The Hiding Place(68)

But something stopped me. Annie. My ankle was still throbbing. It would be a struggle to get up those steps on my own. I couldn’t carry Annie too. I wasn’t even sure we should move her. I needed Hurst and the others to get help.

“Give me something for the blood.”

Hurst fumbled the tie off his head and threw it to me. His face was slack. He looked like he was waking from a bad dream and discovering it wasn’t a dream.

“I didn’t mean to…”

Didn’t mean to hurt Annie. Just meant to hurt me. But I couldn’t process that now. I pressed the tie against the wound on Annie’s scalp. It sunk in. Not good. Not good.

“Is she dead?” Fletch asked.

No, I thought. No, no, no. Not my little sister. Not Annie.

“You have to get an ambulance.”

“But…what do we tell them?”

“What does it matter?”

The tie in my hand was sodden. I threw it to one side.

“Fletch is right,” Hurst muttered. “We need a story. I mean, they’re gonna ask stuff—”

“A story?” I stared at him. “For fuck’s sake.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Chris move. He bent down and picked something up from the ground. Then he shifted back into the shadows.

“Tell them anything,” I said desperately. “Just get help. Now.”

“What’s the point if she’s dead?” Fletch again. Fucking Fletch. “I can’t hear her breathing. She’s not breathing. Look at her. Look at her eyes.”

I didn’t want to look. Because I had already seen. She was just unconscious, I told myself. Just unconscious. So why weren’t her eyes rolled back? Why was her frail body already feeling colder?

Hurst ran a hand through his hair. Thinking. That was bad. Because if he started to think, started to worry about saving his own neck, we were screwed.

“They’ll ask questions. The police.”

“Please,” I begged. “She’s my little sister.”

“Steve.” Marie touched his arm. I had almost forgotten she was there.

Hurst looked at her. Something seemed to pass between them. He nodded. “Okay. Let’s go.”

I looked at Marie, tried to signal my thanks, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. She still looked pale, ill. They all shuffled toward the steps. No one offered to stay with me, not even Chris. But that was okay. I didn’t want them here. Just me and Annie. Like it always had been.

At the bottom of the steps, Hurst paused. He looked like he was about to say something. If he had, I think I would have run at him and torn out his heart with my bare hands. But he didn’t. He turned silently and disappeared into the darkness.

I remained kneeling on the cold ground, cradling Annie’s limp body on my lap. I propped the flashlight up against the rock, like an uplighter. Squashed, dead beetles surrounded us. I could still hear the rest of them faintly, in the walls. I tried not to think about that. Tried to listen to the sounds of the others ascending. Tried not to listen to what was lacking.

She’s not breathing.

They weren’t going quickly enough. Faster, I thought. Go faster. After a while their stumbling steps grew distant. They must be near the opening now, I thought. Must be. Then it wouldn’t take them long to run back to the village, to a house, a phone box. To call 999. The hospital was a good twelve miles away but the ambulances would have lights and sirens and if they knew it was a child, if…

A sound. More like an echo. Distant but still loud enough to carry. CLUNG. Like something heavy dropping. CLUNG. Or a metal door slamming. CLUNG.

Or a hatch closing.

CLUNG.

I stared up into the darkness.

“No,” I whispered.

They couldn’t. They wouldn’t. Not even Hurst. Surely?

No one tells. We need a story. They’ll ask questions.

CLUNG.

And who would know? Who would find us? Who would tell?

I tried to rationalize. I might be mistaken. Maybe they had just closed the hatch to keep us safe, or to make sure that no one fell in. I tried. I tried really hard to convince myself, but all I came back to was that heavy metallic sound:

CLUNG.

In that moment I understood things no fifteen-year-old should. About human nature. About self-preservation. About desperation. Panic rose in a tidal wave, filling my throat, making it hard to breathe. I clutched my little sister tighter, rocking her back and forth.

Annie, Annie, Annie.

CLUNG.

And now I could hear another sound. Skittering, chittering. The beetles. They were coming out of the walls again. Coming back for us.

The thought broke my paralysis.

We couldn’t wait here. Hoping for help that might never come.

We had to move. We had to get out.

I laid Annie gently on the ground and forced myself to my feet. If I put most of my weight on my left foot I could just about stand. I bent and lifted Annie under the arms, then realized I had no hands free to hold the flashlight. I dithered. The beetles skittered. I grabbed the flashlight and gripped it between my teeth. Then I picked up Annie again and staggered backward up the first few steps, balancing myself against the rocky wall, dragging her limp body after me. She was slight, but so was I. Her hoodie kept hitching up, her soft skin chafing against the rough stone steps. I kept stopping to try and pull it down, which was stupid. I was wasting effort, and time.