The Territory Truth by Sarah Govett

Author:Sarah Govett
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-910080-71-9
Publisher: Firefly Press Limited
Published: 2018-02-06T16:00:00+00:00

I reckon we’re about another two days’ walk from the First City. Three days down, two to go. We’re covering ground faster than ever. Out of the Solar Fields, through the Woods and skirting the edge of the Third City. We’re not stopping much. Short, efficient breaks but no long group chats. Raf occasionally needs to stop for longer if he gets one of his headaches but he won’t let me comfort him, check on him even. His flat eyes a ‘no-entry’ sign. I’ll sometimes see him huddled with Lee. Telling him stuff. Me, no, never.

Everyone’s still in their own heads a lot. Thinking about what has been and what is lying ahead. Thinking about Ella. Mourning her. I hadn’t realised what a stabilising influence she’d been on the group. She was friends with everyone (well, apart from Raf) and she’d been a kind of centre point between me and Raf on one side and Jack on the other. The pivot in a moment’s calculation gone.

Everything’s still really awkward between me, Raf and Jack. This morning Jack kept trying to walk next to me, like I was some bone that Raf had dropped and was now his to claim, whereas Raf couldn’t bear being next to me and would slow down or speed up to make sure it never happened.

We’re also sticking to the paths and roads which makes marching easier. One stride on tarmac/intentionally flattened and cleared dirt track equals about three little steps over brambles or five hops from stone to stone across a stream. Lee’s still worried about our hiding in plain sight plan. He’d have preferred us to try to stay properly hidden. To stick to ditches, to head deeper into the Woods amongst the shrubs and brambles. But I figured that in the army uniforms that would only increase our suspicious rating. Five soldiers marching purposefully along a marked path looks like a small planned manoeuvre. Soldiers moving base. Soldiers chasing a fugitive. Soldiers relaying an important message. Something people could register, accept and then walk away from. Whereas five people in uniform creeping around the undergrowth, bobbing up and down and popping out from behind trees was something to notice. Something to report.

Lunch started off well but turned sour.

We stopped near a stream to refill our water bottles and rest our legs.

Not knowing where we’d get our next supplies from, we had to ration what we had, so lunch was a single Mucor bar. Raf took his and wandered off, probably in search of his ever-needed ‘space’.

The Mucor bars were ‘Pork’ flavour. Yeah right. A few spliced pig cells does not a sausage make. Nell’s expression as she took her first bite was hilarious. Her face twisted and her lips puckered like a closing drawstring bag. You could see the battle between her taste buds and her brain as it instructed her oesophagus to swallow. Peristalisise goddamit! Or whatever the verb for do peristalsis is. Maybe there isn’t even a verb.

‘What is this stuff?!’ she spluttered as soon as her mouth was empty of the offending bite.

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