Unfed by Kirsty McKay Read Free Book Online Page B

“your mum. She must be able to help us. She did a pretty good job of that last time. Oh god.” Realization dawns across Pete’s pale face. “Four survivors from the crash. We are the four.” He reaches to put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Bobby.”
    I spring up off the desk. “Forget it, Pete. If you want to make me feel better, get back on that computer and find us a way out of here, and fast!”
    I stride off to the bathroom and slam the door behind me.

OK, so that was a little cheap of me, and Pete probably didn’t deserve it, but I was getting majorly claustro in there. The truth is, I’m exhausted. I’ve never known tiredness like it, so much effort required to even keep upright. Like those six weeks of Sleeping Beauty didn’t quite take the edge off.
    And above all, I need to read that paper.
    I get it out of my pocket quickly and scan the words that wobble in front of my wired eyes.
    Persons of interest re O/vc retrieval … highest priority … individuals to be kept in strict isolation until further notice . . .
    And then Alice. And then me.
    A list of stuff — drugs? Tests they’ve given us? I have no clue what these words mean.
    For a double doctors’ daughter, I ought to know more than this.
    I shove the paper back in my pocket and lean my forehead against the mirror. It feels blissfully cool. I’m running a fever, I’m sure of it. Maybe I am sick. In so many ways it would be easy if I just crumpled here, in this bathroom, into a bag of bones and skin with virus oozing from every aching pore.
    “ Get over it, Roberta . . .” Smitty whispers in my ear.
    “And you can shut the hell up, too!” I yell at him. “Unless you say something helpful, don’t say anything at all!”
    I wait for him to reply, but he doesn’t.
    I look at my reflection. I’m really not coping well with the St. Gertrude’s Experience. Am I going insane? Is this cold turkey or am I on the turn? I look at the dark spikes of hair beginning to poke out of my hairline. Maybe it will grow back curly, if I’m here long enough. I wonder what I’ll look like then.
    In the mirror’s reflection, something behind me catches my eye. I turn around to get a better look.
    Above the toilet, up on the wall, is a familiar-looking plastic grating.
    Thanks, Gertie. A way out? I take it all back.
    OK, recess over . I gingerly put the toilet lid down and climb up on it, reaching up to remove the grating. Putting one foot on the cistern, I can just about pull myself up and look into the air vent. Leaning forward, I push my head and shoulders into the gap, my legs and still hanging out into the room below. There’s a breeze on my face; I can’t see much, but I can see enough. Ahead is one of those fans, set into the vent. No thruway. How totally annoying.
    “Found something?”
    I bang my head on the roof of the vent. Twisting round a little, I can see Russ standing in the doorway.
    “No.” I rub my head, and realize that from where he’s standing he’s got a front-row view of my butt in all its underweared glory. I hurriedly turn around on the cistern, and as I put a foot down on the toilet lid I slip,my hand grabbing at a towel rail to help break my fall. But all that happens is I break the towel rail; a length of shiny metal comes away in my hand, and I fall to the stinky linoleum floor at the base of the toilet bowl.
    “You OK?” He reaches out to pull me up, but I decline to be pulled.
    “I’m good, thanks.” I push myself up to my feet, brushing off bits of plaster from where the towel rail came out of the wall.
    “No way out up there?” He quietly shuts the door out to the control room.
    “That’s right.” I pull at my fleece. Gah . Why couldn’t my leggings have survived the bus crash, too?
    “Least you found a weapon.” He nods at the towel rail in my hand. I look down at it, too. He might be right. “And I know you know how to handle yourself.”
    “Fnarr, fnarr!” Smitty’s voice pops into my