by Ross Welford
‘And you … Ig … Iggly … whatever your name is.’
‘Ignatius Fox-Templeton.’
‘Yes, that. Why did you get me involved?’
I blow my cheeks out as I think. ‘I guess I figured we needed an adult.’
‘OK. Well, you’ve got one. Right here. I may be old, but I’m not senile. And I am not going to rest on my bony backside while that pair of low-life bullies puts at risk the return of my granddaughter from wherever-the-heck she is.’
‘But, Gran,’ I say, ‘they’ve got a gun!’
‘What? That old thing?’ She waves her hand dismissively. ‘Couldn’t hit a barn door with it. Never could. Did you see the barrel? All rusted up. I’ll bet he’s never fired it in his life. He’s all mouth, is Geoff McKay, and his son’s the same.’
I study my gran and then look at Iggy, and eventually back at Gran.
‘Well,’ I say. ‘If you’re sure …’
Gran’s face is set in a mask of determination. ‘Well, hallelujah! Only one problem, pet. If me car wasn’t out of action, we could use that.’
Iggy’s attention has wandered. He’s eyeing a row of Segways, all lined up and fully charged.
‘You know what? I don’t think Mick would mind …’ he says.
Moments later, Gran, Iggy and I are heading down the hill, each of us standing on one of Mad Mick’s two-wheeled personal transporters.
The Segways’ extra-thick tyres – added for navigating the forest walks around Kielder – are perfect in the snow. Iggy’s ridden one before and he’s off in seconds. Gran and I are a bit more cautious, but they’re not hard to get the hang of.
There is nobody about in the village. The snow has kept everybody indoors and the roads are smooth and white apart from the tyre tracks left by the Geoffs’ car.
To get to the Geoffs’ house from the village it’s not far: over the bridge that crosses the burn and then there’s a path that turns off the road as it bends round. We’re slowed down by the road conditions, but we’re going as fast as we can – easily the speed of a bicycle pedalled hard.
It’s Gran who spots the blood on the bend in the road: bright red on the white snow. She shrieks, ‘Ethan! Iggly! Look!’
We slow our Segways to a halt to see what Gran is pointing at. There is a large pool of blood, and some fresh tyre tracks that look very like the Geoffs’, but I can’t be certain …
Gran steps off her transporter and peers at the ground, concentration furrowing her brow, till she says, eventually, ‘Something was bleeding. Then it just stopped. It makes no sense.’
My throat tightens with fear. What if Hellyann is dead?
Iggy says, ‘She’s right, Tait. Look! There’s no trail of blood leading anywhere, but there are footprints. Whatever was bleeding has just vanished.’
‘Or been put in a car. Perhaps—’
I’m cut off by a yelp from Gran. She’s a few metres away, holding a battered wellington boot – one of the pair that Hellyann was wearing.
Iggy is already off on his Segway down the road.
‘We can follow the tyre tracks in the snow,’ he calls back. ‘Come on!’
We don’t have to follow them for long, for after the bend they turn into the narrow road leading to the Geoffs’ scruffy cottage.
We advance on our Segways up the little road till we can see their cottage through the trees. We get off behind a low wall. In front of the house is their car and we can see Geoff Jr outside a shed, smoking and stamping his feet to ward off the cold. He takes out his phone to make a call, and rests the long shotgun upright against a plastic garden table.
‘There’s only one reason he’s standing outside the shed in this cold,’ whispered Iggy. ‘He’s guarding something. Shh, get down.’
The three of us crouch down behind the snow-topped wall and watch as the front door opens and the older man comes out with a bucket and a sponge. The lights on the car flash and there’s a bleep as he unlocks the back doors and leans in with the sponge, reappearing to squeeze pink water into the bucket. When he’s done cleaning up the blood, he stands up, shuts the door and the car bleeps twice.
‘That’s the second time in as many days I’ve washed the inside of that car. Flamin’ stinks, does that. Shoulda got you to do it.’
The two men are only about ten metres away from us and we can hear them perfectly. I decide to risk peeping over the wall.
