Hidden Among Us (7 page)

I thought my heart was going to literally stop right then and there. I gripped the bundle of clothes even tighter. “No,” I said. “Of course not. I’m not stupid. I didn’t speak to anyone except the ticket inspector. Is there a washing machine?” I’d already decided that if there wasn’t, my jeans and jumper would go straight into the bin. Mum was still staring at me like she was trying to read my mind. “There wasn’t anywhere to wash clothes at the youth hostel,” I added, which was true. “I haven’t got anything clean for tomorrow.”

“It’s in the lean-to – in the corridor outside the kitchen. You must be turning over a new leaf.” Mum turned to Nick, forcing a smile. “At home, she lets her laundry pile up for weeks.” She’d obviously decided my crimes were going to be swept under the carpet. For now. Till it suited her to bring it all up again. Did she know I’d overheard?

At least she wasn’t on the warpath any more.

I’d have to get Mum on her own in the morning, try to make her talk. I was actually quite excited. Maybe everything
would
be different now, not because of my solo train ride, but because Nick made her see sense. At last I’d be like the other girls, going into town on Saturdays to buy cookies and earrings.

Maybe my life was about to change.

I put my jeans, t-shirt and jumper on a hot cycle with far too much washing powder. I wanted to boil and bleach that horrible exciting stink out of existence. I wanted to wash away the woods, the dancing, the woodsmoke. And the boy.

Those hounds.

Had I imagined them chasing me, that terrible bloody howling? Where could they have come from at that time of the evening? A hunting pack that someone had released by mistake – or even maliciously? Perhaps there were just a couple of lost pet dogs out, and being alone in the dark had made them sound louder, more scary. There had to be a proper explanation. What had Nick meant when he said one day I’d have to protect myself? Probably nothing. It’s what happens to everyone in the end, after all. Ultimately, we’re all on our own.

I couldn’t wait.

14

I pulled over into the slow lane behind a cement lorry that everyone else was overtaking. The dark grey Alfa Romeo was still two cars back. I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. I’d been driving for almost two hours and it was there almost every time I checked my mirrors.

You can’t be the only person driving from London to the Welsh Borders. Is this really such a big deal?
Even so, my heart hammered and my back was damp with sweat again, shirt sticking to the skin. My body knew I was being chased even as I tried to reason with myself.

There was an easy way of finding out for sure.

Keeping my eyes on the road, trying not to swerve, I reached around and pulled the road atlas out of the seat pocket behind me. Holding the steering wheel steady with my knees, I found the right page, scanning the network of A-roads that led west, mentally listing the towns I’d need to head past.

Come on,
I thought,
catch me if you can
.

I left the motorway at the next exit and went twice around the roundabout before peeling off towards the town centre. I was buzzing with the thrill of it. I probably should have been scared but I was in control now; it was exciting.

I hit roadworks on some kind of ring road and had to sit there, waiting, watching, crawling along. I glanced in my mirror again.

There it was. Three cars behind me now but still there, all the same. The Alfa Romeo. And I was stuck in a queue as these brain-dead corporate lemmings commuted home from work, just waiting. A target.

A target? What do you think they’re going to do,
shoot
you? You’re in suburbia, not an American cop show
.

I still didn’t like it, though. I yanked the map from the passenger seat, looking at all the roads out of town. Took the first turning I could, a backstreet through a maze of identical new houses. It wasn’t marked on the map but at least I was heading in the right direction.

The Alfa Romeo had gone, too.

Idiot
, I told myself, slaloming through artificially winding streets.
There’s such a thing as paranoia
.

I wasn’t really being followed, of course not. That kind of thing just doesn’t happen, I told myself. I headed west again, following the rising moon as it shone over a horizon of modern executive homes, then endless DIY warehouses, tile shops, garden centres. I found my A-road again just as the traffic finally started easing and the second-hand car salesrooms and take-away shops thinned out more and more till I was driving along surrounded by dark fields, the road to myself.

Not completely to myself.

