Tube Riders, The (28 page)

Chapter Thirty-One

Kind Strangers

‘It’s good to see you’re awake.’

Simon squinted, his eyes focusing on the boy who sat beside his bed. ‘Where am I? Is this a hospital?’

The boy shook his head. About sixteen, he had unkempt mousy blonde hair, a soft, downy face, and a carefree smile. ‘No,’ he said. ‘The nearest hospital must be fifty miles away. Father wanted to keep you here.’

‘Where’s “here”?’

‘This is my house. My family owns most of the farmland around here.’

‘Oh. Who are you?’

The boy leaned forward, an eager smile on his lips. ‘I’m Carl,’ he said. ‘Carl Weston. Did you jump off the train?’

‘Something like that,’ he said, offering a weak smile in return. ‘I’m Simon.’

Carl nodded as if he already knew. ‘Well it’s nice to meet you, Simon. Do you want something to eat? Something to drink?’

‘Both would be good.’ Simon tried to sit up in the bed, but as he shifted his body he felt a stab of pain in his side. He remembered the Huntsman’s crossbow, how the bolt had felt in his side as he tried to hold on to the train. Like a red hot scalpel, cutting and scalding him with every movement, causing sweat to wash down over his face and tears to pour from his eyes. At the moment the train had bumped he had been close to unconsciousness anyway; he barely remembered hitting the ground, only how peaceful he had felt with the ride over.

‘Thank you for saving my life,’ he said. ‘I don’t remember quite what happened, but I know I should be dead now.’

Carl smiled. He reached out a hand and patted Simon’s knee the way someone might pet a dog. ‘Glad to be of service. The doctor said you should be okay in a few days. I think my father is a little suspicious of you, though. We don’t get outsiders in these parts very often.’

‘Where are we, exactly?’

Carl spread his hands, although all Simon could see was the inside of a rather quaintly decorated bedroom, a little wardrobe in one corner, and a green floral patterned curtain pulled across a small window to keep out the sunlight that pressed in around its edges. ‘This is Reading Greater Forest Area,’ he said. ‘We’re about ten miles from the London GUA perimeter wall. Did you come from in there?’

Simon didn’t remember moving after he fell from the train, so quite possibly they’d found him right next to the tracks. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Last night, I, um, took a train.’ It was only half a lie.

‘The trains don’t stop out here. All the produce from our farm gets taken to a processing plant a few miles to the south and then a fleet of trucks deliver it to the GUA checkpoints at London or Bristol. Where were you going?’

‘Bristol.’

‘Why?’

Simon tried to shift his body again. For all the help this boy and his family had given him, they weren’t great nurses. He had terrible pins and needles in his legs and lower back.

Carl flushed. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask you so many questions. It’s just that I don’t meet a lot of strangers.’

Simon shook his head. ‘No, it’s okay. It’s just that I’m not really sure why I was going to Bristol. It’s difficult to explain.’

The boy craned forward. His eyes were as bright as a kindergarten kid being told fairy tales. Simon knew that if he if he started to tell Carl half of what he’d been through, Carl would wow and gasp and beg to hear the end of the story.

‘Are you in trouble?’ Carl asked, his voice barely more than conspiratorial whisper. ‘If so, don’t worry, I can protect you.’

Simon wanted to shout at him
this isn’t a game,
but he forced himself to smile and shake his head. ‘It’s complicated. I don’t know how much I can trust you.’

‘I saved your life, Simon. And do you really have much choice?’

Simon nodded. ‘That’s true. Did you see any other people?’ He remembered the Huntsmen, and wondered if they’d tracked him. Could they follow a scent moving as fast as a train? Were they out there, waiting for him? He said to Carl, ‘Did you see anyone that looked, kind of, um, odd?’

Carl shook his head. ‘No, just you. I was play –
walking
in the forest, when I found you by the tracks. It looked like you’d fallen off the train.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose someone could have pushed you.’

‘No one pushed me. I fell.’ Glancing around the room, he saw no sign of his clawboard, and thought best not to mention it. There on the table beside him, though, set on a plate as if it were a biscuit to accompany a cup of coffee, was a long metal crossbow quarrel. Simon didn’t have to guess where it had come from.

‘I think my father wants to talk to the police, but mother won’t let him. Knowing him, he’ll want to know if there’s a reward for you, but she says you’re in no fit state to go anywhere and questioning you and all that stuff won’t make you get better any quicker.’

‘I didn’t do anything wrong,’ Simon said.
Or had he?
He was scared by his abrupt honesty. He was desperate for someone to believe him, someone to be on his side.

‘My friends and I, we were in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ he continued. Then, realizing he must sound like an actor in an old movie, he added, ‘We witnessed something bad that we weren’t supposed to. A crime. Now people are after us. I can’t tell you any more, because it would put you in danger.’ He strained to sit up. ‘Please, Carl. It’s very important that I get back on the train.’

Carl frowned. ‘How? They don’t stop.’

‘That doesn’t matter. I don’t need it to stop.’

The boy looked confused. ‘What do you mean? You just jump on or something?’

Simon grinned. ‘Yeah, that’s about it.’

This time Carl reacted as expected. ‘Wow, that’s cool. But Dr. Rhodes said you have a sprained ankle. He said it’ll be difficult to walk.’

Simon frowned. The terrible pain in his shoulder had masked any others, but now that Carl said it, he could feel a dull throbbing in his ankle, with something tight like a bandage wrapped around it.

‘Well, that might be problem. I can’t fly or anything.’

‘It would be cool if you could, though, wouldn’t it?’

