Num8ers

by Rachel Ward

  When we stopped, it was like all the energy had gone out of us; we’d laughed it away. It was silent in the car. Reality was seeping in, like when you drink something really cold and can feel it making its way down your throat and inside you. Doubts about the whole thing were crowding in on me. We didn’t know where we were going, we’d got nothing useful with us, everyone would be looking for us. I didn’t want to be the one to say it, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “Maybe we should go back,” I said. “They might be easier on us if we went back and gave ourselves up.”

  Spider shook his head. “I ain’t never going back. I can’t, Jem.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t? Alright, yeah, it’ll be bad for a bit. They’ll question us about earlier on, and we’ve taken the car now, but what’s the worst they can do? Lock us up?”

  “No, Jem, not the police — though they will lock me up this time, they’ve been waiting for an excuse. But it’s not them. Look.” And he reached into his jacket pocket and drew out a brown envelope, a big one, folded over, and handed it to me.

  “What’s this?”

  “Have a look.” I unfolded the end and peered in. There were bills inside, a dense wedge of notes. I put my hand in and pulled them out. I had honestly never seen or held so much money in my life.

  “That’s our future, Jem. Well, the next few weeks, anyway.”

  I held the wad in one hand and flicked through the other end with my thumb, like you’d flick through a book. There must have been hundreds of used fivers and tenners. Thousands of pounds. “What have you done, robbed a bank?”

  He chewed on a hangnail, looked at me without answering.

  “What have you done, Spider?” I asked quietly.

  He looked down, ran his hands through his hair. “I didn’t make my last drop-off.”

  “It’s Baz’s money? You robbed Baz? Oh, my God, Spider, they’ll kill you!”

  He was back to chewing the edge of his finger. “Not if they don’t find me. That’s why I can’t go back. It’s you and me now, Jem. We’ve got to do this. We’ve got to find somewhere new. Start again.”

  I closed my eyes. There really was no going back. I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  “You alright?” I didn’t answer, didn’t know what to say. “I could drop you off somewhere, if you like. I can’t go back, but you can. You could go back, Jem.”

  I let his words sink in. He really meant it — he’d go on without me. But what did I have to go back to? The police, the foster system, Karen? I opened my eyes, and he was staring right at me, really looking at me. How many people in my life saw anything more than an odd, quiet little kid in a hoodie? How many people had really bothered with me? Spider was different: He was funny, crazy, restless, reckless. He was alright.

  “No,” I said. “It’s OK. I’ll stay for the ride. Wouldn’t mind having a look at Weston-Super-Wotsit.”

  He grinned and nodded. “Let’s carry on down this road, find a petrol station and get some proper food, buy a map, make a plan.”

  “OK,” I said, “let’s do it.”

  We did a U-turn in our side road and joined the main drag again. After about ten minutes, we found a gas station and drew up beside one of the self-service pumps. After a bit of messing about, Spider found the catch to unlock the cap to the tank, and took care of business. We both went into the shop, and I used the toilet while Spider gathered armfuls of stuff — Coke, potato chips, candy bars, some sandwiches. Enough to keep us going for a few days. People were looking at us a bit funny. Shit, I thought, they’d remember two kids loaded down with stuff.

  The queue was achingly slow.

  The guy behind the counter had the radio on. The music cut to a news report. “London is reeling after a massive blast ripped apart the London Eye…seven dead and many more injured…police are looking for two youths: one black and very tall, the other shorter and slightly built.”

  My skin was prickling all over. I felt like there was a big neon sign over my head, an arrow pointing down: HERE THEY ARE. I knew Spider had heard it, too. He was looking down, shuffling from foot to foot, and chewing at his lip. I was waiting for someone to say something, to grab one of us. It was agony. Every part of me wanted to dump the stuff and take off, but I fought it. Stay cool, stay cool. We inched forward. The news finished and the music came back on as we reached the register. The guy didn’t even look at us, just asked for the pump number and scanned the stuff. Spider paid in cash and we ducked out.

