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But in another moment Hutchinson had collapsed. The drunken capo was crumpled against the wall of the corridor, lying in a dark heap, motionless. Ray stepped away from him. As Baz hurried towards the scene, the slob-room door swung open and one or two of the others emerged – Jubo, Robbie...

They gathered around the sprawling figure, speaking in whispers.

“Is he down?”

“Yeah. Out for the count by the look of him.”

“You all right, Ray?”

Gene switched on the torch. Hutchinson looked as though he’d tried to dive through the very floor, his face all squished up and distorted against the tiles, dribble running from his mouth.

“Look at him. What a pig.”

“Ey – we could stomp him right now.” Jubo’s idea. “Stomp him so him wake up an’ wonder wha’ happen his kidneys, man. Like where they go.”

“Nah. Leave him. With any luck he’ll choke on his own puke,” said Gene. “And if he wakes up in the morning, he’ll feel like he’s had the crap kicked out of him in any case. Come on, Baz. We better get the storeroom door back to like it was.”

“Whatcha find in there?” said Robbie. “Anything good?”

“Yeah. Tell you about it in a bit. Let’s get the job finished, Baz, before anyone else shows up. Then we’re done.”

CHAPTER
 
EIGHTEEN

The following morning a particularly bleary-looking and foul-tempered Isaac came into the kitchen looking for Baz. There was an art room on the next floor, directly above the kitchen, he said, that had to be made habitable.

“Empty all the crap out and stack it in the corridor,” Isaac said. “You’ll need to clear the staircase before you can get up there, so get some help.”

Baz managed to wangle it so that Ray was sent down from the sort room to give him a hand, and the two of them made a start on clearing the blocked stairway next to the kitchen.

“What’s this all about?” said Ray. “Why are we doing this?”

“Dunno. Maybe the divers just need some extra space or something. So... have you seen Hutch this morning?”

“Yeah. And he was pretty bad, even for a Monday. Only showed up for a few minutes, though. He didn’t say anything.” Ray yanked at a broken chair. “Prob’ly doesn’t remember much. God, I’m starving. We didn’t get to eat the swipes yesterday ’cos that pig Steiner caught us and they never left us any tins out last night.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Baz. “I’ll get you something in a bit – just wait till the divers are properly out of the way.”

They eventually removed enough clutter from the stairwell to be able to reach the next level. Here they found just a single corridor, empty and featureless, a pair of double doors at the far end. There were windows down one side of the corridor, and doorways on the other – three of them. Presumably these opened into classrooms.

“OK, it must be one of these,” said Baz, and walked towards the first door.

“Yeah, but hang on a minute. Let’s just see if we can get any further...” Ray hurried down the corridor. Baz saw him try the double doors, pushing and pulling at the handles, peering through the glass.

He came back shaking his head. “Damn. I was hoping we might be able to get further round the...” He didn’t finish the sentence. “Anyway, it’s all locked up. Take a sledgehammer to break through those. Well, where are we supposed to be, then?”

“Isaac said it was an art room. Above the kitchen.”

Ray began to move away, but Baz said, “Hold on,” and pushed open the first door. This turned out to be a small washroom – just a sink and two cubicles.

“Oh, right.” Baz glanced about him. “Well, we’ve got to sort out the jakes as well... bring some stuff up...”

Then he realized that he was talking to himself, and so he stepped back out into the corridor. Ray had already opened the next door down.

“Found it.” Ray’s muffled voice. Baz went to join him, feeling that he was a step behind somehow. He entered the room and saw lines of desks and stools, a big paint-splattered sink with upturned jam jars on the draining board – a few paintbrushes that had been left to clean in a jar of white spirit, very sticky. And pictures, brightly colored pictures, all around the walls.

“So what’ve we got to do?” said Ray.

“Get rid of all the desks and that. Just shove ’em along the corridor, and stack ’em up at the end. Bring up some buckets of water and put ’em in the jakes. And we gotta haul three mattresses up here. Isaac said they’d be left outside the storeroom, with some new duvets.”

“Yeah? Wonder what’s going on. Who it’s for...”

“Dunno. Come on. We’d better get started.”

