The row of grimy windows at the top of the chamber to our left begins to flicker orange as the fire sweeps parallel to us. It won’t be long before it reaches this chamber.
We emerge into the Members’ Lobby. Marble figures lie on the ground, arms broken, heads smashed off. We pass a group of four kids toppling a statue of some long forgotten administrator, his outstretched finger hectoring and stern; it snaps off as the figure crashes to the tiles.
Ahead there is gunfire and shouting, explosions and screams, and the constant angry roar of children on the rampage.
There are a series of loud reports down the corridor to my right. I spin to see a soldier backing away, firing a handgun as he goes. Then it clicks uselessly, the ammunition exhausted. He throws the weapon at whoever is advancing towards him, then turns to run in my direction. I raise my gun to cut him down but before I can fire a tall figure bursts into the corridor in a flurry of limbs and steel. The soldier raises his arms to protect himself, but the swordsman brings his blade down in a sweeping arc and cleanly severs the man’s head from his body. It rolls towards me, the cadaver toppling to the floor behind it. The swordsman stands upright and walks towards us, dripping blade at his side. His face is a mass of bruises.
“Ferguson, is that you?” says Lee.
The figure nods as he reaches us. One of the four kids, finished with the statue now, runs forward and kicks the soldier’s severed head as if taking a penalty. It soars into the air and narrowly misses a second sword-bearing Ranger who emerges from the corridor and ducks in alarm as the head flies past, breaking the window on its way out.
“Fucking hell!” swears the Ranger. He turns and shouts at Ferguson. “We’re supposed to disable when possible, Ferguson. You know the boss doesn’t like us killing if we don’t have to.”
Ferguson turns and stares at Wilkes who immediately puts his hands up.
“But, you know, do what you feel, pal,” he says sheepishly.
The kids laugh and high five the head kicker, then they take off towards the Lords, following the sounds of the fight.
Lee, the two Rangers and I follow on behind.
AS WE WALKED through that corridor something strange happened to me. I felt my pulse racing, faster than it had even when I was lined up in front of the firing squad. My hand started spastically clenching and unclenching on the stock of my gun and Mac began to shout at me.
“Come on Nine Lives, what are you doing straggling at the back?” he bellowed. “Fucking get in there. Crack some skulls. Come on, for fuck’s sake.”
I tried to ignore him but he was too loud, too insistent. The desire to kill grew so strong that I could barely hold myself in check.
“Stay with her,” I said to Wilkes. Then I looked at Ferguson as if to say ‘You coming?’ He nodded once, and we ran ahead, into the fray. I heard Jane shouting at me to be careful, but it barely registered.
We came to the Lords and found the doors smashed open. The noise from inside was indescribable. As we entered we found the mob of children, nearly all of them, I reckon, formed into a circle. Some were standing on the red leather benches to get a better view of the makeshift arena they’d constructed on the floor of the house. They were literally baying for blood, chanting, cheering, jeering and yelling. I fought my way through the crowd to the front edge and found two of Cooper’s soldiers — big, burly men in black combats, shaven headed and scary — standing with their backs to each other, circling around and around waiting for the crowd to surge forward and tear them to pieces. They were bleeding, desperate and cornered.
The men were unarmed, and the children had enough weapons between them to gun them down a hundred times, but it seemed the crowd was eager for a more primitive spectacle. They were hurling anything and everything they could find at the men — books, computer equipment, chairs, heavy wooden boxes. The men were, I realised, being stoned to death. I felt a surge of excited bloodlust and ran out into the lobby where I had passed some more shattered statues. I grabbed a heavy, sharp piece of marble and ran back, fighting my way through the crowd to the front again, cradling it in my hands.
The men were batting away the objects that were flying at them, but they couldn’t get them all. A gold finial smashed into the face of one of them and he reeled backwards. The children cheered as blood began to pump from his nose. He stopped for a moment and bowed his head, wiping the blood onto his sleeve. I smiled as I stepped forward, raised the heavy stone block, and brought it crashing down on the man’s head, feeling his skull crack and crumble beneath it.
“Yeah!” cried Mac. “That’s more like it! Kill the bastard!”
The man slumped against me, blood spurting from his head, spraying all over me. I brought the rock down again and again, splashing his brains all over my chest. The children cheered and stamped their feet. The other soldier stepped forward, holding out his hands. I’m unsure whether he was begging for mercy or trying to get me to stop. I brought the stone down one more time and the man collapsed to the floor. I dropped the stone on what was left of his head, drew my gun and shot his colleague in the face. There was a huge cheer from the crowd as the man’s head jerked backwards and he toppled to the floor.
I raised my blood drenched arms, gun in hand, and I roared. The crowd echoed my triumph. If I registered the horror in Ferguson’s face, Mac’s encouragement was enough to make me to ignore it.
“Come on!” I cried.
The crowd of children parted before me then fell into step behind as I ran past the broken golden throne and out the rear doors into the Royal Gallery — a long corridor lined with opulent paintings of heroic military scenes from the nineteenth century. I ran at the head of the mob down that hall towards the doors of the Queen’s Robing Room. The doors were slightly ajar, but there seemed to be nobody ahead of us, so I ran headlong toward them.