A pair of headlights appeared in my mirrors. I knew, I just knew, before the car even got close enough.

When it did, I was sure. They were still following me. There could be no question about it now. The Alfa Romeo hung back, not on my tail but not overtaking either. Like they were taunting me.

It was strange but now I felt calm, driving steadily, resisting the urge to go too fast. It was a winding road; I didn’t want to end up in a ditch. After all, perhaps that was their intention. Instead, I considered my options, watching the headlights in my mirrors, bright like a pair of silver moons.

Why were they chasing me? It could only be because of the journal. If I was honest, I’d known I would be followed,
sensed
it would happen. The question was what to do next.

I could drive faster. Push the car as hard as it would go.

Or try to lose them in the winding mass of back roads and small towns leading west. There was a junction up ahead anyway. A chance.

It took me only a few seconds to decide. I stopped, suddenly. The car swerved; I eased the brakes. Changed down two gears, pulling into a lay-by. The stink of burning clutch filled the air. Dad would murder me if he knew.

The Alfa Romeo shot past. Its windows were blacked out but I wished I could see the faces inside.

I sat back, allowing myself a second of relief, heart beating hard and fast.

Who were they? It was just a journal about elves and goddamned fairies from the British Library.

Stop it,
I thought,
stop lying to yourself
. Because I knew the truth, and whoever had written that thing was right.

They’re here. All the time. They do whatever they like and no one stops them
.

If everyone knew what I did, there would be an uprising.

What you’ve asked for is restricted access
. I shut my eyes, seeing the librarian’s blank expression. Perhaps there was some kind of alert when anyone asked for it. A trap. Making sure anyone who got to the truth was silenced.

They come and go like shadows. They take children, leaving nothing but dead leaves. They don’t
age
. Always the same.

There has to be a reason no one knows they’re here. Why no one ever talks about it. Not seriously
.

And then I saw headlights again, coming straight towards me this time. I waited, every muscle in my body screaming at me to run. I waited as the Alfa Romeo U-turned right in the middle of the road and pulled into the lay-by behind me. I waited as the doors opened, both doors. Two people got out, a couple of men in suits. I watched them walk closer, closer till I could see their faces in my wing mirror – boring, nothing to talk about, one had grey hair, another was younger. Closer.

Closer.

I stamped on the accelerator and sprang away from the lay-by, shooting up through the gears till I hit eighty-five miles an hour; knowing they surely must be running back to their car – who, who were they? – I took the junction at sixty, nearly hit a signpost on the corner, took control again, breathing hard, and floored the accelerator again driving west as hard and as fast as I could, taking every corner, dodging, twisting, turning.

Hunted.

15

I stood by the bedroom window, wrapped in a nylon seventies bedspread, watching rain flooding across the glass, hammering the lawn outside, pouring from the branches of that yew tree, splashing into the weed-choked lake.

Who were they?

There was a small crack in the top left-hand corner of the window that someone had tried to seal with brown parcel tape, and a cold breeze snaked around the room. I pulled the bedspread tighter around my shoulders.
They were just having a party in the woods, students or something
, I told myself angrily.
Don’t be so stupid. He thought you were someone else, that’s all
.

I knew I was lying to myself.

I went to draw the heavy velvet curtains and that’s when I noticed it: a darker patch in the cream paint, just above the window. I looked closer. It was in the shape of a small cross. A crucifix had once hung in this room, just like downstairs by the front door. Now it was gone.

Cold, irrational fear shot through my body as I drew the curtains, half afraid I might
see
something outside. I stumbled across the room, tripping on the bedspread, and scrambled into bed. I lay there listening to the rain, and I slept with the light on. I should have known the dream would come: it always does when I’m feeling even more trapped, more hemmed in than usual, or sometimes just upset and confused. The dream has always been with me, like a birthmark on my skin, a visitor who arrives in the hours of darkness.

The dream says a lot about me.