It really didn’t take that long, and with just one more mattress left to install, Baz reckoned it was time for a break.

“Come on,” he said. “The divers’ll have gone by now. I’ll sneak you into the kitchen and we can get something to eat. Then we can sort the last bed out, and that’ll be it.”

“Yeah? Wow. I’m starving. Let’s go then.”

Baz was right. The salvage crew had long disappeared, and all was quiet downstairs. He opened the kitchen food cupboard and grabbed a couple of tins. “What do you fancy, then – tuna fish? Peaches?” It made him feel proud all of a sudden, to be in charge of all this, and to be able to offer such luxuries.

But Ray didn’t appear to be as interested in food as he had been a moment ago. He was looking towards the far corner of the kitchen, and said, “You know, I’m sure this must... What’s through that door down there?”

“Huh? Oh, you can’t get out that way. It’s all blocked up with rubble.”

This was what Cookie had told him, but the truth was that Baz had never actually looked. The far end of the kitchen was where the gas ranges were, and as none of these worked there was rarely any reason to go down there. But Ray was already trying the handle, putting his shoulder to the door and repeatedly shoving against it.

“What are you doing?” Baz felt vaguely annoyed. “We haven’t got time to be mucking about.”

“Hah. Yeah, I 
thought
 this must be right.” With a final thump and scrape of masonry, Ray had managed to shove the door open far enough to wriggle round it. “Come and have a look.”

Baz sighed and wandered down to see what Ray had found.

It was a stairwell. From amidst a pile of concrete and broken glass rose a spiral stair – white-painted railings and wooden steps. Shafts of daylight shone from above. Baz picked his way amongst the rubble and looked upwards. He could see where the wall had crumbled away high above him, a great section of it having collapsed. The spiral stairway was exposed to the outside world at this point, its railings all kinked and twisted. But it seemed to be more or less intact. Climbable perhaps...

“Blimey,” said Baz. “How did you know this was here?”

“Well...” Ray reached out to grab one of the railings. “I saw it from the outside. You know, when we went up to the playing field. I just reckoned it had to end up around here somewhere.”

“Yeah? Wonder where it goes.”

“Well, let’s take a look. Might not get another chance.” Ray was already clambering onto the first accessible step. “Come on. It’ll only take a minute.”

“Blimey, Ray...” Baz wasn’t prepared for this but felt that he was being given little choice in the matter. If Ray was determined to go, then he would have to follow.

About halfway up they reached the point where the stairway was effectively outside the building. From here they had a rear view of the tiny island and the lane that led up to the playing fields. Baz hadn’t realized that the lane was at the very boundary of the land. Beyond its overgrown hedge was nothing but the grey and endless sea.

“Better keep going,” said Ray. “Don’t want to risk being seen.”

Higher they climbed, round and round, and into the dim shadows of the building once more. Eventually they could go no further. The spiral staircase opened out onto a broad landing. Ray didn’t hesitate or pause to look about him. He turned left.

“Phew, this is a bit of a mess.” Baz caught up with Ray, and they walked side by side. Part of the roof was missing here, a huge section of it ripped away by the storms, and the interior of the building was soaking wet as a consequence. Black mildew grew on the walls, and the corridor was deeply puddled, awash with floating debris. The place stank. Baz splashed along, saying no more for the moment. He realized that he was still carrying the tins of tuna fish and peaches.

They turned a corner, climbed a short flight of stairs, and now the floors were dry. Another corridor, another corner. They appeared to be going round in a circle, or rather a square.

“What are we looking for?” said Baz. He would have been interested in stopping here and there, the better to take in his surroundings, but Ray seemed to be walking with a purpose, ignoring the classroom doors, the passages that led off in other directions.

“I just got a hunch about something,” said Ray. “Schools are all pretty much the same, aren’t they?”

It was true. This was all very familiar to Baz. And how weird it was to see again the signs of a former life – the notice boards, the photographs, the trophy cases with their various cups and plaques.

But no bodies, thank goodness. It had been half-term, Baz remembered, when it happened. All the kids at this school would have been at home for half-term. Just as he had been...

