Chapter 13
When I struggle awake, I’m on the move, in a car.
Have I been rescued? Am I safe now? Of course the problem is that I haven’t actually woken, because I wasn’t asleep.
What’s happened is I’ve come round from unconsciousness and that’s why it takes a moment or two for my thoughts to arrange themselves.
Safe?
Rescued?
I am not going to let myself hope again. I know this is the same as last time and I need to be alert and see what I can learn before we get wherever we’re going and I’m put wherever I’m to be put.
First, I need to make sure I don’t faint, or even suffocate, from trying to breathe through whatever is over my head, sucking against my nose and my mouth every time I inhale, clouding the hood or whatever it is with my own steamy heat every time I exhal—
Against my mouth? My mouth! If this thick woollen whatever-it-is is sucking against my mouth—and it certainly is! I can taste it, rough and wet on my lips—then I’m not gagged. If I can stay awake perhaps I could scream when I get the chance.
But first, I must settle myself and gather my strength.
I stretch my neck as long as it will go and tuck my chin down towards my chest. It works.
I’m no longer breathing in stale wool and breathing out my own suffocating heat and wetness.
With my chin tucked tight I am sucking in cool air from outside the hood and I am blowing my breath out over my chest, even lifting the wool a little so I can see, very dimly, something beyond this stifling dampness.
In and out. In and out.
When I’m sure I won’t swoon, I start to feel around, because this time my hands aren’t tied either.
They’re either starting to believe I’m no threat or they’re simply lazy.
In any case, I can tell by groping around that I’m in the boot of a car, the lid about ten inches from my face and the locking mechanism digging into my knees.
I shift but then the wheel arch presses hard against my ankle.
There is no way to lie that doesn’t hurt somewhere.
When I’ve shuffled myself to a diagonal and got as comfortable as I can, I start to pay attention to how we’re moving.
I would have said from the speed and smoothness and from the fact that we haven’t turned any corners, that we’re on a motorway, or at least an A road.
I wish I knew how long I’ve been unconscious.
Because without knowing roughly when we started, there’s no way to tell how far we’ve come.
We could be anywhere, bowling along.
K-chnk!
I catch my breath. What was that? We just drove over something in the road.
K-chnk!
Another one. And that’s not all. The sound of the wheels has changed.
K-chnk!
We’re on a bridge, rattling over the metal joins between the sections of tarmac.
K-chnk!
And suddenly I think I know where I am.
K-chnk!
There are twelve in total and that seems about right.
Half a mile. And now we’re slowing and the road smooths out and there are no more jolts.
If I’ve worked it out, then we’ll be in a town now.
If we stop at a traffic light I could fill my lungs and scream at the top of my voice. You never know. Someone might hear me.
But I’ve been so taken up counting the sections of bridge that I forgot to keep my chin tucked and I’ve been breathing in that muffled, damp wool, until my head is reeling and my thoughts start to spin away from me.
And I’m gon—