack. By the time the bullet had lodged itself in the tree behind Rhys, the three boys were scattering frantically through the forest. The man offloaded another bullet. And another. Each shot was designed to scare rather than kill, and, boy, was it working. Involuntary strangulated yelps rose from the three boys’ throats as the bullets whizzed past them and landed with a woody thunk in the nearby pines. They ran together, in the same direction, faster than they had any right to run with their heavy backpacks on.

The man spoke to Cameron, louder this time.

“Aim for Stewart, but don’t kill him. Aim to maim!”

Cameron stood under cover of the undergrowth, legs apart, the barrel of his gun pointing firmly towards the running boys. With one eye squinted shut he carefully followed Stewart’s crazed path and, when confident of a clear shot, squeezed the trigger.

The metal clang of bullet against metal informed Connor he’d been very lucky. He didn’t know it yet, but the bullet had put a hole clean through the pot that dangled freely from the bottom of his backpack. Without the pot there, he may well have been shot on the behind. The three boys ran on, faces scratched by low-hanging pine branches, ankles turned on uneven ground, arms flailing wildly in front of them, clearing nature’s objects that hindered their frantic escape.

The man took aim for one last shot and fired lazily into the trees beyond the three terrified boys.

“Leave them for now, eh, Cameron. We’ll see them again before they reach the flag.”

The man and Cameron stood, watching as the boys ran off and out of sight. Never once did they look back and never once did they stop until they were certain that the gunfire had ceased. Coming out from their hiding place, the man and Cameron surveyed the abandoned scene. A water bottle and a phone lay lonely amongst the brown pine needles. The man picked it up and instantly recognised the familiar dinks and scratches on its case. He had Stewart’s phone once again. He put it into his pocket, unsure yet of how best he could use it to manipulate events. He tossed the water bottle to Cameron and the pair of them headed back to the jeep.

Half a mile away, the boys lay sprawled on the ground. They were worried that they’d been tracked here, too scared to talk, too scared to breathe, even. Connor was convinced his beating heart could be heard by the others. They lay in terrified silence, looking back in the direction from where they’d just come. It was a good twenty minutes or so before any of them dared speak.

“I think they’ve gone,” whispered Connor.

“I hope so,” replied Stephen.

“Who were they?” wondered Connor aloud.

“Probably snipers,” said Rhys. “I bet there’ll be others as we get closer to the flag.”

Connor’s heart sank even lower at the thought. Stephen looked nonplussed. The three sat up and huddled closer together. Connor and Stephen greedily glugged down water.

“Any chance of a slug, anyone? I think I’ve left my water bottle behind,” said Rhys.

Connor handed his bottle to Rhys and watched as his teammate did his best to take a drink without pressing his lips to the bottle before handing it back with a thanks. As they so often did, they instinctively reached for their phones. As the other two opened their social accounts, Connor patted first one pocket, then another, then back again.

“I’ve lost my phone! I don’t believe it! I’ve lost my phone.” He felt physically sick. The others barely looked up from their screens.

“It’ll be in a pocket, surely,” said Rhys. “We left in a hurry back there. You’ve probably stuck it in a different pocket without thinking.”

Connor knew differently though and, annoyed at his blasé reaction, instantly wished he hadn’t given Rhys the drink of water. He frisked through the pockets of his trousers and jacket, even his rucksack too, but he knew he wasn’t going to find it. He cast his mind back. He’d had his phone out. He’d been taking pictures of the others sleeping, he’d heard the noises, he’d wakened the others, all hell had broken loose and somewhere in the melee he’d lost his phone. His first thought was that he should go back for it but, for one, he’d never find it and, two, the gunman might still be there, or worse, making his way towards them. The thought of having no phone – again – was the worst possible thought. Connor sat, a black mood enveloping him, with nothing to do but keep watch for the rogue gunman and look at the other two swiping freely through their phones.

“Where even are we?” he asked to no-one in particular.

“Dunno,” admitted Rhys. “I think we’re off the track though. We’ll need to find it again.”

“I’ve been looking at the others,” said Stephen, “but neither team has uploaded anything since the last time we looked. Let’s check where we are though, eh?”

