‘We could take it,’ I whisper.
Jesper nods and nervously approaches the building and I follow him, ducking down low, passing beneath the window. As I pass the window, I hear muffled voices from within. I try to work out what the voices are saying, but I can’t.
Jesper reaches the car first and grabs one of the door handles at the front to open it. ‘It’s locked,’ he says.
‘Leave it to me,’ I say. I take a hairgrip and put it in the lock. A few moments later, the lock clicks open and we’re in.
‘Do you know how to drive?’ I ask Jesper.
He shakes his head.
‘Me neither. It can’t be that hard. We’ll just have to figure it out.’
Jesper climbs in the side where the steering wheel is. And then he sits there, looking at the controls, looking confused. ‘We need the keys to start it,’ he says.
Jesper
The engine splutters into life as she turns whatever it is she put into the keyhole.
The thrums and vibrations of the engine disturb the sleepy stillness of the forest.
And the next thing that should happen is that the car’s engine should roar even more as I turn the steering-wheel thing and we start driving, tearing along the road. But it doesn’t. The engine runs, disturbing the forest, but the car stays where it is and I gawp helplessly at the controls.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ I say.
‘Well, try something,’ Carina says, ‘otherwise whoever’s inside that house is going to come out.’ And she turns her head to look at the house.
So I start trying things – buttons and levers and pedals and the steering wheel.
But still we don’t move.
‘Hurry up, Jesper.’
‘You can try if you want,’ I say.
‘There’s someone coming, Jesper. Hurry up.’
I turn to see someone leaning out of the window of the house, shouting something that I can’t hear. He leans back inside, disappearing from view.
I have to make this thing work this instant.
And then I notice the lever down by my right hand. I try moving it forward.
The man comes running from the house and in his hand he’s holding a gun. He points it and shoots. One of the back windows of the car explodes, showering us in broken glass.
‘Let’s go!’ Carina shouts.
I push the pedal to the floor and all of a sudden the engine roars and the car lurches forward and we’re skidding away from the house and along the road. I turn the steering wheel this way and that, avoiding the trees, trying to keep the car under control. But even though it’s my actions that are making the car go, it feels like the car’s pulling me along and I’m just about managing to cling on.
‘He’s not following us,’ Carina says, turning round and gawping out of the broken back window. ‘We’re safe.’
We speed along, passing great open spaces on both sides of the road, away from the forest now. And as the engine roars, I think about the map. I take one hand off the wheel and get the scroll from my pocket.
‘Have a look at the map,’ I say, handing it to Carina. ‘Check we’re going in the right direction.’
The screen on the scroll lights up as Carina touches it. ‘OK. Yeah. Keep going this way,’ she says.
We drive in silence for ages and I start to feel more like I’m in control. The sun rises and the moon fades and then disappears as the sky brightens. Carina checks the scroll from time to time, making sure we’re still travelling in the right direction.
After a while she offers to drive and I’m too tired to argue. At first when she takes over the engine shudders and rattles and the car lurches and leaps along. But soon enough she gets the hang of it and we’re moving smoothly along the road again.
And when the scroll vibrates in my pocket, I wake the screen and see there’s a message.
I’ve been tracking your progress – another day or two and I’ll see you again. How are you making such fast progress?
I read the message twice before answering.
We have a car.
Almost immediately a message comes back:
Good. Watch out for New Dawn patrols – they’ll be looking for you. Stay safe.
I read the message through a few times before flicking back to the map. The pin showing our position moves quickly as Carina speeds along the road. Heading north-west as always.
Blake
‘We won’t find him on our own,’ Huber says. ‘He could be anywhere by now.’
Henwood nods. ‘We need to get the message out there, to get the general public looking for him.’
Huber shakes his head. ‘We can’t do that, Henwood. If we let the world know that Jesper is loose, Commander Brune will also know he’s been lost.’
Father Frei clears his throat. ‘You’re right. That would serve neither your purpose nor mine.’
‘There’s another way of course,’ Huber says.
‘What’s that?’ I say.
‘I’ll speak with a friend of mine at the newspaper,’ Huber says. ‘We’ll get the whole country looking for them as soon as they open their morning newspapers, without knowing what they’re really looking for . . .’
Jesper
It feels like we’ve been driving forever, past fields and forests and hills and mountains and rivers. We’ve driven right through the day and now it’s night again.
And now, as the sky darkens once more, I really need to pee cos I’ve been holding it in for hours and I feel like I’m gonna burst any second.
‘Can you stop the car?’ I say to Carina.
So she does, by the side of the road. I fling the car door open, ignoring her question of ‘What are you doing?’ as I run over to a couple of trees and go behind them, facing away from the road. I start peeing and it’s such a relief. While I’m doing that, I squizz around at the trees and the shadows and the bushes and everything. And that’s when something catches my eye, a couple of steps away from me.
Carina
Jesper runs towards the car carrying something in his hands and looking like he’s seen a ghost, and I figure that there’s a problem. He jumps back into the car. ‘Look,’ he says, thrusting a piece of newspaper in my face.
