“Everywhere is under attack, you probably already know that. It’s going to fall on men like you to fight back. There won’t be a British Army to sort this all out. It’s going to be fighting in the streets and dying in pain. It will be youngsters, like the ones you have under arrest, that will fight for our survival. So go tell them what they’re up against before it’s too late.”
Richard nodded, feeling stunned. He felt like he was discovering that he had been sleeping during some great event. He had known things were bad, but these people, driving around in a battered Army jeep, made him realise that the situation had progressed far beyond his current understanding. They had seen things he had not, things that had made them understand. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll round ‘em up and get ‘em to work. Every able-bodied person I can find will be ready, you have my word.”
The soldier saluted him. “What’s your name?”
“Richard Honeywell.”
“I wish you well, Richard. Stay alive.”
“I… Yes, you too.”
The woman shifted into gear and got going. Richard stood in the middle of the road, stunned.
Glen wandered over to him a moment later. “Do you think he was telling the truth? You think the Army is gone?”
Richard shrugged, watching the jeep’s taillights disappear at the end of the road. “Why would he lie?”
“I don’t know.”
“If the city really has fallen,” said Riaz, “then we need to fall back and find support. The Army in London wasn’t the country’s only defence.”
Richard felt his shoulders drop. “Perhaps not, but the Army in London would have been our best defence. If it fell, I don’t hold up much hope for anything else.” He began to pant. “And what about the other stones? We’re being attacked from all sides. There’s nowhere to fall back to.”
What was he going to do? How did he keep Jen and Dillon safe? By gathering up a bunch of vandals and trying to build a fort? Insane!
“But we’re safe,” said Glen. “Slough isn’t under attack.”
“Oh, wake up, Glen,” said Riaz. “If London is defenceless, the enemy will have free rein to spread out and attack the surrounding areas. We’re as close as you can get to London without being part of it. We’re next.”
“Then what do we do?”
Richard felt dizzy. He felt far away from his own body. He gazed at the line of youths sitting on the curb. Although they were likely afraid, their bravado was deeply ingrained. They would not dare show their worries. Richard needed to do the same. “We do what the soldier told us to do,” he said, desperately wanting to follow orders, even if they came from a stranger. “We prepare ourselves to fight. No one is coming to protect us or our families, so we need to do it ourselves.”
Riaz tutted. “You’re an idiot if you think that’s a good idea.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. I think it’s the only option we have.”
“My wife and daughter are here,” said Glen. “If there’s nowhere I can get them to, then I’ll fight any amount of monsters to keep them safe. If we have to stay here and fight, then I’d accept it head on.”
Richard nodded, trying not to fall down where he stood. “Me too, Glen.”
Riaz sighed. “Let’s just head back to the church. Maybe we can put our heads together and figure something out.”
Richard motioned towards the youths seated on the curb. “We have some recruiting to do first.”
One of the lads on the curb lurched forward and vomited.
“That’s up to you,” said Riaz. “I want no part of it.”
Richard sighed when Riaz departed in a huff, but was pleased that Glen stayed with him. The two of them faced the expectant youths together. Richard placed his hands on his hips as he spoke. “If you lads are still in a mood to wreck stuff, you might get another chance. Only, this time you’ll be wrecking what I tell you to.”
The lad who was still missing his white baseball cap, looked confused at first, but then he looked up and grinned.
Richard couldn’t believe the time when he glanced at his watch. 6AM. They had worked right through the night. Now that he realised the time, he let out an almost endless yawn. Most people in the chilly church interior had bedded down well before midnight, sleeping fitfully on blankets supplied by the vicar.
Richard had last checked on Dillon and Jen a little after 1AM. They had been snoozing, and he’d dared only to pull a blanket up over Dillon’s shoulder before going back outside to work. Lots of work to be done.
As it turned out, the four youths apprehended at the bus station were surprisingly eager to help, almost like they’d been waiting longingly for direction. It further convinced Richard that their drunken antics had been fear of not knowing what to do.
Aaron approached Richard now, white baseball cap reunited with his head. He was the gang’s obvious leader, and the other three rallied behind him when he had agreed to help Richard. For the last few hours they had been working on a barricade across the main road. It was looking good
“I’m knackered, boss. The sun’s coming up. Can me and the lads get our heads down?”
Richard nodded. “Go find somewhere quiet at the church and I’ll give you a shout if anything happens. You and your friends did a good job today, Aaron. We’re lucky to have you.”
The praise seemed to surprise the lad. “Thanks. Suppose we all need to stick together.”
“Unless we all wake up from a terrible dream, things have changed, and we only have each other.”
Aaron headed off while Richard inspected the lad’s handy work. The church was surrounded by roads on two sides and a large pedestrian zone on the others. Aaron and his friends, along with several others from the church, had broken into several cars and removed the handbrakes. They rolled the cars into the road to block anything from approaching. In addition, they pinched a bundle of scaffolding from a parked builder’s truck and constructed a small platform from which to keep watch. The remaining poles were shoved through the car windows to face the road like porcupine quills. It would make scaling the barricade that much harder. It wasn’t Hadrian’s Wall, but it might slow the enemy down, and it would make the people in the church feel safer.
