‘He’s sent messages,’ Jesper says. ‘Look.’
He holds it up for me to see. And there on the screen is writing:
Get out now. They’re coming for you.
And:
Is there a problem? You need to get out NOW. They’re coming into the building.
And:
You’re free. I’ll keep them away from you. Follow the arrows on the map. Head for the Low Countries, in the north-west. Find the Spirit of Resistance. I’ll meet you there.
I sit down beside him on the log to get a closer look.
‘Do you trust The Voice?’
Jesper nods immediately. ‘Totally. More than anyone else in the world.’
After being shot at, I don’t know I have as much faith as Jesper, but what I do know is that I’m free, for the first time in years. Nobody owns me. I’m out of St Jerome’s. A smile breaks out across my face. This isn’t exactly the way I dreamed of freedom, but it’s freedom nonetheless.
I take the Spirit of Resistance leaflet from my pocket and read it and Jesper looks at it over my shoulder.
‘That’s the man I met at the town hall,’ he says, pointing at the picture of Commander Brune.
‘Yeah. He’s the man the Resistance are fighting back against. The leader of New Dawn. The most evil man I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a few.’
‘You know who the Spirit of Resistance are?’
I nod. ‘My dad used to be a member. Before New Dawn killed him.’
Jesper says nothing, but I can tell that he’s thinking.
‘You know,’ I say, ‘we should keep walking. We need to get further away from the town.’
‘Yeah.’
‘The village I grew up in is an hour’s walk north-west of here. We could head there and rest.’
Jesper gets up from the log, putting the machine with the screen away in his pocket. ‘That works. The message says to head that way.’
Jesper
It feels good to be out of St Jerome’s and back in the forest, free.
It’s something I wouldn’t have expected I’d think, but I feel better being surrounded by trees and grass and the river and the sound of squawks and the animals in the undergrowth than by the walls of St Jerome’s. Even if the forest sounds sometimes make me jump out of my skin.
Only it isn’t just the lurking animals that make me jumpy, is it? It’s the thought of the men from Huber who want to kill me that makes me squizz ahead and behind and in the bushes and the trees, makes my ears listen out for the slightest noise. The whole time, I’m on alert; ready to run or fight or hide.
But we walk for ages and we don’t see another human being, just squawks and hoppers. And from time to time I take the scroll from my pocket, looking to see we’re still heading in the right direction, checking if I’ve missed a message from The Voice. And yeah, we are going the right way (and Carina’s leading us to the village where she used to live anyway) and no, there aren’t any new messages. So we yomp and the sun gets lower in the sky and the air gets colder.
And eventually we arrive somewhere, just as it’s getting dark.
‘This is my village,’ Carina says, and she stops.
I stop too so I can squizz around. It looks like a bomb site, just like everywhere else – piles of rubble and fallen-down walls and trees and bushes starting to cover it all. There are faded signs everywhere, with that same circle symbol with three C shapes coming off it. And there isn’t anyone here. Just us.
Carina walks slower and more careful than before, her eyes squizzing nervously around, like she’s expecting to see something and it might not be good. And I get a sudden picture in my head of the man and his dog and the pile of bones I saw in the forest. We dodge around the heaps of fallen wall and the trees. And eventually Carina stops outside a building which isn’t really a building at all any more – just a few bits of wood where the roof should be and some broken walls. She creeps inside and I follow her.
And inside it’s a total mess. Nothing’s the way it ought to be. Carina walks slowly around the building, fingers stroking against what remains of the walls, silent, like she’s in some kind of dream.
‘This was my house,’ she says.
‘This?’
She nods, still squizzing at the walls and the floor and up at the ceiling.
‘That was my room,’ she says, pointing off to a room that’s still a room, almost, except for the fact that it has nothing in it and it has no door or ceiling. ‘I shared it with my sister, Greta.’
I nod. I’m not sure what to say.
‘That one over there was my parents’ room,’ she says. Then she wanders back over to where I’m standing, still looking like she’s in a trance or a dream, only not a very happy one.
‘What happened?’ I ask.
‘What do you mean?’
‘What happened to your house? What happened to your family?’
She swings my bag off her back, sits down on the ground and sighs. ‘When Marsh Flu struck, it went through towns fast.’
‘Everyone in your village died of Marsh Flu?’
She shakes her head. ‘A lot. Maybe half the people.’
‘Did your family die because of Marsh Flu?’
She doesn’t look at me, just gawps at a spot on the ground, like she’s thinking. ‘My mum died of Marsh Flu when I was eight. That left me and my dad and Greta.’
‘And they survived?’
She nods, but then she changes her mind and shakes her head. ‘They survived Marsh Flu. But not New Dawn.’
‘What did New Dawn do?’
‘When the meteorite hit and people started to die of Marsh Flu, the whole of Bohemia – the whole of Europe – fell apart. The government collapsed. So men with guns took their place – New Dawn. They took control by force. And because they had the cure for Marsh Flu, people let them.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that they made everyone do what they told them to do, or they killed them. It means they took everything – things that weren’t theirs. They made the world all over again, with them in charge.’
