by Jack Heath
19:25They stared at one another for a moment. Milla did the maths in her head. Could they really run at thirty kilometres per hour—almost as fast as an Olympic sprinter—in lead-lined hazmat suits?
‘We have to try,’ Mum said.
Dad shook his head. ‘We should call for help. I’ve got my mobile in my pocket.’
‘Inside your hazmat suit,’ Mum said. ‘Right?’
18:30Dad said nothing.
‘So we can’t get to it,’ Mum continued. ‘It’s useless.’
It took Milla a moment to work out what Dad was thinking. He could take off his suit and phone for help. He would be exposed to a massive dose of radiation. But she and Mum would survive.
‘No,’ Mum said. ‘We run until there’s no more air, then we take our helmets off.’
‘And get cancer?’
‘There’s no other way.’
‘I could—’
‘The river,’ Milla said.
17:50Mum and Dad looked at her.
‘You said there’s a river near here,’ Milla said. ‘Is it closer than the village?’
‘About a kilometre away,’ Dad said.
‘We could wash our suits in the river and then take them off. I know we don’t want to contaminate the water—’
‘But it’s better than getting killed,’ Mum said. ‘Good thinking, Milla. Let’s go.’
They scrambled to their feet and started to run around the lake towards the row of birch trees.
‘What about the pilot?’ Milla asked.
16:20‘If there was one—and it didn’t fly like a plane with a pilot—then there’s no point looking for him,’ Mum said. ‘A crash like that, into radioactive concrete … there’s just no way he could have survived. I’m sorry, honey.’
Surely someone should try to recover his body? Milla thought. But probably not them, and not now. She saved her breath for running.
16:00The forest was just ahead—a labyrinth of towering birches with straight grey trunks and scabby branches. Milla followed her parents in.
14:50It was uphill, which was hard work in the lead-lined suit. There was no trail. They had to push through a mess of bracken and fallen branches. The leaves above blotted out most of the daylight. Milla kept having to look up and around to make sure she hadn’t lost her parents.
‘So we’re getting radiationed right now?’ she said. ‘Even through the suits?’
‘Irradiated,’ Dad corrected. ‘And yes, but not much.’
‘How much?’
‘I think over the next twenty minutes we’ll absorb about as much radiation as you’d get during five or six medical X-rays.’
‘Oh,’ Milla said. ‘That doesn’t sound too bad.’
‘No. It’s not great, but we’re not likely to have any long-term effects, provided we get the suits cleaned before our helmets come off. The river—’
‘Stop,’ Mum said.
13:30Milla froze. ‘What is it?’
Mum was staring at a gap between two distant trees. ‘Did you see that?’
‘See what?’
‘We don’t have time for this,’ Dad said.
‘Something moved,’ Mum said. ‘Up ahead.’
‘Probably just a bird. We have to keep moving.’
‘It was way bigger than a bird.’
‘A feral cat, then,’ Dad said. ‘Come on.’
‘Bigger than a cat.’
‘Well, what was it?’
12:00Mum didn’t answer.
‘We’re running out of air,’ Dad said.
Mum took one last look at the shadows between the trees. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘But try not to make too much noise.’
They kept walking. It was hard to be quiet in such heavy suits. Milla winced as each twig crunched underfoot, knowing the sounds were muffled by the helmet and must be much louder outside.
Soon they reached the top of the hill. Milla could see the river sparkling in the distance. They had about ten minutes left to reach it.
She heard her father let out a moan.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
09:50Dad looked confused. ‘That wasn’t me,’ he said.
They both looked at Milla’s mother. She shook her head, eyes wide.
The sound echoed out again. It sounded like a man crying in the distance. A mournful wail, dying away into the silence.
09:00>Goosebumps erupted all over Milla’s body. Who else was in this forest with them? And why didn’t they sound quite human?
‘Keep moving,’ Mum whispered.
They shuffled down the hill, watching their surroundings. Milla listened carefully but couldn’t hear anything over her own breaths and pumping heart.
