no way of telling the time, but she felt
that she had been down here for a long time. Even if she'd had a watch, it wouldn't have done her any
good; she could never wear one, because they always broke when she put them on. Her mother sus-pected
the radiation from dental X-rays, though whether this was paranoia or a joke, Jazz had never been sure.
Either way, she ignored it as absurd.
Whatever the hour might be, Jazz decided it was lunchtime.
Several biscuits eaten, she moved on to the next cup-board. There was plenty of tinned food in here
but no tin opener, and she did not feel inclined to go searching for one. A box of crackers looked more
inviting, and when she opened the last unit she found four fridges, stacked two high and all working. Inside
—butter, cream cheese, salads, and milk.
She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of fresh food, and something moved behind her.
Jazz fell to her knees and clicked off her torch. She was still bathed in stark light, and for a moment
she thought she was pinned within the beam of someone else's torch. Then she remembered the fridge
lights, and she slammed the doors closed.
That had definitely been a movement. An echo, per-haps, of something farther away, but definitely
not dripping water. More ghosts? She imagined an endless procession of people fleeing endless bombing,
but the things she had found down here were at odds with that image. Ghosts did not eat biscuits, drink milk,
or listen to Metallica.
Jazz scanned the shelter by the poor light of the hanging bulbs.
Keep your wits about you, her mother had once said. That's the best weapon you can have.
****
"See?" she said. "Richard Kimble's got his wits. Evades cap-ture. Runs. And he's saving himself
too."
"The Fugitive is just a film, Mum," Jazz said. She was sitting on the sofa with her legs tucked up
beneath her, eating strawberry ice cream straight from the tub. Her mum's whiskey tumbler was almost
empty again, but although her eyes glittered and her face was flushed, her words were as clear and concise
as ever.
"But you can learn a lot from a film. Why shouldn't you learn from fiction? It's a vast array of ideas,
and you can take what you need from that. Look at him. You can see the plan-ning in every movement of
his eyes, everything he does. He knows not to stop running. He knows to lose himself and how to find
himself again after that."
"But he's just an actor, Mum. Not flesh and blood."
"Flesh and blood?" her mother said, and she froze for a few seconds, her eyes seeing something
much farther away.
"Mum?"
"Flesh and blood," she repeated, words quieter than ever. "Not everything real is flesh and blood,
Jazz. Not everything at all."
****
Those ghosts were not real, Jazz thought, running low and fast toward the other end of the shelter.
She wanted to get as far from the spiral staircase as possible, and she remembered seeing some cupboards
and storage units piled haphazardly against the end wall. Perhaps there she would find cover from whatever
was coming.
She could hear the footsteps now, a single set descend-ing with confidence.
Whoever it is, they're not expecting anyone to be down here. It gave her a moment's hope, but
still she was terrified.
She almost fumbled the torch and held her breath, loop-ing her index finger through the handle. If she
lost that, she really would be in trouble.
If whoever came down was threatening, she could blind them with light, then run for the stairs. It
wasn't so far to the surface. A hundred feet, maybe? A bit less, a bit more?
She reached the end of the shelter, paused, and heard those footsteps still descending. She should
have been count-ing steps, she knew. Should have been trying to work out how long she had, how close
they were, how fast they were de-scending.
There were a dozen cabinets here, stacked against the crumbling brickwork, and most of them were
full with all manner of goods. She started panicking again. She could lie down on one of the mattresses and
pull a blanket across her, but how effective would that be? She had to hide, and now she was starting to
wish she'd just gone to wait at the en-trance tunnel, ready to clout the visitor over the head with the torch
and run for her life.
She found a cupboard that was only half full, coats and jackets piled flat on its floor. She could fit in
there.
The footsteps echoed so loudly that she was sure they were right behind her.
She glanced back, stepped into the cupboard, pulled the metal doors shut behind
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