by Polly Ho-Yen
‘Let’s go then,’ I say and we rush from the library.
HOW TO COLLECT EVIDENCE
As we walk towards the garages, I can feel a prickling sensation climbing up my back. I can’t stop looking around me in every direction, my eyes darting from place to place. Some old rubbish – a crisp packet and a balled-up chip wrapper – rustles in the long grass and my head jars at every sound. I feel hyperaware of everything around me, like it’s in full colour that I’ve never seen before.
We all have our phones out, ready to record, and we walk slowly in a line. Angharad had a few missed calls from Julie and so she texted her to say we’d run into her friends from school.
‘That should buy us a bit more time.’
‘Make sure your phones are on silent,’ I say. ‘We have to be quiet.’
We set off. Me in front, Anwar behind me and Angharad at the back, walking as quietly as we can. On the bus on the way here, I’d explained how Sylvia had taught me to walk so you make as little sound as possible. You have to walk in a slightly crouched position, and then place the toe of your foot down first. Then slowly, slowly you gently roll your foot towards your heel and on to the ground.
Fig. 10. – How to walk silently
Angharad takes some puffs of her inhaler before we set off, so her asthma won’t start up again. We agreed not to speak from when we turned down the passageway and Anwar and Angharad know to mirror my every move; if I stop, they’ll stop, if I yell run, they’ll run. We’ve agreed to head back to Steve’s, because it’s closest, if things get out of hand.
We walk on in silence around the corner towards the old garages.
I stop for a moment and strain my ears to listen for any sound out of the ordinary. I can hear the wind in the trees from the gardens and there’s something that’s making a creaking sound but nothing to signal that we are not alone.
I take a few steps forward and then do the same again – just stop and listen and look.
It takes us a while to make any progress, moving like this, but I know it’s not worth the risk to move any quicker.
I look back towards Anwar and Angharad. Their faces are drained of colour but they continue to fall into step behind me, holding their phones high in the air.
I face forward again. We’re just a few paces away from where I saw the fallen man and where Ted was changed, so I move even more slowly. I’m just about to take another step when suddenly I hear a crackle, a footstep, the definite sound of something ahead of us.
As if they are just a blur, or a shadow, a Grey darts out in front of us.
‘Run!’ I roar. ‘Run!’
HOW NOT TO BE BELIEVED
We sprint away from the garages without looking back. There are moments when I think that I feel a claw closing around my arm, something’s breath hot on my neck. But it’s only when we’re back on the street that I let myself look back. It’s only my imagination; there’s nothing behind us.
We run to Steve’s house and once we all tumble in I slam the door behind us.
It takes us a few moments to be able to speak. Angharad’s breath comes in shallow, quick gasps.
‘Did you see it?’ I say.
Anwar nods but Angharad shakes her head.
‘I was too far behind,’ she says. ‘When will I ever see one of them properly?’
‘You don’t want to,’ Anwar tells her.
‘Let’s look at our phones,’ I say. We examine the videos from all three of us, but only my phone caught it.
Except, well, it looks like what it is – a grey haze.
‘It’s a bit… blurry, isn’t it?’ Angharad says, scrunching her nose up as she plays it again.
‘It was fast,’ Anwar says. ‘That’s why it was a blur. I’m just glad that it didn’t follow us.’
‘Do you think it was Ted? Or the fallen man? Or someone else?’ Angharad asks.
‘I couldn’t tell,’ I answer.
At just that moment, there’s the sound of a key in our front door and suddenly Steve is filling the doorway, blocking out all the light.
* * *
‘I just can’t trust you, Billy,’ Steve says. He wrings his hands together and pulls his hair back against his skull. ‘I told you I didn’t want you spending time with Anwar, and you disobeyed me. Worse still, you dragged Angharad into this, too.’
‘Mr G—’ Anwar starts to say, but Steve cuts him off immediately.
‘Please go home, Anwar,’ he says in the coldest tone I’ve ever heard him use. ‘Leave before I say something I’ll regret.’
‘It wasn’t his fault,’ I argue. ‘Anwar’s my friend. He was being my friend.’
‘A fine friend,’ Steve says. ‘All he seems to do is get you into trouble.’
Anwar’s large eyes are like puddles when he looks at me, I send him a silent apology with my eyes, and then he slinks out of the living room. A second later I hear the front door open and then close.
‘Angharad, you’re not blameless in this either,’ Julie says. She looks at Angharad and shakes her head. ‘You lied. You didn’t go to the farm. We went down there to surprise you, to buy you lunch, but when we checked with the staff, no one had even seen you. We even asked to look at their CCTV! We were about to call the police.’
‘But Mu-um.’
‘No, don’t you “Mum” me,’ Julie says in a bluster. ‘You can’t keep making these stories up, Angharad.’
‘Show them, Billy. Show them your phone,’ Angharad says, turning to me.
‘What’s on your phone?’ Steve asks.
‘Well,’ I start. ‘Anwar, Angharad and I all think something is happening, something big.’ Steve opens his mouth to object but I rush on in a loud voice. ‘And we know that you don’t believe us, so we thought the best thing would be to try and catch one of the Greys on film so you could see for yourselves. That was what we were doing today.’
