by Polly Ho-Yen
They know exactly where we are now.
I see Steve’s face change as he notices the Greys approaching.
It’s almost as though he himself is going through the transformation. His eyes dull, his skin turns ashen and pale.
The bushes and the trees seem to shiver and then shake as the Greys move past them, as though they too are afraid of them.
Steve looks over at me. He’s metres away, but with that look he’s right beside me. His eyes reach out to me as if he were reaching out with his arms to pull me close in a tight hug.
I think of her then too. I see flames, I see the light and the warmth from them cast upon her face. I see her despair and I see her joy and I hope, I hope with everything that I am, that she is safe.
I wonder if she will know when the Greys reach us. I imagine she will sense that I am gone. I can’t explain why, but I just can’t believe that she wouldn’t know that I was not in the world – it feels impossible, somehow. Just like it’s impossible for me to think I wouldn’t know if she were gone.
Steve’s eyes have grown large and bright. There are tears gathering in the corners. He looks at me with an intensity that seems to be able to speak. He is saying sorry, perhaps; he is saying he wishes things were different.
The echoing bellows of the Greys surge around us.
HOW TO USE FUN SNAPS
I know that we have little time.
I reach for the reassuring lump of my pocket survival kit. In my head I run through what it contains, if there’s anything of use, but I draw a blank. I feel a surge of panic, but then I hear Sylvia’s voice: Never stop trying – you must never give up. Rule number five.
Then I shrug my rucksack off my back in one movement and yank it open. There’s some food in there, a bottle of water, Sylvia’s book wedged between the food, its front cover ever so slightly bent over in a triangle, but not much else. Only the bag that Anwar gave me.
With everything that’s been happening, I haven’t thought to look at what he’d given me but I pull it out now, not caring any more about the rustle the plastic of the bag is making, and unwrap it quickly.
It’s a small box, light in my hand, covered in orange paper.
Fun Snaps.
It takes me a moment to remember what they are. Anwar had mentioned them to me before – little bundles of gravel combined with a tiny amount of explosive wrapped up together in paper. If you throw them on the ground or any hard surface they make a loud cracking bang.
I look round the tree trunk to see the quivering bushes that mark out the Greys heading in a straight line towards us.
There’s a beech tree that’s just a little distance from us, but I think it should be far enough away. I tear off the wrapping of the Fun Snaps box and reach inside. They are packed with sawdust that flitters away through my fingers. I take a handful of them; they’re shaped like little cherries.
I know that I’m going to have to throw them hard to make this work, that I’ll have to do it at exactly the right time.
The Greys grow closer.
The seconds count down.
* * *
They are almost at the beech tree.
I lob the Fun Snaps high into the air so they sail over the undergrowth. At first I’m worried that I did not manage to get them far enough. I’ve never been very good at throwing, but as they soar through the air, they fall against the trunk of the beech tree with a splatter of bangs.
They crack one after the other, exploding as they hit the trunk in a burst. The sound halts the stampeding Greys for just a moment.
‘Stay absolutely still,’ I mouth to Steve as quietly as I can. ‘Tell them, too.’
Steve nods and relays the message to the others. I see Angharad bite down on her lip. Julie’s face is flushed with concern but she remains silent.
The Greys scatter around the beech tree. They are looking for what it was that made the explosion; they are looking for who is there.
All that we can do is wait.
* * *
‘Do you think they’re gone?’ It’s Angharad who speaks first.
Her voice is so quiet it sounds like it could be a ripple of breeze through the trees.
I look around the trunk I’m hiding behind. The sun is blinding in its heat again and I can’t see any sign of the Greys.
‘I think so,’ Steve says, just as quietly. ‘Shall we keep moving? Are you all right?’
‘She’s snagged her leg on something,’ Julie says. ‘It’s nasty. We need to wash it and dress it. I can’t believe that I left the first aid kit in the car.’
‘I have some Condy’s crystals,’ I say, pulling out my survival kit from my pocket. ‘They work as an antiseptic.’
‘Condy’s crystals?’ Julie sounds disbelieving.
I unpeel the tape from the tin and find the small sachet. I use one of the water bottles from my rucksack to mix a little in the tin. It’s bright pink which I know means it’s the right colour to use.
‘Billy,’ Julie says. ‘This is great – really great… I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t…’
Angharad tries to smile at me and I think she would have spoken if she weren’t in so much pain.
‘It’s nothing,’ I say. ‘It’s just in my kit.’
‘It’s not just the Condy’s crystals,’ Julie says. Suddenly she leans towards me and hugs me tightly.
‘It’s true,’ Angharad says in a tight voice, her teeth clenched together. ‘If you hadn’t distracted them, then they would have come right for us.’
‘It was a hell of a throw!’ Steve says.
‘It was amazing!’ Angharad says. ‘Where did you get them from? The banging things?’
‘Anwar gave them to me.’ I smile. I can’t wait to tell him how I used the Fun Snaps, although at the same time, I wonder if and when I will see him again and a cold feeling of dread washes over me.
But Julie is continuing to beam at me. ‘And now you’ve magicked antiseptic out of nowhere… I don’t know what to say.’ She looks like she wants to reach out to me and in the next moment she does and we end up in a slightly awkward hug.
