Empty Planet

by Lynette Sloane

  I had always been good at cheering people up and considered it a gift, so I told Gemma how I’d put Nan’s jelly down the well to set. Gemma was relaxing by now. I think she’d walked the anger out of her. She leaned back laughing, her long hair falling behind her back. I noticed for the first time that it perfectly matched her brown eyes and the freckles by her nose. I had looked at her many times, but this time it felt different and I knew I’d really miss her when I went home.

  I didn’t see Gemma the next day because she was grounded for being disrespectful to her parents and storming out of the house. Instead I was forced to endure a day of shopping and visiting boring relatives with Nan. Nan took me into Kington, a nearby town, and introduced me to Auntie Barbara, a large, ancient woman with a Mexican moustache and chin stubble. They droned on and on for ages about cousin Jack and his three sons, and how the lads would one day inherit the farm. Then, unbelievably, they started discussing Mary Jones and her hysterectomy. The day passed very slowly and I thought a lot about what Gemma had implied.

  The next time I saw her I asked her straight out how many times everyone had disappeared. She looked at me in disbelief.

  “Well?” I asked her, pressing for an answer. I’d learnt it was best to be direct when dealing with Gemma.

  She was speechless for a few seconds while she tried to search for the right words, or maybe a convincing lie, and then laughed, “Oh that … it was the other day. When I came home from my College taster day everyone was out. It was ok though, Mum soon phoned to tell me where she was.”

  I wasn’t convinced, but if Gemma wasn’t going to admit to anything nor was I. Instead, we spent the afternoon walking around the hillsides and climbing trees. Though already sixteen, Gemma was a still a real tomboy.

  Dad was coming to pick me up the next morning so I was a little subdued; this would be the last time I would see Gemma for months. I plucked up courage and asked her if we could keep in contact on the Internet, but she laughed again saying she hated computers and didn’t have an email address.

  Gemma walked me back to Nan’s and when I said goodbye she hugged me and told me she would text me sometimes. Then she kissed me on the lips.

  That night I lay in bed trying to relive the kiss, finally drifting off to sleep a little after midnight.

  __________

  A while later I was awakened by the sound of rather tuneless singing coming from the roadway directly below my open window.

  “The hills are alive with the sound of … cows breaking wind.” I opened my eyes. The early dawn light was creeping through the window suggesting it must be at least four-thirty or five in the morning. I blinked hard, trying to focus my eyes on my wristwatch. Ten past two, that’s strange, I thought, the battery must be flat.

  The ridiculous singing continued, “Ding don dell, jellies down the well. Who put it there? Little Stevie Square.”

  I forced myself awake and stepped out of bed. My bedroom smelt damp and had deteriorated badly. The ivy that usually grew up the outside of the house had grown through the window, crept right across the wall, up the side of the wardrobe and onto the bottom of my bed. Dead leaves covered the carpet, and there was a definite chill in the air. I slipped on my trainers and carefully made my way across the room.

  “Well are you there or not?” Gemma’s was shouting. I leaned out of the window. She stood below me on the silent road. I was so happy to see her. What were the chances of finding Gemma on my empty planet? “Great, it happens to you too,” she shrieked with excitement. “I thought I must have been mistaken. Come on down, Graham will be waiting for us.”

  “Who’s Graham?”

  “A friend. He meets me at the old vicarage when everyone disappears. Hang on, I’ll come up to you.” I considered getting dressed, but my day clothes, carelessly thrown across the chair next to my bed, were damp and covered in mildew.

  A moment later I heard the stairs creak and Gemma appeared at my bedroom door wearing her usual jeans and jacket. She stood in the doorway and spoke again.

  “Those stairs are dangerous, some of the wood’s quite rotten.” She pointed to where I had been sleeping, “My bed’s like that too,” she said, surprised. I looked at the double bed; mildew was growing around the damp, rotten edges, but my pillow, and the area where I had been lying, was clean and dry.

