Day begins to turn into night. It starts getting cold. I desperately want to stop, but we keep on going and going. Then darkness begins to descend. The grass is getting wet. My feet are freezing. My toes are going numb. I can’t do this anymore. The younger of the men drops his bag onto the floor. He pulls out a head torch and puts it on his head. We keep walking. I am so tired I begin falling over and stumbling at every step. My feet are killing me. I can’t walk anymore. My legs give way. I fall. The older man lifts me up and puts me over his shoulder. We keep on going. I am so tired. I barely know what is happening.
twenty-two
Olly is calling out to me, I can hear his voice, but it is faint, distant.
“Izzy, where are you? We’re coming for you.”
I see Olly and Stephen running up a country lane, running after me. I lazily wave to them.
“I’m here,” I call back.
But they don’t seem to hear me. They are running towards me, but they seem to be getting further and further away. Like I am floating away from them.
“Here I am,” I manage to utter, though my mouth feels rubbery, I don’t seem to be able to form words correctly.
What is wrong with me? I can’t seem to lift my hand up to wave at them. I can’t even force an ounce of enthusiasm into myself.
“We’re coming Izzy,” Olly shouts. “We’ll find you.”
“I’m her...” in my laziness I can’t even finish the sentence.
What is happening? Why does my voice seem to be falling away from me? Why am I still here? Why can’t they hear me? Where am I? Why is everything so strange and hazy? Why do I feel like they are falling away from me the closer they get?
I wake up. Where am I? I’m freezing. Shit. I remember. Fuck. I am suddenly wide awake. I am suddenly thrown in to the wild. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Real-life is worse than the nightmare. I sit up abruptly. What’s happening? I can see that the all-encompassing darkness of night is on the cusp of turning to grey. Day is coming. Where am I? Oh my God… Where am I? I look about intently. In the limited starlight I can see that I am in a field. I am lying beneath some trees and there are bushes. I try to feel where we are? I try to use the senses Olly taught me down in the bunker. I can’t concentrate. I’m too preoccupied, I’m too scared. I look about. The two men are here, they are sleeping beside me. One on either side. They are both snoring away. I can just about make out that they are laying in sleeping bags. I realise that I am laying in one too, and my hands are still tied up. They are behind my back again, and now there is a rope attached to my hands. I can feel it digging into my wrists. I can feel its scratchy material rubbing away at my skin. I feel awful. I am starving, and thirsty, and scared. I am all alone, in the real sense of the word. I cannot connect to anything. My mind has been stolen. I wish I was with Olly, but I have this overwhelming sensation that I will see him again. I already did, in my dreams. I can do this. First things first, I need to get out of here.
My eyes begin adjusting to the darkness. I look down at the opening to the sleeping bag. I can see that the rope trails from my hands and flows over the grass and is wrapped around a tree. I am trapped but not without hope. This is my chance. My heart starts to race. I heat up. I look at the men. I listen. They are in a deep sleep. I sigh, I relax. Bollocks. What am I going to do? I tense back up. I have to do this. I have to. There may be no other chance. This may be my only chance, ever, before my fate. Whatever that is. I have got to get out of here.
I lay back down silently. I bend my knees and begin struggling with the rope and my taped hands. I am trying to shimmy them down my back and over my bum and hips. The rope is scratching me. The duct tape is stuck tight. It is hurting. I am scraping my back with the rope and the tape. I am almost pulling my arms out of their sockets. Please, please, please, go down, stupid child-bearing hips, please, please, let me get out of here. Come on, come on. Come on. I breathe deeply, hold it for a second, then expel all the air out of my lungs. I hold my breath once more, then yank my arms down as hard as I possibly can. They somehow slide over my hips. Phew. Thank God. I breathe a sigh of relief. Shit that was loud. I freeze and listen. Are they stirring? Are they awake? I close my eyes and listen. They are still sleeping. Thank God. I pray to get out of here. One of them turns over. Shit. I wait. He grunts, turns again and begins snoring. I almost laugh at how intensely nervous I am. I close my eyes and look up to the Heavens. Thank God for small mercies. I lift my hands up to my mouth and start gnawing off the duct tape. It tastes gross. I spit pieces of it onto the grass. The men stir again. I freeze and stare at one of them. The very first rays of light are coming over the horizon. Quick girl, quick. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Then the other one stirs behind me. I whip my head around. I stare at him silently, motionless, willing him to fall back to sleep. Wishing that he will never wake up ever again. I watch and wait and listen. They both are still sleeping soundly. I can tell by their breathing. I get back to gnawing off the tape. My heart races, my body flushes. My temperature rises. I am sweating. I break it open and rip it off. I pull the rope off of my arms. Go, go, go, quietly, but go. I slowly slip out of the sleeping bag and gingerly stand up. My legs feel wobbly, but I strengthen them instantly with all the power of my mind. The grass feels damp on my bare feet. I tiptoe away to a safe distance, keeping an eye on the men. I turn away and start to run through the fields. I run and run and run across the open land, I glance back only once to see if they are moving. It’s too dark to tell. I can only just make out the few trees I was under. I turn back and run for my life.
