by Sam Kates
A clunking sound caused her to tear her eyes away from the glasses. Tom was fiddling with his shotgun.
“What are you doing?”
He looked at her. The starlight did nothing to make him appear less ashen. He wore an expression of such hopelessness that Ceri’s stomach tightened further.
“I need to get closer,” he said, his tone flat.
“No, Tom! There are too many of them. Peter was right: it’s suicide.”
“I have to try.” His eyes looked a deep grey. Dead eyes. “Well, here goes nothing. . . .”
He tensed himself to begin moving forward. To not have to look into those dead eyes again, Ceri raised the binoculars. She drew her breath in sharply.
“Tom! Wait!”
“No, I have to—”
“Wait! I think. . . . Yes! It’s Bri!”
“Huh?”
“Tom, Bri’s there. I can tell by the way she moves. It has to be her.”
“What’s she doing?”
“She’s joining one of the lines of people. Their line.” She swung the glasses from side to side, sweeping the scene. “Can’t see Will, but he must be here somewhere. C’mon. Let’s both get closer.”
Ceri dropped the binoculars to the grass and grabbed the other shotgun. Together, in a crouch, they started to work their way forwards.
* * * * *
Sleep stubbornly eluded Joe Lowden for the rest of the long night. He didn’t mind, except that it would have enabled him to escape the infernal itching sensation deep within his head. The fact that he was once more capable of minding or not minding had not yet registered as one of the new concepts leaking into his consciousness.
What did register when they were roused in the early hours of the morning was that his chin no longer wanted to dangle slackly to his chest, allowing spittle to fall in a stringy stream. That it might be a good idea to disguise this fact also registered. Joe allowed his chin to loll, like the others’, and resisted the impulse to wipe spit away.
He knew who he was: Joe Lowden, a northern lad. He did not yet recognise every image that played in his mind. Some of the people, some of the places he could not yet put a name to. But more than anything he knew that he was in a heap of trouble.
When they were ordered to leave the building and make for the bus, Joe shuffled along with the rest, careful to keep his expression blank. He sat on the bus, staring slackly ahead, expressing no interest in his surroundings.
He slouched off the bus when ordered and joined the aimless hanging about. Torches were lit and by their sputtering light Joe and the others were marched across crunching grass towards a stone circle. The bad feeling that had been growing in Joe’s gut intensified. He wanted to lean to one side and throw up the lavish dinner from the evening before, but forced himself to keep moving. He allowed his pace to slow a little, not sufficiently to be noticed but enough that he began to drop towards the rear of the shuffling mass.
The order came to form a line and a new memory surfaced. A white hospital room; the smell of ozone and sour milk; people with guns; people without guns staring at him. He was standing in another line, one that he didn’t want to be in. One that would end badly when he reached the front and it was his turn to step behind the plastic curtains. . . .
Joe was buffeted as people walked past him. His legs wanted to turn and move him quickly in the opposite direction. He stumbled deliberately, as though confused, and more people pressed by. Before attention turned on him, he shuffled forwards, but slowly, allowing more people to overtake him. In this way, by the time he came to a halt at the end of the line, there were only a few people behind him.
Making sure his expression remained vacuous, Joe waited.
* * * * *
Bri opened her eyes to pitch darkness and groaned. Her legs, back and backside—especially her backside—felt like they had been tenderised with a steak hammer. Fresh pain coursed through her temples; bright white spots danced in front of the darkness.
Grimacing and muttering curses, Bri fumbled at her pockets and dry-swallowed two painkillers.
“Will.” She shrugged her right shoulder against which his head rested. “Will!”
“Mm. . . .”
“Wake up. Time to get moving.”
“Wanna sleep. . . .”
“I know. Stay and sleep if you want, but you’ll have to lie down or lean against something else.”
When his voice came again, all trace of sleepiness had disappeared.
“Where are we going?”
“Stonehenge. Dress warmly.”
Bri rooted around in her backpack until she felt the Harrods hat. She pulled it low over her ears.
As they walked through the bitter night air, Bri’s stiffness eased and the trek became easier. Her headache began to fade to the dull background pain to which she had grown accustomed. The only debilitating factor that remained was utter weariness.
They had left their torches behind and proceeded cautiously. The low wire fences that they came across gleamed in the starlight and they were able to clamber over them with minimal difficulty.
Tension grew in Bri with every step southwards they took. It must have rubbed off on Will because he said very little.
When a flickering orange glow appeared ahead of them, Bri stopped. She lowered her mouth to Will’s ear.
“Remember I said you could come so long as you stayed put when I told you to?”
Will nodded.
“Well, this is where you stay put.”
“But—”
“But me no buts, mister,” Bri hissed. “Cross your heart and hope to die. Remember?”
A pause. He nodded again.
“Good. Whatever you hear, don’t come any closer. If I don’t return, go back to our bikes and get the hell out of here.”
Bri straightened. She avoided looking at Will’s face; she could not stand to see the expression that she knew must be there.