Connor’s enthusiasm for the task had waned but he retrieved the map from his rucksack and Rhys went through the process of checking their coordinates on his phone. He checked back and forth between phone and map until he was certain of where they were.

“We’re here,” he said, circling the map. “We were here when the gunman – or gunmen, perhaps – opened fire on us. We haven’t strayed too far from the route, to be honest. It shouldn’t be too difficult to get back on track.”

Connor’s heart sank once more at the thought there might have been more than one gunman. He was sure Rhys had just said this for effect – and if he had it had worked – but there was no way of knowing for sure.

“How far have we walked now?” asked Stephen. “We must be more than halfway by now.”

Rhys studied the map, plotting their current location with the felt pen.

“We’ve done, let’s see…” He whispered quietly to himself as he counted the miles. “Eight, four, four….two….uh-huh….then three…and two there……I reckon we’ve walked twenty three miles, although we’re maybe a mile off the route. So, yeah, I think we’re at least halfway. Well done team!”

Between the tree-tops, Connor could see the sky deepening to an indigo blue. One or two stars were already shining. Dusk was falling.

“Would this be a good place to stop for the night?” he suggested, hoping the others would say yes.

“I think we should get back on track first, before it gets too dark,” offered Rhys. “It’d be good to find a river spot too. We can wash our feet in it, maybe even use it to drink or cook with if we’re too far from a water station. If we leave now, we should be able to pick up the path in fifteen minutes or so. That’s doable, even if we are shattered.”

“But what about the gunman, gunmen?” asked Stephen.

“Nah. They’ve gone, mate. They’ve gone. C’mon, let’s go.”

So, once more the trio got on the move, more careful with their footing in the failing light, still nervously checking behind to see if they were being followed or not. They picked up their route again, stopped to check for any nearby water stations – “this way!” ascertained Rhys and they walked grudgingly for a further twenty minutes. They arrived in the twilight at a clearing. A stream made itself known between the trees. Stephen and Connor left Rhys to find the water station and, with great effort, went about setting up their tents.

Stephen gathered kindling and set up a small fire in the middle between the three tents. The three sat, drinking from shared bottles and eating through their supplies. Connor had somewhat grudgingly loaned his ‘Juicebox’ to Rhys and Stephen. Their phones fully charged, there was no likelihood of dying phones midway through the next day. Uploads were made to social media and, once finished, Stephen passed his phone to Connor.

“Here y’are, mate. Log in and you can update your profiles.”

This gesture lifted Connor’s spirits somewhat and he enjoyed getting back online, reading comments and checking out the others’ statuses. Team positions were checked, and it was agreed that all teams had stopped for the night. Rhys wanted to discuss strategies and tactics, but the others were unreceptive to serious talk such as this. It would have to wait until the morning. A good night’s sleep was required, but in the event, none of the boys slept particularly well. Connor drifted in and out of dreams, waking with a start and convincing himself that he could hear things in the dark. There would be woodland creatures somewhere out there, but he thought it best to try not to imagine what might lurk beyond the canvas walls. The glowing embers of the fire might help to keep unwanted animals away, he reasoned, but maybe not gunmen.

He awoke properly at 6am and exited his tent. The fire was no more than an ashen charcoaled spot on the ground. The others were still in their tents. Stephen was snoring loudly. Connor stood tall, stretched, and scratched the back of his thigh. It hadn’t been a great sleep, but he felt alright, all things considered. The early morning sun came through the pines in hazy shafts of light. It was misty, womb-like and quite magical. He wandered over to investigate the stream that ran through the trees. As he sat lost in thought, he became aware of a small kingfisher, bright blue and orange, sitting on a low-hanging branch over the water. He was quite sure the bird could see him too, yet it hadn’t flown away. Connor was scared to move, lest the bird flew off, and wished he’d had his phone to take a picture. He was cruelly reminded then that he’d left his phone behind yesterday and for a brief moment his mood turned for the worse. Watching the bird lifted his spirits though. It opened its wings, preened its feathers and then majestically darted to the water, its wings tucked close to its body. Connor waited in anticipation for it to reappear from the water with a fish in its beak but when it bobbed back to the surface, it had nothing. It flapped its wings, took off once more and flew further downstream where it continued preening itself again. Connor watched it happily until the kingfisher flew off for good.

