Bite Risk, page 17
No such luck. The gap itself is invisible, because the water fills it entirely, churning and throwing itself up the stone in its hurry to leave. With the recent rains, the river is swollen and boisterous. The tunnel is more like a hole in a dam. We stand watching it for a few minutes, unwilling to be the first to point out the obvious. We’re going to be smashed repeatedly against the wall and held underwater. We’re going to drown.
The others take their hoodies off and stash them under a bush. I follow suit, my fingers stiff and clumsy. ‘I’ll go first,’ Elena says breezily. ‘I’m a pretty good swimmer.’ She pretends not to notice that I’m staring in horror. ‘Whoever goes next should leave it ten minutes to give me time to get through and find a spot to help them out of the river on the other side.’
Ingrid turns to me. ‘Wanna go next? I don’t mind.’
I don’t want to go at all.
‘Okay,’ I hear myself say. ‘Is this a good time to remind you I can’t swim? I feel like it’s relevant.’
‘Hey.’ Ingrid puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘You can do this. Big breath before you go in, kick hard with the current. We don’t know how thick the wall is. It might take a while to go through. Just don’t panic, let the flow take you out.’
My legs have nothing left. All I’m fit for is to lie down and sleep for a hundred years.
A faint buzzing. Without a word, we all take cover, ducking into the undergrowth. It grows gradually louder, then the drone bursts across the sky in a gap between the trees, soaring overhead and veering towards town.
‘Delivery, I think,’ Elena says. ‘But we’d better go before the next one.’ She puts her rucksack down, takes off her socks and shoes, then ties her hair up like she’s going to do a couple of lengths of the leisure pool. She’s got the memory stick sealed up tight in a freezer bag, zipped in her shorts pocket.
‘Be careful,’ I say, pointlessly.
Elena sits on the riverbank and dangles her legs in the water. ‘Whoo. That’s some current,’ she says. She bites her lip, working out how to get in and what position to take. ‘Head first, I think. Dive down as far as I can, so I’m less likely to get bashed against the top of the gap.’
‘See you on the other side,’ Ingrid says quietly. I study her face. I don’t see spite there anymore, almost as though it’s been scrubbed away. It gives me a surge of hope. We’re already beating them.
One second Elena’s there, the next she’s gone. The river snatches her away and throws her towards the wall. At first, I can see the red of her T-shirt under the surface, but as she reaches the gap it’s subsumed into the froth and churn. I can’t tell if she’s gone through or not. The roar of the water fills my ears, my head. I lose track of time for a while, straining my eyes into the foam, and startle when Ingrid says, ‘Okay, that’s ten minutes. Your turn. Remember, dive down. Big breath first.’
My legs tremble and Ingrid has to help me sit down on the bank. The water is freezing. I’ve read that people can die just by jumping into really cold water – their body forgets how to breathe for long enough that they panic and drown. I’m already panicking.
‘Ready?’ Ingrid puts her hands on my upper back. ‘Want a push?’
‘No!’ I twist round and clutch at her in terror. Now the moment’s come, I’m falling apart.
She lets me hold her for a few seconds and then gently unpeels my fingers.
‘You can do this.’
‘I can’t.’
Her lips purse, and for a second I think she’s going to get angry. But then she says, ‘Listen. When I saw what those stalker weirdos wrote about me in their report, something finally clicked into place. My grudge against you was only helping them. It was hurting you, and it was hurting me even more. As soon as I let go of it, they lost part of their control over me. They can’t use it, to predict me, or persuade me to do things. It was the first step in being free of them. Your fear is the same. If it stops you from leaving, it’s working for them.’
I nod, miserably, but don’t move.
‘Do you want me to go next instead?’ she suggests. ‘Then there’ll be two of us to pull you out.’
The thought of being left here alone is unbearable. I don’t think I’ll ever actually do it if Ingrid isn’t here making me. I finally shift towards the edge, bring my knees under me. ‘I’ll go.’
