by Jack Heath
He risked a look behind him as he went over a fence, then up a short winding trail. He couldn’t see the old man. Maybe the old man couldn’t see him either. But there were no hiding places here. He had to keep moving.
Jarli turned his head forwards just in time to see that he was running towards a cliff-edge.
He stopped so fast that his shoes slid out from under him. He landed on his back, sprawled on the smooth rocks, legs dangling off the edge.
He was facing the falls at the top of Weirwalla Hill. The waterfall itself had dried up over the hot summer, but there was still a deep pool of water far below. It was an eleven-metre drop—Jarli knew that because it had been in the news last year. Some guy had needed to be rescued after he jumped off. He’d broken his ankle when he hit the water. Since then, the top of the waterfall had been fenced and closed to the public, although the school still held swimming classes in the lake below.
He scrambled to his feet and ran along the cliff-edge. There was a squat boulder up ahead—he ducked behind it, breathing hard.
It wasn’t big enough. If the old man walked past, he would see Jarli. This wasn’t a great hiding place. Jarli scanned his surroundings for a better one.
There! A hole in the ground a little further up the hill, like someone had removed one of the big rocks which made up the clifftop. Jarli couldn’t tell how deep the hole was. Hopefully there would be enough space to hide in.
He scrambled out from behind the boulder. He was exposed for four strides, and then he dropped into the hole, heart thundering. It was smaller than the boulder had been. He had to bunch himself up into a tiny ball to get his head below the top.
Footsteps crunched on the rocks nearby. Jarli held his breath. His hands were shaking so much that he was worried the old man would hear his skeleton rattling.
The footsteps moved closer and closer to the hole. A SHADOW fell across Jarli—
And then the footsteps moved away, further up the hill. The old man hadn’t seen him.
Jarli waited until he couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore. Then he got out his phone and called triple zero. The phone rang and rang.
Eventually someone picked up. There was no hello. Just four words: ‘Fire, police or ambulance?’
‘Police,’ Jarli whispered.
‘Fire, police or ambulance?’ the woman repeated. She hadn’t heard him.
‘Police!’ Jarli hissed, a little louder. ‘Hurry! I’m being—’
‘Putting you through now,’ the woman said. The phone started ringing again.
Jarli listened. The footsteps were coming back. Faster this time. The old man was running this way. He must have heard Jarli talking.
‘Police,’ a gruff voice said. But Jarli couldn’t reply—he had to run before the old man got any closer. If the old man found him in this hole, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Even easier, because this fish was so big that it could hardly fit in the barrel.
Jarli scrambled out of the hole and started running downhill—
But he found himself facing the old man, who was climbing up the slope towards him. Jarli had gone the wrong way!
The old man saw him and picked up the pace. Jarli was trapped between the rocks and the edge of the cliff, eleven metres above the water. If he tried to go further into the bush, the old man would have an easy shot.
The old man was now so close that he couldn’t miss. He raised his pistol and took aim at Jarli.
So Jarli jumped off the cliff.
CORNERED
Ten Minutes Earlier
The sick bay door was closed, but Anya heard Jarli smash the window. He was making too much noise. Surely the old man would hear.
But no. The old man started pounding on the door instead.
‘Don’t make me break this door down,’ he snarled. ‘You have ten seconds. Ten. Nine.’
Anya and Bess looked at each other, terrified. The old man seemed to have dropped the pretence that he was just a cleaner.
‘We’ve called the police,’ Anya called. ‘Soon they’ll have the school surrounded.’
‘Six,’ the old man was saying. ‘Five.’
‘How strong do you think that door is?’ Bess whispered.
‘Not strong enough,’ Anya said.
‘Three,’ the old man said. ‘Two.’
And then there was silence.
Anya and Bess backed away from the door, but there was no more noise from outside. Maybe he was gone—or he wanted them to think he was.
‘He’s trying to scare us,’ Anya whispered. ‘Or confuse us.’
‘It’s working!’ Bess hissed.
