Authors: Christopher Heffernan
They walked
along the street, eating their burgers out of paper wrappers. Industrial
pollution passed overhead, and he saw himself in the puddles he walked through,
more haggard than he remembered, and thinner. The blue skies darkened and
blurred into purple at the horizon. Lights turned the streets a shade of
orange.
He felt cold and
miserable, and every step he took was a reluctant one.
“I know that
look,” Megan said, breath turning to mist. She buttoned up the top of her coat
and moved in to lean against him as they walked. “You don't want to go back to
England.”
“Am I really
that easy to read?”
“Like an open
book. I've barely known you two days, but you just let everything show on your
face. You're terrible at hiding what you're thinking about, so don't ever take
up poker.”
“I'll keep it in
mind.” The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as felt her body heat.
They dumped the
remains of their food into an overflowing bin, and the wind knocked it straight
off the top of the pile and into the road.
“But if it makes
you feel any better, I'd know anyway. I've seen that look before; my husband's
in the army,” she said, stroking the ring on her finger with a thumb. “He hates
the job and loves it at the same time. Every time his leave is up, he gets that
same look in his eyes. He's not the sort of guy you'd expect to get shaken up
like that, but it always seems to get to him. Never says anything, either, just
turns around and walks away. It feels like we never talk as much as we should.
Marriage on autopilot.”
Megan sighed.
The sky turned that little bit darker and the lights that little bit lighter.
His eyes ached from the shades of orange and brown.
“It's hard.
Everything is hard these days.”
“What's it like
over there?”
“In England?”
She nodded.
“A mess. Most of
the country is uninhabitable. Scotland is mostly gone, except for Glasgow, and
everything east of France, Italy and the Nordic countries is a wasteland until
you hit occupied India. What's left of Europe is a dump.”
Megan bit her
lip. “Sounds bad.”
“I guess it is,
but when you live amongst it for long enough, you stop noticing. It becomes
ordinary, just another run down street, or another house that's laid
undisturbed for a decade, complete with the skeletons of the occupants.
“It's easy to
forget what the sky looks like under the plate, but even when you're on top,
there's so much pollution it always seems like night time anyway.”
“My husband was
a company commander in thirty-seven during the second Korean War, and now he's
commanding a battalion and faced with the possibility of killing his friends
and family just because they live in a different state.”
Neither of them
said anything for a while. The streets seemed deserted, and the buildings grew
taller until they were enveloped on all sides by concrete and brick, leaving
the sky as the only piece of natural scenery.
“Do you really
think they're crazy enough to fight another war? A civil one? This is one of
the few places left that isn't destroyed. The people here don't know how lucky
they are.”
She shrugged.
“That's what they said before, wasn't it? ’There's too much at stake, nobody
wants to risk complete destruction, people don't want to die, the politicians
will sort it out'. But the politicians started the wars anyway, and look where
we are now.”
“Stupid.”
“What can you
do? Nothing. Nobody really has a say in what happens, it's all about keeping
your head down and praying that you come out of it alive. What time is your
flight out of here?”
Michael checked
his watch. “I'm heading out at five. Rick is going to drive me back.”
“I'll drive you.
It'll be quicker.”
She walked him
to the shopping area. Restaurants pumped the smell of freshly cooked meals into
the air, and Michael stopped by a pillar, observing a remote-controlled chain
gun mounted high above his head. It tracked left and right, ammunition feed
stretching as it pivoted away from the mount. A green light flashed every five
seconds on its camera.
“What are you
going to do when you get back?” Megan said.
He hesitated for
a moment, still looking at the chain gun, before answering. “Maybe I can hunt
the group down. I know what to look for now. They'll leave footprints behind
somewhere, it's just a case of finding them. I'd rather drop the case, but my
commander won't let it lie. There's a lot he's not telling me.”
