Escape

by Jeff Povey

  The formula is ash now. Just like little four-year-old Reva, it is gone forever.

  ‘I’m not your Reva. And my real mum is out there, waiting for me. You need to get me back. If not for me, then for her. Don’t let her lose me too.’

  ‘This is us,’ he repeats. ‘This is how we were always meant to be. I righted a wrong. I made everything better.’

  ‘This world isn’t going to last. You’ve seen the darkness coming, you must have.’

  ‘And if and when it comes we’ll be together.’

  His polished shoe kicks away the ash.

  ‘This is us, Rev.’ And his tears hit his shoes.

  THE HOSPITAL SCRUBS UP WELL

  The hill is steeper than I recall. Thanks to his injuries, GG is in a shopping trolley and the Ape is pushing him. The Ape certainly loves a shopping trolley.

  ‘Look at me, I’m flying!’ GG squeals and the Ape charges up the hill with him.

  I’m still looking for Rev Two and any sign of my dad. If I haven’t heard from him, does that mean she’s already caught up with him? We’ve got my dad’s papers as a backup so maybe for the first time since the white light yanked us out of detention we’ve got all the angles and bases covered. Johnson can sense my optimism.

  ‘When we get back, we’re going for a ride.’

  ‘Yeah?’ I say.

  ‘Out of town. Not London either. Somewhere with an open road and nothing but us.’

  ‘I’ll let you know if I’m available,’ I tease.

  His eyes meet mine. ‘You will be.’

  Despite only having the low glow of the few street lamps that still work to guide us, we eventually locate the hospital where I left my dad. The last time I was here Non-Ape hurled a car door through a ward window, and then I tried to run for my life before he caught up with me. My leg stings from the sudden reminder of the jagged nail that tore its way up my thigh. I look at the cars parked outside the entrance and remember Moth’s comment about how this orderly world decided to neatly park all the cars and buses. I wonder how much time we have left before it decides it’s finally had enough of us.

  The automatic door to the hospital opens silently as I try to remember what floor Another-Billie had been treating my dad on.

  ‘Stinks in here.’ The Ape sniffs. ‘Someone die?’

  The Ape’s right. The hospital reeks, and not in a good way. Johnson lets his steel talons slide out of his fingertips. ‘Smells like death,’ he whispers.

  I know that smell. It’s another echo. It’s the smell of burning flesh.

  The Ape’s sense for danger and impending combat sends him rushing towards what looks like a supply room. It’s locked, but that doesn’t stop him eyeing the forbidding DO NOT ENTER sign plastered on the door and then booting the lock as hard as he can.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ GG asks.

  The Ape kicks and kicks and the door starts to splinter and give.

  ‘Darren, dear heart,’ GG tries again.

  The door buckles as the Ape kicks it off its hinges and marches into the DO NOT ENTER room. We hear him throwing things around and then after several minutes he reappears. There are five of the sharpest and shiniest scalpels you’ve ever seen taped hard to his knuckles. Two on one hand, three on the other. He’s tried to make his own version of Johnson’s talons.

  ‘Five-pointer!’ The Ape boasts.

  GG stares at the monstrous pseudo-claws. ‘I’ve got to get me a pair of those. They’re all the rage.’

  The Ape swishes his hand cutting the air back and forth and adding a swishing sound for good effect. He’s gone from Healer to Killer in under three minutes.

  ‘Teeny-weeny word of warning.’ GG reaches out and gingerly lays a hand on the Ape’s arm. ‘If you need to pick your nose, give me a call first.’

  The Ape stops, thinks and then, even though I know he’s secretly come to love that GG is so kind and caring towards him, he scowls. ‘My nose, my pick.’

  Johnson touches my elbow. ‘Let’s go find the other Billie.’

  He steps forward, ready to lead the way, but the Ape stops him. ‘Me first,’ he says. ‘There’s a stink up there. Could be trouble.’ He motions for us to get behind him and none of us argue.

