‘So tell me what I have to do for you to trust me!’ he pleaded. ‘Anything! I’ll do anything!’
‘What, like Oliver Twist?’
‘Who?’
Everett shook his head, disgusted. ‘Young people today.’ He stared at Matt for an even longer time – considering, weighing, judging. ‘No,’ he decided. ‘Gar, chuck him in the hole.’
‘Wait!’
Gar’s fist bunched itself in the front of his overalls and he was dragged from the tractor’s seat. He kicked and thrashed but Gar held his feet a good six inches off the ground, and all he succeeded in doing was to twist himself from side to side like a worm on a hook, the overalls bunched up cutting into his armpits painfully. ‘Gar!’ he yelled. ‘No! You said I was okay!’ But Gar’s craggy jaw was set, and he uttered not a word as he dangled Matt over the hole and let him drop. It was only about four feet deep by that stage, but it still jarred his ankles. ‘Everett, please!’ he wept, and tried to pull himself out of the hole. Gar stomped on his fingers and he felt several of them break, the cracking sound and flaring pain like fireworks jammed into his knuckles. He fell back, howling.
In the meantime, Everett had climbed up into the tractor and had scooped up a bucket-load of rubble from the spoil pile that Matt had only just excavated. Matt watched in paralysed disbelief as the pneumatically powered arm of the back-hoe swung towards him, directly over his face, and he raised his hands in a futile attempt to ward off the full capacity of soil and stones which was unloaded right onto his head.
Rocks hammered his skull, cracking his cheekbones and breaking his nose in lava-squirts of agony. He was smothered instantly, choking on earth rammed into his eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth. He couldn’t breathe, let alone scream. Another load hit him in the hips and stomach, burying the bottom half of his body, twisting his right ankle outwards until it snapped and then he did scream, muffled by dirt. A rock mashed his guts, making him shit himself. Then another load, and another, weight upon weight as his lungs began to burn for oxygen and his chest tried to heave but the weight on his ribcage was too much to allow even that, until it felt like he should be squashed flat. He should be dead by now, or at least unconscious. Any form of oblivion would be a blessing. He tried to rage Youfucker youcocksuckerI’llfuckingkillyou and he tried to plead I’msorryohGodI’msorrywhatdidIdo and neither did any good. All he could do was squirm. His arms were still uppermost, from when he tried to defend himself from the falling debris, one above his head and the other across his throat, and if he pushed with that one the dirt seemed to shift a little, so he wiggled his broken fingers despite the pain and flexed his wrist and felt the dirt slide around and under them, giving him another half a centimetre to wiggle and flex upward some more.
The lava in his lungs and injuries was spreading outwards to engulf the rest of his body, bringing with it the promise of a swift burning and then eternal darkness, but he didn’t want that now. He wanted to live. So he flexed and wiggled, flexed and wiggled…
* * *
The deserter stood over the pile of earth and wondered if he hadn’t overestimated the boy. It had been several minutes now.
Next to him, Gar shuffled. ‘Ded?’
‘Maybe. I thought he was stronger than that.’
Gar sniffed. ‘Shame. Ee good boy.’
A little soil trickled down the pile, but that wasn’t unusual since it was still settling. Then the trickle became bigger, a gentle heaving in the dirt, and the deserter’s heart leapt when he saw three fingers emerge like pale grubs, squirming weakly.
Gar uttered a deep squeal of joy and slapped the ground with both palms.
‘Come on, let’s get him out.’
Together they scooped away the soil and tossed aside the stones, pulled Matt clear of the hole and laid him on the grass. Everett rolled him on his side and cleared his mouth of as much dirt as he could. Matt was pallid and bleeding from a bad cut to his head, and had several breaks by the look of things. The boy retched for breath.
‘You with me?’ he said, slapping Matt’s cheeks. ‘You there, Matt?’
Matt groaned and spat mud at him.
‘There we go.’ Everett grinned. He and Gar slung Matt’s arms over their shoulders and carried him back to the farmhouse, Matt moaning all the way and yelling when his injuries were jarred. Ardwyn met them at the door, looking surprised and concerned.
‘What have you boys been doing?’ she asked. ‘Not playing too roughly?’
‘Just a little rebirth initiation rite, nothing to worry about,’ Everett replied as they manhandled Matt upstairs, screaming as his ankle slapped against each step. It wasn’t easy with the three of them on the staircase; ordinarily Gar would have filled the space on his own.
‘Is this a thing that we discussed?’ She disapproved, as if it had anything to do with her.
‘You said to test him. Can we talk about it afterwards?’ he called back down the stairs as they climbed. ‘Bit busy right now.’
Once they’d cleaned Matt up a bit and got him onto his bed, he’d recovered enough of his wits to glare at Everett and utter one hoarse question: ‘Why?’
‘Because you’re a worm, Matt,’ he replied, not ungently. ‘I’m a worm too, and so is Gar here, and Ardwyn, and everyone else on this mudball of a planet. We’re all just worms, squirming around over and under each other, trying to keep out of the mud for as long as we can. There is nothing else. Did you think you were going to die?’
Matt nodded.
‘Did you know you were going to die?’
Matt nodded again. He was starting to cry now, tears mixing with the dirt on his face to
