The Silent Invasion: The Change Trilogy Book 1

Part 6

I still don't know what he was doing there. Perhaps he had heard something or was heading out to see if Quarantine had arrived. But whatever the reason he stopped dead in his tracks.

At first he didn't move. But then his eyes settled on Gracie behind me and I saw him realise what was going on. Tim and I had never really gotten along. I suppose I was at least partly to blame for that; certainly it can't have been easy taking a teenage girl you didn't know into your home. But although he had always been good to me and Gracie in his own way I also knew what letting us go could mean for him, what the penalties for helping the Changed evade containment were. He could be arrested, imprisoned even; he could lose his job. He must have known all that as well: I'm not sure he would have agreed to give Gracie up if he hadn't.

Which is why what happened next surprised me. Because instead of chasing after us or calling out, he just let his arms fall to his side and tightened his mouth into a sort of smile.

For a long moment I didn't move. Then I gave him a nod, and, turning, hustled Gracie out toward the street.

***

I knew the first thing we had to do was put some distance between us and the house, so I led Gracie toward the bush at the end of the street, thinking we could take cover there. Once we had done that I could try to come up with a plan, perhaps use my phone to find a way to get north. But at the thought of my phone I felt a sudden chill and swore at myself for my stupidity.

'What?' Gracie asked.

'Nothing,' I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket.

'Is your phone broken?'

'No,' I said. I was so used to carrying the thing it hadn't occurred to me they'd be able to track it. I stared at it, trying to think what to do. If I just dropped it here they would know which way we'd gone, which meant that once Quarantine arrived and realised Gracie and I were missing, we'd only have a few minutes before they were after us.

'Wait here,' I said.

'No,' Gracie said. 'I want to come with you.'

'I'll be right back.'

'But I'm scared,' she said, grabbing hold of my T-shirt.

'I know, I'm scared too. But I have to go back for a minute and I can't take you with me.'

'I want to come.'

As I attempted to disentangle her hand from my T-shirt I heard sirens in the distance. Gripping her wrist I pulled her behind a tree, then knelt down and squeezed her arm.

'Just stay here,' I said. 'Don't go anywhere. And if anybody comes, hide. Okay?'

At first she didn't speak. Then to my relief she nodded, her face pale and serious.

'Good girl,' I said.

I really wasn't sure whether they could track my phone while it was off, but the last thing I needed was to leave them anything that might help them work out which way we'd gone, so I ran back around behind Tim and Vanessa's house toward Lizzie and William's. But as I reached their back gate I paused, struck by the thought that if finding the phone somewhere would give Quarantine a place to start looking, perhaps I could do one better and leave it somewhere that would lead them in the wrong direction. Looking up past William and Lizzie's I saw the outline of the empty place at the end of the row. If we had been travelling in the opposite direction that would have been the last place we passed so, bending low, I ran toward it and, opening the bin by the back gate, threw my phone in. Trying to ignore the sound of approaching sirens I turned to go, only to glimpse lights approaching across the rooftops.

I froze, too terrified to move. Then, my legs shaking, I backed away and, crouching low in case somebody happened to be looking, took off back toward the reserve. 

I'd only been gone a few minutes but it took me a moment or two to find Gracie in the darkness. As I reached the first trees I called her name quietly, and was relieved when she called back. I found her sitting stock-still in the darkness beneath the tree. It looked like she'd been crying. Probably I should have tried to comfort her but all I could think of was getting away so, reaching down, I hoisted her onto my hip and stumbled away into the bush.

I don't know how long I ran, all I know is that every time I thought I couldn't go any further I would slow down, then look back and start running again. In the dark the track down to the creek was difficult to see, the ground under my feet uneven and treacherous. Carrying Gracie only made it worse: although she was small for her age she was heavy and awkward, and every time I slipped or missed my footing the weight of her would make me stumble.

I was pretty sure Quarantine would have drones equipped with infra-red, which meant the two of us would stick out a mile away. And they'd be silent, so for all I knew they had us already and were simply hanging somewhere overhead, keeping tabs on us. Every time I looked up I felt a wave of fear. The stars were bright, huge, a mass of light stretching across the sky; occasionally something moved against them, a shooting star or a plane high above, and each time I felt sick.

Even when we reached the creek, and turned along it until we came to the drainage ditch, I still couldn't shake the fear they were there, above us. But I knew we couldn't go back, so I kept going, until finally I saw the shape of the culvert ahead of us, two circular pools of deeper darkness marking the entrance to the pipes. Lowering Gracie to the ground I bent down and clambered in, then reached out to pull her in after me. The air was cool and slightly foul, but as I lay back against the curved wall of the pipe I didn't care, all I cared about was that we were safe, at least for the time being.