  The stairwell is dark and cold. Dawn is approaching, but not quickly enough to warm the hospital. That will be Non-Ape’s fault for creating a huge hole in its side. Would Another-Billie really have stayed in this freezing building? What if I’ve made a terrible mistake bringing us back here? My dad’s well enough to run and escape from Rev Two but did Another-Billie go with him? As we make our way up the stairs, the Ape swishing hard at every shadow with his scalpel fists, I think about telling the others about my second thoughts. Hey, guys, guess what? I didn’t stop to think. Again.

  The smell is starting to overpower and GG already has his good hand covering his mouth and nose. ‘I think they left someone on the operating table.’ His voice echoes like he’s speaking into a shell.

  Johnson hoicks up the bottom of his T-shirt and presses it against his nose, revealing his lithe stomach, no six-pack, just slim and taut. He catches me staring, but says nothing. He knows he doesn’t need to.

  The smell is now a putrid stench as the Ape breathes a huge lungful of it in and then points to a door in the stairwell landing. ‘That way.’ It seems that not only is his hearing a thing of wonder, but his sense of smell is also as keen as a dog’s. He pushes through the door that leads to the second floor. The corridor lights flicker, because obviously they would have to as it all adds to the growing sense of foreboding. The last smell that was this bad was—

  ‘This is like Tesco’s.’ The Ape finishes my thought before I can. Which is a first. ‘When your dead dad stunk the place out,’ he adds looking at me.

  The Ape’s right; it is the same smell. Johnson coils, almost imperceptibly, but he tenses as we head along the flickering hallway, our footsteps somehow falling softer without us even knowing. We’re all on high alert: being in this world for over a week has clearly honed us into smart-thinking survivalists.

  The Ape slows at the first open door and peers round it to take a look inside, and we hear him take a huge gasp of breath. But as we ready ourselves for whatever’s in there he steps back out again. ‘Not in here.’ He takes another deep breath and sniffs his way towards the stench, homing in on it, passing doors, looking in, then moving on. Finally we reach the last room in the corridor. The door is closed and the Ape presses his nose up against it and sniffs deeply.

  ‘In here,’ he whispers.

  ‘OK,’ I whisper in return and GG and Johnson gather round. ‘How shall we play this?’

  ‘Come on then, stink butt!’ The Ape kicks the door open with all the might of a bucking bronco and charges into the room.

  ‘That works for me,’ Johnson quips and quickly follows the Ape. GG looks at me and even in his beaten, bashed and bruised state, he limps in as best he can. ‘All for one.’

  I’m last in and as soon as I’m through the door I really wish I’d stayed outside. Lying in a hospital bed is a burned and seared person. It’s not as bad as before in Tesco; the flesh is badly charred all over and all of the clothes have been burned off, but that only makes it a little easier to recognise my dad.

  Burned to a crisp.

  We are not going home any time soon.

  TEARS OF A CLOWN

  I think the top of my head is bleeding from where the metal twists of the mattress holder dug into me. My distraught dad eventually left the bedroom, freeing me. I don’t care where he went because, as I slide out from under the bed, I roll in the ash of the burned formula. It sticks to my blazer and smudges my crisp white school shirt as I charge from the flat, tears streaming down my face. My dad’s story, his abject tale of misery, has cut into me all over. There was a little Reva in another world and he failed to save her. A little kid run over by a reversing van. Something so stupid and inane and ridiculous and avoidable, but yet it happened. In the blink of an eye. It
happens every day I’d imagine, senseless tragedy, but it doesn’t make it any easier to understand. I’m not crying for me, I’m crying for her. But she is me . . . was me. And then she wasn’t anyone.

  Sad-Ape is waiting for me at the bottom of the stone steps that lead to the street our block of flats looms over. He revealed a spark by following me home, but that’s gone now. The hint that he’s like the other Apes out there has shrunk and shrivelled away, as he stares at me half in hope and half in fear.

  ‘You were home,’ he says quietly. ‘I was right.’

  I wipe my snotty nose and salty eyes with the sleeve of my new blazer. ‘What did you want?’ I cough, half choking on the despair caught in the back of my throat. ‘I mean, do you know what just happened because you told him I was home? Do you?’ I want to beat at him, bunch my fists and pummel him. I know it’s not really his fault, but I can’t contain the hurt or the rage that surges through every vein in my body. ‘What did you want anyway?’ I scream into his face.

