9: Scavvers

“How long do you think we ought to wait?” I asked, twisting round in my seat. My eyes had started to adjust and I could just make out pale reflections on the tunnel walls towards the entrance.

“I don’t know,” said Gracie. Her teeth were chattering. “Give them half an hour or so?”

“Sounds sensible.”

I opened my door and climbed out, dry earth beneath my boots. I shivered at the cold air and echoing drips.

Gracie joined me, stumbling and feeling her way along the side of the land rover with her hands. She looked towards the entrance and the whites of her eyes glinted in the pale light.

“They’re not going to find us,” she said.

“They shouldn’t.” But I couldn’t hide the note of doubt in my voice. I strained my ears but could only hear water dripping somewhere further along the tunnel.

“They came so fast.”

“I know,” I said, rubbing my arms to fend off the cold. “They must have been following us.”

“Our ID?” Gracie placed her hands over her mouth. “They’ve been following us since we landed.”

“Lucy was right, then.”

“So, what are we going to do now?”

I reached up to my chest and clasped the object tight through the wool of my jumper.

“We’re going to Cambridge.”

“Seriously?” Gracie laughed. “Cambridge is under water. Everyone knows that. Anyway, Lucy said we shouldn’t go...”

“It was only abandoned about ten years ago, when they couldn’t keep the sea back any longer. Before that, well, it’s where Robert and Lucy went to university. That’s why the thesis is there.”

“But these flooded cities – they’re just not safe.”

“I want answers,” I said. “Anyway, nowhere’s safe anymore. Not with MEXA after me.”

“We need that fake ID...”

“We won’t need it in Cambridge. We can get it after.”

Gracie shifted her feet and shook her head. I tried to stop my teeth from chattering.

“Robert is all I have left. I have to find him. He had a secret and it’s got him in trouble. The answers are in that thesis and the thesis is in Cambridge.”

“Do you really think this thesis is that important?” she asked.

I folded my arms.

“You don’t have to come. I’ll do this myself if I have to.”

“No,” said Gracie. “No. I’m coming too.”

She took hold of my hand in the dark. “I’m not going to let you do this alone. I understand why you have to find Robert, you know.”

“You hardly even know him.”

“Doug told me about your parents. What happened to them? If you don’t mind me asking.”

I scuffed the toe of my boot in the dirt. I did mind.

“Diving accident,” I mumbled. “They were on holiday.”

“Were they archaeologists, too?”

“No, they were journalists. But they went all over the world just the same.”

“Cool. Did you get to go to all sorts of exciting places?”

“I wish. That’s why they sent me to that horrible boarding school.”

I turned away from her. I didn’t want her to see the tears that were burning in my eyes. I leaned my back against the tunnel wall and let myself slide down onto the cold rough ground.

“I do understand,” said Gracie. “I know what it’s like to lose someone.”

She came over and sat down beside me. I looked quickly round into her eyes and they were shining. Was Gracie crying?

“I had a brother,” she said. “He was great, big blue eyes, mad about tractors.” She was staring ahead, into the darkness, smiling at the memory.

“What happened?” I whispered. Her expression darkened.

“Leukaemia. They did everything they could. But in the end...”

I took her hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry, Gracie.”

Gracie took a deep breath. “That was when Dad changed. He always had to be in control, but this was something he couldn’t stop. He hated that. Then Mum left. I remember her screaming at him. She called him a megalomaniac – said he loved power more than her. So now all I have is my dad.”

“Where did your mum go?” I asked.

Gracie shivered.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “She just vanished.”

I didn’t speak. I pressed myself close against her and I could feel her warmth.

I’ve no idea how long we sat in silence. I listened to the steady drip of water further down the tunnel and Gracie’s soft breathing. I thought about Robert and Kris and my parents, and my heart ached.

“Do you think it’s safe to head out yet?” Gracie asked eventually. It was cold here, cold and damp and I hugged myself against the chill.

“Let’s take a look.”

We climbed back into the land rover. Gracie fired the engine as I pored over the map. She reversed slowly out towards the tunnel entrance. Here she stopped and killed the engine, windows down. I listened hard. The air was filled with birdsong. There was no sound of a helicopter.

We jolted our way along the rutted woodland track, between tall trees and thickets of rhododendron. The woods smelled green, damp and mossy.

“We’ll go across country as much as possible,” Gracie said.

