by Mark Morris
"What?" she barked. She couldn't think of anything else to say. Her hand flexed, but there was no gun there.
"Are you looking for this?" another voice said. Her eyes flickered to the right and she saw a nman-tall, thin, stubble, long hair-standing behind the kneeling black kid, holding her gun.
She couldn't prevent herself from making a futile clutching motion towards him. "Give it," she said.
"We saw your fire," said a third voice. A girl's. Sue flinched, then realized this couldn't be Sam. Her gaze shifted again and she saw the girl crouching to her left, long blond hair falling forward. She was very pretty, this girl.
"We're friends," the black kid said. "We saw your fire."
"Friends," Sue repeated.
The black kid grinned. "Yeah. Good fire, by the way."
"Thanks," Sue whispered. Then she burst into tears.
"A monster?" scoffed Marco.
Sue looked as though she'd like to throw her coffee in his face. "I'm telling you, she wasn't human."
Marco rotated his finger at the side of his temple. "You're going loco, lady. Too much time on your own." He waved a hand dismissively. "I ain't got time to listen to this shit. I got better things to do."
"Like what?" croaked George. "Polishing your python?"
Marco was stalking from the room, but now he swung back, raising an index finger. "Fuck you, old man, or you'll be out that window, wheelchair and all"
"Oi," shouted Steve, "that's no way to talk to your elders."
"He started it," Marco snarled, clenching his fists.
"Grow up, Marco," snapped Greg. "Ever since our friends have arrived you've behaved like a toddler who won't share the sandpit."
Abby laughed. Marco looked daggers at her. "Yeah, well," he said, "that's because I don't see the world through rosetinted glasses."
"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Steve.
"It means we've worked to get this place fit to live in, and you lot just saunter in and take over."
"We're not taking over," Steve scoffed. "We came to offer the hand of friendship. God knows, there are few of us left in this bloody city. Better to band together than struggle on alone, don't you think?"
Marco said nothing, simply glared at him like a boxer trying to psyche out his opponent.
Steve shook his head, a wry smile on his face. "Sorry, mate, but I left the playground behind years ago. Look, if you don't want us here, we'll find somewhere else to live."
"Of course we want you here," Greg said.
Marco snorted and left the room.
"That young man has an attitude problem," Mabel said.
"He'll come round," Greg sighed. "So, come on, Sue, tell us about this monster."
It was Sunday lunchtime, almost a week since the lights had gone out across London. After Steve, Abby and Max had calmed Sue down the previous evening, she had led them back to the office complex where she had made her home. They had oohed and aahed at her impressive stock of provisions, and the men had been particularly taken by the guns.
"May I?" Steve asked after Sue had opened the door of the stationary cupboard and revealed the rifles propped in the corner.
"Be my guest," Sue said.
Steve had examined the rifle with the awe and reverence of a child with an expensive new toy. "Is it loaded?"
Sue shook her head.
Steve cradled the weapon in the crook of his arm, striking a somewhat self-conscious pose.
"You've never handled a gun before, have you?" Sue said.
Steve flushed. "Is it really that obvious?"
"To be honest, yes." Sue glanced at Max. "How about you?"
"Hey, I'm a black kid from the ghetto. What do you think?" Sue raised her eyebrows and Max smiled. "Never even seen a real gun before," he admitted.
Sue gave him an unloaded Glock to handle. Like Steve, Max was self-conscious at first, but soon he was holding the weapon high and side-on, like a yardie on a crime show.
"You want some, motherfucker?" he said to an empty chair across the room. Then he spoiled the effect by turning and grinning shyly "Sorry about my potty mouth there, guys. Got a bit carried away"
He offered the gun to Abby. "You want a go?"
Abby grimaced as though he were offering her a tarantula to hold. "No thanks."
They spent the night with Sue and returned to the hotel the next morning. Sue needed little persuading to accompany them. They each loaded their rucksacks with as many essential items as they could carry; then they set off, knowing they could come back for more if needs be.
