Survivors

Chapter Five - Dinner with a Stranger

I’ve forgotten something, but what exactly I didn’t know, I mean my bag was on my shoulders again, what else was there that I could have lost?

I shrugged it off, hoping it was just the fact that there was somebody else here and not instincts that knew something I did not yet know.

At first I allowed her to lead through the city, she seemed slightly more familiar with the place than I was. She didn’t stop and stare down the possible routes for minutes trying to come up with a decision like I had done.

I examined her cautiously with my eyes. Obviously she preferred her pet to me; she talked to it whilst we had lapsed into an unarranged silence ever since leaving the shadow of the store.

Like me she had a bag upon her back, but this one was not as heavily laden as mine, her shoes were in better upkeep than mine, and her clothes apparently were a lot cleaner. She mustn’t travel far. She was practical to some extent but like me wanted to cling out to some form of a pass life, her clothes were what was in fashion at the time.

I then remembered I had planned to get new clothes for myself today, considering the time it was not such a good idea and I didn’t like the idea of going into a clothes shop with her tailing me, if I was perfectly honest. That must have been the feeling of loss I had experienced, I’ll do it in the morning, when she’s gone, as well as the soup.

When darkness began to seemingly rise from the ground to fill the area with the shade and mystery of night I began to slow down. I could still hear her voice ahead speaking to her frog and I waited a few moments before slipping down a side road, away into the night.

Since no street lights had flickered into life I should be able to hide away into the darkness. I had planned this carefully, so that I still had some light in which I could walk away through more streets without causing much disturbance and giving away that I had disappeared.

It was logical not to have the soup tonight, but to save it for when London was behind me. Not because I had the rabbit meat still left in my bag, but because a fire would attract the girl to me, basically a moth to a flame really. The probability would be that she arrived on the scene of my little camp site before the soup was cooked or I had a chance to eat it.

I could have always used the cookers, fires and such like in the houses that lay all around me, but here I did not feel right about entering them. Hotels I didn’t mind because then you can tell which rooms were in use by the keys but you never know with normal homes.

I checked the can of soup still tucked safely into my jeans creating an uncomfortable bulge in the material. As my fingers touched the slightly cool can I became aware of a stone that I had swallowed and now sat heavily on my stomach. I knew when I had swallowed the stone, when I had left the girl with the frog.

I looked at the can now exposed to the night, which was in an on-going battle with the sun, each wishing to inflict their own form of torture on the world. What have I done?

I pivoted on the spot to look down the road; there was no sight or sound of her. Just increasing darkness, and I couldn’t go and retrace my steps, I had become…lost.

“Where did you think you were going?” I screeched, turning in mid-air to see the girl with her hand on hip, and the frog hissing at me. I looked at her, how..?

She did not appear happy, her eyes had lost that glint from the store and her face was covered in shadows. My hand found its way into the pocket on my bag, easily reachable, were my slingshot and one of my spiked stones were when I saw her hand lingering on the dagger handle.

I looked at her, “I told you to follow me, and you mustn’t have been listening.” I knew I could mask my expressions in the shadows; I just had to pretend to play poker. Her eyes drilled into my own, their green irises almost luminous in the shadows and becoming the only thing I could concentrate on. Similarly green eyes were leering at me from the frog, the added weight making me want to move, but I couldn’t, it would give away my lie.