“What?”
He squinted into the bright light, a hand over his eyes. “Turn it off.”
In the sudden darkness, yellow and purple after-image spots danced before her eyes. “What?” she asked again.
“Wait.” He said. “I thought I saw something. But now we just lost our night vision.”
Surely the point of having a torchlight app was to not need night vision.
They waited in the dark for several minutes, but he was right because gradually she could see him again. He had his hands cupped over his eyes to make a cocoon even darker than the night.
When he took his hands away, he scanned the fields. “There.” He pointed behind them and a little to the east. Or north. Or something.
She looked. Nothing.
“There are faint pinpricks of light. I think that might be houses. Let’s try that way.”
They had to cut through the field. The ground was a soft and damp which made walking harder. For that reason, and that reason alone, she relented and let him hold her hand. Sometimes he had to help her over a difficult bit; sometimes she had to help him when the mud became slippery under his boots. They walked like this for perhaps half a mile, or it may have been more. It may have even been a twenty-five yards going in circles, God only knew in this dark, but the pinpricks of light seemed no nearer. They may not even have been lights at all.
“Is there a damp February night version of the desert mirage?” she asked.
“Don’t say that,” he said.
“I was thinking—”
“Shhh…” He raised his hand to stop her.
He seemed to be trying to hear something, and after a moment she heard it too. A muffled cry of pain.
Where had it come from? They scanned the field but saw nothing to break the uniform darkness.
“Hello?” Adam called out.
Nothing.
“Anyone there?” he tried again.
Nothing.
Laura was about to suggest they may have imagined it, perhaps a fox or a cat when it came again. It was definitely human, female and behind them.
And not far.
“Can I use my flashlight now?” she asked.
“Yes, I think so.”
She turned it on and immediately, Adam took if from her, extended his arm as far forward as it would go and pointed the light. Well she could have done that. Typical man!
He took her hand and led her forward as he turned the light to right and left. A small semi-circle of illumination showed long, damp grass and a couple yellow flowers. As they walked forward, the light found what looked like a foot-path.
“This will make the going easier.” She breathed a sigh of relief.
Adam now raised the light higher; within a minute a shape appeared. Just beyond the light, a shadowy, large square. They trudged towards it and very soon the ground under their feet firmed even more and became gravelly. The square shadow turned out to be a house. All in darkness with no light showing in any of the windows. Adam led them round the corner, and there it was, a front door under a small pitched porch roof. Adam switched off the phone light and gave it back to her. Then he knocked firmly. “Hello?”
Moment later, a slit of light appeared as a door opened a crack. “Yes?” said a woman. The voice was vaguely familiar.
Then she saw them and opened the door wider. She wore a dressing gown and held a wet towel in one hand. It took Laura an instant to place her. Rovena, from the factory. Before they could say anything else, a cry of pain came from inside the house. Hadn’t Tirana gone home sick earlier that day?