The young Geoff ignores his father and, staring at his phone, says, ‘Half an hour, he reckons, if the roads have cleared. And the police are sending the launch up from Tower Knowe. They’ll call in the RAF from Boulmer once they’ve seen it.’
‘Has he got the pictures yet?’
‘They’re still sending. Nine minutes remaining, it says here. It’s a rotten signal.’
‘What did you get, anyway?’
‘I got what you said: close-ups, full length, a bit of video. It’s a big file. It’s taking a while.’
‘Good lad. Leave your phone out here. It’s better reception.’
Geoff Jr puts his phone down on a garden table that’s been cleared of snow and follows his dad into the house.
Iggy pulls his cap lower. ‘Did you hear what he said? In nine minutes those pictures will have sent. I think I know what to do,’ he says, and Gran and I lean in.
It’s a pretty clever plan, but requires nerves that I’m not sure I possess – let alone my gran.
Iggy raises his head a little bit over the wall to look again.
‘They’ve gone in. Are you ready?’ he asks.
‘No,’ I say.
At the same time, Gran hits her gloved fist into her other hand and says, ‘Yeahhh!’
She’s loving this, I think. She’s really loving this.
The pain in my head is becoming worse, and I can feel myself weakening. My breathing is a little more laboured, my hand hurts and my pulse is feeble. I have not eaten enough for days now and what I have eaten I have vomited over the back seat of the car where I was being held, causing the older man to shout, ‘Oh, you dirty little alien scumbag, oh, that is disgusting! Oh my God, open the window, Geoff!’
I do not think cheese is very good for me.
In the confusion caused by my vomiting, I had the presence of mind to pick up my black healing stick where it lay on the floor of the vehicle. I slipped it into one of the long boots I was wearing.
The chicken that Iggy likes is now beside me in this outdoor room in which they have locked me, and I pick her up to feel her warmth. She likes it, I think, and makes a sound in her throat – a sort of brrr brrr – that I think indicates pleasure or satisfaction.
I have lost blood. I reach up and touch my skull – the blood is crusting into a scab, aided a little by an application of the healing stick, but the stick is losing power and is not very effective any more. I lost one of the boots on the road. I did not use the stick until I was here, out of sight, and by then I had already lost a lot of blood.
I have found some old fabric and I sit on it while I lean my head against the wooden wall of the shed and contemplate the last few moments that I remember.
I was in the back of their motorcar, and the older man was driving it himself using his feet and hands. He said, ‘Bloody ice’ twice as the car skidded on the snowy roads. (Perhaps he has not driven before – he did not seem to be very good at it.)
The younger man held his long gun and occasionally pointed it at me.
Then, without expecting it, I vomited – pale, lumpy liquid went all over the rear portion of the vehicle and the shouting started.
The vehicle skidded to a halt on the snow-covered road and the older man said a word that I do not recognise. The younger man moved to get out of the car. When he unlocked the vehicle doors I saw my chance, and leapt over the seat in front of me and tried to run.
I was too weak. I stumbled and fell out of the car into a deep pile of snow.
‘Oh no you don’t,’ said the young man. And then he called me ‘a hairy little toerag’
, and stood on my hand, hard, with his big boot.
The last thing I saw before I passed out was the wooden stock of his long gun coming towards my head.
On our planet, we approach our existence with a clear-eyed assessment of the facts at hand. We do not lean towards fanciful interpretations of what might – or might not – be true, or right, or proper.
In other words, I do not fear death. I do, however, fear that the consequences of my death might lead to great hardship here on Earth. You are a primitive people, prone to war, and unable to cope with the technology that you will discover if I die without first destroying my craft.
These are the thoughts I have as I crouch, shivering, with my head hurting badly in the shed and hear a strange eeeow eeeeow eeeeow noise coming from outside.
There are footsteps as one of my captors – I cannot see which – moves towards the noise.
‘Is that the car alarm, Dad? What’s set that off?’
‘Oi!’
‘It’s that kid with the red hair! You little vandal! Come here!’