Sue told Steve about the girl on the way back to the hotel. Out in the open, he noted she seemed nervous, her eyes darting everywhere, and he asked her what was wrong. After ensuring that Abby and Max were out of earshot, and then prevaricating for a while, she eventually told him how Sam had appeared, and how she had turned her back on the girl and felt the pain in her spine.
"Pain?" Steve said. "So are you saying she stabbed you?"
"No." She seemed irritated by the assumption. "It was weirder than that."
"Weirder how?"
She looked at him a long moment, then put a hand on his arm and said, "Hang on." She shrugged off her rucksack, then pulled up her wax jacket and the layers of clothing beneath to show him her back.
"Fuck," Steve said.
There was a weal or burn mark at the base of her spine that was the size of a side plate. It seemed composed of a series of concentric circles of angry, blistered skin, giving the impression that someone had tried to burn the shape of a whirlpool into her back.
"Has this been treated?" he asked.
"I've put antiseptic cream on it and taken some paracetomol. I guess the wound should be dressed really, but"-she shrugged-"I couldn't do it on my own."
"You should have told me about this last night," Steve said. "I don't understand why you should want to keep it a secret. Is it professional pride? Are you embarrassed this girl took you unawares?"
"No, nothing like that"
"What, then?"
She allowed the clothes to drop back down, concealing the wound, wincing a little as the material made contact with her skin. "The girl... changed," said Sue. She seemed to have difficulty forcing the word out.
"Changed?" said Steve. "How do you mean?"
Bit by bit he eked the story out of her. And when she came to tell it for a second time, later that day, she was even more hesitant, more apologetic, more embarrassed.
Afterwards Greg steepled his fingers to his lips. Max looked at Abby, raising his eyebrows as if to say,Jesus, what do you make of that?
Sue sat back and rubbed at her eye sockets. "It's okay. I'll get my coat," she said.
"Pardon?" said Greg.
"Never mind, it's a joke. Look, I'm sure none of you know what to say. I don't think I would. And I don't blame you for not believing me."
"Nobody here has said they don't believe you," Steve said quickly.
"That man in the supermarket talked about monsters," Mabel said. "You remember, Abby?"
Abby nodded. "He thought we were monsters, didn't he? You don't think..." She tailed off.
"Go on, dear."
Abby looked around the room. "Well, suppose the man in the supermarket had seen the girl-or even someone elsechange into one of these things. If he knew people could change, he wouldn't trust anybody, would he?"
"So what we talking about here?" Max said. "Werewolves or something?"
"The girl didn't change into any sort of animal," said Sue.
"What then? Aliens?"
Sue scowled and flapped a hand. "Oh, I don't know! It's bloody ridiculous!"
"You saw it," said Max.
"I know," Sue said. "I know and I'm sorry, Max. It's just... well, I'm finding it difficult to accept myself. It doesn't fit into my world view."
"What do you think, Greg?" Steve asked.
Greg puffed out his cheeks. "I'm not sure what to think. Every instinct tells me that Sue was mistaken in what she saw. On th
e other hand, we find ourselves in extraordinary times. Who is to say that the flood is the culmination of our experiences, that there are not yet further wonders in store?"
"Don't believe I'd think of a nman-eating monster as a wonder, Doc," George wheezed. "'Specially if it was biting nee head off."
Mabel, whose response to Greg's quiet authority was a respect bordering on reverence, lightly slapped her husband's knee.
Greg chuckled. "Alas, the wondrous does not always translate as benign."
"So let's suppose that Sue saw what she saw," said Steve. "What do you think we could be up against, Greg?"
"I'nm not sure I'd even care to speculate. Young Max's suggestion seems as good as any"
Max looked surprised. Abby felt a chill go through her. "Aliens?" she said. "Are you serious?"
"Aliens? Escaped government experiments? Terrorist weapons? Hunan beings infected by this curious lightning we see each evening? Who knows what's lurking out there? As I said, we live in extraordinary times."
Everyone seemed a little stunned by his words. Somewhat guardedly, Steve said, "Okay, then I guess we should be asking what we're going to do."
Greg spread his hands. "In what sense?"
"Well, the way I see it we've got maybe three options. We can either get on with things here and choose to ignore it; we can go looking for this girl and, if we find her, bring her back here and-I don't know-observe her under controlled conditions; or we can just get out of town."
