The windscreen was shattered but not broken. Through the open window next to him the boy could see between bars of dirty sunlight all the way to the other side of the sinkhole.
The hole was huge. Black. Like the filthy inside of some industrial flue.
He could smell the cold.
Hear damp crackling on stones.
He kept breathing slowly until he had focused clearly on what to do next.
But his phone wasn’t in the pockets of his shorts or the plastic well between their seats. Not even in the side of his door. When he tried thinking back to where it had been before the sinkhole had opened, all he kept remembering . . .
. . . was the sunlight flaring in the windscreen as he tried to tell his father one last time that he didn’t want to go camping, shouting . . .
It was a waste of time, not the PlayStation.
That he was too old for camping now.
That he was done being a kid and should be able to do whatever he wanted.
And then the road had opened up as if answering him back.
He clicked out of his seat belt, using an arm to brace himself against the glove compartment as he leant forward to search for his phone, hunting for it like a cat in the space under his seat. But all he found was an old shopping list written on the back of an envelope in his father’s hand.
‘I hate you, Dad.’
That was the last thing he had said, after being told his PlayStation would be thrown out if he carried on complaining.
The boy shivered. He was only wearing a T-shirt. Somehow, even the marrow in his bones felt cold. He reached back into the rear seats for his North Face jacket and managed to slip it on, the Land Rover creaking as stones tumbled unseen around them, until he realized it was just their echoes. It made him wonder how deep the sinkhole might be and how far they had fallen, whether he could climb out and get help.
He peered out of the open window, just a little way at first.
The car was a long way below the level of the road, sunk into a dark scree that looked like mining spoil piled against one side of the hole. Tiny stones streamed out from around the tops of the Land Rover’s tyres as if the rubber was slowly melting.
Daring to lean out further, the boy realized the sinkhole was even bigger than he had first thought. As wide as a football pitch, but far deeper than the length of one. He could see a stream at the bottom, as purple as a vein in the low light.
In the cool, dank updraught, he smelt wet stone and petrol and soil.
‘Hello!’ he shouted, looking up at the rim of the sinkhole and the fat crescent of blue sky above it. ‘HELL-LO!’
A dark hole of his own suddenly appeared inside him as he wondered how many people drove down the dirt road in a single day.
Ducking back in the car, he gripped the door handle, imagining the PlayStation version of himself clambering out of the Land Rover and wading through the thick dark scree, then climbing the wall of the sinkhole and disappearing into the blue sky for help.
He thought hard about everything.
About what might go right.
And what could go wrong.
And then his iPhone rang.