The Roar (34 page)

51

ONE FOOT IN DEATH

T
he burning Pod Fighter fell nose down into an oak tree. The smaller branches at the top gave way immediately, crack, crack, crack, as the burning craft fell through them, but fortunately, although the tree was old, it was also strong and its lower boughs were as thick as giant’s arms. The tree caught the Pod Fighter about five metres above the forest floor and broke Mika and Audrey’s fall with a gentle bow.

Mika hung face down in his harness for a few moments, panicking as he fought for breath. The hard yank of the straps as the Pod Fighter hit the tree winded him and his lungs were full of smoke he couldn’t exhale. Then, as if he was drowning, he breathed out then dragged in another lungful of poisonous smoke. He hadn’t taken a breath of clean air for far too long and he felt his brain and his body scream. He could feel the heat of the fires, hear the sound of the tree burning and for the second
time since he was shot through the leg, he visited the place where you stand with one foot in life and the other in death. Audrey was silent and Ellie was crying. Blinded by smoke he reached forward and bashed the icon to open the windshield. It juddered back about ten centimetres then caught on the dented body of the fighter, but air came in, and he coughed and coughed and was born again. He could see the forest floor beneath him as the dying fires flickered light over the fallen leaves, and he felt as if they’d crashed on an alien planet, so strange a sight it was. He pushed the windshield fully open, undid his harness and stood in the nose of the cockpit. The Pod Fighter creaked against the branches as he shifted his weight. Then he pulled himself up and over his seat so he could reach Audrey and take off her headset. Her arms dangled limp as she hung from her harness and he felt like Peter Pan when Tinkerbell’s light began to fade, as if his heart was cracking like the old wood of the tree. Her pale elf face was smudged with soot from the smoke and her eyes were closed. Mika patted her cheek, loving her so much he felt his legs melt.

‘Audrey!’ he said. ‘Wake up! Oi! Noodle brain!

‘Audrey?’

He heard the roar of an engine and looked up to see the Pod Fighter that had shot them down, sweeping a searchlight through the forest canopy. His heart missed a beat as the light froze on them and the Pod Fighter hovered, directly overhead.

‘Audrey!’ He shook her by the shoulders, knowing if she didn’t wake up now, she never would. He also knew he couldn’t leave her, so they would both die in this dream place and never go home. He shook her again, roughly this time, and still she hung like a rag doll until he had a jolt of inspiration and pushed her up so her chest was released from the pressure of the harness. She gasped. Her eyes shot open, startling him with their nuclear brightness.

‘Hello?’ she croaked, as if she was wondering why he was staring at her. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Trying to keep you alive,’ he said, smiling with relief.

‘Where are we?’ She put her hand to her throat – it hurt from breathing smoke.

‘In the forest,’ he whispered. ‘We landed in a tree. Quick! Get out of your harness! If we don’t get away from here in the next ten seconds, we’re dead.’

Coughing violently, she fumbled her arms out of the harness. The men in the Pod Fighter had flown a short distance away, found a clearing and landed. Mika and Audrey hung nervously from the broad branch of the oak then dropped the five dangerous metres to the forest floor. Thankfully it was soft and they landed unhurt. They ran into the dark forest, frightened by its silence, trying to suppress the coughs that would give them away, but their lungs had been scoured raw by the smoke and the night air was cold and they choked on its freshness. For an eternity they ran, with the crash of men’s feet behind them, Audrey in front, because she could see the trees. Mika saw nothing unless he looked up at the black branches against the night sky, so he ran blind behind her, feeling all the time more frightened and further from Ellie.

How are we going to survive this, he thought frantically, as he tripped on the root of a tree. How will we ever get home?

Eventually Audrey stopped and leaned over and panted with her hands on her hips. ‘I think we’ve lost them,’ she said. ‘I can’t hear them any more.’

They listened for a moment, trying to pant quietly, and Mika felt the darkness wrap around them like a cloak. They heard a twig snap nearby and much further away, a sound that turned their blood to ice – a howl.

