A Killing Air

by Nigel Price

  He ran headlong into Lisa. She was holding on to a tree on either side of her as if tied between them for ritual sacrifice. He felt the breath knocked out of him by the force of the impact.

  “What is it?” he gasped.

  She was panting hard. Harry looked over her shoulder. The ground dropped away, sheer. They were on the edge of a rocky outcrop, the fall beneath them concealed by the overhang. Holding firmly with one hand, Harry leaned forward to try and see the distance to the ground below. Mature trees stood directly in front of him, their gently blowing summits level with his eyes. He estimated they must be at least twenty or thirty or forty feet tall. A substantial drop. He hadn’t foreseen this. Bugger.

  “This way.” Holding Lisa’s hand tightly, he edged along the lip of the outcrop, working his way to the left. To the right, thick trees barred his passage. But to the left …

  The rocks started to descend. Clambering over them, he lost his footing first once, then again. Water ran over the surface in slender rivulets, making them a lethal skating rink. Moss fed on the water, shining and slippery. Behind him he could hear Lisa swearing quietly as she too fought to keep her footing.

  They were gradually descending. Until the rocks ran out, coming to a sudden end in a sheer drop. Again, the ground beneath was hidden by an overhang.

  “We’re going to have to jump,” Harry said.

  “How?”

  “Jumping’s easy,” he replied. “It’s the landing that’s going to be fun.” He spoke more to rally himself than his companion.

  “We’ll break our leg,” Lisa commented, as if they only possessed one between the two of them.

  Harry knew she was right. And that would finish them. With their one broken leg, the villagers would soon catch up and that would be the end of it. He contemplated the tree top in front of him. It gently swayed, annoyingly just out of reach. However, if he …

  “Lisa, if you jumped, could you grab hold of that tree?”

  She stared at him instead of the tree. “Joking, yes?”

  Harry shook his head. “It’s all I can think of.”

  “Even if I could, I’d be at the top of a big tree.”

  “Which you could then climb down.”

  She muttered under her breath but studied the tree with new interest.

  Harry gauged the distance. “Back up a couple of yards and then …”

  He was talking to empty space. In front of him, Lisa’s flung body smashed into the frail tree top. Her arms grabbed hold of it for dear life. It bent double, threatening to snap under her weight. She released her hold a fraction and started to slide down the topmost part of the trunk. Near its summit the branches were slender and gave way easily as she skidded down. She was not quite out of sight below the overhang when she encountered the first resistance. It looked as if she was about to fall, her body still swinging wildly from the momentum of her leap. Harry stared at her in astonishment. She set to work, passing herself hand over hand down the trunk.

  Right. Good stuff. Harry felt suddenly redundant. Watching Lisa’s brave effort, he wondered how the tree would fare under his greater bulk. He realised that if it didn’t go well, there was every chance he would cannonade into Lisa and knock her off which wouldn’t do either of them any favours.

  There was another tree next to Lisa’s, a little further out from the rocky outcrop. Harry sighted on it and backed up two strides. He measured the distance, drew a deep breath and launched himself into space. With the grace of a large household appliance, he sailed right past it, his fingers tantalisingly brushing its outmost wisps of leaf. At the last moment the wind had betrayed him, shoving aside the tree’s top, leaving in its stead an attractive prospect of the rain swept landscape beyond. His hands and feet scrabbled at empty space like Wile E Coyote in another failed grab at the Road Runner. Then he was plummeting as the laws of physics asserted themselves. For all his great ideas, the only thought in his head was that the one broken leg was most likely to belong to him. Together with a broken neck, back, arms …

  The lowest of the branches broke his fall with the tenderness of bullwhips and railway sleepers. Slamming through them he felt the wind blasted from his lungs. He folded his arms across his chest and tried to bring his knees up as if bombing into a swimming pool. The ground, when it arrived, was a mercy. Years of deadfall had accumulated under the tree, building into a thick bed of rotting bark and leaves around the base of the trunk into which Harry dived.