Before she could step away, Will grabbed her and hugged her fiercely. After a moment’s hesitation, she threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly back. She had to tear herself away.
She glanced back once. He stood watching her. It was too dark for her to make out his features, but his shoulders sagged. She raised her hand in a brief farewell and did not look back again.
Bri lowered herself into a crouch as she drew closer to the flickering light. By it, she could see a ring of tall stones. On impulse, she dropped to her knees on the freezing ground and tugged at the stiff grass. The muscles in her back complained, but she ignored them. After a few failures, she managed to tear away a small sod. She brought it to her mouth and breathed on it, trying to soften the frozen clump of earth. When she judged it as soft as she could make it, she raised the mud to her face and smeared it, working it well in below her eyes. She doubted it would stand up to close inspection, but she hoped the grime would mask her youthful complexion. She had overheard Ceri tell Tom, in aghast tones, that these people did not have children or teenagers, that they were born as adults. Bri couldn’t see how that would work, but now wasn’t the time to ponder.
She crept forward until she was just outside the wavering pool of light thrown by the torches. She could hear muffled voices, but could see no one. All the action seemed to be taking place at the far side of the stones.
Keeping outside the light, Bri moved to her left, describing a circle. People came into view, standing in lines or milling about as though waiting to take up more permanent positions.
From what Peter had told her, and from her own experiences since awaking in London with no memory of before, she knew she was safe from detection through her mind. The protection she had put in place could not be penetrated, even if three of them acted together. She suspected that it would take a lot more of them than that to be able to exert the same control over her that she had witnessed them exerting over Will.
No, the danger lay in the possibility of physical detection. She tugged her hat lower so that it nestled almost on to
p of her eyes.
She continued to circle, now having to weave between huge blocks of ancient-looking stone that lay higgledy-piggledy in the grass.
Drawing level with the mass of people, Bri drew in a deep breath. Standing as erect as she could in the hope of giving the impression of being taller, she strode forward into the light.
She expected at any moment to hear a challenge, but continued on, trying to look as though she was part of proceedings. Maybe because she was managing to convey an aura of confidence, of belonging, or perhaps because nobody happened to be looking in her direction when she emerged from the darkness, no challenge came. She took in the scene as she approached.
Slack-jawed people had formed a long queue from the edge of the stone ring. Another line was forming next to it, starting at a table upon which stood some boxes. The people in this second line wore normal, alert expressions. A blonde-haired woman near the front of the queue bounced up and down on the balls of her feet as though barely able to contain her excitement. Others in line also looked excited, but not all. Some looked grim or decidedly morose.
To one side of the queues, a clutch of three people stood near a short, black woman of enormous girth. All four of them seemed to be closely watching the lines forming. Now and then, one or other of the three would glance at the plump woman and Bri gained the impression that she was in charge.
Bri focused her attention on a grey-haired man in the middle of the second line whose glance darted this way and that like someone seeking an escape route, and who took great gulps of air as if to ward off nausea. The queue of people behind him curved a little so that the watching cluster’s view of him would be obscured. He would have to do.
Keeping her shoulders thrust back, but her head dipped slightly forward to cast her face in shadow, Bri strode up to the man.
He glanced at her without interest.
“I’ve been asked to take your place,” Bri said in a low voice. She nodded in the direction where the woman stood. “She asked me to.”
“Huh?” said the man. He turned his head to see where Bri had indicated. When he turned back, relief flooded his features. “Milandra asked you to replace me?”
“Yep.” Bri could sense hope pouring off the man. Whatever he was standing in line to do, it was clearly something for which he had no stomach.
Yet he didn’t move away.
His brow furrowed and he peered at Bri more closely.
“Who are you?” he said.
“I’m Bri, of course,” she replied in a tone that implied she was stating the perfectly obvious.
The man nodded as though that explained everything, and blinked as though he didn’t quite follow the explanation.
“Off you toddle, then,” said Bri, flapping her fingers at him. Adrenaline was making her cavalier. “Spit spot.”
“Er, okay,” said the man. “Um, thanks.”
Bri turned her head, dismissing him. She daren’t open her mouth again. She might have got away with the Mary Poppins impression, but she didn’t trust herself to say anything more.
From the corner of her eye, Bri saw the man move away and breathed a silent sigh of relief. She watched him surreptitiously for a few moments, afraid he was going to approach the woman he had called Milandra to thank her for relieving him. But he walked in the opposite direction and soon was lost to view amidst milling bodies.
Bri risked a cautious glance at the person standing behind her in the queue. A middle-aged woman, staring off into the distance as if bored with the whole thing. The person in front of Bri was a small man who appeared to be paying her not the slightest heed.
So far, so good.
* * * * *
Snot ran onto Will’s upper lip and pooled there. He wiped it away with the sleeve of his jacket. He used his other sleeve to wipe at his cheeks.
He had never felt so small and so alone. He hadn’t felt this abandoned even when waking alone in his mum’s flat. At least she and Poppy hadn’t chosen to leave him.
