In the deep and dark of the night, when all was lonely and lost, I slept a little bit I was so exhausted and also weak from hunger and thirst. We didn’t have anything to eat or drink with us, but we did have the candle and a torch I used when the candle burned away, but I didn’t leave it on to waste the batteries. When I woke up I was more wide awake than ever and Daryl was sleeping. That was when I had a lot of thoughts about me and my life and the sickos and my farm and praying and all the other stuff I have written down.
We had this RE teacher at school called Mister Pinker who was always trying to get us to think about things. He had a game he played where he would use what he called thinkazoids. These were things that were supposed to make us think. He’d say, ‘OK, here’s today’s thinkazoid! Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?’ Or something like that. And there was one thinkazoid he did that I never really got at the time, but I’ve thought about it since and maybe I do get it now. He said if a tree fell down in a forest, and there was nobody there to hear it, would it make a sound? I think what he meant was that sounds only become sounds when we hear them, otherwise it’s just waves that go through the air. So if there were no ears there to pick up the sound waves then is there any sound at all? Something like that. If things happen, and there’s nobody there to see it, do they happen at all?
Well, I’ve been thinking about this book I’m writing and I have a thinkazoid of my own. If you write a book and nobody reads it, does the book exist? Stories in books, characters and things, you know, like places and monsters or whatever the writer has made up and written down, they only really come alive when we read them. Otherwise it’s just a jumble of squiggles on bits of paper. So I’m writing this book now, but if nobody ever reads it does that mean it never really existed, and nobody will ever know my story? Does it mean that I never really existed? I think it’s really sad to think about all the books there are in the world now, many millions and millions of them, that are sitting there in people’s empty homes, and in bookshops and libraries and on miles and miles and miles of shelves, but nobody will ever read any of them again and all those people in the books won’t exist any more. Like me.
In the end the only way I could forget about what was happening and the shapes in the dark and the smell of the sickos at the door and the nasty little noises they made, sniffing and sniggering and scratching and moaning and whining like animals, was to read my journal and to write this all down using my torch to see. It gave me a little hope.
And now I have finished writing and there isn’t anything else. Eventually the sickos will get through the door and nobody will come to rescue us. I am alone and I am going to die and I am scared. If I was braver I would throw myself off the tower, but I’m not brave enough. I am not brave at all, like I have said here before, so first I will hide the book so that the sickos do not get it and then I will sit and wait. I have finished writing and there isn’t anything else.
78
The next page was blank. Ollie looked up from the book and over to the church, where poor Lettis had lived her last terrifying moments. The fire was bright inside and smoke was coming out of the door and between the tiles on the roof. He pictured the shattered door to the tower where Lettis had been hiding. Didn’t want to think about exactly what might have happened to her. The pain and terror. Well, he would remember her. He would make sure of that. She had claimed not to be brave, but just to sit and write those words was the bravest thing he knew. He would keep the journal safe and return it to Chris Marker at the museum.
Blue was herding everyone together, getting ready to move out. Ollie would have to join them in a minute or risk being left behind. There was one thing he wanted to do first, though. He kept a pencil in his backpack along with various other useful items. He fished it out. He would write an entry in the book while the events of the day were still fresh in his mind. Something about Lettis and what they had found here. Why they were late turning up. It would mean a lot to Chris Marker.
He flicked to the last page of writing and turned it over. Looked at the two fresh blank pages … and then he spotted something. More writing, showing faintly through the paper. There was another entry. In her hurry Lettis had missed a page. He hadn’t read to the end of the story. Ollie quickly flipped over and began to read.
79
This is the journal of Lettis Slingsbury. I don’t know what day it is. Daryl is gone and I am in a tiny cupboard at the bottom of the stairs, scrumpled up and crammed in like a piece of old rubbish.
What happened was when it got light we realized that the sickos weren’t banging on the door any more. We thought, or we hoped, that they had got bored and left us alone, gone back to their holes to sleep. Daryl and I went back up on to the top of the steeple. We peered out as light came over the land. The sickos had gone. All was quiet. Had they really left us all alone? Might we be able to escape? These were the questions we were asking.
We went down to the door and listened, too scared to open it. And we heard someone moving about, shuffling and stealthy. There was still someone there. It might be a child like us, but as I just said we were too scared to open the door and find out. I remembered what had happened when Aiyshah had opened the church door and let the sickos in. How the animal man had got hold of her and how she had screamed and screamed.
We talked about what to do and then Daryl said, ‘We can’t stay here. We’ll starve to death or the sickos will wake up and start breaking the door down again.’ We could see that the door was all cracked and broken and nearly broken in. ‘I am going to climb down from the tower,’ he said. ‘And make a run for it.’
‘It’s too dangerous out there,’ I explained, but Daryl wouldn’t listen, he was wild-eyed. And I knew I couldn’t stop him and part of me secretly wanted him to go anyway so that he might get help. I was being selfish again so maybe I didn’t try very hard to really stop him. He had a map which showed the way to the place where the others had gone. It looked like it wasn’t very far on the map. He would be all alone, though, out there, with no knowledge of if there were other sickos around. He was brave, but also a little crazy. He was desperate.