Richard felt like a general, penned in and awaiting a last stand.
Yet, despite his fear, Richard could not suppress another yawn. He headed to the church. Birds waking on the roof began their chorus, remarkably calm and ordinary. Usually, the sound of birds singing at dawn depressed Richard—it meant a restless night of sleep was ending, and a tired day at work was beginning—but today it might be a sign that the world was not yet lost. The birds still sang.
Riaz sat on a wall outside the church. He looked ghostly, with the whites of his eyes the most visible part of him. “Your worker bees done for the night?”
“They did good,” said Richard. “Better to have them on our side than a thorn in our side.”
“I suppose you’re right. I lost it at the bus station.”
“That was hours ago, Riaz. Don’t worry about it. We’re all under strain. None of us know what’s coming.”
“Glen spoke to someone at HQ a little while ago. London has been abandoned, but there’s a new task force assembling in Portsmouth. Our armed forces are being recalled from abroad, but the Middle East is under attack too, so it will be hit and miss how much of it comes back.”
Richard closed his eyes and inhaled. “I can’t believe the whole world is under attack by demons.”
“Judgement is upon us.”
“You believe in God, Riaz?”
He shrugged. “You know many Muslims who don’t? I believe in Allah the Supreme and Almighty, but to tell you the truth, I’ve been wondering for a while if he still believes in us.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ve been doing this job too many years. I’ve seen too many husbands beat their wives, too many stabbings and rapes. Too much of everything. We are not godly. We do not deserve A
llah’s love. This is what we deserve. What’s happening now.”
“A massacre?”
“A cleansing. We have failed our creator. When an artist makes an irreparable mistake on his canvas, what does he do?”
Richard shrugged.
“He throws the canvas away and starts a new painting. We will not win this war, Richard. Mankind is not supposed to.” With that, he walked away, not towards the church but towards the barricade.
Richard went inside the church and headed to the altar where he had left Dillon and Jen sleeping. He found them sleeping still. As quiet as a mouse, he slid down beside them.
Snores filled the cavernous space, travelling high into the rafters. Richard wondered how long it would be until it was the sound of screams.
“Dad?”
Richard rolled to see that Dillon had opened his eyes. “Hey there, sweetheart.”
“I was worried.”
“I’m fine. I’ve been working.”
“Are the monsters here?”
“No, Dillon. No monsters. You’re safe.”
Dillon closed his eyes again, and for a moment, looked like he would fall back to sleep. Then he opened them again and appeared even more awake. “Can we go home?”
Richard kissed his forehead. “Not yet, sweetheart. We need to stay together, all of us in the church, for a little while longer.”
“Until it’s safe to go back?”
“Yes.”
“Will it ever be safe?”
Richard was about to answer, but saw that Jen had opened her eyes too. She looked at him, but did not speak. “I don’t know, Dillon,” he told his son. “The truth is that things might get very frightening, and Daddy will have to fight very hard to keep you safe. Whatever happens though, you and your mum need to stick together, okay? Even if it means leaving me.”
He had expected Dillon to protest, or even cry, but his son surprised him by nodding. “People in the church talk about the monsters. They said they will be coming to hurt us.”
Tears brimmed in Richard’s eyes. He wanted to lie—God how he wanted to lie—but he couldn’t. Not now. “That’s true, Dillon, and I need you to be big and brave. Everyone is frightened, and that’s okay, but we all have to be one big family and look after each other, so today, do whatever Mummy tells you to.”
“Are you going out again?”
“No, Dillon, not yet. I’m going to get some sleep.”
“But then you will have to go out again, because you’re a sergeant?”
Richard understood his son was trying to make sense of things, to put things in order. He wanted to know what to expect. “Yes, because I am a sergeant, and the other policemen need me to tell them what to do.”
Dillon nodded. “Okay.”
They all lay there for a moment, the three of them, listening to the snores of fifty strangers. Eventually, the sun broke through the stained glass windows, and a bejewelled shaft of light came down from the ceiling.
“Never thought I’d see the day you dragged yourself into church,” said Jen, reaching out a hand and stroking his hair the way he loved. Already it made his eyelids droop.
“Me either. Guess I’ve been wrong all these years. I hope God hurries up and helps us, because I’m not sure I can do much on my own.”
“You’re not alone, Rich. There might be a lot of bad things going on, but you’ll never be alone. We’ll face this together. You, me, and Dillon.”
“Right now, that’s the only thing I’m holding on to.”
“Good, because I’m proud of you.”
He glanced at her. “You are?”
“Remember before we got married, when you joined the police force? We stayed in that hotel in Torquay—The Silver Fish.”
“Oh yeah.”
“And we took a few beers onto the beach one night and spoke about our dreams for the future.”
“I remember. You stepped on a shell and cut your foot.”
She chuckled. “I did, didn’t I? Before that, though, you told me you wanted to join the police force and make a difference. You wanted to help people.”
