LEITH AND THE LURKING EVIL

“JANE!”

“Hi, Leith.”

She looked half-asleep, sluggish and expressionless.

“Thanks,” I said, getting up and letting go of her hand. “You’re the last person I was expecting to ...”

“... run into?” Her smile was lightly mocking.

“Yeah, right - literally. Hey, guess what? I’ve been dying to talk to you about what happened - the rope---”

“I’m fine now, thanks. The people at the hospital were so nice.”

“Did they - help you?”

“I’m feeling good as new, thanks for asking.”

She sounded like Mavis - everything was suddenly all so nice and bland. Had she been gotten to too? Told not to talk? Broken like Broody?

“Well, see you at the campfire tonight. I don’t suppose you’ve seen Pippa?”

“Wait!” I wanted to make her listen.

“Yes?”

“Did you ... talk to anyone?”

“Of course.”

“Great!”

“I talk to lots of people – every day - even you.”

Was this a joke? Was she trying to tell me something?

“Well, see you.”

“Jane! Last time I saw you, you were going to phone your parents. Did you?”

“I saw my parents at the hospital.”

“And they sent you back here?”

“They allowed me to come back. I told them I fell off the rope, even though it really broke. I didn’t want them to worry, to think we aren’t safe here.”

“No, it didn’t, that’s just it - I can’t believe you wanted to come back - you didn’t just fall, Jane---the rope was cut, nearly all the way through, and when you swung on it, then it broke!”

She looked at me a moment, completely without expression. “I don’t think so.”

“I know so - I saw it.”

She shrugged.

“You don’t care?”

“Don’t sweat the small stuff. You know me - not a care in the world!”

No, I thought, I don’t know you. This girl looked like Jane, but somehow she wasn’t. Drugged up or broken down, she wasn’t the girl I’d met on the bus.

I wondered if Dr Grieg had his underlings soften up trouble-makers with a little good ol’ Camp Damble brainwashing. I wouldn’t put it past him. Is that what his evil syringe was for, to sedate his victims, weaken their resistance, while they were “re-educated” with the philosophy of the world according to Grieg? Is that what the Black Bungalow was for? It was so big and secure and isolated. The perfect place for a crazed cultist.

Jane was crouched down, retying her shoelace, and I was just about to continue to Dr Grieg’s office when along came Broody, eyes downcast, looking totally depressed. Was this the loud, proud athlete who’d wrestled a shotgun out of Mr Jekyll’s hands just a few days ago? Right now, he looked like he couldn’t do two rounds with a sack of wet laundry.

Cone sink bench was Benson Chicken all mixed up. Broody looked pretty mixed up right now. But I felt sure he was someone Jane would react to. Maybe they hadn’t had much to discuss on the bus coming here, but now they could compare “isolation” experiences and what it felt like to “resurface.” I may not be the type to light up a room, but Broody you either liked or loathed. And Jane had not been the type to hide her feelings ... until today. Well, maybe not hide them. She just didn’t seem to have feelings any more. Not real ones.

“Hey, Brood, how’s it goin’?”

“OK.” He shuffled to a halt.

“Look who’s back.” I indicated Jane.

“Hi, Broody.”

“Hey.”

“I have to go find Pippa,” said Jane.

“See ya,” said Broody.

“Bye.” Jane went on her lacklustre way.

“Hey, Broody,” I said, “why don’t you go help Jane find Pip?”

He shrugged.

“Don’t you want to? You seemed pretty keen the night you decked me.”

“Sorry ’bout that.”

“Maybe I deserved it.”

“Don’t see how.”

“Well, if you like my sister that much ... maybe you should take a second chance to get to know her. You know - fraternise?”

“Maybe another time.” He started to walk away.

“If you’re not interested, maybe Ray can take your place. Maybe my sister would like him to take your place? I guess your kiss didn’t do much for her!”

He stopped, but didn’t turn around.

“What are you, a total wimp? Bet you wouldn’t have the guts to try and hit me again. Because you know I’d win. You’re scared because you know I’d kick the snot outta you!”