Seconds later, I hear the bolt on the door shoot back and I cower into the back of the shed. Instead of one of the men, though, there, most unexpectedly, is the old woman whose name is Gran. I am not good at reading human emotions from their faces, but I think she is looking scared. Her eyes dart from side to side.
‘Quickly – give me your jumper and your hat,’ she says while she removes her thick jacket. It is done in seconds, then she says, ‘Now stay here. When the coast is clear, head down to the lake path with Suzy and go to the boat shed.’
‘Which coast?’ I have to ask. ‘Which coast is clear?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Gran impatiently. ‘It just means “when nobody else is about”.’
Why do you not say what you mean, then? I think, but I do not say it because she is being kind. Besides, she has gone already. I see her run across the yard and up the path wearing my striped sweater and hat. She is old but she moves like someone much younger, it seems.
One of the men shouts, ‘There it is! It’s escaped! Go on, son – get after it! I’ll follow in the car.’
Moments later, their vehicle roars up the small road. The two boys reappear around the corner of the house, grinning widely. They run to me, and Iggy is on his knees picking up Suzy, who has hopped and flapped with pleasure to see him. Still grinning, he says, ‘Well, what are you waiting for? Come on – let’s go!’
I follow them down to the lake path. When we get there, we stop, and the boys start to laugh. Iggy is still cuddling his chicken.
‘They’ll never catch her!’
‘Northumberland Veterans Half-marathon Champion, that’s my gran!’ says Ethan, grinning. ‘She goes, “I’m not scared of some poxy popgun!”’
‘You should have seen his face! What an utter goon!’
They keep laughing as I watch them.
‘What about his gun?’ I ask.
Iggy reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out two small cylinders.
‘Took the precaution of removing the cartridges before I set the car alarm off, just in case your gran was wrong. His gun’s useless!’
They are so pleased with their deception that they cannot stop smiling. What they did was clever and unexpected, and I find the corners of my mouth lifting up, and there is a strange tightening in my stomach before I utter a breathy ha! And then another: Ha. Ha.
The boys stop and gaze at me.
Iggy says, ‘Did you just laugh, Hellyann?’
It comes again. Ha. Ha-ha! My mouth is open wide and the twitching in my stomach continues, and I do not try to stop it because it is a wonderful feeling. Then Suzy the chicken makes a squawking noise and so all four of us are doing it. Ha-ha-ha-haaaaa! Squawk! And that continues for a considerable time, and then we have to stop because I have to be sick again.
It’s funny and everything – laughing with Iggy and Hellyann, and even Suzy joining in – but it’s not as if I’ve forgotten about Gran.
Geoff Jr is huge and smokes like the back end of our school taxi-bus. Still, Gran is seventy-ahem. I’ve seen her running: she shuffles along with these little steps. Can she sprint? I have no idea.
Geoff’s dad is following on the road in the car, but given the conditions, he won’t be going fast and besides, Gran said she’d stick to the forest trails.
Hellyann doesn’t understand at all, I don’t think. In fact, I am pretty certain she is not well. Her eyes keep glazing over and her legs seem to wobble occasionally. Then she throws up, and the smell of that is enough to get my guts twitching.
‘I … I need food, proper food, my food,’ she says. ‘And I need to rest. I …’
I am distracted by Iggy shouting, ‘Oh my God, no!’
I see that Iggy is looking with horror at his phone. ‘No, no, no …’ He jabs at it with his fingers. ‘It hasn’t turned off.’
It is not his phone – it’s Geoff Jr’s, which he grabbed from the garden table as we snuck up on the car to set off the alarm. He turned it off and shoved it in his pocket.
Or … didn’t turn it off.
‘It needs a code, or a thumbprint, or something to power down,’ he says, his voice rising in panic and annoyance. ‘Who on earth does that?’
‘Is it still sending?’
‘Yes, two minutes remaining.’ He’s still jabbing at it.
Two minutes till the Geoffs’ journalist friend has photo and video evidence of an alien in his inbox.
‘Smash it,’ I say.