He busied himself with the cooking gear. He’d make a breakfast of some sort for the others, probably a cup-a-soup with a tin mug of tea and a cereal bar on the side. Looking at the bullet hole in the pot that had been hanging from his rucksack when they’d escaped the gunman (or gunmen, he internally corrected), he replayed the scene in his head. It was the most terrifying event to happen to him in his young life and, with only half this journey gone, and another four Elements events ahead of him, he began to wonder if he’d see his next birthday.

Intentionally noisy, Connor hoped that by clanging pots and rustling wrappers, the others might stir themselves awake. He was filling the kettle with water when Stephen appeared. By the time it was boiling, Rhys had joined them. The three sat around Connor’s makeshift kitchen, Rhys and Stephen watching as he poured three tomato cup-a-soups from the one good pan they had left.

“Here y’are, everyone. Tomato soup. The perfect breakfast!”

The three slurped the soup and Connor was congratulated on his improvised culinary skills. Rhys wanted to get down to the serious business of strategy and so over cups of strong black the three once more weighed up the pros and cons of a long walk with long break against shorter bursts with shorter breaks. They all agreed that they should walk for as long as possible, or at least until something – no-one wanted to hint at what that ‘something’ might be – hindered their progress. Checking the socials, it looked as though the other teams hadn’t yet stirred. Stephen leaned over with a ‘hur hur hur’ and showed Connor a repeating meme of Harrison chasing after a tumbling map. The comments below were interesting.

There were loads, all lambasting Harrison. Was this good news for everyone else? Did it mean that if Harrison’s team came last, he would be voted out for being the most inept, or would the public chose to keep him in because he was entertaining for all the wrong reasons? The three debated this. You couldn’t second-guess the public, theorised Rhys, and they all agreed to focus on coming first, or at least, not last, in this task.

They packed up, cleaned up, refilled their water bottles and doublechecked they’d left nothing behind before setting off. They strode with a spring in their step, smug at the thought of the other two teams still sleeping and either gaining on Grayson’s lot, perhaps even extending their lead over the both of them. It certainly looked to be a two-horse race between them and Grayson’s team for first place, but things might change yet. Another ambush from a gunman, for example, wouldn’t help anyone’s progress. Allowing for breaks and fatigue, Rhys had calculated they’d get to the flag by late afternoon, sometime between four and five. That seemed a long way off, but when he showed them how far they’d come and how many water stations were behind them compared to how many they had still to get to, it helped make the journey seem shorter. Zimmerman’s class really had been good for instilling a positive mental attitude and it was proving invaluable in the conditions.

The going was much like the day before, with tall pines blocking out the sun and a carpet of fallen needles cushioning their feet as they walked. After an hour or so, the group had thinned out into a fragile line of three, again headed by Rhys and again with Stephen at the back. It began to rain too, infrequent light drops at first before eventually becoming heavier. It dropped through the trees, drenched their hair and dripped down the back of their necks. It was futile to consider drying themselves until the rain had definitely abated and there was no point in stopping until then. A not unpleasant musty smell rose from the forest floor and, cold and miserable, the boys plodded onwards. They ascended tree-covered hillsides, slipped carefully down the other side, fought their way through impenetrable bramble bushes and crops of thistles – proper big, purple, jaggy ones – as they ate up the miles.

Around midday the rain eased off and the boys finally took a break. Connor took off his jacket and hung it to drip-dry from the branch of one of the trees, a move that was copied by the others. He towelled himself dry with a spare t-shirt, relieved on opening to note that his backpack had remained waterproof. He sat eating a packet of dried fruit and chewed as the sweet strawberries and apricots bled life into his dry mouth.

“The others are on the move,” said Rhys. “There are lots of photos and clips up on their socials.”

Stephen spread the map on the forest floor and Rhys began plotting points on it.

“This is us, round about here,” he said, inking a circle. “We’ve got about 10 miles left to go. We’ve come about three quarters of the way. It’s not far now. Grayson’s team is about….”

He checked his phone then the map.

