One door closes, and another one shuts.The heavy snows of winter had fallen upon most of us, the remainder had been drenched by icy rain. But the thaw had come. Forcing their through the soggy clags of earth, the first buds of Spring flowers were beginning to shoot. Forest birds were foraging amid the bright green pin pricks of recently rejuvenated lawns. The squirrels dashed from perilously high branch to branch in a frantic dance of celebration.
At last, it seemed, there was hope.
Thus inspired, PASTIE cast his eyes furtively about him. A wastrel in the darkness, he could by now flit between shadows in the periphery of one’s vision like a spectre. For the first time in his Prowling, nocturnal existence his thoughts turned to escape.
When he was convinced that there was a lasting silence, he raced the full 23 yards to the darkest outpost of the Corridor. There he found a door and, frantically sliding his palms across its surface, he soon sunk his fingers through the deep and dusty cobwebs that clung to the handle. He tried it and found it jammed.
Back he dashed, back into the semi obscured gloom of the more familiar end of the corridor where he grovelled on the floor, faintly lit by the still burning embers of fag ends. Here he found his tools, his machinery, his weapons. Here he found the hardware of hope. One after the other, he stuffed scores of ten pence pieces into his pockets. GB’s old beer cans were prised from the floor where dozens of shuffling feet and left them embedded. He found a Swiss Army knife dropped by Pete.
Laden and jangling with his wares, PASTIE lolloped back down into the impenetrable darkness, where he located the door handle once more. Ingeniously, he wedged beer can after flattened beer can between the door and its frame. Using Pete's tool, he levered it millimetre by painful millimetre until it gradually worked its way loose. Finally, he forced in a boot and then a shoulder and fought the door’s urge to slam back. Resourcefully, he poured the ten pen pieces onto the floor and piled them against the foot of the door to wedge it open.
He stepped gingerly away, and found that the door remained open. An unfamiliar breeze brushed cool his eyes.
Without further hesitation, PASTIE ran back to the other end of the corridor and in a mania of energy he grabbed one end of the sofa. He felt GfJ’s dampness pool into the webbing of his fingers, but with a firm grip he heaved the moisture heavy furniture. He knew that Sterland’s floor was being permanently scarred but with the strength of Gres and the tenacity of Dan on an RBNO mission he pulled the sofa to the door. Once there, he positioned himself behind the sofa and fairly glided it through.
With only the briefest of glances, PASTIE took one look back at what had sometimes seemed the darkness of his soul, sometimes his tomb, sometimes his only respite from life. But there was no sentiment.
PASTIE stepped out of the Corridor.To his left, in the far distance, there was a chink of light. Then there was that breeze again. Behind him, the Third Corridor door slammed shut. As if with an echo, there was another gentler slamming and that far off chink of light was immediately extinguished.
PASTIE stood in silence. The blinking whites of his eyes were just visible in the darkness of Corridor 4. A cold feeling of winter enwrapped itself around him once more.
He was alone in the dark.
But there were whispers. And there were moans. And there was the sound of bottles tinkling on bottles. And there were shuffles in the darkness.
Blind, disorientated and confused,
The Prowlers were coming.