by Amy Cross
“No!” Wendy hissed, pulling her hand free as she tried not to panic. “I want to go home right now!”
In a nearby bed, a figure turned under the blankets and then sat up, woken by the sound. A moment later, the same happened in half a dozen beds along the aisle.
“You're making a lot of noise,” Sister Julia whispered, her voice sounding a little more stern now. “Wendy, you mustn't misbehave or you'll get a reputation. Come to bed and wait until morning.”
“Is that the girl whose house got hit by a plane?” asked a voice from one of the beds.
“Quiet!” Sister Julia hissed, turning to the beds one-by-one. “I want all of you to go back to sleep immediately. This is nothing to do with any of you! Nosy little things!”
Slowly, the figures in the beds began to settle again.
“Please,” Sister Julia continued, reaching her hand out to Wendy again, “let's not have any more silliness. Just because times are hard, we mustn't allow ourselves to weaken. God is watching over us, and we have to trust that he has a plan for us all, Wendy, including you. It's just a few more hours until dawn, and then Mother Superior will talk to you properly, and you shall have to listen to her and be brave. There's nothing to worry about, you're quite safe.” She paused, before allowing a broad smile to cross her face. “We wouldn't let anything happen to you here, not at Barton's Cross monastery.”
Chapter Five
Today
“Base to Echo-1, are you receiving me? Over.”
Raising the radio to her mouth as she made her way across the dark atrium, Alice clicked the button on the side. “I'm here, I -”
“Respond with your call-sign, please.”
She sighed. “Echo-1 here,” she continued, despite feeling a little ridiculous. “I'm in the atrium now. I'm just looking for a way up to the third floor.”
“I can see you, Echo-1,” Donald replied. “There's an escalator to your right, about five yards away.”
“You can see me?” she asked, looking around and finally spotting a camera high up on one of the walls, with a small green light just below the lens. She paused for a moment, imagining Donald watching her from the office. There was something desperately, almost pathetically keen about Donald, and she felt that she was being tested. Making her way around the corner, she saw a rusty old escalator leading to the first floor, so she began to make her way up.
“Highly habituated visual input,” Donald said after a moment.
“I'm sorry?”
“That feeling you get when you're walking up a broken escalator,” he continued, sounding more than a little pleased with himself. “You're so used to the idea that it should be moving, you make little adjustments in your head, even when it's completely still.”
“Okay,” she replied, already starting to feel as if Donald had a 'fascinating' fact about everything she encountered.
“That's why you feel disorientated on a static moving transport conveyance staircase unit,” he added.
“Okay.”
Reaching the top of the escalator, she stopped for a moment and shone her flashlight around, seeing the dark, empty corridors of the deserted shopping mall. Abandoned stores lined the walls, their rectangular black windows reflecting the light from the flashlight as she turned, and a few of them still had the ghosts of brand-names above their doors, like names on tombstones. Making her way over to one of the stores, she cupped her hands around her eyes and peered through the dark window, and she saw that the interior had been gutted, with just a few rails left on the wall and some packing boxes dumped by the stripped counter. As she looked through more windows, she realized that in most of the stores there were still a few old boxes of merchandise.
“You alright there?” Donald asked over the radio suddenly.
Almost jumping out of her skin, she stepped back and looked around, half expecting to find him nearby.
“Sorry,” he continued, “didn't mean to scare you like that. Smile!”
Spotting a camera on one of the nearby pillars, next to the old elevators, she paused for a moment before turning and heading to the next escalator. There was still no sign of anyone around, but she still shone her flashlight up to the next level for a moment, before making her way up. When she got to the second floor, she leaned over the railing and looked around the vast atrium, marveling at the idea that the place had once been a busy, vibrant shopping mall. Now it felt more like the empty husk of something that had outgrown the space and wriggled away. Shining the flashlight across the atrium, she trained the beam on a shop on an old clothes shop on the other side, and for a moment she tried to focus on the silence all around.
“One more to go,” Donald said suddenly over the radio.
Nodding, she headed to another broken escalator and made her way up to the third floor. The escalator's metal steps clanged as she got to the top. Walking past rows of dark, abandoned stores, she finally found the spot where she'd seen something on the monitor, or at least where she'd thought she'd seen something, since now she was starting to have doubts. Looking around, she spotted a camera high up on one of the nearby columns, but she preferred not to think about the fact that Donald was watching her so, instead, she made her way to the exact spot where she'd seen a shadow fall across the floor. Looking around now, the whole thing felt absurd, and she figured Donald was probably chuckling away at her from the comfort of his swivel chair. He probably thought she was jumpy, maybe even paranoid.
Even worse, he was probably right.
A moment later, a burst of static hissed from her radio. She could hear Donald's voice somewhere in the mix, but it was quickly lost in a howl of noise.
“I don't know what you're saying,” she told him, although she immediately felt somehow 'wrong' breaking the silence with her voice. It was like talking in church while everyone else was praying.