“….here.

He drew a circle and wrote a capital ‘G’ inside it.

“By my working out, they’ve got about 12 miles to go. We’re a wee bit ahead of them, but not by much. Harrison’s team are…”

He checked his phone again.

“…about here. He drew a circle, adding a capital ‘H’ inside it. They’re further behind. I reckon they’ve still got the best part of 16 miles to go. It’s between us and Grayson’s lot for first place. As long as we don’t muck anything up, we should be safe from elimination.”

The boys walked on, upbeat and positive, determined not to drop their lead. Trees, streams and open marshland came and went quickly as the miles melted away. By early afternoon there was a sense that they were going to do it, they were going to finish first and nothing would get in their way.

A few miles away, sitting in their jeep, the man and Cameron listened in to Rhy’s conversation and plotted their next intervention. They had settled themselves less than half a mile from the tall, red flag. Even from this distance it was unmissable. If they’d followed their maps correctly, the teams would have no trouble in locating it. At the base of the hill where the flag fluttered, Cameron had covered each of three pits dug by a digger, making it look to the unwitting eye as if nothing untoward had happened there. Then, they’d both climbed the pines using the rope ladder that had been installed for them and took up position in a camouflaged treehouse. Looking down, it reminded the man very much of the viewing tower on the training ground. They’d had plenty of practice there with rubber bullets. Today he and Cameron busied themselves by loading live ammo into their high range shotguns. They went back and forth, up and down the rope ladder, carrying all the ammunition and artillery that they needed. The man’s target was Stewart, but from this position they’d have a clear view of all teams approaching the flag. It would either be Stewart’s team from the south or Anderson’s team from the west who arrived first. He hoped very much that, should Harrison’s team finish last, the boy himself was kept in the process. But that was to worry about later. Right now, they were armed and ready for any team who reached the flag first. All they had to do was wait it out until nearer the time, leave the comfy seats of the jeep and climb up into the treehouse and spot themselves some moving targets.

By three in the afternoon, they were down to the last four and a half miles. They agreed on a short break to allow for refuelling ahead of, as Rhys called it, ‘the final push’.

“Look at the map,” pointed out Rhys. “This is the last water station on our route. We’re expected to finish soon.”

The others crowded around the map, marvelling at the water stations and stopping points they’d left far behind on their journey. It had been a truly phenomenal walk, from the team bonding and improvised cooking to the kingfisher and the serious issue of being attacked by a sniper, a quite remarkable adventure for boys barely in their teens, or, in Connor’s case, not yet there. As they ruminated on this, Stephen had been checking their rivals’ media feeds and Rhys was aghast to discover that Grayson’s team was somehow nearer the flag than they were.

“I don’t understand! I don’t think I’ve made an error with my calculations, but it is possible, I suppose. Maybe they’ve found a shortcut. Or maybe it’s been all downhill for them.”

“Or maybe no-one’s popped up and shot them yet,” volunteered Connor. “Either way, if we want to be first, we need to get a move on. Pack up, clear up and move out!”

Within two minutes they were pounding the path again, focus and fire in their eyes. The land ahead curved steeply upwards, bordered by yet more pines. It took concerted effort to reach the top without stopping but when they did, the boys allowed themselves a 360 degree view of the landscape that stretched out in all directions.

“Look! There!” said Stephen excitedly. “Is that the flag?!?”

The others followed his finger to the horizon where, flapping briskly in the wind was a flag on a tall pole. From here it was impossible to identify as ‘their flag’ but Rhys, with the sat nav app opened on his phone confirmed that it was.

“Woo-hoo! Yeeeeeeah!” shouted Stephen, quickly followed by the others.

Back in the jeep, the man jumped angrily in his seat as the unexpected piercing shriek split through his earpiece. This had him in a rage and he couldn’t wait to take it out on the unsuspecting victims.

Connor dug his heels into the side of the hill and ran down, in spite of the backpack and aches and pains, carefree and full of life. They were near the end, so close that they could for the first time see it. From somewhere he suddenly had a second wind and a renewed strength in his legs. With the others right behind him, they jogged onwards, towards the flag, towards Grayson’s team, towards trouble.

