Authors: Christopher Heffernan
He unfolded a
printout and placed it in front of Charlie. “That's the guy who did it. He's
got a radio in that picture, you see? It doesn't look like something with a
long range. Check the time stamp; would you have picked anything up?”
Charlie turned
back to his computer. “Maybe. We can't listen to everything, but if there was
something on another channel the computer might have picked it up and logged
it.”
He spun the
trackball about, navigating a blue, grey and yellow user interface that was
more text than picture with a chunky block cursor. “There's a lot of traffic at
this time. We could be here for days, unless... I recognise that type of radio
handset. Very short-range. We might have gotten something, let me change that.
Here, listen to this.”
Static erupted
from a set of desktop speakers. A distorted voice cut into it, impossibly deep,
like one of those children's tricks where people played music backwards to
uncover satanic lyrics spoken by the Devil. It faded out and then came back
again.
“What do you
make of it?” Michael said.
“Something was
screwing with the signal. I'm not sure, to be honest. It's like some kind of
poor man's attempt at encryption, except they've actually done a rather good
job of it. The only people with the expertise to figure it out these days are
the people who won't; the army.”
Michael nodded.
“Can you put it all on a disc for me? Those antennas on the roof are good for
something, right? Could they have triangulated the location of the signal
source with some of the other listening posts? If we can't work out what
they're saying then finding out where they were is the next best thing. I'll
need to check the place out. They're probably long gone by now.”
Charlie took a
long sip from his drink. “If the source was close enough the computer would
have logged it, yeah. John, make him a copy of all this. You'll have to do a
little investigating, Mike. Real investigating, like getting out of your car
and searching individual buildings. These piece of shit computers aren't very
good. Give me a minute.”
“It's a start,
and it's not like I've got anything better to go on.”
“Pass me your
map,” Charlie said. He drew a rectangle around an area north by the Thames.
“That's further
than I thought. There used to be another listening post around there. Maybe
they picked up a better signal,” Michael said.
A thin smile
spread across Charlie's face. “Your luck isn't that good, mate. They shuttered
it last March and moved the equipment to somewhere they deemed more important.
This area here, it's all abandoned warehouses, if there's anything left of
them; they've been like that since the war ended. There's some dockland there
as well.”
John slipped the
copied disc into a plastic sleeve and handed it to Michael. The clank of metal
outside drew their attention.
“Ah, shit.
Somebody must have tipped them off,” Charlie said. He pointed to his computer
monitor, now displaying footage from the camera in the courtyard.
Skinheads
rattled the gate and beat at it with hammers and metal sticks. Others hurled
bottles over the barbed wire. Glass shattered across the courtyard, and one
struck the staircase. A chorus of cheers and screams went up outside.
“That gate
doesn't look very secure,” Michael said.
Charlie took a
set of keys from his belt. He tossed them to John, who opened the weapons
locker on the wall. They put on their body armour and loaded rifles and
shotguns. “It's stronger than it looks. They're going to come out of this far
worse than us if they try and get in here.”
“We think they
have an arms cache around here somewhere, but it'll take time for them to get
organised,” John said.
Michael started
to speak.
“I know, you
can't wait around all day for them to go away, and backup will be a while, if
it ever comes. Don't worry, mate; there's another way out of here. Come on,
I'll show you. John, watch that gate. If they get past it, splatter them over
the concrete.”
“Will do,
Corporal.”
Michael followed
Charlie through a kitchen littered with the left overs of corned beef ration
packs and into the bedroom. An extendible ladder leaned against the wall.
“I suppose this
happens a lot to you, then? You haven't broken a sweat or anything yet,” Michael
said.
“Yes, more or
less. If it isn't skinheads trying to beat down the gate, it's motherfucking
metal thieves on the roof trying to steal the antennas and radio equipment.
Caught one up there the other night. We shot him to pieces, and the dogs were
happy enough to clean up the mess. Help me with this.”
They pushed the
tattered sofa across to the other side of the room. A wooden door lay beneath
it, which Charlie kicked away to reveal the hole in the floor. He extended the
ladder and lowered it through the hole. “Down here.”
