Last Light

by Alex Scarrow

Jenny emerged from the segment into the greenhouse heat of the foyer, just as Paul dived into the next open segment. She saw the first of the mob squeeze around the front of the truck, and along the pavilion wall towards the door, hammering their fists on the thick plastic to intimidate them.

  ‘Come on Paul!’ she screamed, and reached out to grab a panel as it swung round in front of her. She threw her weight against it, and the door turned a little faster.

  Paul emerged just as the first of them entered an open segment. He quickly grabbed a bucket seat from nearby and wedged it into the closing gap. The door shuddered, and through the thick glass she could hear them outside jeering angrily.

  Inside, she could hear a pin drop. Mr Stewart’s staff, uncertain what was being shouted at them through the plastic, but clearly understanding the intent behind the jeering and taunting, stared in horrified silence at the pale, enraged faces outside.

  One of Stewart’s older ladies, a Nigerian, started crying, repeating something over and over.

  A prayer?

  Jenny’s blood ran cold. ‘They killed her,’ she muttered to herself. ‘They killed Ruth.’

  And we’re going to be next.

  CHAPTER 62

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

  If this had been a normal night, like, for example, this time last year, they would have been out in their tiny backyard. Perhaps Dad would have barbecued some kebabs, and Mum would have rustled up some salad and spoon-bread. She would almost certainly have invited over the neighbours from across the street, the DiMarcios, because they made Mum laugh. Dad probably would have kept to himself though, he just wasn’t that good with Mum’s crowd.

  The point is, it being so warm now that the predictable early June clouds had gone away, they would have been outside, enjoying it - getting tipsy on sangria.

  Instead she was trapped inside someone else’s home, an unfamiliar environment, looking out at the last light of a warm summer evening.

  Leona looked out of the front-room window - the blind drawn across to hide her - on to the avenue. She saw the net curtains twitch upstairs at the DiMarcios’ house. They must still be there then; hiding like her and Jake, and hoping nothing about the outside of their hiding place would attract the attention of the gang tonight.

  Last night had been truly terrifying, hearing the sounds of them breaking in to someone’s home, just thirty or so yards up St Stephen’s Avenue. Leona had heard a lot of voices; cheering, shouting, laughing. In and amongst that cacophony, she swore she heard someone screaming somewhere in that house.

  She wished she hadn’t.

  ‘Are the Bad Boys back again?’ asked Jacob anxiously, looking up from the deck of cards he had spread out on the lounge floor.

  ‘Not yet, Jake. They won’t come out until it’s gone dark.’

  Jacob nodded. It was still light now, light enough to be able to read the numbers on his Yu-Gi-Oh cards - just, and whilst there was daylight, they were safe.

  Jacob wished Dan would come back. Leona said he’d decided to go home and look after his mum. Jake knew she was lying though. She lied bad, just like every other girl . . . lots of ‘ummms’ and ‘ahhhs’. Jake on the other hand could tell huge porkers all day long without batting an eyelid.

  Dan hadn’t gone to look after his mum.

  He’d dumped Leona. That’s what he reckoned had happened. That’s why she’d been doing that crying today when she thought he wasn’t looking.

  He’d teased her last time she’d split up with a boyfriend, Steve. Jacob hadn’t liked him anyway. He was always looking in mirrors, and shiny surfaces, playing with his hair. And the one time he’d bothered to play with Jacob - whilst waiting for Leona to do girl stuff in the bathroom - he’d just been pretending, not re-e-eally playing with him . . . just trying to impress Leona, and look good in front of Mum and Dad.

  Dan, on the other hand, was cool. Dan knew how to play. He missed Dan.

  Leona did too.

  And with him around, he’d felt a little safer too. He suspected the Bad Boys were scared of Dan, that’s why they had been left alone, that’s why they had stayed out in the street. But now he was gone, the Bad Boys might not be frightened any more.

  He wondered if Dan had decided to be a Bad Boy too and make a nuisance outside long after bedtime. Maybe he’d got bored of sitting in the lounge, eating those gross tins of pilchards in that yucky ketchup - which tasted nothing like proper ketchup - bored of playing Yu-Gi-Oh with him?

