by David James
Ben checked the next page. It was empty. It was the last that Sarah had written.
He slumped back in the chair. What was he to do? He desperately wanted to see Sarah again, especially after reading the journal. But he knew he should say something. He couldn't just let it continue if it was as bad as Sarah was suggesting. The idea of more experimental villages like the one he had been in scared him. But not as much as the idea of new Nathan's. And not as much as them getting together.
But hold on, he thought. Sarah's writing was pretty garbled. Some of it didn't seem to make sense. And she seemed to be suggesting that she was speaking to her father. Her dead father. And it occurred to him that maybe he was the one telling her to warn Ben. He remembered that the director had warned him that she might not always be coherent; and as Ben looked at the journal again he had to agree with the director that she seemed almost delusional.
He relaxed a little.
Of course, it must be the drugs that the institute were feeding her to help her. To make her better. When she got completely better she would laugh about the journal she had written and probably be more than a little embarrassed by it.
He could imagine her saying with a smile 'Thank god you didn't tell anyone about that! How embarrassing would that be!'
He could picture her now as she resumed her career, resumed her life. And she would be thanking him for not saying anything. It would become their own private little joke.
He sat back in the chair feeling relieved.
After a few minutes he stood up and headed towards his filing cabinet. He opened a drawer and placed the journal into it and shut the drawer with a loud clang. Some things were better not seeing the light of day again.
When he had gone to the institute he had switched his mobile phone off, it was their rule. He had started to do this more regularly now. When he was in the village he was surprised how little he missed it; with it switched off he seemed to be able to concentrate on whatever task he was actually doing at the time. Without the phone interrupting him.
But he couldn’t keep it switched off any longer. He needed to get back in touch with the world again. He switched his phone back on and switched on his computer.
A minute later and his phone was beeping madly at him; it almost seemed irate that it had been switched off. And it was backed up by his computer which seemed to be in competition with his phone to attract his attention.
He picked up his phone and started to listen to his phone messages.
He was taken aback as the first voice he heard was the woman that he had promised the story to. It was almost as if he had gone back in time to being about to enter the forest on the way to the village.
The messages were short and not at all sweet. Her voice seemed to be rising in intensity until the last message simply said Look at your email you bastard.
He hadn't spoken to the person who wrote it for a while. And she only seemed to shout at him rather than speak to him anyway. He had promised her the big scoop but his agreement with the institute had stopped him. And besides, once the institute had announced that the whole thing was a misunderstanding, the children had been making it all up; and that there was no story at all, he hadn’t heard from her since.
It was a two line email, the first line was clearly copied from a news headline. But it made Ben gasp out loud and made him put both his hands to his head. His carefully worked out and reasoned course of action had suddenly imploded. He looked up at the filing cabinet he had locked Sarah’s journal in.
BREAKING NEWS….Two children mysteriously appear out of nowhere. Who are they? Where did they come from?
Care to comment Ben?
Acknowledgements:
Immense thanks as ever to Maggie for her almost inexhaustible patience and her many hats including editor, critic and publisher.
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this book. If you have a minute to leave a review on Amazon, it would be much appreciated and help other readers.
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