The Future of London Box Set

by Mark Gillespie

  CEDRIC DE VERE: If I may, I think that Rudyard Campbell and Aileen Ure, the Prime Minister have laid down some perfectly valid reasons as to why the M25 must stay intact. And let’s be honest here –the Big Chase, as horrific as it may be to some, does actually serve as a means of population control within the city. That might sound cold but there are simply too many people in London. We don’t know what the population or the birth rate is, but it’s not sustainable to have so many people claiming Drop Parcels at the British taxpayer’s expense. Not to mention there are no medical facilities in the city, so a larger population means a greater risk of disease.

  BILLY MARCH: (Laughing and shaking his head) Are you serious Cedric? These people are being chased around the city by a gang of cannibals. Does that sound humane to you? Women and children are run to the point of exhaustion before being captured and bundled off to the human farm in the Hole. And God knows what happens to them before they’re slaughtered – they could be force-fed for weeks or months for all we know to fatten them up. Does that sound humane to you?

  CEDRIC DE VERE: I believe a quick death at the hands of the Ghosts is preferable to wasting away in a back alley to disease or starvation, don’t you?

  BILLY MARCH: (Gasps) A quick death? Didn’t you just hear what I said? How can you come on this show tonight and not know what the bloody hell you’re talking about Cedric? These people aren’t killed quickly. I’ve just mentioned the human farm that’s down there in the Hole. They’re kept alive and they live the rest of their short lives in terror – men, women and children – knowing that they’re going to be butchered for meat.

  CEDRIC DE VERE: Rumours my boy. And if it is true, the Ghosts are stocking up on food because they choose not to accept charity in the form of Drop Parcels. That’s their decision and given the circumstances they live in, it’s one we must respect. In a way, we do the exact same thing here although most of us don’t hunt our own meat. We go to the shop, take it home and put it in the freezer until we’re ready to eat it. It’s not all that dissimilar and we’d be hypocrites to slam the Ghosts for doing something that we do ourselves.

  BILLY MARCH: Cedric, do you even consider the people living in London as human anymore?

  CEDRIC DE VERE: (Laughs briefly) We can no longer measure their society alongside ours Billy. Mother, father, brother, sister – are these terms even relevant anymore? That is the sociological fascination with London as it is now – it’s a brand new society in its infancy, completely unique and like nothing we’ve ever seen before. I for one, shall be watching the Big Chase with interest tonight in the hope that I can learn something about human nature.

  BILLY MARCH: You really are a posh twat aren’t you Cedric? You’re a nasty piece of work. You’re a horrible little bastard who doesn’t understand suffering because you were born with a silver spoon shoved up your fat arse. You’ve never had to work a day in your life, have you mate? Go fuck yourself.

  De Vere smirks.

  JOE ANTONY: (Laughing nervously) Well apologies again for the language. We’re going to take a quick break now but it’s been a fascinating debate so far. We’ll be right back with more chat after this commercial break. And by the way, if you’re watching CBC on split screen with the Future of London, you’ll already know that the Ghosts have arrived in the north. Now if you choose to watch the Big Chase, remember that what you’re about to see is graphic and extremely disturbing. Viewer caution is advised.

  Chapter 13

  “This town is coming like a ghost town.”

  The music was blaring through the speakers, getting louder with each second. ‘Ghost Town’ by The Specials was a song that Walker knew well. He’d gone through a phase back in Edinburgh in late 2010 where he listened to nothing but ska music for about two months. Thinking back, he recalled how he’d strutted his stuff around the city dressed in a pork pie hat, polo shirt, turned-up jeans, and Doc Martens. That is, until enough people told him he looked like a dick.

  The song had brought him joy once. Not now.

  Walker crept slowly up the concrete stairs that led back towards street level. As he did so, the fat bassline rumbled like thunder in his bones. The hypnotic vocal repeated the chorus line over and over again.

  “This town is coming like a ghost town.”

  Walker kept his arm outstretched behind him – a signal for Barboza, Carol, and Charlie to stay back at the entrance to the station.

  When he was near the top of the stairs, he looked through the steel bars that ran alongside the staircase. There was nothing there, not yet.

  But they were close.

  A hand touched Walker on the shoulder. He gasped.

  Carol was standing behind him on the stairs. She was looking over his shoulder, staring through the bars at the empty street, towards the roundabout.

  “Nothing?” she said.

  “No,” Walker said, turning back to the street. “I can’t see them yet.”

  Carol nodded. “It’s okay,” she said. “They won’t be stopping here, at least not yet. They’re playing the music to taunt people, to let them know they’ve arrived. It’s when the music stops, that’s when we need to worry. Silence, that’s what you fear. Let them move on, then we run. Okay?”

  “Aye.”

  Walker glanced behind Carol towards Barboza. She was standing on the path with one arm around Charlie’s shoulder. The boy looked pale, like he was about to be sick.

  “Alright,” Walker said. “We wait.”

  They hurried back down the steps together. The four of them gathered at the entrance of the station, where the wall on either side of the steps kept them out of sight from anybody on street level.

  Walker saw a chunk of dark, cloudy sky overhead. There would be no stars tonight.

