by Polly Ho-Yen
‘You need to rest,’ I tell her.
‘We’ve got to stick together. My leg’s okay. Where do you want to look for water?’
‘I’m not sure… but I think there’s a stream close by.’
Steve overhears us. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go wandering off by yourselves.’
‘We won’t go far,’ Angharad says.
That’s what we tell them.
We won’t be long.
Be right back.
See you soon.
We have no reason not to believe it.
HOW TO FIND WATER
We start to follow the flight of the birds that I saw.
I tell Angharad why we’re looking for them.
‘There’s another,’ she tells me each time she spots one. ‘Is this something from the survival book?’ she asks.
As we’re alone, I show her the page.
‘It says here that we might see birds flying from water too, but they might be flying slowly after they’ve had their fill,’ she says. ‘But if it’s flying…’
‘Straight and fast then it’s probably flying to the source,’ I finish for her. ‘Looks like they’re flying to it, to me.’
There are more and more each time we look for them, drawing straight lines through the sky.
‘Can you hear that?’ Angharad says all of a sudden. ‘Can you hear it?’
‘This way,’ I say, following the birds through the trees.
We almost tumble into the stream when we reach it. We lap the water up in handfuls that never seem quite enough. We fill up our bottles and then slug them down greedily, so water trickles from the sides of our mouths. We don’t care. We let it trickle and then pour more over our faces.
The water is icy cold and even though it’s delicious, it almost feels as though it is burning my throat as I swallow it because of the greediness of my gulps.
‘We’d better go back and tell Mum and Steve,’ Angharad says.
I lie on my front by the edge of the stream and let my hands dip into the water. I like the feeling of it flowing past me.
‘Billy,’ Angharad says suddenly, sharply.
I’m not sure what it is that I sense first.
Whether it’s the faint whiff of soured milk.
The very soft bleating of a baby beginning to demand food.
Or whether it’s the dark shadow of the gun.
The gun is long, with a stick-like barrel. It’s pointed right towards me.
‘Please,’ I hear Angharad say.
I look up.
There’s a couple standing just by me. They look like a family that I might pass on any day, on any street. There’s a very young baby strapped to the father in a stripy, colourful sling. It’s murmuring a little and nodding its head ever so slightly. They look just like a normal family. Only their eyes are lit up: furious and blazing. Only the mother is pointing a gun right at me.
‘Get away from the water,’ the woman says. My legs feel useless, heavy pieces of flesh that are not connected to me. The baby opens its mouth and cries and the mother jogs it on the spot to shush it. But then it cries out a little louder.
‘Go!’ the man says. He takes a step closer – the gun moves a step closer to me – and I am frozen all the more.
‘Billy,’ Angharad begs, but when I don’t move, she tries to talk to the family. ‘We just wanted some water. We’ll go… we just wanted water.’
‘How do we know that you’re not one of them?’ the woman says tightly. ‘You might have infected the water supply now.’
‘It doesn’t work like that,’ I say. ‘You’d know if we were infected.’
They can’t hide a puzzled look creeping over their faces although they keep the gun fixed upon us.
‘I don’t want to have to use this,’ the man says. I don’t believe him. I don’t think that he wants to hurt us but I can also hear it in his voice, see in his face, something that’s more terrifying: he’s scared. He’s the one holding the gun but he’s the one that’s scared. And that means he’s dangerous.
‘We’re going,’ Angharad says. She pulls me up to standing and without turning our back to them we stumble away.
The couple don’t speak.
The baby continues to cry. It makes ragged bleats that feel unfinished, somehow.
They keep the gun focused on us.
HOW TO (MAKE YOURSELF) LEAVE
When we get back to the clearing where we left Julie and Steve, our belongings are still spread out all over the ground.
‘There was a couple with a gun,’ Angharad gasps. ‘We’ve got to go.’
Julie looks up, astonished, but starts stuffing things into bags straightaway.
Steve stands up and looks hard in the direction that we’ve just run from.
‘Steve!’ Julie shouts. ‘Help me.’
We grab at everything we can but then we hear a rustle in the bushes that makes us pick up our feet and start to run.
I keep looking over my shoulder to see if anyone is following us but all I see is a blur of trees and bushes; all I feel is the stamping of my feet and the beating of my heart.
When we are a little distance away, Julie turns to us both.
‘Are you all right? What happened?’
‘They had a baby,’ Angharad says. ‘A really little baby.’
‘They were afraid but they thought that we were infected. I don’t think they’d actually met any Greys.’
‘That’s good,’ Julie says. ‘Maybe that means that there aren’t very many around here.’
‘What did they say to you?’ Steve asks.
‘They just told us to leave the stream,’ Angharad says. ‘They thought that we were contaminating the water. We told them we weren’t but they didn’t want to listen.’
‘Let’s keep walking for as long as we can,’ Julie says. ‘We should be able to make it to the farm first thing tomorrow if we make good progress today. Maybe… maybe… we’ll make it all the way there.’
* * *
We keep walking until it gets dark. We ignore the blisters. We try to forget about the ache in our legs and the weariness that hangs like low clouds in our brains.
