John Marsden - While I live

Homer was next to the hall cupboard again. Gavin had retreated to the doorway of Alastair’s bedroom. I thought I heard a creak, a step, on the staircase. I gestured for Homer to go into the closet and Gavin into the bedroom. Neither boy moved. I heard another sound from the staircase. I gestured at the two boys again, furiously, and this time they seemed to take some notice.

I couldn’t waste any more time on them. I had to know about the revolver, whether it was loaded or not. I pulled back the slide as quietly as I could, and felt relieved to see the dull gleam of the shiny little metal cap. But the noise as I closed it again sounded like a car door slamming. I glanced up. The man was almost there already. I could see the top of his head. He didn’t seem too suspicious yet — he was just walking up the stairs. Well, he was about to become suspicious as hell. If only we’d had time to move the body. But the patch of blood would have been there. Anyway, the whole war was full of ‘if onlys’. Couldn’t think about them, not now.

I was crouched over the body when the man reached the top of the stairs. He looked to his left first. Luckily Homer had disappeared. It gave me time to see that the man had a gun in his hand. I had been thinking of something like ‘Put your hands up’. Now I decided I’d say ‘Drop your gun’. But as he turned towards me and I tried to speak, I couldn’t. The words stuck in my throat. My throat felt like a rusted-up hinge. And I had no WD40. I knew no sounds would be coming out of there.

I saw the light of understanding flame in the man’s eyes. Understanding and fear. He started to leap to his lef t. He didn’t have much room to move. He raised his revolver.

That’s when I shot him. I didn’t mean to shoot more than once, because I knew I might need every bullet in the magazine, assuming there were any bullets in the magazine, but my finger kind of spasmed and I let off two shots before I could get control again.

The guy spun around to his left, almost a complete revolution. His mouth opened but his eyes seemed to open even wider. He fell backwards, landing on the top couple of steps. His knees were sticking up and they stopped him from sliding down the staircase. His head suddenly fell to the left and the life went out of him. You could see it go.

I was still frozen, still kneeling on the carpet. I think I would have stayed there half an hour but Gavin burst out from Alastair’s bedroom and grabbed me by the shoulder. I’m sure he heard the shots.

At the same time the door of the room below opened, and a cacophony of voices flooded out. There were shouts directed upstairs and a scrabble of boots across the polished floor. I assumed they were calling to the two missing men. I suppose at that stage they didn’t know whether the shots had been fired in error, from one of their friend’s guns, or whether someone like me was in the house and cutting loose.

When no-one answered their calls they figured out that things were not going according to their script.

By then Gavin and I had moved quickly, as quietly as we could, down the corridor. We were outside Homer’s closet. I opened the door a little and whispered, ‘They’re coming, we’ll go in Sam’s room,’ and closed the door again. We went on a few steps. We were now opposite the bedroom. I pushed Gavin in there and I stood in the doorway, trying to keep him behind me, and at the same time keeping a watch down the corridor.

Now I had time to check the magazine and the chamber. Three rounds. Sheez. It sounded like at least three men were coming up the stairs. But the revolver was all we had. Suddenly those other little weapons, the cricket bat and stumps, seemed a waste of time.

A long wait followed, maybe four minutes. I heard a murmur of voices at one stage: I think when they saw their dead buddy lying on the top steps. I knew they were still making their way up the stairs though. I heard occasional whispered comments, and the slow ‘urrrhhh’ noise of a step as the weight was gradually taken off it.

A head suddenly appeared, almost at floor level, looking along the corridor both ways then quickly withdrawing. It was like a tortoise sticking out its neck, but just for a moment. It happened at a speed no tortoise would have recognised. I was left wondering if I’d imagined it.

I didn’t think he’d seen me. I eased back a little further into the doorway. Gavin prodded me. ‘What?’ he asked, with a whisper. It intrigued me that a deaf kid was so good at whispering and moving quietly. Maybe he’d learned it during the war.

‘One soldier,’ I mouthed back, holding up a finger.

‘One?’

‘I saw one. There are more.’

I took another peep. Lucky I did. I was just in time to see a guy dart across the corridor, crouching low. He went straight into the main bedroom. Another one dashed across almost immediately afterwards. He seemed to be covering the first man. They were both inside the bedroom now. I heard shouts from in there. It seemed like the classic stuff, straight from the manual of how to enter a room which could be full of people with guns.

Sweat was pouring off me, and I mean pouring. I thought my shoes would squelch if I tried to move. I was having trouble seeing through my wet eyelids, wet hair. I shook my head. I tried to control my sweating by a simple act of will. Could I turn it off just with the power of my mind?

I kept peeping. The two men came out of the bedroom. At the same time another guy joined them at the top of the stairs. One guarded the left-hand side, facing my way, the other the right-hand side, towards Alastair’s bedroom, the third knelt by the guy we’d whacked with the cricket stuff. If they were drunk, it wasn’t showing. Maybe fear sobers you up pretty fast.

I didn’t dare peep anymore for a while because of the man looking our way. Instead I glanced back at the window, wishing it were open, like the ones we’d seen from the tank. I wondered what we could do if and when they came for us. Could Gavin and I leap through the glass? A spectacular head-first dive? I nodded at Gavin and then at the windows and I think he got the idea. I left him to try to get them open and had another sneak look out the door.

This time I got down low to do it. As I extended my head a few centimetres I heard a crash. I dared the snatched glance which was all I could allow. One of them was bouncing out of the door of Alastair’s bedroom looking bloody scary; I think another was just behind him. The third was getting up from where he’d been kneeling beside the guy we’d hit. Something about the way he moved made me think that his unconscious friend wasn’t going anywhere for a long time. Or to put it another way, he had already left for a long journey.

And I figured that while one was doing the quick medical inspection the other two had checked out Alas-tair’s room and found it empty. Now they knew we were down this end of the corridor.

I heard a longish squeak behind me. I whirled around and gestured at Gavin. He was trying as hard as he could, but the window was stiff and difficult. I waved him away; it was too dangerous.

I had to look again. The men might be right outside the door and about to burst in to the room. I pointed Gavin towards the bed and made wild hand movements to tell him to go under it, but I didn’t have time to see if he obeyed.

I lined up with the frame of the door and slowly let myself lean out. My flesh crawled. I saw only one of them and he was all of three metres away. I shrunk back in to the room. I ran on soft feet to the bed and took a position on the other side. It had come to a shootout then. I’d get one of them for sure, and maybe a second one if I were lucky, and I generally had been lucky since the war started. But the third one would get me and then Gavin. Homer would have to take his chances, would have to look after himself.