“Little bastard gave me the slip,” the Captain said. “I underestimated him. He must have met up with the other two somewhere. Did you find them?”
“Not yet,” said the other Ghost. “One of the other units has probably grabbed them by now.”
“Yeah,” the Captain said.
“What about in there?” someone said. “Thought we heard something.”
“Rogues,” the Captain said. “Dirty bastards, riddled with disease just like this one. I took care of ’em. Chapel’s clear except for a few stinking corpses.”
“Want us to go in for another look?” one of the Ghosts said. “It’s a big place, yeah? The boy might be hiding somewhere.”
“Chapel’s clear,” the Captain said. “We’ve wasted enough time here as it is tonight. C’mon let’s clear out.”
“Yes Captain.”
The footsteps receded, moving further away from Wesley’s Chapel.
Inside the building, Walker, Barboza, and Charlie kept perfectly still.
Chapter 18
FreakySkandal.com – The Hottest Celebrity Gossip!
July 12th 2020
Excerpt from a clip posted to the FreakySkandal website at 10.59pm.
Rudyard Campbell, CEO of SKAM Media, is walking out of the front door of the exclusive Prime Craft Steakhouse in Birmingham’s trendy South Side. Even amongst seasoned restaurant-goers, Prime Craft is notorious for its outrageous prices – a bone-in ribeye for example, will set customers back at least two hundred pounds.
Campbell steps onto the pavement, accompanied by several family members including his wife, three of his five grown up children, and a scattering of grandchildren aged between five and fourteen. The Campbells are surrounded by several large bodyguards who are swiftly ushering them towards a black Rolls Royce Phantom 2020, which is waiting on the street with the engine still running.
At this point, one of Freaky Skandal’s roving reporters – with his camera phone pointing towards the Campbell group – moves in.
FS REPORTER: Mr Campbell sir, a quick word please?
One of the bodyguards puts a hand out, blocking the reporter’s path.
BODYGUARD: Make room please.
FS REPORTER: Just a quick word sir – we’re broadcasting live to millions of people on the Freaky Skandal website. Also on our I-9 page, which has over three million followers.
Campbell looks over the bodyguard’s shoulder at the reporter. The old man’s leathery face looks uninterested.
RUDYARD CAMPBELL: Who did you say you’re with?
FS REPORTER: Freaky Skandal sir. Home of the hottest celebrity gossip – we get millions of visitors to our website every day of the week.
RUDYARD CAMPBELL: Okay. What can I do for you?
FS REPORTER: Just wanted to get your thoughts on tonight’s Big Chase sir? Have you been watching? Early indications suggest that SKAM are receiving even more complaints than last time.
RUDYARD CAMPBELL: Well I haven’t really been watching – as you can see I’ve been out for a meal with my family tonight.
FS REPORTER: What do you say to the people who are complaining about tonight’s Future of London broadcast? To those who call it sick exploitation?
RUDYARD CAMPBELL: (Edging towards the parked car) Well they’ve been saying that since the day we launched, haven’t they?
FS REPORTER: But the Big Chase takes it to a whole new level. Don’t you think sir?
RUDYARD CAMPBELL: (Stops walking towards the car and turns to face the reporter) No I don’t. In fact, I would disagree strongly with anyone who thinks this is sick exploitation on our part. There is great importance in showing these events and specifically it’s in regards to the ongoing RELEASE versus PRESERVE debate. Watching these people at their worst, this is crucial evidence for the PRESERVE campaign, don’t you think? Can you imagine trying to rehabilitate these people into our society? People who have tasted flesh, who live in an environment devoid of law and order. We have no choice but to contain them. We have no choice but to watch and learn something new about ourselves, about the human condition – no matter how awful it is. That’s the gift the people of London give to us every day.
FS REPORTER: I also wanted to ask about the recent rumours sir. The word is that mobile phones are going to be added to the Drop Parcels sometime soon. That some sort of contact is going to be made between people on either side of the M25. Is that true?
RUDYARD CAMPBELL: This is something that’s being discussed right now. Certainly we’re not monsters. We don’t want to abandon these people entirely just because we can’t rehabilitate them back into society. The phone drop idea has been mentioned but it’s not like a regular cell phone where people make calls and texts back and forth. We’re not going to be able to talk to these people. The idea is that we get them to send something back to us. We drop the phones, provide a number for them to send messages or photographs to their loved ones. To tell us their story. We’re hoping to introduce this before the end of the year.
FS REPORTER: Do you think that will please the extremists sir? What do you think The Good and Honest Citizens will have to say about that?
Rudyard Campbell turns away from the reporter. He walks towards the open door of the waiting Rolls Royce Phantom and climbs inside. One of the bodyguards uses his massive bulk to block the reporter from getting any closer.
FS REPORTER: (Yelling to Campbell) Enjoy the rest of your evening sir.
Chapter 19
Walker felt like he’d been sitting on the chapel floor for hours. But it was probably no more than five minutes after he’d heard the Ghosts leave that Barboza came up behind him and threaded her arms under his armpits.
