Last Light

by Alex Scarrow

  ‘Yo, man. Ain’t talkin’ to you,’ said the kid with the dashed eyebrow. ‘Fuckin’ twat,’ he added.

  Leona squeezed Dan’s hand gently to shut him up. There was probably a way for them to excuse themselves and be about their business, but only coming from her mouth; something clever, laddish, funny might just do it, make ’em laugh and move on. Anything coming from him was going to be considered a challenge.

  ‘It’s mad all right,’ said Leona. ‘Yeah . . . really fuckin’ buzzin’ man. Buff ain’t it?’

  The three youths nodded and smiled. She guessed they liked her saying that, or maybe they were just laughing at her unconvincing sister-talk.

  Dan took a step to the left, his feet noisily shuffling glass and clutter across the concrete.

  ‘Fuck you goin’?’ said 50 Cent.

  ‘We’re just going, okay?’ said Dan. ‘We don’t want any trouble, we’re just going to—’

  ‘You goin’ nowhere.’

  Dan nodded obediently. ‘Sure, okay. I’ll just sit down or something,’ he mumbled submissively stooping down with his hands reaching out for the ground. Leona knew, then and there, he was going to do something.

  With a flick of both hands he flung a cloud of dust and shards of glass up at the three youths standing in front of them.

  They flinched, covering their faces. Leona took the opportunity to scoop up a crushed and twisted can of pineapple segments and throw it at the nearest of them. It bounced off the forehead of the kid with the dashy-eyebrow just as he’d dropped his hands from protecting his face. Leona was about to grab another can when Dan turned to her and hissed, ‘run!’

  She turned to her left, and started to sprint, hoping he was following, hoping Dan was right behind her. She ran for twenty or thirty yards along the front of the supermarket, weaving through the discarded shopping trolleys, before she dared to turn round and check that that was the case.

  But he wasn’t right there as she hoped, expected . . . behind her. She couldn’t see him anywhere.

  She could see two of the three youths sprinting up the concourse she and Dan had been walking down a minute or so earlier. It led outside on to Uxbridge Road. Dan must have shot off that way - attempting to draw them away from her. Two of them had gone after him, but the white youth who’d called Dan a ‘twat’, ‘Dasher’, was chasing after her, kicking the trolleys out of his way as he hurtled towards her. In the split second that she looked at him, she could see a splash of crimson on his pale spotty forehead.

  He was the one she’d got with the tin.

  Leona turned back round, continuing to run another twenty yards, until she remembered this section of the precinct was a dead end - it went nowhere. There was a Boots chemist at the end of it, a newsagent and a Woolworths, but no access back on to the street.

  She pushed past the last of the trolleys, swinging it round behind her to be sure it would lie in her wake and hopefully slow down the bastard behind her as he kicked it out of the way. Up ahead, emerging out of the gloom, Leona saw the dead end. Her only hope of avoiding him was through one of the stores on either side; a choice between Boots and Woolworths. Both of them were big outlets, large enough that she stood a chance of losing him inside, and big enough, she knew, that they had other street entrances - both of them opening on to Uxbridge Road and Goldhawk Road.

  She swung towards Woolworths, she could see one of the automatic doors had either powered-down in the open position, or been yanked open by somebody; either way it decided the matter for her.

  She could hear his trainers smacking against the ground, and the clatter and rattle as the last of the trolleys was kicked out of the way.

  ‘Come ’ere you cu-u-u-n-n-t!’ she heard him shout, his voice reverberating around the concourse behind her.

  She ran in through the open door, not prepared for how dark it was going to be inside with the power gone. Although it was a sunny day outside, the light filtering in from the doorway, and the long tall windows along the front of the store either side of the entrance, did little to illuminate the low-ceilinged floor space ahead of her, criss-crossed with aisles and counters.

  Here, as everywhere else, looters had been in and made a mess. Around the Pick ’n’ Mix sweet stand, and the shelves near the tills, where twenty-four hours earlier Mars Bars, Twixes and KitKats had been stacked, was where most of the desperate scrabbling for things had occurred.