"And go where?" said Sue.
Steve stole a glance at Abby. "Well, Abby and I have talked about heading up to Scotland. My ex-wife and son live up there, and we want to see if we can find them. It's an emotional crusade, granted, but I reckon it makes practical sense too. Pretty soon the big cities will be nothing but charnel houses. The streets are going to stink and there'll be a real danger of contagion."
"So what makes you think it'll be any better in Scotland?" Sue asked.
Steve shrugged. "I don't know that it'll be any better, but it can hardly be any worse, can it? Castle Morton, where my ex lives, is on pretty high ground, so I guess it's more likely that people will have survived up there."
"I reckon it's the same everywhere," said Max gloomily. "I mean, we ain't seen no planes, have we? If it was only London got flooded, we'd have been rescued by now."
"We saw a helicopter," said Abby, then blushed as everyone looked at her. As if she felt she needed to justify herself, she said, "It was only a little one. It was about five days ago, before the water went down."
"Did it have any insignia?" asked Sue.
Steve shook his head. "Privately owned."
"What did it do?"
"Just hovered around a bit, then flew away"
Max said, "But that proves my point. If people were still alive in Scotland, they'd have sent planes and shit."
"No one in Castle Morton owns a plane or helicopter," Abby said. "There are a few boats, but why would anyone bother to sail down here?"
The door to Greg's suite opened. Abby looked up, expecting to see Marco, but it was Libby who entered. She looked around sleepily, pushing a handful of hair back from her face.
"How are you feeling, my dear?" Greg asked, moving forward to take her arm.
"Still a bit weak and wobbly, but... better." She looked around, half smiling. "What's this? War conference?"
Steve's laugh was more fulsome than the quip deserved. "Kind of, yeah."
It was evident to Abby that her dad was rather taken by this woman from the boat. There was no reason why he shouldn't be-Libby was close to his own age, maybe midthirties, very pretty and graceful. Even so, Abby couldn't help feeling a bit weird about it. She guessed that seeing her dad showing interest in other women was something she would have to get used to.
Libby's fever had broken in the early hours of Saturday morning. By nine A.M. she had been sitting up in bed, taking small mouthfuls of porridge, washed out but able to recount what she remembered of her ordeal. Her boyfriend, Toni Lionel, had apparently been a dot-com millionaire, and the two of them had been on his yacht, enjoying a few days' sailing around the south coast, when the sea had succumbed to a series of surges of such force that the boat had been tossed around like a toy Libby and Toni, who had been asleep below decks, had managed to launch the lifeboat just before the yacht had begun to break up. Libby's mind was a blank after that. She had no recollection of what happened to Toni.
"We've been wondering what to do for the best," Steve told her.
"Steve believes we should head north to Scotland," said Greg.
"His wife lives there," said Max.
"Ex-wife," Steve quickly corrected.
Libby looked around as if wondering whether she should offer an opinion. Then she shrugged. "It sounds reasonable."
"Maybe we should vote or something." suggested Max.
"Me and Dad are going anyway," said Abby. "Aren't we, Dad?"
For a moment Steve seemed undecided; then he nodded.
"Count inc in too, if that's okay" said Max quickly. "Like you said, Steve, things are gonna get real bad here real soon. Only thing is... I gotta go home first. See if my ma... well, see if I can find her, y'know?"
"Sure," said Steve. "I'll go with you if you like. We could go this afternoon. Unless you'd rather go alone?"
Max shook his head and mumbled, "Nah, man, I'd appreciate the company. Cheers."
"Can I come too?" said Abby.
Max tried not to look too eager, but he couldn't quite manage it. "Sure," he said.
Sunday, 1s` October
So after lunch we set off again. We didn't take much with us cos Max only lived a couple of miles away in Notting Hill, and so we were hoping we could be there and back before it got dark.
I sort of wanted to go and sort of didn't. It was horrible out in the streets, and part of me just wanted to lie on my comfy bed and listen to my iPod. But I didn't like the thought of Dad going off somewhere without me. And I definitely didn't want to be left here with that creepy Marco about, not if Max was gone too.