Only when I was two thirds of the way down the hall, with a hundred screaming children behind me, did the doors suddenly swing open to reveal four men, two standing, two kneeling, machine guns raised. And standing in between them was Cooper, smiling as he saw us approach.
“Fire!” he shouted.
The four machine guns opened up simultaneously.
It turned out I was right — being shot multiple times doesn’t really hurt. It’s like being punched by someone wearing boxing gloves; you feel the impact in your torso but there’s no pain, just a sudden pressure and shocking push backwards as you absorb the momentum of the bullet as it spins into your flesh, tearing and ripping and smashing its way through you.
I hit the tiles hard and slid forward on a tide of my own blood.
All I could hear was gunfire and screaming.
And then, as silence fell inside my head, Mac whispered one word, clear and calm.
“Gotcha.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I HEAR THE volley of gunfire and the sudden change from yelling to screaming as I pass the threshold of the Lords.
Ahead of me I can see the mass of children pouring past the Queen’s chair, waving their weapons in a frenzy. Suddenly the tide turns and they back away and turn to run towards us. The children at the back are taken by surprise and some fall to the ground to be trampled by the mass panic that sweeps over them.
I try to wave them down, to get them to stop and regroup, but they’re like a herd of panicked cattle — unthinking and unstoppable. Wilkes pushes me hard, flinging me onto the front bench, saving me from being trampled in the rush.
When the stampede has passed, I pull myself off the bench and see Wilkes picking himself up across from me. We can hear the commotion of the retreating mob behind us, and the groans of the injured and dying ahead.
“Put that bloody knife away and pick up a real weapon,” I hiss at Wilkes, annoyed by his sword. He nods reluctantly and pulls a handgun from his pocket with his left hand, although he keeps the sword raised in his right. We advance either side of the throne into the corridor beyond.
The long, wide room is strewn with bodies. The
air is thick with smoke so it’s hard to make out the far end, where Cooper and his men must be. The light is streaming through the windows behind them, casting their shadows into the smoke, making them seem ghostly.
I turn to Wilkes.
“Find someone, anyone, and go around. Get behind them.”
But before he can move there is a cry from the far end and the sounds of a struggle. The shadows dance and writhe in the smoke, there is a brief burst of gunfire, then footsteps on the tiled floor as someone comes running towards us.
“Stay right there!” I yell. The running man stops dead as the smoke begins to clear.
As the scene fades into view I first make out Cooper, standing about a third of the way to us, holding a handgun. He stares at me and snarls, a cornered animal. Then behind him I gradually make out four of his men, kneeling with their fingers laced behind their heads. Standing behind and above them are Green, Jack, Jools and some of the other women from the Lords, who have managed to outflank them.
“You’re trapped, Cooper,” I say, sighting my gun carefully on his chest. “There’s nowhere for you to run. Your army’s defeated, your prisoners are freed, your Palace is on fire.”
He looks left and right desperately, searching for an escape route, but there is nothing. Then he looks down at his feet, at the dead and dying, and he barks a short, humourless laugh.
Quick as a flash he drops to the floor and grabs one of the shot children, dragging them to him and then pulling the body to the side wall.
I nearly scream as I realise that the bloody mess he’s dragging is Lee.
My knees give way and I crash to the floor as I cry out. It sounds like someone else. Surely that scream of anguish can’t have come from me?
In a moment Cooper is sitting with his back to the wall, legs wide, with Lee slumped back against his chest as a human shield.
My breath comes in short, ragged gasps and I try to focus through my tears. Lee is still breathing, I can tell that, but he’s been shot multiple times, across the chest and abdomen. He is literally soaked in blood from head to toe.
His head lolls back against Cooper’s chest and his eyes open, rolling wildly, confused and in shock.
Cooper brings his gun up, presses it against Lee’s temple, and stares at me over my dying lover’s shoulder.
“He’s still alive, Kate,” he says, no longer shouting.“There’s a chance you could save him. Get him to St Thomas’ quickly and you never know.”
Lee’s eyes focus on me and his face forms a question. Then he looks down at the forty or so dead and dying children that litter the floor before him and his mouth hangs open.
“What did I do?” he whispers as he surveys the carnage. He looks up at me with eyes clouded by tears and blood. “Matron, what did I do?”
I hear myself sob. This isn’t the resolute warrior Lee has become. He just sounds like a frightened child.
I take a deep breath and force myself to take control. I slowly rise to my feet.
“Okay,” I shout. “If you let him go, I promise you can walk out of here.”
“Like fuck he can!” It’s Jools, shouting from the far room, bringing her gun to bear on Cooper. “That rat bastard is mine.”
“Julia, darling,” says Cooper. “I didn’t know you cared.”
He takes the gun away from Lee’s head for an instant and fires a single shot towards the far room. The gun is back at Lee’s temple before Jools’ lifeless corpse hits the ground. Jack cries out in alarm. There are shouts and screams both ahead and behind me.
