He can bear it, somehow, in the moments when the imagined darkness matches the real. He hasn’t felt this dread when he was actually in a cage, or in a tree, or witnessing the worst thing in the world unfold. The dread stalks him on quiet streets or waking alone in a hotel room before dawn. It has been a long time since he’s felt comfort in a night walk.
He checks his watch. He has ten minutes to wait on this empty street corner. He has a package in his bag – all of his camera film, all the footage he’s shot on the road, and his notebooks. He had that envelope ready from the start, stuck with stamps. He had a few; he’d thought if things got dicey he might post his film to Nina. He’s not going to post anything to Nina. If he sees her again, he’ll eat her heart in the marketplace. He has a marker pen. He has the envelope, packed neatly. And on the opposite corner of the street there’s a postbox.
How likely is it that the postal service is still working here? He’d heard in the camp that it did still work in the larger villages, the towns and cities. Things have broken down on the border and in the mountains, but they’re miles from the border and the mountains now. The box is open. There’s a time listed for a pick-up tomorrow.
He waits. He thinks. Maybe there will be no car. Maybe there will be a car and instead of a blonde woman with a hat there’ll be three women who’ll bundle him into the back seat. Maybe he’ll end there, thrown out on to the road between one town and the next, used and torn. Maybe there’ll be a blonde woman with a hat who’ll take the money she’s being paid for this and say she’s crossed the border. She’ll let him out of the car to run in the direction she tells him is freedom, but there’ll be no freedom there, only the forest and the chase and the end of it in the soil, one way or another.
It suddenly seems a remarkably stupid thing to have trusted his whole life to Roxanne Monke.
There is a car coming. He sees it from a long way off, its headlights sweeping the dirt road. He has time to write a name on this package, and an address. Not Nina, obviously not. Not Temi or his parents; he can’t let this be his final message to them if he disappears into this dark night. He has an idea. It is a terrible idea. It is a safe idea. If he doesn’t come through this, there is one name and mailing address he could write on this package which would make sure the images would be sent around the world. People should know, he says to himself, what has happened here. To witness is the first responsibility.
He has time. He scribbles quickly, without thinking too hard. He runs for the postbox. He slots the package into the chute and closes the lid again. He is back in position when the car stops at the kerb.
There is a blonde woman behind the wheel with a baseball cap pulled low over her eyes. There’s a crest on it that says ‘JetLife’.
She smiles. Her English is thickly accented. She says, ‘Roxy Monke sent me. Will be there before morning.’
She opens the back of the car. It is a sedan, roomy enough, though he’ll have to keep his knees curled against his chest. Eight hours.
She helps him climb into the trunk of the car. She is careful with him, gives him a rolled-up sweater to make a buffer between the back of his head and the metal housing. The trunk is clean, at least. As his nose meets the curled fibres of the interior carpet he smells only the floral chemical scent of shampoo. She gives him a large bottle of water.
‘When finished, can piss in bottle.’
He smiles up at her. He wants her to like him, to feel that he is a person not a cargo.
He says, ‘Travelling coach, huh? These seats get smaller every year.’
But he can’t tell if she’s understood his joke.
She pats his thigh as he settles in.
‘Trust me,’ she says as she slams the trunk closed.
From here, on the gravel path between nowhere and nothing, just around the corner of a screen of trees, Jocelyn can see a low-slung building with windows only on the upper storey. Just the corner of it. She hoists herself on to a rock and takes some pictures. It’s inconclusive. She should probably get closer. Although, that’s a stupid idea. Be sensible, Jos. Report what you’ve found and bring a unit back tomorrow. There’s definitely something there that someone’s gone to quite a lot of trouble to hide from the road. Although, what if it’s nothing; what if this ends with everyone in the base laughing at her? She takes another few pictures.
She’s intent on it.
She doesn’t notice the man until he’s almost standing next to her.
‘What the fuck do you want?’ he says in English.
She has her duty weapon by her side. She shifts position, allowing it to bang against her hip and move forward.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she says. ‘I’ve gotten turned around. I’m looking for the main highway.’
She keeps her voice very level and calm, turns her American accent up a bit without really intending to. Suzy Creamcheese. Bumbling tourist. It’s the wrong tack to take. She’s in army fatigues. Pretending at innocence just makes her look more guilty.
Darrell feels the skein pumping in his chest. It does it more when he’s afraid, twitches and fizzes.
‘What the fuck are you here for, on my land?’ he says. ‘Who sent you?’
Behind his back, he knows the women in the factory are observing the encounter with cold, dark eyes. There’ll be no doubting him after this, there’ll be no asking what he is; they’ll know what he is when they see what he can do. He’s not a man in women’s clothing. He’s one of them, as strong as them, as capable.
She tries a smile. ‘No one sent me, sir. I’m off duty. Just doing a little sightseeing. I’ll be on my way.’
She sees his eyes flick to the maps in her hand. If he sees those, he’ll know she was looking for this place and no other.
‘All right,’ says Darrell. ‘All right, let me get you back on your way.’
He doesn’t want to help her; he’s coming too close, she should call this in. Her hand twitches towards her radio.
He reaches out three fingers of his right hand and, with a single swift jolt, he kills the radio dead. She blinks. Sees him for a moment as himself: monstrous.
She tries to swing her rifle round but he has it by the butt, catches her in the chin with it, leaving her staggering, hauls the strap over her head. He considers the rifle, then tosses it into the undergrowth. He comes for her, palms crackling.
She could run. There’s her dad’s voice in her head, saying, Take care of yourself, sweetie. And there’s her mom’s voice in her head, saying, You’re a hero, act like it. This is one guy with a factory in the middle of nowhere – how hard can it be? And the girls from the base. You of all people should know how to deal with one dude with a skein. Don’t you, Jocelyn? Isn’t this your special subject, Jocelyn? She has something to prove. And he has something to prove. They are ready to begin.
They square off to each other, circling, looking for a weakness.