…
…
.-.-.
No more dreams.
We couldn’t stand them any more.
A tickle in our nose?
A rumble somewhere far off, like the hot sigh of underground wind coming up from the tube.
I opened my eyes, since we were too afraid to, and looked around. Somewhere in the distance, there was a deep, polite
A tickle in my nose.
A trickle of mortar dust drifted down from the ceiling. We licked it off our lips, curious. It made our dry tongue, if possible, drier, and tasted of nothing much, with a hint of salt.
I croaked, “Dana?”
From the corner behind my head, out of my line of sight, she said, “That’s a spooky thing you’ve got going there.”
“What is?”
“The way you knew I was here.”
“I was faking being asleep.”
“Then the blue eyes are spooky instead.”
“We can’t really do anything about that.”
“Another spooky thing.”
“What is?”
“The way you sound human when you speak.”
“That’s got a better explanation, all things considered. What’s going on?”
She shrugged. “There’s an underground line beneath us.”
“Which one?”
“Northern.”
“Oh. That’s what the rumbling is.”
“Perhaps.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’m not buying into any new faith systems.”
“I wasn’t asking for you to…”
“I think we’re going to die,” she said quietly.
We thought about this, then smiled. “All things must end,” we said. “So, in the long-term perspective, you may be right. But what’s the point of living, unless you have an end to live for?”
She grunted. I heard the sound of her shoes plodding flatly on the carpet, of something moving on a table beyond my vision. The needles in my arm were gone, the pinpricks covered with small plasters, but I didn’t feel any better for it. Her hand brushed the back of our head, tilted it up carefully. She put a plastic cup next to our lips and said, “Go on. Have some.”
We hesitated, and looked up into her face. She looked pale, thin, but her eyes were still alert, if no longer bright. I sipped. The touch of the water was absolute balm; it rolled across our tongue as if the muscles in our mouth had cracked and dried like a desert, so solidly baked it was almost incapable of absorbing the moisture. When I’d drunk, she said, “I read somewhere that it just goes straight through you, if you’re too dehydrated, like a brick.”
“Cheering,” I said.
“Would you like some more?”
I licked my lips and nodded. She disappeared somewhere behind me. Water ran. She reappeared and helped me drink. Then she said, “You haven’t asked me to help you yet.”
“I didn’t want to rush things.”
“They say you’re possessed.”
“Who ‘they’?”
“Mr Bakker.” The same tone of respect was in her voice that still, even now, instinctively filled mine.
“I’m not.”
“But you’re not quite yourself, are you?”
“No. Not entirely.”
“He said you killed Khay, Lee, Simmons.”
“I didn’t.”
“But you did see my mother.”
I looked up and she was right there, staring down at me, face impassive, voice so cold and empty I half- imagined she hadn’t spoken at all. I licked the last drops of water off my lips, and she didn’t offer to get any more. “I saw Mrs Mikeda. She’s worried about you.”
“Did you do anything to her?”
“You know I didn’t.”
She nodded slowly. Then, “If I help you, promise me you’ll leave. Just get up and go, run. Just run and don’t stop running and move east faster than the night-time and keep going. I know you can do that. I know you know how. Just…” She stopped. I waited. She took a deep breath, steadied herself. “He watches me, all the time,” she murmured. “He’ll find out.”
“Bakker?” I asked.
She shook her head. “He is kind. He tried to help me.”
“Hunger?” I said.
Her eyes turned to me, uncertainty giving them a certain light, for a moment. “You…” she began, a question trailing off in her voice.
“Tall, dark, wears Mr Bakker’s face?” I asked. “He who watches you?”
She nodded.
“Wears my old coat?”
Slowly, nodding.
“What does he want?”
“He said he’d let me live if I helped him.”
“Help him do…?”
“Summon the angels. He said…”
Realisation dawned slowly. “You called us back,” we murmured. “You brought us here!”
There it was, a spasm of fear on her face. “Yes,” she said.
“You brought us back!” we repeated, louder. “It was you, you dragged us out of the lines because we’ve always spoken to you, always known you, always been there for you and you knew where we would hide and you brought us back! We have loved you your whole life, we have whispered to you of freedom and the brightness of life and you,
“Yes,” emotion now in her voice, trembling on the edges.
“Why?” we asked.
