A long way off, a dog was barking. Something brushed across his forehead and Jake swiped at it. Everything smelled of soot.
–Porca vacca, you’re awake! That was Ollie’s voice, but so loud that Jake put his hands to his ears. His arms felt heavy as stone and a pulse of pain throbbed across his skull. He opened his eyes. Grey light, then Ollie’s head, his face, looming in. Dirt was smeared over his face, and his breath stank. The room stank, and everything was loud.
–Quiet, Jake said. –So thirsty. His voice was rusty, hoarse, and his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.
Ollie sat back on his haunches and laughed. –You’ve been away with the fairies. Burning up, hot as hell, and shouting crazy, crazy stuff. He reached into Jake’s rucksack and pulled out a carton of juice.
Jake made to sit up, but something was cutting into him, pinning him down. –Gimme the drink! He reached up to his chest and felt rope tight across him. –What’ve you done to me?
Ollie’s face was serious. –Tied you to the bench. Had to. You were heading down that tunnel. The one with the danger sign. I had to drag you back, wasn’t easy. You were so strong, and so crazy. Shouting and shouting, saying your mum was there, your dad, and Jet. So I tied you up. Found some washing line in your rucksack. Only way to keep you safe. You’ve been out for two days, Jake.
While Ollie unpicked the knots, Jake tried to think, but his head was a fog. Where was the dog? Was it Jet?
–You’ve been ranting nearly the whole time, Ollie said. –Loud sometimes, whispering sometimes, like you were talking to someone, but not me. Just once you were quiet, and that’s when I thought you were for it because you went limp, like a dead man, but your eyes were still open. For hours, Jake. Hours and hours.
Jake licked his lips. They were cracked and sore. –I need water, he said.
–Two days, Jake. You’ve been out for two days. I thought I was going out of my head. Tried to get some juice into you, but I reckon most of it went down your neck.
Ollie passed Jake the carton of juice, and leaning up on an elbow, Jake drank it down, the whole thing. Ollie was shouting at him not to finish it, it was the only drink they had, but Jake couldn’t stop.
Then something else pushed into Jake’s mind. His mum and dad. They’d been here; he could still feel his mum’s hand on his hair. They’d called to him, and he’d wanted to go.
–Where are they? He grabbed at Ollie’s jacket. –Where are they?
–Get off. Ollie pulled away, stared at him. –Who?
–My mum and dad. They were in Tunnel Sixty-three. They wanted me to go with them. Where are they?
Ollie pulled the washing line out from under Jake. He shook his head. –It was a fever dream, he said. –A wish. There’s other people down here. I mean, not our gang, not that I’ve found yet. That must be what you heard, because I heard them too.
–No. I saw it for real. You weren’t here, and they were, and they called me. My mum had on the scarf I gave her for her birthday. The one with blue and red sailboats.
But there was a line in Ollie’s forehead, and he looked sad. –Your parents are dead, Jake. You saw them in a dream.
Jake sat up, head spinning, fingers fuzzy. He looked across the space and felt his mum and dad slip away from him, fainter and fainter, and then they were gone.
Gone again.
He could feel it in his chest like a pain, the feeling he had, the sadness.
Ollie filled Jake in on his lost time: Ollie’s exploring, the options they had. Tunnel 62 ended at a locked gate, and Tunnel 64 at a river.
–But it’s not a river we could cross, Ollie said. –It’s like a torrent. I can’t see how the gang could have crossed it either. And it’s dirty. Really dirty. There’s stuff in it, stuff like from your toilet, and dead things. And I saw rats. Big rats.
–What about Tunnel Sixty-three?
–Last one I went into. I know it was your fever, but I was spooked when you saw your mum and dad down there. The torch was giving out, so I couldn’t see properly, whether there were Outwalker signs. Anyway, I nearly fell over an edge of the ground – like, the ground just stopped. Disappeared. I couldn’t help myself, I yelled out.
–So how deep is it? Jake said.
–I don’t know. That’s when the torch died.
–Maybe we can get down with the washing line, Jake said. –Even in the dark. Drop a pebble to hear the bottom, give us an idea of how deep it is. Secure it at the top and …
Ollie was shaking his head. –We’d be mad. We don’t even know if it’s the right tunnel. He’d been euphoric when Jake woke up, but now his voice was flat and dead. Dead as the light in this place, flat as its old air.
–But maybe my parents appearing is a sign, Jake said. He knew it wasn’t logical, but they’d been so real. His mum had been wearing her silver starfish earrings. His dad’s chin was stubbly, like he hadn’t shaved that day.
–Stop there, Ollie said, –because now you’re really scaring me. We are not going to drop down a black hole because you saw your dead parents in a fever dream.
–So what then? Sit here and die of thirst?
–No, we go back up. Back the way we came, soon as possible. Out of the tunnel, back through the station. Ollie was putting on his rucksack as he spoke, like he’d made up his mind.
–But the others must have gone somewhere, Jake said. –You’re sure we can’t cross the river?
–It’ll drown us and spit us up god knows where. Miles away, probably. If they’ve gone in there, then they’re dead. And if we go in, we’ll just be some drowned boys nobody knows and they’ll bury us in a grave with no name.
A shiver crawled over Jake’s skin. He saw the dead dog in the pile of rubbish, could feel the smell of it in his nostrils. What if Jet …? But he mustn’t think that, and he shook the thought away.
–We gotta try and get across, he said. –We might drown, but we’re dead boys, deffo, if we go back the way we came. Good as dead. You saw the screens same as I did. They’re hunting for us up there, on the streets above our heads, Ollie. For you and me. Not for the gang. For you and me. We’re murderers now. If we go back, they’ll catch us, and hub us, and lock us away in one of those Home Academies for really bad kids and we’ll never get out. I’ll never see Jet again, you’ll never see your dad, we’ll never see the gang. He slammed his hand down on the bench with frustration. –Come on! Think! He was yelling, but he couldn’t help himself. They couldn’t come all this way just to turn around and hand themselves in.
He stood up, and felt his legs go from under him, grabbing the bench just in time to fall back down on it.
–Stupido, Ollie said. –You haven’t eaten for two days. He rummaged in his rucksack and found a slab of malt loaf. It was sticky and sweet and it made Jake feel sick. But he swallowed down a chunk. You’ll feel better for some food. His mother’s voice, but only in his mind this time.
–Ollie? he said, because he didn’t want to hear his mother’s voice now. Not his mother’s or his father’s. He didn’t want to be sad, and he didn’t want to think on dead things. Not dead in any river. Maybe this was it, this room, and him and Ollie; and someone would find them years from now, just skeletons left inside their clothes.
He shook his head. Bad thoughts.
–Ollie, he said again, louder, wanting to tell him he wasn’t mad at him really, that they could still get to Scotland, just the two of them, that it would be all right.
But Ollie didn’t answer. He was on his feet, and walking over to the tunnels. Walking like a boy who’s seen a ghost, Jake thought, and his skin prickled.
–Ollie, he said once more, his voice urgent.
Ollie stood at the entrance to Tunnel 64 and stared into the black. –Listen, he said, and faint, very faint, Jake heard a dog’s bark.