I like Max a lot. He's funny and kind, not to mention quite fit (and you'd better not be reading this, Max!, tho a sad thing about him is that Dad says he's in denial about his mum. I mean, Max has talked about going home quite a lot, but before today he hadn't actu-ally done anything about it, even tho it's not that far away. Dad says that deep down Max must know that his mum couldn't have sur-vived, but for every day he puts off going to find out, he can tell him-self that maybe she's still alive.
"So, why does he want to go now?" I asked Dad when Max was out of the room.
Dad shrugged and said, "You can't put off the inevitable forever."
The journey was as horrible as ever-wreckage and mud and dead people and crabs and birds. Outside a pub called the Black Cap was a big pub sign, and hanging over it, like a bag of dirty washing, was the body of a woman.
She was swollen and purple. Her hands hung over one side of the sign and her legs over the other. Her muddy hair hung down too and covered her face (thank God), and her clothes were just brown rags stuck to her body.
The crows were eating her. That was the worst part. I know the woman was dead, but in some ways it reminded me of a gang attack, and that made the whole thing really upsetting. There were about 8 crows in all, and they were screeching and swooping around the woman, dive-bombing her, jabbing her with their beaks. Sometimes 1 or 2 would land and they'd take a few pecks out of her like she was a slab of meat (which I suppose to them she was) and then they'd fly off and swoop around again.
I've seen lots of awful stuff over the past week, but for some reason the crows eating the woman really got to me. I don't know why. Maybe because the woman was hanging over the sign, maybe because the crows were vicious, almost like they were celebrating the fact that she was dead and they could do whatever they liked to her, or maybe because we were on our way to find out what had happened to Max's mum and I suddenly thought that this time last week this woman was probably a mu
m or a wife or a sister or a daughter, a person with a normal life going along thinking about normal stuff, like her hus-band or her kids, or what she was having for tea that night, or what she was doing at the weekend, or what was happening on EastEn-ders.' I bet she didn't think that in a week's time she'd be dead and hanging outside a pub, being eaten by crows. It was sad and sick and it made me want to cry.
"How do you think she got up there?" Max asked.
"Probably the same way Libby's boat ended up in the tree," said Dad. "When the water went down she settled there. I'll bet there are bodies on flat roofs all over the city."
We carried on. There were more bodies, but none of them affected me like the hanging woman did. Most of them were just lying in the mess as if they were becoming part of it all-which in a way they were. Sometimes you only knew there was a body there because the crabs were crawling all over it. We kept our eyes peeled for the girl who attacked Sue, or anything else unusual (Dad and Max had brought guns just in case), but we didn't see anything.
Notting Hill, where Max lived, looked like it had been a nice place once. He lived a couple of streets from Portobello Road, which was lined with shops and cafes and restaurants that must once have been full of color and life, but which were now just wrecks covered in slime and seaweed.
The houses on Max's street were joined together with little yards or gardens at the front. There were trees in rows on the pavement, and those that hadn't been torn out by the flood had seaweed and rubbish (mainly long dangling brown loops of stuff that could have been clothes or paper) hanging off their branches. There were a few bodies among the wrecked cars and other junk, and I tensed, thinking Max was going to recognize one of them, but he didn't.
"That's my house," Max said, pointing.
"It looks nice," I said, thinking straightaway how dumb the words sounded.
There was half a billboard on the roof and I hoped it wouldn't come down on us when we tried to get the door open. Before we could even get to the door, though, we had to lift a tree out of the way whose roots were sticking up in the air like a load of black tentacles.
When we lifted it, hundreds of the little red crabs came pouring out of the hole we'd made as if they had a nest under there. Some of them ran over my feet, which made me scream, but at least I didn't drop the tree. I looked down into the hole and saw a body, or bits of one, half-buried in the tangled muddy stuff below. I saw a hand and half a face that looked as if it had no eyes (though they could have been full of mud) and some bones, ribs I think, which were visible be-cause it looked as if the crabs had eaten all the flesh around the chest and stomach. I looked away quickly and concentrated on what I was doing with my bit of the tree.
