Utopia: A Dark Thriller: Complete Edition

by Adam Steel

  ‘Shut up you idjiot,’ he scowled at the cowering Birdman.

  Drago cut in to end the discussion.

  ‘Too many questions lady. All you need to know is your today’s trash. Now shut it or you’ll get a gag like him,’ he nodded at Max.

  Someone had rammed one of Birdman’s hole-ridden socks, into his mouth and Max was grunting in disgust. Ellie fell silent immediately.

  Ellie and Aya were pushed out in front and encouraged along by Skinny Edd’s knife. They were followed by Max and Drago (who had one of his pistols) squarely in Max’s back. Behind them, were Lucian and Red who were bearing Jon Li between them. Ellie looked back at the man in the filthy Red lumber jacket, who was man-handling Jon Li down the stairs with Lucian. The jacket was far too big for him. Underneath it, the man was emaciated. He smiled at her. It reminded her of the stare that she had gotten off the Coney Twins. It went straight through her.

  Birdman was already outside and dancing an excited jig in the sunlight. He held one of Max’s pistols in each hand. When they emerged into the daylight, Ellie’s eyes adjusted quickly from the gloom. She coughed loudly: expelling the chocking dust that she had inhaled. She blinked and took in the landscape properly for the first time. Everything looked black and white to her. She could see the derelict city for all it was in the morning light.

  The scene was like an old photograph. The streets were deserted. Abandoned and burnt out cars littered the potholed streets. Debris and rubbish were piled high along the paths in front of the empty rows of shops. The remains of old buildings littered the landscape. They were like shattered husks. The native plant life had encroached over the concrete pavements and crawled over the broken walls. The road was still intact in places. It snaked into the distance. It was a nightmarish landscape of twisted metal and broken walls. She had known that places like this must exist. They were the remnants of a destroyed country before Utopia had been crafted from the ruins. It had always seemed unreal to her, as if it were a far off fairy-tale land.

  She took in her captors again. She was able to get a better look in the new light. The men were clad in tattered clothing. They were thin and filthy.

  Survivors, she thought. Scavengers.

  She found Skinny Edd repulsive. The line of snot on her face was slowly drying in the morning sun. She longed to wipe it off. Skinny Edd looked as if he had been ill for a long time. The skin on his nose was flaking, and his lips were chapped from the constant wiping.

  The strange one (that they had called ‘Bird’) pranced in front of them. She was sure that he was unhinged. He was childlike in his actions. He had mutilated areas of his body and she noticed (with a sick distaste) that he had a birds bone through his ear lobe. It was a bizarre stud. He also wore a necklace that was made of other small bones. He looked tribal. She thought that he wouldn’t have looked at all out of place carrying a spear on some remote island.

  Drago and Lucian had a rugged charm about them.

  They must have been attractive men once, she thought.

  They were bruised and battered and they each had multiple scars. She wondered what other injuries hid beneath their long coats. She thought that Drago seemed to be the leader of the group, and in a way, she was relieved. He did not seem to harbour the same lust for violence that Red and Skinny Edd were displaying. Neither did he seem to share in Birdman’s insanity. She hoped that her deductions were correct. She noticed that Drago and Lucian seemed to have something going on and she suspected that Lucian was one of his more trusted men.

  The man they called ‘Red’ scared her the most. He seemed to enjoy hurting people. She chanced a look back at him. She placed his age in his twenties. He would have lived his entire life surrounded by violence, during The Reckoning. He was staring at her again. The look terrified her. It was the look of a hungry man: a man who hungered for her.

  She found it hard to believe that anyone could have survived the apocalypse that had followed the Day of Reckoning. She had been acutely aware (from the safety of Arethusa) that society had self-destructed. Suddenly she understood why Jon Li had brought them. To survive.

  Ellie looked at Aya’s tear-stained face. It bore an angry red hand-mark from the slap she had received earlier. Her eyes seemed vacant and almost uncaring.

  Drago poked the pistol hard into Max’s back, and walked him forward.

  ‘Okay, let’s go,’ he nudged.

  Max murmured something angrily through the disgusting gag and the procession started to move through the blasted wasteland. They picked their way across the rubble through the derelict streets and rows of shops, office blocks and commercial buildings that had long since been pillaged and set alight. The Dustmen moved through the destruction swiftly and sure-footed. Max made muffled curses as he tripped and stumbled across the uneven ground. Birdman cavorted at the front of the group. He danced across the rubble. Every few seconds, he fired one of the pistols in his hands.

