Voices in Stone - Emily Diamand Page 0,55

need so many teachers?”

Up on the road. That meant all the way along the drive, through the gates, up the steps, and then however far Stu was parked after that.

I took a breath, and made myself step outside. Made myself start walking.

“Can we go a bit quicker?” I asked Stu, who was walking down the pavement at a snail’s pace.

I scanned around as we walked. I got about fifteen metres from the school entrance, then: Listen, listen.

I spun about. Behind me was a boy looking exactly like I had when I was in Year Seven, even down to the too-big blazer Mum had bought so it would last longer.

It hurts, said the boy.

I picked up my pace. Don’t let them know you’re scared, I told myself. Walk fast but calm. There’s only one so far, and he’s keeping his distance.

“I thought you were ill,” said Stu, shuffling a little bit faster. “You don’t seem very ill to me.”

“I am though, that’s why I need to get to Dad’s.”

“You’re not going there,” said Stu.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not just dropping you off and leaving you by yourself.”

Another, older, voice from behind me. HELP.

Help. The voice of a tiny child.

My legs overruled my brain. I sprinted down the school drive, yanking open the gate. Voices called out behind me, jumbling together into the same repeated word: He… Hel… Helppp… Helpppp… Help… elllppp! And from the corner of my eye I could see they were keeping up with me.

I ran along the pavement, faster than ever, and threw myself at the door of Stu’s car.

It was locked, of course. He was still dawdling his way up the steps, like he had all the time in the world, but they were right behind me. All different ages, from babies to old men. At least twenty of them, matching each other step by step. Their mouths opened in unison. Heeellllpppp meeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I pressed against the car, rattling the door handle. Clickclickclickclickclick. It stayed locked.

They took another step closer, all those figures wearing different faces of me. Plump-cheeked little me as a toddler, lanky adult me, old man me with my wrinkled face half-covered by a grey beard. But my eyes are nothing like theirs were. No one has eyes like that.

“Stu!” I screamed.

Old-man me raised his hand, reaching, and all the others did the same.

“STU! Unlock the CAR!”

The figure’s hand was centimetres from my face, its eyes empty and filled with nothing. I wanted to look away, but it was like being pulled in. I was going to fall into the darkness in its eyes and carry on falling forever.

Blebeep.

The lights on the Volvo winked, the locks all clicked up. I yanked the door open and flung myself inside.

Clunk. Door shut. Solid Volvo between me and the…

Only Stu, walking up the street. Nothing else.

I sat in the car, trying not to choke on my own heartbeats, until Stu opened the driver’s door and peered in, frowning.

“What was all that about?”

I told Stu. I had to.

There are things you can keep secret, but running screaming down the street from people only you can see, well that’s one of the harder ones. Isis would’ve thought up a convincing lie, but she’s used to making up excuses for behaving weirdly.

Luckily, Stu was more likely to believe me than anyone else I know. Than anyone in the world, probably. Stu thinks about more crazy stuff by breakfast than most people do in their whole lives. So he sat in the car and listened. Didn’t roll his eyes, or tell me to stop making stuff up. And as we drove away he started on his theories.

“Sounds like narcissistic projected imagery.”

“A what?”

“A hallucination of yourself. Sometimes people see them naturally, as a result of serious mental illness, but there are reports of them having been induced. Military experiments and stuff, you know? And some people say the images can be projected into your brain as a disguise by some of the less ethical alien species.”

“Aliens, again?”

“Less ethical ones, obviously. But it can’t be that, because I didn’t see anything at all in the street…” He scratched his stubbly chin, so the car wandered around the road a bit. “Where have you experienced these NPIs?”

He always shortens things to their initials. I suppose it makes them sound more science and less nuts.

I took a breath to calm myself. “At the quarry. In my back garden. At the standing stone. In school earlier. Just then.”

“Can you see them now?”

I shook my head. “As soon