Another burst of static, and then the radio stuttered a couple of times before dying completely.
“Are you still there?” she asked.
No reply.
“Echo-1 to base,” she added. “Come in. Over.”
Sighing, she looked up at the camera and waved, before holding the radio up as if to show him what had gone wrong. She waited a moment longer, before realizing that there was no way she could get in touch with him. Suspicious that maybe he'd switched the system off on purpose in an attempt to freak her out, she slipped the radio back onto the clip around her waist and turned, shining the flashlight around one more time to make sure that there was no sign of anyone. She didn't even know what she was supposed to be looking for, not really, but there was nothing to indicate that an intruder had broken into the mall and -
Suddenly the flashlight flickered a couple of times, before dying completely.
She peered at the bulb and saw that it was fading fast. Tapping it didn't help.
“Great,” she muttered. Again, talking out loud felt wrong in such a place.
With no light now, she took a few steps forward in pitch darkness. The only light came from the domed glass ceiling several floors above, but moonlight streaming down into the central atrium only served to make the surrounding balconies seem darker. She made her way past several black windows, figuring that she should at least look like she was checking the place out. After all, she knew Donald was probably still watching her over the cameras, and the last thing she wanted was to get back to the office and have him ridicule her efforts. Barely able to see in the darkness, she held onto the railing as she made her way past the disused elevators, and finally she rounded the next corner and looked along a corridor lined with yet more abandoned shops.
She let out a sigh of relief.
The place was obviously empty.
A moment later, she heard a faint scratching sound nearby.
Turning, she looked back the way she'd just come, but there was no sign of anyone. She took a few steps back toward the main balcony, while looking around for some sign of a rat or another pest, anything that could have made the sound, bu
t there was nothing. Glancing down at the floor, she half expected to see a rodent scurrying past, but again there was absolutely no hint of movement. She turned, looking all around, filled with the sudden sense that there was definitely something nearby, convinced that at any moment she was about to see someone, gripped by panic but determined not to show it in case Donald was still watching over the cameras. She stopped, forcing herself to stay calm, telling herself that she had to keep from letting her mind run away with the possibilities.
Slowly, she began to feel something blowing gently on the back of her neck.
She turned, but once again there was no sign of anyone. Just a camera high up on a nearby wall, with its little green light glowing in the dark, and the tingling sensation that someone had been standing behind her just a moment earlier.
Silence.
And then, suddenly, the rattling of hurried footsteps nearby, coming up the broken escalator until finally Donald appeared, shining his flashlight straight at her and causing her to immediately shield her eyes.
“Where is she?” he called out, stepping over to her.
“Who?” she asked, still not able to look straight at him.
He lowered the torch and shone it all around. “Did you see which way she went?”
“Who?” Alice asked again, turning to him.
“Did she go up or down?” Leaning over the balcony, he shone his flashlight around for a moment, before turning to her and grabbing her radio from around her waist. “What's wrong with this thing?”
“I don't know,” she replied, still startled. “I just -”
Hitting a button on the side, Donald brought the device crackling back to life. “Why'd you turn it off?” he asked.
“I didn't.”
“This switch here,” he replied, holding it up for her to see. “You can toggle the radio on and off. You toggled it off.”
She shook her head. “It just stopped working by itself.”
“Rookie mistake,” he muttered, handing the radio back to her before heading over to the foot of the broken escalator and shining his flashlight up to the fourth floor. “Did you seriously not see which way she went?”
“There was no-one here,” Alice told him, trying to stay calm. “I looked, but I didn't find anyone.”
“Why'd you turn your flashlight off?”
“I didn't,” she replied, holding it up and flicking the switch on the side, “it just seemed to -” Before she could finish, the flashlight came on, shining its beam up to the ceiling.
“We have to find her,” Donald replied with a sigh, heading to another of the escalators and looking down toward the second floor. “Can't let someone run loose in the place, can we? How did she look close up? Drug addict? Rough-sleeper?”
“Who are you talking about?” Alice asked.
“The girl,” he replied, turning to her. “The one who was right here.”
“There was no girl.”
“Course there was.”
“No,” she continued, shaking her head. “I'm sure of it. There was no girl here.”
“Alice -” He stared at her for a moment. “Just before the camera cut away, I saw -”
“There was no girl,” she said again, determined to stand her ground. She figured he was toying with her, trying to make her doubt herself. “Even with the flashlight off, I'd definitely have seen a girl if she was nearby.”
“Seen her?” He paused, with a faint frown. “Alice, I was watching you on the camera. You didn't just see her. You were talking to her.”
Chapter Six
1941
“How did your family die?”
Flat on her back in bed, staring up at the dark ceiling, Wendy ignored the question. She didn't know the name of the girl in the next bed, didn't know anything about her at all, and she certainly didn't want to get into a conversation. Besides, it was a dumb question. She knew her family wasn't dead. Not her mother, anyway. In fact, she was waiting for her mother to arrive and collect her. Looking over at the door at the far end of the dormitory, she willed it to open.