08:30‘Almost there.’ Dad’s voice was low and even. ‘We won’t be able to swim in the river. The suits are too heavy. So we’ll have to crawl across to the far side. Make sure your head is completely submerged. Got it?’
Milla was about to reply when a monster leapt out of the shrubs in front of them.
It was a wolf.
07:50Milla had never seen a wolf in real life before. It was bigger than the biggest dog she’d ever met, with enormous, dirty paws and long, saliva-slicked fangs. The matted fur around its jaws was encrusted with old blood. A cloudy, moon-like eye stared at them from a pink-rimmed socket.
Milla only saw it for a fraction of a second. It blasted by, close enough to knock her off her feet, and vanished into the trees on the other side of the clearing. Its footfalls faded away like the hoof beats of a galloping horse.
Dad dragged Milla to her feet. ‘Are you OK?’
06:30She nodded, heart pounding. ‘Where did it go?’
‘It’s toying with us.’
‘What do we do?’ Mum asked.
‘We could climb a tree,’ Milla said. Then she remembered Mum’s broken arm.
‘We head for the river,’ Dad said. ‘We don’t really have a choice.’
06:00Another wail on the wind.
This must be what a wolf howl sounds like in real life, Milla thought.
‘It sounds like there’s more than one of them,’ she said.
‘The first one may be trying to herd us towards the rest of the pack. Come on.’
05:30They sprinted down the hill to the river. There was no point being slow and careful anymore. The wolf knew where they were—their only hope was to get to the water before it came back.
But couldn’t wolves swim? Dogs certainly could.
The water sparkled between the trees. They were almost at the edge of the forest.
Too late.
05:00Two wolves exploded out of the forest in front of them. Their huge ears stood straight up like sails and ropes of drool hung from their slavering mouths. They stared intensely at the three humans with their strange, milky eyes.
‘Run!’ Dad screamed.
‘No!’ Milla grabbed his arm. ‘Don’t move.’
One of the wolves growled—a sound like an idling motor.
Radiation can cause birth defects.
‘Milla,’ Mum hissed.
‘They’re blind,’ Milla whispered. ‘See?’
They stood in silence for a moment, looking at the wolves’ clouded eyes.
‘And they can’t smell us through the hazmat suits,’ Milla whispered. ‘Look at their ears. They’re going purely on sound.’
A bird chittered nearby. One of the wolves turned its head towards the sound, but neither one took a step. It hadn’t been toying with them earlier, Milla realised. It had just taken a guess at where they were and charged.
04:00The growling wolf sniffed the wind. It kicked its back legs as if wiping mud off its paws. The other wolf huffed angrily.
Then both wolves started moving slowly towards the humans.
‘Back away,’ Dad whispered.
03:20‘They’ll hear us!’ Mum replied.
Milla ignored both of them. She leaned down and picked up a lump of rock about the size of a tennis ball.
One of the wolves barked.
The sound was as loud as a trombone at full blast. It must have heard her move.
Milla hurled the rock as far as she could. It flew silently through the air and smashed down into the foliage in the distance.
03:00Both wolves spun towards the sound. With a swing of their dirty tails, they bounded away into the undergrowth.
‘Go!’ Milla hissed. ‘Quick!’
They dashed down the hill and burst out of the forest into the light. Milla’s boots sank into the mud by the river’s edge. The closer she got to the rushing water, the safer she felt. The wolves wouldn’t hear them over the hissing and gurgling of the river.
02:30She threw herself into the water. As Dad had predicted, she sank to the bottom immediately, weighed down by her suit. She crawled forward until she was in the deepest part of the river, lying on her back and staring into the rippling sun. The radioactive mud swirled out of the creases in her suit and drifted away like smoke.
We made it, she thought. We actually made it!
And then a message flashed on her visor.
WARNING: CO2 AT TOXIC LEVELS.
01:55She had run out of air. And she was at the bottom of a river.
