'Just do what they tell you to do,' Dr Hill whispered. 'Keep calm. We're not done yet.'
They were marched down the tracks. They weren't restrained in any way, but with the cannibals walking on either side, prodding and pinching them, there was no hope of escape. When they reached the entrance to the service tunnel Claire was surprised to spot First Officer Jeffers and the two crewmen sitting on the ground with their hands clasped on their heads and a single guard watching over them.
'Mr Jeffers!' Claire gasped. 'I thought you were . . .'
'Ran out of bullets,' Jeffers replied. His voice was low and his face barren of emotion, but his eyes were darting back and forth. Even though their situation appeared totally hopeless she could tell that he was still thinking hard, planning, calculating; she knew that he would never give up hope.
They were herded forward again. It was difficult to establish who, if anyone, was in charge. After what felt like an eternity of walking in flickering shadows they began to move towards what was literally the light at the end of the tunnel. They emerged on to a station platform that in turn led them up a permanently-stopped escalator. They climbed over jammed ticket turnstiles and then blinked out into the late afternoon sunshine of downtown Manhattan. As they walked an amazing — but still very unsettling — thing happened. People began to emerge from the buildings — at first, just one or two ragged-looking individuals, but then more and more, lining the sides of the broad avenues and moving closer and closer until they were right up close against the prisoners. Then they began to cheer and clap as if it was some kind of a victory parade in Ancient Rome. There were hundreds and hundreds of them, perhaps even thousands.
'Where in hell did they all come from?' Ty whispered.
'There're not that many, if you think of the millions who lived here,' said Claire, trying to look on the bright side.
'Know what this reminds me of? The way they're looking at us? The all-you-can-eat buffet we had on the ship.'
'Thanks for that,' said Claire.
But Ty was right. It was exactly how people were looking at them. There were men and women and children; there were old men and little toddlers, there were teenagers with guns slung over their shoulders; ghetto blasters pumped out music. Everyone looked rough and dirty and undernourished; but they appeared comfortable in each other's company. They were a community surviving together. Claire thought that they probably didn't eat each other.
Maybe they just send out for dinner.
They came to the junction of Broadway and 7th Avenue and looked down into what once provided one of the most famous sights in the city: Times Square. Here garish, animated digital advertising displays decorated almost every building. Here were the theatres that had once drawn in tens of thousands of tourists. Here was where New Yorkers gathered in their millions to celebrate New Year's Eve. But now the neon signs hung lifelessly: a huge Coca-Cola legend, adverts for Panasonic and Budweiser and Pontiac, dead reminders of a different time.
Except for one sign.
In the very heart of the square a big pixilated cat leaped and roared above the New Amsterdam Theatre. It was dazzling, even in daylight. The Jungle King blazed above theatre doors which were open and a red-carpeted foyer which was swept clean. Two ushers in great coats and military-style hats stood, outside marshalling a queue which tailed back for several hundred metres.
'What the . . . ?' Ty whispered.
Claire could only shake her head. Jeffers, at the front of their column, was looking equally bewildered.
They were led past the queue and through the theatre doors. There was a concession stand directly in front where children crowded around and a woman in a green uniform was handing out buckets of popcorn. They moved up a short flight of stairs into the theatre proper. There were possibly a thousand seats inside — with half of them filled and more people coming in all the time.
'This is surreal,' said Ty.
They were guided down an aisle towards the stage, but then veered off to the left, through a door which hid them from the gawping audience and up into the backstage area. All around them there were men and women dressed in animal costumes or in native African outfits. A giraffe walked by, with a man on stilts inside. The sounds of an orchestra tuning up drifted towards them. They were kept there, surrounded by armed guards, while what appeared to be a full-scale theatrical production prepared to take to the stage.
The lights dimmed. The music swelled up and the crowd erupted as the curtain rose and the actors and dancers took to the stage. A musical number was energetically performed to wild applause.
'This is really good,' Ty said, having to shout to make himself heard. 'But I have the feeling I may be dead already and this is just a weird dream.'