  Blackness.

  Some time later – it might have been seconds or days – he saw stars. His view of heaven was obscured by a face that stared concernedly into his own. Lisa. Her hands were tugging at his clothing. He could see her lips moving but they were soundless. No. His ears were filled with an annoying ringing. Gradually her words carved a way through the tinkling bells. “Come on. Get up. The villagers are coming.”

  So not days after all. Just seconds. His head banged as he sat up. He ached all over. He could have sworn his neck was broken when he tried to move his head, but it served well enough for a hurried inspection of his limbs. Amazingly none were broken, though his clothing was torn as if he had been living on a desert island for the past ten years.

  And still the rain came down. The trees about them were sodden, dripping continuously. Water ran over the rocky overhang that now towered above them. Through the noise of the water and Lisa’s increasingly urgent summons to flee, he heard a more disturbing noise. People thrashing in undergrowth. It came from above them. Then the first voices. The villagers had arrived on the rocks above. Just as Harry had been unable to see the ground below, so now the overhang shielded him and Lisa from their hunters. They were calling to one another, asking which way the outsiders had gone. They didn’t seem to be considering the jumping option. Someone lobbed down a stone. It fell a yard from Harry.

  At ground level, under the thickly boughed trees, Harry realised that he and Lisa were invisible. If they kept low, they should be able to scuttle away unseen. He couldn’t be sure at what distance from the rocks they would be spotted, but it was their only way out. It couldn’t be long before the villagers found another way down to the forest floor. They probably knew of one and were heading for it at that very moment, just as soon as they were sure that Harry and the girl were not still hiding up top.

  Lisa thought the same for she started to move away on hands and knees. Which direction? Didn’t matter. Anywhere that led away from the village. Just as far away as they could get. The hunt had only just begun.

  Twenty Nine

  Darkness was falling. Looking up through the tangled branches Harry noticed how the intervening sky was becoming part of the undergrowth, the two melting into one another. His hands in front of his face were disappearing too. Soon they would be consumed by impenetrable blackness. They had to find shelter. And they had to get further away from the village. The two actions did not sit comfortably together.

  In front of him Lisa was the pathfinder. Carving a way through the dense trees, she moved as quietly as she could. They had gone some way from the rock face but could still hear the voices of their pursuers calling to one another. From the sound of it, Harry and Lisa were pulling away from them. Harry guessed that the villagers were conducting a search of the area at the base of the rocks, assuming their quarry had gone to ground. In all likelihood, the combination of encroaching darkness and terrible weather would eventually drive them back to their homes. The thought of a warm dry house filled him with a painful longing. He hardly dared imagine how far he was from finding anything like that.

  Another wet branch sprang back and slapped him in the face like a reproach. He spat out shreds of bark and gritted his teeth as Lisa forged ahead through the soaked forest, silent and resolute. Harry would never have thought the girl with the pink backpack would still be going.

  He should have known better than to tempt fate. The next instant he bumped into her. She was kneeling bent double, face buried in her hands. Harry could see her shoulders heaving wi
th great suppressed sobs. He put one arm around her. Like him she was wet through. Her jacket squidged like a saturated sponge. Beneath her sobs he could feel her shivering. If they didn’t find shelter soon and dry out, hypothermia would set in. Even he couldn’t expect to go on forever. Spirit and determination had little to do with the body’s temperature. It followed its own inevitable course, however brave the person.

  She said something to him. He asked her to repeat it. She said it again, English this time. “I can’t go on, Harry.” Her teeth were chattering.

  “We have to find shelter,” he replied. She laughed, bitter and scathing. “Come on, let’s try just a little further,” he urged. He stood, one hand under her arm, raising her up. She let him, but once upright stood there hunched as if nursing a gut wound.

