Page 81 of The Two of Us at the End of the World

I think they’re OK, I said. Not Russian

She shook her head twice, violently, without breaking eye contact. Then she reached up and grasped my chin, her face hard as a sledgehammer, not a shred of give in her eyes, only a sudden kind of cold contempt at my not getting it. Her fingers were tight as a vice.

Not Russian? she breathed.

And then as if she’d run out of words that might help communicate with someone so dense, she shook her head and stabbed her finger at her neck. Then two fingers at my eyes. And then back at her neck and then furiously down at the trio sitting round the fire.

She wanted me to see something I’d missed.

So I again edged to the margin of the shadow where it slashed in from the lip of the window opening and looked.

At first I saw nothing odd. Certainly Grey Hair had nothing odd about her neck, and nor did Scar Girl. But then Bear Shirt stretched and leaned in to put another branch on the fire and as the embers rekindled, I saw it swinging clear of the neck of the sweatshirt, catching the glint of the flames. It was the same necklace, the twin to that same strange key on a steel ball necklace that the man I had killed had worn. The necklace that had made Freya almost suicidal again. The key to all our fears. The key that obviously unlocked their identity, however nice they seemed. The key proved it. They had to be Russians.

I eased back into the shadows feeling like I was stepping back from the edge of a much bigger abyss that had nearly seductively pulled me past the point of no return, and into its depths.

I was stupid. I was soft. I nearly got us all killed by strangers, history repeating itself.

Storm must have seen the apology behind the shock in my face.

It doesn’t matter, she whispered. We just go. And we go now.

There was a new toughness in her voice. She’d taken charge. I followed her as we crept back down the stairs, silent, scarcely daring to breathe. I retrieved my bow and the quiver full of arrows, gripping them tightly so there was no chance of them rattling and giving us away as we ran fast and low along the shadow the fire threw across the open ground towards the safety of the trees beyond.

Trouble is the trees didn’t just hide us. They hid the fallen wall and the glass window in it that cracked under Storm’s foot and made a sharp unnatural noise that split the night air like an axe.

Shit, she said.

We both froze and looked back. All we could see was the dark tower bisecting the half circle of firelight illuminating the trees beyond it.

I don’t think they heard, I said.

And then we saw them. Two silhouettes coming round the edge of the tower and barrelling towards us. And barking.

The dogs were on our trail.

Storm suddenly looked lost, not in control any more. I grabbed her, shook her out of her freeze, and dragged her alongside me as we pelted helter-skelter through the tangle of trees and undergrowth that whipped us as we passed. I risked a fast look back and saw the two dogs had stopped and were sniffing at the fallen wall, and then just turned and ran on, now with Storm a few paces ahead of me. For a treacherous moment I believed the dogs would stop there and go back to the fire, but then I heard bodies crashing through the vegetation behind us and realised the chase was still on.

Don’t stop, I gasped, keep running, we just keep running.

Storm caught a branch in her face that nearly slapped her off her feet, but she righted herself and kept hurtling forwards without a sound other than the breath hacking out of her mouth as she ran. It was a desperate low and feral noise, like pure fear. I realised the same sort of noise was coming from me. I didn’t dare waste a moment looking back, but I could hear the noises behind me getting closer, and then I thought they had faded away, but then I realised that it had started to rain and the sound of the raindrops hitting the leaf canopy all round and over us was drowning out the sounds.

I think could have run through the pain and the harsh burn in my lungs and gone on and on for ever. That was certainly my intention. But then Storm got ankled by something in the undergrowth and tumbled hard, half somersaulting and sprawling awkwardly amid the brambles and tree roots. I skidded to a stop to lift her to her feet.

And then heard the sharp barking and growling behind me.

I turned then to see the new dog was ten feet way, at bay, barking excitedly at us.

I instinctively held my hand out.

It’s OK, I whispered. Hey, it’s OK…

The dog just barked louder.

Get out of the way! hissed Storm from behind me.

Sometimes the past is gone for ever, like a hole in the ocean, sometimes a ghost of it remains in the mind, blurry and indistinct, more a memory of a memory even, closer to a feeling than a true recollection. And sometimes it’s just sharp-edged and real as if it’s happening to you all over again.

That’s how I remember the next few seconds.