3.3 - The Flight

A strange silence filled the little shed.

Billy stared at Alex in astonishment. He wanted to say something, but the thousand questions danced just out of reach and so the two children continued to sit, looking at each other. When Billy looked closely into Alex's shining green eyes he realised that there was no need for questions. The silence had triggered a wave of mutual understanding. It was the kind of silence that suddenly descends as if all sounds have been blocked out, concentrating the mind on a tiny point in space, a bit like the way the shadows usually descended on Billy when he was made to stop playing his fantasy games. The sort of silence where you almost expect to hear the sudden crack of a dry twig followed by a sharp intake of breath as the man outside realises he is not hidden any more.

'He's here!' Alex gasped and grabbed Billy's hand, yanking him out of his thoughts and through the broken doorway and its clutching, clawing tangle of brambles and ivy into the bright sunshine of the dry November afternoon. Out of the corner of his eye Billy caught the flutter of a black coat and a flash of sunlight reflected off some sort of glass, but then he and Alex were sprinting as fast as they could, through rows of runner beans and pumpkins, up and out of the allotments. They clambered desperately over the locked gate, thorns scratching Billy's arms. Billy did not dare to look back as they ran across the open field toward the woods that led back into the village.

He came to my house too. Alex's words repeated over and over in time with his footsteps. Over the last day Billy's vivid imagination had already presented him with pretty much every terrible scenario it could think of, but they had all been solely focused around him, the Dreaded Pirate, the Hero of the Day. He had not thought for a second that any other children could be in danger too. In fact, the rational part of Billy's mind had been telling him exactly this since the old man had given him the box; these things do not happen. You aren't special, just weird. He must have made a mistake. You are the mistake.

Yet the man was here, hunting two children now, and frighteningly close. Billy could almost feel the hand upon his shoulder, but when he shrank away and looked back, the black figure had just reached the gate.

The children entered the woods.

Billy turned back to Alex, who seemed to be moving with fierce purpose, ducking and weaving through the trees, checking all the time that Billy was close, stopping every now and then to haul him up alongside her.

'Where.... we going?' Billy panted, catching up with the girl for the tenth time, voice shaking, confused and frightened.

'Po- police!' Alex panted back. 'My uncle is...' She leapt impressively over a stream and Billy followed, but he lost his footing on the wet bank and fell face first into the mud with a yelp. The wooden box, which he had been clutching tightly in his free hand, was thrown into the water and floated slowly away downstream, the little cartoon man seeming to scowl at Billy's clumsiness as he spun away in the water.

'...the Sergeant there!' Alex finished, realising a few steps further along that Billy was no longer behind her. 'Oh leave the stupid box behind.' She sighed pointedly, 'we have to run now!' She tried to reach for him, but Billy was already splashing through the water, chasing after the box. Come on, idiot boy, move faster! Pick me up. That's right, now don't do that again! The mechanical face was wearing that ambiguous expression again; half grimace, half smile. Billy shoved it into his pocket and tried to ignore the lingering feeling that the little cartoon man had somehow talked to him.

He looked up at Alex sheepishly. 'Sorry,' he said.

'S'okay, but we have to keep running, now!' Alex replied, helping the little boy out of the water and watching the woods for any sign of the man in the black coat. Billy wiped his face on his sleeves and saw a little flicker of a smile as Alex nodded to herself.

'I think he's stopped,' she said.

'Are you sure?' Alex nodded again.

'Look, there's a clear view back through the trees,' she said. 'If he was coming, he would come from there. That's the quickest way.' She pointed back through the woods and Billy pretended to look, to understand, to show he was not terrified that the man was really standing right behind him.

'Was that your man?' Billy hated the way the words sounded. Small, idiotic. Alex nodded.

'He had the thing on his head, right? Like a big camera lens? Did your man have it too?'

'I don't know, I think he had something on his head but I ran too quick. I- I didn't look I just ran, I just saw light, a bright shiny light.'

'That was prob'ly it,' Alex said. 'Prob'ly the moon reflected or something. You see it in the pond sometimes, at night. Don't know what it is though.' She shuddered. 'It looks creepy.'

'But how did he know where we were? How did he-'

'Doesn't matter. I think we should go now. Come on, we're nearly there.'

'But -' Before he could say anything else Alex had grabbed his hand and they rushed off again, following the stream now, which Billy knew would take them back to the village.

The village. It was somewhere ahead of them but he could hardly see now; the Shadow was worse now than it had ever been. He did not know what he would do when Alex left him. And she would leave, as soon as they found her uncle. The policeman who hated him. Billy frowned and tried not to think about the red-faced sergeant with his bad breath and stubborn refusal to listen to Billy's side of things.

So the little boy stayed as close to his new friend as he could. She was so sure of herself and he was so afraid. To make matters worse, he wouldn't have been able to spot the man in the black coat even if he wanted to. The Shadow had closed in tightly around him and Billy focused desperately on the tunnel of soft pink light binding him to Alex, guiding him along behind her wherever she went.

When they reached the outskirts of the village, Alex ducked behind a high stone wall, originally built to prevent drunken farmers steering their horses and sometimes their carts, into the water. They crept along the bank of the stream, crouching, towards the village green.

A distant murmur of angry voices grew out of the background noise of running water and soon enough Billy was able to make out words.

'Where is my baby?'

'Who's going to look for my son?'

'It's been two days now and what the hell are you boys doing about it?'

'She is only seven years old!'

'My only daughter! Taken!'

'Little Johnny too, him and his two friends, all gone!'

'Now calm down, please everybody just calm down!' The Inspector's voice. He sounded no more harrassed and grumpy than usual, but Billy heard the note of panic in his tone. It slithered out of his mouth and loomed out over the anxious villagers like a thick black snake, twisting and swaying, absorbing all their fears and magnifying the feeling of general panic about the place. Billy felt cold. Alex motioned for him to crouch with her behind a large statue of Queen Victoria as they took their bearings and surveyed the chaos before them. He reached out for her hand and she took his, willingly.

'He won't follow us now,' Alex whispered, 'there are too many people, he won't try anything here.'

'How can you be sure?' Billy asked. He looked nervously around the sea of faces, but there was no glint of sliver or flash of reflected light. There was no sign of his mother or the old man. He wasn't really surprised at that. He knew Davey would not like to talk to the police and his mother - well, she did not like to talk to anybody. His house was on the other side of the village, they would be waiting for him there. When he found them, he would be safe again.

It seemed as if the whole village was out in the green today. The women looked worried and frightened, the men angry. And frightened. Everybody was talking at once, Inspector Smailes was holding both hands up in a futile gesture of supplication. He kept shouting for quiet, but nobody was listening. The stream chuckled away behind the children, oblivious to the drama unfolding in this obscure little village today.

'All the children are gone!'

'Not all!' called Alex.

The two new friends stepped out from behind the statue, hand in hand, and walked out into the village green.