Jellicoe Road Read Online Free PDF Page A

there…
     
    But beyond the tamed area there is dense bushland, uncultivated, without even a walking trail. Three kilometres of that is what separates us andthe Cadets. Rumour has it they’ve been creating a secret trail for years, which would make getting to us as easy as. The quickest way for them would be via the river, which flows directly behind Hannah’s property. But it belongs to us. Here, near Hannah’s house, the river is at its narrowest and there’s only about twenty metres between the banks. In the last couple of years, because of the drought, the river has been not much more than a trickle. Once in a while, over time, we’ve almost lost it through poor leadership but somehow we’ve always managed to hold on to it and maintain that physical distance between us and them. Today, though, somewhere in that dense uncultivated labyrinth, something or someone is watching. I can feel it with everything I have inside of me that keeps me alert to malevolence.
    “Who’s there?” I call out.
    I think of the cat. Although Hannah has never claimed him as hers, she feeds him every time he comes into the area. I hate the cat and the cat hates me. He’s feral, with a tail that always looks like it’s been caught in a state of fright, and, like everything to do with Hannah, I fight him for her attention.
    “Why does he look like that?” I asked her once.
    “Because I think he saw something that scared the hell out of him a very long time ago.”
    The cat has been dying for years and sometimes Hannah wants to put him out of his misery, but she doesn’t have the guts. Sometimes, when I get up close to him, I see the suffering in his eyes, but then he’ll scratch me on the face and I am forced to forgo the sympathy.
    But whatever is out there now, it’s not the cat.
    I shiver. Whoever it is has the advantage of being able to see me when I can’t see them. I decide to turn around and walk away but just as I do, I hear the crunch of footsteps somewhere behind the bushes, moving towards me, slow and measured.
    “Jessa McKenzie, is that you?”
    If it was Jessa, she’d answer, and there is no answer, just the sound of a presence that keeps me rooted to the spot. I want to walk towards my bike, but I dare not turn my back and I’m too much of a coward to step forward to investigate. So I stay, for what seems like forever, staring at that one spot, frozen like a soldier who’s stepped on a landmine. I don’t move. I try to convince myself that it’s just my imagination. That there’s nothing there but some kind of wildlifewith a size-nine foot.
    The cold begins to snap at my skin and it’s getting darker. Cautiously I take a step back and then another and another. I can make a dash, grab the bike, get on it, and take off before whoever it is can make it out of those trees, but some kind of eerie fear keeps me transfixed. I count to ten but I reach eleven and count to ten again and reach eleven again. Eleven. Eleven. Eleven. Eleven. Eleven.
    Ten!
    I bolt, turning, racing round the back of the house, straight to the bike. My stomach turns. No bike. Any chance of it all being my overactive imagination is quashed when I see that empty space under the tree. I hit the path with all the speed I can muster, my heart thumping like a rampaging jackhammer. The trail is an obstacle course of tangled twigs and assaulting branches, but I’d know this area with my eyes closed. I can hear only two sounds: the pounding of blood in my brain against my temples and the footsteps behind me. One pair. If there were two or more I think I’d be less afraid. I’d just allow myself to be captured and reinforce the rules of the Jellicoe Convention about diplomatic immunity. But onepair means either a rogue operative…or something worse.
    When I reach the clearing that leads to the Houses and I see the lit path in front of me, there’s no sense of relief. My lungs are bursting and every part of me aches. I just want to reach that door