Broody continued walking.

“No wonder your name is Chicken - ’cause that’s what you are - a yellow-bellied chicken-boy too scared to fight---my sister thinks you’re pathetic! You couldn’t even kiss her like a man!”

It hurt me to say those things. I was red in the face. But Broody didn’t miss a step as he calmly walked away.

* * *

“What’s going on around here?” I yelled in frustration, picking up a rock and throwing it at the fence.

Zap.

What was that? I looked around. Nothing moved.

The sound had come from near the fence. Was Adam on the other side, maybe with a ladder, planning to help me escape?

I walked up to the fence, staring through its hard diamond-shaped links. Adam wasn’t out there. No more than Headless Henry was. They’d probably both disappeared, and now, with the fence running all the way around (enclosing even the river bank, though the river could still be reached by a padlocked gate) they wouldn’t be getting back in. The enclosure was huge, encompassing the Black Bungalow and all the land around it. Wait - was it possible Adam was still here somewhere, hiding inside the grounds?

Just the idea made me feel better - strong and defiant and aching to break away! Feeling charged-up and freshly rebellious, I threw my head back and spat at the fence.

Hiss.

Sizzle.

Pop.

I took a step back. Picked up a stone. Tossed it. Watched it fly through one of the diamond-shaped links and land with a soft thunk in the undergrowth on the other side. I picked up another stone and flung it.

Zap!

In a flash of blue, the stone bounced off the wire and landed with a hot splort in a pile of leaves.

Dr Grieg’s new fence - the one he’d put up for our safety and protection - was electrified, pulsing with maybe a hundred thousand killerwatts!

The fence, it might have been argued, had been put up to keep the animals (creatures) out, but there was only one reason electricity had been added---to keep the humans in.

Or whatever passes for human in this place, I thought, as I headed back to our cabin, where I found Ray sprawled on his bunk, his mashed nose stuck in the inevitable book.

“Can’t wait to see the movie tonight,” he drawled. “The original Terminator. Before The Sarah Connor Chronicles and all that -Arnie’s first big one. Great picture.”

Picture.

Pictures.

Smile for Auntie Mut!

And then ... a change came over that person. Not immediately. It wasn’t like blowing zombie-powder in their faces. But soon, within a day or two, that person ... changed.

Drugged, brainwashed, lobotomised - whatever was done to bring that change about - one fact that could not be argued (Jane, Broody, Mavis - what had been done to them was bad enough) was that the subject of this morning’s photo opportunity had been my sister. Pippa was next in line for the treatment.

I was starting to think maybe nothing would happen---when something did.

I’d stuffed my bunk with pillows to make it look like I was tucked up fast asleep. And earlier, during some sappy campfire singalong, I’d taken advantage of the noise and the darkness to speak with Pippa and Ray. But Ray was so excited at the prospect of seeing The Terminator on a big screen, I couldn’t be sure if he’d been listening.

Like Ray, I’d already seen the movie several times - all about a lifelike robot called a cyborg that comes from the future to change history - but while Ray looked totally engrossed in the screening, I found it impossible to concentrate, my mind was so full of wild possibilities.

But I could not dismiss them because they were wild. They were also based on something. On what Ant had said. The first time we’d met him. And what I’d seen and overheard in Dr Grieg’s office. Odd as my theory was, it did make sense. Stranger things had happened. And if things this outrageous were not yet commonplace, that didn’t mean that one day in the not-too-distant future ...

“I’ll be baaaaack!” drawled Ray, doing his best Arnie impression, as we filed out after the movie.

“See you later,” I said pointedly.

And now, here I was, waiting in the shadows outside the girls’ cabins in the middle of the night. I was starting to think I’d let my imagination run right out of control when I saw them - two figures in dark overalls - and as I suppressed a shiver, I realised there was no longer time to think, to theorise ... this was the time to act - but then, I suppose I’d known that since bumping into Jane, falling down and getting a close-up view of those lovely legs---well, maybe not right then, but a short time later when I’d not so much figured it out as remembered ... that Jane’s birthmark used to be on the other knee.