  Probably.

  He looked up at the lounge window. The sky was getting dark now. They would be coming soon, coming out to play.

  ‘Lee?’

  Leona stirred, let the blind drop back into place and turned to him, wiping her cheek quickly. ‘Yes Jake?’

  ‘Can I sleep with you tonight?’

  ‘I . . . I stay down here. I don’t sleep in any of the upstairs rooms.’

  ‘Can I stay down here with you then?’

  Leona thought about it for a moment. ‘Okay, go get a quilt and pillow and you can sleep on the sofa down here.’

  Jacob got up and made for the stairs, and then had a thought. He came over and planted a clumsy kiss on her cheek. It was damp - she’d been doing some more of her secret crying.

  ‘Nevermind,’ he said hoping it was the right thing to say, ‘I bet you’ll have another boyfriend soon.’

  She turned away to look out of the window again. ‘Just get your things, there’s a good boy.’

  Jacob ran up the stairs quickly. It was too dark up here for his liking, so he made quick work of grabbing a quilt and pillow from the nearest bed. He entered the lounge to find Leona staring at him, a finger raised to her lips, the sadness that had been spread all over her face like chocolate after an éclair, was gone.

  She looked scared now.

  ‘Shhh … they’re back,’ she whispered.

  Jacob tiptoed quietly over to her, dropping his bedding on the floor, and then joined her by the window. Directly outside their house a car was parked, headlights lighting up the street, the doors open and the sound of bass-heavy music thumping from within. He saw movement inside the car.

  The Bad Boys were back.

  CHAPTER 63

  11.43 p.m. GMT Beauford Service Station

  The truck parked hard up against the front of the pavilion obscured most of what was going on outside. But standing over on the right-hand side, Jenny could see round the front of the truck. There was a bonfire out in the middle of the car-park. They had amassed a pile of rubbish and set it alight. And now it was burning ferociously, bathing the place in a flickering amber glow.

  Jenny stared out at it, and the mass of people that had gathered around it. It seemed in the last couple of hours, since . . .

  … since I was nearly beaten to a pulp … and Ruth was . . .

  … since then the number of people out there had grown alarmingly. She guessed there must be a couple of hundred of them milling around outside.

  Ruth.

  She’d hardly got to know her really. They had spoken a bit this morning, and yesterday walking along the hard shoulder, but she knew very little about her. She’d perhaps learned more about her in those last moments outside, when Ruth had held a mob at bay for a couple of minutes with nothing but the force of her personality.

  She was probably not the sort of person Jenny would have mixed with, done lunch with, back in normal times, but right now Jenny would have traded in every last one of her upwardly mobile friends, past and present, to have someone as Bolshie, loudmouthed and downright ballsy as Ruth, by her side.

  She looked out at the Dante-esque scene before her. It looked like some sort of satanic cult gathering. She expected to see hooded and robed figures calling things to order, and some young virgin, raised on an inverted crucifix over the fire.

  Of course, it was the dancing flames coming from the fire that lent the scene such a disturbing aura. She reminded herself they were normal people, just very frustrated and hungry no
rmal people.

  She looked around at Mr Stewart’s staff. She could see they were frightened; staring at the scene outside and exchanging muted comments in Polish, Romanian, Cantonese. She realised that for them - unable to understand a lot of what had been going on over the last few days, and knowing they were so obviously outsiders - this must have been even more terrifying.

  Paul wandered over to stand beside her. ‘That doesn’t look good,’ said Paul. ‘When you get the mob starting to light fires, it doesn’t take long for buildings to start burning down.’

  ‘They won’t try and set this place on fire, surely? It would destroy all the food and water they’re after.’

  Paul shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Maybe they’re too pissed off to care about that now. Maybe thirst is driving them a bit loopy.’

  Yes, they had to be bloody thirsty out there.

  It had been a very warm week since Monday; hot even, at times. And now, there was no longer any running tap-water. She had noticed earlier this afternoon when she’d tried to flush the toilet. They had to be getting thirsty outside, and other than tap-water, cans or bottles, what else could they drink? She’d not noticed any nearby rivers or reservoirs. And anyway, the state of most waterways these days, thick with foam and floating condoms - you’d need to be bloody desperate first.