The smell of
dead rodents hit him like poison gas, as he stepped off the bottom rung. Cats
meowed from the shadows. Charlie cracked the glow stick in his hand and gave it
a shake. A green glow spread across the room, lighting up animal faeces and
startling the cats. One of the felines hissed at them.
Charlie opened a
cupboard door, revealing a rusted hatch. “This goes down into an old fallout
shelter, but it has a secondary exit several buildings down. It'll get you out
of the courtyard and back onto the streets, but you'll have to be quiet. Air
ventilation is bad down there, so don't stay too long or you might suffocate,
and don't take the wrong door, otherwise it'll take you straight out into the
sewers.”
The stench of
something rotten crawled up Michael's nose. He gagged and covered his mouth,
managing only a small nod in response. Charlie handed him another glow stick.
“What station
are you at?”
“Richmond,”
Michael said through his hand. He held his breath, cracked the glow stick and
climbed down the rusty ladder. The brickwork scraped at the elbows of his coat.
He looked up when he reached the bottom.
“I'll give you a
call sometime; we can have a pint. Be seeing you, mate,” Charlie said. He
slammed the hatch shut and sent a thunderous echo down the shaft.
Michael probed
the darkness with his glow stick; there was a dead rat by his foot. His hands
trembled. The air felt impossibly hot, as he loosened his tie and unbuttoned
the top of his shirt, trying to force himself to take a step forward.
If he shut his
eyes, he could almost believe he was back in Berlin, wading through stinking
sewers contaminated with nerve agents and filled with bloated corpses and the
hordes of crawling rats that fed off them. A sound echoed off the concrete walls
further down the tunnel.
He reached for
his gun with a clammy hand and eased a finger onto the trigger guard. The urge
to crawl back up the shaft overwhelmed him. His breath came in short gasps,
until he put one foot forward, and then another and another.
The shape of the
shelter door came forward out of the darkness, tinted green by the glow stick
and left wide open. Three sets of bunk beds lined the concrete walls, in decay
and untouched since the war. Old pillows still gave shape to one of the blankets.
He stepped on an
empty ration pack. A kitchen lay beyond the living area and just past that a
bathroom, big enough for one person at a time. Between them was the exit. His
heart raced quicker, followed by a sting of pain in his chest.
The bolts on the
door wouldn't shift. He pulled harder, sweat dripping down his temples. He
holstered his gun, tossed the glow stick to the floor and tried with both
hands. Somebody grabbed him from behind.
The man's flesh
was blistered and felt like leather. He tightened his hold until he began to
crush Michael's windpipe, and the stench of a bad tooth escaped his mouth as he
wheezed. Michael pushed backwards, connecting his skull with the man's nose.
Cartilage
cracked. The man's hold suddenly went slack. He fell backwards, struck the wall
and grunted. Second degree burns had ruined his face, and the glow stick turned
him green. He came at Michael again with a fire axe in hand, baring his chipped
teeth like a feral animal. Most of his lips were gone from burn injuries.
He swung the
axe, only to miss; his strike hit the door hard enough to cause a spark.
Michael slammed him against the door. Several teeth broke free of his gums, as
his blood splattered across the metal.
Michael spun him
around, fished for the plastic ballpoint pen in his pocket and plunged its tip
through the man's eye. The pen snapped in half before he could bury it further
than the midpoint.
The man let out
a rasping scream that echoed all the way back down to the hatch. He convulsed
from the pain and sank to the floor. Michael picked up the axe. Its head was
covered in dried, crusty blood and notched where it had cut through bone.
He kicked the
man on his side and split his head in half where the jaw joined the skull. The
axe slipped from his sweaty hands, and he backed away, light-headed, until his
spine touched the opposite wall. His foot knocked something under the bunk;
human bones stripped of skin, muscle and flesh.
The sweat on his
skin felt as cold as ice. He picked up the gun, holstered it with trembling
hands and tried again to open the door. The bolts gave way. Green light crept
into the corridor and revealed a pair of doors, which somebody had labelled
with white chalk. He opened the one on the right and found himself in another
ladder shaft.
Michael moved
faster, unable to resist the urge to escape any longer. He climbed the ladder,
catching his feet on the iron rungs. The hatch was locked. Panic set in. He
clung to the ladder with one hand and used his other to fiddle with the locks.
