Out of Nowhere Read Online Free Page B

notebook from Kirsten.
    ‘You’re coming on this raid of ours?’ he asked Stephen.
    ‘If that’s all right.’
    Philip nodded. ‘It’s good.’ He smiled. ‘Maybe you can calm this young one down. We’d need a moving-van to bring half the stuff she wants to thieve, and a gang of brickies to shift it.’
    Kirsten giggled.
    ‘Maybe it’s the only chance I’ll ever have to be a major criminal,’ she said.
    ‘You obviously don’t know our local market town,’ said Philip laughing.
    He looked at his watch.
    ‘I want to talk to the abbot before we go,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you two have a last look at the list? Maybe Stephen can think of something we forgot.’
    He laughed again as he went out the door.
    When Stephen read the list he understood Philip’s laughter. There were about ten pages of items, many of them highly unlikely. The notion that he might add anything to it was ludicrous.
    ‘This looks like you’re getting ready for a siege!’ he said.
    Kirsten put on a playfully mysterious face.
    ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘But who knows what will happen next? We have to be ready for any eventuality!’
    ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I think this lot will equip you for anything short of a flood. And that seems hardly likely in the mountains.’
    Kirsten’s excitement was funny to see. Watching her,Stephen felt an odd feeling of fondness. The prospect of an empty world seemed to excite her strangely. Stephen, on the other hand, couldn’t think of it without wondering what had happened to all the people. Many things might have happened to them, and a lot of those things were bad. Still, it seemed a shame to ruin Kirsten’s excitement by reminding her of that.
    When Philip came back he was brisk and businesslike, but under his calm exterior Stephen thought he detected an excitement that almost matched Kirsten’s. It was a different kind of excitement though, a peculiar mixture of glee and unease which Stephen felt he must be imagining. They chatted briefly, but still Stephen sensed the same mixed feelings under Philip’s calm, amused exterior.
    So what’s the problem if he’s mixed up? Stephen asked himself. It’s exactly how you feel yourself.
    But Philip made him uneasy in a way that was even odder than the fondness he’d felt for Kirsten. He chided himself. They were both total strangers. What did he know about either of them?
    ‘Right,’ the big monk said finally. ‘That’s everything, I think. You’re sure you’re up to this, Kirsten?’
    Kirsten gave him a withering look.
    ‘Just you try to leave me behind,’ she said. ‘I’d follow on foot.’
    ‘I declare to God,’ Philip said, ‘but I believe you would.’
    He picked up the notebook, closed the cover and slapped the table with it.
    ‘Very well, lady and gentleman,’ he said.‘There’s a world out there waiting to be pillaged, a rotten job, I know, but someonehas to do it! Let’s go.’
    And he led the way out with yet another laugh, which to Stephen sounded oddly forced. It was the last laugh that Philip would have for quite some time.

7. Agents In The Flesh
    Sense came slowly. I didn’t hurry it. It was like waking from a special kind of sleep. I was just an awareness, receiving information through limited but vivid senses. I was in a body.
    I knew where I was, more or less. To be in a place … the mere thought of it sent a shiver of excitement up the spine. A light sweat broke out on the skin, and I squirmed with a rich mix of fear, joy and tension. This is like no other feeling. Once felt, it can’t be mistaken for anything else.
    I opened the eyes. There was a blue sky overhead. Blueness. I was out in the open, under a blue sky. I lay still for another moment, savouring the old sensations. I could feel the eyes blinking, reacting to the myriad colours and shapes. I could feel the muscles in the eyelids, perfect, tiny. I had a throat. I swallowed, to feel the movement there. I felt the mouth smile.
    I sat up. I was on green grass