“How did your family die?” the voice asked again.
This time Wendy turned and saw the girl in the next bed, staring at her with eyes that were just about visible above the sheets.
“It's alright,” the other girl continued. “Sister Julia left the room for her break. She won't be back for twenty minutes, we can talk without getting in trouble.” She paused. “So how did your family die?”
Wendy stared at her for a moment, before looking back up at the ceiling.
“It's okay,” the girl said. “We're all in the same boat. My family's dead too.”
“My family's not dead,” Wendy whispered.
“Mum was hit by a car,” the girl continued, “and Dad died a few months earlier in an ambush somewhere in France. We'd got the telegram a while back. My grandparents died a long time ago, and my aunt didn't reply to messages, so I suppose she didn't want to take me in. I can understand, really. Everyone's struggling with the war. Anyway, that's how I ended up here, I'm just lucky the monastery was able to take me. What about you?”
Refusing to answer, Wendy continued to stare at the ceiling.
“Her house got hit by a plane,” said another voice suddenly, from one of the other beds.
Wendy turned and saw another girl watched from the other side of the aisle.
“It did,” the second girl continued. “I heard about it.”
“Was that you?” the first girl asked. “Is that why you've got those bandages?”
“It is,” the second girl replied. “I heard Sister Julia and Sister Anna-Maria talking about it earlier. They said Wendy's house got completely flattened by a crashed plane and Wendy's mother was inside and the fuel from the plane made the house burn like -”
“Stop!” Wendy shouted suddenly, sitting up and glaring at the girl. She immediately felt flashes of pain under her bandages, but she held her breath so she wouldn't start crying.
“And Wendy got burned,” the girl continued, with a faint smile. “She was lucky. She wasn't in the house. Everyone who was in the house got killed, but Wendy just got burned in the street.”
***
“You can't go out there!” the first girl shouted. “It's the middle of the night, you're not -”
Slamming the door shut and leaning back against it, Wendy took a deep breath and tried to ignore the creeping pain under her bandages. She closed her eyes, trying to drown out everything those two stupid girls had just said in the dormitory, but her mind was racing and she kept replaying their words over and over again.
“Everyone who was in the house got killed.”
“Wendy's mother was inside.”
“Wendy just got burned.”
“Fuel from the plane made the house burn.”
“Wendy's an orphan now, like the rest of us.”
“It's not true,” she whispered. “None of it's true.”
Slowly, she opened her eyes. She had no doubt that the other girls were still talking about her in there, and that they'd probably enjoyed provoking her, but she knew she'd have made a bigger mistake if she'd stayed. She'd just about resisted the urge to jump onto the second girl's bed and start pulling her hair out, but it would have happened eventually and then she'd have been in real trouble. Looking both ways along the dark corridor, she realized that there was still no sign of Sister Julia or any of the other nuns.
“Get a doctor!” she suddenly heard Matthew's voice screaming in the back of her mind. “Someone get a doctor!”
She remembered the pain, flashing through her chest, and the orange glow bursting out from the flames.
“What's wrong?” she remembered shouting. “Why are you staring at me like that?” She remembered touching her face and feeling it falling apart, and then after that...
After that...
There had been a hospital, and a doctor. Rolling up her right sleeve, she saw that in the gaps between the bandages there were several red marks fro
m where she'd been injected.
“Just rest,” she remembered a calm, friendly voice telling her at one point. “Everything's going to be okay.”
And then...
She waited, but the memories seemed stuck somewhere else in her mind, as if they couldn't reach the surface. She sighed, leaning back against the cold wall, trying to remember a little more.
Suddenly, in the distance, she heard footsteps.
Someone was coming.
She only had a fraction of a second to decide what to do, and she chose to slip around the corner and hold her breath, listening as the footsteps got closer. A moment later, she heard the door being opened and closed, and she realized Sister Julia must have come back from her break. She tried to imagine what the other girls would do. Would they tell on her, or would they pretend to be asleep so that they didn't get into trouble too? She knew Sister Julia would notice soon enough that she was gone, and she knew there was no way she could sneak back in without being seen, so she was already in trouble. All she could do, she told herself, was try to find a way out before she was caught, and then she could run home and then she could tell her mother about all the horrible lies everyone had been telling, and then her mother would make everything okay.
Those girls had been making things up about her mother.
They were liars.
As the minutes passed, she realized that Sister Julia would have come running out of the dormitory by now if the girls had told her what happened. Figuring that she had at least a little time to make good her escape, Wendy hurried along the corridor, ignoring the pain in her sore limbs and focusing instead on the need to get away. When she reached the end of the corridor, she hauled herself up on top of a radiator and looked out through a small window, and she saw to her frustration that she was several floors up. Outside, a large yard stretched away to a wall in the distance, but it was hard to see too much since all the lights were off due to the blackout.