‘A Grey?’ Julie asks.
‘That’s just a name I came up with for them,’ Angharad says. ‘Because of their grey skin.’
Julie and Steve exchange a look, but Steve reaches out for my phone. They watch the video and then they look back at us.
‘Do you see now?’ Angharad says.
‘To be honest, Angharad,’ Steve says, ‘all I can see is that you two are getting very good at making things up. But this elaborate game is over. We’re out of patience.’
‘We’d better go home,’ Julie says. ‘I don’t think we’ll be doing any of the things you wanted for your birthday now, Angharad. Liars don’t deserve treats.’
Angharad opens her mouth as though she is about to scream but before any sound comes, fat tears spring from her eyes. They’re so large, it’s almost as though I can hear them slowly sliding over her cheeks.
I feel a heat growing and bubbling up in my body. It almost feels like vomit, stinging, hot and lashing.
‘Why don’t you believe us?’ I want to shout at them, but instead my voice breaks and I realize that I’m crying too.
I’m angry but more than that, I’m upset that even now Steve thinks I’m lying. And now I understand why Sylvia felt she had to stop Steve visiting me.
Because what’s the point of trying to get someone to believe you over and over again when they just won’t listen?
HOW TO LOOK AT THE STARS
It’s a clear night.
On a clear night, you must look at the stars.
That’s what Sylvia always told me.
It says the same thing in How to Survive. That you need to look out on clear nights so you know the sky inside out, and then, when it’s cloudy and you only see a few stars you can still use them to navigate.
On a clear night, you can trace the shape of the Big Dipper and find the two pointers of it, the stars named Dubhe and Merak. They point roughly towards the North Pole. Or you can look for the constellation Cassiopeia. It looks like an upside down ‘W’ and the star in its middle also points to the Pole Star.
Fig. 11. – How to navigate using the
stars
It’s like I can hear the quiet, clear night ticking over outside and it’s calling to me. I venture from my room and go quietly down the corridor, passing Steve’s room as I do.
His bedroom is dark. I will probably be able to hear the whistle of his snores if I stay here long enough. I am just about to pass his doorway when I hear a voice coming from his room.
It’s Julie. She’s speaking quietly but in the still house, I can hear her clearly.
‘Don’t be too hard on him. Or yourself. I mean, Billy’s been through a hell of a lot.’
When I hear my name, I can’t help but lean into the door a little more. I hear the rustle of a duvet, the sound of Steve sighing.
‘But breaking a window, being suspended,’ Steve says. ‘I mean he’s been in trouble at school since day one. I wish he’d never met that Anwar. It’s just one thing after the other.’
‘I can’t imagine what it’s been like for him,’ says Julie. ‘He must miss his mum all the time. And be worried about her. How was she when you saw her? We haven’t had the chance to talk properly about it.’
‘Not good. She wasn’t even awake the whole time we were there. Billy said she spoke to him when I wasn’t there but I’m not even sure if that’s true. She looked really out of it. I don’t think she’s even any better than she was when Billy first came to live here. At least she’s safe there.’
‘I’m sorry, love. It’s hard on you, too.’
‘I think I was in denial for a long time. Maybe I still am. Sylvia changed, I mean, she really changed after Billy was born.’ Steve tries to keep his voice low but I hear it rising, almost in panic. ‘I mean she was transformed.’
Change. Transformation. I think of a werewolf in a full moon. I think of skin ripping and turning inside out into chunks of dense grey fur.
‘Everyone changes,’ I hear Julie say. ‘I mean, that’s the deal… being a parent, it’s life-changing.’
‘But I don’t mean like that,’ Steve continues. ‘Not like in the normal way of becoming a parent – it was like Sylvia was possessed by it. By a single idea. By the thought that the world as we know it would end. I knew it was getting worse, each time I came to visit.’
‘And she convinced Billy that it was all true?’
‘He completely adores her. He’d believe Sylvia if she said the moon was made of cheese. But I thought he was getting better by living here with me, I thought he was starting to leave it behind him. But sneaking off, videoing “evidence” and personal survival kits! I knew it wasn’t money he dropped at the museum. He was too frantic about losing it.’
‘Angharad asked me not to tell you that. Billy told her that he knows he has to hide it from you.’
My hands had closed into two tight fists. All I needed was something to hit.
‘You never really talk about her,’ Julie goes on. ‘Didn’t she do all the survival stuff before Billy was born? Or did it all start afterwards?’
‘Sylvia was always interested in it, liked being outdoors and camping, that kind of thing, but nothing like it turned into,’ Steve says. ‘I mean, she was just a different person before Billy was born, it took over somehow. But it wasn’t that bad. I thought she was fine. That Billy was okay with her. It was when she lost her job at the lab that she really went into overdrive. It was like I didn’t know her any more. She was a stranger. It had been hard to see Billy before, but then she cut me out completely. Talking about such crazy nonsense you wouldn’t believe.’ He sighs and the duvet rustles again. ‘I think that’s why I’m so worried about Billy. Hearing him talk like this, about people being infected, monsters lurking around garages – he sounds just like Sylvia.’
