Tunnels 06 - Terminal

but to accept this suggestion. So, within an hour, he, Jürgen and Karl had got themselves ready and trooped off across the bare plains towards the half-track.
    It was a lonely time for Will after they’d gone, because if Elliott wasn’t asleep, she shunned any contact with him, roaming aimlessly around the tower. But she never once put a foot outside, as if she couldn’t bear to leave the tower, although Will sometimes caught her by the entrance. At these moments, she seemed to be staring out across the fields ofdried-out earth, as if waiting for someone to appear on the horizon.
    Elliott’s continued reluctance to have anything much to do with Will made him question what had changed so radically in their friendship. He didn’t delude himself that the carefree way of life that had meant so much to him in the weeks after the nuclear explosion had gone for good. When the traction beam, as Jürgen had called it, had stripped the old pyramid away, it had also obliterated any trace of the base in the nearby tree that had been their home. It was emblematic to Will because he knew that they could never go back to those halcyon days again, particularly not with the New Germanians and the ever-watchful bushman in attendance.
    Will let out a long sigh. There was an inescapable inevitability to his life, as if some higher power was intent on disrupting it as soon as he found anything approaching happiness and contentment. But why did it have to be that way? Why didn’t anything good ever last for long?
    And now, as he lay in his sleeping bag in the entrance chamber of the tower, he was staring despondently up at the walls, and at the twin columns housing the lifts. Part of him wished they’d never come back to the pyramid and found the tower, while another part was burning with curiosity about who had built it, and what its true purpose was. There was something so contemporary, so incredibly modern about the interior, although it was nothing of the sort because it had remained hidden in this world probably since time immemorial.
    As if to emphasise this, the bushman’s hushed, repetitive mumbling, like some sort of religious incantation passed down through the centuries, drifted over to Will. Woody hadlit a fire just outside the entrance, where he was cooking some grubs he’d foraged from the new fields, and every now and then the wind fanned smoke into the tower.
    ‘This is hopeless. I can’t sleep,’ Will announced, throwing a look across at where Elliott was curled up. The bushman was occupied with his food so Will quietly pulled himself from his sleeping bag and went to sit near Elliott.
    ‘I don’t know what’s the matter … but I wish you’d at least talk to me and let me in on it.’ Will’s voice turned to a croak with all his emotion, and he swallowed several times before he was able to continue. ‘You know, I’ve never felt so alone. I don’t have anyone any more. Mum’s a thousand miles away, and Dad’s gone, and all the others like Chester and …’ Will couldn’t think who else to add to the list, so quickly moved on. ‘Well, there’s no one. No one except you. So please tell me what’s wrong, because—’
    A distant shout echoed through the tower.
    ‘Huh?’ Will said, suddenly very concerned, because it had sounded like Elliott. He leant over and pushed the sleeping bag. Something rattled inside. Whatever Elliott had stuffed in it was hard and nothing like a human body.
    The bushman had heard the shout too. He abandoned his food and came inside, going straight to the flight of stairs.
    ‘Bloody hell!’ Will exclaimed, as he grabbed his jacket and Sten gun. He was angry with himself because he must have dozed off long enough for Elliott to trick both him and the bushman. Although he was just as much to blame, he took his annoyance out on the bushman. ‘Woody, you idiot! Why’d you let her pull that stunt on us?’ he demanded.
    Knowing that the lift wouldn’t work for him, he tore up the stairs with Woody close behind.
    ‘Elliott!’ Will shouted as he came to the first landing. She didn’t answer him, but through the archway he saw her standing very still. She was staring fixedly at a particular spot on the outside wall, her eyes unblinking.
    ‘Why were you shouting? And why are you up here by yourself?’ he asked as he came alongside her. As soon as he could see her face, he was alarmed by the change in her: her expression was haunted and anxious, and there were shadows as