He shook violently.
The smell of
burning meat hung in the air, as he opened the hatch. Michael padded across the
shop floor. Homeless people huddled around their bin fires, one cooking a trio
of dead rats on a metal skewer. His shoe crunched glass beneath it.
They looked up
at him, saw the gun holstered on his hip and raised their hands. Michael
flashed them his police ID. A woman ran past and into the room he'd just come
from. She bolted the door shut. The others remained paralysed by the sight of
him, eyes wide, mouths hanging open.
He stepped
through the broken window of the chemist and onto the street. Shouts and
laughter came from around the corner; the skinheads beat at the gate. Michael
ran down the street, pausing at the corner to make sure nobody followed, and
went back to his car.
The air felt
colder now. He shivered. It took him three attempts to get the keys to fit the
lock. He fumbled with the handle until it opened, started the engine and hit
the accelerator pedal so hard the tires squealed.
Michael passed
several fortified communities on his way north. Razor wire topped concrete
walls patrolled by private military contractors, and snipers sat watch on the
tallest buildings. It was late afternoon now, and school children walked the
streets. Some had uniforms, others wore tattered rags and shoes kept together
with electrical tape. Assurer police forces watched from their vehicles.
He tried to
forget about the fallout shelter, but it kept coming back to him. The thought
turned him cold, and his pulse began to race. He looked terrible in the rear
view mirror, but he felt even worse inside.
Warehouses and
factories emerged out of the darkness ahead. Their security fences had turned
to rust, and there were now countless holes where people had cut their way
through. He parked on the pavement.
It was empty
here, devoid of life, save for the black bird perched on the fence, nearly as
big as his head. The bird watched him with beady eyes as he passed. He felt the
gust of cold wind against his skin.
Michael went
through a gap that had been cut in the fence, stepping over rubble and
shattered bricks. He shivered. A sound came from behind the security hut ahead.
Click, rattle, click; an upturned bicycle, pink, and just the right size for a
child. Part of its metal frame had melted and fused with the rubble. Its
remaining wheel spun backwards in the wind.
Click, rattle,
click.
Yellow sheets of
paper drifted on the wind from the security hut. They blew across the debris
until finally settling amongst a pile of human bones. Five buildings still
stood, though one was mostly ruins, and beyond them he saw the riverbank.
Michael found
himself wanting to turn back. He remembered the cannibal in the shelter and
wondered if there were more like him lurking here in the ruins. He removed his
.45 from its holster and disengaged the safety. The shakes had come back.
He found the
door to the first building lying in two pieces beside the entrance. Patches of
rust grew where the paint had flaked away. He went inside. Empty tables and
crumbling machinery. Michael plucked a flyer from one of the cork notice
boards; fire safety around munitions. He tossed it away, catching an unused
shell casing with his foot as he walked on.
Part of the roof
had caved in. Twinkling lights and neon advertisements flashed above. The
smaller rooms were occupied by decade old human remains, still dressed in their
squalid work overalls. He cleared the next three buildings, but found only
looted storage crates.
The last
building loomed a story taller than the others, an ominous shape on the horizon
that gave him a sense of unease. Destroyed towers stood in the distance. They
had been luxury flats on the river, but now they looked like fingers cut off at
the knuckles, each one shorter than the last. Voices echoed off the concrete.
Michael went
down on a knee and hunched beside a chunk of chimney. Humanoid shapes moved in
the darkness. They came closer until he could see them clearly, dressed in
white sheets like ghosts and wearing shoes made out of rags wrapped around
their feet.
One carried
scrap metal under an arm, and another clutched a tire. The others, four of
them, chased after something amongst the ruins. They beat about the rubble with
sticks. The skinny one, taller than the rest, lifted a fox by its tail and
draped the corpse over his shoulder.
The group turned
and continued on towards Michael. He crawled into the industrial chimney. Their
footsteps came closer, and he smelt the rancid and festering stench of their
body odour, like a combination of old cigarettes and dog faeces.
They talked
amongst themselves with fatigued mumbles and whines. Michael held his breath,
clamping one hand over his mouth so he didn't gag on the smell. One of them
sniffed at the air. Feet appeared at the end of the chimney, filthy calf
muscles twitching. The man stood there, groaning, as a lump of dribble and
saliva slipped from his mouth and splattered on his toe. He ran away, and the
others followed him.
