The Hollow Places (25 page)

She bit her
lip. “She couldn't face being alone,” she said.

“I could,”
said Simon, “so are you coming with me or not?” He extended his
hand. She took it, but ultimately it was she who helped him back up
the slope, picking him up when he fell.

*

Clare turned her key in
the ignition and set the heaters to full. She poured Simon black
coffee from a flask, but he couldn't hold the cup. She offered to
put it to his lips, but he refused.

“Do you know
why we were down there?” he asked.

“I know enough
so that I'm glad I was up here,” Clare said.

“Firdy said
that he couldn't use you. Why not?”

“I'm sick,”
she said. “It's terminal.” They held each other's gaze. “What was
it like being inside her?” Clare said.

“Like
drowning,” he replied, without hesitation.

She nodded.
That made sense to her.

She glanced
over her left shoulder and then, as she drew her seatbelt, she took
in the remaining area. Satisfied that they were alone, she put the
car into gear.

“When the wave
hit me,” she said, “I didn't feel Sarah or any of the others.”

“I realise
that she's probably dead,” Simon said, “but I have to look. I need
to find her. That's all I have to do.”

“I'll help
you,” she said.

“You don't
have to help me.”

“Yeah,” she
said. “I do.”

*

“She could be
anywhere,” Simon admitted, looking out to sea.

“We'll find
her,” Clare told him. “One way or another.”

She seemed to
understand what was required and he needed no more reason than that
to accept her help. She had driven them to a vantage point with a
clear view of the beach where Simon had made his approach and a
good distance of beach either side.

She stood at
the edge of the promontory, the toe of her right boot resting on a
clump of dirt that looked like it might give way at any moment, and
she scanned the beach with a compact pair of binoculars.

Simon sat in
the car with the door open and his legs out, taking an enforced
break, resting his body, because his mind gave him no relief. He
had the tartan blanket around his shoulders and Clare had insisted
that he take her scarf too. He sipped his coffee and felt
marginally restored while Clare moved seamlessly with the
binoculars, pivoting at the waist.

“How are you
sick?” Simon asked.

Her tracing of
the beach stuttered. She couldn't help it, even though she'd
suspected the question would come again.

“Cancer,” she
said, as though that would end all further questions. It didn't.
Simon opened his mouth to speak, but she waved him over. He stood
beside her at the edge of the promontory and she passed him the
binoculars.

Below, trees
jutted out of the cliff. The face was crawling with weeds. He'd
probably be able to get a handhold on something if he fell, but it
was a long way to the bottom.

“I don't
expect you to trust me,” Clare said. “I'm not going to ask you to.
You'll do what you think is best. And so will I.”

He took the
binoculars. She used her hand on his arm to correct his direction
and she told him to relax his eyes.

All he saw was
rocks, their bodies smoothed by the black sea, naked and glistening
and still, as wave after wave rolled over them. Clouds passed over
the moon, slowly, slowly, until light shone down through a
tear.

“There,” said
Clare.

Simon noticed
a shape moving among the rocks.

“I don't
believe it,” he said.

*

Clare got there
first.

“It's not
her,” she said as Simon caught up.

“It's Will,”
Simon said and dropped to his knees beside him.

Will's body
shook with a coughing fit and then he rolled onto his back and
wailed. He was still fully-dressed, except for having lost a shoe,
and was drenched. He pushed his fingers through his muddy hair and
cried.

“What happened
to Zak?” Simon said.

Will's eyes
darted around, but they didn't take in Simon or Clare, the beach or
the sky. He shook his head and the stones beneath it skittering
from side to side.

“Could Zak
have made it?” Simon asked.

“Dead,” said
Will. “Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead ...”

The Third's
sorrow had left its imprint on him. Simon and Clare had both
recovered from the energy that touched them on the beach, so Simon
hoped that Will would too. Maybe it would improve in an hour, maybe
(never) a day, maybe (never) a week.

“Get him back
to the car,” Simon said.

“...
No-fuckin'-way,” Clare said.

“We can't
leave him here.”

“Why not?”