‘What else have you got in that tin?’ Angharad asks, peering at the matches that have been dipped in wax so they’re waterproof.
‘Just survival stuff,’ I say quietly. I shrug my shoulders and try not to notice that Steve has looked away, but Julie draws him in.
‘Steve? Billy’s really saved the day with his survival kit, hasn’t he? There’s lots of useful stuff in there that I’m sure we will need.’
‘It’s nothing,’ I say again.
Steve looks over. He bends down and for a moment, he inspects the contents of the kit. I hold my breath.
‘We’d better get moving,’ he says. ‘Can you walk, Angharad?’
He turns his back to us and looks into the distance. ‘I think we can go this way,’ he says, not really speaking to us.
‘He doesn’t want to admit my survival kit is good, because he still won’t believe that anything Sylvia taught me was worthwhile,’ I say loudly.
Steve turns to me in a flash, his voice raised. ‘It’s not as simple as that, Billy. It’s just not as simple as you think.’
‘How is it then?’
He starts to say something and then stops himself. ‘You’re just like her. You push and you push and you push,’ he says, looking right at me. ‘But sometimes people can be pushed too far.’
I try to swallow down the huge lump that’s suddenly grown in my throat. I blink desperately, trying not to cry.
Julie and Angharad look awkward, not sure what to do.
Steve walks a few steps away and as though we haven’t spoken at all, he peers down one of the tracks and says again, ‘I think it’s this way.’
* * *
I do not sleep very much.
Julie and Steve insisted that they would stay up and keep watch and that Angharad and I should sleep, but when I wake in the night, I see that they have both fallen asleep so I
make myself sit up and stay awake, my ears pricking for any noise.
Angharad had tried to talk to me after what happened between me and Steve, but I’d walked on ahead, alone, trying to untangle the mix of feelings wriggling inside me. There was the frustration that Steve refused to acknowledge Sylvia might have been teaching me the Survival Rules for a reason, plus the constant worry about whether Sylvia was safe or in danger somewhere, but both were then mingled with something that I kept backing away from: the thought that if Steve really didn’t like Sylvia, then he couldn’t like me either, because I was, after all, half of her. And it’s that thought which swirls in my mind as I finally close my eyes to sleep.
HOW TO GET LOST AND FIND YOUR WAY AGAIN USING THE SHADOW-STICK METHOD
I feel my legs twitching to move as soon as the sun rises early on the horizon. We didn’t make a fire last night in case it drew attention and though I tried to find a shelter that was as comfortable as it could be, it was not dry and it was not warm.
I found us a fallen log which we lay beside for a little shelter. I showed Angharad and Julie how to position their bodies so it would protect them as much as possible, but Steve said he was fine where he was and settled just next to us.
‘Breakfast!’ Steve injects some fake cheer into his voice as he passes around the broken-up oat bars that we took from Julie’s cupboards. Angharad passes me a piece when I refuse to take any from Steve directly. They taste just fine but they are rather dry and because I left the water bag behind when we were running from the Greys, we only have a little left, so we have to ration how much we drink.
Angharad can’t stop her face from grimacing whenever she moves her leg, although she says that it doesn’t hurt that much. Julie rebandages it and washes it again with the Condy’s crystals.
‘Thanks, Mum,’ Angharad says. ‘That’s much better.’ But I notice that she’s limping as we all start walking.
‘How are you doing?’ she asks me as we fall into step together.
‘I’m okay. How’s your leg?’
‘It’s fine.’ Angharad says it so quickly that I know it’s not true. ‘It’s a pain though… I mean – it doesn’t hurt that much, it’s just annoying!’ She laughs a little to herself. ‘I wish I’d spotted that metal thing I cut it on.’ She readjusts her bag and I see the shape of the photo frame that I spotted yesterday jutting out against the fabric. ‘But really, how are you? That stuff with your dad, it’s just…’
‘There’s nothing more to say about it,’ I say shortly. ‘He didn’t believe Sylvia, he didn’t believe me. I’m not even sure if he likes me.’
‘No, that’s not true,’ Angharad says, but I think I can hear the doubt wavering in her voice.
‘I just wish,’ I start to say, ‘I just wish that Sylvia was here.’
It’s only as I say it aloud that I realize how true it is.
* * *
‘We’ve been this way before, I’m sure,’ Steve says. ‘I remember the shape of that bush.’
‘And I’m sure we haven’t,’ Julie is saying back.
We are all thirsty and tired and hungry and even just speaking seems to take up precious energy that we do not have. The more we’ve walked, the thirstier we’ve become, and as the morning passes to midday, the sun’s heat pulses down and grows fiercer with each passing hour. Our phones still have no signal and Steve’s has already run out of battery.
My mouth feels dry and parched but the more I try not to think about it, the more I find myself dwelling on it.
A dull pain blossoms behind my temples.
‘Let’s face it,’ Julie says. ‘We’re lost.’
As soon as she says it, she shakes her head, like a dog drying itself of water, and looks over to Angharad and me.
‘I didn’t mean that,’ she says quickly. ‘I’m sure we’ll get to the farm okay… it just might take us a bit longer than we thought.’
