“Oh. My. God. That is disgusting.” It stinks in here, and while I am trying to be stoic and only breathe shallowly, John has decided to go with his first instincts and fight the urge to be sick.
God, I hate it when other people are right. And he is. All the glass within throwing distance is broken and lies in a deadly moat round the building. All the plants have died because their environments aren’t being controlled anymore.
“Why are we bothering? There’s nothing here but glass and mush, just like I said.”
“Shut up. There might be something inside.”
“Right’ he chuckles and looks at the sky ‘you have to be kidding. I’m not going in there.”
“Ok. Stay here and look at the floor. I’ll be back soon.”
“You’re actually going in?”
“Do you have a good reason why not?”
“Well…it…um…it stinks!”
“Not good enough. See ya.” I step over the threshold, leaving John to sit on the floor and mutter to himself about me. I’m tempted to tell him to go home, to leave, but he’s growing on me. Even the grouchiness.
Latin names lie rotting in green and brown on the floor. The smell is worse, and I’m convinced there can be no one in here. But then again, who knows? And I am supposed to be an investigative journalist.
I stand in a rare bit of clear ground, and realise that it must have been cleared by someone. It’s quite big, but almost perfectly circular. At the edges there are a couple of mounds of leaves, about as big and as long as…as a man. I turn round, but there only seem to be two. And then over by something that might have been a Palm, I see a smaller one. I’m torn now. Do I look, or do I go and presume that I’m being paranoid? And if I look and my theory’s right, then what? What can I do? But then, if I go out, I’ll never know, and I’ll be annoyed about this forever. And then, if it is what I think, I’ll probably never be able to forget. In the end, curiosity draws me in, and I have to go over. I choose the larger mounds. If it is a child, I don’t want to see it. I kneel down, and gingerly begin to peel away the large leaves.

“Jenny! Jenny!” All of a sudden I realise John is shouting at me. He’s still not come over the threshold, but I can hear him. Gratefully I stand up.
“What?”
“There’s some people coming. Drop whatever you’re doing and come here.”
“How do you know they’re coming here?”
“Oh where else would they be going you stupid cow? Just get out here now.”
“Oh, alright. I’m coming.”
“Quickly, idiot!”
“John, would you shut up! I can’t run in here, I’ll bloody well fall over!” he stays quiet for a second, and then I reach the door. I can see who he means. They’re definitely coming this way, and they’re all dressed in green. I’m not feeling particularly investigative, so we move away, and as soon as it doesn’t look suspicious, we break into a run. About fifteen minutes later, and over a golf course, we reach something that looks like safety. Well, basically it looks abandoned. We collapse on the floor and just breathe for a couple of minutes. “But you didn’t even think to check?”
“Look, when you shouted the only thing I found was three mounds that looked like graves. So piss off. Anyway, you weren’t much help, staying outside.”
“Oh, and if I hadn’t, we’d have been caught robbing graves in someone’s home. I guess this was a bad idea.”
“What?”
“Me coming along with you. I’m going home.” “I thought you were a big girl, you seem like you can look after yourself.”
“I have a way with words, not my bloody fists. If a tribe decide I’m trespassing, I can’t exactly get out of it by interviewing them.”
“You’re a clever girl…you’ll think of something. It was nice meeting you.” And he walked off and left me there. I would have shouted at him but I didn’t have the energy. I figured I had a couple of hours of daylight left, and I could get somewhere. I pulled my A-Z out of my bag and tried to find out where I was nearest to. [Yes, I know she’s in Kew, but she’s gone out the other end and it’s in a pretty big park]. Evelyn Road…there’s a hospital just over the way, but I haven’t liked hospitals since…forever, basically. I decide to head for Richmond Tube Station. If no-one’s there, I’ll sleep there tonight, and if there is, I’ll have to hope they’re nice.
The walk to the station is surprisingly quick, and I begin to feel a little bit more hopeful. I don’t need him anyway. Company would have been nice, but sod him. I’m Jenny Sparks and I can do anything. [index]
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