by Peter Liney
Both Jimmy and I looked in the direction she was indicating but couldn’t make out a thing.
“There’s nothing,” Jimmy whined, the growing cacophony of noise around us, the knowledge that we were right in among them really getting to him.
“It’s there,” she repeated, taking a step forward. “Look out for the guards. They won’t expect anything. Especially not tonight. The kids’ll have taken everything they need. If we’re discovered, just run for it. We’ll have a better chance separately.”
Jimmy grunted to himself. I knew what he was thinking; that if it came to making a run for it, with his stick and bad leg, he was at something of a disadvantage. But I could see Lena’s point. One person could easily disappear into this fog, but three would be a different matter.
Slowly we began to inch our way forward, step-by-step, crouching low, ready for anything that might come our way. I was starting to worry, to think maybe she had it wrong, when the big black slab of the warehouse loomed up before us.
“We’re here,” I told her.
Lena went right up to it, touched the wall, then directed Jimmy and me to follow as she began to work her way along it.
Every step of the way I was expecting someone to come out of the fog, a sudden shout, a cry of discovery. There was a tension in my body I hadn’t felt in years, pulsing through me like it was searching for any weaknesses I might’ve developed.
When we reached the corner of the building, Lena hesitated, her head raised, listening, sniffing, then she turned and moved slowly on, farther into the fog and darkness.
It was only when she paused again that I realized she’d brought us to our destination, that we were standing outside the warehouse door. I immediately gave it the once-over. It wasn’t exactly what I’d been expecting. If Jimmy had any ideas about his expertise in the field of high tech coming into its own, he could forget them. It was an old-fashioned solidly padlocked door, and what we needed wasn’t specialized knowledge but brute force.
I cursed to myself. I’d brought a few tools, just in case, but nothing that was going to bust that open without alerting everyone in a fifty-yard radius.
“Shit,” I groaned.
For several moments I stood there helplessly, feeling like it was my turn, that Lena had delivered us here and now I should be taking over, but how, exactly?
But do you know something? I was way behind on this one. Way, way behind. I mean, big guys, what do we know? ’Cuz Lena just stuck her hand in her pocket, pulled out some keys, and unlocked the damn thing.
“Where’d’ya get those?” I asked, but she was already disappearing inside.
The moment Jimmy and I closed the door behind us, the darkness became so complete I couldn’t move. I just stood there, wondering what to do, whether it was okay to call out to Lena or not. Then I heard her rummaging around somewhere, a couple of items falling to the floor in her wake.
Soon she returned with some boxes, dividing them among us, giving half to Jimmy and half to me. Which wasn’t that reassuring, cuz I realized why she’d done it, that she was making provision in case one of us didn’t get back.
Again she disappeared into the darkness, and again we could hear her rummaging around.
“Come on!” Jimmy begged her, but she shushed him angrily.
Soon she returned with another armful of stuff, this time sharing it out among the three of us.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Jimmy gave a perceptible sigh of relief, turned and pushed the door open, then froze. There was someone standing there. Blocking our way. Not a kid, or certainly not a young one judging by how much of his bulk filled the doorway. I guessed it was one of the guards.
It was pure instinct. Suddenly it was yesterday and I was doing what I always used to. I saw him, realized we were in the dark and that it would be a split second before he could focus, then I dropped what I was carrying and hit him as hard as I could.
Okay, so in the moment that my fist was flying through the air it did occur to me that maybe the bones in my hand weren’t up to this anymore, that they were old and brittle and might break on impact. But they didn’t. I got him right on the point of the jaw, and I’ll tell you, it must be like riding a bike or something, cuz I hadn’t forgotten a thing. I pivoted from the waist so I got all my weight into the shot, kept the punch short and full of momentum, and he went crashing back against the door frame, slowly collapsing to the ground like paint dripping down a wall.
“Go!” hissed Lena. “There’s another one somewhere.”
We ran out of that place and sprinted headlong into the fog, not having a clue where we were going, just praying we wouldn’t run into anyone.
Lena was in the lead, with me a little way behind and Jimmy pegging along at the back. But all that changed when she lost her footing and tumbled over, and I fell heavily on top of her.
She was hurt quite bad. For a moment I thought I was going to have to carry her. But she got to her feet and massaged her leg, trying to ease the pain.
“It’s okay, it’s okay!” she assured me.
It was only then I realized that Jimmy had run straight past us. I could just about make him out, scuttling across the garbage, the three-legged spider making surprisingly rapid progress. Lena tried her leg, limped a little, then started to run after him.
I heard a voice yell out from behind, furiously and repeatedly, and guessed they’d found the unconscious guard. Mind you, we had an even bigger problem to deal with.
“Where’s he going?” Lena suddenly cried.
“What do you mean?”
“Jimmy,” she said. “He’s heading in the direction of the kids!”
I couldn’t believe it. That mad little bastard was in such a state of panic he was just blindly running anywhere. I wanted to shout after him, warn him, but if I did, everyone would know where we were.
“Jimmy!” I hissed as loudly as I could. “Jimmy!”
I ran after him but suddenly those drums seemed to be exploding all around us, bombarding us, beating us down, and I was almost as panicked as he was.