‘Okay, good. Breathe slowly with me. In, out. In, out. Clear your mind. Arms over your head to shield it – oh, well, one arm, anyway. Just protect the bad one as best you can. And aim for the gap. The water will buffet you around a bit, but stay focused.’
‘A bit? It looks like a washing machine on spin cycle over there,’ I snap.
‘So at least your clothes’ll be clean for once,’ she bats back, and a tiny bit of tension leaves my chest in a laugh. ‘I’m going to count to three, then you’re jumping in. Take a big breath when I say three, and I’ll tap you on the back a second later. Not push, tap. You’re going to do it yourself. Okay?’
I nod again.
‘Ready? One. Two.’
I realize I’ve forgotten to take my shoes off.
‘Three.’
The shock of the freezing water hits me like a ton of bricks. I meant to dive, but it was more of a bellyflop. The current gleefully grabs me and drags me under straight away. All thoughts of aiming at the gap desert me. I have no control here, no power. The river throws me about, turning me over and over until I have no sense of which way I’m facing, or even which way is up. I’d closed my eyes, but when I open them all I can see is a mass of underwater murkiness, the odd rock looming out of the blackness. My bad arm scrapes against a sharp point and then my back slams into something solid, so hard all my breath escapes at once in a cloud of bubbles. I’m twisted and thrown again, and my face breaks the surface – a flash of daylight, the grey of the wall right next to me; that must be what I hit. I’ve missed the gap and have no idea where it is. I gulp in a lungful of air and try to get my bearings but I’m pulled under again, as though some huge creature has grabbed my feet and yanked me down. My arms are windmilling – I try to raise them to protect my head but the river pulls against them, whipping them away.
Without warning, everything goes black, and I think for a moment I’ve passed out. But a smooth curved surface rushes past my side and I realize I’m inside the gap. The wall forms a tunnel above me. Underneath me. Around me. Hope rises; I’ll be through any second.
It goes on. And on.
My lungs are bursting. Every bump knocks air from me until there’s no more to take. I can’t see anything but blackness, and now I can’t tell if I’m being swept forward through the tunnel or just tossed around in circles endlessly inside it. I open my eyes wide, desperately searching for a glimmer of light, a clue as to which way is out. There’s nothing.
Everything in me is screaming for air. The pain in my chest is now the only thing I can feel. My hands and feet don’t belong to me. I can’t kick. My thoughts are slow, muddled. I’m an observer, watching myself from a distance, a tumbling object in the blackness of space, a microscopic dot in the vast universe. The pain starts to go away, replaced by a creeping sense of peace as I watch myself getting smaller and smaller. It’s curiously beautiful.
And then something hauls me into light so bright it hurts every part of my body. I’m tossed onto a hard surface, and repeatedly hit. The peaceful feeling disappears and I spew out the river, convulsing over and over until I finally lie back, every molecule of my body in agony.
My eyes flicker, burned by the light. A face hovers over me. Elena comes into focus slowly. I lift my head, despite the pain. My top half is on a muddy bank, my bottom half still in shallow water, which is streaming over my ankles. I let my head slip back onto the mud.
‘Well, that wasn’t efficient or elegant but you’re here now,’ she tells me, relief making her jovial. Her hand strokes my hair.
I try to speak, to tell her what it was like floating free through space, and how beautiful it was, but what comes up is another load of water from my lungs.
CHAPTER THIRTY
We wait, Elena close to the wall, me further up in case she misses Ingrid. We stand in the water near the bank, up to our knees, as far out as we can without losing our footing and being swept away. Unbelievably both my trainers are still on my feet, though they’ve definitely lived a lifetime over the past twenty-four hours and must be ready for shoe heaven.
There’s not much to see from here, apart from the wall – grassy slopes rise gently up either side of the river and it’s impossible to see much of the surrounding countryside. I’m bursting with curiosity but keep alert for any sign of Ingrid.
Elena’s getting worried, I can tell. It’s fully light now – Saturday morning. We don’t see any drones this side of the wall, which is just as well as there’s very little cover.
My relief at being alive leaks away as the minutes pass. How long has it been since I came out? Feels like at least an hour. I glance at Elena and she gives me a helpless look back. We both know we can’t stay here for ever.