  The trees in front of them were thinner, the way between them just visible in the deep gloom. The voices to their rear were more infrequent and seemed further away than before. The conditions were driving the villagers home. No doubt they would resume their search in the morning, but for all Harry knew, he and Lisa might be dead by then, slain by the filthy night.

  They staggered on, two lame, wretched creatures linked together. Every so often they stopped and Harry slapped and rubbed Lisa’s quaking shoulders, trying to knock some life back into her.

  Then they were emerging from the forest. For a moment Harry thought they had reached the edge of a field. A road perhaps. But squinting through the rain he could just make out the waving tops of a line of trees some distance to either side of him where the forest’s edge curved around to both left and right. So a clearing perhaps. With no reason to stick to the edges, he led the way straight across. After a few yards his foot crashed into something and he was pitched headlong. He put his hands out to break his fall and they slammed into a solid surface. Concrete hard standing. He picked himself up and took a step onto it. He examined the edges. Here and there pieces of wood projected out of it. A metal spike or two. It had once been the base of a structure. The wood was not old. He examined one of the metal spikes, running his fingers along the grooved surfaces.

  “They’re rebars,” he remarked.

  “What?”

  “Reinforcing bars. Built to reinforce concrete structures.” He moved over to another. The same. “But why just left like this?”

  “Perhaps it served its purpose and was demolished,” Lisa suggested without interest.

  Harry walked across the concrete, a perfect rectangle. At the further edge he saw another beyond it, similarly proportioned. Then more around. Some kind of complex. A barracks? Then there were iron fixings for machinery or fitted furniture. So a factory perhaps? Either way, it was useless as regards shelter.

  For the first time in ages the rain abated. He turned round to speak to Lisa. She wasn’t there. He hissed her name, trying to shout it quietly. Hopeless.

  “Lisa!” he called, louder. He just hoped the villagers had indeed gone.

  “Here.” Her reply came from some way ahead of him. “Look.” He went to her. She was pointing into the darkness. Against the barely perceptible edge of further trees were the stark right angles of a structure. They moved towards it. A pitched roof appeared. On the edge of the chess board of hard standings a single hut remained. It stood apart from its vanished companions. The whole site reminded Harry uncomfortably of a levelled prison camp in an old war movie. Had it been so, this would have been the Commandant’s office. Perhaps it had been the site manager’s office for a factory, or forestry workers, or …

  There was a thud as Lisa kicked at the door. She rattled the handle. Locked. She kicked it again without result.

  Harry’s boot crashed into it. The door shuddered open, the wood around the lock splintering. They stumbled inside, closing the door behind them. Harry shoved at it, jamming it tight into the frame. They stood side by side, eyes and ears and noses probing the dead, stale interior. The air was musty. The last of the rain pattered on the roof, the sound amplified. As their eyes became accustomed to the darkness they could make out a long corridor leading the full length of the hut straight down the centre.

  Harry ran his hands down the wall beside the doorway until his fingers encountered a light switch. He flicked it. Nothing. A further three flicks produced the same result.

  “Well we’re dry,” he said.

  “No we’re not,” Lisa answered miserably, teeth still chattering. “We’re soaked.”

  Rather than debate the niceties of it, Harry started to search the hut. Partitions divided it into six rooms – three small offices on either side of the central corridor. At the far end, another door led outside, similarly locked. For good measure Harry tried the light switch at that end, with the same disappointing result. He popped his head into each of the six offices. Each one held pretty much the same sparse configuration of furniture – desk, chair, filing cabinet. That was about it.

  “We need to make a fire,” Harry said. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a lighter?”

  Lisa shook her head. She hugged herself, trying to control the shivering.

  “Okay then. We need to search all the drawers. See if we can find matches, a lighter, anything that will start a fire. We’ve got to warm up and dry our clothes. You take the offices on the left, I’ll take the right.”

  “What are we going to burn?”

  “That’s not a problem. Furniture.”

  “It’s metal.”