  As she squeezed past a till-aisle, half-blocked by a trolley on its side, chocolate bars spilled from it across the floor and trampled to a sticky brown sludge, she turned to check his progress again.

  Dasher hesitated for just a few moments in the open automatic doorway, either, smartly, allowing a few seconds for his eyes to adjust, or briefly intimidated by the gloomy labyrinth ahead of him.

  ‘You bitch,’ she heard his cold adolescent voice snarl. ‘I’m going to fuckin’ bitch-slap you, then I’ll shag you senseless!’

  Leona ducked down on the other side of the trolley, and crawled on all fours across the scuffed linoleum floor towards the nearest of the product aisles. She placed one of her feet on a packet of crisps, and the foil packet crinkled noisily in the silence.

  It was enough of an invitation for him. She heard movement, a clatter of things falling to the floor, and then the slap-slap of his trainers.

  ‘Where are you?’ he called out, striding swiftly along the top of the aisles, just beyond the tills, looking down each one in turn, trying to find her.

  She got to her feet, but still crouching low, began to jog as quietly as she could down the aisle she was in, before he could get to hers.

  But she was too slow. Just as she reached the end of the aisle - still stocked with soft toys, untouched by yesterday’s chaos - she heard him.

  ‘I see you!’

  Oh fuck.

  She turned at the end, headed right, taking her towards the Music, DVDs and Games section. She skidded on her heels and dived in between two large racks of PlayStation games. Behind her, the sound of those bloody trainers slapping the floor, and now . . . she could hear his breathing. He was gaining on her.

  She didn’t stop. He was way too close to have been thrown off by that little manoeuvre. She needed somewhere in the shop she could really lose herself, somewhere—

  ‘Fuckin’ stop,’ he called out again. ‘I just want to talk!’ he added breathlessly twenty yards behind.

  Yeah right.

  She reached the end of the games racks. Ahead she could make out a centre store lay-out of tables stacked with jumpers and fleeces, and jackets on garment rails; the children’s clothing section.

  She leapt forward, throwing herself almost immediately to the ground beneath a four-sided, rotating garment rail, from which long winter school coats were dangling.

  Only three or four seconds later, she heard his slapping trainers, that suddenly hushed as his feet passed on to the plain, cord carpet that marked this section, Clothing, from the rest of the store. In the dark she could only see the pale grey of daylight filtering across the low tiled ceiling, everything else now was black and formless.

  She listened intently as he moved around, the only sound now the swishing of clothes, and jangling of plastic coat-hangers as he passed impatiently.

  ‘Come on,’ he hissed with frustration. ‘I just want to fucking talk . . . I just . . .’

  Dasher was struggling to keep the rage out of his voice . . . and the excitement. Leona shuddered at what awful fantasies were running through that shaved little bullet-head of his.

  ‘Come on!’ he pleaded, sounding for a moment like a child begging his mum for a tenner. ‘I just want to . . .’ his voice tailed off.

  I know what you ‘just want to’. You dirty shit.

  Even though it was stifling, hidden as she was amongst the dangling winter coats, she shuddered violently as she imagined what he and his two buddies would do if they got hold of her.

  Oh God, he’s just a kid.

  He was, really, just a snotty sev
enteen year old, surely no older than that, all bullet-head and big ears beneath that stupid baseball cap. But he was certainly strong enough to do what he wanted to do. And this was surely a game to him, just a game.

  Find her - slap her - shag her - leave her, heh heh.

  That’s how his little game was going to be wrapped up. And he’d walk away from it, pulling up his pants and his baggy trousers, with a cocky ‘I got mine’ grin on his face, whilst she would be left on the floor, bruised and bleeding, and struggling to find the ragged remains of the clothes he’d torn off her.

  ‘Come on, I thought you was after some fun!’ he said again, this time terrifyingly close to her. ‘Shit, it’s like fuckin’ Disneyland out there.’

  He had to be only a dozen feet away. Leona held her breath.