  “It’s as if we have a force-field around us when we ‘jump’ and the area next to us is protected from the ravages of time,” she added. I looked puzzled. “That’s what we call it … jumping, or future jumping. Were your trainers under you bed?”

  “Yea.”

  “That’s why they aren’t mouldy then.”

  We made our way out of the house. Seeing Nan’s lovingly kept home in such disrepair gave me a really creepy feeling. Wallpaper hung off the walls, the carpets were rotten, and the curtain rail had fallen down in the hallway. A family of mice scattered as we picked our way across the living room. Standing outside on the pathway, I had a sudden thought, and reached in my pyjama pocket for my mobile phone. It was still in mint condition, as were my pyjamas.

  Gemma noticed what I was doing and said, “Anything you were wearing or was in your pockets when you ‘jumped’ won’t have aged, but you can’t ring anyone. The telephone masts stopped working just after everyone disappeared.”

  I took the opportunity to glance around Nan’s garden. The box fir tree hedges, normally trimmed to perfection in a castle top design, had become wild bushes that straddled the pathways. The lawn I’d mown only two days before was half a metre high and the flowerbeds were almost indistinguishable from the rest of the uncultivated garden.

  “I call this my empty planet experience,” I said, managing to find my voice at last.

  “That’s a good name for it,” Gemma replied. “It’s not really empty though; I mean, there’s you, me, and Graham, and he met a girl in Spain a couple of years ago, although they couldn’t talk; they didn’t know each other’s language.

  “Graham’s older than us; he’s been visiting your empty planet for years,” she continued. “I think he’s met a few people here and there.”

  “I met someone too,” I said. “Everyone disappeared one day at school and I had to save a little lad off the railway line. I think he was about six.”

  It was only about a quarter of a mile to the vicarage, but I was shocked at the state of the road. Grasses and small trees grew through cracks in the tarmac, and soil and moss covered much of the road surface. The hedges either side had became bushes and trees, and the open plan garden fronts had merged with the grass verges.

  The old vicarage came into site as we rounded a corner. From here I could make out the shape of a young man sitting on one of the several stone steps that led up to the front door. As we neared I could see he was wearing a baseball cap, a leather jacket, T-shirt and blue jeans with holes in the knees.

  Leaving the gate open, we walked up the driveway. The extensive garden was totally overgrown and I found it strangely hard to picture it in the neat, manicured form I had seen it in only a few days previously.

  As the man stood up and walked down the steps towards us Gemma whispered, “This is Graham.”

  “So you’re Stevie and you’ve been future jumping since you were six,” he said.

  “Yea, I call it my empty planet.” I tried to appear confident but was feeling quite the opposite; something about Graham made me feel uneasy. Maybe it was because he was in his mid-twenties: quite a bit older than me.

  Sensing my nervousness he said, “Don’t look so worried, I won’t eat you. I had a big dinner.” Then gesturing to the army bag he’d left on the vicarage steps added, “And I have a bag of sandwiches with me.”

  “Oh don’t tease him,” said Gemma smiling, “He’s my best mate.”

  Her comment made me feel warm inside and I blushed a little.

  Graham smiled and continued, “Love the Spiderman PJ’s Stevie, but seriously, you should always sleep in your day clothes in case you end up in this
time frame.”

  How embarrassing, I thought. Nan had bought the pyjamas for me the previous Christmas. “I think that’s good advice,” I smiled back sheepishly. Graham took off his jacket and handed it to me.

  “Put this on or you’ll freeze. I’m ok; I don’t feel the cold much. If you’re not with me when normality returns you can drop it off at my place. Gemma knows where I live.”

  “Thanks,” I said, gratefully putting on the jacket, which was at least two sizes too big.

