The Forgotten Child. D. E. White

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СКАЧАТЬ She had been trying to get her phone … Guilt mingled sourly with the pain, and Holly retched. The blackness spun, sending her back into her nightmare. Milo, where was Milo?

      The nausea woke her properly, and she wriggled, aware of sharp stabbing pains in her neck, her back, and her chest, but ignoring them. ‘Milo!’

      There was no sound from the back of the car, and she couldn’t turn any further. Panic flooded her body, hot and vicious. It gave her the strength to wrench herself free from the space between her seat and the detonated airbag. She was half kneeling now, one leg on the passenger seat, pushing away a mess of sports bags and camping gear that had been thrown from the boot. Tears and rain were washing the blood from her face, and she was shaking with the shock and cold.

      The car was battered, but at least the right way up. At some point she remembered it rolling over, surely … But apart from the bonnet and windscreen, it seemed fairly intact. Some freak of engineering meant the headlights were still on, their twin beams sending dancing white paths of light into the woods. But the darkness and the shadows gathered all around the light, overwhelming it, jostling and claustrophobic.

      Both windows on the right-hand side, Milo’s side, were smashed. His seatbelt was hanging free. She could see his hand, still and pale, stretched out across the seat, but she still couldn’t get far enough to see more. Her hands were shaking, but she continued to rip away the debris. As she struggled, one foot caught the driver’s door, hard, and it opened with a bang. Abandoning any thought of wriggling through the narrow space between the seats, she squeezed frantically past the airbag, out into the woods.

      The rear door was stuck fast and she hauled at it with all her strength. It wouldn’t budge. Holly screamed, and the rain-savaged woods echoed with her son’s name. She kicked viciously and uselessly at the metal like an animal caught in a trap. The smell of rotten wetness, tainted with fuel fumes brought her back. She needed to keep it together. Christ knew where her phone was. The pain in her leg and chest was excruciating, but she carried on yanking the door. Inch by inch, resisting her sweaty, bloody fingers, it finally opened, slowly and with a protesting whine of metal. There were the stabbing pains in her neck and back again, but she ignored them, panting through the pain.

      ‘Milo!’ She was in the car now, scrabbling for his hand. ‘Milo, are you okay? Can you hear me?’ Of course he couldn’t or he would have answered, but the sound of her own voice was a small comfort in this nightmare.

      Holly wriggled further across the back seats, clinging to the headrests, fumbling in the shadows. There was a torch in the towrope bag in the boot but who knew where that had ended up. Milo was half sitting, half lying on his side. There was a cut on his head, and a small stream of blood was snail-trailing down his cheek onto the seat. His small chest was rising and falling in a reassuring manner, but his skin was cold under her frantic fingertips. Where was her bloody phone?

      But as Holly shoved her way further in, moving another bag out the way, she saw Milo was no longer alone in the back. Another boy, also apparently unconscious, but with no visible injuries, was sitting in the other seat. His head was lolled sideways, his face a pale blur against the shattered window.

      ‘What the fuck?’ Holly realised she had spoken aloud again, her words thrown into the sullen, spattering rain, echoing up to the silent trees. A ghost, it had to be a ghost, this child who had materialised inside her car. Either that or she was actually unconscious and dreaming the whole thing.

      She reached a shaking hand across the car and touched the other boy. As her fingers met his cheek she had to force herself not to recoil. His skin was cold and clammy, and she thought she could see a head wound, but, as with her own child, she could see the steady rise and fall of his chest. Holly let out a long breath and inched back towards Milo, squeezing his limp hand, reassuring herself. A high-pitched whimpering made her jump, until she realised it was herself making animal sounds of fear. Where the fuck had he come from?

      Squinting towards the road, she could just about make out the path of destruction the car had made as it left the road and hurtled into its final resting place against this cluster of giant trunks. There was no sign of the other vehicle that had rear-ended them, and no clue as to how her other passenger had arrived in her vehicle.

      Realising she was wasting time staring blankly at the two children, Holly yanked herself back to reality and started yelling for help. Her cries echoed through the trees, seemingly futile in the vastness of the wood. Perhaps she should try to climb back up to the road, flag down the next car. But she seriously doubted she could make it, with the injuries that shot pain along her limbs and stabbed inside her head. Anyway, she couldn’t leave the children. Not one, but two children … She shouted again.

      What if the other driver had meant to run her off the road? He could have stopped his car further along, and could be climbing down to … To what? She squinted into the shadows, icy fingers caressing her spine. Had he already been down and left another child in her car? There didn’t seem to be any other explanation, because she had sure as hell only had one passenger when she left the road.

      A sound made her gasp, and it took a moment for Holly to realise it was her phone ringing. She blinked round, puzzled, finally locating the illuminated screen a few feet away half buried in the leafy forest floor. Relief flooded her body and tears coursed down her cheeks, stinging her cut face. Holly wiped them away and took a deep breath, glancing back quickly at the boys.

      She staggered towards her phone, checked as an electric flash of pain reminded her she was injured, and went down on her knees to crawl instead. Every movement made her wince now, as the adrenalin wore off, and by the time her trembling hand touched the plastic casing of her phone, tears were streaking her cheeks again. The missed call was from an unknown number, and they hadn’t left a voicemail. It seemed to take ages to tap out the three digits she wanted, and all the time she stayed half sitting, half lying against a wet tree trunk, her eyes on the two children who sat so still and pale in the back seat of her car.

      Finally, as she was starting to worry about the lack of phone signal, she got through to the operator, and waited again, patiently, answering the necessary questions as best she could.

      In a surprisingly short time blue lights and sirens pierced the blackness. The rain was clearing, or at least she was sheltered, so deep in the woods. Holly was back at the car. With difficulty, gasping in pain at every movement, she had dragged an old picnic blanket out of the chaos, and tucked it carefully around the boys.

      Checking their breathing, she wiped away the blood from Milo’s head with a folded T-shirt from his bag, careful not to move either child. The jelly sweets were strewn carelessly across the seat, and Holly bit her lip at the sight of them. Please, God, let Milo be okay …

      The rear passenger seats were reasonably dry, roof still intact, but the front of the car was trashed. She couldn’t stop herself from gently touching the other boy’s cheek again, almost to reassure herself that he was actually real. This time she smoothed his hair back as she had Milo’s, and a rush of emotion hit. This poor child had been abandoned in her car. He wasn’t a ghost or a dream, but a real boy who someone had dumped in a crashed car. Perhaps whoever did it had thought she was dead, had hoped they would all die …

      His hair was dark brown, and now she was closer she could see it was indeed streaked with blood from his head injury. There was something about the shape of his face that prodded her memory. Had she seen him before? He was about Milo’s age, perhaps a little older. At school, perhaps?

      Shouts from the road cut into her thoughts, and soon a reassuring number of people were climbing carefully down to her car. She shouted back, in answer to their quick questions, and waited as they manoeuvred carefully through the undergrowth.

      Holly СКАЧАТЬ