Claire closed her eyes and was almost — almost — able to imagine that the weird dream was not what was going on on stage, but everything that had happened in the past few months. That her parents had taken her to see a Broadway musical but she was coming down with the flu so that while she was enjoying the show she was also drifting in and out of lucidity. The plague and the Titanic and the cannibals were all fantasies brought on by her fever. When the show was over her mother would shake her back to reality and they'd drift out into a neon-lit Times Square and her father would hail a cab and they'd go back to a nice, comfortable hotel.
Almost.
As the closing bars of music faded the crowd, clearly familiar with the performance, began to chant, 'Slash, Slash, Slash, Slash!' Claire was quite familiar with the film version, she'd watched it repeatedly on DVD as a kid, but she couldn't place this moment in it. Not the darkening stage, not the huge throne now being pushed forward by heavily muscled men in loincloths.
'Slash! Slash! Slash!'
A man in a wolf mask stood at the opposite side of the stage and rammed a spear down on the fake savannah.
'All praise King Slash!'
'Slash! Slash! Slash! Slash!' the audience screamed. Many of them surged out of their seats to line the foot of the stage, clapping and cheering as the throne emerged into the brightness of a single spotlight.
Sitting regally — Slash, the Jungle King!
Or a man in a lion mask, with a rifle across his lap. He stood, he held the gun aloft, shook it at the crowd. In response they punched the air, yelling, 'Slash! Slash! Slash!'
Slash turned towards his prisoners on the side of the stage. They could not see his real eyes, only the huge painted ones on his mask, and it made him even scarier. It was as if he was studying every single one of them individually, yet somehow also all of them at the same time.
'Oh God,' Ty whispered.
Slash raised his free hand and ushered them forward.
First Officer Jeffers led the way; jungle drums broke out as they stepped on stage. The crowd roared in response. But then Slash raised a hand for silence — and it came instantaneously, as if he had flipped a switch. They were totally under his spell.
Slash turned his false eyes upon his subjects.
'If you enter the city of the Jungle King,' he cried, 'you must suffer the wrath of the Jungle King!'
They roared in response. With the clapping and screaming and thumping of feet and drums it felt like the entire building was shaking.
'Prepare the fires! Tonight we feast!'
29
Decisions
Jimmy and Ronni, propped up against each other in the thick branches of a pine tree, woke damp and sore to a grey, misty dawn. They had just kept running until they could go no further. When, in the early hours, all sound of pursuit ceased, they could only presume that the soldiers had given up and returned to Fort Hope.
Jimmy lowered himself cautiously down on to the forest floor. As he yawned and stretched — while looking vigilantly around him, obviously — Ronnie slithered down the trunk, completely out of control, crashing through branch after branch and snapping each and every one of them before landing in a heap at his feet.
'In case any of you weren't aware until now,' Jimmy
announced to anyone who might be in the general vicinity, 'we're over here. Hiding.'
'Sorry,' said Ronni.
By way of further apology she delved into one of the pockets of her khaki jacket and produced a small plastic bag, inside of which were two large, round, chocolate-chip cookies. She took one out and offered it to Jimmy. 'Breakfast?' she asked.
Jimmy took it and immediately bit into it. He gave her the thumbs-up. 'Well done,' he said, spraying her with crumbs. 'But is this all we have to get us to New York?'
'If you remember I tried to suggest—' And then she stopped. She swallowed a mouthful of biscuit, but having bit into it with enthusiasm it suddenly looked as if she was forcing herself to swallow sawdust.
Jimmy's cookie was delicious. 'What's wrong, has it gone off or . . . ?'
Ronni shook her head. 'I'm not going,' she said.
'You're not what?'
Her eyes flitted up, then down again. 'I'm not going — to New York. You never mentioned New York. Not once. You never said it. I'm not going.'
Jimmy gave a short laugh. 'Why not? What's the problem?'
She kicked at a dead fern on the ground. 'It's not funny!'