Lee’s looking left and right, starting to focus, starting to get a sense of his situation.
His eyes focus on the far wall and he seems to study the painting that dominates it. I glance right to see what he’s looking at and realise it’s a huge representation of the death of Nelson, who lies cradled in Hardy’s arms much as Lee lies slumped in Cooper’s.
He smiles, and blood bubbles from his lips. Then he turns and looks at me.
For a moment I’m back in Manchester, staring into the eyes of my brother, seeing the realisation of his own death so clear.
Lee mouths words, trying to tell me something, but I can’t make out what it is.
I cry out. “No!”
But his awful sad smile widens.
Then he lifts his right hand, grabs Cooper’s gun, still tight against his skull, slips his finger inside the trigger guard and pulls.
There is a single shot.
Then many.
CHAPTER THIRTY
THEY COUNTED TWENTY-THREE dead soldiers, forty-six dead children and three young women in their final sweep of the Palace of Westminster. Plus Lee, of course.
Some of the soldiers’ bodies had been horribly mutilated. One had been literally torn apart. Green chose to believe it was the women from the lords who did that, not the children.
He organised teams to recover all of the bodies from the building — all their dead, that is. They left the snatchers to burn, and buried their dead in Parliament Square.
When the mob finally burnt itself out they gathered in the road outside, dazed by what they’d done, slowly coming down like clubbers after a great night out. Green addressed the crowd, telling them about the school, offering a home to all those who wanted to come with him. Anyone who wanted to return to the communities they were snatched from could come back with them too, he promised to arrange safe transport home.
A bunch of the comfort women elected to come with them, but a group of nine children refused to come along, insisting that they could look after themselves, distrustful of all adults even still. He let them go.
The fire spread more slowly than expected, but the entire Parliament complex was ablaze by the time they loaded the remaining children back into the lorries and set off for St Mark’s through the snow.
As they reached the edge of the city two of them parted company with the main convoy. Jack led a small team to Heathrow where they spent three busy days siphoning off aircraft fuel, laying charges, planning the biggest explosion since Salisbury. When they pulled out of the airport, they left a huge conflagration behind them. All the planes burned, the runways a mass of unuseable craters. Nobody would be flying children to the US from there ever again, and neither could the American Church land and start again. In the week that followed, they took care of Gatwick and Luton before returning to St Mark’s.
Wilkes and Ferguson, who had taken off back to Nottingham once the battle of Westminster was over, had promised the Rangers would take similar steps at Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds airports. Obviously there were still local and military airfields the church could use, but they agreed this sent a strong message and was worth the effort.
Jane took no part in any of this. She sat silent, comatose, her eyes fixed on some distant point. She let herself be led into one of the lorries, compliant, like a puppet or a doll.
When they got back to the school she took to her bed and stayed there. She would eat when she was fed, sleep when the candle was blown out, wake when they opened her curtains.
But that was all.
It was as if she wasn’t even in there anymore.
EPILOGUE
CAROLINE OPENED HER good eye and winced. It was hard to divorce the pounding in her head from the pounding on the door of her small room. The walls glowed orange, lit by the dying embers of the fire that kept ice from forming on the inside of the windows on these long, cold nights.
Even through her hangover, Caroline knew instantly what was occurring.
Someone was having a baby.
“Okay,” she shouted wearily. “I’m coming.” The hammering stopped and she heard footsteps scurry off down the corridor outside.
She rubbed her head and reached for the glass of water that she always kept on her bedside cabinet. She gulped it all down, wishing there were still such things as aspirin or Nurofen.
“What’s going on?” murmured Jack, rolling over and nuzzling into her neck.
“The baby’s com
ing,” she whispered. “You go back to sleep.”
He mumbled something and rolled back again, pulling the blankets tight to his neck. Within moments he was snoring softly.
Caroline reached across and stroked his hair tenderly before bracing herself and swinging her legs out of the warm cocoon of the bed into the freezing night air. The rug protected her feet from the worst of the cold as she pulled her jeans and sweater on. Her breath misted the air in front of her face as she added central heating to the list of things she would wish for if she ever found a lamp with a genie in it.
She sat back on the edge of the bed, pulled on her slippers, then hurried to the door and emerged into the first floor landing of Fairlawne, the new home of St Mark’s.
The school she had returned to six months previously was very different to the one she had left two years before that.
It wasn’t just that they were in a different building now; the sudden influx of new children had shifted the balance of the place. The easy cameraderie she remembered from their time at Groombridge was gone. There were new cliques and new gangs, new classes, new troublemakers and new favourites.
New names on the memorial wall, too.
With so many of the adults dead, they had too few staff to deal with the new intake. Although a bunch of the women who had been kept prisoner in Westminster turned out to be naturals, they couldn’t replace what the school had lost. Green seemed to be in twenty places at once — breaking up fights, teaching classes, organising the repatriation of rescued kids, tending to the wounded and damaged. He was magnificent, holding the school together almost single-handed.
School's Out Forever (afterblight chronicles) Page 79