  Harry stooped to inspect it more closely. “Shit.” He looked around. “Well there must be something. Just look for matches or …”

  “I know,” she said heavily. “A lighter.”

  They set about it, each working down their side of the building. In his first office Harry wrenched open the locked desk drawer. A sharp tug broke the lock. A huge spider shot out, affronted by Harry’s audacity. The contents were a jumble of stationery items. Nothing combustible.

  “I thought all Chinese people smoked,” Harry called.

  “This one did,” Lisa said. Harry turned to see her smiling in the doorway, a cheap plastic cigarette lighter waggling between her fingers.

  Harry grinned. “Thank God for addictions. Now all we need is something to burn. The chair cushions won’t be any use. They’ll either have been treated with fire retardant, or they’ll give off noxious fumes.”

  “In which case we can burn these,” Lisa said, holding up her other hand. In it was a fat bunch of folders. “The filing cabinet next door is stuffed with them.”

  “We’re in business.”

  “What about the light being seen from the windows?” Lisa asked.

  “Too bad. Drying out is more important.”

  He knew she was right though, so to be as discreet as possible he chose an office on the far side of the building, its window facing away from the direction of the village. It wasn’t perfect but it was the best he could do. Several yanks opened the window for ventilation. He tore one of the metal drawers out of its cabinet and smashed it into a makeshift brazier.

  “Here, tear up some of these,” he said, passing the drawer’s files to Lisa. She dumped her own haul on the floor and set to work. When the brazier was half full, Harry took the lighter from her. “Let there be light.” His thumb fired the lighter. Nothing. He held up the slim plastic case, angling it towards the weak light from the window. Empty. He shook it. Still empty.

  There was a groan from Lisa. Her chin dropped in despair. Harry tried again. Same result. The tiny flint sent a fragile cascade of sparks uselessly into the room’s dark air.

  “Okay,” he said, fighting down his own fatigue and trying to be positive. “We’ve got a spark. We just need something inflammable.”

  The search restarted. Further desk drawers and cabinets torn open, their meagre contents ransacked. When they met up again, all they had been able to find were a couple of small bottles. Harry inspected each in turn. Ink in one, some kind of paint in the other. Useless.

  The expression on Lisa’s face was the look of someone expecting to
die.

  Harry chucked the bottles aside and tore back down the corridor to the office he had first searched. He opened the desk drawer again. Before going further he took paper from the cabinet and did his best to dry his hands. He shook them. Blew on them. Lisa came into the doorway and watched him. “What are you doing?”

  When he was happy they were bone dry, he reached a hand into the underside of the drawer compartment. Feeling his way, his fingertips encountered what he had hoped to find there.

  “Cobweb,” he said. During its short lifespan, his spider had grown fat on the bugs whose dried carcasses he delicately extracted from the guts of the desk. It wasn’t much but it was a start.

  “Spiders,” he said. “Where there’s one, there’ll be more. We need web, dead flies, the lot. Makes reasonable tinder for fire-lighting. Nice and dry.”

  Lisa got the idea. She dried her own hands as she had seen Harry do, then went off to search. Some minutes later they rendezvoused by the brazier. The fragments of spider’s web and dead bugs made a pathetic heap. Looking at it Harry knew that it was perhaps all that stood between them and death. In a short while Lisa’s body would stop shivering, a sign that hypothermia had progressed to the next stage.

  He also knew that if the web accepted the spark and burned, it would do so for only a couple of seconds. He needed the next level of kindling ready to hand. Among the files he found tissue paper protecting some photographs stapled to a report of some kind. He made a pile of it. Still pathetic but possibly just enough.

  Then thin shreds of ordinary paper, lots of them. Then balls of screwed-up paper. Then sheets. Finally the files themselves. Building a fire was like building a bridge over a ravine. First you fired across a string, to which was attached a rope, to which was attached a chain, to which was attached the hanging bridge itself. Each link was stronger than the previous one. In such stages would the bridge be constructed, the fire lit, lives saved.