And that’s the reason I’ve been watching the sky and waiting since I finished my morning provisions. Waiting for my chance. And it’s nearly here. Cos right now the sun’s getting towards the highest point in the sky. The lunch provisions will be here any minute. And I’m ready. I block out all the other sounds in the room and I listen until I hear footsteps in the corridor.
And that’s when I pull back my sheets and get out of bed.
On the other side of the door, there’s jangling as the priests search for the correct key. I hear the sound of the lock turning and I step towards the door.
As soon as the door swings open, I run, barging past one of the priests, knocking into him, sending him sprawling, while the other one looks on, shocked.
And before they’ve realised what’s happening, I’m out of the room.
Blake
The area where Jesper’s been for the last seventy-two or so hours is right in the middle of a ‘no-man’s-land’, not far from the landing site. For eighty or more kilometres around, the population was decimated, first by the impact, then by the fever and finally by New Dawn’s clearance operation when they sprang to prominence in the wake of the pandemic. The only people who stray into this area now are New Dawn patrols and the desperate.
And Jesper.
As I race along the two hundred or so kilometres from the Huber Corporation facility to Schweilszeldorf, the road is empty. No patrols, no wild children. The only other living soul I see is a deer that stands in the middle of the road, dumbly watching my van race towards it, before darting away at the last minute.
In the back of the van is a small portable freezer, keeping the strain frozen.
From time to time I check the screen to see if Jesper’s moved, to see whether they’ve found and taken him. The red marker remains unmoved in Schweilszeldorf, which could mean a number of things. Perhaps Henwood’s information was wrong and he’s searching the wrong place. Maybe he found Jesper and shot him, leaving his body where it fell. Or perhaps he was already dead.
As I reach the outskirts of Schweilszeldorf, I pull off the road into the trees and switch off the engine. Another look at the screen indicates Jesper still hasn’t moved.
I must be careful. If Hersch was right, Henwood is probably here now, or at least on his way. I take my handgun from its holster underneath my jacket. With a click, I release the clip. I refill it with bullets and then push it back into the handle of the gun.
I reach over and put on a breathing mask and then I leave the car.
There’s silence, but for the rustle of leaves and the chattering of birds. The area’s deserted. I walk along the overgrown road towards the village, gun held out in front of me, eyes darting around. I reach the village sign, covered by a biohazard warning, and pause for a second, looking around at the ruins.
The coast seems clear. I pick out the building that the tracking device suggested Jesper was in and hurry towards it. As I get close, I see immediately that it’s been used recently – someone’s had a fire here. There are animal bones scattered around the room. I start to hope that this could be a sign that Jesper’s survived out here, that the clips I played on The Screen gave him enough information to survive.
Then I notice something screwed up next to a wall. It’s the coat I dressed Jesper in, the one he was wearing when I dropped him off in the forest. I reach down and grab it. I feel along the hem of the coat until I find something hard and square – the tracking chip I inserted in there. I go through the pockets of the coat and find a slip of paper – crumpled and stuck together. The letter I left him with. I hide it in my own pocket.
I check the rest of the rooms in the building and find no sign of him, so I head back outside, searching from building to building – prising boards off doors of some buildings to get inside.
But Jesper is nowhere.
It’s in the gap between two houses that I finally stumble across something.
Two bodies.
An old man – bearded and dirty and looking like he’s been living out here alone these last twenty years.
And beside him a dog – all skin and bones and matted fur.
A bloody puddle surrounds the dog. It’s been shot through the head. There’s no obvious sign the man’s been shot, but when I bend down and check his pulse, I discover he’s also dead.
But no sign of Jesper.
Could he have had anything to do with the deaths?
But before I can even think that through, I hear a click behind me. I turn slowly around, clutching my gun.
Henwood stares back at me, wearing a face mask, pointing his gun at me. ‘What are you doing here, Blake?’
Jesper
I find myself in a dimly lit corridor. And I have a decision to make – left or right?
But I can’t just stand here deciding which way to go, can I? If I do, they’ll catch me. So, as the priest I knocked down gets back to his feet and the kids in the room go berserk, I head left and run along the corridor.
My bare feet slap against the wooden floor. Behind me I hear the clacking footsteps of the priests, running after me. I don’t stop to look over my shoulder though; I run as fast as I can. I have to get away from this place.
I run until I see a closed door up ahead – one with glass panels so you can see through to the other side. I race towards it and then, as I reach it, push it with my shoulder.
Only the door doesn’t open.
And when I try to pull it instead, it stays closed.
I push and pull at it frantically, trying to get it to open. Cos this can’t be the end of it, can it? I have to get away. But as hard as I pull and push, the door stays closed.
Locked.
And I have nowhere to run. Cos, when I turn, I see the two priests stalking towards me, sticks in their hands, just like the ones the men in the forest had. I hear the howls and shouts from the room I’ve come from.
I squizz around, searching for an escape.
There are two options: a barred window set high into the wall to my right, which is too high and too small for me to fit through, or to run back past the priests.