  ‘I was worried,’ he mumbles into his chest, lowering his face so he doesn’t have to meet my gaze.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Worried,’ he mumbles again. ‘About you.’

  I stare at him and it takes everything I’ve got not to erupt into a heap of spontaneous lava I’m so filled with burning anger.

  ‘You were worried about me?’ I ask, incredulous.

  ‘Saw you sneak out of school.’ He still can’t look at me and I’m having trouble hearing what he’s saying.

  ‘So?’ I ask him.

  ‘So I followed you.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  Sad-Ape takes an eternity to respond and he shuffles on the spot before speaking. ‘You’re the only friend I’ve got.’ And he lifts his great chunk of head, his one good eye meeting my stare. ‘We’re pals,’ he says quietly.

  If eyes are the windows to the soul then his single eye is a view on to Sad-Ape’s torment. I’m his only friend?

  ‘Pals hang with pals,’ he says, standing stock still while he waits for me to give the green light to our blossoming friendship. I look down at my blazer and to the grey smear from the ash that clings to the material.

  ‘There’s no way out,’ I tell him.

  ‘No?’ he asks, even though he has no idea what I’m talking about.

  ‘We’re stuck here.’

  ‘Then it’s good we’re pals.’

  The Ape is my destiny. It’s not Johnson, the boy I can’t stop thinking about; it’s not even my best friend Billie; it’s the Ape. We’re always going to be drawn to each other.

  Sad-Ape continues to wait and seems incapable of making a move without me telling him to.

  ‘Yeah,’ I tell him. ‘It’s good that we’re best pals.’

  His glass eye catches a rare moment of sunlight and gleams brighter. He smiles, beaming broadly, and nods eagerly. ‘I’m hungry,’ he tells me.

  ‘Greggs?’ I ask him.

  His smile widens.

  As we walk into town, moving through the silent, lost people who are as trapped as I am I try to explain to Sad-Ape what I believe this world to be.

  ‘It’s just another weird copy,’ I tell him.

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Every other world that’s out there.’ I tell him.

  ‘A copy?’

  ‘Yes,’ I nod.

  ‘Thought I recognised it,’ he says, scanning the streets and buildings.

  We take the steps that lead from the carpark to the pathway that cuts across the tiny skinny river that runs through town. To get to Greggs we take a short cut through the church grounds that dominate the centre of town. This church is still standing, unlike the one Non-Ape levelled in the empty world, and I wonder for a moment if the flock here has tripled in size as the trapped pray for all their worth for salvation.

  Then, as we pass the ancient gravestones, my eyes threaten to explode with tears again. I stop suddenly and bend over as if I’ve been punched in the gut. This is the exact same place where I’m buried, I think. Little Reva Marsalis is in the empty world in this very spot. All alone. No flowers, no gravestone, no memory or celebration of her life.

  Sad-Ape shuffles beside me, not knowing what to do or say. The pain travels through me, shaking even more tears from my eyes. That version of me is in that empty world by herself all because her dad couldn’t face what had happened. But, if I’ve learned anything from what I’ve been through, it’s that we belong where we belong. Taking little Reva from one world to another destroyed the order of how things should be. He broke science.

  A thick heavy hand tries to delicately pat my back. ‘People are looking,’ Sad-Ape tells me.

  But I don’t care. Why didn’t little Reva’s dad just live with what had happened? It was an accident, no more than that. But he just couldn’t cope. And I wonder if I hate him or pity him.

  ‘Rev,’ Sad-Ape is now rubbing my back in a circular motion. ‘I’m hungry.’

  It hits me then that my real dad left. Disappeared. Just like Rev Two’s dad probably did . . . I slowly straighten and again wipe my eyes on my sleeve. Did all of the Rev dads in every universe walk out on their wife and daughter? Did they die, go missing, find new love, start new families? Did one dad’s disappearance in one world cause the disappearance to reflect and ripple throughout all of the other worlds? They may not have found keys to different kingdoms, but they definitely left a mother and daughter to fend for themselves. Which helps explain the bond I had with Rev Two’s mum. I’ll probably have that bond with every Rev mum, and I know New-Mum is weird and unsettles me, but given time would I revert to type and grow close to her?