‘Sel, I think…’ She trails off, unwilling to say it.
‘Not yet.’
She bites her lip, pained. ‘They’ll know we’re gone, now. They might have noticed Harold downloaded that stuff onto the memory stick. They might have forced him to talk. It won’t be long before they figure out what we’ve done. Where we are.’
‘Just a few more minutes.’
But I know she’s right. If we stay here, we might as well not have bothered.
Then I see an auburn flash in the water. ‘There!’ I yell, pointing. Ingrid’s head is above the surface, and I can see her arms flailing, trying to move towards the side. I wade awkwardly through the water, splashing towards her, but Elena’s there already. She makes a grab and catches hold of Ingrid’s T-shirt as she passes, stretching it as the water tries to pull her away. I reach them and grasp Ingrid’s arm, and together we help her out.
‘What took you so long? We were really worried,’ I chide her, sounding exactly like Mum.
She catches her breath and waggles a finger at the sky. ‘Drone,’ she gasps. ‘The next one came and just hovered over the gap. Like it was guarding it. I hid.’
Elena looks scared. ‘Do you think it spotted us going out?’
She shrugs. ‘Don’t think so. It arrived just as I was going to go, ten minutes after you left, Sel. Maybe they just finally realized that was the only place we might get out. I gave up waiting in the end. Chucked a rock at it.’ She grins proudly. ‘Knocked it right out of the sky. It landed in bits, half of it in the river.’
I high-five her, laughing.
‘We’d better get moving right away, though,’ Elena points out. ‘If they notice they’ve lost a drone there, they’ll figure it out.’
We drink from the river, get to our feet, and start walking in the shadow of the wall, following it round, relief feeding new energy to our exhausted bodies. The air is too chilly to dry our soaked clothes.
Finally, the ground drops away to our left, giving us a spectacular view of a valley. We stop, shivering. Spread out below us, tucked into the undulating landscape, is a city. I’ve seen cities in pictures and on the news, of course, but it still takes my breath away. The reality is bigger than anything I’ve imagined. Red brick and glass and concrete. Tiny vehicles move steadily along the criss-crossing streets: so many of them. A flashing blue light weaves through the traffic, and a faint siren filters up towards us – a reminder that these streets are filled with danger and crime. Nevertheless, my heartbeat quickens in excitement and hope.
‘Hastaville,’ Elena breathes.
* * *
An hour or so later, just before we reach the outskirts of the city, we pass a lone, pretty cottage with a line of washing hanging outside. It has a thatched roof and a trail of clematis climbing up over the front door. The curtains are closed.
‘Hey, look.’ Ingrid points. A row of shoes sits under the shelter of the front porch. ‘Come on.’
Adrenaline surges again – are we really going to steal them? Our first act now we’re out of Tremorglade is to commit a crime? On the other hand, the soles are flapping off my trainers. Besides, this must barely even qualify as a crime in Hastaville.
I follow Ingrid to the front porch, expecting someone to open a window any moment and shout at us. We grab what look like the closest sizes. I yank a pair of shorts and a T-shirt off the line, then glance up. I could swear I see a curtain twitch.
‘We’ve got to go!’ I hiss. We run, and don’t stop until we’re well out of sight of the cottage.
‘That was perfect, practically a shopping mall,’ Elena giggles quietly, then rolls her eyes at my disapproving glare. ‘We’re not going to get far with bare feet, are we? How do I look?’ She smooths her hair.
The truth is, we’re scruffy and dirty, but at least now less damp. In a city, hopefully we won’t stand out too much. My nerves jangle as I think about what might lie ahead. We might have been in a prison, but it was safe. Sort of. Out here, things are different. This is a notoriously violent place. I’m conscious of my arm throbbing at my side, useless. Not that I’d be much good in a fight anyway.
