the middle, a lot of individual shops, and a car park all around it. Down the far end was a supermarket, with big bins of fruit or vegetables out the front. Watermelons or potatoes or whatever. The lighting wasn’t too great here either and I couldn’t tell what half the shops were, let alone whether the bins held watermelons, or cans of dog food, or toothbrushes. Closest to me were a hairdresser’s and a clothes shop. There were shoppers everywhere. These people had a serious commitment to late-night shopping.
The next thing that happened was that I saw Jeremy.
It was a shock. I was scanning the car park and everything was alien and unrecognisable and in the middle of it all was a face that was familiar and friendly and part of my life. I focused on him at the same time as a leap of wild excitement happened inside my chest. Although I had been looking for them for hours, I could hardly believe I was seeing him. He moved quickly from the far side of the car park and as I watched he went behind a row of dump bins that were at right angles to the supermarket. He’d been trying to walk naturally, like he belonged there, but he didn’t look too natural to me. For one thing he walked a bit fast. That’s what had attracted my attention I think.
There was no sign of the others. I stayed where I was, behind a small tree, and tried to figure it out. They were probably behind the dump bins with him. Or maybe they were in different points around the car park waiting to ambush the terrorists? It still seemed a strange place for that.
Another movement attracted my attention. This time it wasn’t someone walking too quickly. It was someone moving too slowly. I gazed with a slowly building sense of horror. A man was creeping around the far side of the car park towards the dump bins, and it wasn’t Homer or Lee. And a moment after I saw him — this is hard to describe — it was as though I now, almost immediately, plugged myself into a new network of seeing. Now I was no longer looking at the car park and the occasional shopper with a trolley and the family at the boot of their Daihatsu and the seagulls swooping around looking for scraps. Now I saw a different view: this man with an automatic weapon, and another man coming around from the other side, also armed, and three others following him, and at least three more advancing through the car park, dodging from car to car, and all of them holding their rifles and moving like professionals.
I didn’t even have time to swear. I lost control of my legs for a moment, tried to move but just wobbled, then made myself set off across the road. ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’ I asked myself, in one of those stupid thoughts that come into my head in the worst and wildest situations. I didn’t have an answer. ‘To get eaten by the fox, I suppose.’ I had no plan. I got control of my legs, though, and was suddenly in full war mode again. Keeping my head down and grabbing the rifle so tight I hurt my hand, I raced down the right-hand side of the car park, using the shadow of an overgrown hedge for cover.
With everyone’s attention focused on the dump bins, it wasn’t surprising that no-one noticed me but I wasn’t thinking about that. Just hoping that for once in my life I could be invisible. Just praying no-one would look my way. Arriving at the next tree panting like I’d run three thousand metres in an Olympics final.
I had about four seconds to decide what to do. Go in behind the dump bins and join Jeremy and whoever else was there? Attack the hunters? Hardly. A fox wouldn’t do that. Beyond the car park a rough old track ran uphill. There was a building site, probably an extension to the shopping centre, but it looked like no-one had done any building for a long time. What was that joke? Why do they still call it a building after it’s finished? Why don’t they call it a built? Well, this was definitely a building not a built, because they hadn’t got far past the foundations. What to do? What to do? The question kept pounding at the walls of my brain. It was paralysing me. Go to the dump bins? No. I’d just be joining Jeremy and anyone else there so I could die with them.
Attack? No, instant suicide.
I had to create a diversion, draw those men with guns away. OK, run across the car park firing the rifle so they chased after me? That sounded horribly like suicide too. But lying here on the damp and cold ground wasn’t going to save anyone and it wasn’t going to get me any closer to finding Gavin. Remember the reason you’re here, Ellie? Remember what you said to yourself just a few minutes ago? You can’t leave it to future Ellie to deal with the situation. This is the situation.
No, there was only one way and one place where a diversion might work. I took a deep breath but still felt as though not a skerrick of oxygen reached my lungs. Didn’t matter. I had to assume my body would take care of the breathing thing, like it had done fairly well up till now. I had to throw my life to the winds.