Michael hit the
illumination button on his watch, and the digital display lit up. He waited two
minutes before finally crawling out of the chimney, and there they were, still
visible in the distance, hunting rats around an overturned lorry. It was
five-thirty now. He wanted to go home and forget about the day. His nerves were
shot, his head dizzy and his muscles burning. He marched on towards the last
warehouse.
Rusted shipping
containers filled the interior, stacked tall enough to reach the roof. The
locks were all forced, and nothing remained inside them. He swept the shadows
with his pocket torch as he stalked the aisles. Something shiny lay discarded
on the ground.
He knelt down
and pointed his torch at it. A shred of plastic sandwich wrapping with a smear
of white mayonnaise still on it. Michael scribbled the shop's name into his
notepad. The darkness faded at the other end of the warehouse. He slowed,
holding his breath, and flicked the torch off.
Light came from
around the corner behind the next row of shipping containers. He reached into
his coat pocket for the radio, only to hesitate. The warehouse was so silent he
could almost hear the pounding of his own heart. He pressed his back to the
container and edged forward, peeking around the corner.
Michael squinted
as the light blinded him. Offices. The windows were smashed; glass lay
scattered across the ground. He saw a man sitting inside with his back turned.
Michael pointed the gun at the back of his skull.
“Turn around
slowly.”
The man gasped.
His spine stiffened as he raised his hands. “Don't shoot me. I'll leave and
never come back, I swear.”
He turned
around, dressed in faded clothes full of holes. His grey beard had grown long
and wild. “I thought this place was abandoned. I didn't know you were coming
back. Please, don't shoot me.”
Michael lowered
his gun. “Who are you?”
“Me? I'm just
Bob. I'll be going now, if you let me, I mean.”
Michael raised
his police identity card for the man to see. He stepped over the broken glass
and moved closer. “I need to ask you a couple of questions.”
Bob looked up at
the ceiling. He pressed his hands together. “Oh Jesus, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
Look, if I'd known you guys were all police officers, I would have gone a
hundred miles in the other direction.”
“Be quiet and
stop making so much noise. People have ears, you know. Is there anyone else
here with you?”
He shook his
head. “I came here on my own. The lights were on earlier, and they're never on
normally. When your guys left, I thought maybe you might have left something
behind. Food, drink, something I could salvage; stuff like that. I wasn't
trying to rip you off. I swear.”
“If it makes you
feel any better, they weren't Assurer police officers. How many were there?”
“Five or six of
them. They had equipment with them, but they put it all in their truck and
drove off through a gap in the fence.”
Michael slid a
five pound note across the table. “Get out of here and go buy yourself
something to eat. Watch out for those crazies in the white sheets. It's best if
you don't come back. Ever.”
Bob was still
for a moment. His eyes darted back and forth between Michael and the money. He
extended a hand, slid the money into his pocket and took lame steps out of the
office. “I hear you, I hear you. They aren't too dangerous if you can keep your
distance. You learn how to move unseen when you end up on the streets,
otherwise you become dead.”
Michael waited
for the man to go. He searched the office for evidence, but the place had been
stripped bare of everything except the tables and chairs. A dog began to bark
outside. He tensed up and removed his gun from its holster.
Silence
returned. He turned off the lights, took up his torch again and made for the
nearest exit. Michael stopped; something protruded from the darkness in the
corner. He turned the torch on it. The shadows flickered, and he saw concrete
stairs going down into the ground.
Michael took a
deep breath. His muscles trembled as he padded down the stairs. They turned a
right-angle and went even deeper. He paused on each step, listening to the
silence before he dared to continue. The door was open.
He flicked the
light switch and squinted until his eyes adjusted. A portable generator and
boiler took up most of the space. Neither worked. A syringe had rolled against
the wall, and a trace of transparent liquid remained inside, still fresh. He
reached for his radio and decided to call it in.
It was nearly
eight in the evening when he got home. He locked up his car, secured the
perimeter cage and held his nose to block out the stench as he went inside his
flat.
