XXIX - Charlie
Charlie
had been waiting. He had waited for
what seemed like hours, standing before the door to what seemed to be some kind
of disused storage area. There were
voices on the other side of the door.
Voices chanting.
He had
seen them first from the alleyway, when the factory lit up before him with all
its workers and machines. He had seen
them then. They didn’t look any
different than anyone else, but, as he saw a couple of them talking together,
motioning to move away from the noisy factory floor, he knew that they were the
ones he was meant to see. So he had
climbed in, snagging his pyjamas on the rusty metal which had once secured the
now empty window frame and cutting himself as he did. It wasn’t a bad cut, really, but it bled quite a bit at first and
he had to clutch a hand to the wound.
Once
inside he had had to scan around the factory floor again to catch sight of
those he had seen from the outside.
They were moving towards a doorway at the far end, a man and a woman. Another man was waiting for them by the
door. Charlie watched them walk through
and then hurried after them. No one
else in the factory seemed to notice him, but he found himself sneaking
nonetheless, trying to hide behind the enormous looms, running when the workers
were looking the other way. He froze
once, mid run, when someone turned to look right at him, but then another
person in overalls had walked right past him, perhaps even a bit through
him, and suddenly it was clear that the first person had been looking at them
instead. He was invisible, Charlie
knew, just like in the hospital.
He
followed the group through the corridor, then right into another corridor, then
across a courtyard (the sky above had been the ghost of a bright, grey day),
then along another corridor, taking a couple of bends as they went, until they
came to this door. There were others
waiting for them there and not all of them looked like they worked in the
factory. A few of them wore suits and
one lady appeared to be dressed like a house wife, although in fashions that
Charlie was unfamiliar with, especially the odd padded shoulders and big,
frizzy hair.
One of
them, a man in factory blue overalls, unlocked the door and stepped inside, revealing
a large, dark storeroom, then the others followed, closing the door behind
them. Charlie was about to nip through
when he heard the shouting from down the corridor. It sounded like Josh and was coming from the courtyard. He nearly ran back, but that was when the
voices started inside and he felt like he was supposed to listen.
I’ll
just stay out here, he thought, then they can find me.
But the
shouting turned to screaming and the screaming to a terrible, deep silence
which seemed much worse than the silence which had preceded it. Charlie stood there, listening to the voices
with one ear and the silence with the other, guilt gnawing at his insides.
I
should have helped him, he thought, I should have helped, should have
helped, should have helped…
And then
he had heard footsteps approaching.
Part of him wanted to run away and hide, but he knew he was supposed to
stay by that door, where the voices were now chanting in eerie harmony, and
what would be the point anyway. Where
could he hide?
So he
waited and when Paige and Henry
appeared around a corner his face lit up and Paige came running towards him,
lifting him up in an unexpected, but welcome hug.
“Well,
that’s one of them,” Henry said and Charlie caught a hint of worry in his tone.
“Where’s
Josh?” he asked nervously once Paige had put him down. “I thought I heard him calling not long ago.”
“We… we
don’t know honey.”
“Oh,” was
all Charlie could think of to say and for a moment they stood in awkward
silence, only the voices from the other side of the door breaking the
peace. There was no sign that Paige or
the old man could hear them.
But then
Henry suddenly tilted his head and asked, “What’s that noise?” He glanced at Charlie, who was staring at
him expectantly, “Do you hear it, boy?
It sounds like… like Latin.”
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