CHAPTER 6
Thank God I didn’t stop to think about it any longer. If I had, there is no way in the world I would have moved from behind that tree. But those dumb old legs and arms work quite fast sometimes, and this was one of those times. I checked the safety on the rifle again, took a rough aim at the hairdresser’s, and shot three rounds into its window, aiming high so I didn’t kill anyone.
Then another two at the clothes shop.
All the lights went out in the hairdresser’s straight away. Half-a-dozen people near the clothes shop scattered and went skidding away to the right and left. A bell started ringing, like the world’s biggest alarm clock. My insides were suddenly cold and twisted, like a doctor with hypothermia had grabbed hold of my large intestine. I ran forwards, bending at the waist, straight towards the mall. People started pouring out of a side exit like a million ants who’ve just heard there’s a jam spill at the factory up the road. Not very intelligent of them but who thinks clearly at times like these? I could see them pushing each other to try to get people to go faster. But for me the automatic doors at the front opened perfectly, inviting me in. There were people still moving normally at the far end, like it hadn’t yet registered on them. I kept running. My insides felt wet and mushy now, no longer cold and twisted. I had a sudden memory of the men in the barracks at the airfield, the men I’d shot, and how they’d looked like road kill. I definitely didn’t want to kill anyone here. These people had just popped in to pick up their Sorbent and their Sanitarium and their Napisan. I fired at the ceiling, four shots, as I ran straight ahead. Suddenly people were diving for cover. Bags of groceries lay all over the floor, in among the deserted trolleys. There were spilt coffee cups, dropped ice-creams, an overturned pram. I deliberately shot out the front glass in a chemist’s shop, on the left, and then the same to another clothing store, on the right. The panes of glass slid down like water over a waterfall. It was almost calming to see the smooth rush of glass.
I was at the supermarket. Now I did have a plan. Not much of one, but a plan. I swung left and raced in there. I think they’d probably turned off the main lights but some kind of security lighting had cut in and everything was dull and dim but visible. I went straight through a checkout lane. No-one asked to inspect my bag. I could see movement all around. I wasn’t stopping to do a survey, but there was a glimpse of an old man to the left, a shop assistant to the right, and a young woman behind a rack of bread. She wasn’t too smart hiding behind bread. The dog food might have been better. The cans of fruit maybe. Boy, you’d get some dramatic ricochets if you started firing near the cans of fruit. I ran past the potato chips. Some foods in this place I didn’t recognise but potato chips must look pretty much the same in any language.
A guy in a suit suddenly popped out at me as I passed a stack of bottled water. He’d been hiding behind it. He wanted to be a hero. He grabbed at me, at the same time turning his face away, like he didn’t want to be hit. His eyes were almost closed. His arms were strong, though, and he got quite a good grip. I got such a shock that I nearly dropped the rifle. But it was like he didn’t quite know what to do. If he did fight me he risked being killed. He was like a softball player who’s stolen a couple of bases but is too scared to run home on a hit. But just as I realised he wasn’t totally committed, he realised I was a girl. He’d stolen a look at me and his eyes widened and he got a stronger grip. He had me around the waist in a face-to-face hug and I knew I had to break his grip or I was done for.
How funny that after everything I’d been through it could all end here, suddenly, in a moment, in this dingy supermarket, among the bottled water and the bags of rice, killed by a man with a forgettable face, a man in a suit and a boring blue-grey tie.
He was trying to pull me over. We struggled wildly. I still had the rifle and the first thing I did was get a finger to the trigger and squeeze off a shot. I knew it was pointing upwards, so it wasn’t going to kill anyone, but I also knew it’d give him a helluva fright and that might give me the advantage for a moment. I was used to the noise but he wasn’t and it really was loud, especially in this place with a low roof. When it went off the man gave a jerk so violent that for a moment I thought I really had hit him. He did loosen his grip on me, and I shoved hard and