I just couldn’t understand why he didn’t realize. I gained a little, thought I might have a chance of catching him, but then, and I tell you, I couldn’t believe it, their fire suddenly loomed in front of us. Not just their fire, but the kids dancing around it.
This time I did scream out. “Jimmy! For chrissake!”
He stopped, looked kind of lost for a moment, then finally realized what he’d done and turned around. It was the craziest thing you ever saw. He ran straight down their throats, hundreds of them whooping and dancing in a mad frenzy, getting ready to kill, but none of them reacted cuz they just couldn’t believe it. A little old guy with a stick running into the middle of their Camp. Jesus, why would they?
He must’ve got thirty or forty yards before the first scream went up. Then another, and another, until suddenly the whole night was filled with nothing but their baying and crying. Lena shouted for us to separate, to just get out of there any way we could.
I turned and looked back. Jimmy was some way behind, pegging it away, and I fell back a few steps to try and drag him on.
“Leave me, Big Guy!” he shouted. “Get the stuff to Delilah!”
“Come on!” I cried.
“No!”
I tried to pull him along, but he shook himself free of my grip and lurched off to the side into these piles of garbage.
I was going to follow him, but he disappeared so successfully I thought maybe it was best to just keep going, to distract them.
I looked for Lena, my eyes straining into the fog, but I couldn’t see her, either. This mob of kids came at me from the side. I didn’t see them till the last moment. Still I managed to swerve around them and run on, but it’s like I told you, I ain’t any sort of runner. Just to get this great bulk up and moving is one helluvan achievement, let alone to keep it going. It wasn’t long before I realized they were gaining on me. Closer and closer, till one of them jumpe
d on my back. From then on it was like a pack of wild dogs. They threw themselves at me, one after the other, till they dragged me to the ground.
I knocked one away, then another, but they just got up and leapt back on me, more and more piling in. They were just little kids. Most of them no more than eleven or twelve. Once it might’ve been a high-spirited game. I might’ve been their grandfather or something. But not anymore. You have to take this seriously. No matter what you might think, you can’t hold back, otherwise they’re just going to swarm all over you.
I knocked the biggest of them down, hit him as hard as I could, then tried to drag myself to my feet. But before I could get properly up, I received a blow to the back of my knees from a baseball bat and tumbled down again. Immediately they jumped on top of me again, kicking and punching; no one blow really hurting, just an accumulation. These little fists and feet pummeling you from all directions, harder and harder, till you feel yourself starting to weaken.
I lashed out and sent one flying through the air, but the moment he hit the ground he was up and back at me. There were even girls among them. Can you believe that? Little girls doing that sort of thing? One kept trying to kick me in the groin as if it was the spot to slay the dragon; giggling all the time, like it was a skill she hadn’t quite mastered.
I got hit again by the baseball bat, on the side of the head, surprisingly hard, and felt myself starting to slip away. I lashed out blindly, but they were so quick I was missing most of the time. The little girl caught me where she’d been aiming, squealing with pleasure when she saw me grimace. She was as bad as any of them. I made a lunge and grabbed the leg of the nearest one, pulling him down, then just kind of threw him broadside at the others. It stopped them for a moment, and gave me the chance to struggle to my knees, but then they were back, hanging off me everywhere, punching me in the back, doing everything they could to get the finishing blow in.
I felt like a sea creature emerging out of the water, covered in wriggling parasites. Somehow I got my legs beneath me, pushed with all my strength, and despite buckling for a moment, got to my feet with a defiant roar. I threw one child in one direction, one in another, then grabbed one of their fallen baseball bats and threatened them with it until they ran off into the night.
I didn’t hang around. I knew it wouldn’t be long before they returned with bigger and probably more heavily armed kids. I could already hear them yelling out to someone for help, giving directions to where I was. Instead I turned and lumbered off into the fog. Calling out to Jimmy, calling out to Lena . . . but there was no reply.
CHAPTER NINE
Getting back to the tunnels took me over an hour. I was forever ducking and diving, getting lost, finding myself where I shouldn’t be. It was difficult enough negotiating the fog with Lena showing us the way. On my own, I only had the benefit of my senses, and they were playing some pretty weird tricks on me, I can tell you.
On several occasions I almost bumped into gangs on their way over to the Village. Thank God they were making lots of noise, whooping and shouting, so I had plenty of time to hide. One group—there must’ve been close to forty or fifty of them—passed so close to the pile of crap I threw myself into that one of them actually trod on my foot as he went by.
Up close they’re one helluva bizarre sight, I can tell you. All dressed and made-up, carrying flaming torches, their eyes strangled and popping with drugs. As they went by, I could hear them going on about what they were going to do over in the Village; how many they were going to kill, how they’d go about it. Kids boasting, the way kids always have done, but not about this.
I guess I was hoping that when I did get back underground, I’d find Lena and Jimmy already there, but I was to be disappointed. Leastways about the little guy; Lena had made it. As I neared the living area, she was already ministering to Delilah; removing old bandages, applying some of the organi-bandages she brought back. But there was no sign of Jimmy.
