chapter twenty‑four

Two hours after everyone, except the guard and Alice, had gone to bed, Andrew got up and dressed. Olive was still snoring soundly so he had little need to worry about how much noise he made. He sat down on the side of the bed and began writing a note to Fred. He apologized for, what he hoped would be, his rapid disappearance, wished him luck and pointed out Kate's idea of family planning. He stuck the note under his pillow, picked up his rifle and blew out the candle. He felt his way across the room to the door. Slowly, and as quietly as he could manage, he lifted the latch and pulled the door open until he could just see out into the dining room. He could hardly believe his luck; Kate was on guard - or rather she wasn't, since she was fast asleep.

He stepped out of the bedroom and motioned to Alice to remain silent. He started to untie the ropes which bound her to the post. Just then he heard the unmistakable click of a door latch. He quickly blew out the candle and moved to crouch in the darkness behind the table. At the other end of the room came the sound of creaking hinges and then the soft pad pad of approaching feet.

"Freeze!" whispered Andrew, trying not to wake Kate.

"Pardon?" whispered an unidentifiable voice.

"I said freeze," said Andrew raising his voice a fraction of a decibel.

"I'm sorry I can't hear you," hissed the voice from a different direction this time.

"Stop moving or I'll shoot!" said Andrew with another insignificant volume increase.

This time there was no reply, which did nothing for Andrew's confidence. He raised his head above the table and peered into the blackness, wishing he'd been smart enough not to look at the candle as he had blown it out. He jumped involuntarily as he felt a cold metal object touch his neck.

"Okay, okay, don't shoot," said Andrew not bothering to whisper.

"Andrew?"

"Fred?"

"Shhhhh!" said Alice.

"Are you coming, too?"

"Of course."

"What about Kate?"

"After the way she was going to treat me?"

"Hurry up!" urged Alice.

"Light the candle."

"No matches. You?"

"No. Alice?"

"Forget the candle, untie me!"

"Okay, where are you?"

"Oh good grief! Follow my voice."

"On our way."

"Hey, stop that!"

"Sorry," whispered Andrew and Fred.

"Are you loose?"

"Don't you wish."

"Let's go."

"Got any food?"

"No."

"We need matches too."

"Great planning boys!"

"Let's go before Kate wakes."

"She won't; I've drugged her."

"Well done, but what about her relief."

"Good point, forget the food."

"Which way is the door?"

"Here hold my hand ... my hand!"

Three figures stumbled outside into the bright moonlight.

"Shit, we should have drawn the curtains," said Fred.

"Come on, keep moving," nagged Alice.

"Where are we going?" asked Andrew.

"I know a place where we can hide; follow me," said Alice, and ran off down the hill.

An hour later they were climbing down the steep sides of the dried‑up river which ran across the plain.

Two hours after that they had reached the low hills which stood other side of the plain.

"There's a cave behind these bushes," said Alice collapsing exhausted to the ground.

"Shouldn't we go in?" asked Andrew when he had recovered his breath.

"You can if you like," said Alice, as Andrew moved away she added, "but it's awfully dark in there."

"You mean there could be something in there?"

Alice shrugged her shoulders non‑committally. Andrew and Fred sat down beside her. They all sat in silence for ten minutes.

"Why are we all so depressed? We escaped, didn't we?" asked Andrew trying to make his voice sound cheerful.

"Because," explained Fred, "we've got no food, no drink, no matches and nowhere to go."

"Oh, I see. Well as long as there's a good reason for it."

Another twenty minutes of silence went by before Andrew tried again.

"Good idea of yours, that sleeping drug. Where did you get it?"

"From your wife," said Fred. "Didn't you know she's a herbalist - that's why the commune wanted her."

"Fred, I want you to promise me that you'll never call her that again."

"What's wrong with herbalist?"

"Nice to see you've still got a sense of humour," said Alice.

An hour passed.

"Sun's coming up."

"Hmm."

Half an hour later:

"Sun's up."

"Hmm."

"Shouldn't we hide in the cave now?"

"If you like."

"What do you think?"

"Don't mind."

"Wait! I've got it," said Alice with excitement. "We don't like it here ... so ... let's go somewhere else."

"Brilliant," said Fred sarcastically.

"I suppose you know of a much nicer cave for us to sit outside of?" said Andrew.

"No, you cretins. I mean really somewhere else."

"Hey, you're right!" said Andrew. "Oh but there's one problem."

"What's that?" asked Alice.

"It's Fred. He has this rather disconcerting habit of changing every time we go somewhere else. He started out as a machine then he turned into a parrot, so he's understandably keen on staying in his present incarnation."

"Really? How weird! Still it explains the nose."

"Skinny bitch!" said Fred.

"Oooh, sore point, eh?" laughed Alice. "Well, what do you think, beak‑features, should we go or not?"

"I suppose, if we stay, I'll have to put up with a barrage of puerile nose jokes until we die of starvation - so we might as well go," said Fred stoically. "Besides, I have been improving with each change - who knows what I'll become next."

"If you're really lucky, a woman," said Alice.

"All right then it's settled. How do we do it?" said Andrew.

"We all think of flaws or inconsistencies in this world; as soon as you've thought of one say it out loud so that the other two will know," said Fred.

"Okay, everybody ready?" asked Alice.

"Ready," replied Andrew and Fred.

"Go!"

"Horses!" said Alice at the same time Andrew said "Guns!" and Fred said "No old people."

"What?" they all said in a panic because none had heard what the others had said.

"Maybe we should take it in turns," said Fred, "I said it was strange that there were no old people in the commune."