I nod.
‘And one by one they took over all the villages and the towns and they recruited the people who said they supported New Dawn and gave them the vaccine to stop Marsh Flu. They killed all the ones that didn’t.’
And I can’t help but picture the men in my mind, the ones in the black uniform. New Dawn. Commander Brune.
‘One day they came here and they killed everyone, including my father and Greta.’
‘But not you.’
She shakes her head, squizzes right at me. ‘No.’
‘Why not you?’
She gawps back at the floor and for a while she doesn’t say anything. ‘At first I hid. Under a table. Over there.’ She points across at another part of the building, at a spot where there isn’t a table any more. ‘And when I had a chance, I ran and I didn’t look back.’
For a few moments I gawp at her, trying to imagine it all, trying to imagine how scared she must have been.
‘Did you go and live in St Jerome’s after that?’
She shakes her head. ‘Not right away. I lived in the forest,’ she says. ‘I stole from abandoned houses. I learned to hunt and I hid from people. I was in the forest for more than a year, just me on my own. But I was hungry. New Dawn caught me stealing food from an abandoned house. They took me to the home.’
Carina shivers. She looks up at where the roof should be, at the empty space where we can see the sky. ‘It’s starting to get dark,’ she says. ‘It’ll be cold soon. We should light a fire.’
We start looking around for wood.
Blake
We sit in darkness in the car.
‘This is where New Dawn found her,’ Father Frei says, from the back. ‘Not more than a mile from where she lived with her family. It’s worth a look.’
‘OK,’ Huber says. ‘That sounds like a possibility.’
This is my fault – the place is
on the route I told Jesper to follow. I didn’t know the girl’s village was on the way. I feel the scroll sitting in my pocket. I need to warn them.
‘It sounds like a long shot to me,’ I say. ‘They won’t be sightseeing – they’ll be trying to get as far away as they can, surely.’
Huber sighs. ‘We’re here now, Blake. We should check it out. It won’t take long. Father Frei could be right. He knows the girl best.’
I nod. And then I check no one’s watching me, before slipping the scroll from my pocket.
Carina
The fire spits and crackles. Jesper and I stare into it. From time to time there are sounds from the forest which make us swivel and look out into the darkness, scared, wondering whether we’ve been found.
All of a sudden, Jesper sits upright and quickly takes the black machine from his pocket.
‘What is it?’
The glare from the screen bathes his face in light as he stares at it. ‘It’s a message.’
I get up and walk around the fire, sit beside him and look at the screen.
We’re nearing Carina’s old village. Get away now.
Jesper and I exchange a glance. Then he stares out into the forest, through the holes in the walls of our old house. And in his eyes I see the flickering fire reflected. I see fear too.
‘We should get our things together,’ he says.
‘OK. I know where we can hide.’
But before we’re even on our feet, there’s a sound coming through the trees. The engine of a car.
Jesper
The noise gets closer. We grab all our stuff and leap away from the glow of the fire, into the forest. Bright beams of light blast through the gaps between the trees, so bright it lights our way. Behind us, the engine gets louder. And I’m thinking that if we can see their lights, they must be able to see us too. But I don’t look round to find out; I run as fast as I can into the forest, trying to pick a route that the car won’t be able to follow.
I hear a change in the tone of the engine and I know it means the car’s slowing down. Seconds later I hear the sound of doors opening.
And then . . .
BANG.
The gunshot sounds like it’s breaking the night apart. I duck instinctively. My eyes scan the area ahead of us for somewhere to hide.
‘That way,’ Carina says, pointing.
Up ahead is a building. I glance across at Carina. She nods and we race for it.
Another BANG splits the air.
And this time Carina drops to the ground.
Cos she’s been hit, hasn’t she?
I bend low to scoop her up in my arms and head for the shelter of the building.
Inside I lay Carina down and I hear the gunshots continuing to explode outside.
‘Are you all right?’
Carina nods. She holds her arm up, turns it so she can look at it. And I can just about see in the dim light that she’s been hit on the arm. The bullet has torn her shirt. There’s blood leaking into the material. But as she pulls the material away, I see all it’s done is graze her skin.
‘I’m OK.’ She winces through the pain. ‘We have to keep moving. I know a place they’ll never find us.’
I nod. I peek through a hole in the wall and see five figures coming our way. The tall man from the Huber Corporation out in front, shooting his gun like he did back in the town. The man with the scar on his face beside him. The Voice follows, keeping his gun pointed down at the ground most of the time, only lifting it when the others are watching him. And behind them Father Frei, who doesn’t look like he has a gun, cos he certainly isn’t pointing any weapon. And with him, looking this way and that, searching for us and holding a handgun, is Markus.
And they’re all heading this way.
Carina
I get to my feet, pushing the pain from my mind. ‘Follow me,’ I say.
Jesper nods and we’re off, flinching as the gunshots get closer to the old bakery where we’re hiding. We dodge through the rooms and then out of the back doorway on to some scrubby grassland.
We cross the grass and head for the doorway of what used to be my friend Maria’s house. We slip inside unnoticed.