“You okay, Clancy?” she called, pausing for a moment to listen to my approach, as if the way I was walking would tell her if I was hurt or not.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
I knew she would’ve heard that I was alone, that Jimmy wasn’t with me, but she didn’t say anything. Probably cuz she was worried that, no matter how much Delilah seemed out of it, she might be able to understand.
“I’ve given her some antibiotics. They should start to act pretty fast.”
I just slid down the tunnel wall and sat silently watching as she tended to Delilah: bathing her, applying ointment, then putting on new dressings. There was something about the way she did it, so deliberate, so tender, it was really soothing. Almost as if it was you she was taking care of.
When she’d finished, she led me off down the tunnel a little way; giving me a grateful hug, squeezing really hard, evoking our special world even then.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. I got set on by some kids.” She immediately began to check me out; feeling my face, my head, my body. “No, I’m fine, but . . . I don’t know about Jimmy. He just disappeared.”
She went quiet for a moment, as if gauging his chances, but obviously decided to remain positive. “He’ll be fine.”
“You reckon?”
“Yeah. ’Course,” she said emphatically.
“I don’t know. There are hundreds of them out there. If they do come across him, after what he did—running into their Camp—Jesus.”
“He’s probably just found himself a good hiding place and decided to stay there till they return to the Camp.”
Come the early hours, and still with no sign of him, she was saying the same thing, only she didn’t sound quite so convincing, and I was starting to get a really bad feeling about it. As if witnessing the further exercising of some inevitable law of tragedy. Delilah never had anything go right. Maybe the fact that we had a chance of saving her life meant she was going to have to pay for it with Jimmy’s.
I did consider going back out to look for him, but with the way things were, the fog and everything, there didn’t seem to be a great deal of point. He could be anywhere. Lying low, taking the long way home, or maybe just hopelessly lost. I mean, after what we’d witnessed earlier, I didn’t have a great deal of faith in his sense of direction.
All night I lay there keeping an ear out for his return, hoping to hear that familiar hoppity-tap coming down the tunnel. I even wandered up to the entrance at one point, but it was so quiet out there you wouldn’t have thought there was a living soul on the Island.
Come dawn there was still no sign and my grip on hope was beginning to loosen. To make matters more complicated, the stuff Lena had given Delilah was working miracles. She regained consciousness and became quite lucid for a while and we had to explain where she was and how she got here. When she asked about Jimmy, both Lena and me fell silent.
“He’s dead, ain’t he?” Delilah croaked, managing to get herself up on one elbow.
“’Course he ain’t!” I cried dismissively. “What d’you think?”
“I think he’s dead,” she told me.
“Delilah! He’s probably just lost. Hey, come on, the satellites’ll be back on by now. You ain’t going to get rid of Jimmy that easy.”
She glared at me long and hard, like she knew I was lying and thought I should know better, and then, worn out by the effort, fell back and immediately closed her eyes.
I turned to Lena. “I’d better go and look,” I sighed.
She didn’t say a word. Maybe cuz she’d searched down inside herself and found there wasn’t even a drop of optimism left.
I lit a fresh candle and made my way up to the entrance, a sense of foreboding dragging at my every stride, beginning to fear that I was no longer looking for Jimmy but his corpse.
There was just a little early-morning light, soft and colorless, oozing in through the gaps at the entrance. I momentarily glanced out, not expecting to see anyone at such an hour, and then heaved the door op
en.
My next move would’ve normally been to slip out and be smartly on my way, but I found my path blocked by such a large pile of junk I couldn’t even squeeze around it.
For a moment I just stared stupidly. There were all sorts of things there. Circuit boards—broken and otherwise—hard disks, a couple of old monitors. Where the hell had it come from? Then, of course, the obvious hit me.
“Jimmy!” I growled.
And, as if he’d been waiting for his cue, he came into view, struggling over a nearby mound of rubble, almost buckling under the weight of another load.
“What the hell are you doing?” I shouted, grabbing some of the junk and tossing it inside.
“Careful, Big Guy!” he said, his lack of stick causing him to totter a little. “Some of that’s fragile.”
“I don’t care what it is! Why d’you leave it here? Talk about drawing attention!”
“Ah! No one’s about yet,” he said, taking a quick look around to be sure. “I been going back and forth all night. Didn’t have time to put it inside.”
I completely lost it with him. Grabbing hold of him and his junk and throwing the lot inside.
“Big Guy!” he protested.
“For chrissake!” I shouted, heaving the door shut behind us. “Delilah thinks you’re dead!”
He stopped and stared at me as if he’d come out of a coma and I realized what this was all about. OD’ing on junk had just been his way of distracting himself from her.
“She’s okay?” he asked.
“Looks like it.”
“Really?” he cried, this lost light suddenly sparking back up in his eyes.
I nodded and he let go this huge sigh of relief. “I gotta go see her!” he cried, turning to hurry away.
“Hey!” I shouted after him, indicating the large pile of junk he’d left behind.
“Oh yeah. Bring that, will you, Big Guy?”
I tell you, that was about as much as I could take. I promptly swiveled around and kicked the whole lot as hard as I could, sending it crashing into the wall, the sound rippling all the way down the tunnel.