  ‘Everythin’ for the takin’. It’s fuckin’ mad, man.’

  He’s getting closer.

  ‘And no fuckin’ pigs either. All gone, fucked off somewhere. Apart from that one we found, stupid tosser. It’s playtime now. Playtime for the kiddies, yeah.’

  She felt the gentlest breeze of displaced air waft over her skin as he walked by, only feet away from her.

  ‘So come on,’ he said in that whiny voice again, ‘I’m beggin’ you love. I won’t hurt you or nuffing, we’ll just have a bit of a laugh.’

  Leona felt the stiff wire of a coat-hanger beneath her hand. She followed the curved hook with her fingers. It descended into a plastic base; the shoulders were plastic, but the hook was wire.

  He was quiet for a moment, but she could hear him breathing as he stood there, above her, almost on top of her. He was breathing loudly, noisily, the run had winded him. On the other hand, she was still holding her breath and wasn’t going to be able to hold it for much longer.

  Please, please move away.

  She needed to breathe, but knew the breath she let out would be deafening in the silence. Her hands worked on the metal wire of the coat-hanger, pulling the hook out into a straightened spike. A lousy weapon to be sure, but it was something she could lash out with.

  ‘Oh fuck this,’ Dasher growled angrily, ‘I can fuckin’ hear you anyway. You’re round here somewhere, I can hear you fiddling about.’

  All of a sudden, the coats above her moved, with a swish from the rail above. His hands groped through the layers of thick cloth.

  ‘I’m gonna fuckin’ have you!’ he whispered, knowing she was right there, ‘Then so are me mates, and then we’re really gonna—’

  Leona, grabbing the plastic shoulders of the coat-hanger with both hands, wire facing outwards, shoved it up hard, roughly where she guessed his face would be.

  It jolted as it came into contact with something, the plastic shoulders broke off in her hands as it did so. She briefly heard something wet and viscous give before she heard him scream.

  CHAPTER 52

  3.47 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  Leona scrambled out from beneath the school coats, as the young man’s shrill and protracted scream filled her ears. In the gloom she could see him staggering clumsily around with both of his hands to his face.

  ‘My fuckin’ eye! My fuckin’ eye! You’ve popped it!’

  She got to her feet and started for the glow of daylight on the far side of the shop. It would have been tempting to hang around, find something long, hard and heavy and beat him with it, but she was frightened his screams would attract the other two.

  Best to quit whilst she was ahead.

  She made her way out of the clothing section, her heels clacking on linoleum once more as she headed out past aisles of greeting cards, undisturbed, like the soft toys and the PlayStation games, by yesterday’s looting spree, and towards the wide shop windows and the automatic glass doors leading out on to Goldhawk Road. All the while, the tall gangly youth behind her, Dasher, continued to scream in agony.

  The automatic doors were closed. She tried to prise them open with her hands, but they weren’t going to budge any time soon.

  ‘Shit,’ she whispered to herself.

  Someone had had a go at one of the display windows to the right of the doors, the glass was cracked in several places. She decided to finish the job. Pulling a fire extinguisher from the wall nearby she hefted it in both hands and threw it towards the cracked glass. The window shattered easily and noisily and exploded out on to the pavement, all the while that idiot chav was wailing like a banshee in the background.

  She stepped out on to the pavement, warily looking up and down Goldhawk Road for the two other lads that had been with him and given chase after Dan. There was no sign of them.

  More importantly, she looked around for Dan. There was no sign of him either. She hoped he would have headed home, rather than come looking for her. She was now getting worried about Jacob, and was having visions of him wandering around Shepherd’s Bush trying to find her.

  Jake was dumb enough to do that.

  Leona noticed a few more people. The Asian family were still trying to make a start on tidying up their shop, she noted several other storekeepers picking over the debris of their business, strewn outside on the pavement. They had stared at her and Dan earlier, suspiciously, no doubt wondering if they were out trawling for something to loot. She noticed one or two other explorers, like Dan and her, wandering about with a dazed expression on their faces. But nobody in uniform. No police, firemen, paramedics.