  “Shall we go in the meeting place?” asked Gemma. “The wind’s getting up and I’m cold too.” Graham nodded and led us up the driveway following the left side of the large house. Small shrubs and saplings had pushed their way through the tarmac making it quite difficult to get past, and I found myself having to push a few thin yew tree branches out of my way. After brushing past a few of these trees I noticed my hands felt sticky so I looked down at them. A resin-like substance was stuck to my fingers and palms. It smelt of yew tree or pine and wouldn’t wipe off on my pyjama bottoms. I would have to wait until I got back to Nan’s to wash it off.

  The meeting place was an old stable building. The door had fallen off the hinges, but the roof and walls were still intact; at least it would give us some shelter. I followed Graham and Gemma into the stable, and as my eyes got used to the low light I noticed some white plastic chairs and a table in the middle of the cobbled floor. Graham brushed some dead leaves off the table with a wide sweep of his arm and we all sat down.

  He said, “I put these in here a while back. The good thing about plastic is it doesn’t rot away, not like wood.” He slipped his bag off his shoulder, opened it and took out a bag of sandwiches before sitting down. “I bet you two are hungry, I’m always starving when I jump.” We said we were. “Great, anyone want a butty and a can of pop?”

  We spent the next few minutes munching ham sandwiches and sipping fizzy drinks.

  “Right,” said Graham, taking control. “Let’s pool some information and try to work out why this happens, and, more importantly, why it happens to us.” He paused. “Do you both agree?”

  “Yes,” Gemma and I answered in unison.

  Graham continued, “Over the years I’ve met several people who jump into the future and there seems to be a few correlation factors.” Gemma and I looked puzzled. “Put another way, here are a few things the other Jumpers and I have in common. Correct me if I’m wrong about anything.

  “The future jumping phenomenon starts when you’re about six and with each jump it appears that you’ve been placed further into a future where, with a few exceptions, mankind has died out or disappeared from the planet.”

  I asked, “How do you know each jump takes us further into the future?”

  “Because the houses are progressively more derelict, and trees, grasses and other flora are larger and wilder,” Graham answered.

  “And there are more and more wild cats, dogs and rats,” added Gemma.

  “Correct,” said Graham smiling at her. I noticed the smile didn’t reach his eyes and this made me feel more uneasy; he appeared icy. “By comparing the dates I think I’m safe in saying that future jumping usually happens to us all at the same time, although there have been a few exceptions. For instance, the first jump happens when the Jumper is six years old, and the second on their twelfth birthday, but by fourteen the jumps are concurrent. The experience varies in length from under an hour to a couple of days.”

  “I’ve never been on a jump lasting more than about ten hours,” I said, suddenly concerned that I could be caught up in a much longer jump. I didn’t want to be stuck alone in an uncertain and dangerous future for a several days.”

  “You will soon,” Graham said coldly.

  The early morning sun peeped over the distant hills and shone through the dirty window casting a stream of light to the back of the stable room.

  Graham continued trying to piece the evidence together so he could work everything out. “Have either of you two ever had any of the usual childhood illnesses? Measles, whooping cough, chicken pox or anything else?” We both shook our heads.

  Gemma said, “My doctor always says I’m disgustingly healthy.”

  “Me too,” I joined in.

  “Neither have I, not even a simple cold or flu,” said Graham, “and I expect you’re both top of your class at school in most subjects.” Gemma and I nodded again. “I was too.” Graham addressed me, “I’ve just qualified as a doctor and work at the local practice in Kington.”

  I thought Doctor Graham could be the only person I could ask about feeling ill after each jump so I said, “I always get a headache and feel sick when it’s all over and everyone comes back.”

  “Yes we all do. You’ll find this gets a little worse each time. Just take a couple of painkillers and have a nap. That will help a lot,” Graham informed me. “There’s just one more thing I can think of at the moment. Do either of you know if your mother received IVF treatment before you were conceived?”

  “Mine did,” said Gemma, “Mum couldn’t have kids naturally; her tubes were blocked. You can’t be suggesting that IVF causes future jumping.”

