Page 3

Up ahead is another point of great danger – a crossroads, where four broad streets meet. Away along the right hand street lies the area of town where I used to live back in the days before this all started. Back then, all I worried about was earning enough to pay off what I’d owed for the car, as well as the rent and insurance and cable and the rest of it. There was no cable any more, and there was no fuel for cars even if I’d still had it, and as for insurance, a fat lot of good it would do me to put in a claim now.

I pause at the crossroads. The person I’m to find should be in the tall tower block I can see from here, that used to be a bank back in those days. I see a car slewed at an angle across part of the left hand street. It’s inconveniently far, but it’s the only cover. Keeping close to the wall, I slip along the pavement until I’m opposite the car. I force myself to wait, to look long enough to be certain I’m not being watched, then I move smoothly across the street into the little pool of shadow thrown by the car. Another quick dash, and I’m on the other side. I’ve made it past the crossroads. In fact, I’ve been incredibly lucky so far. I begin to let myself believe I might get away with it.

It’s a feeling that lasts all the way to the tower block. I haven’t brought my radio along, naturally – the sound of it would bring them running, and it was too heavy anyway – but I know this locality. I used to work here, once upon a time.

The main entrance had a broad heavy door in place of a shutter. I say "had" because it hangs on one side now from a shattered hinge, twisted and splintered even though the wood is reinforced with steel. The other side is gone entirely. I duck inside quickly, so that I don’t risk being silhouetted against the moonlight on the street. It’s very dark inside, and I wait until my eyes have adapted. They can’t see any better than I can in the dark, that’s something. It would have been nice if I could have used a torch, but, of course, the light would have brought them running from kilometres around. After a while I can make out enough to see the stairs, near the dead and dark lift shaft. There is no sound or movement, so I move along the wall, the long way round, until I reach the stairs.

Up on the third floor, I pause. Here everything is dark, so dark that I can see absolutely nothing. Hand on the wall to guide me, I move to the other side of the landing and feel until I find the door handle I knew would be there. The door opens at a touch, silently.

Moonlight washes over the long room beyond, shining through the plate glass windows that comprise most of one wall. The restaurant’s tables still stand where they used to be, and they even have tablecloths and napkins on them, as well as very dusty salt and pepper cellars and vases of plastic flowers. They have not been in here.

"Is it you?" a soft voice calls from the far side of the room. A head cautiously peers out from behind the door to the pantry. "It is you, isn’t it?"

"Yes, Andrea." I move along the far wall, staying away from the moonlight, until we’re standing face to face. "It’s I."

"Oh, thank heaven." She hurls herself on my chest, throwing her arms around me, her face buried in my chest and sobbing. "I’ve been so scared! So scared, and alone."

"I’m here, don’t worry." I hug her back with one arm, and with the other hand slip the pistol back into its holster. "We should be going. It’s not safe in this part of the city."

"Don’t I know that." She lifts her face from my chest. In the near darkness, she looks a bit like the girl I had become separated from, and lost, all those months ago. She’s young, though, late teens, no more, and thin, of course. Like me, she’s wearing dark clothes, black or purple. "How will we go back?"

"The way I came, across the river." I look down at her empty hands. "Don’t you have a weapon?"   

"Only the machete." She goes back into the pantry and returns with it, holding it with distaste, with the tips of her fingers. I’m sure she’s never had to use it. Holding it that way, she’d last fifteen seconds. "Shall we go, Bill?"

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