Saturday 14 January 2012

extract from my novel Worth Their Weight in Blood

Lucy frowned as she watched me pant. Ghastly things I could feel but could not understand were now all around me. I was very frightened. I decided to leave a note in the observation file that I was sick and had to leave. I then intended to run to the car. I’d figure out what to do from the safety of my home.
While I had my head down and my shaking hand was scribbling jerky words in Lucy’s report, the chimp was observing Prudence, Hope, Hunter and Johnny. They had entered the ground-floor walkway, blocking my route to the car. The scientists were conspiratorially huddled and talking. I heard nothing.
Lucy’s hair bristled, she chose two words to express herself, “they vampire”. These electronic words came up in front of me, glowing at me red and loud. I dropped the pencil as I read Lucy’s words. I stood up and followed Lucy’s eye-line. I gazed through the layers of glass at Hunter conferring with his cohorts. Their refracted appearance giving the impression the scientists each had three eyes and a clone glued to their shoulder.
Lucy cowered down, keeping close to the ground she scrambled to the tree and up into her tree house.
My eyes darted back to Lucy’s words, “they vampire”.
The cogs in my brain were spinning, spooling back, speeding through recent memories, editing out key moments to screen to myself again, moments that in their own time had jarred with me, moments that had been clues, that I had pragmatically, or stupidly, brushed aside. I had managed to ignore and skim over these moments by forcing myself to be counter-intuitive. But now, through a montage, I relived the memories and this time their meaning was clear.

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