When Steve stops walking ahead of us, I can see that he is straining to see the path.
‘Maybe we should stop now while we have just enough light to make a camp,’ I suggest loudly. We’re still not talking to each other and I’m glad of it; it’s easier this way. Since I had the thought that Steve can’t really like me, everything he does gives me more reason to believe it.
‘Yes – good idea,’ Julie says straightaway, but Steve says, ‘I think that we should go on a bit further,’ at exactly the same time.
‘The light’s going now,’ Julie says. ‘I think we should stop.’
‘Me too,’ chimes in Angharad. ‘What do you think, Billy?’
I look around at the darkening countryside. I can’t see any other lights. For that moment, it looks peaceful – the grass and trees wrapped in a velvet twilight, the fields rolling on to one another like silent waves of a silent sea.
‘It doesn’t seem like there is anyone else around here,’ I say. ‘But who knows about Greys?’
‘There is something that worries me,’ Julie says. ‘There should be a small town over there. I mean, I might be wrong, but I would expect to see its lights in that direction. And well, there’s… there’s nothing.’
We all stare together where Julie pointed. The quiet, dimming countryside no longer seems tranquil – it is full of shadows and dips and humps that we cannot see properly. We don’t know what’s out there; we don’t know what might be hiding.
‘Let’s keep quiet,’ I say.
In the last of the light, I find us a spot that is a little sheltered and off the track. There isn’t a tree trunk to shelter beside and I worry at first that we will get too cold here, that we might be too exposed. But then as I unwrap the tarpaulin for us to lie upon, I feel Angharad and Julie beside me. They help me to pull t
he sheet so it is as wide as it can go. I hate every crackle that it makes, it’s too loud, but I know too that it will protect us from the cold that rises from the ground in an ever-increasing swell.
Julie and Steve pile all of our bags together. I suggest to Julie that they check on how much food we have left for tomorrow and the pair of them check through our supplies. I check on the water although I know how much is left; just the couple of bottles of water at the stream that we managed to fill before we met the family. When I hear them stop talking, I look up and see them, their arms wrapped so tightly together that I can’t see where one body ends and the other begins.
I feel a stab as I see them together. I can’t remember Sylvia and Steve ever holding each other like this, not so tightly, not as though they were joined together by something physical.
I know in that moment that I have to get to Sylvia. Steve and Julie have each other, Angharad has her mum but Sylvia has no one, only me. I will get them to the farm and when I know that they are safe I’ll leave to find Sylvia, at the Martello tower.
‘Come on then, everyone, we should try and get some rest,’ Julie says as she and Steve finally let go of one another. It’s hard to see each other properly now that the darkness is falling around us, I can’t see their faces.
‘I’ll do the first watch,’ Steve says. ‘Goodnight, everyone.’
Julie and Angharad mumble goodnights; I stay silent.
‘I’ll sleep next to you,’ I hear Angharad whisper to me as she shuffles up next to me. Julie joins us as Steve keeps a look-out.
Julie and Angharad sleep around me, one on either side, and that night, despite all that has happened, I drop off to sleep soundly.
I fall into a dream before I know it’s a dream.
HOW TO GET TO SAFETY
Steve wakes me.
It’s still darkish but I can see the soft light of dawn creeping across the sky.
‘Time to go, Billy,’ he tells me.
I can’t believe that I slept so long. I look over to Angharad who lies still beside me, emitting soft, wispy snores. Julie gently shakes her awake. She looks startled at first and looks all around her, looking, I think, for danger, for Greys. Then she sees me and she relaxes.
‘Are you okay?’ I whisper to her.
‘Bad dream,’ she mutters.
We ration out the last of the oat bars for breakfast. Then we begin walking.
We’re quiet as we go; there’s a feeling hanging in the air that this should be the last leg of our journey, but it’s edged with another thought too: that if the farm is not safe then where will we go?
After an hour or so, Steve starts singing quietly to himself as we walk along.
‘You’ve got a good voice,’ Julie laughs.
‘I was in a band at university.’
‘Were you really?’
‘Yes, I was the lead singer.’
He bursts into a loud chorus of a song I don’t recognize.
‘I think it’s best that we keep quiet,’ I say. ‘We don’t know if there are any more Greys around.’
‘We haven’t seen one for ages,’ Steve says, a little petulantly. ‘I think we’re safe now.’
‘Billy’s right,’ Angharad rushes in. ‘We need to be careful.’
I see Julie and Steve exchange a look with raised eyebrows.
‘How can you do that?’ I say. The words spit from my mouth.
‘What?’ Steve says.
‘Make that look, like you think we’re being silly – with all that has happened.’
‘Billy, no one’s suggesting that,’ Julie says quickly.
‘I saw the way you looked at each other – like you think I’m overreacting by saying we need to be quiet.’
‘Well, maybe you are a bit,’ Steve says. ‘Billy, there’s no one around. We’ve not seen any sign of anything since we set off this morning and you even said that the couple you saw didn’t know what the Greys were like. It’s okay to relax a bit, you know. We can’t be on high alert all the time.’