She looked around. Mum and Dad must have finished scrubbing themselves and resurfaced. They were nowhere to be seen. She opened her mouth to shout for help, but the air inside her suit was now toxic. If she breathed in so she could call out, she might die.
She tried to swim up to the surface, but it was impossible. The suit was too heavy and the current too strong. She could barely stand, let alone swim.
01:35Her lungs burned. She was getting dizzy.
She was going to have to take off the suit.
Milla tore open the rubber seals over her shoulders. Freezing water rushed into her hazmat suit, stinging her skin. It was all she could do not to gasp. She popped the safety clamps around her helmet and pulled it off.
The full force of the river hit her, pummelling her face. The hazmat suit was tangled around her ankles. She kicked it off and swam towards the surface. At least she thought it was the surface. She was getting dizzy and the river was bouncing her around like a popcorn kernel in a saucepan.
01:05 The world was starting to get dark. She was going to black out.
Just one more minute! she begged.
Swirling, pounding, rushing and—
00:59Splash! Her head exploded into the daylight. She took a gasp of crisp, bracing air and felt the oxygen course through her body, bringing new life to her aching muscles.
Mum and Dad were waving from the riverbank. Milla waved back as she let herself float towards the shore. She took in the sun, the clouds, the trees, the water, and sucked in another deep breath.
00:10That, she thought, is the smell of the Siberian wilderness.
00:00
REBOOT
30:00‘Police, fire or ambulance?’
‘Police,’ Kim said.
‘Are you in a safe location?’
Kim looked around at the bustling intersection. It looked so normal that he almost couldn’t believe what he had just seen. ‘Uh, yes,’ he said, trying to sound as adult as possible. ‘I think so.’
‘Where are you calling from?’
‘I’m at …’ Kim looked around for a street sign. A traffic light turned red. Pedestrians started moving past him. Someone bumped into his shoulder and walked away without apology.
29:40‘Corner of London Circuit and Ainslie Place,’ he said. ‘In Civic.’
‘What is your emergency?’ The man spoke like someone who took hundreds of these calls every day and knew that most of them were nothing.
‘I just saw two guys walk out of a bank,’ Kim said, ‘and I think one of them had a gun under his arm.’
‘Can you describe the men?’
Kim tried to think back. But although it had only just happened, he couldn’t recall the two men at all.
‘I think one of them was tall? Maybe?’
29:20The phone operator sighed. ‘Can you describe what they were wearing?’
‘The one with the gun had a knee-length coat. Black, or maybe brown.’
‘Was that the tall one, or the other one?’
Kim cringed. ‘I’m not sure. Sorry, I was looking at the gun.’
‘What kind of gun was it?’
Kim didn’t know much about guns, but he had seen them on TV. ‘A shotgun, I think.’
‘Where did the two men go?’ The operator sounded marginally more interested now.
‘Around the corner onto Riverside Lane.’
‘OK. Police are on their way. Please stay on the line.’
‘How long will they take?’
28:35‘A car was dispatched as soon as you told us your location. They’re now about six minutes away.’
Kim looked around at the crowded street. Everyone was moving in a different direction. He tried to imagine the cops showing up and asking people, ‘Did you see two men about six minutes ago, one of whom may have been tall and wearing a brown or black coat?’
But the two men weren’t gone yet. They had disappeared around the corner only a minute ago. Kim was sure he could find them again.
What would the superheroes on TV do? he asked himself.
‘I’ll follow them,’ he said. ‘To get a better description.’
‘I strongly advise you not to do that,’ the operator said.
In books and movies the heroes always acted immediately. They didn’t stop to worry about consequences—they just ran into the burning building or jumped overboard to save the drowning swimmer or whatever.
27:30But Kim was a thinker. He often worried that someday he would get the chance to be a hero, and he would hesitate too long. What if this was his chance right now?
He stared at the alley where the two men had disappeared. What would a superhero do? he asked himself again.
27:00He ran to the corner of Riverside Lane and peered in. It was a narrow alley, deserted except for three women at the other end. One of them pushed a pram. He couldn’t see the two men.