I watched him climb down the tower. Going carefully. There were sticking out stones and things to put his hands and feet on and it didn’t take him long. He was a good climber. When he was at the bottom he looked around and then ran over to the gate. He looked back up at me and gave me a thumbs up and waved and I waved back and he took three more steps and a father came quickly out of the trees.
It was the animal man with the belt of cats, striding on long legs, and when Daryl tried to run the three sickos joined together came from the other way by a wall, spreading out their arms wide, and Daryl didn’t have a chance and I didn’t watch and I put my hands over my ears so that I wouldn’t hear and I came inside and down the stairs and knew that all was lost and that I was truly alone now and I found this little cupboard, hidden under the stairs at the bottom, so I came in and I used my torch to write this. I will keep the book with me so that it is safe. I do not want the sickos to get their hands on it. They will find my skeleton with the book held in its bony hands for all time. And I will go to sleep and when I wake up it will all be over one way or the other way.
NEW ENTRY. I have been thinking, as I sit here, that if I stay hidden nobody will ever find the book and know what happened. It could be years and years and years. The church might crumble to dust around me. I want the rest of the children who went on ahead to find the book so that they can understand what happened. Chris Marker must know the truth.
What if they came to the church to rescue me and they didn’t know I was here? I have come up with a new plan. Even though it is the most precious thing to me in the world I will take my journal to the top of the tower and throw it over the edge to somewhere that it will be seen so that when the others come back they will find it and they will know about me and more importantly what happened. Then I will come back to this cupboard and I will close the door and I will curl up agai
n like this, like a kitten, and I will close my eyes and that will be that. Goodbye.
80
Ollie jumped to his feet. Blue was already moving the kids towards the pathway where the three trolleys stood waiting. Ollie ran over to him, shouting and waving his arms.
‘We can’t leave yet!’
Blue stopped and turned. ‘Where you been, Ollie?’ He looked angry.
‘We have to go back in,’ said Ollie, out of breath and gabbling.
‘Back in where?’
‘In the church. She’s still there. She might still be alive.’
‘Who you talking about?’
‘Lettis, the girl, that girl from the museum, the one who was, like, writing that diary thing.’ Ollie was falling over his words. ‘She’s hiding in there.’
Ollie shoved the book at Blue, who looked at it, confused and still angry. He wanted to be away.
‘You can’t go back in there,’ he said. ‘Look at the place. You’ll be fried, man. We got to go.’
Ollie looked at the church. Blue was right. Smoke was pouring from the door now, thick and black. One of the windows had cracked and flames were stabbing out of it.
Ollie felt a terrible sick feeling of panic chewing at his guts. His head was pounding. Was it too late? He had to do something. The tower? What about the tower? If Daryl had managed to climb down it then maybe Ollie could climb up it.
‘Wait,’ he pleaded with Blue. ‘Just wait, please. I can do it.’
‘Ollie …’
Ollie ignored him, grabbed Ebenezer and pulled him away from the group back towards the church, frantically trying to explain to him what was going on, handing him first his backpack and then his jacket. Thank God Ebenezer got it and when they reached the tower he gave Ollie a leg-up so that he could get a grip on a run of stonework that stuck out about three metres off the ground. Ollie wasn’t sure how he did it (he was running on adrenalin, his mind making choices before he was aware of it), but he pulled himself up and was soon scaling the wall, climbing by feel and instinct, his fingers and toes finding holds where none appeared to be, his fingernails tearing and his fingertips quickly cut and bleeding. At one point he slipped and nearly fell, found himself dangling by one hand, but somehow he located a foothold and carried on up. Luckily the tower wasn’t very tall, only seven or eight metres in all, and he steadily worked his way to the top, Ebenezer shouting to him from below to be careful.
No. He wasn’t being careful. He was in a mad rush again, acting too fast, fuelled by dread and fear. Not for himself. For the girl. In there somewhere. This was not in character for Ollie. He always held back, weighed things up, picked the enemy off from a distance. But not now, when the enemy was time itself. If there was any chance he could save Lettis, he would. Right now she was the most important thing in the world.
Just one … If he could save just one of them …
But three times today he’d nearly died from being careless.
Not a fourth. There wouldn’t be a fourth time. He’d make it. He’d be OK. He’d save her.
And then his hands were scrabbling over the wall at the top of the tower, getting a grip and pulling his body up and over. He flopped down on to the flagstones, panting and gasping.
That was the easy part.
There was smoke drifting up through the doorway in the little circular turret at the corner of the tower. The steeple was acting like a chimney, sucking the smoke out of the church, even though they had lit the fire down at the other end by the altar. Ollie had read enough about fires to know that the smoke would kill you before the flames ever got to you. He tugged off his jumper and wrapped it round the lower half of his face, covering his nose and mouth. He had a knitted cap stuffed into the back pocket of his jeans and he jammed it on, leaving just a narrow strip for his eyes. He walked over to the doorway and peered inside. The smoke was making it very hard to see anything. He backed away then leant over the wall.