  ‘Greggs,’ Sad-Ape tells me in case I’ve forgotten.

  I manage to nod and we set off through the churchyard again.

  ‘Got any money?’ He asks.

  ‘Uh . . . no,’ I answer. ‘You?’

  ‘No.’

  But we head to Greggs all the same.

  KILL, KILL, KILL

  Smoky tendrils rise from my dad’s charred body. The walls of the room have scorch marks and most of the monitoring equipment lies on its side, broken or damaged in some way. There was a fight here and it’s a fight my dad lost. The Ape prods the body with one of his taped-on scalpels. It squelches. The smell stings our eyes and Johnson looks my way, worried that I’m crying.

  ‘Rev?’

  ‘He said he was hiding,’ I tell Johnson. ‘But she found him.’

  GG stares at the burned body. ‘Your doppelganger?’ he asks.

  ‘I think so.’ I nod.

  ‘Why burn him?’ GG asks. ‘Why not just . . . kill him?’ He saw her take Other-Johnson’s life with one touch of her hand; he knows what she’s capable of.

  The Ape prods my dad again. Again he squelches.

  ‘Maybe show a little respect,’ Johnson admonishes.

  ‘It’s a funny noise,’ the Ape says.

  We hear footsteps in the Hall and instinctively we are on high alert within a millisecond. The door bursts open and Another-Billie charges in.

  ‘Thank God!’ she says, exhausted and drained looking. ‘I thought you were never coming back. I tried to reach Johnson telepathically, but—’

  The Ape immediately goes for her. His fists are curled and his attached five-pointer drives straight towards Another-Billie. She is stunned, but can move faster than the Ape with her super-limbs. And evades his lunging swipe.

  ‘She’s back again!’ the Ape yells.

  ‘That isn’t Billie!’ I scream.

  ‘Get behind me,’ he says, advancing on her again.

  ‘It’s the other one.’ Johnson grabs the Ape’s arm, feet skidding on the tiled hospital floor as he tries to drag the Ape away from Another-Billie who has her talons out ready to defend herself.

  ‘It’s all right,’ GG tells the Ape, sounding anything other than that. ‘It’s fine. Trust us.’

  GG reaches for Another-Billie. ‘Please excuse the beast. In fact excuse us all because we’ve bee
n through dark days.’ He looks lost and desperate as he takes her hand in his. ‘And we’re all just a little twitchy,’ he mutters.

  Before our very eyes GG starts to heal. His broken arm fuses with a grim crack and his fractured bones knit in seconds. His scars heal and broken teeth grow back to replace the ones he lost. Even his quiff returns. That’s how powerful Another-Billie’s touch is.

  ‘OMG,’ he whispers gripping Another-Billie’s hand. ‘I’m having a makeover.’

  ‘What happened to my dad?’ Who burned him?’ I ask Another-Billie.

  ‘I got him out of here, and we headed into town,’ Another-Billie explains. Her eyes find Johnson and it’s pretty clear she’s never, ever going to be over him. She keeps snatching glances at him the whole time. ‘We hid in the snooker hall.’

  ‘We hid there too,’ GG tells her. ‘Isn’t it a great den?’

  Another-Billie regards GG for a moment and I know she’s comparing him to Evil-GG, the worst of the worst when it comes to our doppelgangers. Then she collects herself. ‘I didn’t like sneaking away from Rev, but I couldn’t trust her not to do something to your dad. It was OK for a while; he was contacting you, I dunno how, but he said you were coming back. So we waited, eating crisps and drinking coffee.’

  ‘What did you think of him?’ I ask. I can’t help myself.

  ‘He’s all right,’ she says. ‘He’s smart, nice. I like him. He couldn’t stop talking about you.’

  I blush at this for some reason.

  ‘He said he’d been searching for years. He never gave up either. Not once did he think he wouldn’t find you.’

  I nod and feel a lump forming in my throat. ‘That’s what dads do I guess . . . ’

  Johnson slips a comforting arm round my waist and Another-Billie tenses before trying to pretend she isn’t bothered and smiles through her metal teeth.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ she says and I think she’s talking about my dad, but she could also be talking about Johnson. ‘So we were hiding and then . . . Then it got weird. This empty world is not empty.’