From the opposite direction, Grayson and his team had also spotted the flag. Burgess had seen it first, much to the annoyance of Fowler who, as the team had discovered over the course of the two days, had to be first with everything. With unobstructed views – there was a heavy clump of pines on the horizon where the man and Cameron would shortly be, but with wide, open marshland between them and the flag, they too started running. They also sensed victory.

The man and Cameron shimmied their way up the rope ladder and into the treehouse.

Connor led his group onwards. They laughed as they ran. Edgy, excited, expectant.

Grayson and his team closed in on the flag. It was half a mile away at most, the most beautiful site any of them had seen in months.

“Remember,” said the man to Cameron. “Aim below the knee! Aim to maim, is that clear?” Cameron responded with a thumbs up, his left eye already peering in anticipation through his rifle’s sight.

“That’s the flag,” shouted Rhys excitedly, still running. “It’s red. And it’s got a black Elements logo on it. Can you see it?”

“Aye! replied Stephen, picking up the pace.

Grayson and his team were near the foot of the hill now, coming at the flag from a different angle to the others. They were going to be first, they knew they were. As they reached the foot of the hill though, the ground beneath them suddenly gave way and they went tumbling into one of the holes that had been dug out earlier that day. It was a shallow hole, not quite two metres deep, and they landed on a bed of straw, but the surprise paralysed them.

In their treehouse, the man and Cameron roared with laughter at the sudden disappearance of Grayson’s team. With them out of the running for the moment, they turned their attentions to “that boy Stewart’s lot”.

They too had reached the foot of the hill, with Stephen a good few steps ahead. Without warning, he too vanished below ground level, screaming as his backpack caught on the lip of the hole and jerked him back in an awkward ragdolling movement as he tumbled inwards. As Connor and Rhys skidded to a halt, Stephen screamed more than one expletive. He lay on his back in a trench that was about eight metres wide. He groaned in pain, still wearing his backpack which he’d landed on. Straw and bits of grass and earth covered his body in places, and he looked to be bleeding from his elbow.

“Watch your footing!” shouted Rhys to Connor as he stepped forward for a closer look. “You don’t know where the trap starts!” Connor froze, looking carefully at the ground to see where it had been tampered with. Between the groans from Stephen below, he could hear the flap of the flag in the wind. They were so close…

In the other hole, the three boys asked one another if they were OK. There were no injuries it seemed, but they were sore, and getting out of the hole would be a challenge. As Grayson jumped up to pull on the lip of the hole, the ground gave way again, pulling clumps of the soil and grass away in his hands.

“D’you have a good view of the boys?” inquired the man.

“Yes, both of them,” came the answer.

“Below the knees, remember. Below the knees. On my say-so, fire at Campbell. Stewart is mine.”

“Copy,” said Cameron.

Connor could see that the ground had been disturbed. It stretched either side of the hole Stephen was in by several metres on each side. If they could get him out quickly, they could make their way around the edge of the hole and then get up the hill to the flag. He was just about to suggest this when the first bullet whizzed into the ground near his foot. Instinctively, both boys hit the ground. By the second and third bullets they were face down, terrified once more. There was nowhere to hide except in the hole where Stephen was.

Back in the other hole, Grayson was alert to the new sounds. “Surely that’s not gunshots?” he asked the others. They stopped trying to get out and listened. Crack! Crack! Crack! Goodness! It was.

“Are they firing at us?!?” shouted Burgess to no-one in particular. “Are they?!?”

Cameron and the man were expert marksmen, but rather far away. Their shots were close and terrifying, but they failed to hit their intended targets. Connor and Rhys shouted to one another between the gunshots.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

“I think we should get in the hole alongside Stephen,” shouted Connor.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

“No way! We’ll never get back out. We need to distract the gunmen somehow. Give them a target to aim for while the other gets up the hill and snatches the flag.”

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Connor processed this plan, quickly working out what was happening. He was supposed to be the gunmnen’s target while Rhys ran up the hill and won the flag? I don’t think so!

“No way, mate! No way! I’m not being a target for anyone. Get in the hole. Sit it out until the other team have the flag. We’ll be second. I’m happy with that.”