Bang! Anya jumped as the gunshot rang out. She ducked, but there were no holes in the door. The old man must have been shooting at someone else.
She ran over to the door and grabbed the tennis racquet that was jammed through the handles.
‘What are you doing?’ Bess demanded.
Anya wrenched the racquet free, unlocking the door. ‘He’s spotted Jarli,’ she said. ‘We have to help him.’
She pulled the doors open and stepped out into the daylight, just in time to see the old man run into the bushland and disappear.
Anya looked around, but there was no sign of the police or anyone else who might be chasing him. And his car had been around the other side of the building, so he wasn’t leaving in that.
That meant the old man was probably chasing Jarli.
‘Stay here,’ Anya told Bess. ‘Tell the police what’s going on.’
‘Where are you going?’ Bess asked.
But Anya was already running towards the forest. If Jarli was on his own out there, he didn’t stand a chance.
She had hoped to be able to follow the old man’s footprints, or Jarli’s. But it was no good. The ground was hard and dry. She had no hope of finding either trail.
Bang! A second gunshot. The echoes bounced around confusingly, making it seem to come from all around—but Anya saw a flock of startled birds take flight further up the hill. That was where the old man had fired from. Anya scurried up the trail, keeping her head down. Soon she could hear the old man trampling the shrubbery.
As she got closer, she slowed down. She couldn’t hear any more gunshots or voices. The old man might have lost sight of Jarli—Anya didn’t want his crosshairs to settle on her instead.
She crept up and up, careful not to step on any dry twigs or rattle any leafy branches.
She paused as she heard footsteps ahead. They sounded light and quick. Jarli, maybe?
Anya parted the leaves in time to see Jarli jump off the cliff.
FREEFALL
The gun went off a split-second after Jarli jumped. The bullet just missed his chest and skipped off a rock on the other side of the ravine. Gunsmoke burned his nostrils.
For a split-second it was strangely peaceful, hanging in the air, staring out at the trees on the horizon. Then Jarli looked down at the distant water and started to fall. It was as if glancing down had made gravity notice him, like in an old cartoon.
At first it was just like falling from the monkey bars or jumping off the swings. But this time he kept accelerating, long after he would have hit the ground with a thud. Jarli plummeted faster and faster, his organs swimming, his head spinning, his heartbeat in his ears. The air blasted his face and made cushions under his hands. He spread his arms and legs wide like a sky-diver, trying to slow himself down. It didn’t help. Jarli suddenly realised that he was screaming.
There was a deafening crack as the old man took another shot at him. Jarli cringed, but it missed. Then the water rushed up to meet him like an oncoming train. He squeezed his eyes shut.
Wham! Jarli crashed down onto the water, feet first. He felt a sudden shock of agony through his whole body. There was a tearing sensation in his armpits and hamstrings. Suddenly Jarli was under the brown water, blind and deaf. His clothes immediately became heavy and tight.
With a dull thump, his throbbing feet hit the bottom of the lake.
&nb
sp; Jarli desperately wanted to push back up to the surface but his limbs wouldn’t obey him. It was as though the nerves which controlled them had burned out. In any case, the old man would see him, and take another shot. So he waited for the feeling in his limbs to return, crouched at the bottom of the muddy lake, his eyes shut, his lungs ready to burst. This far down, the pressure was crushing. His eardrums ached. He forced himself to count to ten, then twenty.
Soon Jarli couldn’t take it any longer. He launched himself off the bottom of the lake. The movement hurt every muscle in his body, but at least they obeyed, and none of his limbs bent in funny directions. He hadn’t broken any bones.
Jarli rose up, up, up through the water. His chest was on fire. With each stroke of his arm, he kept expecting to break through the surface. But there was always more water above him.
Don’t breathe in, he thought to himself. No matter how much you want to. You’ll drown. Come on, Jarli. Just a little bit further.
But at that moment he knew he’d waited too long. Without oxygen, his vision started to waver. He was going to black out.
Then his head emerged from the water.