  As we made for the door, I spotted a camera high up in the corner. Just for a second I looked straight at it, and it looked back at me, an unblinking eye. That’s it, I thought. They’ve got a picture of me now. In Val’s stupid mint parka, with my new short hair. Before I got back in the car, I took off the vile coat and chucked it on the backseat. Spider was already starting the engine.

  “OK, let’s go. Here, you look at the map, see if you can work out where we are.” He plonked a big map book on my lap.

  I started to protest, but he cut in. “Jem, we’ve got to get out of here. This is life or death. I need you to do this.”

  I flicked through the pages until I found a big map of the south of England. I concentrated hard, trying to see a pattern in the web of lines on the map, then found London, and looked to the left. I felt a twinge of triumph when I spotted Bristol. There were loads of roads between the two, we just needed to find one of them.

  “Just drive until we find a sign, Spider. I’ll be able to tell when there’s a sign.”

  And so, haltingly, we found our way out of the city, stopping every now and then to check, turning ’round when we’d gone wrong. All the time I was listening out for sirens, checking in the sideview mirror for cars behind. When I finally figured out where we were on the map, I held my finger there, moving it along as we traveled.

  In Basingstoke, we pulled off the main road and found a quiet street. Spider got out and took a leak, and then we had a sort of picnic in the car: sandwiches, chips, Coke.

  “I guess we should ditch this car. It’s too hot. Every pig in the country’s going to be looking for it,” Spider said through a mouthful of food, little bits of potato chips spraying all around him.

  I felt a twinge of regret. “I kind of like it.”

  “Yeah, I know, but they’ll pick us up tonight or tomorrow unless we switch. Why don’t we find somewhere really quiet and get some kip, then swap cars early in the morning. I’m done in.”

  We drove around until we found a country lane, without streetlights. We pulled into a sort of rest stop, turned off the engine, and killed the lights. It was pitch-black, unnatural.

  “I don’t like this, Spider. It’s too bloody dark. Let’s find somewhere with some streetlights. This is too weird.”

  “No, man. If it’s light, people will see. We won’t last five minutes. You won’t notice the difference when you’ve got your eyes shut. Look, climb in the back and lie down. You’ll be alright there.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere — I’ll kip here.” His long limbs only just fit into the front; his head was brushing the ceiling.

  “No, I’m alright here,” I said. “I can tip the seat back. You get in the back, bit more space for you.”

  So much for old-fashioned gallantry. He agreed straightaway and got out of the driver’s door and into the back. He leaned over and rummaged behind the seat, then passed a blanket over to me.

  I wrapped it ’round my shoulders and wriggled down, trying to make myself comfortable. I closed my eyes, but all I could see were the images from the TV: the space where the pod used to be on the Eye, bits of blue parka, a shredded straw bag. I could see the queue again, those faces looking at me. I opened my eyes, but there was no relief, nothing to focus on, just the wretched blackness of a country lane. The darkness was so dense, there could be anything out there. There could be a bloody great bloke with a knife just a few feet from the car, and we wouldn’t see him until he loomed up to the windows, pres
sed his hands and face against the glass, grotesquely distorted, yanked open the doors, and…

  “You awake, Spider?”

  “Yeah.” I could hear him shifting around. “I’m so knackered, but I can’t sleep. My brain won’t switch off, it’s like I’m wired.”

  “I’m scared. I don’t like it here.”

  I felt his hand reach ’round the side of my seat, patting my arm. I got my hand out of the blanket and intertwined my fingers with his. His hand felt like it was twice the size of mine — long fingers and knobbly knuckles. He gently stroked the base of my thumb with his, soothing me without words. I guess I must have nodded off, because the next thing I knew a gray, silvery light was filling the car through fogged-up windows, and Spider was getting into the driver’s seat.

  “Time to go, Jem. We’ll find some nice wheels and get some miles behind us before everyone wakes up.”

