TWENTY-TWO
LEAF HAD ONLY managed to move twenty people when Martine came back. The older woman did not offer any explanation, or even talk. She just appeared as Leaf was grimly trying to lift one of the sleepers onto a bed, and took over. Leaf gratefully assumed the role of lifting legs as Martine heaved the sleepers up under the arms.
In an hour, they moved fifty people to the operating theatre complex and Leaf began to hope that there was a chance they would move them all. It was a small hope, but it was better than the drear fatalism that earlier had sat like a cold weight in her chest.
They were moving the fifty-first, fifty-second and fifty-third sleeper when the clock started to turn over again.
‘Oh, no!’ Martine cried as she saw the display slowly – very slowly – transform from 11:58 to 11:59.
‘It’s still slower,’ said Leaf. ‘Time. It’s moving slower. We have more than a minute. Maybe it’ll be really slow, we can go back up-’
Martine pushed the bed with sudden energy, pushing harder than she had before, too fast for safety, sending it rocketing out into the corridor so that it collided none too gently with the far wall. She pushed Leaf too, as the girl hesitated, thinking that maybe, just maybe she could get back up and get a few more sleepers, save just a few...
The clock turned to 12:00.
Leaf and Martine ran for the bed.
‘Arthur, you have to come back and stop this now!’ Leaf shouted at the ceiling. ‘You can’t let this happen!’
Martine grabbed the bed and turned it towards the operating theatre. Leaf sobbed and bit back a cry and started to push.
They were halfway along the corridor when the ground shook and all the lights went out. The shaking continued for at least a minute, and there was a terrible rattle and bang of things falling, some of them foam ceiling insulation tiles that fell on Leaf.
Then the ground was still again. Leaf crouched in the darkness, by the bed, holding Martine’s hand. She could not think of what she should do, her mind paralysed by what had happened.
‘I can’t believe they did it,’ she said. ‘And Arthur didn’t come back. And we only saved... we only saved so few... I mean to be saved from Friday, only to get killed without even waking up...’
‘We don’t know what’s happened,’ said Martine, her voice scratchy and unfamiliar. ‘We’ll have to find out.’
Leaf laughed, an hysterical giggle of fear and anxiety that she only just managed to get under control. As she stifled it, the green emergency lights slowly flickered on, illuminating Martine’s face as she bent down to look at Leaf.
‘I’m sorry I ran away,’ said Martine. ‘You’re braver than I am, you know.’
‘Am I?’ asked Leaf. She choked back a sob that was threatening to come out. ‘You came back.’
‘Yes,’ said Martine. ‘I think Arthur will come back too.’
‘He’d better!’ snapped Leaf. She stood up and checked the three sleepers. They were fine, apart from having a fine coating of dust and a few fragments of broken insulation.
‘You hear that, Arthur!’ Leaf said, looking up at the exposed wiring above her head. ‘You need to come back and fix everything up! You... need to come back!’