‘Lob me up my torch,’ he called down to Ebenezer. Ebenezer was a brilliant shot, and his throwing arm was strong. He threw the torch up so that it reached its apex right in front of Ollie, who simply had to pluck it out of the air. It was fully wound up and he snapped on the beam. Returned to the smoke-filled doorway.
He paused a moment and then filled his lungs with as much air as they would hold. If he could hold his breath all the way down and back he’d be safe. He plunged inside.
Smoke was climbing the stairs in a thick column. His eyes were already stinging. He forced himself down the spiral staircase, feeling his way, as, despite the torch, he couldn’t see anything. Round and round he went, down and down, his lungs starting to burn. If he slipped and fell he doubted he’d ever get up again. And then he stumbled as he reached the bottom and there were no more steps. He crashed into the wall. Steadied himself. Chest tight. Eyes sore and watery.
Where was the cupboard Lettis had written about? Where was Lettis?
He groped around, feeling the brickwork, trying to get the layout into his head. It was under the stairs, she had said. Then he discovered a pocket of clear air that the circulating smoke was avoiding as it went into a swirling eddy before being sucked up the stairway.
Ollie moved into the clear patch, emptied his lungs with a groan and risked taking a breath. The air tasted sour and it clawed at his throat, but he held it in, hoping it would be enough to take him back up to the top.
And then he saw it. A small cupboard door, tucked under the stairs, too small for a person to fit through, surely. There was nothing else down here, though, and his air supply was rapidly running out. Already his lungs were filling with carbon dioxide again.
He yanked the door open and shone his torch inside. There was someone there – folded up in a bundle of skinny arms and legs. It was her. She stared at him with dead eyes … He was too late. She wasn’t moving.
And then she blinked. Coughed as the smoke got to her.
Ollie took hold of her and dragged her out, scraping her knees on the edge of the door frame. He crushed her face to his chest to protect her from the smoke.
‘Come on,’ he croaked, letting the air out of his lungs. ‘We’re going up.’
And up they went, as the lack of oxygen squeezed his head and made it ache appallingly, his vision swimming, his legs weak, not sure if he could make it, Lettis a deadweight in his arms.
He tripped. Hit the wall again. Wanted to stop. Let go. Sleep. No. Not yet. Go up. Carry her up. Don’t think about it. Keep moving …
And then there was fresh air, daylight. He let Lettis slip out of his arms and collapsed on to all fours, took in a great gulp of smoky air, coughed, retched, fell flat as a surge of dizziness shook him. He fought it off, spat the sick from his mouth and turned to Lettis, who was lying beside him, unmoving, her knees gripped tight to her chest, her face blank.
‘Are you all right,’ he wheezed, every word an agony as they scraped at his throat. ‘Are you alive?’
Lettis still didn’t move. She looked like she was staring at something a million miles away. But then Ollie felt a movement – something warm touching his hand – and her fingers twined round his and he broke down into tears of relief.
81
‘You let them live? You useless piece of bogweed. You stinking snivel. You turdburger …’
‘There were too many of them. The new ones. That girl.’ Paul was curled up in a ball on the floor at the top of the tower, right up under the pointed wooden roof, where the pigeons lived.
‘A girl?’ Boney-M shrieked. ‘A bloody girl? You let a girl beat you down? You are worse than I thought. You are the scrapings off the bottom of a sewage worker’s boot.’
‘Oh, shut up. I’ve got a headache. I can’t handle this now.’
‘You’ve always got a headache, because you’re a girl. And girls always have headaches. Little Pauline heady-achey. Little Pauline pissypants. Little Pauline …’
‘Shut up, I said! Shut up – shut up – shut up!’
He’d had to co
me up here to get away from the stench. Samira’s body was liquefying, turning black and melting into the floorboards, covered in blossoms of green mould, crawling with flies and maggots. The decay had accelerated after he’d cut her stomach open. He should never have done that. Let all that foulness out. Released the bacteria that lived in there. He couldn’t eat any more of her and he was getting hungrier and hungrier. He needed to eat again and Boney-M wasn’t helping. All the filthy bird did was screech into his ear, his voice drilling into Paul, burning through his eardrum like acid. Mashing and mangling his brain so that he couldn’t think straight.
He itched all over, wanted to scratch his skin off, to let the heat out somehow, wanted to drive a spike into his brain and release the poison that was pooling inside his skull. The air pressed down on him; even the light seemed to want to get at him. It was drilling its way in through every window, every crack and gap. It hurt his eyes just thinking about it.
There was only one thought that eased the pain. The thought of fresh meat.
He had to go down there again. He had to find one he could catch, just a little one, even at the risk of being spotted. Because he had to eat and the only thing he could imagine eating was one of them. The thought was like a warm, safe spot deep in his heart. Deep in his guts.
He’d been so close last night. If that stupid girl hadn’t stopped him he could have dragged Cameron up here. Fresh meat. That’s all he wanted …
‘Fresh meat.’
‘What’s that? Did little Pauline pickle-dickle say something?’