  The music was louder now. It was so loud that they could have been standing in the front row at a major rock festival. Walker wondered how the Ghosts had conjured up such a powerful sound system, but then he reminded himself that in the aftermath of Piccadilly, the fruits of London would have been a looter’s paradise. Most of the shops had been plundered in the London riots, but the Ghosts had probably helped themselves to whatever they could find in professional music studios or private houses that had been abandoned. Clearly they’d done something right in the early days, considering how much sway they held over the city.

  Now they’d arrived.

  Walker looked up the stairs towards street level. His heart was pounding.

  The convoy was up there now, circling the roundabout. Walker couldn’t see it, but he could hear it – the thumping music and angry engines.

  “They’re just passing through,” Carol said. She’d pulled Charlie towards her and was stroking his light brown hair, soothing him and whispering reassurances into his ear.

  But Charlie didn’t look like he was listening to the words of his guardian. His frightened eyes were looking up towards the street.

  The throbbing bass. The growling of the engines. It seemed to go on forever.

  In reality, the Ghosts’ convoy couldn’t have been up there for much longer than a minute. Gradually, the music and the cars faded out of earshot. The arrival parade had moved on. At first, nobody standing outside the entrance dared to move. But after a couple more minutes, there was only silence up there on street level.

  “Time to move,” Carol said.

  “Didn’t you just tell me to fear silence?” Walker said. “Are you sure they’re gone?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “For now at least. But you have to fear the real silence that comes later. When they turn that music off after their little parade is over. Because that’s when they go to work.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Barboza said. “We don’t have time to talk about this.”

  No one argued with her. They climbed the stairs back towards the street. It was completely deserted. Walker looked across the roundabout and saw the sleek and modern office blocks in the distance, as ghoulish and haunted house-like as ever. The silence was e
erie, like an icy cold finger running down Walker’s back. It was like that brief visit from the Ghosts had never happened.

  “The cars will split up soon,” Carol said. “It’s what they do. They’ll start spreading themselves out and some of them will be back here. Guaranteed. We don’t have long.”

  “We need to get back to Station,” Walker said. “Now.”

  “We can’t go back,” Carol said. “It’s too risky. It’s too far to travel on foot without running the risk of being seen.”

  “Shit,” Walker said. He’d dared to hope they were through the worst of it. “So what do we do?” he asked.

  “Why don’t we hide in the station?” Barboza said, pointing back towards the underground. “Charlie did alright. We could climb into the tunnel or something like that. We’re hardly going to get hit by a train.”

  Walker didn’t like that. He didn’t like the idea of going back into Old Street Station. He certainly didn’t like the idea of climbing into that tunnel. That endless black abyss, resembling an open mouth.

  “The tunnel is no guarantee of safety,” Carol said. “These maniacs are thorough and that’s exactly the sort of place they’re going to be checking out later. You want to get trapped in there with the Ghosts?”

  Barboza raised her eyebrows. “Have you got a better idea Carol?” she said. “Seeing as how you know everything an’ all.”

  “We’ve got no choice,” Walker said, jumping in before another argument could break out. “We’ve got to get back to Liverpool Street Station. If that’s the one place we’re guaranteed to be safe then it’s the one place we have to go.”

  “Yeah,” Barboza agreed.

  “We won’t make it,” Carol said. As she spoke, she glanced over her shoulder, as if expecting the Ghosts to come back at any minute. “I’m pretty sure they took off down City Road just now. It’s ten minutes back to Station that way if we stay on the main road. And if we’re on the main road they’ll see us. If we come off the main road and take another route, we’re just as likely to get trapped with nowhere to run.”

  Walker sighed. “Fuck sake,” he said. “We can’t hang about the streets all night.”

  “So what do we do?” Barboza said. She was staring at Carol, her eyes flashing with anger. “If you know so much about what they’re going to do, why not tell us what we’re supposed to do to get the bloody hell out of this mess.”

  Carol took a hold of Charlie’s shoulders, like she was leaning on him.

  “We’ve got to lay low,” she said. “Find a place to hide. Somewhere they’re not going to look for us.”

  The three adults stared at one another, knowing that they didn’t have much time to discuss the matter in depth.

  “Where?” Walker said. “I don’t know anything about this neck of the woods.”

  “What about that big cemetery we passed on the way here,” Barboza said. “The park with all the old tombstones. What was it called?”

  “Bunhill Fields,” Carol said.

  “You want to hide from Ghosts in a cemetery?” Walker asked. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

  “Yeah ’cos I’m in the mood for a joke right now Walker,” Barboza said, glaring at him.

  Walker backed off.

  “Or what about the church on the other side of the road?” Barboza said. “Opposite Bunhill Fields or whatever it was called. We could hide in there if Walker’s too scared to go into a cemetery at night.”

  “Wesley’s Chapel,” Carol said.

  “Yeah it was tucked in off the road a little,” Barboza said. “It’d be more comfortable than the cemetery too.”

  “Won’t the Ghosts check in there too?” Walker said.

  “Probably,” Carol said. “And if we get caught in there, we’re trapped.”

  “Well what about the graveyard then?” Barboza said, sighing in exasperation.