  No one in authority.

  No Dan.

  Though there were a few people around, and that made her feel a little safer, she wondered if she were accosted right now, pulled to the ground by 50 Cent or Dasher or the other kid, in plain sight of them, whether anyone would dare come to her aid.

  She decided to head back home the way they had come earlier, along Uxbridge Road, jogging back most of the way, looking from side to side for a sign of Dan. She counted about three dozen people in total, milling around on the streets, or rifling through the interiors of shops, but no Dan.

  Walking down their avenue, she passed several neighbours she recognised by sight and nodded to them. They were in their small front gardens, tidying away the discarded beer cans and broken bottles.

  They think this is all over.

  Clearly that’s what they were thinking, that this was now the clear-up phase, that the hurricane had been and gone. She guessed that they and those shopkeepers were expecting the power to come back on sometime this afternoon, the police and the army to arrive shortly after to supervise the clearing up. And to be honest, Leona allowed herself to hope that might be the case too.

  She picked up the pace down towards their end of St Stephen’s Avenue, guessing that Dan was already back at Jill’s with Jacob and no doubt fretting about her. As she approached their house, she noticed the people opposite - she didn’t know them by name - were out in their front garden nailing sheets of plywood over their downstairs windows.

  She walked up the path to Jill’s home and knocked on the front door, expecting it to open almost immediately. But it didn’t.

  ‘Dan? Jake?’ she called through the letterbox.

  She heard shuffling coming from inside, then a pair of legs came warily into view. A moment later she heard the bolt slide and the door opened. Jacob stood there, hugging a soft fluffy spotty dog he must have found lying around Jill’s place. His eyes were puffy from crying, his bottom lip quivered.

  ‘I thought you left me for ever,’ he managed to whimper.

  ‘Did Dan not come back?’

  He shook his head silently.

  CHAPTER 53

  8.51 p.m. GMT South of London

  Ash made slow progress south, out of London; the roads were cluttered with abandoned vehicles and the mess left by last night’s rioting. On several occasions he’d had to make an off-road diversion to avoid police and army roadblocks, knowing that driving a police motorbike, he was asking for trouble if he got too close.

  Leaving the city behind and driving through into the suburbs he noticed that conditions seemed to fluc
tuate; some areas had been hit badly by last night’s rampaging, others looked largely untouched. He drove down a high street in a well-to-do area, not noticing a single broken shop window. It was quiet of course, everyone tucked inside their homes - and he spotted many a curtain twitching as he passed through - but to all intents and purposes it could have been tea time on any given weekday evening.

  He also noticed that the power-outage, which had swept across the country last night, was not as complete as he had thought it would be. He drove through a dozen or so areas that demonstrated at least an intermittent supply of electricity; neon shop-signs still steadfastly glowing, and street lights - their timing mechanisms knocked out of sync by the chaos of the last twenty-four hours - casting down unnecessary pools of flickering amber light during the daylight hours.

  Ash had assumed the emergency authority would have cut all power, everywhere. But then, he wasn’t privy to how the details were being handled in this country - that was for others to know. Each had their own responsibility, their own way of doing things. The bigger picture . . . that was the thing.

  He finally managed to emerge from the extended suburban carpet around London, as the evening light began to falter.

  Along the A road, heading south-west out of London, he came across clusters of pedestrians walking along the hard shoulder, most of them heading away from London. Ash presumed they were people who commuted into London to work and had been caught out by the suddenness of events, now wearily trying to make their way home. There were also a few who seemed to be heading into the capital.

  I wouldn’t recommend that folks.

  But then, they too were probably making for home - where else would they be going?

  That’s where you long to be in a time of crisis, isn’t it? Home.

  He found himself wondering again about the whereabouts of the Sutherland girl. This family friend ‘Jill’, this good family friend, a friend who could be trusted to look after Mr and Mrs Sutherland’s children, would she not live close by? Close enough to drop in regularly?