It starts, as usual, with the clear limitless light of a blue sky on a hot day. And the sky is all around me, air rushing past my face, between my outstretched fingers, into my wide-open screaming mouth, because I’m falling. I look down and watch the ground coming closer every second, the patchwork of green fields and darker smears of woodland, the glittering trail of a river, cars inching along a motorway, the grey sprawl of a town staining the beauty of it all—

I’m falling and I’m going to die.

Then that physical sensation across my back: muscles stretching, lengthening, something
unfurling
. I squeeze my eyes tight shut. And the lift, that incredible lift, warm air beneath, pushing me up, higher and higher. I want to open my eyes again, to look down and see those fields and forests, that ugly town, but I know what will happen if I do. I soar, wind rushing past my face, and when I can stand it no longer, I open my eyes and—

And I wake. It’s always the same. Just at the moment I can’t resist the urge to look, I’m jerked out of sleep, away from the dream. Back to the ordinary world: our dorm at school, Alice muttering in her sleep, bundled in the bed beside mine, or in the back seat of my dad’s car, even a train carriage, wherever I might have fallen asleep. The usual feeling of flat disappointment washed over me: one day,
one day,
I would defeat my waking body. I would open my eyes still in the dream and
see
—

Disappointment was chased away by fear. I was cold all over, every inch of my skin tingling.

I sat up in bed again, leaning back against the pillows, the bedside lamp still on. Yellow electric light filled the room. Still half asleep, I stared at the dark brown curtains looped back against the wall. Someone had opened them, come in. Mum? Why would she do that in the middle of the night? The rain had eased, but the window glittered with trails of water. I glanced at my watch. It wasn’t even quite two in the morning. Not her, then. So who had opened the curtains?

I became aware of a presence – just on the edge of my vision – and snatching the bedspread in both hands I whipped around, heart hammering, mouth dry.

The boy sat on the end of my bed, smiling, rain-wet red hair spilling around his shoulders, black eyes shining like wet pebbles, cloak spread out around him. I watched him breathe, the smooth rise and fall of his chest; he watched me, smiling all the time. It was so quiet. All I could do was stare at him.

“Why did you run?” asked the boy.

When I spoke, my mouth was so dry with terror I could hardly spit out the words. “Because I wasn’t meant to be there. My mum—”

“But I invited you.” I could tell he was angry, now, his eyes flashing. “You were my guest. There was no need to show me discourtesy.”

“I don’t even know your name.” In the back of my mind, I screamed,
Why aren’t you shouting for help?
But I couldn’t. At last I managed to ask, “Who are you?”

He laughed – a strange, silvery sound. I knew he would never tell me his name.

“What do you want?” I forced each word out between lips frozen with fear.

“What do I
want
?” His voice was incredulous, mocking. “Listen to me. We have watched for so long. We saw them crawl out of hot seas when the sun was still young. We were there when they came down from the trees and began to hunt. We guided their hands like mothers with young as they first began to mix colours and paint their dreams on the walls of caves. We watched in awe as they multiplied and spread across the earth.” He reached out and cupped my chin in his hand. I flinched, drawing in a sharp breath. “Do you not see, Lissy, that there are too
many
of them?”

For a second, we stared at each other, and I looked into his black shining eyes.

He was talking about the human race. Which meant, which must mean, that he was
something else
—

He was the first to look away. “Your time’s up,” he whispered. “I gave you as much as I could. I have suffered enough for you, Lissy Harker. I’ve been alone among my own kind, despised by my closest kin, all for you.”

And the curtains blew, filled tight and round like the sails on a boat, flapping and snapping in the wind before dropping back to hang against the wall, now still.

When I turned back to face the boy, he had gone.

I just heard his voice, whispering in the shadows. “Come dance with us. Come dance.”

I leaned back against my pillows, grabbing one of them and clutching it against my chest. My breath came in short gasps as if I’d been running in freezing fog. He was gone, as if he’d never been there. As if I’d imagined the whole thing. Which I had, of course. All that weird stuff about people evolving and spreading across the earth like a
virus
or something—