Watcher's Web

Watcher's Web chapter 7

Jessica retreated into the shrubbery at the bottom of the cliff.

First one, and then another figure came out of the reeds. Against the glare of sunlight, they were nothing more than black shapes. Small, dressed in rags, with mops of untidy hair like reggae singers. Five of them.

How could they have come down that cliff so quickly?

They stopped on the beach, talking and gesticulating. Any minute now and they would see her footprints and then they only needed to follow the trail.

Jessica broke a branch off a shrub and pushed backwards through the vegetation, sweeping the fine sand over her footprints as she went. It was a botch job and if these trackers were worth their salt, they’d find her in a jiffy, but what else could she do? Branches snagged on her clothes and scratched her arms. She stopped to peek. The knot of men broke up and one pointed at the water’s edge, the spot where she had stopped and noticed her double shadow. Two of the men followed her tracks up the beach. They disappeared into the bushes.

Faster she walked backwards, and faster still. Step, sweep, step, sweep, step.

A whistle echoed. They would have found her backpack. Shit.

Jessica turned and ran as fast as she could. The men shouted; branches cracked.

She jumped over and between bushes. Something funny was going on with her right shoe. Parts of it flapped loose and her sock was filling up with sand.

If she could reach the river beyond the sand spit, swim across, she might escape if the men couldn’t swim, or at least not as well as she could.

The shrubs ended abruptly.

Jessica launched herself into the open, weaving between tussocks of plants. Here she could gain speed and take advantage of her longer legs, get away from them as fast as possible. She ran up a low sand dune, around the corner of the cliff into an invisible curtain of … something.

Her hands tingled; the skin on her face pricked. The feeling exploded over her chest, down her stomach, her legs, like pins and needles in her entire body.

She had to stop running because her legs threatened to buckle under her.

From where she stood, a meadow sloped down to a lazily churning river. In the middle of the grassy space stood a circular wall, and on this wall about a dozen tall metal poles. Each of these poles bore a glass "eye" at the top that collected beams of light reflecting from hundreds of silver dishes attached to the cliff face behind. The eyes then directed the light to the top of a pillar in the centre of the circle. There, the light simply disappeared. Some sort of collection plant for solar power.

The collected energy from the beams made that pillar throb with power. The air vibrated with it. It crept through her veins. Warmth spread inside her, familiar, soothing, and calling for more. Every fibre of her being wanted to go to that pillar and submerge herself in the energy it radiated. If it was what had brought her here, it could get her back home.

Rough voices sounded behind her. The five men clambered up the sand dune, silhouetted by the light. One of them pointed.

Jessica ran.

Her thoughts soared to the stars, to a place where the sky was blue and a single sun beat down on the tarmac of the airstrip at Barrow Creek and her father’s police car stood parked on the other side of the gate. He leaned against a fence post, a crooked smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye and hugged her, grumbling, "Welcome home, poss."

She reached the circular wall and heaved herself on top into the full blast of power from the central pillar. Every particle of her body screamed with life and with the hunger for more power.