He wanted to take a deep gasp of air. But the old man could be watching and listening. Instead, Jarli took a shallow breath through his nose and floated on his back. It was so hard to control his relief, and his chest was still crying out for a giant lungful of air, not just tiny breaths, but he kept his eyes closed and his mouth slightly open. He spread his arms and legs wide to stay buoyant. Hopefully, if the old man was still up there he would think Jarli was dead.
But maybe the old man would take aim at the floating body and shoot, just to be sure.
Jarli tried to keep his breaths slow and gentle, forcing himself not to panic. Nothing happened for a long time. The cold water, still rippling from Jarli’s crash landing, lapped gently at the sides of Jarli’s face. Birds whistled in the distant trees.
He opened his eyes just a crack, peering through his eyelashes. No-one was on the clifftop. The old man had gone.
Jarli moved one arm and, centimetre by centimetre, his floating body slowly rotated. Now he could see the water’s edge. No-one was there either.
Jarli swam quietly towards the shore and crawled onto dry land. His body hurt too much to stand. But he was alive. He had survived a second encounter with the old man. He got the feeling that he wouldn’t be so lucky a third time.
Jarli dug his phone out of his pocket. It wouldn’t switch on. The water had killed it.
He had to get back to civilisation as soon as possible. The old man might still be nearby, and this time Anya and Bess could back up his story. The cops would have to believe Jarli now. And the sooner they started the search, the better their chances of catching the old man.
Jarli gingerly trudged up the muddy shore towards the trees where a narrow path led back to Kelton. His muscles ached. His wet, sandy clothes rubbed his skin raw. His soaked shoes were as heavy as full cartons of milk. Every step drove shards of pain into his feet.
The trees loomed on either side, as close and intimidating as the reporters around his house. Had the car crash only been last night? It felt like he’d aged since then. It was as though his body thought he was dying, and was trying to become as old as possible before it happened.
This was probably how Dad felt after the car crash. Jarli felt a stab of guilt. If the old man was targeting Jarli because of the app, then the crash was Jarli’s fault. He had nearly gotten his father killed.
A stick snapped somewhere up ahead.
Jarli froze. Then he heard approaching footsteps.
No, no, no! Had Jarli been through all this for nothing? He scrambled into the bushes and crouched down. He couldn’t run away. He was too tired, too sore. If the old man spotted him, he was doomed.
The footsteps crunched closer and closer. Jarli kept perfectly still, eyes shut. With all the mud covering his clothes, he probably looked like a rock. He tried to imagine that he was a rock, fearless and invincible.
A hand grabbed his shoulder.
ALONE
Anya thought Jarli might be dead.
She had been up here once before. She had seen the height of that cliff. And she knew from science class that water was incompressible—landing on it was like landing on concrete, except that concrete doesn’t swallow you afterwards.
Could she have saved him? If she had gotten up here faster, instead of moving cautiously, she could have charged at the old man before Jarli jumped. Maybe they could have overpowered him together. Or maybe she and Jarli both would have gotten shot.
It was too late now. Jarli was gone. Anya was on her own.
She watched the old man climb a fence to peer over the cliff edge. Then he turned around in a slow circle, scanning the bush. His face was impossible to read. He didn’t look pleased, or frustrated, or suspicious. He may as well have been a robot.
Anya wished her clothes were green, to blend in. But she was wearing the bright blue uniform of Kelton High School. If the old man’s eyes were good, he would spot her. She stayed perfectly still in the bushes.
Something smooth and soft touched her fingers.
She glanced down and saw a fat brown snake, slowly slithering across the back of her hand. She clamped her mouth closed, but couldn’t supress a terrified squeak.
Humans rarely frightened Anya. They were predictable. Anya didn’t need Jarli’s app—she could usually see what people were thinking. Her parents hadn’t spoken much English when they moved here, so Anya had learned the language slowly. Since the words often eluded her, she had gotten very good at reading faces and bodies. Even in boxing, she always knew what her opponent intended to do. Their eyes gave them away.