'OK — I didn't mean . . . it's just—'
'I'm not going. Not back there.'
'Oh. Right. I see. That's where you came from. That's why you were so upset when you arrived at Fort—'
'I wasn't upset! I was . . .'
'Traumatised. Yes. I know. I'm sorry.'
They both looked at the ground.
'Do you want to tell me about it?' Jimmy asked after a bit.
Ronni shrugged. Then, 'If you want.'
'Let's walk while you do. At least we'll be further away from the fort.'
'I'm not walking in the direction of New York.'
'That's fine. I've no idea which direction it is. We'll just go . . . this way.' He walked forward.
Ronni watched him for a moment, then shook her head. 'No.' She nodded in the opposite direction. 'That way.'
'That would be back to the fort. This way.'
Ronni changed her stance some forty-five degrees. 'This way.'
'No — that's back where I came from. This way.'
'That's towards New York.'
'You don't know that.'
'No I don't,' she admitted. 'But you do.'
She studied him for several long moments.
Jimmy threw his hands up. 'OK, you got me — that way's probably New York. But Ronni, please listen to me. We escaped together. We're a good team. I think wherever we go we can probably look after ourselves pretty well. I have to go to New York. The Titanic might not even be there, but if there's even a small chance that she is, then I have to warn the captain that the President and his stupid army are going to try and seize the ship. It's my home, it's my life, and I think you'll love it too. To get there we have to go through New York. If you don't want to go, that's your choice. But I have to.'
Jimmy gave her an encouraging smile, but when she didn't respond he just gave a disappointed shrug before turning and walking away.
Towards New York.
She stood where she was.
He didn't look back.
***
Ten minutes later, walking down a hill only sparsely covered in trees, with a cold rain falling and a breeze making it feel even colder, Ronni fell into step beside him, only slightly out of breath, and said, quite simply, 'Cannibals.'
'Yeah, I heard there were odd bits of cannibalism after the plague.'
'Not odd bits!' she exploded suddenly. 'There were hundreds of them! I watched them! They chased me! They caught me! Jimmy, please, you have to understand what they're like, what you're walking into! They kept me prisoner in a dark hole! They fed me to fatten me up! Slash said he was going to have me for supper!'
'Slash?'
'Yes! He's like . . . he's like . . . a lion. He's their king!'
Jimmy cleared his throat. 'Their jungle king?'
'Yes, I know what it sounds like! But it's not a comedy, Jimmy, it's not a cartoon! They eat people! Slash has these two men — he calls them the Royal Butchers — and they're the ones who take people away and execute them, and then they're roasted on barbecues and served up . . . It's horrible and mad and I never want to go near them again — do you not understand that?'
'Yes, I understand . . .'
'But no, you're not going to change your mind.'
'I can't. And I should point out that you're still alive, aren't you?'
'Only just! I escaped! I was very lucky. I was in a cage. And the night they were due to . . . eat me . . . they fed me first and this guy didn't lock the door properly and I got out, but they spotted me and chased me, they hunted me for days and days and they came so, so close to catching me . . . Jimmy it's really, really awful — they're . . . they're . . .'
'Cannibals. Yes, I gathered that.'
At the bottom of the hill they came to a set of railway tracks. Jimmy looked along them, left and right.
'Left,' he said.
They turned that way, and began to skip along the overgrown sleepers, hugging their sides to try to keep warm.
'I hid in the sewers for days. There were billions of rats. If I fell asleep I'd wake up covered in them. There were wolves. I can't even remember most of it.'
He said nothing.
'Jimmy, please. Do you even have a plan? I can't go through that again. How do we get through to your ship without being captured? Please, Jimmy, what's your plan? You must have a plan . . .'
'My plan is to just keep walking.'
'That's no good!'
'Best I've got.'
They walked for another hour. Then they sat down on the track for a while to rest.
'No more magic cookies?'
'No more magic cookies.' She had her hands in her pockets. She was looking truly miserable. But there was nothing he could do.