Yet he knew that Bri wouldn’t have chosen to leave him either, not if she felt there was a better alternative. She was trying to protect him and all he could do was stand there snivelling in the dark like some dipsy girl.
He took a deep breath and wiped the last of the tears and snot away. He had crossed his heart and hoped to die, but figured that he was going to die anyway by the sound of it. He shrugged his thin shoulders. Might as well die from breaking a promise as from anything else.
Setting his face to the orange glow, Will started walking after Bri.
* * * * *
Tom and Ceri reached the shifting edge of light. Tom gripped the shotgun tightly, both barrels loaded. For days he had imagined himself toting a gun, becoming a man to be feared, a man to be reckoned with; strange that now it came down to it all he felt was bowel-loosening terror.
He peered into the light. He could see Bri, standing in a queue of people that was moving forward. As each person arrived at the table, a man standing behind it reached inside a box and passed an object over that glinted in the torchlight. Clutching the objects, the people stepped across to the line of humans. Each taking a human from the front of the queue by the arm, they led them inside the stone circle.
Tom tensed himself to spring forward. Quite what he would do when he reached the circle, he had no clue. Die most likely. He could feel the last of his resolve seeping away. If he didn’t act now, he never would.
“Wait!”
Ceri grabbed his arm.
He tried to shake her off, but she held tight.
“Let’s move around to our left,” she whispered. “We can approach the stones unseen from behind.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. We can see what Bri does. She must have a plan.”
* * * * *
If Bri had heard Ceri, she would have laughed; a high-pitched chortle edging towards hysteria.
“A plan?” she’d say. “I wish. I’m making this up as I go along.”
Bri lowered her gaze as she approached the table. The man standing behind it barely glanced at her. He held out a knife that she took from him. It felt heavy and cold. She briefly examined the blade as she walked away. It looked honed to a wickedly sharp edge.
What am I supposed to do with this? she wondered.
Following the lead of the small man in front of her, Bri made for the queue of slack-jawed people. The small man had gripped the woman at the front by the upper arm and was leading her between the nearest standing stones into the ring.
Next in line was a man. Thick-set, somewhere in his forties she guessed, he stared vacantly ahead, a dribble of spit falling to his stained jumper.
Bri reached forward with her left hand and gripped him lightly on his forearm. The man didn’t even look around. Exerting the slightest of pressure, she nudged the man forwards and he began to shuffle towards the gap in the stones.
Then it happened.
The world wavered. Bri stumbled and tightened her grip on the man’s arm to steady herself. A bright light went off like a flashbulb in her head, making her gasp.
The ring of stones, the lines of people, the thick-set man. . . . They flickered like a malfunctioning film reel and blinked out. Bri was no longer there; she was inside the man’s psyche, penetrating the cloud that enveloped it, delving into memories that he was no longer capable of reliving. When she saw herself in those memories, a fog lifted inside her psyche.
Bri’s mind jumped again. To before. . . .
* * * * *
Her eyes open on a shadowed room. She is lying, fully clothed, under the duvet in a double bed. A man, thick-set, somewhere in his forties she guesses, is standing at the end of the bed, gazing down at her. His lips are parted in a sneer and his breath comes in short gasps.
“So you ducked in here to escape the snow, too, my dear,” he says.
His voice is oily and the hairs on her neck crackle as though electrically charged. Her lower lip quivers and she clenches it between her t
eeth. This seems to make him breathe more rapidly.
Bri flings the duvet back and darts from the bed. He is slow to react. She is past him and out of the door. But she hears the heavy clomp of his boots on the stairs as he pursues her down them.
She runs past her bike and reaches the front door. The worn brass handle turns in her grasp, but the door is stiff. A sharp pain pierces the back of her head as he grabs her hair. He flings her into the living room and she cries out.
She is on her back on a sagging settee. He crouches over her, hot breath flooding her face in sour waves.
As Bri struggles and screams, he holds her tight by leaning across her with his left arm. With his right hand, he reaches for something on the floor. It comes up holding a solid glass paperweight. He brandishes it above her face and she freezes, her eyes fixed on the heavy object.
“That’s better,” he croons. “No need to make such a fuss, my dear. It’s not as if I have time now to enjoy you. I have to be getting to the hospital. . . .” His brow beetles as though he isn’t sure why he must go.
Bri says nothing. Terror and revulsion mute her.
The man’s face smoothes out and he smiles. “Will you wait here for me, my dear, while I attend to business?” He chuckles and doesn’t wait for an answer that she is incapable of uttering. “Of course you won’t. So I’ll just make sure you’re still here when I return. . . .”
At last released from paralysis, Bri starts to scream, but the sound barely begins to escape her lips when the paperweight crashes down in a vicious arc towards her forehead and everything turns black.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Milandra had already started forward to enter the stone circle as soon as the sixty-third drone had been led in, when she heard the commotion. Possessing the well-hidden ability to cover ground quickly when she needed to, Milandra was the first one there, squeezing through the stalled lines.