“Well, I’m not,” shouted back Rhys, and he was off and running up the hill.

The man kept his aim on Stewart. He fired a couple close to him, letting him know he was still there then turned to Cameron.

“Follow him. Let him reach the flag. As he gets to it, shoot him.”

“Below the knee?”

“You can’t help it if you misfire though, can you?” The man looked at him knowingly before returning his eye to the immobile Connor on the ground.

In the other hole, Grayson was holding onto Fowler’s ankles. He’d volunteered to peer over the top of the wall and work out what was happening. There were gunshots all right, but they were trained exclusively on the other side of the hill.

“I think it’s safe….listen to me! The guns are firing at something, someone else on the other side of the hill. It might be another team, I dunno, but I can’t see anyone. It’s worth the risk, I think. If you can punt me back up, I’ll help you both out.”

Grayson’s team set about getting themselves out of the hole.

As they did so, Connor was flopping himself into the hole beside Stephen. He intended to stay there until being told it was safe to come out. Rhys though was running for his life up the hill. In the angle of the hill, the top of the flag had disappeared for a few seconds, but it reappeared, closer than ever, flapping wildly in the wind. It was almost within touching distance.

Cameron kept his rifle trained on Rhys’s shoulder.

By now, Fowler had emerged from the other hole and, satisfied that the bullets weren’t intended for them, had begun hauling out his teammates, Grayson first and then finally Burgess. The three of them charged their way up the hill, six eyes on the prize. They weren’t even aware that the gunfire had ceased.

Rhys made it to the top of the hill first – Crack! Crack! Crack! – but just as he stood up, he heard the clatter of the swinging metal pots that dangled from the other boys’ backpacks and was dismayed to see three heads appear on the opposite side. Crack! The four boys ran like hell towards the flag and, even though Rhys had a hold of the rope that would lower the flag, the other three had no qualms in wrestling it from him.

As the boys scrapped violently, Cameron in the tree house struggled to find a decent view of Rhys. He fired a wild shot – Crack! – that flew above the boys’ heads. It was enough to make them momentarily stop. In the gap of opportunity, Rhys once again had the rope, and the flag which had been halfway down the pole was now at head height. At once he was submerged by the other team’s limbs. He was kicked, punched and scratched in a frenzied attack that was so unlike any of the boys who were dishing it out.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

As Grayson and Burgess continued to beat Rhys, Fowler triumphantly unhooked the flag and was rewarded – Crack! – with a stray shot from Cameron to the shin. He howled in pain, and crumpled to the ground, dropping the prized flag. Before any of his other teammates had had the foresight to cease battering their opponent and grab a hold of it, the flag was swept onto the side of the hill.

Rhys had to get away from this battering. The two boys on top of him were more interested in harming him than retrieving the flag. Rhys kicked back, wriggled, scratched, bit one of the two at one point. This caused the bitten boy to roll aside in shocked pain and when he did, he saw the flag blowing horizontally across the side of the hill. As Grayson held Rhys down on the ground, the pair of them watched as Burgess chased after the flag and caught it.

The game was up.

The two boys fell aside. Burgess appeared draped in the flag and he and Grayson hugged an embrace before going to check on the injured Fowler.

Rhys was distraught. All the effort, all the bravery, all counted for nothing. He’d had the flag in his hand! If Stephen hadn’t fallen into the hole, they’d have won. He lay back, unaware from his position that the man and Cameron were bouncing across the open ground towards them in their jeep. He was alerted to the fact when he heard the megaphone burst into life.

“Contestants! The game is over! We have a winning team!”

In their hole, Stephen and Connor sat upright.

“Congratulations to Fowler, Burgess and Anderson for an excellent display of teamwork and skill. Commiserations to Campbell, McPherson and Stewart. You were very unlucky not to have won. We await the arrival of Harrison, Reilly and Alan. They may be some time yet. We will make sure the six of you here just now get some food and shelter for the moment. When the others return we will begin our journey back to Kimble.”

The man paused for effect.

“By vehicle, just to be clear. By vehicle!”

Stephen and Connor flopped back into the straw and waited for someone to get them out.

(more to follow in the future)