by Polly Ho-Yen
‘I live with my dad but he wouldn’t want me to go to my mum. He would never let me go to see her.’ The words come tumbling out. ‘So I had to run away… to try to get to her. Because she’ll be waiting for me. She needs me, my dad doesn’t.’
Len looks like he’s going to say something but then changes his mind.
‘It’s a bit difficult to explain,’ I add. ‘They separated and then…’
But Len just nods his head. ‘It’s all right. Life can get mighty complicated. I’m going to see my old mum too, as a matter of fact,’ Len says. ‘She lives in a nursing home in Folkestone. I’d been trying to get her moved to be closer to me for years but, well, it didn’t work out. And now, I have no idea if she is safe. I can’t get through to the nursing home. And she would have no idea anyway – she has dementia. Her memories – her memories are going, going, gone. She doesn’t recognize me any more.
‘You might think what’s the point going across the country to see someone who doesn’t even know who you are? But I’ve got to go. I’ve got to get to her. I think that she knows I’m familiar, even if she doesn’t know me, right? And she must be confused with all that’s going on. Who knows what state the place will be in? I don’t know if the staff will have stayed with them. Or maybe they will have jumped ship to be with their own families? I wouldn’t blame them.
‘This thing happening, it shows us the things that are really important. The things that really matter. Everything else… everything else just drops away.’
‘Yeah, it does,’ I say.
Len suddenly looks startled, as though he’d forgotten I was there.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘There’s me jabbering on when we really should make a move. You’re the first person I’ve spoken to for a couple of days now. But it doesn’t do to stay in one place for too long. It doesn’t do at all.’
Len uses a petrol can hung on the back of the motorcycle to refuel.
‘If only we knew more about the… what did you call them?… the Greys,’ he continues.
My mind swarms with everything that I know, each encounter I’ve had with them. I can feel a fragment of a thought rising. If I can just let my brain track back over all that has happened, it might just turn into something fully formed.
‘Have you noticed,’ I suddenly say, ‘that whenever it’s been really sunny, they’re not around as much. I’ve seen them in the daylight…’ I let myself wonder back to that first time I saw the fallen man on the street: it was raining and grey and after that it was night-time. It was overcast at the garages too. The day that the infection seemed to break through when we were up the Cabot tower, it was cloudy. ‘I’ve not seen them out and about when it’s been really sunny,’ I say.
Len scratches his beard. ‘I’m not sure,’ he admits. ‘What do you think that would mean anyway?’
‘That they don’t think they like sunshine.’ It sounds a bit absurd saying it aloud and maybe it’s nothing at all but I feel myself storing it away, that little piece of information, as though I were writing it down. Greys – can they come out when the sun is shining? I ponder.
Len empties the petrol can into the tank, giving it delicate little shakes so every last drop is used, and ties the empty can back up onto the back of the motorcycle.
‘Hopefully the powers that be are working out a way to stop them… before it’s too late. Let’s keep moving. If we don’t stop and the roads are fairly clear, we should get there later this afternoon.’
‘This afternoon.’ I almost choke on the words. I can’t hide my excitement that we’ll be so close to where I think Sylvia is.
* * *
As we go further, we start to see people. They run out at us sometimes and Len speeds up and swerves to avoid them. I know we can’t help them, but I can’t look at their faces; I don’t want to think of the people that we are leaving behind.
Perhaps they are like us and are desperate to journey somewhere, to get to someone, but there’s no room now on the motorcycle for anyone else.
We go past some houses, small clusters of them that sit together. A village that looks deserted. Some of the doors are left wide open and through the open doorways, I can see upended furniture and things scattered where they shouldn’t be.
One cottage we go past has a heavy, overhanging thatched roof. It looks like something from a fairy tale in a picture book: its front door is shiny and red, its windows are made out of wonky diamonds of glass.
As the motorcycle reaches it, the front door flies open suddenly.
Greys throw themselves out desperately on to the road.
One after another, they pile out of the house.
I feel Len lean forward a little. The engine revs. We accelerate past the Greys and even though they try to follow us, they cannot catch us up.
I hear Len shout something back to me that I can’t quite make out, but then he points to the sky. The sun has disappeared behind a cloud.
It makes me nervous now whenever we pass by any other buildings and whenever I can’t feel the sun beating down.
The Greys are simply hiding.
They’re waiting for the right moment to pounce.
HOW TO (ALMOST) LOSE YOUR BAG
I try to ignore it at first.
The sound, like grinding metal, as though there are huge, steel teeth grating against one another. It starts small, like something close to a ticking, but then it grows louder; it turns into a crushing, grinding sound. I can imagine them, those metal teeth: large dull hunks, rubbing against each other until they are only worn-away nubs, until they are almost, in fact, no more.
I can see Len’s shoulders tense as he hears it and it grows sharper and more defined until it becomes a mechanical pounding that shakes the motorcycle with each vibration. I have to cling to Len tightly to stay upright.
He shouts something to me that I can’t understand but then I hear the engine winding down and we begin to roll to a stop.
We’re out in the middle of the countryside and I can’t see any buildings around us. There’s just the brown stretch of a ploughed field and the jagged outlines of some trees in the distance which, when I squint, look not unlike figures, their arms raised and outstretched as though they are waving to us, or warning us away.
