Page 2

A space opened up on my left, suddenly, and I slipped round the corner of the building, A tree branch caught my longhair, pulling my head back. With an indifferent wrench, I pulled myself free. There was hardly any pain.

I was in a narrow space between the building and a wall, so narrow that I had to turn myself slightly sideways to pass. Any of the food from above might have thrown something heavy on me here, but nobody seemed to notice me. I was quite alone, walking steadily and silently towards the back of the building. Turning, I got round the back and stood, looking up at the edifice.

There was no way in that I could find, but I could sense them now, the food, hardly the thickness of a wall away. I moaned slightly in my throat, the noise a quiet whimper.

And another memory, a scrap of it, came to me. I’d come home from somewhere – was there something about work? – and found him home already, in the middle of the afternoon, lying in bed. I wasn’t that surprised, because he’d said that morning that he wasn’t feeling too good. Undressing, I’d slipped naked into bed beside him, and reached out to hug him close, intending to warm him with a session of passionate lovemaking.

Ah, I remember that word. The pressure of that urge again between my legs…

My mind blacked out at that point, but I had a vague feeling that he’d turned towards me, and held me tight, his mouth reaching for my breasts. But instead of the soft kisses on my nipples that I’d expected, there was a sharp pain…and then nothing more.

I really haven’t felt much of anything after that.

When I finally got up from the bed, he was gone. Still naked, I wandered out of the house, and down to the street. My nudity meant nothing to me. Nothing meant anything to me, really. At that time I didn’t even have the scraps of memory I’m recovering now.

I’d been wandering ever since.

Suddenly, I saw something. At first it didn’t quite register, and then I realised I was looking up at a window which had been left partly open. It was on the first floor, so the food had probably imagined it was safe. But there was a way up. If you were indifferent to personal safety, and invulnerable to pan, there was a way up, not to the window, maybe, but to the ledge below it.

Again I had a flash of memory, so strong that I had to pause a moment. Hadn’t I once climbed trees, rough bark under my hands, leaves in my face? Hadn’t I stood in the fork of two great branches, and looked at the world through a green curtain? Surely I had.

But there were no trees here.

Careless of the roughness of the wall that scraped and cut at my naked body, I flattened myself against the wall and began to creep up, my fingers and toes jamming into the crevices. Thrice I slipped and fell back partly, and on the fourth attempt I got my fingertips over the ledge.

After that it was a fairly simple thing to pull myself up on to the ledge. I crouched, as low to the ledge as I could, and began creeping along the wall towards the window. It was just above my head, and I could hear voices inside, murmuring, and the smell of food, so strong that even my blocked nose registered it.

Without waiting any longer, I pushed myself up, thrust the window open, and rolled over the windowsill into the room.

I’d barely touched the floor when something soft and enveloping fell all over me…

“Got her,” I heard someone say. The smell, the nearness, of food was so strong that I could no longer think about anything else. I tried to lunge upright, clawing…and could not.

It was like fighting cobwebs. The more I tried to get free, the more I was entangled. Suddenly, something struck me behind the knees, and knocked me back down to the floor. I felt ropes being twisted around me, and something hard and long rolled me over in my back. Helpless, snarling my fury, I lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling.

Three of them stood over me; two man-foods, and a woman-food. I could hear noises as another one shut the window, but I couldn’t see it. The older of the man-foods was talking.

[ Continue to page 3 ]