‘Er, yeah,’ Simon said, feeling a little like a spaceman fallen from the sky to land in the back garden of a bunch of simpletons. He watched as Carl’s eyes glazed over, as though the boy were imagining himself in an old Flash Gordon movie. For a few seconds Simon said nothing. Then, starting to tire of the game, he cleared his throat. ‘Uh, that drink would be really great just about now.’

#

Jess crept out from under the tarpaulin and rubbed her eyes. The barn had been a good place to shelter, in among the hay bales, and the tarpaulin had made a good makeshift sheet to keep out the draft. She actually felt quite rested, but at the same time as her body thanked her, her mind scolded her for letting too much time pass.

She didn’t know how safe she was out here in the country, but she knew she had to find Simon quickly and get away. The Huntsmen could catch up with her at any moment. There was no way of telling how close they were.

The barn where she had spent the night stood at the edge of a field, completely isolated. There were no houses nearby that she could see, and no way of knowing who owned it.

The barn entrance looked out across a valley, a patchwork of green and yellow fields dipping away from her and then rising again a mile or so distant. The deepest part of the valley was forested, and she could see a church spire sticking up out of the trees. Jess breathed deeply as she stood by the road, her heart fluttering a little at the sight of such tranquility, wondering quite how Mega Britain had managed to separate into two such different ways of life. This sleepy country scene was as different from the dangerous, bloody streets of London as night was from day.

She stood still for a moment, listening for cars. Barring the trailer she’d seen in the field last night, she’d neither seen nor heard any form of transport at all. The road leading away from the barn was dirt and gravel, and during her flight from the men she’d not seen any real roads, only lanes and gravel tracks.

She headed west, back in the direction she thought she’d come from, but she couldn’t be sure. The road angled slightly downhill into the valley, and she guessed there was more chance of finding a village in that direction. In a village she could at least get her bearings, find out where the train line was, look around for signs of a hospital or a doctor, someone who might have heard about or seen Simon. She had a terrible feeling that the most likely place she would find him, though, would be in a police cell.

She found herself smiling as she trotted along the lane, and wished she could have been here under better circumstances. Her parents’ murders hadn’t properly sunk in yet, nor had how much danger she and the other Tube Riders were in. The knife was wrapped in cloth and tucked into her sock, while the crossbow hung from her belt, covered by her shirt. Only her clawboard and Simon’s were difficult to hide, but she had a small rucksack and had pushed them inside as best she could.

The hedgerows closed in around her as the road wound down, occasionally broken by a farm gate. The view vanished as she descended further into the valley, and the church spire was closer each time it peered between the trees up ahead.

Her ears pricked up as she caught the chugging sound of an approaching vehicle. She looked around, but there was nowhere to hide, no nearby gateways to slip through. She had no choice but to dip her head and try to look as inconspicuous as possible.

A small tractor appeared around a bend up ahead. She pressed herself against the hedge as it passed, but couldn’t help glancing up at the driver inside. He was maybe sixty, weather-worn, almost bald. He nodded and smiled at her, then, perhaps realizing he didn’t recognise her, frowned and started to say something. Jess dipped her head and walked on, putting distance between them. Behind her the tractor’s engine cut out, and she glanced back just long enough to see the man stand up and twist around.

She turned a bend in the road and broke into a run, sprinting over the crunching gravel just in case the man decided to chase her. He might have just wanted to ask her where she was from, but it was too great a risk.

The church reared up in front of her and Jess dashed through the gate, dropping down behind a gravestone from where she still had a view of the road. The tractor hadn’t started again and a moment later the farmer appeared around the bend, jogging lightly, head turning this way and that.

Outside the church he stopped, put his hands on his hips and shrugged. With what sounded like an expression of resignation he turned around and headed back to his tractor. Jess didn’t move until the tractor had rumbled on almost out of earshot. Then she climbed to her feet, went out of the church gate and looked around her.

She was in the middle of a tiny village. Twin rows of quaint cottages lined the small street heading away from the church. A couple of roads led down between them, leading to more cottages. On the other side of a little square with a pond and a fountain in its centre, was a small village store. Turning left, another lane led to a country pub.

It was the sort of place Jess would like to grow old in. Quiet, pretty, it was everything the city was not. She found herself walking over to the pond to peer down at the goldfish darting about under the water. Little silver discs gleamed down there too: money. It was a wishing well, and she found herself reaching into her pocket for some change. She didn’t have much, but she figured a couple of coppers wouldn’t make much difference.

‘Safety for Simon, safety for all of us,’ she whispered, and tossed a coin into the water. She sighed as it drifted down to the bottom and settled amongst the others.

‘I hope it comes true,’ someone said behind her.

Jess spun, one hand slipping beneath her coat to rest on the crossbow, but it was just a woman coming out of the shop, sixty or seventy years old, shuffling across the gravel towards her.

Jess smiled. She didn’t think the woman had heard her, but she said, ‘Me too.’

‘Are you from over in Turnpike?’ the old woman asked.

Jess started to nod, but the old woman cut her off. ‘Old I might be, but not so slow as to miss hesitation. You’re from a ways further than that, I’ll bet.’

Jess just shrugged.

‘No need to tell me, love. I’ve been here a while, I know how the world is. We’re all either running from or towards something. The luckiest among us know what it is.’

Jess didn’t know what to say.

‘All I know,’ the woman continued, is that regardless of where you’re going, you look darn hungry.’

Finally Jess found her voice. ‘Yes, I am.’

The old woman thrust a thumb back over her shoulder. ‘I own the store. Why don’t you come inside and I’ll find you some breakfast.’

Jess smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That would be wonderful.’

As the old woman led the way inside, Jess felt tears in her eyes and a lump in her throat. After what she’d experienced over the last twenty-four hours, for someone to show a kindness as simple as offering a stranger a meal, it was like a miracle in itself.