“Aha – what’s this?” Ray had stopped in front of a glass door. Sellotaped to the inside of the glass was a printed sheet of A4 paper. 
ALL LIBRARY CARDS MUST BE SHOWN. REMEMBER: NO CARD, NO BOOK!

A library.

“Yeah. I guessed it,” said Ray. “Had to be up here somewhere. Come on, let’s take a look.” He pulled open the glass door, and the two of them stepped inside.

Baz stood still and gazed about him. A 
library
. God. And it all looked so perfect. The room was large and airy, full of light, with windows along two of its sides. And amazingly it seemed to be completely intact. Not smashed or burned or looted, as all such places on the mainland now were, not torn apart by hurricanes or torrential rains. Everything preserved just as it should be, everything still in place. Books stacked properly on their shelves, a row of computers with their monitor screens neatly covered, the librarian’s desk cleared and tidied for the holiday. All had been made ready for the second half of the summer term.

But then the second half of that summer term had never come...

Baz put down his tins of food and wandered over to the nearest set of bookshelves, a science section, touching the neat rows of volumes, running his fingers along the spines. How wonderful it would be to just sit here and read for the rest of the afternoon. How fantastic to be able to do that. To sit and read... or maybe just look at pictures. His fingertips traced the embossed silver lettering on 
The World’s Greatest Inventions
, and after a moment he pulled the book from the shelf. The first thing he did was sniff it. He let the pages fall open and brought them close to his face, burying himself in the heady smell of paper and ink, something he had never expected to do again. Amazing.

He put the book back in its place and roamed around some more, looking at the pictures on the walls, photos, the various projects that had been going on. There was a display area set out, with a big photograph of a bald man sitting in a chair. He was holding up a book. An author perhaps. A group of girls looked over the man’s shoulder, bending slightly in order to get in the frame, obviously posed. Big smiles all round, although none of them could have been very comfortable.

“What do you think? This could be great, yeah?” Ray was standing with his back to one of the windows, arms folded.

“How do you mean, 
could
 be great? It 
is
 great.”

“I mean as a hiding place,” said Ray. “Like, if we could manage to sneak up here on Sundays. Nobody’d ever know we were here.”

“God... yeah! I hadn’t even thought about that.”

“Well, let’s think about it now, then. Hey – what did you do with those tins? Are they ring-pull?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I’ll go and get them.”

“D’you really think it can happen? I mean, the bomb-thing. Or is it just stupid?”

They sat on two stools, side by side, at the opened windows of the library, finishing off the last of the peaches. This had definitely been the best morning that either of them could remember since the day they’d arrived. No Isaac, no capos, no Preacher John. Nobody to push them around or beat them up or put them down the hole. Or kill them. Here was a glimpse of another life, a tomorrow free of all the horrors that surrounded them today.

“It’s not stupid,” said Baz. “This is what it could be like.”

“Just us.”

“Yeah.”

They gazed out across the view, their elbows resting on the windowsill. Everything seemed... lighter up here. Yes, a different kind of light. They might have been in a restaurant, thought Baz. Or a café, maybe. A bright bookstore café, with paintings on the walls – nothing to do but drink coffee and talk... and be happy.

And though the view was undoubtedly strange – what with the church tower poking up out of the waters, along with the rusting crane – and though the sun didn’t shine properly like it used to, and the rain came pounding down most days, it could still be beautiful. It could be...

Baz stared lazily down towards the jetty, watching the gentle rocking motion of the salvage boat, and it was another moment before realization exploded within him. The boat was back! It was bumping against the jetty wall, and there was Luke, throwing a rope towards Steiner.

Oh my God...

“Ray!” Baz grabbed at Ray’s shoulder. “Look – they’re back. Quick! We’ve gotta get out of here!”

“Oh hell...” said Ray, and in another few moments the two of them were out of the door, racing along the echoing corridors, splashing through puddles and flying down the spiral staircase towards the darker world that waited for them below.

Isaac was coming in through the front entrance just as they arrived at the storeroom. He glanced at the mattress that was propped against the wall and said, “Haven’t you finished that yet? Well, it can wait a second. Just leave it for now.”