I don’t care that I am running over stones. Adrenaline is making me run like a gazelle. I reach the edge of the field. There is a fence. Shit. I run along the length of it until I find the stile. I climb over. I am in a thicket now. I rush through the undergrowth in almost total darkness. One of my feet begins to really hurt. It begins to throb, but I can’t stop yet. I won’t stop. I run across another field. The light is beginning to come up. I run across a road, then another field. Anything to get away. I run into a small forest. I have to slow to a walk now, my foot. I’m sure there is enough distance between us now anyway. Surely they will never find me. Will they? I could have gone anywhere. I stop and stand perfectly still. I glance around in all directions and listen. The sound of silence reaches my ears. Relief floods through me like a drug. I sigh long and hard. But at that same moment, my foot really starts to kill. It feels as if there is a knife driving into it. I need to get deeper into the woods. I need a few more metres. I hobble onwards.
I have no idea where I am, but I keep on going through the trees and the woods and the undergrowth until I can take it no more, until I literally cannot walk on my broken foot, not one more step. What is wrong with it? I have to stop. I do. I stand and look upwards into the twisted branches and breathe. Then I collapse on to the ground beneath an old oak tree. I gather my composure. I catch my breath. I wipe my sweaty head with the sleeve of my top. I don’t want to look, but I have too. I hold my breath and lift my painful foot up on to my lap. It is filthy. Dirt and crap completely covers my foot. I run my hand over it to dust off all the little clumps of mud and the small stones and sticks. It is painful to touch. My hand comes away coated in blood. There is a cut on it. Shit. No, no. No. Why me? I press down where the cut is, I flinch and whip my hand away. It is horrible. Oh, God. I lean back against the tree. I rub my face in my hands. What the fuck am I supposed to do now? The panic rises. I am shaking with anger and fear. And where the fuck am I? How am I going to get back to the cottage from here? The adrenaline is fading away as reality kicks in. The pain increases. I start to cry. I am hopelessly lost. And then there is the thirst and the hunger, which is beating me up. I feel as if everything is out to get me.
“Why do you want to defeat me?” I say to myself, to the trees, to God, to whatever’s listening.
I crumple down on to my side and cry. I am wretched. Cold, wet leaves press into my face. I see a slug. Gross. I sit back up and wipe my eyes with my muddy hands. No. I shake
my head. No. No. This will not do at all. Be brave Izzy, be brave, be brave, be strong. You can do this. But it is so hard. I push myself against the trunk of the tree. I stare up and into the old oaks branches. I feel an affinity with the tree as if it is trying to comfort me. I need it too. I want it too. I am being soothed. We are all connected. We are one. As I stare upwards I feel as if my senses are coming back to me, my strength, my resolve, my will to get out of here is growing. What else am I supposed to do? I have to keep going. I wipe away all the tears. I grit my teeth, my determination, nothing will conquer me. I suddenly become aware of the sound of water. It is very faint, but is somewhere close by. I sit up and listen intently. Where is that coming from? I listen some more. It sounds like a trickle, a little waterfall. I smile to myself. It is a blessing.
“Thank you,” I say, “thank you, thank you.”
I begin to crawl through the undergrowth, through wet soggy leaves, and mud, and twigs, ever closer towards the sound of flowing water. The sound grows louder, marginally. Where is it? I am sure I am almost on top of it. Where is it? My hand slips on some old, wet, leaves and I slip forwards. My chin hits the bank of a tiny stream.
“Ouch.”