‘Did you hear that?’ Audrey whispered, clutching his arm.

‘Yes,’ Mika said, quietly.

‘It sounded like . . .’

‘A wolf?’

Then they heard another sound – a scream. It was a long way away, but every noise in the forest seemed blown all around it by the wind. Mika shuddered with cold and fear.

‘It can’t be wolves,’ Audrey said. ‘They’re extinct.’

‘Like trees and mansions?’ Mika replied. ‘I think it is wolves.’

They heard another scream, closer this time and curdled by blood.

‘They’re killing Gorman’s men!’ Audrey said. ‘We have to get away!’ She started to run again and Mika blazed after her, and they ran as if the wolves were already chasing them. Audrey, now blinded by fear, coursed into trees, fell down holes and scrambled forward, leading them deeper and deeper in the vast and silent darkness. But trying to flee was pointless, because they were already surrounded. A pair of red eyes appeared directly in front of them and they stopped dead, hoping the darkness and silence would protect them. But more red eyes appeared, with blue light trails behind them. The lights circled Mika and Audrey, flicking through the trees, gradually closing in until they were near enough for Audrey’s borg eyes to see the animal shapes behind them.

‘You won’t believe this!’ she whispered. She could see a dozen or so silver forms slipping through the trees. ‘I think they’re the borg dogs from the pit! They were
wolves
, Mika! And they’re huge!’

Mika watched one melt out of the darkness only three or four metres away. It was as tall as a man at the shoulder.

‘Frag,’ he whispered, trembling from head to toe.

‘Stand still and let it smell you,’ Audrey whispered.

‘I don’t think I’ve got much choice,’ he replied.

Its metal fangs were as long as his fingers and dripping with fresh blood. Its muzzle rippled back in a terrifying snarl as it crept towards him with its head down and its red borg eyes glowing. Mika closed his eyes and prayed as he felt its cold nose on the back of his hand. Nothing happened for a few seconds, so he opened his eyes again and found, to his astonishment, that the whole pack had come forward. A dozen giant silver wolves with blood on their muzzles were walking lazy circles around them. One sat down, another yawned, some looked over their
shoulders into the dark forest as if it was time to move on to other business.

‘They move as if they’re alive.’ Audrey whispered, touching one as it passed her. ‘They must have been built by the same people who made the eagle hawks. They’re guarding the forest.

‘I wish Kobi could see them.’

‘Yeah, he’d think they’re great,’ Mika replied grimly, still not daring to move. ‘He’d probably have one living in his fold-down so he could figure out how it was made.’

‘He wouldn’t get many visitors,’ Audrey remarked. ‘Those teeth are sharp as knives.’

One of the wolves pricked up its silver ears, raised its nose to the sky and sniffed the air. The others followed and a few seconds later, as if something was calling them across the forest, the pack trotted off into the darkness.

‘I wonder why they didn’t kill us?’ Mika said.

‘I think they actually
like
us,’ Audrey replied.

‘It’s as if they don’t know we’re human,’ Mika observed. ‘I don’t understand.’

They sank to the ground and leaned against the trunk of a tree and touched earth for the first time. It was damp and soft and smelled clean. They gazed into the darkness for a while, wondering whether the wolves would return. It was cold and their breath came as clouds of vapour and they shivered in their thin clothes. But after a few minutes they weren’t much aware of their bodies any more, because in the stillness, with their special sight, the cloak of darkness lifted and the forest began to reveal itself in forms of golden light. And this was not the fairy gold of man-made turrets and taps, it was the light of life. It was early spring and the trees began to glow from their waking roots to their fat blossom buds and unfurled leaves. And spread across the forest floor, where the sunlight could reach its fingers during the day, a carpet of bluebells was coming into flower. But that wasn’t all! There was movement! They could see movement everywhere! Audrey picked up a handful of rotten leaves and it was swarming
with small, gold forms.

‘Woodlice,’ she whispered.

A mouse scampered across a rotten tree stump. Birds stirred in the branches of the trees. Mika and Audrey gazed at them in shocked wonder, trying to come to terms with the miracle of their existence.

