Piers Torday - The Last Wild

QUARANTINE

The man-ape finally releases us, and we stumble back, shaking the blood back into our squashed hands. He grunts and pulls back the plastic curtain, pointing at the door.

‘Why?’ demands Polly. ‘Why do we have to go in here? You know we can’t get the virus —’

But Bodger just puts a sausage-like finger to his mouth to shush her, and then points to the sign, points to his eyes and shakes his head. I understand exactly what he means. I can see Polly about to open her mouth again, but I catch her gaze. Now is perhaps not the best time to start an argument with a man fifteen times the size of us both put together.

Bodger fishes a rusty key out of his pocket, turns it in the lock. He nods at me and I push open the stiff wooden door. We’ve barely taken a step before he boots us in and I tumble over Polly on to a floor of earth. As we pick ourselves up he locks the door behind us, his footsteps stomping away back up the passage.

We’re in a cramped wooden shed. It looks much older than the giant metal barn we’ve just come through. A few candles in glass lanterns dangle from the rough beams that make up the ceiling and I can just make out four low beds in the dim light. Camp beds — put up among heavy shovels and forks leaning against the wooden walls.

Dragging her sore foot, Polly heaves herself on to the last bed by the wall. I roll up her trouser leg and finally take a proper look at her ankle in the candlelight. Angry, red and swollen — it doesn’t look any better. She folds her arms.

‘I’m sure they’ll come back soon with some medicine and something to eat. I bet they’ve got some formula.’ She sounds cross. ‘You don’t look very pleased about our new friends, Kidnapper.’

I’m just wondering how normal it is for new friends to lock you in their shed. But instead of answering I kneel down next to her and dig out the fistfuls of leaf-cure I pulled from the tree in the swamp. They’re drier now, but still have their woody tang and they shine in the glow from the lantern.

Polly’s eyes light up. ‘You found them!’

I manage a smile and slowly lay the leaves in thick layers over her ankle. I look around, and spot a roll of rough orange string dangling off a hook on the wall. Through a mixture of biting and tugging, I manage to tear it into lengths, which I use to bind the leaves firmly around her injured leg. At first she flinches at the sting and the burning, but slowly her breathing grows heavier and heavier. I sit down on the hard floor next to her bed, leaning against the wall, listening to her.

Keeping my eyes open is hard.

If they do shut, for once I know a river isn’t going to sweep me away, and I’m not going to fall off a stag either, so I rest my head against the bed, next to Polly.

She doesn’t seem to mind.

When I wake up again, it must be the middle of the night. It’s completely dark apart from a single lantern flickering above our heads.

Polly is sitting up, already awake. She leans over. I think she’s going to thank me for getting the leaf-cure.

But when she sees I’m awake she curls her mouth up. She’s been thinking, I can tell. ‘I know you got these leaves specially, but —’ her eyes flash at me, and her voice is all choked up and angry at the same time — ‘Everything was fine till you turned up! Now Sidney’s gone. You left me all alone with only animals to look after me, and then, when we heard the people coming through the forest, I still thought it might be you.’

I look away. I was trying to help her –

‘But it wasn’t, was it? It was that woman. She was all smiling and friendly at first, promising she’d make my foot better and help us beat the cullers. Then when we got to her machine she started asking me all these questions, shining torches in our eyes — and now she’s locked us in this shed.’ She goes very quiet. ‘I’m beginning to wonder if she is our friend after all.’

I nod in agreement, which only seems to make her angrier.

‘I want to go home now, Kidnapper, and find out what’s happened to my parents — do you understand? Will you promise me that you’re going to take me home?’ She flops back against the wall with a sigh, staring at the shovels and forks racked up in the corner. ‘I just want everything to be normal again, you see. Why can’t you do that? Why can’t you just tell me for once that you’re going to make things actually better?’

Looking at her, I wish like never before that I could talk. For a split second, I feel a muscle twang in my throat and my lips almost start to form an old shape — but then it’s gone.

Polly, I say to her inside my head, I can’t promise you that everything will go back to normal again. Not straight away. But I will make it better. I will get you home again, I promise. And we can start by getting out of here.

Standing up, I grab one of the shovels leaning against the wall. It’s very, very heavy.

‘Kester!’

I ignore her and drag the shovel towards the door. Taking a deep breath, I swing it up over my head and, shaking with the effort, smash it down as hard as I can. It doesn’t do anything apart from make a tiny crack.

‘Kester! What are you doing?’

I ignore her. The shovel nearly pulls me right over, but I tighten my grip, take a deeper breath and strike again. This time I expose a long streak of bare pale wood.

‘I said, what are you doing, trying to break down a door without me?’

I turn around. Polly smiles at me for the first time since we arrived at Ma’s farm. Only like a fraction of a smile, that no one else would spot, but I can see it. Then she puts her small hands around the shovel handle next to mine, and together we lift it up in the air.

‘Come on, Kidnapper — you’re not even trying properly.’

We bring it smashing down in the centre of the door. A plank springs out, and a cool breeze floats in.

‘Again! Harder!’

Together, blow after blow, we smash the wooden door to the shed, until there is nothing left but jagged splinters jutting out of the frame. I drop the shovel on the floor, she grabs her rucksack off the bed, and together we set off to find my wild.

We head back up along the paved corridor, through the barn. At the door leading back out into the farmyard I signal Polly to stay close behind me. Empty and dark, there are no tractors or trailers wheeling across it now, only silent lumps of farm equipment and their frightening shadows. I hold my breath, thinking Captain Skuldiss is suddenly going to rise up from behind them, pointing his gun-crutch at us.

‘Kester,’ whispers Polly.

I wave at her to be quiet. I dart across to the iron scoop of an upturned digger and crouch down in the shadow of its jaws, beckoning Polly to follow.

‘There’s something I need to tell you first,’ she whispers, squatting down beside me. Tight-lipped, I shake my head at her. Now is not the time.

Then a truck door opens and slams, followed by voices and boots clomping towards us. I peer just over the top of the digger, and can see some men and women streaming down through the yard.

‘Kester, it’s important,’ Polly says in her extra-stubborn voice.

I nudge my head up above the iron battlements again and see where the outsiders are headed.

A giant barn with grey concrete sides and a steel door. It looks like a prison. They have just disappeared into it, swallowed up by the gloom.

Jabbing my finger ahead, I sprint out and fling myself against the side of the deserted stables next to the barn, crouching behind a half-open door. I turn back to see the shadowy figure of Polly still hiding in the digger. Waving my hand like crazy, I try and draw her across. But she doesn’t move. I throw my hands up in the air at her.