Human.4

back in their proper places.'

He smiled widely.

'Doctor’s orders,' he said.

'I do feel very tired,' I lied.

'Then that’s settled,' the doctor said brightly. 'You rest. Stay in bed the rest of the day. I’ll stop by tomorrow to make sure that everything is OK. I’ll leave a couple of pills with your parents in case you find sleep difficult.'

'Thank you, Doctor Campbell.'

'It’s what I’m here for,' he said.

No, it’s not, I thought instinctively.

I had to get away from the house. To find Lilly. Maybe Mrs O’Donnell. Talk to them about what they remembered, and find out their impressions of the village now the event was 'over'.

Then I needed to find Rodney Peterson and find out exactly what he thought he saw.

'I think I’ll go and lie down a bit more,' I said.

'Good boy,' Doctor Campbell said. 'You’ll soon see that it was all just a horrible nightmare.'

Liar, liar, I thought. I know it. You know it.

I had a sudden flash of intuition and decided I’d play a hunch.

'I’m glad Mum and Dad called you,' I said.

'So am I, young man,' he said.

'Lucky you were by the phone on a Saturday too.'

'I’m always on call,' he explained. 'I guess it’s the curse of being the only doctor in the village.'

I got up and crossed the room towards the door. The telephone was on its cradle on a table nearby. I feinted for the door, went for the phone instead, picked it up and switched it on.

I got a dial tone.

Doctor Campbell was on his feet, starting towards me, but not before I punched in those three numbers.

999.

The doctor reached me and tried to get the phone from me, but I held him off for the few seconds I needed. When he finally wrenched the phone from my hand, I had already confirmed what I had suspected: there was nothing and nobody on the line.

Just those clicks and hisses I knew would be there.

'I’ll be in my room,' I said quietly, and made my way up the stairs.

Chapter 17

My experiment had proved that Doctor Campbell had lied—Mum and Dad couldn’t have called him: the phone wasn’t working—but past that I couldn’t go.

I needed to get out of the house.

The question now was: how?

I’d talked myself up into my room, where I was now a virtual prisoner.

There was the doctor who was here to 'check on me'. And there was Dad blocking the door when I went downstairs.

This was all madness. An ordinary life turned upside down.

I was going to have to improvise.

I sat down on my bed.

The sunlight coming through the window made my eyes hurt.

I stood up, went over to the window and opened it. My bedroom occupied the space directly over Dad’s study, with a view of a small front garden that nature was busy taking back from my parents.

My parents and Doctor Campbell were talking in the living room, which we called the front room even though, technically speaking, it looked out across the back garden. If they stayed there for a few more minutes, and if I was brave—or foolish—enough to climb out of my window, there was a chance I could be well away from the house before they even realized I was gone.

I sized up the drop.

It was somewhere between four and six meters, I reckoned.

Risk assessment: a broken leg at least, probably worse.

But if I lowered myself down, so I was hanging from the window frame with my arms fully extended, it would cut about two meters from the drop.

Risk assessment: still a possible broken leg; more likely a twisted or sprained ankle.

The problem with both of these courses of action was that I needed to be certain that I could still walk when I reached the ground.

The risk was too high.

Off to the right side of my window, touching the side of the house, was an old tree. In high winds the branches would often tap against the panes of glass in my window. The branches were a good meter away from me. I could, however, jump across and then climb down the tree.

A meter jump.

The simplest of leaps.

If I was on the ground.

But I wasn’t on the ground, was I?

I was four to six meters up and if I missed the tree, or missed getting a good grip, or got a good grip on a branch that decided to give way, I would fall the whole distance.

And get the 'worse' from the first risk assessment: broken legs, possible broken back, with the added chance of cuts, grazes and bruises.

A one-meter jump.

I took out one of the cans of Red Bull from my jacket pocket, opened it, downed it in one and then clambered out through the window.

I put my feet on the narrow, sloping ledge, had my bottom sitting on the frame.

The window opened to the right and was blocking any jump.

I took a deep breath and stood up, feet braced on the ledge, arms using the window frame to pull myself up and through. Holding on to the left side of the frame with my left hand, I used my right to grab the concrete base of the guttering that passed overhead and I turned my body through a hundred and eighty degrees, so I was facing back towards the house.

I used my left hand to close the window behind me.

I reckoned that I had just passed the point of no return.

Another deep breath, and I shuffled, bit by bit, to the ledge closest to the tree.

One meter. Easy on the ground.

The tree was an aging beech with rust-colored leaves. It had branches pointing upwards from a thick, gnarled trunk that someone, many years ago, had stopped growing too high by sawing it off about three meters from the ground. It made a platform for me to aim at, if I could make it through the screen of branches that surrounded it.

One meter.

I held on to the gutter concrete with my right hand and shuffled my feet around so I was facing the middle of the tree; swallowed a ball of spit that felt about the size of a satsuma; gritted my teeth; bent my knees and then jumped.