Not snakes, though. Everything about them was mysterious. The way they moved, their forked tongues, their slitted pupils and their upside-down eyelids. This snake could decide to bite her, and she wouldn’t have more than a moment’s warning.
She couldn’t move without revealing her position to the old man. So she stayed frozen, watching as the snake slid over her hand and pooled in the dirt on the other side.
It stayed there a moment, tasting the air. Then, with an unreadable glance at Anya, it poured itself away into the bushes.
When it was gone, Anya stopped holding her breath. Heart pounding, she glanced back up at the old man.
HE WAS GONE.
Anya looked around. Where was he?
A parrot launched itself out of the shrubbery somewhere to her right, flapping and squawking. Anya turned to look—
And saw the old man creeping towards her. He had spotted Anya, and was trying to sneak up on her!
Anya broke cover and ran, sprinting down the hill towards the school. She avoided the narrow trail, instead crashing through the undergrowth, leaping over fallen trees and ducking under low-hanging branches. The old man was big. She would use this to her advantage.
The old man’s boots were snapping twigs and crushing leaves behind her. It sounded like he was falling behind. But what if he decided to take a shot?
She turned her head to see how far back he was.
He was a long way back, marching through the forest like a clockwork soldier. Soon he would be out of sight—
But then Anya tripped on a hidden tree root.
Her legs slipped out from under her and suddenly she was hurtling sideways. She flung her arms out, trying to grab hold of something, anything. But her hands gripped empty air. She had a split-second view of a tree trunk rushing towards her head. Heart racing, she tried to cover her face with her arms—
THUMP. Anya was unconscious before she hit the dirt.
RESCUED
Jarli tried to wriggle free, but the hand was too strong.
‘Help!’ he screamed.
Someone pinned him to the ground, but gently. ‘Easy,’ a voice said. ‘Easy.’
The voice was female. Jarli stopped struggling, and twisted his head. It was Constable Blanco, the cop with the chipped tooth.
‘Are you hurt?’ she said.
Jarli opened his mouth, but no words came out. He’d been through too much. Tears stung the corners of his eyes.
‘Bess told us about the old man,’ Blanco said. ‘Is he nearby?’
‘I don’t know,’ Jarli whispered.
Blanco took in their surroundings, checking the trees and scrub. Birds chirruped. Insects hummed back and forth.
‘Come with me,’ Blanco said finally. ‘Can you walk?’
Jarli tried, but his legs wobbled beneath him like stilts. Blanco caught him as he fell.
This must be how Bess feels all the time, Jarli thought. He realised he didn’t know where Bess was, or if she was OK. She was his best friend, and he’d just left her at the school. What if the old man had gone back there? What if—
Blanco wrapped one arm around his ribcage, ignoring the mud smearing her uniform, and helped Jarli walk up the trail. He put his arm around her neck, too exhausted to be embarrassed.
The bush fell quiet around them. Jarli couldn’t see the old man, but he still had a sense of being watched.
Blanco felt it too. ‘Hurry,’ she whispered. She touched the radio on her shoulder.
‘Frink,’ she said. ‘You there?’
The radio crackled. ‘Yup.’
‘I’m inbound with a witness. Keep searching.’
‘Copy that,’ Frink said.
Soon Jarli saw some flashing lights through the trees. Blanco’s patrol car was parked off the nearest road. Blanco helped Jarli into the back seat. ‘Watch your head. There’s some paper towels back there if you want to get yourself cleaned up.’
Jarli barely heard her. He was just relieved that someone else had taken charge. The police knew about the old man now—it wasn’t Jarli’s problem anymore. He buckled himself in and immediately fell asleep.
He woke up to find the police car surrounded by reporters. For a moment he wasn’t sure what was real—maybe he was on his way home from the hospital, and the cliff and the lake had been a dream.
But the mud on his clothes was very real. And this wasn’t Gorman’s car. There was steel mesh between Jarli and the driver.