They got up and started walking again. Perhaps another thirty minutes later they became aware of a dull vibration beneath them. At first they thought they were imagining the sensation and said nothing to each other, but then it became more pronounced and they exchanged glances before turning as one to look back down the line.
About a mile away: a train, coming towards them.
Wordlessly they darted off the tracks and into the trees. They threw themselves down as flat as they could and peered out from behind the thin pines as the train approached.
As it rattled past they saw that every carriage was filled with teenaged soldiers, bristling with guns. Missile launchers and mortars were mounted on the roof.
The President's army — or part of it — aiming straight for New York.
As it began to shrink into the distance Jimmy and Ronni raised themselves and scurried back to the track. They felt just the faintest of vibrations coming up through their boots.
Jimmy blew air out of his cheeks and looked at his friend.
'I have a new plan now,' he said.
'What is it?' Ronni asked.
'We walk faster.'
30
King Slash
They were locked into a dressing room somewhere in the bowels of the New Amsterdam Theatre. The music and singing and dancing thundered on for another hour above them. The tunes were familiar, but poisoned for ever. They sat disconsolately on hard wooden chairs or dressing tables stained by years of make-up. After a while a steaming pot of food was brought in to them by men in wolf masks, together with bowls and spoons and cans of warm beer. The food smelled wonderful. But nobody wanted to be the first to try it.
'It's some kind of stew,' said Ty, sniffing at the open pot. He had a big appetite normally. 'It's someone, isn't it?'
Dr Hill fished out a piece of meat. He held it up to his nose. He let it drop on to a dresser before pushing and prodding it with a spoon. 'Impossible to tell,' he pronounced. He nodded around the passengers. 'I'm sure it's safe to eat.'
'And you will all be damned to hell.'
It was Cleaver, his eyes b
lazing, his skin as pale as Claire had ever seen it.
Mr Rodriguez, who clearly despised the minister, took this as a challenge. He lifted a spoon and stepped up to the pot. 'We have to eat,' he said. 'As long as we don't know for sure, I think we can eat this with a clear conscience . . .' He looked round the little group for support. It was not forthcoming. 'Please yourselves,' he said and dipped his spoon in, briefly examined what he brought out, then closed his eyes and put it in his mouth.
'Perhaps it's your wife,' said Cleaver.
Rodriguez immediately gagged, ran into the corner and spat it out. Then he was sick. He collapsed and began to cry, repeating his wife's name, Mary, over and over again.
Ty shook his head sadly and turned away. 'I wish I'd had more fun,' he said wistfully.
'What?' asked Claire.
'Mom and Pop wanted me to be a lawyer, so ever since I was a little kid I was always studying. It didn't come easy to me. All the time I should have been out there being a kid I was working.'
'I thought you spent all that time with your dad. Central Station, the park . . . ?'
'Yeah. Well. Once a year, maybe.' He sighed. 'All that work, just to end up in a stew.'
Claire patted his arm gently 'Maybe you won't end up in a stew,' she said. 'Maybe you'll end up in a pie.'
'That makes me feel better.'
They turned as the door behind them opened and one of the Wolf Men entered. 'Slash wants to see you,' he barked at Jeffers.
The first officer studied him for a moment, then pushed himself off the dresser he'd been perched on. He fixed his cap. He nodded across the room. 'Claire, with me.'
Claire looked at him in surprise.
'Just you,' Wolf Man snapped at Jeffers.
Jeffers shook his head. 'She's our official historian, she comes too.'
Wolf Man's head moved stiffly towards her. Then he turned back to Jeffers, gave a short nod and indicated for him to follow. Jeffers looked at Claire and together they approached the door. Claire gave Ty a what on earth is happening? look as she jumped up to follow.
Wolf Man led them along a corridor and up a set of stairs into the backstage area. Although the show was over it was still busy with actors and technicians. The prisoners continued on through this, and then began to mount several flights of steps.
Titanic 2020: Cannibal City t2-2 Page 17