“I remember.”
“But all you’ve done these last few years is complain about how all you seem to do is chase, punish, and lock up. Nothing has done any good. Nothing has changed.”
Richard sighed. His thoughts on the effectiveness of modern policing were often depressing. “Weed seizures and pub brawls. I’ve grown tired of it.”
“I know you have, honey. That’s why I’m proud of you, because you never let it jade you. Today you inspired a bunch of teenagers into helping out instead of punishing them for the sake of it because it wouldn’t have done any good. You gave them a chance to do something useful. You empowered those boys, and they broke their backs working for you tonight.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I got up in the middle of the night and watched you. Miles made me a cup of tea, and we shared a cigarette. He told me all about what happened at the police station.”
Richard had spoken at length to Reverend Miles about what was coming. The poor man had been awake the entire night, bringing Aaron and the others tea and coffee to keep them going. “The boys surprised me,” he admitted. “It was a reporter from the city who told me to enlist their help. Not sure I would have considered it myself.”
“You would have. You see the best in people, Rich. That’s why I love you.”
“I love you too, Jen. So much. If anything happens…”
She shushed him. “We’ll face it together. Get some sleep.”
His wife continued stroking his hair, and sleep was exactly what he did.
The refugees at the church had swelled throughout the day, but the group grew unbalanced with children and elderly. Richard understood that most families were probably hiding out in their homes, but it was those young parents and teenagers that they needed. If this was to be Slough’s defensive force, they needed strong men and women. That was why Glen and the other officers had gone out in the squad car to spread word that there was sanctuary at the church. The only one to remain was Riaz.
Richard, meanwhile, had slept until a little before noon and then got right back to building defences. Aaron and his friends were back at the growing barricade and had been adding to it with chairs and tables taken from the storage room of the church. It now stretched from the sidewall of J.Roberts Accountancy right across the road to the Fisherman’s Feast chip shop. It was next to the chip shop where Richard spoke to Aaron.
“We’re going to need to get some munchies, boss. I’m starving, and I bet everyone else is too. If we’re all going to hang around the church, we can’t live on the vicar’s tea and biscuits.”
Richard felt his own tummy rumbling. It was almost three o’clock, and he hadn’t eaten since yesterday at breakfast time. “I know. We need to sort that out or people will begin to grumble.”
Aaron motioned to the chippie’s large glass window. “Could get the grills on in there. Mikey used to work at a takeaway and could probably get everything cooking. Would mean breaking in though unless we can find the owner.”
“Break it,” said Richard, surprised by how quickly he came to the decision.
Aaron smirked. “You sure, boss?”
“We need to feed everyone. This isn’t going to get cleared up in a weekend. We will have to do whatever we need to.”
“You’re a copper I can get on board with, you know that?”
“You caught me on a bad day.”
“Your mate was looking for you.”
Richard frowned. “Who?”
“The other copper. The Asian one.”
“Riaz?”
Aaron shrugged. “He was sat on the wall outside the church.”
Richard turned and crossed the road, heading back towards the church. Sure enough, he found Riaz sitting on his usual perch. “You were looking for me?”
He pulled out his phone and waved it. “I’ve been getting network coverage this aft
ernoon. Allowed me to do some research online.”
“Great. Have you learned anything?”
“I started with the normal searches, reports from the BBC, etc. Things are as bad as I thought. It’s the end of the world.”
Richard sighed. There was nothing to be gained by making such grand statements, even if they were true. “Okay.”
“Then I went narrower, tried to find out how long we have left. The enemy is on the move, but they seem to be forming up around the country into several larger armies. Each army is being led by a giant.”
“Sorry,” said Richard. “Giants?”
Riaz huffed. “People online are calling them angels because of scars they have on their back that look like wings. There’s one in London. It was there during an attack on Hyde Park. The RAF hit it with missiles, but it didn’t even bleed.”
“And it’s coming this way?”
Riaz shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“So where did you learn all this?”
“The Slough Echo.”
“The newspaper down the road?”
“They’ve been gathering the facts and posting them online. That’s the reason I was looking for you. Apparently, the enemy has some kind of aversion to iron.”
Richard tilted his head and paid close attention. “Iron?”
Riaz nodded. “According to the Echo, the demons, or whatever they are, can’t cross a line of iron. Thought that might be useful for your barricade.”
“It’s our barricade, Riaz. We’re building it to keep us all safe.”
“You really think it will make the slightest bit of difference? We can’t fight what’s coming.”
Richard sighed. “Can we beat what’s coming, I don’t know, I admit it. But the least we can do is fight it.”
“Why fight when it’s pointless? Why not run and enjoy the time you have left with your family?”
“You think I don’t want to do that? Of course I do, but where would we be then?”
There was the nearby sound of glass shattering.
Riaz leapt up off the wall. “Those little shits!”
Before Richard could stop him, Riaz was racing across the road towards the chip shop. Aaron and his three friends were currently putting through the large plate-glass window by throwing bricks.
Hell on Earth Trilogy: The Complete Apocalyptic Saga Page 42