And that’s what I choose to do. I run straight at them, barging into them again, covering my head with my arms in case they batter me with the sticks. And in a second, I’m past them and charging back along the corridor, past the door of the room they’ve been keeping me in. I keep running, praying that this way there’s another door to the outside and that this one is open.
And soon I find there is another door, same as the one I ran into at the other end of the corridor. I push against it, pull it, rattle it so hard that it feels like it must fall down. But the door doesn’t budge an inch either.
And in another two seconds the priests grab me by the arms and take me back to the room.
Carina
Today I work outside – taking vegetables from the fields and packing them into sacks, ready to be stored for winter. It’s hard, dirty work, but it isn’t the worst. The fact the sun’s shining makes it bearable.
As I go to wash my hands for lunch I spot Father Liebling standing by the cabin, handing out water. I walk over, past the children lining up to be served.
‘Father Liebling, can I speak to you?’
He turns to me and nods his head, but I can tell from the look on his face that he doesn’t want to be speaking to me. ‘What is it, Carina? I’m busy, as you can see. There’s a queue.’
‘I just want to know about Sabine. It’s been a few days. How is she?’
Father Liebling stops what he’s doing and looks at me. He shakes his head ever so slightly. He doesn’t say a word. Then he goes back to serving water to the children.
And even though I know from that small shake of the head what the answer to my question is, I want to hear it from him. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’
Father Liebling says nothing, doesn’t even glance at me.
‘Was it Marsh Flu?’
But Father Liebling ignores me.
Bla
ke
‘I asked what you’re doing here, Blake?’ Henwood says, gun still aimed at my head.
‘Looking for Boy 23. Same as you.’
‘How did you know to come here?’
I pause before answering. ‘The gossip around the canteen was that Boy 23 had been tracked to Schweilszeldorf. I needed to see for myself.’
‘Gossip?’
I nod.
‘Who did you ask for clearance to come here, Blake?’ he says, still pointing his gun at me.
I say nothing.
‘Does Mr Huber know you’re here?’
I shake my head. ‘Listen, Henwood, do we need to have this conversation at gunpoint? You’re making me nervous.’
Henwood slowly lowers his gun.
‘Thank you.’
But although the gun might have been lowered, his suspicion and thinly veiled dislike remain. ‘You were about to tell me whether Mr Huber knows you’re here . . .’
I shake my head. ‘Huber was busy interrogating Jarl. I took the decision myself. I was Boy 23’s voice, his donor. I want to be the one to find him. I want to be the one to take him back to Huber. It looks like I was too late.’
Henwood raises an eyebrow.
‘I take it he’s dead now, like the dog and the old man?’
He shakes his head. ‘Boy 23 wasn’t here, just the man and his dog.’
‘Did you kill them?’
‘The old man was already dead when I got here,’ Henwood says. ‘My guess is the new strain got him. The dog was by his side, barking like mad when I turned up. I had to shoot it.’
‘Are there any clues to Boy 23’s whereabouts?’
Henwood shakes his head. ‘Just footprints. They don’t belong to the old man, so I’m guessing they’re Boy 23’s. They lead back into the woods and then they stop.’
I sigh. ‘He probably won’t have got far.’
‘We’ll track him down,’ Henwood says.
Jesper
They didn’t beat me with their sticks, but they brought me back here, didn’t they? Back to this room where the boys howl and rock and cry. I’m back to passing the time by sitting on the bed watching the sky through the window so that I don’t have to look at the other boys.
I’m starting to give up hope. There isn’t a way out of this room. The Voice will never find me. I don’t know what I can do to help myself.
When the night-time comes, I drift in and out of sleep, dreaming of running away and finding myself trapped.
* * *
I wake when the morning bell starts tolling and the others in the room stir. I stay in bed, waiting for the footsteps and the keys and the trolley with trays of provisions to arrive.
And soon enough they do.
Except when the priest comes over to my bed – Father Lekmann, the one who speaks English – he’s brought a pile of grey clothes as well as my tray. And after he puts them on my bed, he doesn’t just go away again like usual. Instead he speaks to me, and it makes me flinch because it’s not what I’m expecting.
‘How are you feeling today?’ he asks.
I shrug.
‘What you did yesterday, Jesper, was unnecessary,’ he says. ‘Your time in the medical ward is coming to an end. You’ll be allowed out of this room later today.’
I squizz at him, hoping I just heard him right. ‘What? Really?’
‘Yes. You’ll join the rest of the children in the home, working, attending church and sleeping in an open dormitory.’
I nod. And I’m already thinking that maybe I will get out of this place after all. Maybe I’ll get to go and find The Voice.
‘Tell me, Jesper,’ he goes on, ‘how have you felt since we gave you the injection the other day?’
I shrug. ‘OK.’
‘You haven’t felt ill at all?’
I shake my head.
‘Interesting,’ he says. ‘That would seem to indicate that you’re already immune to Marsh Flu. Otherwise you would have contracted a very mild form of the disease by now. Have you been inoculated against Marsh Flu before?’