It’s a top-of-the-range phone, and very expensive, but, without hesitating, Iggy throws it with all his strength on the ground. It bounces off the snowy path undamaged. He stamps on it, but his rubber boots aren’t hard enough. The screen of the phone still glows, and Iggy is shouting, ‘Die, will you? Just die!’ while stamping on it repeatedly.
I can see the progress bar has jumped ahead.
Less than a minute remaining.
I don’t notice Hellyann turning away from us and going back into the shed where she was imprisoned. She comes out seconds later with a huge axe.
‘Stant pack!’ she says and lifts the axe over her head, bringing it down with a crunch on the screen, which shatters. She does it again and a third time until the phone is in hundreds of pieces.
We stand together, gathered round the smashed device in silence, like mourners at a graveside.
‘Well done, Hellyann,’ I say eventually and I hold up my hand for a high five.
Instead she sinks to her knees and quietly passes out face down in the snow next to the axe.
‘No!’ I say. ‘Don’t die! You need to get Tammy back!’
‘She’s not dead, Tait. She’s still breathing – look. We’ve got to get help. Who do we know—’
I cut him off.
‘Nobody! Don’t you get it?’ I yell. ‘There is nobody who’s gonna help us! Whoever we ask is going to either capture her, or call in the army, or the police, or the … the FBI or whoever you call in to deal with an alien landing. And if that happens, it’s game over for Tammy!’
We reach down and turn Hellyann over so that she is face upwards. It is probably the first time I have touched her and it is strange and intimate. Her hairy skin is slack and cool to the touch. As she turns over, her eyes flicker open.
‘Take … take me to my craft,’ she croaks. ‘Carry me. I will be all right.’
Awkwardly, we prop her up to a sitting position, and then somehow lift her up so she is over Iggy’s shoulder, his face pressed into her side. He turns his face away, grimacing at the smell, and then we’re off, Iggy staggering under his load, down the path to the boathouse.
A few minutes later, Iggy puts her down and Hellyann stands with one wellington boot on and a hand supporting her weight on the cracked wooden wall of the boathouse. Her breathing is ragged and again she sinks to her knees. There’s no sign of the little orange canoe.
‘Come on, Hellyann,’ urges Iggy. ‘Not long now. We’ve just got to get you in th
rough the window.’
We look up at the opening. There is no way Hellyann can get through without help, and even if Iggy and I manage to lift her up, she’s not strong enough to let herself down safely on the other side. I look at the metal bolt and padlock that are securing the double doors at the front. If only …
‘The paddle!’ I say, and before anyone replies, I’m off. ‘Wait here!’
To get back to the jetty means running up to the road, back through the undergrowth we’ve just come through, along the path, past some parked cars, and then down to the little pebble beach. I’m so caught up in the urgency of my job that at first I don’t notice the boat moored by the jetty.
And then I do – a long, rigid inflatable with Northumbria Police written down the side. I stop at the end of the jetty, panting from my running. I remember the parked cars at the top of the path – one had writing on it which I had taken no notice of, but now I have a moment to think. It was the RAF. The Royal Air Force, Boulmer, it had said on the side, along with a crest. I gulp.
Everyone around here knows RAF Boulmer. Katie Pelling’s dad was a pilot and did a talk in primary school and it all comes flooding back to me as I stand there on the rocky shore. ‘One of the world’s biggest radar centres,’ he said. ‘Nothing gets through here.’
I just know that the RAF people are there because of Hellyann, and I get a feeling of terror in my stomach that reaches my throat and makes me gag. I’ve seen the boat before as well: it is the same one used by the police divers in their search for Tammy.
Two police officers are in the boat, and three other people in blue Air Force uniforms are on the jetty putting on life jackets.
I can see the paddle lying where we left it, at the beach end of the jetty. I could turn around now and go back up the path in the woods. I don’t think they have noticed me …
Oh no. I have been seen. One of the policemen lifts his head and looks straight at me. I recognise him from the searches for Tammy. He was nice to me. Gave me a Polo mint once. PC Kareem something. He nudges his partner, who looks too. If I turn back now, it’ll look very suspicious. Not that I’m doing anything wrong …