I kneel up and rub my chin. Whoops. I start to laugh. I found it. I sit up and look down at the water. I am so thirsty I’d drink anything. I lean forwards and start scooping the water up in my hand. I lap it up and into my mouth. I can’t get enough. My hunger twangs and I lean further forward to scoop up even more. I relish in the water. It is like Heaven. I feel as if my body and mind are beginning to work again. My brain is starting to fire new connections. Things do not seem so dire. I am starting to calm, and my thoughts are flowing more easily. I splash the water on to my face. The cool feels really fresh and pure against my sweaty skin. I wish I knew where I was and where to go, but I feel I can do what is needed now.
I dip my feet into the water. The cool instantly soothes the wound. I watch as my blood flows downstream and dilutes away. I wonder how long it will take until I fade and disappear into the Earth too. What will become of me? What will become of us all? A squirrel appears in front of me. It stares at me. We are both perfectly still. It turns its head and eyes me, nervously. Then it jumps closer to the water. It leans down and takes a sip before running away, back into the undergrowth. I breathe deeply. The air from the forest feels magical. I close my eyes. I can hear the forest. I can hear the trees talking to each other in a deep tone, a deep resonance. It lifts me momentarily then I feel it, a warning. It kind of just judders into existence. I have to get going.
I lift my feet out one at a time and check them. The left one is fine, so I pop it back in the water. Now for the right one. I hold my breath and lift it up, as I do blood and water drips down off my heel and into the stream. It begins to throb. I pull it onto my lap. I try to wash the mud away from the cut but I can’t, pain shoots up through me when I touch too close to the wound. Shit, it’s bad. I sit and stare at it for a moment. I am deflating at the very sight of it. It is quite a large cut, and deep. Dirt is pushed right into the wound. What am I supposed to do? I am in the middle of nowhere with nothing to help me. I shake my head and dip my foot back into the water. I lay down. This won’t do. I have to go. I have got to do something. The men could be anywhere. I have to find a way out of here. What to do? I decide I have to make a bandage. I look around, the arm of my top will have to do. I rip up the sleeve and pull the forearm off my top. I tie it around the ball of my cut foot. That’s better. A makeshift bandage is better than no bandage at all. I sit still for a moment and concentrate on breathing in the clean air of the forest. I listen to the natural sounds. I hear birds above singing, and squirrels jumping from branch to branch. Everything is normal for them. Everything is getting better for them. I look down into the pure waters of the stream. My face is distorted. I feel distorted. Everything is distorted for me. What am I going to do? A rush of cold fear floods up through me. I try to conquer it. I pinch my arm. Stay calm, stay calm.
I have to go. Day is in full swing now. It is another bright and sunny one. I think about the little camp. The men may be waking up now. They may have been awake for ages. Oh, God. What if they find me? What if I run into them? What will they do to me now that I have tried to escape? I try not to think about it, but it’s almost impossible not to. Surely they will be looking for me, but the land is so big, will they be able to? Are they expert trackers? Like the ones Stephen was talking about. Like the ones he was trying to hide us from and failed. They must be. I rub my face in my hands. I have no idea what they would look for, how they would do it. They found me the first time. I feel like something is gripping at me, like the devil is squeezing my heart. I have to go. I have to get more distance between us. I lean forwards and scoop a few more handfuls of water into my mouth until I am so full of water I can hear it splashing away inside my stomach. I stand up and look about. I can’t even remember which way I came in from, everything looks the bloody same. Think Izzy think. I’m pretty sure we were headed north yesterday, that means I need to head south. Away from them. If there weren’t so many trees about maybe I could work out which way south is from the Sun. Shit. This is all too much. I close my eyes and try to use what Olly was teaching me down in the bunker. He showed me so many things in his childish way. He told me how his eyes sometimes told him lies. He can feel things. He is so young though. I don’t know what to think. I try and feel which way to go. I turn on the spot trying to know which way is the right direction. I turn 360°. I am thinking too much. I need to clear my mind, clear my thoughts. But it is so bloody hard with all this panic and pain. I feel as if there is a fizzing and bubbling going on inside me. I clench my fists. Calm down, Izzy. Calm down. In through the nose out through the mouth. The birds are singing up above, like they are trying to soothe me, to calm me. My heart rate drops. I unclench my fists. Try again, just feel it, that’s what Olly told me.
“I can just feel it, Izzy, I just know, it comes to me.”
I remember staring at him across the room in the bunker. He had been explaining how he knew that everything was going to be OK. He had told me we would be OK.
