Escape From Norriswood

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Rosalyn waded through the smoke-filled air. Behind the barrels now, the wind played the five fires upwards, and the smoke was so great it seemed to form its own clouds. Clouds that demanded to be inhaled, that funnelled themselves around Rosalyn, into her lungs.

She closed her eyes, and walked forward in the black. Rosalyn blinked and could see that the road stretched out now, deserted. The lights from the street-lamps were out, and the only lights cutting through the night were red-hewn and some ways ahead in the distance: the rotating lights of a cop car, or an ambulance.

The bottoms of her sneakers clapped the dark asphalt, and a few moments later she could see that down to the left of the road, the mill loomed up, concrete and broken, towards the sky. The smoke pipe at the top flung thick clouds into the town the way it always did. The houses and buildings all connected by skywalks, the fence beyond reached back as far as she could see, before the dark forest rose up in the night as the last thing Rosalyn could squint, make out on the horizon.

Then, the sounds of human voices were shot into Rosalyn's ear. In the parking lot of the mill's front office, she scanned her eyes and caught a gang of bodies clumped on the mill road, right in front of the main office, and in front of them, Rosalyn could see what looked to be Tara's father, and another man, sitting down. The whirling lights of the police car were off to the side, and further back, and then in the shadows around the car, police officers. She ran towards them.

By the time she reached the end of the line, where men dressed in black raincoats stood around, and muttered to themselves, Rosalyn's footsteps fell out of rhythm, into a halt. Tara's father stood a couple of meters in front of the mill's front gate, a shotgun held in his thick palms. A man who sat in the wooden chair beside him, was gagged. He looked identical to Phil. His arms stretched backwards, behind the chair, and Rosalyn realized that his hands and feet must be tied up.

Tara's father was shouting to one of the policemen standing off to the side, and whom Rosalyn could see now was aiming a pistol at Phil's heart.

"Someone needs to come forward and admit to me that the mill I have been working for the past twenty-five years was a cover-up for a cloning experiment. If no one comes forward I'll kill this clone in front of all of you," Phil said.

"Sir, please put the gun down, and step away from the man beside you," the officer said. "Everything has a logical explanation, we can work this out together. Just please put the gun down or we will have to shoot."

Rosalyn saw Phil's index finger curled around the trigger of his shotgun. The way he held it out with one arm, the gold barrel reflecting in the flickering red and blue lights of the police car, and wavering, up and down, up and down.

Rosalyn looked around for Terry. What exactly did Terry know? Would he be able to talk Phil out of this?

She wondered if Terry was watching all this from afar, refusing to step forward. If he had been trying to uncover the truth about mill towns, wouldn't he like to see if Phil's threat worked out?

She rested her weight onto the tips of her toes until they hurt, and peered around the crowd. Lots of people were wearing ball caps, jackets, grey and black in colour, like Terry's, but Rosalyn couldn't make out if Terry was there. Near the front of the line, she could see the tops of two ball caps sticking out of the crowd; the two people who wore them were close together, but more dark coats and bodies, standing in the way blocked their faces from her.

"Phil, is there anyone we can get down here," the officer said. "Anyone you'd like to talk to, who can prove to you that this man you have here is not your clone."