There is particularly difficult content in this chapter. Please be warned.

Chapter 10

Run Rabbit, Run

Will planned his escape meticulously, and entirely within the privacy of his own mind. His Uncle would never know what he was contemplating, until it was too late to stop him.

Like many rebellious small boys, Will had considered running away before. The difference was, Will had examined his plans with the critical eye of an intelligent adult, not the fanciful laissez faire of a child. Not for him poorly thought out short term bolt where he ran out of food, or had to give up or freeze to death: when he left, he would have to find a way to sustain himself.

He was under no illusions that he would somehow find work, or earn a living through pick-pocketing. He had also seen enough news items about missing children to deduce that he would become fairly high profile quite quickly. He was an attractive child, small and vulnerable, and middle-to-upper class. Sad though it was, Will understood, with the cynicism that did not really belong with his age, that these attributes sold newspapers. Nice pretty little children going missing from picturesque homes in sleepy English villages would look better on a front page or studio background than ugly fat kids from broken homes in tower blocks. This was unfortunate, as he did not want some well meaning member of the public spotting him and handing him over to the police.

He would have to disappear entirely. He would have to find somewhere he could hide. Somewhere far from his home, where locals would not be so on the alert. Being the age he was, any time he walked down a street alone might attract attention; people would expect him to be with parents, or in a group. Therefore, for most of the time, he could not be seen at all.

He weighed up rural versus urban, and decided to go with rural. On the down side was that the local populace would be more likely to notice a stray child in their midst - but as Will did not intend to be seen at all, this did not weigh too heavily with him. In the countryside, there would be deserted hiding places that no violent mugger or virtuous nosey parker would stumble onto.

He would need access to food. He was under no illusions that he could live by woodcraft and the like - he could differentiate poisonous from edible fungus, but he had no desire to make that his staple diet. Rather, he would need a supermarket. He had seen the amount of perfectly edible food his local store threw away, and was confident he could get enough to eat by midnight scavenging.

He would need shelter. There was a very serviceable one man tent in the attic, which he could certainly carry, and which Uncle Avery was probably entirely unaware of. He had two good sleeping bags. It was cold enough that he wouldn't be noticed wearing multiple layers. He would take his salopets along, and pinch Mike's old ones for when he grew out of his own. Will intended to be gone for a long time.

Living in secret in a rural idyll appealed to some fractured, hurt part of his psyche. There was a painting of The Hay Wain in his bedroom, and he began pleasurably to insert himself in old fashioned clothing, behind many of the hiding places the picture had to offer. The countryside was no less a brutal place than the town to him, but he intended to be out of sight of it completely. The thought of it still presenting it's sickly, smiling face to the world, never revealing its damaged little fugitive, wrenched a grim smile from him - his first in days.

He did his research. Whilst sitting in the library with his homework open in case of interruption, he was poring over Ordinance Survey maps, encyclopaedias and travel guides. He produced his short list, and found train timetables to get him close. When he had his shortlist, he looked in the Yellow Pages for phone numbers of the major supermarket chains, and he used his pocket money to call them from the village phone box, saying he was doing a school project, asking them whether they had stores in his chosen locations, and whether they were situated out of town.

They were unfailingly helpful. Before long, Will had seven possible destinations in mind. He decided upon North Wales. He had never been there, it looked beautiful, and there would be no reason on earth anyone would assume he had gone there.

Will planned the trains he would take; a circuitous route, to deter anyone who might be tempted to track him, and the first train of the day. This would involve leaving the house to walk to the station after his bedtime, so he would have twelve hours before anyone realised he was gone.

He then made the most difficult decision of all: he would have to allow his Uncle to come to his room one last time - it would not do for his absence to be discovered too early, and the man never came two nights running.

The wait was excruciating. Will always dreaded the foul incursions, yet now he must hope it would occur soon - the sooner it did, the sooner he could escape.

What added teeth to this torture was that Uncle Avery was in a mellow phase. Will had not been beaten for fifteen days, and it was almost like having his old, loved relation back. The natural apprehension of his projected escape grew, as he began to question whether leaving was more frightening than staying in these comfortable circumstances. However, he was also haunted by the sickening knowledge that prior occasions when his Uncle had gone easy on him for longer periods had been followed by a particularly vicious backlash, as if in compensation. Each day, the indecision ate at his insides, and it took every ounce of resolution he possessed not to encourage concerned questions from his teachers and the village busybodies. Each night, he teetered on the brink of taking his chance and running, then every morning, he cursed himself for wasting another opportunity.

The explosion, when it came, was predictably appalling, and the fact that he had expected it did nothing to lessen Will's terror. His Uncle savagely punished him for knocking over a jar of honey, then dragged the injured, trembling child to his bedroom and flung him inside. Will sobbed quietly as he waited. His Uncle had been excited by exercising his power, and he was bound to turn up after this punishment.

The bedroom door opened, and Will felt the familiar potent nausea, disgust and horror. It was made slightly less unbearable by the knowledge that he would be catching his train the next morning, but nothing could dispel that horror completely. He gritted his teeth, and got ready to endure.

He realised, six minutes in, that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong. He had been prepared for the usual, disgusting physical contact, but not for what his Uncle was trying to do to him now. As he remembered the photographs and realised what was about to happen to him, he started to frantically struggle, something he had not done for a long time. This only seemed to inflame his Uncle further.

It was a tearstained, sick at heart boy in tremendous pain who somehow managed to uncurl himself from his bed soon afterwards. A weaker child would probably have despaired and given up, but Will, despite his injuries, was determined to end this now. He rose from his bed, and on shaking legs, he was soon gathering his heavy rucksack from its hiding place in the attic, and creeping down the stairs to the front door. He paused to look round his home as he left, feeling as he were standing on the keel of a boat as it drifted away from the shore that had been his past life. He closed his eyes, and for a moment, the images of his Mum, and Mike, played across the insides of his eyelids, waving, and fading further and further into the distance.

He felt an unexpected calm; he had smelt alcohol on his Uncle's breath, and knew he would sleep heavily. He let the feeling wash over him for a few seconds, then turned and closed the door behind him.

-oOo-

I am very, very glad to get that chapter out of the way. I do hope nobody was too upset by it. Very gritty, I know. For God's sake, if anyone has been affected by something like this, tell somebody about it; someone in a position of responsibility, not necessarily directly connected with you. They will listen, and they will act to protect you.

We now need to find out what happens to Will after he leaves, and what Sherlock knows about it. Please read and review: it spurs me on to write quicker.