Voices in Stone - Emily Diamand Page 0,48

one,” I said to myself.

“What?” squawked Jayden.

I took hold of Jayden’s wrist. “Run for the door into school.”

“What?”

“Just do it. Come on!” This time I didn’t count; I set off at a flat-out run with Jayden shrieking and pulling behind me.

“You’re crazy! Don’t!”

But I didn’t let go of him, just kept my eyes on that door and forced my legs to go as fast as I could manage. Across the playground, a girl from our year started screaming like she was getting murdered, even though there was no one near her.

Stop! Stop! The voice was right by my ear, making me stumble, sending my heartbeat so fast I thought it might explode.

“Argh!” cried Jayden, suddenly speeding up, getting ahead of me. He’s not a brilliant runner – he must’ve been half killing himself.

“They’re keeping up with me!” he panted.

“We’re nearly there!”

And then Gav came running out of nowhere and crashed straight into us.

“They’re after me!” he shouted, eyes wide and staring. “They won’t leave me alone!”

That was more than Jayden could cope with. He twisted in my grip and started yelling at nothing.

“Get away from me!”

“Leave me alone!” shouted Gav, also at nothing.

“Go away!”

“Get back!”

They were shouting and hitting at thin air, while my own invisible man was closing in, hands reaching out towards me.

Stopstopstopstopstopstopstop.

I lost it too, starting to shout myself. It was the way he just kept coming, and wouldn’t give up…

“WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?” Mr Watkins came out of the door. It shocked us all still for a second. “GET INSIDE, right now!”

He hauled us through the doorway.

“What do you think you’re doing? There’s enough trouble today without you three mucking about!”

Normally I would have hated getting told off in front of everyone, people stopping to watch. But I was glad, if you can believe it, because it was only us. No ghost, zombie or whatever he was. Just me, Gav and Jayden, getting shouted at by an ordinary, human teacher.

As Mr Watkins went on about us setting a good example for the younger pupils, Gav and Jayden both kept glancing at the door.

“Break’s nearly over,” finished Mr Watkins, “so get to your lessons.” He gave us a last glare and walked away.

“You all right?” I asked Gav.

He nodded. Slowly, and sort of surprised.

“I was fine until I went outside,” he said, “then they all…” He frowned, as if trying to puzzle out a dream, then shook his head, looking at his feet.

“Was it someone no one else could see?” I asked.

“Did they look like you?” said Jayden.

Gav flicked his gaze up and nodded. “There were about ten of them,” he mumbled. “Four of them in school uniform. They looked like me, even the older ones.”

“Mine too,” whispered Jayden.

“I only saw this one guy, but he—” I stopped, this horrible thought in my head. When I’m older, I’ll easily be as tall as the man I saw.

“And now they’re gone!” said Gav, staring out through the door.

Outside a teacher ran past, chasing the girl who’d been screaming. We all backed away, like we were safer further from the door, but I could still see Imran, this boy from our geography class, standing stock-still in the middle of the playground, crying.

“What’s going on?” asked Jayden, shaky-sounding, like he was only just holding it together.

“Everyone’s on about ghosts,” said Gav.

I shook my head, trying to untangle it all. “How can you have a ghost of yourself?”

“Maybe it’s a ghost’s trick?” said Gav. “Like a disguise?”

Jayden frowned. “Ghosts float, but this lot walk, like zombies.”

“They aren’t zombies!” said Gav. “Zombies are other people. These are us.”

“Clones?” said Jayden.

“Then why did they vanish when we came inside?”

“I don’t know!” said Jayden, peering anxiously through the door. “Do you think they’re out there waiting for us?”

Gav backed further away from the door. “I’m not going to find out.”

“What about walking home after school?” said Jayden.

We were all silent, thinking the same horrible thoughts, then Gav said, “I’ll ring my mum, ask her to pick us up. She would if it’s an emergency.”

Jayden held an imaginary phone to his ear. “Hi, Mum, can you give me a lift home, because I’m seeing loads of ghosts that look like me, or maybe they’re zombies. I’m not sure cos no one else can see them. Oh no, it’s fine, we don’t need to stop at the psychiatric hospital on the way.” He looked at Gav.

Gav scowled back. “All right, what do you think?”

“Maybe terrorists have sprayed weird drugs into the school and we’re hallucinating?”

“Oh God,”