Piers Torday - The Last Wild

‘One little prick!’ he shouts, to be heard above the gale blowing around our heads. ‘One little p-p-prick and we’ll, ah, put this unfortunate episode behind us!’

This is it, I say to myself. There’s only one way out. And it looks a very long way down.

The General trots up my arm, out of nowhere, and into my anorak pocket.

*You think we haven’t planned this down to the last detail?* he barks in my ear. *No time to explain. Just jump whenever you’re ready.*

Doctor Fredericks takes another step towards me.

I take a step back, towards the edge of the cliff, carefully balancing with my arms outstretched.

‘Careful there, young lad, we don’t want an, um, unfortunate accident now, do we?’

I look up at Spectrum Hall, the lights criss-crossing through the tinted upside-down glass boat. A breeze of wet spray flicks the back of my neck from the sea below.

*Whenever you’re ready,* says the General. *You have to trust us.*

I close my eyes and take one step back. Then two steps.

‘K-k-kester,’ says the Doctor. ‘Look — I’ll even put this down. Let’s talk. I’ll explain everything.’ He places the syringe on the ground between us. ‘P-p-please.’

I smile.

I got the Doctor to say please. It was worth it for that, if nothing else.

I take a last step back, and as he lunges for my legs, crying out …

I fall back into the air.

But I don’t fall on to rocks and sea.

Hooks in the air catch me — moving, flying hooks — the beaks and claws of a hundred pigeons. The ones from my room, grey and one white. They really hurt, grabbing not just at my clothes, my soaking anorak and scarf, but my hair, the skin on my hands, even my ears.

At first we sink down, the pigeons straining with my weight, the icy spray of the waves flicking at my ankles, but then slowly, surely, they begin to flap up into the sky, pulling us further and further away from the rocks, the sea and Spectrum Hall.

Wind and rain whip around us, lashing at my face — weather. Seeing it out of my window was one thing, feeling and tasting it is very different — I try to twist away, but it’s coming from all sides — impossible to avoid.

There’s a scrabbling inside my jacket, and the General sticks his head out.

*Look,* he says proudly.

I glance back at the cliff-top and see the other cockroaches swarming over Doctor Fredericks and the wardens, pouring out of the ground and up their trousers, making them jump and wriggle and yell — but I don’t see any more, as the pigeons wheel sharply round and begin to fly north from the Hall.

*Hey!* I shout up. *That’s not the way home!*

The birds don’t say anything, but just flap their wings even harder.

*I thought you were taking me home!*

There’s no reply, not even a squeak from the white pigeon.

I twist my head to see the lights of Spectrum Hall dwindling to a faint glow on the horizon behind us. But we’re going further north, not south. We’re flying away from Premium. I jerk my arms, trying to turn the birds around. *You said you were getting me out of this place. I want you to take me home, right now!*

*Take my advice, soldier,* says the General firmly from my pocket. *Stop struggling and get some sleep while you can. We have a long journey ahead.*

Despite myself, I feel my eyes grow heavy, and part of me wants to sleep, but I don’t dare. Every time I start to drift off, a gust of freezing wind stings me awake.

And besides, there’s so much to see, looking down between my feet.

We’re flying right over the countryside, over places I have never seen before. Places no one is allowed in — the Quarantine Zone. Miles and miles of deserted open country shut down by Facto, to contain the red-eye and stop it spreading to the cities — nine years ago now.

At Spectrum Hall, there were rumours of outsiders. People who didn’t believe the warnings, people who took their own chances with the red-eye and tried to forage what food was left behind after the animals went.

But if such people exist, there is no sign of them from up here.

Everything is so dark. No lights from houses, villages or towns — just the faint outlines of empty buildings here and there in the moonlight, like scattered boulders. Miles and miles of rocky shores and cliff-tops, their jagged edges only just visible. Directly beneath us, the only signs of life are buoys tossing about on the dark waves below, their orange lights blinking.

Once, far off in the distance, we see the white glow of a city. Factorium-run, disease- and animal-free, beaming rays of light into the night from their glass skyscrapers. From here the towers look like glowing white crystals reaching up into the stars.

Four great cities, built to contain the world’s refugees. Our home — Premium, the city of the south and the largest, divided in half by the River Ams. A coastal city of the west, Portus, and the industrial city of the east, Carbo. This must be the city of the north, the city built among cold peaks and steep valleys — Mons.

The four cities that grew and spread and spread until, on the satellite maps, all that was left of the countryside was just a narrow strip of green enclosed by big blotches of thermal reds and yellows.

I try and swing my legs towards the distant city glow to see if I can steer the birds — but it only seems to make them fly faster and harder in the opposite direction. Further and further we fly, till it feels like I will never touch solid land again, as we head –

Straight into a cloud.

Like someone turned out the lights, I can’t see a thing any more. Droplets and dust clog my eyes and nose, making it hard to breathe, and my clothes — which had begun to dry out after the tunnel — are instantly drenched again.

Looking up, even the birds are hard to see through the fog –

On and on the cloud goes, leaving me gasping for air –

The dust choking and filling my throat, as everything grows thicker and greyer –

And then black.

I snap my eyes open, shuddering and staring wildly around.

I have no idea where we are, or how long we have been flying for. I must have been asleep.

Any clouds are long behind us. There’s a pink light on the horizon, which woke me up, filling and warming the sky, showing the masses of green weed that cover the cliff-tops below. The sea beneath us sounds louder in the light somehow, roaring and crashing against the rocks.

It feels like we’re in a different land altogether, but I don’t think we are. We’re just right at the end of the country. Right on the edge of the Quarantine Zone, on the tip of the Island, surrounded by the world’s ocean, the huge sea that now covers most of the planet.

Finally we begin to turn back towards this deserted land, dropping lower in the sky as we do.

The air rushes faster and faster past my face. Now we’re flying over moors –

Over an old house, with half its roof missing –

A bridge with chunks blown clean out of it, like bites. I grab a glimpse of more ruined buildings with no back wall, yellow flowers sprouting out of the empty windows –

The countryside. Deserted and no longer open to humans.

And I’m heading straight for it.

Flying lower and lower all the time now, my feet scrape an old wire fence, covered with red and white signs, which we pass too quickly to read. And then we’re over a circle of trees, flying very quickly now, the treetops catching the soles of my shoes, and I can see water –