Searching for Arthur (The Return to Camelot #1)(3)

“Are you Arthur?”

For the fourth time, he spoke those words. But I noticed something different in his voice as he choked out the question. He wasn’t demanding or even asking anymore. The ancient warrior was pleading.

Be careful how you answer, warned my inner voice. You don’t know whether he means your Arthur or someone completely different. Friend or foe right now is all that is keeping that sword from connecting with your neck. One swipe and your head will be getting an extreme close-up of your Converse All Stars.

“I thought you said to presume it doesn’t have super-human strength,” I hissed back.

Why are you listening to me? replied my inner voice. I’m not the crazy chick having a conversation with herself, fool.

And with that, my inner voice abandoned me to my fate and certain decapitation.

Then the person shuffled forward. It was only one step, but it caused him enough pain to make his eyeless face grimace. The edge of his filthy cloak swept along the dirty ground like a brush, catching mounds of brown earth and the sun dried leaves that had fallen down with me.

“I’m not Arthur,” I said quickly, pre-empting the question from the crumbling, blind watchman, “but he’s up there, and he’ll be coming for me, so you had better stay away or…or…he’ll kick your ass,” I added with brave optimism, pointing towards the shaft of sun.

He sighed long and slow, like the sound of air being released from a blow up mattress. How could anything exist in this world that was so old? Was he a zombie? He didn’t look like a creature of the night. Why didn’t I pay more attention during horror movies?

“He will come,” sighed the warrior. The cracked edges of his thin mouth started to rise. It would have been optimistic to call it a smile, but it was an attempt. His entire being was now surrounded by light. I could see the dirt particles whizzing around him at electrifying speed. The dust had wings.

“Yeah, he will come,” I shouted back. My voice was defiant in my head, but it came out as a squeak. “My brother isn’t scared of anything or anyone, and when he realises I am missing, he will move heaven and earth to find me. Plus he’s a third degree black belt in Taekwondo, and can break wood with his head.”

This bold - and rather exaggerated - statement appeared to placate the ancient warrior. He took two steps away from me and went back into the shadows.

I seized my chance. I leapt to my feet, and with a running jump, I grabbed hold of the thickest tree roots I could see. Ignoring the stinging pain in my hands, I climbed up, kicking hard as I went.

With the grace of a bull elephant, I made it up and out into safety. The tree that had betrayed me earlier and sent me falling into the abyss, swayed in the autumn wind. Its creaking boughs were laughing.

I vomited over its trunk. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins like acid. I stumbled forward, tripping over everything that appeared in my path.

I would deal with the accusing silence from my mother with my own taciturnity. Right now, I needed to run back to our house. I needed to do my homework. I needed to feed Mr. Rochester.



I needed to put as much distance between myself and rotting zombies with swords as was humanly possible.



I fell through the trees, and rolled several feet into a ditch. It hadn’t rained for weeks, and yet a thick sludgy layer of black mud lined the bottom. My skinny white jeans were no longer white. Looking like the stuff of nightmares, bloodied, battered and now filthy, I scrambled up the other side and into the road. I fell to my knees, and clawed at the loose gravel as I attempted to control my breathing. My heart was pounding against my ribcage.

Silence. Deathly silence surrounded me. My senses went into overdrive as I waited on my knees for the sound of the wood floor to snap, for the voice of the lost to ask once again, “Are you Arthur?”

But there was nothing, and that was just as unnerving. Complete silence isn’t natural. Where were the birds? Where was the scratching and scuttling of forest animals? Why, for the first time in months, was I not being bitten to death by insects?

Then the growling started. It was low-pitched, but distant, like a waking bear yawning in a cave.

Be sensible. You live in Britain now. There are no bears here.

“So you’re back are you?” I snapped at my inner voice. “Thanks a million for running away back there.”

I was the one who got you out, moron. Now calm down and listen.

The growling noise was getting closer. The road beneath my fingers and knees started to vibrate. There was only one thing on earth that could make that much noise and cause the ground to shake.

“Arthur,” I cried, as I staggered to my feet and ran in the direction of the rumbling. Running really was my sport, and I was good at it. It didn’t matter whether it was long distance, short distance, or the distance required to escape from zombies with no eyes – I could own it every time.



A battered white car, held together by long streaks of red rust and black masking tape, drew level and then stopped. The driver’s door flew open, and out jumped a tall male with loping limbs that were way too long for his body. His sun-streaked blonde hair reached the back of his neck, and had been layered in such a way it looked as if a blind hairdresser had attacked him with blunt shears. A few freckles dotted his oval face, mostly grouped together around his suntanned nose, and his eyes were a blinding blue colour.