Survivors

Up on the hill it was very cold and very dark. Joe and Holly sat huddled together under a big piece of dirty grey tarpaulin. Just their faces were visible. Under the tarpaulin they had several layers of clothing on but they still felt chilled to the bone. Their breath came out in big white clouds into the freezing air. To the casual observer of the hill they probably looked like some sort of weird living breathing stone with an extremely odd and ugly face.

Luke was taking his turn as chief lookout. The first time he had been trusted as lookout he had thought it would be a really exciting. For about an hour it was, he’d marched up and down, pretended to see things and make elaborate rolling dives for the alarm bell. But after a while time had dragged and dragged. It ended up being the longest four hours of his life. Too much time on your own with nothing to keep you company but your own thoughts was Luke’s idea of hell. He had too many things in his life he didn’t want to think about. He had dreaded lookout duty from that moment on.

It was a little better with Joe and Holly to keep him company but he still found it so boring it made him physically hurt. He found his legs aching, his back aching and his head aching. He knew how important “lookout” was to the safety of the camp so he did his duty, but he hated it. Doing four watches in a row was about the worst punishment Darius could have given Luke and somehow he knew that Darius knew that, and that made him mad.

He also knew that Darius knew that everyone knew that Holly and Joe weren’t to be trusted to watch on their own. He knew that they all knew (perhaps with the exception of Holly and Joe who didn’t know much) that all the responsibility was his and his alone. It felt like a lot to bear, especially today after their brush with the Alien drone and the telling off from Darius. It had made their lives seem so serious, real and not the game they liked to pretend they were.

“I’ve been thinking” said Joe.

“Wonders will never cease” said Holly.

“It’s about time you did something with that thing between your ears” grinned Luke.

“Ha, ha, ha” said Joe “Can we stop all the jokes now”

“Who’s joking?” Said Holly grinning even more.

“All right, enough!” Snapped Joe, he paused waiting for their giggles to subside. When it eventually went silent he went on. “Thank you! I was thinking about the card, the food and how we screwed everything up. Well we know we can’t get the card back that we lost, that’s long gone. But what we can do is... find another one!”

“What?!” said Luke incredulously.

“No, listen to me. I’ve really been thinking about this all evening. All we need to do is watch all comings and goings at the local labour camp for a few days. We watch real careful and get to know all the shift patterns, the times the droids come and go, when they get deliveries, changes of guard, breaks, things like that. Then what we do is we pick the time when a delivery is due with the least number of droids on guard, and that’s when we do it” said Joe slapping his hands together.

There was a silent pause for a moment.

“Do what?” asked Holly hesitantly.

“We wait until they go to use their card and then we grab it and run. You see they... and this is the clever bit... they won’t be expecting anyone to do something as stupid as that will they! So I reckon that they should be taken completely by surprise. I reckon the chances of us getting away with it are at least 70%. Okay maybe not 70 but at least 60, or possibly 50ish, but it’s got to be worth a try isn’t it”

“The reason they won’t be expecting it little brother” said Luke “Is not because it’s stupid, it’s because it is complete, total and utter suicide... Of all the dumb things you have ever said, and there has been some pretty dumb ones, that is by far the dumbest, most stupid, hair brained, idiotic..”

“Stop!” said Holly

“Ridiculous, half witted”

“Stop and look!”

“Arse brained, numskulled”

“Will you two just STOP IT! For god’s sake!” shouted Holly “And look!!!”

The urgency in Holly’s voice snapped the boys out of their argument. They both turned and looked to where she was pointing. They could see dark, they could see shadow, they could see funny patches of dappled nothing but there wasn’t anything as far as Joe or Luke could see, that should have freaked Holly out like this.

“I can’t see anything” said Joe

“Wait” she said

“For what?”

“Just wait”

They waited.

“I’m waiting”

“Wait more”

“But”

“SHUT UP! and LOOK!”

Joe and Luke looked at each other and mutually and silently decided “shutting up and looking” was a good idea. Then after a bit of waiting they saw it. A shadow, or was it a shadow of a shadow, moving between even more patches of shadow. They all held their breath. It moved again.

“Should we ring the bell?” whispered Joe.

“No, wait” said Holly.

“Why more waiting. What are we waiting for anyway?”hissed Joe. “Are we waiting for half a Alien battle group to come zooming over the hill with all their lasers blazing”.

“No of course not, just look at the shadow” hissed Holly.

“Hol’s right just use your brain for once pipsqueak” whispered Luke.

