The Various Read Online Free PDF Page B

with a tin roof and a roughly screeded forecourt. There was an outside tap on the end wall of the building. It dripped, and had made a dark rusty stain on the concrete. An ancient muck-heap, now overgrown with grass, stood to one side of the sliding galvanized iron door that seemed to be the only entrance. The door itself looked wonky somehow, not quite square with the building.
    As Midge approached, she thought she heard a noise. She stopped to listen, now about half a dozen paces from the building, and listened. Yes, there it was again.
    The breeze was both carrying the noise to her, and obscuring it. It was a kind of scuffling sound, beating, flapping. Perhaps it was a piece of tarpaulin or something around the other side of the building, catching in the wind. She moved a little closer, cautious and slightly apprehensive. No, the sound was coming from inside the building. She could see a slight gap between the crooked sliding door and the frame, a dark slit – and the sound was coming from there. She crept closer still. Again the sudden noise, which made her jump back: a beating, flapping, desperate sound. A bird? Something trapped in there? The sound seemed too heavy for a bird, unless it was a very large one. Midge didn’t like the thought of that. How big? Like a goose? Geese could be nasty. Well, it wouldn’t be able to get out through that little gap, she reasoned, and moved forward again. It wasn’t until she was within a foot of the door that it occurred to her that a goose could get its
head
through that gap, if nothing else. It could peck her. Midge took another hesitant step backwards at this thought, the sole of her trainer making a slight scuffing sound on the gritty concrete. The flapping ceased abruptly. There was a long silence, a listening silence, as though her presence had suddenly been recognized. Then she felt the strangest sensation beginning to creep over her – an aura – as of something travelling towards her at great speed, and from a great distance. Her scalp tightened and it really did feel as though her hair had begun to stand on end – for there was a voice.
    Spindra?
The word was hissed, cautiously. The word made no sense – but it was a word, and the word was somehow . . . in her head.
Spindra? Spindra!
– once more the sounds came bursting like soft explosions, coloured explosions, visible somehow, inside her head.
    Midge’s hands flew up to her ears, and the carrier bag fell from her fingers with a rustle and a faint thump. The apple rolled across the concrete, bumped against the galvanized door, rebounded on her foot and came gently to rest in the gap between the door and the frame.
    At the first rustle from Midge’s picnic bag, the voice had immediately ceased. Again there was absolute quiet, and a tension that put a strange taste in her dry mouth. Midge shakily lowered her hands, and stared at the apple. A small piece of skin had been nicked off during its fall. The frozen silence from within the building pressed against her eardrums.
    Whoever, whatever was in there, had heard her, and could hear her now. Had seen her, perhaps, and could see her now. Her palms were wet with perspiration. She was frightened. She was frightened of the extraordinary thing that seemed to have just happened to her, but she knew that
she
was also frightening to whoever was in there. She was frightened like two children playing hide-and-seek are frightened – the one of being discovered, the other of discovering. She breathed in at last, and said – to her own surprise, ‘I think I’d better go and get my uncle.’ The words came out quite loud, but the effort made her shake. She stooped to pick up the apple. It felt like an act of courage.
    She picked up the carrier bag too, and put the apple back in, glimpsing her sandwich, now skewed apart, with bits of cheese and pickle showing. ‘My uncle will be here shortly,’ she said, the words sounding silly and unconvincing. She waited for a few