7

Spider Monkey

My phone tells me it’s almost midnight. I have no reception, no wifi and no 4G, so it’s pretty useless for any kind of communication but it’s handy as a torch, and I like the reassuring feel of it in my pocket.

Just in case, I text my mum, asking her to send help. I know it’s not going to get through, but it would be stupid not to, right?

‘What’s our next move?’ Mak says.

I’ve been thinking about this. ‘We have to warn the others.’

‘Why?’ Mak says. ‘They chose to snuggle up in the dining hall and hope for the best. They could have come with us. They didn’t.’

‘But still,’ I say, ‘we have to try – it’s the right thing to do.’

‘You know Trent would never do this for you, don’t you?’ says Adrianne.

‘I know,’ I say. ‘But, for once, Trent isn’t the enemy. We’re under attack from a non-human, aka alien, force. We have to stick together and, above all else, we must remember what makes us human.’ I say this partly cos it’s in all the alien invasion movies, but also because I’ve always felt compelled to try to keep people safe. It’s my thing. ‘Besides, it’s in every zombie apocalypse story ever – if you act like a jerk and wimp out of helping others, you always come to an especially bad end. Usually with screaming and lots of blood. Maybe some guts splattered across a wall.’

‘So we go to the dining hall and knock?’ Katja asks.

‘It’s worth a try.’ I zip up my backpack and sling it over my shoulders.

‘They might have food in there,’ Chets says. ‘I can get some supplies. For all of us, I mean.’

‘Let’s get this over with before Hoche and Digger realise we’re on to them.’ Mak pulls on a baseball cap.

Adrianne leads the way out of the boat shed and back around the lake towards the centre. We sprint past the main entrance, back round to the fire exit that we used to get out.

‘Don’t these doors only open from the inside?’ Katja says.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Which is why I used a fire extinguisher to prop it open when we left.’

‘Are you sure this is your first alien invasion?’ Big Mak asks. ‘You’re like a pro.’

‘Strategy,’ Chets says, ‘is one of Lance’s best skills.’

‘Well,’ I shrug, ‘that and my famous film and TV character impressions.’

‘You could have your own TV show,’ says Katja.

‘Will you all, please, focus?’ Adrianne says. ‘We need to be quiet. We don’t know if Miss Hoche and Digger are back in the building. We need to stay alert.’

We tiptoe through the empty corridors. They have those lights that automatically flick on when you get close, so we can see, but it feels like we’re going to be discovered at any moment. When we reach the dining hall, Chets knocks on the door.

‘I know we’re trying to be stealthy, Chets, but they actually need to hear the knock. Invisible sound isn’t going to cut it.’

He knocks again, much louder. We wait.

‘Screw this,’ Mak says, and pushes the door. It doesn’t budge. He grabs the handles with both hands and pushes and pulls as hard as he can. ‘Guys?’ he calls. ‘Are you alive in there? We need to speak to you.’ There is a rattling on the other side as he shakes the doors, but no answer. ‘Oh well, we tried,’ he says.

‘We need to know if they’re OK,’ says Katja. ‘Is there another way in?’

‘Only those windows,’ says Chets. ‘But they’re super high up.’

‘Let’s go round the other side and check them out.’

We sneak out of the building again, and follow it round to the back of the dining hall. I look up at the windows. They are really high. If you stood four large elephants on top of each other (though I don’t know if that’s possible cos, although elephants always stand on balls in cartoons, so I know they’re good at balancing, I don’t know if the bottom one could take the weight of the other three) the top elephant would probably be able to peep into one of the dining-hall windows.

‘No way any of us are going to be able to climb up there,’ Mak says.

‘I think I can,’ Katja says quietly, almost like she’s ashamed of it, which is ridiculous, cos anyone who could climb even half that high would legit be a savage.

‘Are you sure, Katja?’ Chets looks at the wall and then back at Katja.