‘I’m sure we should have taken that track I saw,’ Steve starts saying and then they are off again, arguing about which way to go, on and on.
I find a straight stick and bore it into the ground so it stands upright. I clear the ground around it and place a stone in the line of its shadow.
‘We should sit down and have a break,’ I tell Angharad while Julie and Steve bicker. I offer her the small water bottle that I have in my rucksack. She hands me a banana in exchange.
I don’t like bananas and, worse still, its skin is bruised and brown and its flesh feels powdery in my mouth, but I make myself eat it anyway. We sip at the water.
‘Are you all right?’ I ask Angharad. She hasn’t spoken very much in the last few hours.
She looks pale and drawn and her hair hangs limply over her shoulders.
‘Just-thinking-about-my-dad,’ she says in a rush.
I don’t know anything about her dad – where he is or even if he was still alive before any of this happened. She reaches into her bag and pulls out the framed photo. I recognize her and Julie in the picture, although she looks much younger and Julie looks different, with darker, longer hair. There’s a smiling man with a domed belly standing between them, with both arms around them. It looks like he might lift them up into the air in the next moment.
‘He works on an oil rig so I don’t see him very much,’ she says. ‘An oil rig – it’s pretty much the safest place he can be, really. But…’
‘You want to see him,’ I finish for her. ‘You want to be sure.’
Angharad nods. ‘You know what it’s like,’ she says. She tucks the picture back into her bag. ‘Do you think your mum’s okay? Have you heard anything from her?’
I shake my head. ‘I tried calling the hospital the night before we left yours, but I couldn’t get through.’
‘Have you got a photograph of her?’ Angharad asks.
I shake my head. For a moment I hesitate but then I reach into my rucksack and pull out How to Survive.
‘This belongs to Sylvia,’ I tell Angharad. ‘She found it in a second-hand bookshop when she was a child so it’s really old, but all the stuff in it, it’s really good.’
I pass it over to her and she reads through the blurb on the back page and examines the cover. ‘This is the book that was under your bed, wasn’t it? The first time we met?’
I hear Steve trudging towards us and I quickly grab it from her hands and stuff it away into my rucksack. ‘He still doesn’t know I have it,’ I say under my breath and give her a look that I know she’ll understand: please don’t tell him that I do.
‘How much water have you got left?’ Steve asks us.
‘That’s the last of the water in my bag,’ I say, without looking at him.
‘Then we’re almost completely out.’
Steve gives a long sigh and then turns away.
Julie sits down next to us and takes a piece of banana that she chews mechanically, her eyes fixed somewhere in the distance, somewhere on the ground. Steve doesn’t stay with us; he continues to examine the path we have just taken and the one which Julie has suggested we go down next.
After a little while, I look again at the stick that I placed in the ground. The shadow has now moved so it’s no longer in the path of the stone marker. I pick up another stone to mark the new shadow line and take the stick away. Angharad watches me.
‘What are you doing?’ she asks.
‘I’m finding out where north is,’ I tell her.
I place my left foot where the first stone is and the right where the second is. I look up.
‘North’s that way,’ I tell them, pointing ahead of me.
Julie sits up.
‘How do you know that?’ Angharad asks.
‘Because of the shadow. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, so I put the stick in the ground because its shadow moves as the earth rotates around the sun. These stones are marking out the east–west line. The first stone is showing west and the second east, so that means that north is that way and south is behind me.’
Fig. 13. – H
ow to find North using a shadow-stick
‘Which means,’ Julie adds, jumping to her feet, ‘that if we need to go northwest, it would be that way!’ She points to the direction halfway between where I am facing and my left-hand side.
‘Exactly!’ I say.
* * *
The sun beats down. I can almost hear it humming around us as we walk in a line along the narrow path.
I strain my ears to listen out for the sound of water but I can’t hear anything. Sylvia told me that the best way to find a stream is to watch out for animals or birds who can lead you there. But when I look around I can’t see any wildlife.
When we stop for another break, we all collapse into the shade. We don’t talk about how many stops we’re making or how our water bottles are now completely empty. We can’t even shake out a last drop from them any more.
I hear Steve ask Julie how far she thinks we are now and she looks uncertain.
‘I’m not sure we’ll make it today,’ is all she says back.
I keep my eyes glued to the skies and when I spot some birds overhead – small sparrows, I think – I follow their flight. They fly down over the trees to the left of us and disappear. Moments later, I see some other birds heading in the same direction.
Steve and Julie are searching through the contents of all the bags we brought with us. They’ve spread everything across the ground. They don’t say it but I know they are looking for a non-existent bottle of water that we haven’t yet realized we have. They won’t find it.
‘I’m going to look for water,’ I tell Angharad who’s lying flat on the ground with a T-shirt covering her head.
My voice sounds hoarse from the dryness in my throat.
‘Water?’ Angharad croaks, and lifts her head. Her cheeks are flashed-pink-red, burnt from the sun.
‘I’m going to look for some. I’ll be right back.’
‘Wait, I’ll come with you,’ she says, pulling herself up unsteadily. I can see her leg is still giving her pain.