He looked at the main part of the plane where it lay wrecked and charred, and it had to be his imagination, but it already seemed to be merging with the valley floor. He could no longer see the blue of Charlie’s shirt, either, no matter how much he stared. All those deaths, all those lost personalities, absorbed by this jungle and reduced to nothing.

He turned and let his eyes drift across the landscape, his real reason for coming up here, taking in the river, barely visible, the area where Naomi had been killed, the distant low hills and that tempting gap between them. They had no idea what that landscape had in store for them, what trials lay hidden in the undulating terrain between here and the cleft, but at least there were features, a direction in which to travel.

The sky was blue above but off to his left, what he thought was the north, there were clouds piling up on the horizon and although rain would have helped with the water problem, he could only imagine the extra strain it would put on the ramshackle camp below him.

There was no question, they had to leave, and there was only one thing that he could envisage delaying that departure. But even as the thought settled, a wailing scream pierced the air, rising up from below, long and distressing to listen to, and he knew that the obstacle to leaving had removed itself, because the person screaming was Jess.

CHAPTER 22

Tom left the smoldering remains of the bonfire and set off down the slope. If it had worked and attracted the attention of a passing plane in that vast empty sky, then it might have all seemed different.

As he reached the group he could hear lots of them talking in low voices, but Jess’s near-hysterical voice rose above them. “No! I won’t let you.”

A calm, low response, the words just beyond Tom’s hearing, then Jess again, her voice straining. “He’s not being eaten. If you bury him, it’s just—it’s worse.… No!”

He couldn’t see Jess or Freddie, but then he heard Alice say, “Jess, we’ll lay him in one of the luggage containers for now. We can seal it shut so nothing can get to him. He’ll be okay in there until people come back here to get him.”

There was silence in response, but he guessed Jess had yielded to that suggestion, because Joel said, “Then let’s carry him to the slope. We’ll do this right, Jess.”

Tom drifted past, and found Shen and Barney sitting on the makeshift steps at the side of the plane. Shen’s T-shirt was soaked with sweat, sticking to his lean frame, his face full of dejection. Barney saw Tom and gave him a helpless shrug.