It’s a copy of the West Bohemian. On the front page is a picture of my face and above the picture is the headline: TEENAGE MURDERERS ON THE RUN.
I grab it from him. ‘Oh no. This can’t be. That isn’t true.’
‘What?’ Jesper says, leaning over to look at the newspaper.
‘The headline says I killed someone and now I’m on the run.’
‘But . . .’
I carry on reading. ‘It says I ran away from St Jerome’s, killed a rich businessman and stole his car. It doesn’t say anything about you, just that I ran away with a male resident of the home.’
Jesper stares straight ahead, shaking his head. ‘But why does it say that?’
I don’t answer, because I’m reading on to see what else they’re saying about me. ‘It says I’m dangerous, that anyone who sees us should get in touch with New Dawn immediately. It even describes the car we’re in – registration plate and everything.’
Jesper sighs and stares out of the window. ‘Who’s going to see this?’
‘Everyone. It’s the newspaper. There’s a number for people to call if they have information.’
He doesn’t say anything, but I can tell he’s thinking things through, trying to make sense of it. I read the rest in my head.
Allegations have resurfaced that Carina Meyer, daughter of deceased Spirit of Resistance member Peter Meyer, also committed murder and burglary in and around her home village after being made an orphan ten years ago.
As I read, a shiver runs down my spine.
‘So everyone’s going to be searching for us?’ Jesper says.
‘For me, yeah.’
I fold the newspaper and stow it away in the storage pod in the car door and then start the engine again. We haven’t travelled more than
a couple of kilometres when we see a town up ahead. I slow the car. ‘Shall we risk going through the town, which will be quicker? Or we could take a detour.’
Jesper takes his scroll machine out of his pocket and looks at the map, then looks up at the town ahead. ‘It’ll be a long way round if we go back. What do you think?’
He shows me the road we’d need to take, but my head’s reeling from the newspaper story too much to even think straight.
‘We’ll be through the town in a couple of minutes,’ I say. ‘It’s night-time – no one’s going to see us.’
He nods. ‘Let’s do it.’
Jesper
I stay low in my seat (so no one can see me) but as we speed through the town streets, it’s clear no one else is around. All the houses are shut up for the night with the shutters drawn across the windows. We’re out the other side of town in two minutes, according to the time on the scroll.
I rub my hands over my face. Neither of us has slept properly for days, just the odd hour here and there – and all the time dreaming that while I slept someone would come and find us – and sometimes a few minutes in the car when Carina was driving and my eyes closed and I was asleep before I knew it, only to be jolted awake again by a bump in the road.
‘We should find somewhere to stop soon,’ I say. ‘We’re both tired. We need to sleep.’
Carina shakes her head, eyes fixed on the road ahead. ‘We’re too close to the town. It’s not safe. We should keep going. Another hour. It’ll be safer to rest then.’
And I don’t say anything, cos maybe she’s right. Instead I look out of the car window, a heavy feeling in my eyelids, trying to stop them from closing.
I wake up when I feel an elbow in my ribs, and right away I squizz around to see what’s going on. I’m in the car, Carina beside me. The sky’s still dark. And the car’s slowing down and then stopping. The reason is up ahead: cos a car’s parked right across the road, completely blocking our way. Beside it stand two men in black uniforms. New Dawn. They’re aiming their guns straight at us.
This isn’t good news, is it?
‘What do we do now?’
‘I don’t know,’ Carina replies. ‘Do nothing. Stay calm. Let them make the first move.’
So I do exactly as she says, breathing deeply as I gawp at the men yomping towards us with their guns pointed our way the whole time. One of them aims his gun downwards a little, like he’s pointing it at the ground in front of him. There’s a CRACK and a puff of smoke and Carina’s side of the car collapses. He points the gun again, there’s another CRACK and another puff of smoke, and my side collapses too. And I figure he must have shot out the tyres so we can’t drive off.
The men each come round one side of the car, to the doors – one to my door and one to Carina’s. All the while their guns are fixed on us. The man at my door shouts something in German. Only I don’t understand what it means. I watch Carina, see her hide something in her boot. Then she opens her door and gets out, hands raised, and I figure I should do the same.
The men gawp at Carina for a while, before one of them says, ‘Carina Meyer?’
She shakes her head.
The man shakes his head, spits on the ground. ‘Lügnerin,’ he says. ‘Das Foto ist in der Zeitung.’
And then, as one of the men keeps his gun trained on us, the one closest to me searches us, patting us down, taking my knife and bag away. But he doesn’t find my scroll, does he? Cos it’s too close to my privates and he doesn’t search there.
‘Geh zu unserem Auto,’ he says, poking his gun in my ribs. The other militiaman does the same to Carina, and I see her start walking to their car, so I do the same.
And as we wait in the back of the car, the man who isn’t in the driving seat picks up a device from the dashboard and speaks into it. ‘Wir haben Carina Meyer und den Jungen . . . Kaspar Hauser.’
When their car’s moving and we’re getting rattled around in the back and neither of the men are prying at us, the first thing I do is I squizz at Carina.