I ran my finger across the map, following the lines of roads and tracts of woodland.

“Sounds sensible.”

“But we’ll have to be careful.”

She wrestled with the steering wheel as the tyres slid in the mud.

“You’re worried about scavvers, aren’t you?”

Gracie nodded.

“We could do without any more problems,” I muttered.

After a few kilometres, she pulled over and switched off the engine.”We need to stop a sec, I’m bursting.”

I looked around. All I could see was green forest. “Don’t go too far.”

“You stay here. I won’t be a minute.” And with that she slipped away between the trees. I watched until she blended into the forest. Everything was still, just a few last raindrops dripping off the trees and the cawing of rooks in a nearby rookery.

I leaned back in my seat and stared up at the canopy. When I looked back down I spotted smoke, drifting up between the trees ahead of us, in the same direction that Gracie had gone. She wasn’t back yet. My skin prickled as I opened my door.

I climbed down and leaf mould squelched beneath my feet. I quietly pushed the door closed and headed off in the direction I had seen her go. Whatever that smoke meant, it wasn’t going to be good.

I heard them before I saw Gracie, voices drifting with the breeze. Gruff voices. Unfriendly voices. I slowed, stooping low between the branches, and crested a small rise.

There was a group of them in the road below: dirty, scruffy men with long hair and beards and dressed in rags. Scavvers. I drew in a sharp breath.

And then I saw Gracie. She was crouching in some bracken, watching them, frozen. She hadn’t seen me.

The men were clustered round the burned-out wreck of a car. It was too big to be lekkie, so I guessed it had to be one of the few diesels still around, like the one we were driving. There were some bags and cases scattered across the road and three of the men were rifling through them. The other two were inspecting the remains of the vehicle.

“There’s nothing here,” said one of the men, tipping the contents of a case onto the road and kicking them around with muddy boots. “This was a waste of time.”

“Well, they probably had their valuables on them,” said another, measuring a pair of jeans up against himself. “Blame Dave for letting them get away.”

He opened another case, but this time looked up and smiled. “Bingo.”

The others stopped what they were doing and crowded round.

I shifted my weight, peering for a better view. What was in those cases? I took a step forwards and something snapped beneath my boot. All five men looked up at once, staring straight at me.

Cold panic clutched at my chest. I turned towards Gracie. She looked back at me from eyes wild with fear.

There was movement. The scavvers all surged forwards, running towards me, their faces crazy.

Gracie stood up, rising from the bracken.

“Run, Danni!” she shouted.

She didn’t wait for me. She turned and started to sprint back through the trees, back towards the land rover. I glanced once at the men. They were pelting towards us like a pack of wolves on the scent of blood. I turned, forcing my legs to move.

The men crashed through the undergrowth behind me but my legs were sluggish – as if I was trying to run through glue. I focused my eyes on Gracie, and on the land rover ahead.

Gracie reached it first and hauled open the door, holding it for me to dive inside. As I scrambled upright she jumped in beside me. She kicked the engine into life and crunched it into gear. We lurched forwards, wheels spinning through the leaves and mud as the first of the men reached us.

He grabbed my door but I was faster, pressing down the lock. His eyes were as wild as his hair, his snarl toothless.

I grabbed hold of the door handle and bit back my screams. Gracie didn’t and she shrieked in my ear. Then there was another one in front of us.

She didn’t stop. She drove right at him. The one by my door ran alongside for a few seconds then fell back. The man in front stood still. I gasped as she pressed her foot down on the accelerator. He wasn’t going to jump – and it was too late for us to stop.

He must have realised that in the same moment as I did and he threw himself to one side as the wheels spun past. Clods of earth and leaves and sticks were flung up in our wake.

I twisted in my seat and looked round. The man was picking himself up out of the dirt and waving his fist in our direction. Two of the others had stopped running, and the two that still came after us fell further and further behind. Soon I couldn’t see them at all amongst the greens and browns.

After a while my breath slowed. Gracie pulled us off the forest trail and onto a narrow tarmac lane, driving now at a steadier pace.

“You all right?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. This is such fun.”

“They were scavvers, weren’t they?”

Gracie nodded. “’Fraid so.”

“I hope we’re not going to meet any more like that.”

Gracie looked round at me, and all trace of sarcasm had left her face.

“Unfortunately,” she said, “we probably are.”