  Meanwhile, inside the pavilion, they had fridge-cold bottled water, hundreds of cans of Pepsi and Fanta glistening with dew-drops of condensation, cartons of fruit juice, even tubs of Ben and Jerry’s ice-cream, for crying out loud.

  ‘Yup,’ said Paul quietly, ‘thirst makes people do a whole load of crazy things.’

  Jenny looked at him, wishing he hadn’t said that. She looked back out again, at the milling crowd around the bonfire and then noticed that someone was standing on something, and addressing them. Jenny watched the person gesturing, shouting. Although she couldn’t make out what was being said, she could guess.

  She could just make out the raised voice drifting across the crowded car-park towards them. It had that unmistakable, shrill, humourless tone - it was the platinum-blonde woman. That skinny, hard-faced bitch, in her vest top and tracksuit bottoms, those long nails … and those thin lips stretched across those snarling teeth.

  Platinum Blonde seemed to have won over the people out there. Not good. She was sure many of those people simply wanted to break in, grab some food and water and go home, that’s all. But the blonde, she’d want to make an example of someone.

  Me probably.

  ‘They’re going to get in here tonight. Aren’t they?’

  Paul looked out at the crowd. ‘Yeah. I don’t think they’re going to be satisfied just throwing a few bricks and stones at this place. They need to get in tonight … they’re getting desperate.’

  ‘What if we throw some water out to them?’

  A wry smile spread across his mouth. ‘Yeah, I’m sure that’ll placate them. And off they’ll trot back home.’

  Jenny ignored his sarcasm. ‘So what do you suggest we do?’

  He looked furtively over his shoulder before speaking. ‘I suggest we leave before it all kicks off. As in, pretty bloody soon.’

  She glanced at the staff, huddled together anxiously in the foyer, talking in hushed, frightened tones. Mr Stewart, meanwhile, was nowhere to be seen. He had retired to his office a couple of hours earlier. She hadn’t seen him since.

  ‘What? We can’t abandon them. Look at the state of them.’

  ‘And? They’re not my responsibility, nor are they yours. I want to get home, and I don’t particularly want to get caught up in this fucking mess.’

  ‘It was your bloody idea to stay!’

  ‘Yeah, well, guess what? I got that wrong. This is looking nasty and I suggest we sneak out whilst there’s a chance.’

  ‘And leave them?’ she nodded towards the others.

  ‘It sounds pretty shitty, but yeah.’

  Jenny shook her head. ‘I’m guessing you’re a bit of a selfish bastard in normal life, aren’t you?’

  He shrugged. ‘Call me selfish, but I just don’t want to be lynched by the mob, all right?’ he said. ‘I just know we can’t take on all these poor sods. They have to look after themselves. We have to put ourselves first. That’s how things are now, I’m afraid. Who do you want to save? These strangers, these people who you’ve known for five minutes? Or your family?’

  Jenny watched the silhouette of Platinum Blonde as she stirred up the crowd milling around the burning car.

  ‘It all came undone so quickly. Just a few days,’ she gestured towards those outside, ‘and look at us.’

  Paul nodded as he watched the people outside. ‘I suppose, when the rules go, no matter which country you live in, we’re all the same. We’re just a few square meals, a power-cut, a sip of water away from doing things we never dreamed we would, from being a bunch of cavemen.’

  Outside something was beginning to happen. Platinum Blonde had finished saying her piece and had stepped down off her box and merged with the milling crowd.

  ‘Shit, I think they’re about to do whatever it is they’ve been planning,’ muttered Paul. ‘We need to find a way out now.’

  The thought of that woman breaking in to the service station and finding her sent a chill through Jenny. Paul was right, they had to think of themselves right now. Guilt, self-reproach, introspection - that could come later when there was time.

  ‘Find a way out? Where? How?’