“Somebody paid a
lot of money to get you access to this information, major bribes. They wouldn't
do that if they didn't think they had a higher pay off down the line. Your
commander's dropped you in over your head. Good luck, you'll need it. And be
careful. I mean it. One moment of hesitation is all it takes to cost you your
life, and I've seen too many people end up dead. They never know it's coming
until that last second, and then it's too late.”
He nodded.
“Thanks for your help, I'll see you around.”
Megan smiled.
“You won't, but all the same, see you.”
She tightened
her scarf around the neck, gave him a nod and faded into the crowds, where the
hordes of people swallowed her up.
Michael went
into a discount bookshop where the dollar prices meant nothing to him. They
carried books like Black Widows: Deadly Serial Killers of America, How to Think
Like A Genius, and The Fatties' Guide to Fast Slimming, with endorsements from
no name reviewers and celebrities he'd never heard of.
He moved onto
the next aisle, stopping dead in his tracks as another book caught his eye.
Michael's throat turned dry. He stared at the cover, made from a composite of
different photos to reflect British forces fighting in Berlin, and unified by a
few coloured filters. His eyes drifted up to the blood red title.
He recognised
the tank, recalled the endless burnt out husks he'd walked alongside on the
roads, and the charred bodies of the crew members who hadn't been able to
escape before they died.
The cover
claimed it was a best-seller, but he didn't know if it was true or not. He
plucked it off the shelf and flipped it over to look at the back cover, then
wished he hadn't. Michael looked around, waiting for the businessman in the
aisle to move onto the next. He let it slip from his hand and kicked it out of
the sight beneath the shelf.
Sweat glistened
on the palms of his hands, reflecting the lights above. He wiped them on the
front of his coat and glanced over his shoulder to make sure nobody had seen
him. The stabbing pain in his chest remained.
A young employee
stopped him near the end of the aisle, long hair draped over his shoulders.
“Hey, man. Are you sick? You look like you're gonna puke.”
“I'm fine.”
The man
shrugged. “Well, if you pop, make sure it's outside. I'm always the one that
has to clean that shit up, and it's a real bitch to get out of the carpet.”
He went back to
stacking shelves.
In the far
corner of the shop was a cardboard bargain bin filled with packets of sweets.
Something dark moved amongst them, disappearing for an instant. The cockroach
reappeared with two others. A security alarm screeched outside, and then
screaming. The other customers began to move towards the front of the shop,
faster and faster.
“Oh shit, oh
shit, oh shit,” the employee muttered to himself, as he trembled.
“What's
happening?” Michael said
The man blinked,
looked at him for an instant and ran to the back of the shop. He passed through
the storeroom door, and the lock clicked shut.
Michael moved to
the entrance, only to find his path blocked by a dozen people standing in the
doorway. A burst of automatic fire sounded from somewhere nearby, sharp and
intense. People ran through the terminal in the opposite direction, and one
woman dropped her purse. Hundred dollar bills scattered across the floor, but
she didn't stop, and neither did anybody else.
The flashing
green light on the remote weapon station turned red. It jerked on its pivot,
aligned its barrel with some of the crowds and spat bullets at them. Recoil
shook the weapon and its linkless feed, and empty casings ejected from the side
as half-inch rounds splattered people over the floors.
Blood ran like
spilt water, and people screamed, fighting each other to get out of the way,
sometimes stumbling when they brought others down with them, too slow to avoid
the bullets.
Two marines
returned fire, blasting chunks out of the pillar before finally damaging the
weapon's ammunition feed. It ceased to shoot. Gunshots sounded from other parts
of the terminal.
“This way,
quickly now. Move,” one marine said, beckoning to the group huddled in the
bookshop.
They pushed for
the right to be first. Machine gun fire chewed them up, and bullets shattered
the shop windows as somebody cried out. Both marines went down. Michael
stumbled behind one of the shelves.
He breathed so
quickly a wave of nausea overcame him. He found his hands shaking and reached
instinctively with one for the gun that wasn't holstered on his hip. A distant
explosion sounded outside, and he tensed up, knuckles turning white as he
gripped part of the shelf and leaned out just enough to see into the terminal.