One minute we’re on grass, the next it’s concrete. In between a couple of warehouses, up an alley, and we’re in the city. The smell of exhaust fumes hits me right at the back of my throat. So many cars, revving and honking. As we walk along the busy streets, nobody gives us a second glance. I try not to catch anyone’s eye, but can’t help taking sneaky peeks. Hastavillians look… ordinary. No different from Tremorgladers. No one tries to rob us. No one pays much attention to us at all.
The houses are packed in more tightly than in Tremorglade, but what strikes me most is that there’s not a single bit of neon bunting to be seen. In Tremorglade, the morning after Confinement, we roll and stack it all neatly, but we don’t completely remove everything. It would take ages to set up from scratch every month. I observe as much to Elena.
‘Maybe they don’t need to pack it up.’ Elena talks quietly out of the side of her mouth. ‘Maybe they didn’t even set up in the first place. Don’t forget, not everywhere is as organized as Tremorglade. They might not even bother with the external security, just the cages. And in some places they’re even slack about those. We’re basically in the Wild West now.’
As we walk along, it doesn’t seem very Wild West. A greengrocer, topping up his outside displays, gives us a brusque nod as we pass. A toddler pulls a frazzled dad towards a sweetshop. I gasp involuntarily when a woman hurries out of a shop just in front of me holding a knife, but then she stoops to cut the strings round some of the stems in a bucket of flowers. POPPY’S PETALS says the sign.
We’ve agreed to head straight to the library, as Harold said. Apparently there’s free internet there, and we’ll be able to upload the data from the memory stick. I’m not entirely comfortable still following Harold’s instructions, but it does seem more sensible to use the library, rather than go round talking to strangers in a town with Hastaville’s reputation.
All the same, I marvel at how relaxed and full of life the streets are – people walking along minding their own business, talking, laughing, window shopping. We’re on the alert for armed gangs but the further we go, the less we worry. People don’t seem hostile at all, even if they’re not exactly friendly. Mainly they don’t seem interested in us. There are definitely fewer bears and pirates than I feared. We don’t appear to be in any danger at all.
And so I forget what Mum always says: ‘Don’t judge on appearances.’
They can be deceptive.
* * *
The library in Tremorglade is tiny, with an aging carpet and a musty smell. Hastaville’s is something else. Long, wide steps lead up to a pillared facade, and gleaming glass doors rotate to let us in.
Inside, it’s busy, with lone browsers at the rows of tall shelves or tapping away at computers dotted in little nooks here and there. We wander aimlessly for a few minutes, checking out the labels at the end of each shelf. Biography, History, Pets, Fiction A–Aq, Hobbies. I’ve never seen so many books all together. My fingers run along the spines, then I become aware that I’m being watched. A blond woman in a yellow dress stands just a bit further down the shelves. When I spot her she quickly smiles, and goes back to browsing. Maybe she doesn’t think I should be stroking the books. I fold my arms and move on with Elena and Ingrid.
‘We need to find a free computer,’ Elena whispers.
‘Wow,’ Ingrid says, and nudges us to look up.
I hadn’t noticed the vaulted ceiling until now, but it’s beautifully painted with woodland images, creatures peeking from between trees. I spot a Ripper or two here and there. We stand with faces upturned, gazing at it.
‘Can I help you?’ We spin round. A man in his early twenties is standing beside us, hands clasped behind his back. He laughs. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Only you seem a bit lost.’
Elena switches on a radiant smile. ‘We’re from… uh… out of town, just came to do some, er, research. We were… admiring your ceiling.’
‘Ah yes.’ He smiles back. ‘Rather lovely, isn’t it? If a little on the scary side. Are you looking for anything in particular for your research?’
‘Just wondered if we could use one of your computers. We want to Seekle something.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You know,’ Ingrid says slightly impatiently. ‘Search for something on the internet.’
‘Are you a member?’
‘Uh, no. Like I said, we’re from out of town.’
‘Oh, yes. Well… I’m afraid the computers all have a passcode, generated from members’ library cards. Sorry about that. Perhaps you can find a book to help you.’ He gives us an apologetic smile and walks off, only to be accosted at the other end of the stacks by the woman in yellow, who talks to him in a low voice.
