Chapter 42 George #2
‘Maybe—’ Miles clears his throat, having croaked the word. This is the first time he’s spoken for a while. ‘Maybe he’s gone. He was in an awful mood last night, and it didn’t seem like he wanted to be here anymore. He can be a bit impulsive, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s just left.’
‘But all his stuff.’ Faith points. ‘He wouldn’t leave his bag behind.’
‘Maybe he wants to travel light?’
Faith moves swiftly to the spot where Elis’s belongings are piled up on the floor.
She crouches, stands his backpack on end, and unzips the front pocket, feeling inside.
‘Keys,’ she says, placing them on the sideboard, before going in for another rummage.
‘Phone,’ she says, repeating the action.
Faith digs in again, then waves a navy-blue document above her head.
‘Passport. I’ve heard of travelling light, but who goes running off into the wilds of a foreign country without this? ’
They stare at each other, even Polly, who rests her book open on her lap. Until now, no one has thought to look through his stuff, and it is, of course, pretty obvious that Elis wouldn’t have fled without such crucial personal effects.
Polly sits up straight. ‘So, what? We can’t wait for him forever.’
‘We have to go look for him,’ Jessie says.
Faith nods. ‘What if he’s been in an accident? With this kind of rainfall there could be landslips or God knows what.’
‘I don’t get why he would even go out hiking,’ Jessie says. ‘In this weather. It makes no sense.’
‘I’m worried about him.’
‘Me too.’
A funereal silence takes hold. George gets up and paces slowly to the far end of the bus, deep in thought.
Someone needs to take charge, and naturally, it needs to be him.
He clears his throat to command their attention.
‘All right, look. Here’s what we should do.
We send out a search party. For half an hour, tops.
And if we don’t find him, then we drive out of here and let the authorities know what’s happened, report him missing. ’
‘Report him missing?’ Reubyn asks the question with a crease in his brow. ‘That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?’
‘We don’t know where he is though, do we? Hence missing.’ Reubyn opens his mouth to reply, and George shows him the hand – a command to shut up. ‘This way, we’ll have done our due diligence, taken reasonable steps to check on Elis’s welfare, and we’ll still be out of here by six. Sound fair?’
‘So, who is going to be in your search party, George?’ Polly says.
‘Not my search party. I’m not going.’
Jessie rolls her eyes. ‘I think we should stay together. We should all go.’
Within five minutes, and despite George’s protestations, preparations are being made to go out into the storm.
All of them. Those who own hiking boots – Miles, Jessie and Faith – are lacing them up.
Coats and umbrellas are unpacked. George zips up his windbreaker jacket, which he suspects will provide feeble resistance to the rain, and reluctantly joins the others by the door.
Faith grabs the handle, then pauses, looking over her shoulder. ‘I guess we should start at the bird hide?’
‘I reckon we should check that trail first,’ Reubyn says, pointing towards the front end of the bus, in a direction George reckons might be north. ‘Then we circle back that way, check the other trails, and check the bird hide last.’
‘Why the hell would we check the hide last?’ Polly asks. ‘Surely that’s the most likely place he’ll be.’
‘Because, if we don’t find him, we can’t just drive off with all his stuff. We’ll have to leave it in the hide. We can’t just leave it out in the rain.’
‘Well, bugger me, he’s right.’ George slaps Reubyn hard on the back. ‘That’s probably the most intelligent thing you’ve ever said. As a prize for being so bloody clever, you can carry his bag. Come on, then, let’s get this over with.’
Faith opens the door, the sound of the storm rushing in to fill the bus, and they file out.
As the last to exit, George closes the door behind him.
It slams shut, assisted by a gust. As he descends the steps, he calls after the others, but they don’t hear.
Shouldn’t they be locking the bus? Forget it, George thinks.
In the scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter.
As he predicted, George is soaked through to the skin before they even reach the first trail.
They got deluged as they crossed the car park, and now, out in the woods, he finds the canopy is at breaking point.
The trees are bearing all the water they can, saturated completely, so the rain’s full load is finding passage to the earth, only unevenly, in great sloshes and drips.
George deliberately didn’t bring any boots or waterproofs on this trip, so no one could persuade him to go hiking.
And yet, here he is, out in the middle of nowhere, in the foulest of weather.
His hoodless jacket is proving hopeless.
Their progress is slow. The path is slick with mud, and, with every step, George needs to plant his feet carefully on the ground to avoid slipping into the muck.
Ahead of him, the girls are shouting Elis’s name.
Miles and Reubyn are too, somewhat half-heartedly.
With the wind blustering around, their voices are small and have no echo.
At a fork in the trail, they stop. They call for Elis through tunnelled hands, channelling their shouts up the trail they have no intention of following further.
Then they turn right, into an area of denser forest. This path is narrow and overgrown, invaded by branches and long leaves that arc and bend under their own weight.
George uses his forearm to pull back the wet, reedy fronds of a tree fern that hangs across the trail, revealing a deeper tangle behind.
All around is that damp, composty smell that’s only found in the most shadowy of places.
The dark corners that are permanently out of reach of the sun.
Primeval. A couple of days earlier that word gave him cause to laugh.
Now, though, it seems simply to be the correct adjective, not only to describe this ancient and wild place, but also the feelings and instincts that are seeded into those who enter it.
The path twists, and them with it. Reubyn, just ahead of Miles, holds his phone sideways to take a video. He’s had it out for less than twenty seconds before he shakes off water and slips it back into his pocket.
After a few more minutes of walking, the forest is sparser again.
In that time, George has fallen behind. They were supposed to stay close, but he’s at least thirty yards behind the others.
He trudges miserably. Weaving through the wet foliage has soaked George’s trousers, and the wet cotton sticks uncomfortably to his thighs.
Still, the others call Elis’s name.
But their search is nearly over now. Through the trees, George can just about make out the outline of the hide, maybe a hundred yards away.
A great gust swipes at the trees, making them groan and hiss. It shakes water from the canopy, and more gets in under George’s coat, its cold fingers tracing down his back.
He shivers.
The others are approaching the hide. From somewhere near to it comes a high-pitched sort of yelp. A squeal of surprise or shock. Like a hare learning its fate on the running ground at the end of a coursing match.
George pauses. And then a sharp sound pierces the air, an urgent frequency cutting through the storm’s low growl. A scream.