XVI - Charlie
Charlie
shivered as the cold air hit him. His
pyjamas were thin and no defence against the breeze. Paige had a comforting hand on his back, but it provided little
warmth. He stared up at her, wondering
if she might be like his father and become violent with no warning, or if she
was more like his mother, distantly forgotten.
She seemed nice, but he wasn't ready to be so trusting.
"So
now where do we go?" Paige asked,
shivering herself.
Charlie
let his gaze pass over the two men. The
young one he had seen sometimes when he was playing outside. His sullen looks and occasional jibes left
Charlie feeling uncomfortable around him.
The older man seemed nicer, but he looked pretty shaken at the moment
and didn't seem to be paying the boy any attention. He was the next to speak.
"We
need to call the police!" He was
nearly shouting.
The
younger man fumbled about in his jacket for a second and pulled out a mobile phone,
then sighed. "No signal."
"Then
we find a pay phone or-"
"In
a power cut?" Paige
interrupted. "Besides, would the
police be any help? Those were... monsters. Can the police deal with monsters?"
"There
has to be some rational explanation for this." The old man continued.
"Some trick to it. They
can't be monsters!"
"Well
I don't have any other explanation."
It was the younger man this time.
"And just where is everybody else?"
"It's
like some kind of nightmare... it's so unreal." Charlie could sense that Paige was on the verge of tears. He looked up at her again and could see her
eyes shimmering in the light from the torch.
"We
should find other people, stick together, until whatever this is has
passed." The younger man was
clearly taking charge.
Another
billowing cloud of fog passed around them turning the light of the torch into a
shaft of white cloud. Charlie shivered
and Paige gave the younger man an plaintive glance. He took off his denim jacket, knelt down beside the boy and wrapped
it around his shoulders.
"Hopefully
this'll keep you a bit warmer." He
said, attempting a smile. "My
name's Josh by the way." He
glanced awkwardly up at Paige then returned to Charlie's wide-eyed gaze. "Don't worry, we'll keep you
safe." Charlie was unconvinced.
Josh
stood up and turned to the old man.
"Since we're doing names, what's yours?"
"Cruickshank,
Henry Cruickshank. Now can we just get
out of here?"
The
other adults nodded. Josh started
throwing the torch beam around the car park, checking for monsters. "Looks clear." He said after a moment.
No comments:
Post a Comment