  Carol looked at Barboza. Walker thought the older woman was about to shoot down the idea but to his surprise, she nodded at Barboza.

  “It’s a good idea,” she said. “Bunhill is probably the only place around here that’s big enough for us to hide in. The Ghosts might give it a miss. And even if they do come in, it’s big enough to give us a chance of being invisible.”

  Barboza smiled. “What choice have we got, eh?”

  Walker looked at Charlie, then gave him a playful tap on the shoulder. “What do you say wee man?” he asked. “Will you look after me if I let these two women drag us into a graveyard?”

  Charlie looked at Walker and smiled. “Yeah alright,” he said.

  Having made the decision to hide in Bunhill Fields, the quartet hurried back over the roundabout and onto City Road. A road sign informed them that they were on the A501, which was a section of the London Inner Ring Road.

  They followed the road south. The heavy tip-tap of their feet hitting the concrete was the only sound that Walker could hear.

  It took them about two minutes to reach Bunhill Fields. On the other side of the street, Walker noticed Wesley’s Chapel for the first time. The chapel was indeed a little further back from the main road – it was an attractive, two-storeyed Georgian building located at the end of a short, cobbled courtyard. It appeared to have been built mostly out of brown brick and had round-arched windows, five running along the top floor and two on either side of the lower floor entrance. Walker noticed a couple of Greek columns on either side of the main door. In the middle of the courtyard, the statue of a man in a robe extended its arms outwards, beckoning them towards shelter.

  “Are you sure we can’t hide in there?” Walker said. “What is that place?”

  “It’s a Methodist church,” Carol said. “Was. Built by John Wesley – that’s the bloke in the statue out front.”

  “It looks like a safe place,” Barboza said.

  “It’s not worth the risk,” Carol said. “If we get cornered in there, we’re finished.”

  Walker was about to respond but he was cut off by a noise in the distance. He looked over his shoulder, back towards the Old Street roundabout. There was no music this time, no drums – just the sound of vehicles approaching.

  “Oh shit,” Carol said, grabbing Charlie by the arm. “We need to move, get out of sight.”

  Barboza looked towards the roundabout. “That was bloody quick,” she said.

  “Alright,” Walker said. “No more arguments. Bunhill it is then.”

  They ran over towards the entrance of Bunhill Fields. The black steel gate was located in between two stone pillars and it was lying wide open. It too was inviting them in, but it was a less reassuring welcome than the open arms of John Wesley.

  Instead of rushing into the old graveyard, Walker and the others tucked themselves in at the edge of one of the stone pillars. They turned back and watched as two vehicles in the distance pulled onto City Road from the Old Street roundabout.

  Two sets of bright yellow headlights came closer. One of the vehicles was a dark coloured, black pickup truck. The other was a long white van, possibly a Mercedes Sprinter van, judging by the sheer length of the body, which stretched back about six metres.

  There was a fierce skidding sound from further down the road. The tires of the pickup screeched to a sudden halt against the warm road surface. Then slowly, it pulled into the side of the road, parking next to one of the old restaurants that Walker and the others had passed a few minutes ago on their way down City Road.

  The Mercedes van pulled in behind the pickup. Both vehicles kept their engines running and their lights on.

  “What’s going on?” Barboza said. “Why have they stopped there?”

  “They’re onto something,” Carol whispered. “Either they know something we don’t or they’re just taking a punt that someone’s in there.”

  A moment later, there was a loud clicking noise as the doors of the Sprinter and the pickup opened at the same time. Countless dark figures spilled out of both vehicles, stepping onto the road.

  From afar, Walker saw the Ghosts of
London for the first time.

  Chapter 14

  Immersion 9 – Live Chat Forums

  #GhostsofLondon #BigChase

  Harry Krishna: Anybody watching FOL 10? Is that Mr Apocalypse and Barboza I see shitting themselves on the City Road?

  WelcomeTo1984: Yeah lad.

  Harry Krishna: Who else is with them?

  WelcomeTo1984: Woman and boy? They’re from Station. Weren’t you watching earlier?

  Harry Krishna: Nah I’m just sitting down with my GF and a takeaway to watch #GhostsofLondon There was a Big Chase meal deal on at McDonalds. Fast food! Guess that’s what the Ghosts are getting in as well. What else do you call it when your dinner runs away at a hundred miles per hour? LOL!

  Ajax: LOL! Mr A and B are in deep shit. Look at all ’em Ghosts standing outside that restaurant. Fucking hell. Something big’s about to go down here.

  WelcomeTo1984: Fuck Mr A and B! Instant karma baby!! It’s what they deserve after what they did to them two soldiers today. Good men killed by those bloody London animals. Come on the Ghosts – knock ’em out and put ’em in the van. You’re going to the farm! LOL!

  Ajax: @WelcomeTo1984 You stupid twat! You don’t actually believe those troops were doing maintenance work? For real bro? Troops were sent there to kill them. It was self-defence. Don’t be such a gullible fucking moron!!

  WelcomeTo1984: @Ajax LOL! It’s Mr Conspiracy Theory! Calm down sunshine. Don’t knock that tinfoil hat off your head on the way out.