Read Online The Hunting Ground by Cliff McNish - Free Book Online

child, a child being chased, a child from the past, a child who could not stop screaming.
    And then a band of dazzling light suddenly unfurled across the walls ahead of him.
    Like a drowning man, Elliott focused on it. Was it by luck, by chance, that he found his way out? Elliott didn’t care. All he knew was that the next turn led him towardsthe ragged hole in the East Wing entrance. He hauled himself through it, and with a yell of sheer relief staggered into beautiful bright sunshine.

THE HUNTING GROUND
     
    For several minutes Elliott crouched outside the East Wing’s entrance, simply getting his breath back, shaking uncontrollably.
    He couldn’t believe how frightened he was. He hadn’t been pursued while he was inside the East Wing, but at a subconscious level he knew that he’d been hunted. The jaunty smiles from the portraits kept flashing into his mind.
    When he finally got his shattered nerves back together, he heard a thin voice calling out, and realised it was his own. Moments later Dad and Ben were running towards the entrance.
    ‘We looked for you!’ Ben cried, rushing up to him. ‘We did! We searched everywhere …’
    Elliott nodded, too frazzled to manage anything else.
    Dad’s first reaction was anger. ‘Didn’t I tell you not to go in there?’ But as soon as he saw the state Elliott was in, his expression changed completely. He steadiedhis still-shaking shoulders. ‘What happened? You got lost in there, didn’t you?’
    Elliott fumblingly told him everything, and it must have come out more emotionally than he intended because at some point Dad briefly held him.
    Elliott shut his eyes for a few seconds, then looked at Dad again. ‘You don’t believe we saw a ghost, do you?’
    Dad kept his hands on his shoulders. ‘I know you saw something,’ he said cautiously. ‘I believe that.’
    ‘He hasn’t read the diary yet,’ Ben muttered. ‘We were too busy looking for you.’
    ‘Read it, Dad,’ Elliott told him and, marching him upstairs, he stuffed the pages into his hands. ‘
Read the whole thing
.’
    Dad did so. When he’d finished the last page his eyes, creased with concern, came to rest slowly on both boys.
    ‘All right,’ he said hesitantly. ‘I don’t know what’s going on here, but this’ – he raised the diary – ‘plus whatever you just saw in your room, and the East Wing…’ Dad wavered, gradually coming to a decision. ‘OK, here’s what’s going to happen. Until I understand what’s going on in this house, I’m getting the two of you out. I’ll have to temporarily seal the place up again. That’ll take a day or so. But then we’re gone, at least until I’m satisfied it’s safe.’
    He drew both boys closer to him. ‘This little girl …’ Elliott could see how difficult it was for Dad to believein dead little girls, saw him searching for a simpler, more logical explanation. ‘ … This Eve,’ he continued. ‘Are you sure she matched the description of the girl in the diary?’
    ‘Yes,’ Elliott and Ben said together.
    ‘It was the same girl? You’re certain?’
    ‘Definitely,’ Ben insisted.
    ‘In that case,’ Dad said turning towards him, ‘I need to understand exactly what happened to you in the East Wing last night. Did you just fall over in the dark when you went inside? Or is there something else I should know?’
    Ben clammed up, his face pale. When it was obvious he wasn’t prepared to say anything more, Dad exchanged a concerned private look with Elliott and drew him aside. ‘I wonder if the old woman you saw outside the garden, Jane Roberts, knows anything about what’s going on?’ he said. ‘She seems to be the same one as in the diary.’
    Elliott had been thinking along the same lines. ‘Yeah, we should ask her,’ he agreed. ‘If the diary’s telling the truth, she’s linked to the ghosts somehow. She can’t live too far away. She was on foot when we saw her.’
    Dad nodded. ‘I’ll make some calls.’ Then he gave