Simon gazed
down at Will's sodden body. The answer to Clare's question seemed
obvious to him and yet he couldn't put it into words. Then it was
her turn to gaze down at Will, his chest rising and falling. He was
still mouthing the word 'dead' over and over, but she was thankful
that he had fallen silent.

“I need to
keep looking for Sarah,” Simon said. “But I can't leave him
here.”

“We'll be
seen,” Clare told him.

“I can't leave
him.”

Clare sighed
deeply. “Can you get him up?”

By cajoling
him, she was able to make Will put one foot in front of the other
and stagger where she directed him. Though he stumbled and they
fell frequently, she got him up the beach and back towards the car
while Simon continued to search for Sarah alone.

Simon was
unaware of time passing, except to note that the sky was getting
lighter and so he was able to see further. He knew Clare would not
see it that way. She'd been unhappy when he had called out for
Sarah, his voice echoing into the night, but he did it again now,
and again. He didn't care about the 'authorities'. He only had to
know, one way or another, whether or not Sarah had survived.

The uneven
ground made his progress especially slow and painful, and he walked
in the knowledge that he may be moving in the wrong direction. He'd
had to make a choice. Walking where they had found Will had made
the most sense to him at the time, but now he reminded himself that
she could be anywhere.

He walked
until he had to sit. He removed his trainers, but he couldn't feel
his feet. That was probably for the best, he thought dimly. He
closed his eyes and half-slept for a few minutes.

When he was
ready to go on, he pulled on his wet trainers and prepared to head
back the way he had come. First, however, he scoured the horizon
for signs of (a body) Sarah and that was when he saw (Sarah)
someone in the water.

In his hurry
to put the binoculars to his eyes, he dropped them, then snatched
them back up. He searched left and right, unsure of himself. It
seemed that he had been mistaken, but after a few seconds the thing
surfaced again.

It was a
woman's body, buffeted by waves. They spun her. They sucked her
down. She came back up.

It was Naomi.
He could see her plaits. She wasn't far away and normally Simon
could have swum out to pull her in, but he knew that he might not
make it back this time and so he stood his ground. After a time, he
became sure that she was dead.

The waves
didn't bring her any closer to the shore. They dragged and threw
her around, ultimately pulling her under for increasingly long
periods until he lost sight of her.

The episode
left him with mixed feelings. On the one hand, he was horrified
that someone he had been with not two hours ago had bobbed up as a
corpse. The Third had never told him to kill anyone and so, with
the exception of funerals, he had only ever seen one dead body
before; his mother, the day she killed herself. Seeing Naomi's body
left him physically shaking. He had touched her, when he had helped
Firdy drag her into the van. Later, she had hammered on the
partition and asked him for help, for her sake and for that of her
family. He had ignored her. Now she was nothing.

He was
appalled by what he had allowed to happen, what he had
facilitated.

But Naomi's
lifeless body brought with it the promise of closure for him. He
and Will and Naomi had all come to the surface near the beach and
so it was possible that Sarah would turn up too. At least then he'd
be certain of her fate; as Clare had put it: one way or
another.

It would take
him about an hour to get back to where he had started. He wondered
if Clare would be waiting for him with Will, or if she had disposed
of him instead.

Maybe it would
be best to hole up somewhere and get some rest. If Sarah hadn't
washed up yet, she might (never) do later.

With grim
plans jostling for position, he headed back the way he had come. He
had been walking a few minutes when he saw Sarah walking away from
him, ghostly, in the shallows. He thought he should approach her
cautiously in case he startled her, but he couldn't help himself
and began running so quickly that he slipped and lost his balance.
His face cracked against the rocks, but he got up and she was still
there. She didn't turn to see what had caused the clatter. Her arms
hung at her sides and the wind was toying with her although Simon
couldn't feel it at all. The sleeve of her fatigue jacket had been
torn off, but otherwise she was dressed as she had been on entering
The Third.

When he
reached her, she looked through him. Her face was waiting for an
expression to take hold of it.

