Barb pulled the sheet over Scratch and stood and stared at it for a moment. She still expected him to throw it back and shout, ‘Surprise! Fooled you!’ But of course, he didn’t.
She went over to the window and leaned her forehead against the cool glass.
Below, on the grassed area, the young children flocked and spun, fully aware that there was no one to corral them. They leapt and shouted at each other, throwing sticks and keeping busy with the important business of being children.
Over by a tree, a young one sat listlessly leaning against the trunk, and an older sibling came over and felt her forehead.
‘So it begins,’ Barb said out loud.
From this height, she could see some vans heading up the road towards the Bank. They were white vans with blacked-out windows, and they were travelling fast. Dust and gravel flew out from the tyres as they pulled into the long driveway, barely slowing despite all the children scattering before them. With a bang, the back doors opened, and figures covered in white suits with helmets jumped out of the vehicles.
The children screamed and started running in different directions. Some headed into the building; others ran directly away from it. The figures below split up, following them.
It was as she’d thought. The Facility had a part in this.
She realised that if she stayed, they would either hold her here in quarantine or move her away somewhere and lock her up. Luckily, the scientists did not have a clue how to manage a hundred or so scared children, and at the moment, their attempts to round them up bordered on comedy. There was no coordination or sense of authority. She chuckled as she remembered Scratch being able to stop them all with one word and have them racing to see who could line up and please him first.
The chuckle became a sob.
‘Got to go, Scratch.’ She walked across and kissed him through the sheet. Then, with a determined air, she headed down the stairs.
Three flights down, she headed along the corridor to the far end of the building and pushed on the fire escape. The heavy door was stiff from lack of use. This floor housed the younger children, and they didn’t have the strength to open it, and no one else needed it. Throwing all her body weight forward, Barb finally managed to shift it, and with a few final lunges, there was a gap wide enough for her slim frame to squeeze through.
Behind her she heard muffled shouts as a scientist saw her making her escape, but he was a much larger man in a bulky suit, and he could only wave his arm through the crack. The door was wedged with debris that temporarily jammed it and prevented it opening any further, but Barb decided now was not the time to hang around and find out if his greater force would eventually work.
She ran down the metal steps, skipping over rubbish and jumping the last few to drop to the ground. Her ankle twisted beneath her, but she scrambled up and hobbled towards the trees.
A few of the other children had taken refuge in there too, but she shut her ears to their pleas to stop and headed off into the dense woodland.
Barb was going to find Vander and make him pay for what he’d done, and she needed to be alone to do that. The scientists would eventually round up the children and give them the medicine they needed. They would help them more than she could.