“How do you know?” I had asked…
I stand under the trees, somewhere in England, somewhere in the countryside, someplace where I am lost… “OK Olly,” I whisper to myself, “I’m listening.”
So all I need to do is allow it to come to me. I breathe long and deep. I clear my mind. I close my eyes. I turn slowly. I suddenly see a man’s face flash up in my minds eyes. It’s like he is calling out to me, this way. The face becomes more detailed. It’s Stephens' face. I’m sure of it. My eyes spring open. I limp forwards boldly, into the unknown, into the face of my Father.
twenty-three
I push on through the undergrowth even though my foot is throbbing. The makeshift bandage is helping, but only a little bit. It keeps slipping, meaning that every so often I have to stop, bend down, slide the bandage back into place, and tighten it up, again, and again, and again. This is a proper pain in the arse. It is going to take me ages to get anywhere at this rate. Yet walk forwards I must, walk forwards I do, in the way I am beckoned, in the way I believe with all my soul to be right. I know this is the way, it is calling to me, soothing me, calming me ever so slightly every step I take. I have to keep going. I have to keep trying. I have to keep putting pressure on my poor cut foot. What else am I supposed to do? I have no other choice. I have to beat the pain and the hunger and the exhaustion and the constant dread. I push on through the forest, breathing in the soil rich air, swiping low branches out of my way as I go. I can hear them swing back into place as I pass, as if I had never been there at all. I feel like I am nothing more than a ghost.
I walk until I reach the edge of the woods and come upon a field. It is overgrown and unkempt, unlike any agricultural land I have ever seen before. There are wildflowers and long grass and haphazard crops. Nature is finding a way, blending itself back together. It was never defeated, only down. Betw
een me and the field is a fence. I step towards it and hold on to the wire. My hands fit neatly between the barbs. I don’t want to go through it. I look left and right along the wire, there is no stile anywhere in sight and the fence goes on for miles. Shit. I am going to have to go through it. I sigh and deflate at the thought, my shoulders sag. Can’t something just be easy for once? I put my good foot on the lower wire and push it down. It gives, all the way down to the ground. I bend down and go through, but the top wire scrapes my back. I flinch and fall through the fence and into the field. More injuries. Great. I am slowly becoming an old battle axe. Scarred and damaged and defective and pathetic. What man will want me by the time I’m done saving myself? Not that there will be many of those around when I’m ready for all that wild sex I was looking forward to anyway, but still…. I sigh and sit up and fix my bandage back into place, again. I tie it as tight as I can without completely cutting off the blood flow to my toes. I stand up and brush myself down. Dust, dirt, bits of old, dried-up grass and twigs, and little stones fall off me. I shake myself like a puppy that has just had a bath for the first time.
I put my hands on my hips and glance across the field. It is so wide and open, and now that the day is risen, I am completely without cover. I listen for a minute. I can’t hear anything human. I look in all directions. Studying every inch. There is no one in sight, no large animals either, not that I had given that element much thought until this moment, but now that I have... What happened to all the zoos? Why did I just think that? I can’t force the idea back in, I can’t make it un-thought. Where are the lions and tigers and bears? What if some kind-hearted soul released all the animals before they died and I get mauled to death. That would be just my luck. Stop it. I’m going to be sick. The anxiety... it is rising to new heights. Oh for fucks sake, go. I put my good foot forward and start to cross. Every footfall hurts. The mud has been churned up and sodden then dried and hardened back up in the Sun. It is like walking over rubble from a demolished building. Why me? It is tough, uneven, and stony, yet keep going I must, and keep going I do. What other choice do I have? Wait to be found? Wait to be taken back to God knows where? Wait until Olly finds me? No. I must go. I carry on and try to block out the throbbing pain in my foot at every step I take, but it is so hard. I suck my lips in between my teeth and grip them, I stare up and into the clear blue sky. I accidentally kick a stone wedged into the mud, I bust my big toe. I almost scream out. I trip forwards. I fall. My hands crash down hard into more stones. I almost cry. I look at my hands. They are covered in crap and are throbbing. I gently rub my hands together to dust off the tiny stones and mud. They are grazed. Great. The pain slowly subsides. I get back up and onto my feet. I keep my eyes on the ground ahead of me. I need to see where best to place my foot. Why do things always have to be so bloody difficult? Breathe in confidence, breathe out fear. In through the nose and out through the mouth. You’re doing it, you’re going to be fine.
Tears of Blood Page 14