A pair of men in
casual clothes and body armour strolled along, stepping over bodies and puddles
of blood without care. Another three followed behind. One of the marines was
still alive and tried to reach for his rifle.
The group's
leader pinned him to the ground with a foot. He pointed his rifle at the man's
head, waiting for him to realise what was happening, and then he pulled the
trigger. Brains dribbled out onto the floor from the fist-sized exit wound.
Michael backed
away deeper into the store. He knocked a book off the nearest shelf with his
elbow. Three sets of footsteps came towards the bookshop. Shards of glass
cracked beneath their feet. He crawled on his hands and knees towards the
checkout counter, and then beneath it, trying to steady his breathing.
Somebody fired
off a few rounds through one of the shelves, and shreds of paper exploded in
the air like a party-popper. Michael peeled away a strip of electrical tape
holding a snub-nosed revolver to the underside of the counter.
He pushed the
cylinder out, counted the bullets and eased it back into place. The men kicked
each shelf over in turn, and books spilled across the carpet. He felt his skin
sting with the irritation of sweat. Moisture droplets streamed down the side of
his face.
The men moved
towards the end of the store. They banged on the locked door, and the shop
employee screamed and begged for mercy. One of them fired his weapon on
automatic until the magazine emptied. The employee screamed louder.
Michael crawled
out from under the counter. He looked back into the terminal, saw the others
had gone and then crept over the scattered books and shelves. The trio had
their backs to him, but one started to turn, so he raised the revolver and
aligned the sights with his skull, before gently squeezing the trigger.
The bullet
passed through his clenched teeth and came out the other side, leaving a trail
of gum, blood and shattered bone in its wake. He collapsed against the wall.
The others spun around, and Michael fired again, but he jerked the trigger too
hard, and the bullet struck the man dead centre in his body armour.
They fired back,
spraying a hail of bullets at him. He buried himself behind a fallen shelf, and
heard the rounds punching through the metal and paper. The firing bolts on
their rifles locked. Michael peeked over the top and fired off three rounds.
The first blew
open the left shooter's kneecap, dropping him, but the others went wide, and
his cohort was already reaching for the German 9mm in its quick-release holster
when Michael put the last bullet in his groin.
Michael rose
from his cover and sprinted forward, clambering over the mess, nearly tripping
on another shelf and reaching the group just before they could react. He tossed
a discounted children's playset at the second man. His nose crunched under the
impact. The third was reaching again for his pistol with a convulsing hand and
wide eyes.
He batted the
hand away and took the pistol for himself, executing all three of them in turn
with single shots to the forehead. The entry wounds left them looking like they
wore bindi spots, until blood began to leak down the front of their faces.
His throat was
dry, and the adrenaline left him as quickly as it had flooded his body. A wave
of fatigue washed over him, forcing him to the ground in the corner, where he
sat unmoving.
“Is it safe?”
the shop worker shouted from behind the door.
“No,” Michael
said. He remained in the corner, waiting and wondering what was going on
outside.
The drone of
aircraft overhead snapped him out of his stupor. He looked out of the shop and
across the terminal to one of the runways, where they flared, nose up, shifting
both wing propellers into a vertical position as they came to a hover.
Ropes dropped
from the rear doors, and marines descended down, taking up positions behind an
abandoned luggage trailer. A storm of footsteps approached, and a gloved hand
jutted into view from around the corner, rolling a cylinder into the shop.
It exploded in a
blinding flash that never subsided, as pain filled his ears.
Gatwick terminal
filled him with a strange feeling, and his ears still rang from the stun
grenade. Somebody dropped a hardback book, and the sound echoed through the
terminal like a gunshot, mingling with hundreds of voices and footsteps. It
stopped him dead in his tracks, and he stood there, watching as a young man
picked it up again.