Joe hated it when Luke called him pipsqueak and Luke knew it.

“Oi” warned Joe “Just because...”

“Just look” went on Luke with an exaggerated exasperated sigh “Look at the shadow, it’s moving AWAY from the camp!”

They all looked.

“I thought so” said Holly “It was a lot closer the first time I saw it”

“So it’s moving away from the camp” said Joe.... “So what?”

“So it’s not a Alien, dumb, dumb” snapped Luke.

“Don’t call me dumb”

“Well don’t act it then”

“At least I have to act dumb, you’re just dumb”

“Well at least….”

“SHUT UP” yelled Holly “Just think for a couple of seconds, if you can. Given the direction and speed it was going Where do you think it’s going to get to any moment now”?

Luke and Joe said nothing for a few seconds. Then Joe said “To the... the... the clearing”

“Absolutely” said Holly “So if we watch really closely we might just be able to see who or what it is”.

The clearing was a gap in the trees and bushes that Darius insisted that they keep free of all weeds, bracken, brambles or shrubs. It was only about fifteen meters across, but it meant that anyone or anything was completely visible for a good three or four seconds. Whatever, or whoever the shadow was they obviously knew this as it had paused in a dark spot right on the edge of the cleared area. The three of them sat as still as statues intently watching the clearing. Nothing moved. Time seemed to stretch and then stand still.

Suddenly a figure broke cover. It was a definitely a human, hunched over, running hard, head down, arms and legs pumping. Apart from the shapes basic humanity it was impossible to tell who it was. Then all of a sudden it tripped and sprawled forward tumbling heavily onto the ground. It was a dark and cloudy night, but just at that moment there was a break in the clouds and a shaft of moonlight flooded the clearing. As the figure rolled over trying to scramble to its feet they got a good view of shaggy blonde hair and a big bushy beard. It was the Dane. He quickly looked round and then sprinted off into the night.

“That was, that was the Dane. Where the hell is he going?” asked Joe.

“How the hell should I know?” snapped Luke.

There was a long pause as they strained to see any more movement in the darkness.

“Do you think we should... tell Darius?” asked Holly.

“I don’t know” replied Luke, never taking his eyes off the forest “Tell him what?”

“Well it’s not normal is it” said Joe “People don’t leave the camp in the middle of the night and creep off on their own do they!”

“Not normally” said Holly thoughtfully “But perhaps he’s on a mission. A mission to get a new card or something like that”.

“Then why didn’t he tell us” said Joe “We know the cards gone so why try and sneak past us?”

“I don’t know, maybe it’s a test. A test to see if we’re keeping watch properly”

“Could be”

“No” said Luke “He was doing his best not to be seen and there’s no way Darius would let him do something so stupid. He was sneaking out and didn’t want to be seen by anybody, and in my books that’s suspicious.” Luke paused, still not taking his eyes off the darkness. He looked older and more determined than usual. Then he said with the conviction of someone who had come to a final decision, “I think we should go after him”

Holly and Joe gaped at Luke speechless.

Luke looked at them like he was seeing them properly for the first time in a while “Look the Dane knew we were keeping watch tonight. He knew there were no adults here with us. And the Dane just like everyone else thinks we are a bunch of screw-ups that can’t do anything properly. So think about it, if you were someone who wanted to sneak out of the camp without getting spotted the best time to do it would be when only we were watching. So I’m pretty damn sure he’s up to no good”.

He paused; Holly and Joe said nothing waiting for Luke to go on. When he didn’t Joe said “So what do we do then?”

“I’ve told you, we go after him”

“What!” said the others together.

“We go after him; we find out what he’s up to and stop him. Then we come back and tell Darius. That way we not only save the camp, we show Darius that we’re not just useless kids who muck everything up. We show him how good we can be”

Luke had a really strange expression on his face, and it wasn’t very pleasant! His eyes were wide and staring, he snarled as he talked, his brow was furrowed and he even had that little frothy bit of spit at each corner of his mouth, the sort of thing that mad people often get when they are being ... well mad!

“Come on” he said “Are we going!”

This wasn’t a real question (hence no question mark) because before they had a chance to answer he was off.

Holly and Joe stared at each other for a second or two then back to where Luke had been. He was already disappearing into the gloom.

“Damn him” said Joe.

Perhaps it was the fact that Luke was already getting hard to see as he rushed off into the wood, but it almost felt like they had no choice but to follow. Without ever consciously deciding to go Holly and Joe found themselves dashing into the dark after Luke in pursuit of the Dane.