“What are you doing?” Walker said. His voice was groggy.
“Getting you back to your feet,” she said. “What does it look like?”
Walker looked down and saw Barboza’s hands clasped tightly together in the middle of his chest. She was pulling at him, encouraging him to get up off the floor. Tough love, they call it. Painful too. As Barboza tried to get him back into a standing position, sharp jolts of pain shot up and down Walker’s body.
“Go easy will you?” he said.
Barboza stopped pulling. Gently, she sat him back down again.
“Sorry Walker,” she said. “Just trying to keep you upright and awake. I don’t want you to black out or anything like that.”
Walker flopped back down into a seating position on the floor. The pain was bad but it felt superficial – cuts and bruises mostly. It didn’t feel like anything had been broken and fingers crossed, there was no long-term damage. Sumo Dave had for the most part, landed his blows on Walker’s arms and legs.
“I’m not going to black out,” Walker said.
He got back to his feet by himself, refusing any assistance from Barboza. As he got up though, she stood beside him, her arm outstretched and on stand-by in case he needed it.
Walker stood in the aisle, his head swimming. It was going to take a few minutes for all the pieces to fit back together again.
“Bloody hell Walker,” Barboza said. “He’s your friend?”
“Aye,” Walker said. “Well, sort of.”
Barboza shook her head in disbelief. “With friends like that who needs enemies, eh?” she said.
Walker looked at her. “Are you kidding?” he said. “If he wasn’t my friend, we’d be tied up in the back of one of those meat wagons right now. Destined to be food or slaves or God knows.”
“Like Carol?” a voice said behind them.
Walker turned around.
Charlie was standing further down the aisle. The boy’s skin was still a sickly pale colour, which only seemed to highlight the red welt on his neck where Sumo Dave had pressed the sword against his skin.
“What was that?” Walker asked.
“Carol’s gone isn’t she?” Charlie said. It was a question, but it sounded like he was telling them something.
“Aye,” Walker said.
“I’m so
rry Charlie,” Barboza said. “But you’re safe and that’s what Carol wanted, more than anything else in the world I think.”
Walker glanced up at the ceiling of the chapel. He scanned the edges and corners of the large room, the hanging lights – everything, searching for signs of anything unusual.
“Any cameras in here?” he said, whispering in Barboza’s ear.
Barboza shook her head. “I doubt it,” she said. “If there is, we just put on one hell of a show.”
“What are we going to do?” Charlie said, cutting in. He seemed irritated that they were excluding him from the conversation.
“We stay here until sunrise,” Walker said. “We get our heads down, turn off the lights and keep quiet. And when we wake up, it’ll all be over.”
“Yeah,” Barboza said. She walked down the aisle towards Charlie and put an arm around his shoulder. Then gently, she guided him to the nearest bench.
“We’re going to sleep here tonight,” Barboza said, sitting down beside Charlie. “Then tomorrow morning we’ll take you back to Station. We’ll get you home, yeah? Just like we said we were going to do.”
The boy nodded.
Walker stood in the aisle, watching them for a moment. He was thankful that Barboza was there because Walker wouldn’t have known what to do with the kid. He’d had no experience whatsoever with children and up until he’d walked into Station earlier that day, he hadn’t seen one of them in nine years.
“Let’s find somewhere to sleep,” he said, casting an eye around the chapel.
“Can we do something first?” Barboza said.
“What?”
For a second, Walker thought she was going to ask if they could pray.
“Check the front door’s locked. Or at least that it’s shut and wasn’t left hanging open by your mate. That’s a surefire way to tempt someone in off the street, and I don’t want to see anyone else tonight.”
“Aye, okay.”
Walker limped slightly on his left leg as he made his way towards the door. The front door was locked – it didn’t look like it had been touched. To his left, he saw a smear of dark liquid on the floor leading towards the broken window. Walker guessed that Sumo Dave had found the door locked and climbed back through the same window he’d used to enter the chapel. He must have pushed the corpse out ahead of him.
Walker peered through the broken window. The dark outline of Wesley’s statue was visible in the middle of the courtyard. It was quiet out there now. Almost peaceful.
That’s when it hit him – the realisation of what had happened. Sumo Dave, his old friend – he was alive. Walker should have been ecstatic. So why did it feel like he’d just discovered Sumo’s corpse rotting up a London back alley?
Maybe it’s because his friend was dead after all.
Walker stayed there for a while, looking out of the broken window and standing in the darkness. Time passed, but he wasn’t counting.
When he eventually returned into the chapel, Barboza and Charlie had already found somewhere to sleep. They’d made their way upstairs to the oval gallery, out of reach of the horrors that had just taken place on the lower level. Walker found the wooden stairs that led up to the gallery and when he got there, he found Barboza setting down a couple of light brown tablecloths on the hard, narrow space in between the pews. Charlie was standing next to her, watching her do it.
“All good?” she asked, noticing Walker at the top of the stairs.
“The door’s shut,” Walker said. “Locked. Sumo Dave climbed out through the window.”
“What about that rogue?” Barboza asked.
“I think he’s still dead.”