  He turned the car around, and we headed back to the suburbs of the sleeping town. I was flung forward as he suddenly slammed on the brakes. A fox was crossing the road in front of us, a big bugger. Spider smiled as it melted away into a hedge.

  “Glad I didn’t hit him. He’s the same as us, Jem. A thief, out and about, nice and early. Respect, Mister Fox.”

  We carried on, soon finding some quiet suburban streets full of parked cars. Despite it being God knows what time, Spider was wide-awake, his eyes flicking along the rows of cars, checking things out. After a bit, he pulled up and nodded toward the other side of the road, where a big old station wagon was parked.

  “That’s the one, Jem. Get all the stuff in the bags. Let’s do this quickly, and no noise.” He held his long, bony index finger up to his mouth and winked. He was loving this.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Stay here. I’ll just suss it out.”

  Spider swung out of the car and darted across the road. He did a quick tour ’round the station wagon and came back.

  “Yeah, that’s fine. No wheel lock or nothing. Get all the stuff together, blankets and everything.”

  “Just a minute.” I reached into the glove compartment and pulled out the bill to McNulty. I scrabbled about for a pen and found an old pencil stub. In the smallest print I could manage, I wrote in the corner of the letter: The end—12252023. A parting gift to the cruel bastard.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Spider hissed at me. “We’ve got to go before the neighbors’ curtains start twitching. Come on!”

  I dropped the letter onto the floor, gathered up my stuff, and got out of the car. Spider was already at the driver’s door of the new one, fiddling at the lock with some sort of tool. It gave a satisfying click, and he got in and opened the passenger door. I went ’round, chucked all the stuff onto the backseat, and got in quickly, trying not to make too much noise as I shut the door. Spider was doing his thing under the steering column, and soon the engine sparked into life and we were off, easing through the sleepy streets, nice and quiet.

  It took us ages to get out of Basingstoke. What a complete nightmare, like they’d designed the roads to keep you trapped there forever. We drove ’round in bloody circles for about twenty minutes, until I spotted a sign for Andover — I’d seen on the map that that was one of the next towns west. As we headed away, Spider heaved a sigh of relief. “Reckon they should bomb bloody Basingstoke, leave London alone.”

  Even at half-six there were plenty of cars around.

  “Try the radio, see what’s happening,” Spider said.

  I didn’t want to know, kind of wanted the outside world to stay outside, for it just to be me and Spider in a car, traveling, but I switched the radio on anyway, and pressed a few buttons randomly until I found some news.

  “The death toll from the London bombing has risen to eleven overnight, with twenty-six of the injured still hospitalized, two of them in critical condition. Forensic experts are now engaged in a painstaking search of the site, sifting the debris for evidence of the perpetrators and for clues confirming the identity of the dead. Police are still appealing for two youths seen running from the scene minutes before the explosion to come forward, and are set to release security camera photos at a press conference later this morning.”

  “Switch it off, Jem. Don’t say nothing about the car, does it? P’raps they haven’t sussed it’s us yet.”

  “They probably wouldn’t say everything they know, though, would they? It’s not going to take long, is it? Karen will have reported me missing, and they’ve got the security camera footage….”

  “The best thing would be to find somewhere to hide out, camp out somewhere in the woods. Wherever there are people around, it’s danger for us.”

  My heart sank. What the hell did either of us know about camping out? Two kids from London? “Spider, have you been camping before?”

  “Nah, but how difficult can it be? We just need enough food and water, and some blankets, find somewhere sheltered. We’ll be fine — commandos, yeah?”

  I laughed. “I’m not going commando.”

  “No, you retard, living off the land. Catching stuff, eating berries. We can do that.”