‘We can’t relax,’ I say. ‘That’s the whole point. Sylvia always said—’
‘Billy! Enough! Your mum is not here.’ There’s a sharpness to his voice that makes me draw back. He says it again: ‘She’s not here. I am, and that means you have to listen to me and not always argue back. I know you think that all this proves that Sylvia was right all along, but it doesn’t. The sooner you accept that, the better it will be for all of us, including you.’
‘If she hadn’t taught me anything, then we wouldn’t have made it this far. You know it – and the sooner you accept that, the better it will be for all of us – including you.’ I don’t quite recognize my own voice twisting away as I spit his own pompous words back at him, but it’s like I can’t control the anger, hurt and fear any more.
Our eyes meet for just a single moment. The way he looks at me makes me feel like I’m broken.
I look away first, staring at the blades of grass that look more grey than green, that look sharp to the touch and shadowed.
As we walk on, no one says another word.
* * *
When Julie first spots it in the distance, she makes a sound like a whimper or a cry.
‘There!’ she says and points.
It’s nestled into the top of the valley: a few white, low buildings sitting on the green of a hill.
‘I can’t believe we made it,’ Steve says. ‘We should get there in a couple of hours if we don’t stop.’
‘I can’t wait to eat something proper,’ Angharad says.
‘Me too,’ Julie says, giving Angharad a quick, tight hug. ‘Granddad will cook us up a storm.’ Then she looks over at Steve and me. ‘I can’t wait for you to meet him.’
Steve swings his hand into Julie’s and they lead the way, their locked hands rocking with every step. It makes me once again so certain that I need to get to Sylvia. I can’t stop thinking of her alone, in the tower, waiting for me, wondering where I am.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Angharad asks me as we start to follow Steve and Julie.
‘What?’
‘You’ve got a faraway look on your face.’
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Just – you know – thinking about getting to the farm.’
‘Granddad can be pretty grumpy and stubborn sometimes but I can’t wait to see him.’
‘Oh, so you take after him, do you?’
‘Something like that.’ Angharad grins over at me.
* * *
We speed up our pace as we get closer to the farm. It feels almost like we’re stumbling towards it. My legs no longer feel tired now that we’re almost there. I feel like I could just keep on walking and walking for ever.
As we approach the farm buildings, my eyes scan over every inch of the surroundings. Rule number two: pay attention. It’s quiet and there’s no sign of life at any of the windows, but then I spot a curtain swishing closed at one of the top windows.
‘Stop,’ I tell everyone.
‘What is it?’ Julie asks.
‘Did you see a Grey?’ Angharad says, a tremor in her voice.
‘Someone behind that curtain,’ I whisper.
Only Steve carries on walking.
The front door swings open and a small, grey-haired man rushes out. Julie runs towards him and they fall into each other; it looks like they are two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle slotting together perfectly.
‘Granddad!’ Angharad squeals, running towards him.
‘Why, look at the state of you!’ Julie’s father exclaims. He cups his hands around Angharad’s cheeks and I can’t imagine a trace of grumpiness lining his face which is creased into a huge smile.
‘See, Billy,’ Steve says to me. ‘I told you we would be safe here.’
HOW TO LEAVE
A whisper in the darkness.
‘Billy? Are you awake?’ The door to the bedroom I’m in creaks open.
‘Yes.’
‘I thought I heard you get up.’
&n
bsp; ‘I’m just – I was just going to the toilet.’
In truth, I was packing my bag. I tried to move silently but the floorboards of the old farmhouse groaned and squeaked beneath me. I quickly shove it behind me, hoping that Angharad can’t see it in the darkness.
‘You’re not really going to the toilet, are you?’ she asks gently.
‘What? Yes, of course I – I am – I’m just—’
‘It’s your mum, isn’t it? You want to go to her?’
‘How did you…’ My voice trails off.
‘Because I see you, Billy. And I know you. You get a look in your eyes, when you’re thinking about your mum. I know it because you look how I feel about my dad. I miss him so much. I wish he was here. Although he’d drive Mum completely up the wall.’
‘I was thinking about your dad on the oil rig,’ I say. ‘It’s definitely the safest place to be right now. I am sure that he will be all right. He’ll be thinking just the same about you as well, you know. Missing you and wishing you were with him.’
Angharad speaks in a quiet voice: ‘I hope so.’ Then: ‘Where do you think your mum is? How will you even find her?’
‘I know where she is. When I last saw her in hospital she told me that she would be waiting for me. It’s a type of tower – a Martello tower, have you ever heard of them?’
Angharad shakes her head.
I continue in a low voice: ‘It’s an old fort, built a long time ago. Before she got taken away, Sylvia had been breaking into it and storing food and other things there – everything that we might need in case something like this would happen.’
‘Did she really know that this was going to happen?’
‘Sometimes I think that she didn’t – that everyone was right to think that she has… that she has problems in her head. When I was living with her, before all this, I know she used to scare me sometimes because she acted… not okay. But now this has actually happened, we did need to prepare and everything she taught me has helped to get us here. So maybe even if she didn’t always get it right, she was trying her best to keep me safe? I mean, if it weren’t for Sylvia, we might still be going round in circles, not knowing which way north was.’