“Sarah?” he
said and brushed droplets from her nose and forehead. Her hair
clung to her shoulders and neck, thick with mud, blonde streaked
with black. “Can you see me?” he said. He held her by the shoulders
and put his face close to hers. “Can you hear me?”

Her eyes
refocussed.

“Sarah,” he
said. “It's Simon.” And he wished that one of her friends had been
here instead of him, Geraldine, perhaps, someone who cared about
her and had been able to show it. “I'm going to get you home,” he
told her. “You're going to be okay.”

“De-ad,” she
whispered.

Simon dreamt that he was underwater. Everything was
blue and cold. He didn't know what he was and nor did anything
else. A host of sea creatures came to see. A shark. A swordfish.
Dolphins. An entire shoal of minnows. A gargantuan octopus
descended and somewhere beneath him he saw the shadowy back of a
blue whale. Nothing came too close. They seemed to understand that
the cold was emanating from him and that that was wrong.

The dolphin
came nearest. It paused in front of him and asked: “What the fuck
are you?”

He opened his
mouth to speak and one word came out.

“De-ad.”

The dolphin's
smile shattered and it sank, a cadaver. The fishes' eyes went
black. The whale hit bottom, sending dust up and up and up, hiding
everything, but not well enough.

DEAD DEAD DEAD
DEAD.

He woke with a
scream in his throat. He was in the back of Clare's car. The engine
was working hard.

DEAD DEAD
DEAD.

Will was
sitting on his right, with his head leaned up against the window.
His eyes were open, but he only stared into the back of the seat
ahead. He had the tartan blanket wrapped around him and Clare had
dried his hair off.

DEAD DEAD.

Sarah was in
the front passenger seat. Clare had given her her jumper and long,
black coat, otherwise she was naked, but at least she was dry and
warm air was humming through the vents. Simon leaned forward. Sarah
looked terrible, washed out and set aside. She didn't turn to look
at him, so he didn't see the glaze of her eyes. He was glad. He
couldn't face that yet.

DEAD.

“Any progress
from these two?” he asked.

“Nothing,”
Clare said. “Just that one word over and over. It's been driving me
mad. I'm glad you're awake.”

“Me too,”
Simon said. According to the digital clock on the dashboard, it
wasn't yet six. He hadn't been asleep long, but he had hoped that
something would be different upon waking.

“Is it time to
try what we discussed?” Clare asked.

Simon
unclasped his seatbelt and got into a comfortable position.

“Do you want
the Mag-Lite?” she asked.

“No,” Simon
said and he pulled Will so he was upright. “Will,” he said. “Will.”
The man's pupils remained fixed. Simon sighed and slapped him hard
across the cheek. He waited for a reaction. He waited a long
time.

“Anything?”
Clare asked.

“Nothing.”

“Do you want
me to try?”

Simon hit him
again. The sound of the contact was greater this time. Will's head
snapped around and his face hit the window with a thunk.

“I was too
late,” he said and moaned. “I was too late! He died inside me. He's
dead.”

Simon and
Clare exchanged looks of surprise in the rear view mirror. “Who's
dead?” he said.

“Firdy.”

“And why do
you care about that?”

“Because he's
my … he's my ...” Will rubbed his temple. “My head,” he said. He
lowered his head and sat that way for a long time. If he could have
put his head between his knees he would have done it. Simon lay his
hand on Will's back, between the shoulder blades, but the physical
contact felt strange. Gently, he drew his hand back.

“Zak,” Will
said.

“I didn't find
him,” Simon admitted. “But we can go back.” Clare glared at
him.

“Nothing to go
back for,” Will said. “He's dead. Died in my arms.”

Will slotted
in some missing pieces for Simon and Clare. When Simon and Firdy
had fought, the Third had pulled her probes from everyone. It had
had the effect of pulling plugs from computers. Some of them had
been fine: Will, the army guy, Sarah. Others – Zak, Naomi, the tall
guy – had keeled over. They literally dropped dead.

“The light in
his eyes ...” Will said. “He wasn't really conscious when it
happened. The only good thing is that it was quick for him.”