It’s dark, mainly because the roof’s still in place and so are the walls. We head through to the back room – what used to be the kitchen – and then towards the small square of roughly cut floorboards that I know is a trapdoor leading down to the basement. I lift it up and peer into the darkness where the steps descend.
‘I have a torch,’ Jesper says. And right away he searches through his bag until he finds it. He goes first, lighting the way, stepping cautiously, and as he gets into the basement, he shines the torch around the whole room.
I shut the trapdoor behind us, sealing us into the cellar.
Jesper
I flash the beam of my torch around the room and what I see makes me jump. Because over in the corner of the room there are bones. Right away I want to get out, to push the trapdoor open and run into the forest, even if it means being shot at again.
Only I don’t; I pry as Carina walks right over to the bones. At first she just gawps at them like I am, and we both see that these bones aren’t human ones, cos they’re the wrong shapes. They’re from an animal of some kind. Then Carina kneels down, reaches out and touches one of them. I stay where I am, shining the beam of the torch towards the bones, squizzing nervously, wondering what the hell she’s doing. Carina picks up the skull and brings it close to her face. Her lips move as though she’s saying something, but she must whisper it, cos I don’t hear a word. She gently places it back on the pile.
‘It’s Michel,’ she whispers, walking back over to me. ‘My friend Maria lived in this house, until New Dawn shot her and her parents. Michel was her dog. He must have hidden here when New Dawn came. Looks like he starved to death.’ As she stands next to me, I see her wince in pain again.
‘Is your arm OK?’
She holds it in front of her so she can look at where the bullet hit. I aim the torch beam and see a dark brown stain on her shirt where blood has soaked through. The graze is pink and raw and sore-looking. It hasn’t started to heal. It should have done by now, shouldn’t it? The wound should have sealed over, the blood should have seeped back in, the skin should have mended. And I wonder if there’s something wrong, whether the bullet had something on it to stop her from healing.
‘You’re not healing.’
Carina gives me a look like I’m saying something stupid. ‘Of course I’m not. I’ve only just been shot.’
A distant noise makes us both jump. A gunshot. Neither of us says a word. And for a second neither of us moves. Only then I’m thinking that we should hide ourselves, in case someone finds the trapdoor and comes down here. And the only place that looks like we could hide down here is under the steps. I put my hand on Carina’s arm and point towards the space beneath the stairs. She nods and we move silently over there. And then she grabs the torch from me and switches it off.
And everything’s black.
I take the knife from my pocket and hold it, sharpest blade out. In case.
Up above there’s another gunshot, then another. I fight the urge to switch the torch back on so I can see.
The next gunshot sounds louder and closer. I wonder what they’re shooting at, whether they’re just trying to scare us into coming out. And all we can do is wait in the dark, listening and hoping they don’t come this way. Every passing second feels like an hour.
Quietness descends again and I’m thinking maybe they’ve decided they’ve lost us and they’ve gone. But more and more silent seconds pass, and still I daren’t move. I hardly dare breathe.
Then I hear a thumping noise which sounds as if it’s coming from somewhere in this house. And then footsteps.
The footsteps sound like they’re going upstairs, searching for us. After a minute they come back down again. And now there are voices and I’m sure one of them’s The Voice.
Suddenly, through the cracks
in the ceiling, I see a beam of light searching around up there. Cos they’re right above us, aren’t they? I listen carefully, trying to understand what they’re saying.
‘Was ist das?’ one voice says, and it’s Father Frei.
‘Eine Tür,’ comes the reply. Markus.
Then silence. And I’m trying to work out what those words meant, what he was saying. Beside me, Carina shuffles nervously.
‘Wir sollten sie öffnen,’ Markus says.
‘OK,’ says The Voice.
Carina lets out a little gasp, before composing herself again.
Light starts to leak into the cellar as the trapdoor opens.
Carina
The staircase creaks as footsteps descend into the cellar. We’re trapped.
A torch beam flashes around the room, lighting up one corner after another. I take the gun from my pocket, hold it in front of me, finger squeezed tight against the trigger. I might not be able to shoot them, but maybe I can make them believe I will. I watch the beam of light dance around the room. It comes to rest on Michel’s bones. The beam rests there for some seconds before all of a sudden it turns and leaves the cellar. The footsteps creak hurriedly back up the stairs.
‘Nothing in there,’ comes Markus’s voice from above. ‘Only dust and bones.’
‘You haven’t looked properly,’ Father Frei says. ‘You didn’t even go in there.’
‘Give me that,’ says another voice.
A feeling of terror grips me as heavier-sounding footsteps start down the stairs, clacking with each step. I grip the gun with one hand and Jesper’s arm with the other.
The footsteps reach the bottom of the stairs and stop and, as before, the beam of light searches the room. This time though, the search is more thorough, more methodical, lighting each part of the cellar in turn, and I know right away we won’t escape unseen. The light continues to travel slowly around the room, inching closer and closer to where Jesper and I are huddled. A metre away. Seventy-five centimetres. Fifty. Twenty-five. Ten.
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