Barboza laughed. “Very funny smart arse,” she said. “I mean, how do you think he got in? He was already in here before your mate smashed the window. Know what I mean?”
Walker sighed. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe he smashed a window round the back. Look, if anyone else was in here we’d have seen them by now. Right? We’re only going to be here for a short while so let’s try and get some sleep.”
He looked at Barboza’s handiwork on the floor. “Are we using tablecloths as bed sheets?”
“Got a problem with that?”
“Nope.”
“Found ’em downstairs,” Barboza said. “Had to take Charlie for a pee and I didn’t want to take him outside. So he ended up using an old glass bottle that was sitting on the table downstairs. There were two tablecloths on it and one of ’em just happens to your bed for the night sir. Best we’re going to get. Did you find any water?”
Walker shook his head. “Didn’t even look. I’m too tired to drink.”
“That’s alright,” Barboza said. “I think we can wait till morning, eh Charlie?”
“Yeah,” the boy said.
Charlie walked over and dropped onto the floor where Barboza had laid the tablecloth down. Barboza lay down beside him, keeping one arm on the boy’s shoulder.
“Sleep well,” Walker said.
“Better get these lights out quick,” Barboza said. “We’ve left them on too long as it is.”
“Aye I know. I’ll take care of it.”
Walker limped back downstairs as quickly as he could and turned off the light switch next to the pulpit. The chapel was plunged into darkness. Apart from some minor bumps and a slight trip on the stairs, he got back up to the gallery without any major incidents.
Walker found the narrow space on the floor that was his bed for the night. With an exhausted groan, he lay down on the cool tablecloth and wriggled around on the hard surface, trying to get comfortable.
Fat chance. But it was better than being out there on the streets.
He heard Barboza breathing softly in the next row down. It sounded like she’d already drifted off into a deep sleep. The boy was snoring too – a soft whistling sound that Walker found oddly soothing and irritating at the same time.
For Walker, it was going to be a long night. He was sure of it. How could he be expected to sleep with everything that had happened?
And yet it didn’t take long until his eyelids grew heavy. He felt his head rolling back and forth on the thin strip of tablecloth that lay in between him and the floor.
The room was spinning again.
Walker fell into a deep sleep and thank God, he didn’t dream.
Chapter 20
Daylight poured into the chapel. It came hard like a flood, gushing through the large stained glass windows that towered above the pulpit.
Walker put a hand to his face, shielding his eyes from the light. He lifted his head off the floor and looked to his right. There was no sign of Barboza and Charlie in the next row along. Their crude tablecloth bed was wrinkled and empty.
He sat up, trying to shake the sleep out of his head. Immediately, he felt a dull pain in his arms and legs but it wasn’t as bad as it had been the night before. Looking down, he noticed some light yellowy-brown bruising scattered upon both arms. Along with the scratches the tiger had given him at the New River, his arms were marking up noticeably.
The aches and pains he could handle. His thirst was more of an immediate concern. Walker hadn’t had a drink of water since they’d left Station yesterday evening and by now that felt like a lifetime ago.
He pushed himself onto his feet, dusting down his black t-shirt and jeans. His clothes stank of stale sweat and they were covered in dried dirt stains, a reminder of their time in Bunhill Fields. Walker tried to brush some of the dirt off with his hands but just like the memories, the dirt was imprinted upon him.
With a sigh, he walked downstairs. His movement was slow and laboured, like that of a man fifty years his senior. He trudged down the aisle, trying to avoid looking at the bloodstained floor where the rogue had dropped dead. But as he approached the door, Walker saw the thick trail of dark red smeared across the aisle where Sumo Dave had dragged the corpse towards the window.
The front door of the chapel was lying wide open. Walker could see Barboza and Charlie sitt
ing on the front step outside, in between the double Greek-style columns on the building’s exterior. Barboza and Charlie had their backs to Walker as he approached but he could tell they were soaking their faces in the morning sun.
Barboza must have heard his footsteps. She turned around and smiled at him.
“Morning,” she said.
“Morning,” Walker replied.
All things considering, Barboza and Charlie looked refreshed. Like it was just another day in the city of London and they couldn’t wait to get started on whatever the world had planned for them. Last night was in the rear-view mirror; the terrible things that had happened still felt like a dream.
For now.
Walker sat down beside them, putting Charlie in the middle of the two adults. He closed his eyes and felt the heat touching his skin – a strange, almost cleansing sensation. From somewhere nearby, he could hear the birds chattering away to one another in the trees.
“It’s a beautiful morning,” Barboza said.
Walker nodded, then he looked at Charlie. “How’s it going wee man?” he said. “Did you get any sleep?”
Charlie shrugged. “I had a dream about Carol,” he said.
“Aye?” Walker said. He didn’t want to hear about that dream. And upon closer inspection, he noticed that the boy’s eyes were red and swollen, like he’d been crying for days.
Barboza pulled Charlie closer to her.
“So now what?” she asked, looking at Walker.
“We take him back to Station,” Walker said.
“Back to the good guys,” Charlie said.
The Future of London Box Set Page 52