  “We’ll be in the bloody hospital ourselves by tomorrow night if we’re picking stuff and eating it. We’ll be poisoned. If we don’t freeze to death.” I looked gloomily out the window at the alien patchwork of fields and hedges. It was about as friendly as the surface of Mars: no shops, no houses, no people, no life. True enough, London was a dump, but at least it was some sort of civilization, not like this endless, muddy, dull green wasteland. “Why can’t we just stay in the car? Park it out of the way?”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right. Listen, I think we should drive for another half hour or something and then park up out of sight until it gets dark. We’re much less likely to get spotted in the dark.”

  We drove on, past bleak, rolling hills, farms here and there. Every now and again, little clusters of houses and the odd shop sprang up — they had names, but you couldn’t really say they were places. There was nothing to them. Some of the houses had straw on the roofs, like it was the bloody Dark Ages or something. It reminded me of “The Three Little Pigs,” one of the stories my mum read me. Stupid little pig building its house out of straw, and the big bad wolf blowing it down. The wolf ends up boiled in a pot, doesn’t he, with the three little pigs safe in their brick house? I don’t know why they tell children all these lies. It doesn’t take long to figure out that in real life the wolf always comes out on top; little pigs like me and Spider don’t stand a chance.

  “What you thinking about?”

  I came to with a start. I hadn’t been asleep, just thinking sodeep I wasn’t there for a while.

  “Pigs.”

  “You seen some?” He craned behind quickly, throwing the car into a steep swerve.

  “No. Keep your eyes on the road! You’ll kill us both. Anyway, not that sort of pig — real ones, well, storybook ones, oh, never mind….”

  There was a signpost with a picnic table on it. We turned off the road and found a big rest stop, well hidden. There was a tractor trailer parked there, and we pulled up behind it and both had a swig of Coke and some chocolate biscuits. A bloke appeared from the side and walked ’round the back of the truck. He stopped to light a cigarette, then checked that the fastenings on his rig were done up. All the while, I could see he was looking at us. He was pretending he wasn’t, but you know, don’t you, when someone’s staring at one thing but looking out of the corner of their eye at something else? Instinctively, I slouched down in my seat as I watched him walk ’round to the cab door and haul himself up.

  “Can you see him?”

  Spider picked a bit of biscuit out of his teeth. “What, that driver?”

  “Yeah, can you see him in his cab?”

  “Just in his sideview mirror. Why?”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “He’s smoking a cigarette and he’s talking into a little radio thing.”

  My skin was pricking all over. “He’s spotted us, Spid
er. He’s calling the police.”

  “Nah, don’t be daft. These truck drivers talk to each other all the time.”

  “But what if he is? What do we do?”

  “We need to dump this car, get another one. Let’s get out of here, anyway.” He started the engine and shifted easily through the gears as he accelerated away and back onto the main road — he was getting the hang of driving.

  I looked behind. Way back, the tractor trailer was lumbering along, following us.

  When you looked, there were trucks everywhere — one a couple of vehicles ahead of us, and, every minute or so, one coming the other way. If the first driver had spotted us and had told all his mates, we were completely stuffed. They’d be able to trace our every movement. A truck was heading toward us, and as I looked into the cab, the driver met my eyes — just for a moment — then looked away. He had a headset on, and was talking as he passed us.

  “Spider, we’ve gotta get out. They’re on to us. That truck just now, he looked at me. Did you see?”

  “Nah, man, I’m keeping my eyes on the road, like you said.”

  “Watch the next one.”

  Another couple of minutes and another truck approached. The driver definitely clocked us. Spider saw it, too.

  He cursed and swung into the next side road, steaming along a narrow lane. I was holding on to the door with one hand and the dashboard with the other, praying we wouldn’t meet something coming the other way. He slowed down and eventually pulled up at a place where a little lane, not wide enough for a car, met our road.

  There was a signpost, a green one, saying FOOTPATH. My heart sank.

  “Gather up the stuff, we’re going to have to leg it.”

  “No way. Where to? How…?”

  “We’ll just take our stuff, go up this track, walk a few miles, find somewhere to kip down, and I’ll get some more wheels as soon as I can. Nick something from a farm. Come on, get the stuff together.”