  “Obviously not, the treatment in itself couldn’t make this possible. It’s probable that genetic modifications were made to a few IVF babies, including us. Next time you meet anyone on a future jump ask them these same questions, and share the information with me, including any observations or theories they have.” We both agreed and said we would.

  While we were still thinking about what Graham had told us, everything changed. Our plastic chairs disappeared and we landed on our bottoms on the cold floor. The sky became dark and the moon rode high in the mild summer’s sky. Something large moved right next to us and snorted giving us all a fright. It was Mischief, the vicar’s horse. The heavy stable door was now back on its hinges so we very quietly let ourselves out of our meeting place, carefully shutting the door so Mischief couldn’t get out, and crept back down the clear driveway to the road. I gave Graham back his jacket and thanked him for lending it to me.

  “That’s ok,” he said. “Remember, always sleep in your clothes and if this happens again whilst you’re staying at your Nan’s you can meet us here.”

  We walked back to the road together, where we parted, Graham walking back towards Presteigne and Gemma and I walking in the direction of Nan’s house and the quarry.

  The road was back to normal; clear of moss, long grass and small trees. Occasional cars drove past us, the drivers probably wondering why two teenagers were out walking in the countryside in the small hours of the morning. There were no dance halls for miles and the only pub was in the direction we were walking and would have closed hours ago.

  “Isn’t Graham brilliant,” said Gemma.

  “Oh you don’t fancy him do you? He’s much too old for you.”

  She didn’t answer my question, but asked, “You’re not jealous are you?” her tone suggesting she was teasing me.

  “No, I have a girlfriend at school and she’s brilliant.” Of course I was lying and could have kicked myself for saying that. Now Gemma wouldn’t want to go out with me because she thought I was already with someone.

  She looked disappointed and spoke quietly, “You never said you had a girlfriend.” We were already outside Nan’s house so Gemma continued, “I’ve got to go straight home in case my parents notice I’m not in bed. See you next time you’re up this way.” And with that she turned away from me and started to run home. I wanted to call after her but couldn’t because I might have woken Nan.

  Nan always kept a spare house key hung on a hook near the middle of the box hedge nearest to the back door, so I reached inside the hedge and felt around in the dark.

  I found the key on the third attempt and quietly let myself in, creeping through the living room, my trainers in my hand so I wouldn’t wake Nan. She was a light sleeper.

  For the second time that evening I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  “Did you have a good
time tonight?” Nan’s voice came from somewhere behind me. I turned around. She was sitting in her chair by the fireside. I’d crept right past her.

  “Umm,” was all I could manage at first as I frantically tried to think of a believable excuse that didn’t include travelling forward in time to a place where nearly every human had disappeared off the planet. “I had a headache and felt a bit sick so I went for a walk,” I explained.

  “Oh, and did Gemma feel ill too? Reverend Perderoy rang a few minutes ago. He was wondering why you were walking through his garden in the small hours of the morning. You two better not have been getting up to anything you shouldn’t. That’s girl’s a bad influence. I’ll be ringing her parents in the morning.”

  “No Nan, we only went for a walk. We didn’t do anything wrong. Please don’t tell Mum.”

  “I haven’t decided what to do yet. Get to bed and if you really do have a headache take a pain killer, there’s some in the bathroom cabinet.”

  __________

  Nan did tell my parents and it was decided that I wouldn’t be going to stay with her for a while. As usual Mum was really angry with me while I got a feeling that Dad understood. I wondered if he sneaked out of the house when he was a boy.

  I didn’t visit my empty planet for a long while and I was really miserable. Mum put it down to my age, but she was wrong. I was feeling this way because I missed Gemma and didn’t know when I would be able to see her again.

  Mum wasn’t too concerned about my mood. “Teenagers often get grumpy,” I heard her say to Dad. Dad told me I needed a hobby so got me to help him in the garden. We reseeded the front lawn and planted a small Maple tree in the back garden next to the back fence. Dad was very keen in telling me how long it would take to grow, and how I could tell its age.