I don’t know what he means, but I don’t ask. I shake my head.
‘Interesting,’ he says again.
‘You’ll be moving out of here in a little while, Jesper. Put these clothes on. We’ll come and fetch you.’
Time passes more slowly than ever.
When the priests come back to the room in the middle of the day, I’m already changed and waiting. Before the provisions are even handed out, Father Lekmann comes over to my bed. ‘Time for you to leave,’ he says. ‘Are you ready?’
I nod.
‘OK,’ he says. ‘Father Frei would like to see you before you join the others. Come with me.’
And he leads me out of the room and into the corridor. As soon as he’s out of the room, he removes his face mask.
We walk through the building, out into the sunshine (and it’s good to feel the warmth of the sun on my skin and the breeze in my hair) and towards the church that I saw from the room, towards the big wooden front doors.
He opens one of the big doors and holds it so I can get through before he lets it close with a thunk that echoes all around the empty church. And my heart beats fast cos I’ve never been in a church before. The house of God. And I wonder whether God can read the thoughts going through my head right now, whether it’s true He knows everything I’ve ever done. Cos that’s what The Voice used to say. Back when The Voice was there.
And for a while I just stand where I am, gawping all around me, taking everything in – the size, the smell of burning and dust, the enormous coloured glass windows showing pictures of stories from the Bible. Jesus. And Mary. And Moses.
Rows and rows of wooden seats fill the church, for people to sit and listen to the priest as he leads them in prayer. Only right now there’s no one here except me and Father Lekmann. And I realise that he’s prying at me with a sort of smile on his face. ‘You look like you’ve never seen a church before,’ he says, making it sound like that’s a weird thing.
I shake my head.
‘Well, this is it. This is St Jerome’s church.’ And then he gestures. ‘Come, we must go and see Father Frei.’
He yomps down the centre of the church towards the end, where I can see a huge golden cross. Just in front of the altar, he leads me off to the right, to a little wooden door set into the stone of the church wall. On the other side of the door, we climb stone steps that wind round and round and round until we come out on a landing with a door. Father Lekmann knocks on the door and waits for an answer.
From the other side of the door I hear a voice calling, ‘Come.’
Father Lekmann opens the door and we walk in. I feel sick with nerves.
An older-looking priest sits in a chair that creaks as he moves, behind a great, dark wooden desk. He smiles at me. ‘Jesper,’ he says, ‘I’ve been waiting for you. I’m Father Frei.’
And he says it all in my words. But I don’t know what to say or what to do, so I just gawp back at him.
‘Father Lekmann, you may leave us,’ Father Frei says to the other priest.
And that leaves just Father Frei and me. He gawps at me without saying anything and I don’t like it, so I squizz around the room instead. There are stone walls, hung with pictures of Jesus and Mary and a man who I think must be St Jerome. Behind Father Frei there’s a coloured window in the stone wall, and the glass in it has a picture of Mary holding Jesus as a baby. On another wall there are some clothes hanging up – white priest’s robes. On the last wall there’s a fireplace, where a fire crackles away, glowing and making the room smell of woodsmoke. I breathe it in, remembering the forest.
‘Sit down, please,’ Father Frei says.
When I’m sitting, he speaks again. ‘So, how are you, Jesper?’
I say nothing. I turn my head down and gawp at the floor.
‘You were hit by a car in the uninhabited area before you were brought here?’
I nod.
‘It seems
you were lucky; you were unharmed. New Dawn brought you straight here as you had no identity card, no papers.’
I say nothing, don’t even move.
Father Frei adjusts himself in his seat with a creak. He places his hands on the desk. ‘So tell me about yourself, Jesper. Where did you come from?’
I shrug, saying nothing. Why should I tell him anything?
‘Where’s your home?’
I shrug again.
‘England?’
And what else can I do except shrug?
‘You don’t know where you lived?’
I shake my head.
Father Frei raises an eyebrow. ‘Who did you live with?’
This time the answer is out of my mouth before I can think. ‘No one.’
‘You lived alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Always?’
‘Yes.’
‘No mother or father to look after you?’
I shake my head. ‘No one.’
‘Did your parents die of Marsh Flu?’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Did they have Marsh Flu?’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know what that is.’
A look of confusion crowds Father Frei’s face. ‘Really?’
I look away from him.
‘How interesting,’ he says. ‘I can’t believe anyone’s managed to avoid knowing all about Marsh Flu.’
I don’t know what he wants me to say to that, so I say nothing.
‘Did your parents die in the uprising?’
I shake my head again. ‘I told you I didn’t live with anyone.’
He nods slowly, thoughtfully. ‘So who looked after you? Who got you food?’
‘My food was just there,’ I say.
Father Frei sits back in his chair with another creak. ‘I see,’ he says. ‘You lived in a room, alone. But you were provided with food. There must have been someone leaving it for you . . .’
I shrug. ‘There was no one. I never met anyone before I came here.’
Boy 23 Page 8