Kim was unsure whether to feel disappointed or relieved. They must have reached the other end and turned either right or left. Kim decided to run up there and have a look around.
He made it about ten steps.
As he passed a doorway a hand reached out of the shadows and grabbed him by the collar. The cold muzzle of the shotgun pressed against his temple.
‘See?’ a voice said. ‘I told you he saw the gun.’
Kim’s heart skipped a beat. He wondered if it was possible for a kid to have a heart attack. He still had the phone in his hand, but before he could shout for help one of the men snatched it from him and ended the call.
The guy with the gun was a lanky man with sallow skin and stringy blond hair. His coat was dark blue, not brown or black. He stared at Kim with enormous eyes which never seemed to blink.
26:10The other man was built like a gorilla. Big shoulders, short legs and a high domed head which hung forwards, as though he’d spent his formative years hunched over a laptop. Stubbly lumps encrusted his square jaw like barnacles on the Titanic. He was holding a briefcase—another thing Kim had pretty much only seen on TV.
Neither of them was especially tall.
25:40‘How much did you tell the cops?’ the gunman said.
Kim talked rapidly. ‘I said I saw two men coming out of a bank. A skinny guy with blond hair, a dark blue coat and a shotgun, and a bulky man with stubble and a briefcase.’
He had hoped that the two men would flee when they heard this. They didn’t.
‘What do you want to do with him?’ the gorilla asked.
‘Can’t let him go,’ the lanky guy said. ‘He’s a witness.’
‘This is some kind of joke, right?’ Kim said. ‘That’s just a fake gun, and there are hidden cameras watching my reaction?’
He didn’t really believe it. But if the two thugs thought he did, they might let him go.
24:20No luck. ‘Listen up, kid,’ the gunman said.
He had a voice like a blues singer with the flu. ‘We’re going to take a walk. I’m going to be right behind you. If you try to run, I’ll shoot you. If you talk to anyone, I’ll shoot you and them and whoever else happens to be nearby for good measure.’
The gorilla smiled, showing chipped teeth. ‘He’s not a great shot,’ he said, ‘but with a gun like that, you don’t have to be.’
24:00‘Do as we say,’ the gunman continued, ‘and you’ll live a long, happy life with a great story to tell at parties. Got that?’
Kim doubted it, but he nodded.
‘Smart boy,’ the gunman said. ‘Let’s go.’
He slipped the shotgun back into his coat and pushed Kim out of the doorway so suddenly he fell over. The damp asphalt scraped his palms and bruised his tailbone.
23:20‘Get up,’ the gorilla growled. He didn’t need a gun of his own to sound threatening.
Kim scrambled to his feet.
‘Walk that way.’ The gorilla pointed back the way they had come, towards the bank.
Kim shuffled back up the alley. He couldn’t hear any footsteps. Perhaps the two thugs had fled in the opposite direction.
He looked back over his shoulder. No such luck. The two men loomed right behind him. The gun wasn’t pointed at him, but he could feel it waiting beneath the blue coat.
‘Eyes straight ahead,’ the gunman hissed.
23:00Kim turned back to face the road. When they reached the mouth of the alley, the main street was as busy as before. Pedestrians strode back and forth, oblivious to the hostage situation playing out right in front of them.
‘Left,’ the gorilla said.
Kim turned. They walked past shops, bus stops and road signs towards an underground car park.
Before they reached it, a police car pulled up to the curb. Two police officers, one female, one male, stepped out of the car and started walking towards Kim and the thugs.
22:00‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ the gunman said, just loud enough for Kim to hear.
Kim kept walking towards the cops who were approaching them.
He glanced at their faces as they were about to pass by. If one had shot him a questioning gaze, or stared pointedly at the men behind him, he might have tried to warn them. But neither of them even looked at him. They were searching for two men, one tall, one with a brown or black coat. Not two men and a child, all of average height, one with a blue coat.