Piers Torday - The Last Wild

*What is that magical device?*

*I’ll show you.*

I think I still remember which button activates the camera. Angling my wrist at the cockroach, there’s a soft whirr and a flash, bouncing off the glass walls. The General flicks his head away at the sudden bright light, and all of the roaches sweep into the corner.

*Was that entirely necessary?* he asks.

I’m just chuffed the camera still works. I look at the picture. If you can call an out-of-focus shot of a blurred cockroach, turned half white by the flash, a picture.

Everything is so quiet — no alarms, nothing. Perhaps it’s too quiet. I only realize exactly what I should have asked him, when we hit the ground with a bump and the roaches all swirl crazily around the floor.

*Open the doors, please,* he commands.

My hand hovers over the buttons. *Wait — tell me how we’re getting out of here first.*

*You shall discover in good time.*

*I’m not going unless you tell me.*

He stamps several of his feet.

*It is not permitted. You must have faith in us. We have come to take you from this place.*

*Not until you tell me how.*

*You’re behaving like a child!*

*Maybe that’s because I am one!*

The General looks like he’s ready to nip me on the ankle.

*And perhaps it is time you stopped being one. Now. Open. The. Doors!*

I look at him. And at the rest of his roach army, on the floor, on the walls, all over the doors, their antennae quivering, waiting — one against thousands, I guess. I press the button.

The doors slide open and I follow the cockroaches out into the main hall.

A red light flashes on the wall, and a whooping siren echoes in our ears. The warden must have woken up. I can hear shouts and boots thundering towards us.

*Quickly!* urges the General as we scramble out towards the Yard. I have to run as fast as I can to keep up with the insects scurrying ahead. We hurry through the darkness, trying as best we can to avoid the roaming searchlights. The alarm, much louder out here, shudders in my head. I follow the insects round to my corner, where I first heard the cockroach. They start to disappear, streaming straight into the drain, like it’s swallowing them up.

*Chop chop!* says the General, suddenly on my arm. I’ve never looked at the drain properly before now. It’s a badly dug hole in the ground — not a me-sized hole: an insect-sized hole.

*You are joking, right?*

*It’s our only way out.*

I kneel down and the cockroach jumps off my arm. I feel the edges. Perhaps if I could make them a bit wider …

*You have to hurry.*

I kick at the sides of the hole, and some earth tumbles down on top of the stream of roaches still pouring in.

*Hey — look out!* calls a roach voice from down below.

Sitting on the side, I try to get my legs in. It’s a very tight fit, but with a bit of pushing I manage it as far as my waist. I can’t see what lies below, or feel anything except my legs thrashing about in empty air. The stink coming up from the pipe below is something else.

The General is not being helpful.

*We thought you were thinner.*

I place my hands against the sides and push as hard as I can, my nails digging into the muddy ground around the hole. But I don’t move at all.

*You have to get in the tunnel. Otherwise our plan will not work.*

*Do you have a Plan B?*

He cocks his head and chews for a moment.

*What’s a Plan B?*

I shake my head and keep on pushing.

‘JAYNES!’

Five wardens skid to a halt in a circle around me, torches flying. Gloved hands grab me by the wrist, and they grunt buckets of sweat trying to heave me out. I kick my legs one last time, and chunks of earth tumble away into the tunnel below, with me following, slipping out of the wardens’ hands like a bar of soap and through the hole, down into the dark below.

I land with a massive splash in a puddle.

There’s a disco display of torch beams going on over my head, but the wardens can’t get down. ‘Come on!’ says one of them, and then I hear their boots running overhead as their lights move away.

I’m in total darkness, with hundreds of cockroaches clicking and scratching around me. I start crawling after them. I wish I was brave, like a soldier walking through a minefield. Then maybe crawling through this tunnel — full of muddy water, cockroach slime and something that smells really bad — would be easier.

I say crawling, but actually it’s more like swimming, the water is so deep. I didn’t even know cockroaches could swim, and here they are paddling alongside me. They don’t speak, not even to one another, or stop to rest, just keep on pushing forward. The wardens’ thumping feet have totally faded away now and all I can hear is my own breath echoing off the wet walls and the occasional crisk-crack from a roach.

This tunnel isn’t a smooth pipe. It’s jagged and uneven, and I keep cutting my hands on the rocks. It might be my imagination, but the further we go, the deeper the water seems to be getting.

As the water rises, I can feel the floor of rocks fall away from my feet and I start to bump and scratch my head as the roof of the tunnel gets closer and closer. I’m working hard just to stay afloat.

Slowly and steadily, more and more water, tasting of soil and dishwater, starts to splash into my mouth as my arms grow tired.

*Slow down!* I call out into the blackness. *I can’t keep up.*

There’s no reply, just quiet splashing. Then, very faintly, some distance up ahead, I hear a deep voice, like the beat of a drum.

*We must keep going. There is no time to lose.*

But the ceiling of the tunnel has dropped down right in front of me. Tracing the outline of rock with my hands, I try to search for the narrow layer of air between it and the water that they expect me to swim through.

Except there isn’t one. The tunnel from here is completely underwater .

I take the deepest breath I’ve ever taken and, holding my nose, plunge under the surface. I struggle to squeeze through the gap, my legs kick and I feel the weed-covered walls of the tunnel draw closer and closer in.

Water goes up my nose, burning — the last drops of oxygen leaking out of my lungs — my chest wants to explode .

Panicking, I think I should go back, but it’s too late.

I give one last feeble kick with my legs.

The tunnel of water breaks into a torrent, turning and tumbling me like I’m in a washing machine before finally spitting me out, bouncing and scraping against the edges of a filthy pipe, down some slippery rocks and on to a wet patch of grass.

I can see stars.

I mean, not cartoon stars around my head, but actual stars in the sky. My chest heaving, I fight to catch my breath, turn on to my belly and cough up some water. As I raise myself on to my elbows, a light shines straight in my eyes, and beneath that I can just make out a pair of feet.

A grimy pair of feet, in sandals.

Doctor Fredericks stands in front of a line of wardens. Behind them, the curved glass of the Hall, lit up with searchlights. We’re outside, in the Quarantine Zone. But no one’s wearing a suit or a mask. There’s no air-con, no special glass roof, no electric doors sealing us in. We’re just out here, in the wet and the wild, where the red-eye rules.

I turn around to see what lies behind, although I already know.

The small patch of grass slopes down towards the edge of the cliff, beyond which is nothing but rocks, sea and big, big trouble.

His glasses speckled with rain, Doctor Fredericks takes a step towards me, holding a syringe in his hand.