Attica - By Garry Kilworth Page 0,21

still the dust got into their lungs. There were cobwebs flying about too, and the light airy bodies of dead spiders, along with threads of cotton. They stumbled forward, there being nowhere to take cover, into the blinding, choking storm that threatened to suffocate them.

When they were just about exhausted they came across a deserted Attican village, the huts of which were old cupboards. Each of the children found one and crawled inside, closing the doors. Outside, the storm continued to rage for quite a while, until it finally abated and they were able to come out of their dark holes and into the dim and gloomy light. Stillness reigned now. And they were unharmed. Perhaps not safe, for they wondered where the villagers were, who once lived in these abandoned homes.

Yet no one came, after the storm had gone, and they assumed they were in a ghost village, a ruined place, long since evacuated for some reason. It stood in the shadow of the great mountain and Chloe could feel the sadness there, in the woodwork of the cabinets and cupboards, in the piles of junk that littered the floor between the huts. Someone had once loved this village enough to decorate it with gardens of silver candelabras overhung with artificial waterfalls of crystal chandeliers. The cut-glass ‘jewels’ and ‘gems’ on the chandeliers shone like diamonds in the spears of sunlight. The candlesticks and candelabras glistened like silver flowers in their beds below these hanging wonders. Yet there were no owners to appreciate their beauty.

Where, thought Chloe, had the people gone?

‘Deserted!’ stated Jordy, as if his decision was based on a long scientific study. ‘Not a soul around.’

‘Well, duh,’ Alex scoffed. ‘Maybe they were massacred?’

‘Who by?’ snapped Chloe, who was already feeling nervous, having sensed that a horrible deed had taken place here.

Alex did not like to upset his sister. He shrugged, ‘Who knows? Some other tribe, maybe. I don’t know.’

‘Attican wolves,’ Jordy said. ‘I heard them last night.’

Chloe shook her head firmly. ‘That was just the wind, howling round the eaves of the house. No, no – one thing we haven’t seen is live animals up here. Not if you don’t count the bats and insects. This is a strange world and getting stranger the deeper we go, but one thing you can count on, I reckon, is that it won’t be like the outside world.’

‘There are no wolves in Britain.’

‘Yes, there are,’ she replied firmly. ‘In zoos and game parks. And the outside world isn’t just Britain, it’s everywhere. There are still wolves up in Alaska.’

‘Well, we’ll see,’ said Jordy, still not willing to give ground. ‘We’ll just see. Something killed them off, that’s for sure.’

‘Or simply chased them away,’ Alex said, sorry that he had raised this issue now that Jordy and Chloe were going at each other. ‘Maybe it was disease or something.’

All three then looked at their hands in horror.

‘Don’t touch anything,’ muttered Chloe, wiping her palms on her jeans. ‘Don’t lick your fingers.’

Alex said, ‘Who licks their fingers?’

‘You bite your nails,’ remarked Jordy. ‘I’ve seen you.’

They found the nearest water umbrella and washed their hands thoroughly. Chloe would have liked a bath, but she knew that wasn’t possible unless they came across another water tank. She stared at the vacated village while the other two washed. If they had all been killed, or died of disease, there would be bodies. She could see no corpses. Then there was Jordy’s theory of wolves. Perhaps not wolves, but something else, something like a monster made of old kitchen sinks with washtap teeth and plugholes for eyes? Something like that would surely swallow the villagers whole and leave no trace.

Alex had gone to sit on a pile of books to inspect his fingernails.

‘Now you’ve gone and mentioned it,’ he complained to Jordy, ‘I really want to bite them. I didn’t before.’

‘Mental reaction,’ said Jordy, joining him. ‘Now if I said “Liquorice Allsorts” what do you want to do now?’

‘Bite my fingernails.’

Chloe sat down next to her brother, then reached into her bag for the bottle of water she carried. On yanking it out she caught the photo album by a silken cord which hung from its spine. The album flew through the air and hit one of the cupboards, bursting open. The sepia-brown prints inside fell out, the glue of their photo corners long since having lost its stickiness. They floated to the floor like autumn leaves to gather at the feet of the children. Alex