But before we come to a complete stop, there’s a flash of something in front of us. At first I only catch a glimpse of the patterned material – it’s the soft type that pyjamas are made of, white covered with tiny pink dots which, when I look again, I can see are in fact small rosebuds. It’s a type of nightie, or it used to be, hanging in pieces from a Grey that’s run out from the parting in the field and almost collided straight into us.
The Grey shrieks with an awful voiceless whine. It lets its mouth hang wide open as it cries, raised up towards the sky, as though it is trying to catch the thin, fine raindrops that have started falling lightly around us.
Len kicks the motorcycle into gear again and we rush forward. We whip around the side of the Grey, despite the metal clunking which now reverberates like thunder through the bike. The Grey claws for my bag as we pass it, managing to grab hold of one of the straps. It almost pulls me from the bike but I cling on tightly to Len, binding my arms around him as closely as I can.
But the Grey grips on too and we end up dragging it behind us, shrieking and screaming and screeching all the way.
Len looks over his shoulder at what is happening.
‘Take your bag off!’ he shouts. ‘Take it off! I’ve got you!’
I struggle to get out of the straps. I don’t even think of what’s inside it, I know that I have to let it go. I can only do it one arm at a time and it’s when the rucksack slips a little away as my first arm is freed that the Grey makes a lunge towards me.
HOW TO USE A PICTURE FRAME (CREATIVELY)
I catch sight of the rectangular bulge of the frame that Angharad gave me jutting out from the side of my rucksack. I think of that photograph of her, smiling away with her dad and Julie. In another world, anot
her time, one where she would never have thought that she would have to meet Steve and me.
The sharp corner of the picture frame is sticking out just by the head of the Grey and so with every bit of strength I have, I drive my bag and the pointed edge of the picture frame towards the creature. It lets out a shriek; of surprise, I think.
The Grey falls from the motorcycle and, in an instant, Len is pushing us forward, grinding the complaining engine on so we’re propelled down the road, away.
Away from my rucksack filled with all my provisions, away from the photograph of Angharad with her mum and dad and away from the crumpled body of the Grey that is now starting to sit up.
I make myself turn my head and I watch it. I cannot turn away.
It stands up but from the way it’s standing I can see it’s injured from the fall. It doesn’t try to follow us but, as though it’s looking right back at me, it stares at us driving off down the road. I tell myself I’m imagining it, but the expression on its face looks to me something like sadness.
HOW TO GET TO SANDGATE
Len pulls the motorcycle into a lay-by after a few more hours of driving.
The metal rattle hasn’t got any worse, but it hasn’t got any better either. I’ve been waiting for the bike to give out completely, but luckily it is holding on. Just like me and Len.
I’m so stiff, I don’t think that I can climb off the motorcycle; I feel like I’ll be stuck in that same hunched position from now on.
Len stretches wide. His arms reach out sideways. He looks massive as he does it and seeing him standing tall, I think that I wasn’t far off, thinking he was like a giant when I first saw him.
‘That’s better,’ he says after stretching out for a few moments. ‘That was a close shave back there, wasn’t it? Well, Billy, this is where we say goodbye. I’ve got to try and get this old hunk of metal a little further still but you’re not far now.’ He touches the bike tenderly as though it’s a horse or a dog, something that could feel his touch.
‘Will the motorcycle be all right? Will it get you to your mum?’
‘It should just about get me there,’ Len says in a vague way that makes me not want to ask any more. ‘How’re you doing?’ Len peers down at me, shading his eyes so he can see me properly.
‘You’d better eat something,’ he says. ‘And have a drink. You’ve still got a little way to go yet.’ He rummages around in one of the bags and gives me a packet of biscuits and a bottle of juice in a plastic bag.
I feel my mouth fill with saliva just looking at them but I ask, ‘Are you sure you have enough?’
‘Sure,’ Len says. ‘Have them.’
‘Where are we exactly?’ I ask.
‘We’re about four miles outside of Sandgate,’ Len says.
‘Where is your mum again?’ I ask.
‘She’s in Folkestone,’ he says. Then he says it again, as though he is trying to convince himself: ‘She’s in Folkestone.’
‘You’d better go,’ I tell him. ‘Thank you so much for bringing me this far.’
‘It’s okay,’ Len says. ‘I just wish, I just wish I could take you all the way.’
‘No, it’s better that I go on foot,’ I tell him. ‘I can move really quietly if I do come across any Greys. It isn’t far now. But I don’t know if I would have made it if you hadn’t stopped.’
‘You would have made it,’ Len says. ‘You’re tough, you are. You wouldn’t have made it this far if you weren’t. And brave. By heck, when I saw you waving that torch in the middle of the road like you were, I thought: this kid’s got guts.’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t really thinking about what I was doing.’
‘Well – look. I hope you find your mum quickly. And, Billy?’
‘Yes?’
‘I know you said things were… complicated with your dad, but I’d guess that he’ll be worried about you. So, when you get to your mum, find a way to let him know you’re safe, yeah? When the world goes mad like it is now, we see what’s really important, and I bet, well, I bet, you’re more important to your dad than you think.’
