Lethbridge-Stewart: Bloodlines - The George Kostinen Mystery by Chris Lynch

Author:Chris Lynch [Lynch, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781912535989
Google: 2MRZzQEACAAJ
Goodreads: 55248518
Publisher: Candy Jar Books
Published: 2020-07-31T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Unbearable Difficulty of Being a Clown

GEORGE AND Reisha stayed away from Archie for a little while after that. He wandered the base, finding that he could go seemingly anywhere without being challenged. He couldn’t be sure if it was because of lax security, his mysterious heritage, or simply the fact that the resistance seemed to have nothing worth stealing or defending. More of the base was abandoned than in use and while Archie did some small amount of scavenging at first, he quickly concluded that the base had been picked clean some time ago.

The only place he seemed unable to get to was beyond the base’s wall. He worked his way along it, always under the watchful eye of the guards and lookouts, until he found one section of chain link fence that hadn’t been reinforced like the others. It was early evening, the sun sitting low in the sky and night fast approaching. Archie realised he’d been wandering since breakfast, his body driven on as his mind raced to catch up with everything he’d seen and experienced since arriving there. He looked at the gap in the base defences. It wasn’t large, but he thought he could squeeze his way through if he could find something to cut the links open with.

An escape. That was the plan.

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ said a familiar voice. ‘It’s not very much fun out here.’

‘Happy?’

The Clown rose up from a patch of long grass where it had been concealed, just on the other side of the chain link fence, like a creature popping out on a ghost train.

‘Good afternoon, Archie. You look sad.’

Archie shook his head. He wasn’t in the mood for the Clown’s games. ‘I am troubled, Happy, yes,’ he confirmed in as much of an emotionless monotone as he could manage.

The Clown nodded, his eyes never leaving Archie. It reminded Archie of the way a snake’s head moved, its eyes always fixed on its prey. It slithered forward, his legs deflated and flapping over each other like a car tyre that had run out of air.

‘What are you doing out there?’ Archie asked.

‘Oh, I’m not allowed on the base. I’ve been very naughty.’

‘Is that what they call it? Well, I suppose I should thank you, at least. For saving us from the Kruge.’

Happy shook his head and contorted his face into something that approximated a smile. ‘Oh no, silly, I didn’t save all of you. I don’t care if you die. I just saved George.’

Archie was amazed. The bond between the boy and Clown did nothing but trouble him. In the brief experience he had of how Clowns dominated their human hosts in Ogmore, he hadn’t seen anything like the relationship that existed between George and Happy. He was convinced that the Clown was bad for the boy, but he couldn’t deny that a strange symbiosis seemed to exist between them. The Clown was a disease but, it appeared to Archie, a disease that loved its host.

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