"No good. Lewis told me that the commune had been formed by orphans; the land was donated by the surrounding communes," explained Andrew. "But with the kind of low technology they had, how did they get the guns?"

"That's not it," said Alice. "We raided a commune once where they made the guns by hand - hard work but possible even with their unsophisticated tools. I said; horses, but since I'm still here; I guess that wasn't it either."

"Oh god, I hope we're not stuck here forever; it's so boring," said Andrew. The others looked at him encouragingly. "Oh yeah, it's not intellectually stimulating. You know, I once spent three hours enthralled by a few ants and a dead beetle!"

They all looked around expectantly, but nothing happened. They sat in deep thought. Fifteen minutes went by and then Fred leapt to his feet.

"Aaarrrggghhh," he said clutching his chest.

"Quick! Tell us!" pleaded Andrew.

"Ugh," said Fred and keeled over.

Alice rushed over and caught him before he hit the ground.

"It's all right," said Andrew reassuringly. "He's gone."

"But he's dead!"

"Yeah, he did that last time," said Andrew matter‑of‑factly.

"Oh I see," said Alice letting the body fall to the ground.

"Rats!"

"Yeah, he could've at least hung on long enough to scrawl a message in the dust."

"No, I'm annoyed because he worked it out before I did, again."

Alice began pacing back and forth. Occasionally she would pause as if struck by an idea, then shake her head and continue walking. Andrew watched her with mounting irritation.

"I wish you'd tell me these ideas you keep having."

"You're not telling me yours."

"I'm not having any; I'm too hungry to think," said Andrew sullenly.

"I don't want to get your hopes up, but there may be some food in the cave."

"Why didn't you say so before?" said Andrew scrambling to his feet.

"I didn't think we would be hanging around here so long. Besides, there may not be any there, it depends how much you scared Nick and Mike. We stored some food here before the raid; they may have come back to collect it."

"Oh I hope not," said Andrew pushing his way through the bushes.

"Watch out for the spiders."

Andrew pushed his way back out through the bushes. "Spiders?"

"There are some enormous ones in there; they'll give you a little nip but they're not poisonous."

"Why don't you go? You know where the food will be."

"I told you they're not dangerous."

"They're dangerous to me, I'm allergic to spiders."

"Really," said Alice dubiously.

"They bring me out in a heart‑attack; if one crawled onto me in the dark ... yuck," his body quivered in anticipation of the repulsive event. "Why don't you go in?"

"What, me, a mere woman, go where no man dares to tread?"

"Now don't be like that, you know I'm not sexist - well, only when my hormones get the upper hand."

Alice disappeared into the bushes and reappeared a moment later carrying a tin. "Biscuits!"

"Oh well done!" said Andrew stepping forward eagerly.

"Of course, I may have put a spider inside," said Alice handing the tin to Andrew.

Andrew gave her an appraising look. "Now don't mess about - I'm starving."

"The question is: are you hungry enough to open it?"

"Oh come on, give me a break - it's not my fault I'm afraid of spiders," pleaded Andrew.

"It's all right; there aren't any in there,"

"Well you open it then," said Andrew thrusting the tin back to her.

"Honestly Andrew, you're such a wimp," she said and lifted the lid off with a flourish. "Ta Daa! Biscuits!"

Andrew looked into the tin; he let out a yelp of surprise and screwed up his face in revulsion. Alice dropped the tin and leapt back, frantically searching the ground for the spider.

"So you're not quite as brave as you make out," said Andrew laughing and calmly picking up a biscuit from the ground.

"You little shit!" said Alice but was unable to resist a smile.

For the next ten minutes they sat in silence gorging themselves on the biscuits.

"Better?" said Alice taking the last biscuit from the tin.

"Much," replied Andrew stealing half of the biscuit from her before she put it in her mouth.

"Okay then, piglet, back to work."

"All right let's think about Lewis."

"Why?"

"He's been in all of my ... what's the word? I don't know ... anyway, each time I go somewhere else, he's there with a different name and a different role."

"I have the same thing going with Kate."

"Really! That must be significant. Mustn't it?"

"I'm sure it is, but for the life of me I can't see why. Anyway if they are in it all the time that means that the problem has to be something to do with this place; let's concentrate on the communes."

"Whenever I think of the commune, I think of that dreadful woman and how she's going to screw up a perfectly good system."

"What was so good about it?" prompted Alice.

"There were no bosses, nobody was telling you what to do, everyone did what they wanted to do, and shared the things that nobody liked. But they did it because it was the right thing to do, not because somebody told them they had to do it. No one ever dominated the discussions or forced their ideas on anyone else."

"Well that's it! There was no pecking order; most people have an ego which demands that they look down on at least one other person."

They looked around anxiously for any signs of success.

"Damn! I thought we had it," said Andrew.

"Wait! Look; over by the river bed."

A jagged black line was racing towards them across the plain. Moments later they heard a deafening cracking sound. The black crack stopped at the base of the hills where they sat, then another appeared, running off in a different direction.

"Let's hold hands," shouted Andrew above the din of the splitting earth.

"How sweet!"

"Less chance of being separated," explained Andrew.

"You're just scared," taunted Alice.

"Yeah, well, that too."

All across the plain large irregular cracks were forming in the ground. They ran in all directions, and created a patchwork effect covering the whole valley. One by one these patches began to drop out of sight leaving only a featureless hole in their place. Eventually the whole plain had dropped out of view, and become a huge bottomless ravine. The hills where the commune stood were untouched, as were the hills where Andrew and Alice now sat holding hands.

"Hey w-" began Andrew, but he shut up when his stomach tried to shoot through the top of his head. It was as if someone had opened a trap‑door beneath them and they were falling - very, very fast.

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