  He turned away from the perspex wall, looking back at the dimly lit interior of the pavilion. The emergency generators still running the food freezers were also supplying power to a few muted emergency wall lamps towards the back of the area. ‘My guess is there’ll be a trade entrance at the rear somewhere, maybe we’ll get lucky and no one’s thought to watch the back of this place.’

  The crowd outside began to approach them. Jenny noticed some were carrying containers; buckets, bottles. She backed away from the perspex wall as they came round the front of the truck and squeezed into the gap between the truck and the wall. They peered through the scuffed surface, shouting angrily as they made their way along the narrow space towards the locked revolving door. The first to get there was holding a two-litre plastic bottle of pop. There was a three or four inch gap between the revolving door’s frame, and the door panel of one of the segments. He pushed his arm through the gap and poured something out of the bottle on to the floor inside.

  The smell wafted through almost instantly.

  ‘Petrol,’ said Paul. ‘They’re going to burn the doorway down. That won’t take long to melt. Let’s stop dicking around and go.’

  Jenny looked once more at the frightened huddle of staff. Paul grabbed her arm.

  ‘No!’ he said quietly. ‘If you tell them we’re going out the back, they’ll all get up and follow us. Those people outside will see that and suss what’s going on.’

  He started towards the rear of the pavilion, pulling her arm. ‘Come on.’

  She reluctantly followed him, looking back over her shoulder at the doorway. Several more of the crowd had squeezed their arms through the gap and poured the contents of their containers into that segment. The reek of petrol was that much stronger.

  Then she saw Platinum Blonde standing at the front of the truck holding a burning stick in one hand, and peering through the scuffed perspex wall, her face pushed up against it.

  She’s looking for me.

  Jenny felt an even greater surge of fear take hold of her. For some reason, that woman had focused on her, as if Jenny personified somehow the desperate predicament they were all in.

  I really … really, don’t want her to get hold of me.

  She turned back to look at Paul. ‘Okay, okay, let’s go.’

  CHAPTER 64

  11.46 p.m. GMT Beauford Service Station

  Paul led her back into the dimly lit rear of the pavilion, past the amusement arcade, past the closed door to Mr Stewart’s office. She wondered what he was doing in there. H
is staff, mostly older women, confused and frightened, needed him out there in the foyer, not hiding away like this.

  There was a row of doors ahead of them. Three of them were toilets, the fourth was simply marked up as being for ‘Staff Only’.

  Paul pushed the door open to reveal a narrow passageway, lit by a red bulb dangling from a socket in the low ceiling. The passage was only about three or four feet wide and was cluttered with cardboard boxes and crates stacked untidily against the right-hand wall; stock and supplies for the shop and the nonperishables for the fast food counters. No food of course, just the useless crap you’d expect to pick up at a service station; Rock Classics For The Road - 48 x CD, ‘Beauford Services Souvenir Mugs’ - pack of 24, ‘Celebrity Head Wobblers’ - assorted characters, 24 units.

  Paul led the way down the hallway, struggling in places to squeeze past the stacks of boxes.

  ‘If this is where they’ve dumped their stock, I’d guess the delivery door is somewhere back here.’

  She stopped beside a stack of boxes: Evian - 1 litre x 36. She tore open the top flap of the box and pulled out half-a-dozen bottles.

  At the sound of the box being ripped open, Paul stopped and turned round. ‘Yeah, maybe a good idea.’ He left her and carried on down the passage. Jenny cradled the bottles in her arms and followed on.

  ‘Here we go,’ he said pointing. ‘That looks like a delivery gate.’

  The passageway ended with a four-feet wide, floor to ceiling, corrugated metal shutter that looked like it slid from left to right. It was padlocked.

  ‘Oh, there we go then, locked,’ she muttered.

  ‘It’s okay,’ replied Paul pulling out a bunch of keys from his trouser pocket. ‘I lifted these off of Mr Stewart’s desk a little earlier.’

  ‘He didn’t notice?’

  ‘Not really. He was pissed, finished off that medicinal brandy of his.’

  Paul sorted through the keys; inconveniently, none of them was marked or tagged.

  Jenny sniffed the air. ‘Oh shit! Can you smell that?’