I blink, not knowing what to say to that.
Len shuffles awkwardly. ‘Well, bye, Billy. And good luck.’
‘You too. Goodbye, Len,’ I say.
We’re making all the noises like we are saying goodbye but Len doesn’t climb on his motorcycle and I don’t walk away.
Neither of us makes a move.
I don’t know if it’s because Len’s worried about leaving me. Or if perhaps he doesn’t want to be alone either. Maybe, I think, he’s worried about his mother and finding out what’s really going on with her.
Without thinking, I step forward and throw my arms around Len in a hug. I feel his huge arms enclose me.
I can’t stop thinking that the Rule about not trusting anyone is once again out of the window. And that maybe I’m okay with that.
Without looking again at his face, I can walk away.
HOW TO MAKE A SOLAR STILL
I wake up sore and stiff, laced with dew drops.
It takes me a moment to realize that what woke me is the sound of heavy vehicles ploughing down a road.
There are deep shouts, now and again, that I can just make out through the rumble but they are shouts of action, not of despair.
I run towards the sound and through the trees I see a long line of huge army trucks roaring down the road. I hunker down so I cannot be seen but I can’t stop myself from peeking out at the trucks. I haven’t seen anyone since I said goodbye to Len yesterday. I don’t want to risk the army thinking I’m lost and taking me back to Steve.
Once they disappear, there is no other traffic. The road becomes empty and still and I can only hear birdsong and the sound of leaves rustling in a gentle breeze.
I wander back to where I slept. I’d made a solar still the afternoon before by making a hole in the ground and lining it with green leaves. I placed the end of the biscuit packet so it made a sort of cup at the bottom of the hole, then stretched out and secured the plastic bag that Len gave me over the top of the hole. I weighed it down in its middle, just above the biscuit wrapper, so the condensation would run straight into it.
Fig. 14. – How to make a solar still
There’s a couple of mouthfuls of water in the old biscuit packet. It will extend my supply a little, but partly I did it because it feels sort of like a miracle whenever I have made one – creating clean drinking water out of nothing. Plus running through the method distracts my mind from the bigger questions that are looming ahead of me. Will Sylvia be there? What will she be like? Will I even make it? I reach down to the old wrapper to feel the small weight of water within it and tip it into my mouth. I eat one of the remaining biscuits, trying to eat it as slowly as possible to make it last a little longer.
I pick through a path in the woods, staying clear of the roads in case the army trucks come back, climb over stiles and walk on and on until my feet throb and my legs feel shaky beneath me. The sun shines down and I don’t come across any Greys.
I try to ration out the few biscuits I have left and the last of the juice but I feel my hunger growing with every step that I take. I try to remember the last proper meal I had. We’d eaten at Julie’s after Anwar and his dad had left. She and Steve had made pasta but they’d been talking over things and let it overcook. It had turned a bit slimy in the pan but just the thought of it makes my mouth begin to salivate.
I find a bush of blackberries and I practically fall on to them. But they are not ripe, they’re green and bullet-like and I know they will taste awful. But then I spot amongst the bushes some wild raspberry canes. The berries are almost overripe, darkly pink and swollen. My fingers tremble as I pluck them off the bush and shove them into my mouth and become stained with their juice. I’m sure that it’s all over my face too, but I’m past caring.
Each one explodes in my mouth. Its tart sweetness rushes through me; I can almost feel the sugar reaching my brain.
/> It takes me a long time to leave those raspberries. I pick every berry I can see but each time I try to leave I tear back again to look for more fruit that I push clumsily into my open mouth.
I hear Sylvia’s voice in my head once more: Pace yourself. Don’t give yourself a stomach ache. I try to listen. I know I’ve eaten enough, but part of me is worried that I won’t find more food on my way to the tower. Part of me, buried deep down inside, is also fearful that Sylvia might not even be there.
I had not let myself think this could happen.
I have only let myself imagine her there, in the Martello tower, waiting for me. To think of the alternative squeezes the breath out of me, it’s a hammering in my chest, bearing down on me.
But now, now that I’m so close, that single thought, that little imagining that the tower is empty, swings through my mind like a pendulum.
If she is not there, I think, I will have to look for her. I think of the hospital that Steve and I saw her in. I would have to start there.
And if I couldn’t find her there… I falter. And then I let myself think it: If Sylvia is not in any of these places then maybe, like so many others, she has been infected. She could be dead, or transformed into a Grey. But as quickly as I think that I bat the idea away. Sylvia’s survival lessons had got me here, so she would be okay too. She would. She had to be.
I march on and on, one foot in front of the other.
I keep thinking that I can’t possibly keep walking any more and each time that I do, I think: Just one more step. And after that, just one more.
After one more step, I tell myself, I can stop walking. But after that one more step, I tell myself to take only one more.
Just like when I left Angharad at the farm, this is how I keep walking. Until eventually, there in the distance, is the outline of a grey building that I recognize as the tower.
* * *
It looks different to how I remember it. I worry at first that I’ve come to the wrong one. But then I think I spot the place where we parked the night that Sylvia brought me here.