I think I hear Julie take a breath as though she is going to say something but at just that moment, the floorboard below me squeaks as I shift my weight ever so gently.
‘Did you hear that?’ Steve says.
As quickly as I can, I turn back to my bedroom and throw myself into bed. I don’t hear Julie and Steve get up, in the end, but I don’t go back to listen again.
I don’t want to hear any more.
I don’t want the knowledge that rolls around my head now:
I can’t trust Angharad. Sylvia was right, you can’t trust anyone but yourself.
And that I am the reason. I am what made Sylvia sick.
HOW IT BEGINS
We can see everything.
We are high up, in Cabot Tower, and we can see everything.
It’s red brick, the tower, up on a hill in a park right near the centre of town. It used to be closed but they reopened it on some days and you can climb up it and see the view.
From up here you can see the river that snakes round and the boats sitting tall within it. What Steve likes best about Bristol, he tells me, is that even from the centre of the city, where we are now, we can see the edges of it – we can see where the city turns to green – fields and woods and countryside and space. He loves the tower because from up here, you can see it all.
Julie and Steve have clamped their arms around each other as they look over the view. I wander round and round the small walkway and Angharad trails behind me. She’s been trying to talk to me all morning. Each time I’ve ignored her and get as far away from her as I can, but in the confined space of the tower there’s nowhere to hide.
‘Billy!’ Angharad hisses. ‘What’s wrong? Has something happened?’
She won’t give up asking me.
‘Fine then,’ she spits. ‘If you won’t speak to me then I won’t speak to you.’
But in a few moments, she’s back beside me. ‘What is it?’ I won’t look at her face but her voice sounds shaky. ‘Has something happened to your mum? I have to tell you something.’
I stomp away to another corner.
We had to climb many narrow steps to get to the top. Voices echoed in the winding stone corridor and some boys behind us started shouting as though to test how loud their voices would go. I tried to ignore the fact that Angharad jarred at every sound.
I look over at Julie and Steve. They hold hands as they peer out over the side of the tower, they could be one being, the way they are pressed into each other.
I try to walk away so I don’t have to look at them but then I almost run into Angharad. For a moment, I see her face light up, thinking that I’m coming over to speak to her but then, when she sees my face, hers falls too.
‘How are you two doing?’ Steve says, suddenly appearing next to us. ‘It’s beautiful up here, isn’t it?’
‘It really is,’ says Julie, materializing at his side.
‘Shame that the weather isn’t a bit nicer,’ Steve says, leaning into Julie. We were the only people up there now; the other people had already made their way back down the teetering staircase. ‘We’ll have to come back another time, when it’s sunny.’
‘Can we go home now?’ Angharad asks through clenched teeth.
‘In a minute,’ Julie says. ‘Just take a look at it, will you? People have been waiting for this view for years, all the time that the tower was closed. Sometimes you have to take opportunities that come your way.’
‘That’s right,’ Steve says, and he reaches for Julie’s hand and grins at her.
Angharad makes a face and starts to walk away from them, to another corner, but as she turns to go, she suddenly stops.
She stops with such a jolt, I think that something has fallen in front of her and she’s had to freeze to avoid being hit.
But in the next moment, Angharad sticks out her arm and points desperately to something in the distance.
‘Look! Can you see it?’ I hear her say, although her words are so garbled that she can barely get them out of her mouth. ‘There’s a Grey—’
Before I can answer, before I can even look, the sound of a scream splits through everything.
It cuts through Julie and Steve who release each other in a beat and look frantically over the side of the tower. Angharad sways a little as she hears it but then she’s b
y my side and I’m glad she’s next to me because the scream pierces through me too. I feel suddenly empty and yet at the same time, it’s as though every thought I’ve ever had is rushing around my body; I’m spinning and I’m toppling over inside of myself.
As quickly as it started, the scream dies away, disappearing into the distance, as though it never was. I let myself think, for just a single second, that perhaps the scream had nothing to do with what we’ve seen happening. It could have been to do with something else – a car almost hitting someone perhaps, a small child running into danger. It might have nothing whatsoever to do with the Greys.
But then there’s another scream.
And then another.
‘Look!’ Angharad points. ‘Over there!’
There’s a surge of people running along the street. They are running as though they are a wave that is growing and gathering water, surging and rolling and falling forward under its own weight. Some people fall amongst them. They don’t get up.
‘Steve.’ Julie’s voice sounds like something sinking. I turn and follow her gaze.
There are people who are spasming violently on the ground; they move as though they have volts of electricity moving through their bodies. Their limbs extend and drop as though they are something separate to them.
It’s what I saw happen to Ted but it’s more violent and furious this time – and it’s everywhere.
Their hands grow out like claws, grasping and slicing through the air. The people grow pale, and paler still, and then a surge of grey flushes through their skin. When they move, their whole body undulates and their legs seem to flow beneath them. And when they make a noise, it’s as though their vocal chords have been torn out and what is left is ragged and broken.
We all look away as they jolt and shudder, as though if we can’t see it, then it will stop happening.
But when we look back, all we see is grey. This is definitely happening. And, deep down inside, I can’t help but think that at least Steve will believe me now.