‘If she says she can, then she can,’ Adrianne says. ‘I don’t know why you would doubt her. Is it because she’s a…?’

‘Human person and not Spiderman?’ I say. ‘Yes, it is.’

‘I’ll give it a try,’ Katja says. ‘Don’t all stare at me, though. You’ll put me off.’

‘We won’t stare,’ Chets says, and then we all stare as she grabs hold of a pipe and starts climbing up the wall like a flipping monkey.

‘My mistake,’ I say. ‘She is Spiderman.’

Katja makes it to the window. The light from inside illuminates her face, making her look like a golden, wall-climbing angel. She has her elbow hooked around the pipe and her toes balancing on a piece of metal screwed into the wall. It’s only about twenty-centimetres long, and not the one thing I’d like standing between me and certain death, but she seems pretty chill about it. She uses her other hand to push at the window. It doesn’t budge. She raps on it, as hard as she can without losing her balance, then grabs on to the pipe again and clambers down. When she reaches the ground I hear everyone make a ‘phew’ sound with their mouths.

‘They’re in there,’ she says, slightly out of breath. ‘They’re playing cards and chatting in groups. And listening to music, I think.’

‘Did they see you, or hear you?’ I ask.

‘No. They were all mucking around, so I think it was quite noisy.’

‘They must have a lookout, though?’ I say.

She shakes her head.

‘Idiots,’ says Mak. Which is basically what we’re all thinking.

‘Are any of them asleep?’ I ask.

‘It didn’t look like it,’ she says. ‘Some of them have sleeping bags laid out on the floor, but nobody was lying down.’

‘Then it isn’t too late for them.’ I push my hair back with my hand, trying to think for a moment. ‘Look, we don’t know how the spores are getting inside people, but we know they turn bug-eyed when they fall asleep. If one of that lot falls asleep in there, all of them could be in danger.’

‘But the bug-eyes don’t seem that dangerous,’ Chets says.

‘The worker bugs don’t, but the hunter bugs will be,’ I say. ‘What if one of them wakes up as a hunter?’

‘I think we also need to consider that a lot of their behaviour has been wasp-like so far,’ says Adrianne. ‘And even worker wasps will sting if one of the nest is attacked. They release a pheromone or something, and it puts all the others in defensive mode.’

‘Are you saying they’re alien-wasp people?’ says Chets.

‘I’m saying we don’t know what they are.’ Adrianne has her hands on her hips. ‘So we have to consider all options. I don’t think we should antagonise any of them.’

‘So how can we get a message to the others?’ Katja says.

‘There’s the tannoy system,’ says Chets.

‘But everyone will hear it. Hoche will know we’re on to her.’ Big Mak is leaning against the wall, eating what look like bird seeds.

‘And she’ll know exactly where to find us if we get to the tannoy microphone to give them the message,’ I say.

‘So we make the message quick, and then run,’ Adrianne says. ‘Hide somewhere.’

‘We need a place they won’t think of,’ says Katja. ‘Or somewhere they wouldn’t want to go.’

‘That’s it,’ I say. ‘The cold – they don’t like the cold. They keep everything hot in the building. They had that heater out by the dam. Digger almost fainted when pre-bug Hoche asked for some cold drinks. He made us hot soup for dinner in this heat, for flip’s sake!’

‘But this whole place is like an oven,’ says Katja.

‘There must be a fridge,’ says Mak. ‘They must have a giant fridge to keep the milk and stuff in.’

‘And where would the tannoy mic be?’ I say.

‘It can only be in the admin office,’ says Adrianne. ‘I saw it on the map, so I can get us there.’

‘Awesome,’ I say. I love having a plan. ‘So, office, then fridge.’

‘I’m not sure it’s a perfect plan,’ says Chets.

‘It’s far from perfect,’ I say. ‘But it’s all we’ve got. And we’re going to give it a try either way, right?’

‘Right,’ everyone says. And we slink back into the centre.