The Girl With All the Gifts(107)

“Are you sure?” she asks.

Melanie is very sure.





66


She’s even keen to do it, because she’s restless and unhappy about everything that’s happened today. Kieran dying–dying because her story, her lie, frightened him away. And then Dr Caldwell driving off and leaving Miss Justineau with nowhere safe to sleep. And then the finding of the little corpse, the body of a child much younger than her, with his head cut off.

She thinks maybe Dr Caldwell cut his head off, because that’s the sort of thing that Dr Caldwell does. Underneath the unhappiness, she finds a pure, white anger. Dr Caldwell has to be made to stop doing these things. Someone has to teach her a lesson.

The wild children are just the same as she is, except that they never got to have lessons with Miss Justineau. Nobody ever taught them how to think for themselves, or even how to be people, but they’re learning without that help. They’ve already learned how to be a family. And then Dr Caldwell comes and kills them as though they’re just animals. Maybe they tried to kill her first, but they don’t know any better and Dr Caldwell does.

It fills Melanie with a rage so strong it’s almost like the hungry feeling. And discovering that she can feel like that makes her afraid.

So she doesn’t mind at all going out to explore the grey stuff. She thinks moving will be a lot better for her than staying still.

Sergeant Parks and Miss Justineau find a loft in one of the houses of a three-storey Victorian terrace a few streets away from where Rosie stopped. There’s a ladder that leads up there, but once Sergeant Parks and Miss Justineau have climbed up, Melanie takes the bottom of it while the two grown-ups take the top and they manage between the three of them to rip it out of the metal brackets that hold it in place. Melanie catches it as it falls and lowers it carefully to the floor so that it doesn’t make too much noise.

“I’ll see you later,” she calls up to them softly. She takes the walkie-talkie from her belt and waves it to show that she hasn’t forgotten about it. She’ll be able to talk to them, even if she goes far away.

Miss Justineau whispers a reply. Goodbye, or good luck, or something like that. Melanie is already running lightly back down the stairs, her bare feet silent on the rotten, moss-covered carpet.

She picks a starting point at random and follows the edge of the grey mass. She starts off at a walk, but she’s still filled with a sense of restlessness and urgency, so after a while she breaks into a trot and then into a run. She goes a long way, detouring wherever she has to and then finding the wall again as soon as she can.

It seems to go on for ever. Its outer surface isn’t totally straight; it goes in and out a lot, throwing out salients along the narrower streets, falling back a little where there are open spaces that offer less to cling to. But there’s no sign of a break and nowhere where Melanie can glimpse anything on the further side of the barrier.

After she’s been running for more than an hour, she stops. Not to rest–she could go on for a while yet without discomfort–but to check in with Miss Justineau and Sergeant Parks.

She presses the stud on the walkie-talkie and says hello into it. For a long time it just crackles, but then Sergeant Parks’ voice answers. “How are you doing?”

“I went east,” Melanie tells him. “Quite a long way. The wall just goes on and on.”

“You’ve been walking all this time?”

“Running.”

“Where are you now? Can you see any street signs?”

Melanie can’t, but she walks on until she reaches another crossroads. “Northchurch Road,” she says. “London Borough of Hackney.”

She hears Parks breathing hard. “And it goes on further than that?”

“A lot further. As far as I can see. And I can see a long way, even in the dark.” Melanie isn’t boasting; it’s just something Sergeant Parks needs to know.

“Okay. Thanks, kid. Come on back. If you feel like taking a look to the west, too, I’d be grateful. But don’t wear yourself out. Come on back here if you’re feeling tired.”

“I’m fine,” Melanie says. “Over and out.”

She retraces her steps and goes the other way, but it’s exactly the same. If they go around the wall, they’ll have to go a very long way either to the east or to the west, and it’s not clear where they’ll be able to start going south again.

Finally Melanie finds herself standing directly in front of the wall, a few miles away from where they first met it. It’s as thick here as it is anywhere, but the angle of its fall is different. An outcrop of grey froth leans forward a long way, right over her, and she can see the moon shining down through it. The stark white glow is like a promise, an encouragement. If she pushes forward through the wall, she might be able to find the further side before she loses the light.

Miss Justineau said it was dangerous, but Melanie doesn’t see how, and she’s not afraid of it. She takes a step forward, and then another. The grey threads are up to her ankles, then up to her knees, but they offer no resistance at all. They just tickle a little as she pushes through them, parting with the smallest sigh of not-quite-sound.

The moon follows her, a moving spotlight in which everything opens itself up to her gaze. The grey threads quickly get thicker and thicker. Objects that she passes–rubbish bins, parked cars, post boxes, garden hedges and gates–are swathed in endless layers, turned into granite statues of themselves.