She looks back at me and starts moving her eyes, nodding towards my hands, and then making a little movement with her own, trying to show me something. One hand flat, the other curled into a fist, except for the first finger, which she pretends to kind of slide across the flat hand. Once. Twice. Three times. Only I don’t understand what she’s trying to tell me. So I look straight at her and I silently make the word ‘What?’ with my mouth.
She quickly squizzes at the front of the car, checking they’re not prying at her, and when she’s happy they aren’t, she mouths the words, ‘Your machine.’
I nod. I should have known. The scroll.
Straight away I reach my hand in my pocket, grab the scroll and slowly, slowly, slowly take it from my pocket. Right away, Carina reaches over and grabs it and I watch as she holds it out of sight of the men and she starts to send a message:
We’ve been captured by New Dawn. They’re taking us to the station. Please help.
Blake
Henwood drives us from village to village, from town to town, all of them deserted. Each time it’s the same: we search the place, guns at the ready, but all we find are piles of bones, dust, crumbling buildings. Every move is informed by nothing more than a hunch – sometimes from Huber or Henwood and sometimes from the priest, Father Frei, who seems even more desperate than Huber to locate the boy. But the truth is, with each search we’re getting further and further away from them. Or they’re getting further and further away from us. We’ve lost them. We have no information about their whereabouts.
Or at least, Huber and Henwood and Frei have no information.
I know precisely where they are at any given moment.
In their ignorance, and with my help, Henwood and Huber are taking us round in circles. So it is that we pull off the road near another deserted town (Gugendorf) where Jesper and Carina won’t be found, and we’re back to where we started, no more than a few kilometres from Schweilszeldorf, where I found Jesper’s coat.
The town bears the same hallmarks as all the others we’ve searched – bombed and fire-damaged buildings being reclaimed by the forest, warning signs, cracked roads. No sign of any people.
But Huber and Henwood and the two goons from the orphanage don’t know that. They creep about the place, nerves on edge, guns loaded, ready to blow anything that moves to pieces. I pretend to do the same. I creep around, checking gaps between buildings, gun held out in front of me.
The first chance I get, I slip inside a house, out of sight of the others. I go straight to the most out-of-the-way part of the house I can, which turns out to be the back room, and I take the scroll from my pocket.
It vibrated some time ago, as we drove through the forest, when I couldn’t take it out to check. I run my finger across the screen and it lights up. Immediately a message icon pops up. A message from Jesper.
My heartbeat quickens.
They’ve been found. New Dawn have them and they’re on their way to the station. I check the map and see they’re heading for a town called Dunkelstadt.
I have to get away from Huber and Henwood now.
I check that I have enough bullets in the clip of my gun and snap it back into place. I edge my way out of the building with my gun held in front of me. And now my heart’s racing, my palms are sweaty, my eyes dart around to check I’m not being watched. I’m ready to shoot anyone who gets in my way. I make it to the doorway of the building and look around the deserted streets, checking the coast is clear.
I hurry back through town towards the car and there’s no sign of the others. They must be caught up in searching. I reach the car and open the driver’s door, see that the keys are in the ignition. I turn the key and start the car. I throw it into reverse and put my foot down, skidding the car around.
When I look out of the front windscreen, I see Henwood in front of me, standing in the car’s path.
‘What are you doing?’ he shouts.
I rev the engine in answ
er.
‘Stop, or I’ll shoot!’ he shouts.
But I have no intention of stopping. I take my foot off the brake, accelerate and speed away.
Henwood aims his gun and shoots at the car. BANG. The side window shatters and falls on to the passenger seat.
I duck, steering the car towards the road, still accelerating.
Then another shot: BANG.
This time the car jerks and collapses on the passenger side.
He’s hit the tyre.
I don’t stop though. I keep my foot on the accelerator, keep low as the car bumps along, away from Gugendorf, leaving his gunshots in the distance.
Carina
They take us to Dunkelstadt, to the old town hall – New Dawn’s headquarters in the town. Huge letters spell out the word ‘RATHAUS’ in the stone above the doorway.
Jesper and I shuffle wordlessly through the entrance hall, beside the officers, whose footsteps click and clack and echo around under the high ceiling. At the end of the hallway we’re taken to a desk, behind which sits a large red-faced man with small round glasses that have to stretch to fit his face. He wears a New Dawn uniform. He raises an eyebrow disdainfully as we approach.
‘I called the number in the newspaper,’ he says to the officers. ‘They’re on their way. It’s the boy they’re really after. The girl doesn’t interest them. Take her to the cells. Do as you like with her.’
Immediately the officers march me away, through double doors and then a maze of unlit corridors. We stop outside a green door which the officer unlocks. He shoves me into a room, closing and locking the door before I’ve even recovered my balance.
The cell has a row of dirty, uncomfortable-looking beds, and bars across the single window at the end. I notice with a start, that I’m not alone in here. There’s a woman sitting on one of the beds, rocking backwards and forwards, muttering something to herself under her breath, playing with something in her hands that I think must be rosary beads. As I watch her finger the beads, I see she has no fingernails, just sore red patches where they should be. How did that happen? Did she do that to herself, or did the militia do it to her?
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