The smell was
starting to seep beneath the door now. Michael kicked the draft-stopper against
it and dumped his briefcase in the corner. He stood for a moment in the middle
of his flat, not thinking, not moving, just savouring the comfort of home, and
then he finally slumped on the sofa. He turned on the television, flicked
through all five channels and turned it off again.
Sometimes he
thought he needed a hobby, something that didn't involve his job, but there was
nothing. Gone were the days of first world comforts, replaced by a simple past
time called survival, and everybody got bored of that one eventually.
The day left him
feeling filthy. He ran a hot bath and sat idle in the water, propping his head
up with one hand and an elbow on the side. Silence grated on his nerves, so he
wiped the water off his hand and reached over the side of the bath to flick the
switch on the radio.
The music came
out too loud. He dialled back the volume until he could hear himself think.
This song was new to him. Strange, he thought he'd heard all the left over
music they played on the Lower London stations. The audio crackled, distorting
the singer's voice in places like a tin can full of wasps. Twenty years old he
guessed. It was too different to the music they made now.
The foxes were
already howling and whining when he got round to eating his dinner of plain
rice and soggy vegetables. He moved closer to the window, watching them prowl
the streets for scraps. They passed his window, dozens of them, each one taking
the time to sniff at anything that seemed edible.
His dinner
tasted terrible, so opened his window, tipped the leftovers off his plate and
watched them feed.
Michael stuck
his head through the doorway and into the operations room. Corporal Hill sat
slumped in the chair, helmet by his foot and rifle resting unloaded in the
corner. He groaned and shifted position. His eyes were still shut.
“Corporal,”
Michael said. “Corporal.”
“What? What is
it? I'm trying to sleep.”
“It's eight
forty-five in the morning.”
Hill snorted.
“Exactly. I've been kept on patrol all night and when that clock hits nine, I'm
going straight home. What do you want?”
“The trouble by
the listening post; did you manage to nip it in the bud? I had a friend there.”
Corporal Hill
sat up straight. “Oh, that. Yeah, we got there. We popped a couple of them with
the autocannon, and the rest split before we could take any prisoners. Your
friends in the listening post were fine. I doubt there'll be any more trouble
there now. We got seven kills, no casualties on our part. Pretty good shooting
if you ask me.”
“Thanks, I
appreciate it.”
“It's all good.
Now you would look at that? It's nearly time for me to go home. I'm starving.”
Michael
continued on to the detectives' office. Richard leaned back in his chair as he
sipped from the foam cup of coffee. “Hey, mate.”
“Hey,” Michael
said. “Where's everybody else?”
“Late, I guess.
There's some shit going on down the road. They're probably caught up in the
traffic. They mentioned it on the radio.”
“I didn't have
mine on. Did you turn anything up?”
Richard frowned.
“No, they're all useless. Deliberately useless, I expect. You?”
“Yeah. Get your
coat, we're going to Lower Westminster. I need to check out the business
registries. I'll tell you more in the car.”
“We should take
my car,” Richard said when they exited the building. “It's faster than the
piece of junk you're running. No offence.”
“Fine.”
They set out on
the road, finding themselves stonewalled in traffic behind a red double-decker
and whatever else lurked ahead of it. The bus was covered in gang tags and
graffiti, and wire mesh protected its windows. Michael leaned against the glass
and spotted a yellow and red sign just past the bus. “Roadworks.”
“I should have
taken the other way. Sorry,” Richard said. He sighed and leaned back in his
seat. “Listen, I don't think we got off to a great start. David is a bellend,
and so are Heather and Maria, but Archibald is sound. Our introduction in the
office could have been better.
“Connor was a
good detective; we hadn't been working together that long, and then a couple of
gang bangers plugged him in the face. They're still out there, you know,
getting off clean without a single shred of grief.”
“Don't worry
about it, I understand.”
“So, want to cut
me in on the loop about last night?”
Michael
explained everything. Traffic started to move again.
“At least it's a
lead. I don't know how far we can follow, though. Harris is twitchy. Don't tell
him I said that, but he is; he doesn't always have an eye for the long term.
Maybe it's our corporate superiors breathing down his neck or something, I
don't know, but he'll yank a case in the blink of an eye if he thinks there's
an easier target. Short term gains, long term losses.