‘There can’t have been an Animal Plague,’ Audrey said faintly. ‘It never happened, did it?’

‘It doesn’t look like it,’ Mika replied.

‘It was all lies,’ Audrey said.

‘I knew it,’ Mika said. ‘I always knew we were being lied to! All this time we’ve been living behind The Wall in those horrible concrete towers, eating food made of mould and surrounded by stinking floodwater while on the other side, it was like
this
.’

‘It’s as if there’s
another
level of London,’ Audrey said, looking around. ‘A secret, invisible level, above the Golden Turrets, where even
richer
people live. The people in the Golden Turrets have got their fancy apartments, but they’ve got
nothing
compared to this. These people have huge mansions and forests and
animals
!’

‘How could they keep such a huge secret?’ Mika said. ‘How could everyone live behind a wall for forty-three years without realizing
this
was on the other side of it?’

‘No one ever comes here,’ Audrey pointed out. ‘We’re reminded all the time how horrible and dangerous it’s supposed to be. Even in the game it looked like poisoned dust.’

‘Our poor parents!’ Mika said furiously. ‘They lost everything when they moved behind The Wall! And the whole thing was a lie!’

‘I wonder why nobody asked questions,’ Audrey said.

‘Why would they?’ Mika replied vehemently. ‘They saw the plague on television.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Audrey sighed. ‘My mum believes everything she sees on television.’

‘So does mine,’ Mika said, bitterly. ‘Whoever did this to them must have faked the news reports.’

‘So the plague sirens must be fake, too,’ Audrey said.

‘It’s all fake,’ Mika replied, disgusted. ‘Those stupid paper plague suits, I always knew they were useless.’

‘All those history lessons we did. We learned more about the plague than anything else.’

‘Lies.’

‘And the posters in our classrooms of animals foaming at the mouth with blood in their eyes.’

‘Just to scare us so we wouldn’t want to come here.’

‘They’ve treated us like idiots.’

‘They’ve lied to us about
everything
.’

Pale dawn light began to filter through the trees and its opaque beauty awed them into silence for a while. Birds began to sing and Awen appeared and sniffed contentedly through the leaves at Mika’s feet.

‘But isn’t it
beautiful
?’ Audrey whispered. ‘I used to cry myself to sleep when I was little because all the animals and plants were dead. It seemed so unfair, when I knew
I
would have looked after them, but I’d never get the chance because they’d been killed by the people born before us. But look, Mika! They’re
still here
! And more beautiful than I ever imagined! I don’t know how to feel. I’m so angry and happy at the same time.’

‘Me too,’ Mika said. ‘I feel as if I’m waking up from a nightmare.’

‘Yeah,’ Audrey agreed. ‘A nightmare in which humans kill every living thing except themselves, so there’s nothing left but concrete and floodwater. Thank odd it’s not true.’

‘But this part of the world belongs to someone else now,’ Mika pointed out. ‘And we’re not supposed to be here. Those eagles and wolves should have killed us.’

‘This must be what the war is about,’ Audrey said grimly. ‘Mal Gorman and the government must know the plague never happened and that it’s beautiful here.’

‘I think you’re right,’ Mika agreed. ‘Our parents said the enemy had to be in a place we didn’t know about, and we
certainly didn’t know about this. And a few weeks ago, my friend Helen disappeared and I couldn’t find her, but before she left, I told her I felt as if we were being lied to. She tried warning me that we were in danger. She wanted to tell me a secret. This
must
be it. It all makes sense now. Maybe she’s here, on this side of The Wall.’

‘I wonder if your sister knows,’ Audrey pondered, looking up the trees as if they’d disappear if she took her eyes off them.

‘Ellie,’ Mika said, anxiously. ‘It’s morning, Audrey. What are we going to do? We’re stuck in the middle of a forest on the other side of The Wall! And if I don’t go back and convince Mal Gorman I haven’t betrayed him, I’ll never see her again! How are we going to get out of here?’