  “Click. Click.”

  The empty guns rang out across the ruined landscape. Lucian had confiscated the clips from him before they had left. Now she knew why. Every time he fired the empty weapons, her nerves jarred, but exhaustion was taking over.

  “Click. Click.”

  The march was fast and relentless and she had to focus hard in order to avoid falling and cutting herself on the rusted metal and broken glass that littered the ground. After a few minutes, they had passed down a narrow street. It was the same street that had channelled them into the trap the night before. The smouldering wreck of Jon Li’s limo had been picked clean for its parts and all that remained was its shell.

  She looked at the ramp that had been built. It had been made from huge sheets of wood which had been propped up with blocks of concrete with each one getting higher than the other. At the end of the ramp, was a pile of sand and rubble where they had landed. Spent torches (that had been thrown the night before) lay around the wreckage. There was a patch of blood from where Jon Li had been sitting by the car. The body of the man they had shot the night before, was gone. Two blood trails on the pavement, revealed where it had been dragged away.

  Drago’s face hardened when they walked past it.

  She recalled the terror of the car wreck, and shivered. They marched past it and over to the car park of a disused supermarket. A row of up-turned trolleys had been lined up in a strange fashion, along the wall at the front of the building. Each one had been propped up with a wooden stake. A line of rope linked them all together. There was something dead and rotting underneath each one. Ellie wondered what possible purpose these might have.

  Did these people kill things and put them under there. Why?

  A crow cawed and hopped backwards and forwards across the roof of the superstore. It’s beady black eyes, were on the line of trolleys. The air was silent, except for the solitary bird. It cawed at the ragged procession that was walking past. Birdman jumped up and down excitedly. He was making mock, crow sounds.

  ‘Ca Caw….Ca Caw.’

  He levelled his gun at the bird.

  “Click. Click.”

  ‘Stop it you idiot,’ Lucian said.

  He stopped and stared at Lucian, and looking at the crow who was investigating the trolleys, he said quietly to himself, ‘Ca Caw.’

  They continued on past the superstore and up a wider street towards some blocks of flats. Ellie looked up at the tower blocks. They were a far cry from the beautiful buildings in Coney City. The buildings were black, with broken windows and burnt out doorways. Most of them did not have a roof. The broken walls reached up towards the sky. Ugly iron girders, stuck out of them at odd angles. There were no pretty tree lined avenues in the deserted city. The trees had gone. There were no flowers, only weeds that grew out of broken chimney stacks and gutters. Decay was everywhere they looked and the bright morning sunshine left a washed look over the deserted city.

  Chapter 37: Union City

  The Wastelands: North of Coney City

  Drago and his Dustmen took Ell
ie, Aya, Max and Jon Li across The Wastelands. Most of the buildings had been either levelled or burnt out. Creeping brambles and weeds covered everything. There were hardly any signs of life anywhere. There were no stray dogs or cats. They had not even seen any rats. Occasionally, they saw wild birds flitting in and out of the blackened buildings. The whole area looked like something out of a black and white movie. It appeared to be washed clean of colour. The rubble strewn ground was wet from the rain all the night before. The morning sun was beginning to dry the rain soaked ground, and as it evaporated, wisps of steam lifted it and left a smell hanging in the air. Ellie was reminded of the smell of the river bank, where she had once played as a child.

  Lucian and Red had dragged Jon Li for more than an hour before they had stopped and swapped places with Birdman and Skinny Edd. Drago and Lucian had walked together with Max in between them, while they had all continued their journey for a little while longer. Aya and Ellie were kept in the middle of the procession.

  In all the time that they had walked, Aya had remained stony silent. Ellie had noticed that Aya had had a strange blank expression on her face. It worried her.

  They walked past the remains of the past, until they reached the remains of a huge and derelict building. Leading into the vast building (which had once been a railway station) were numerous old railway tracks. The tracks weaved in and out in all directions. Only part of the front wall had survived in one piece. Together with its original clock, it stood defiantly as a reminder of the past. The huge clock had stopped. Its hands were stuck together as though they were in prayer. They pointed to 12:00 o’clock which was the exact time of the Day of Reckoning when all electrical things died, along with millions of citizens.

  That was the time before Utopia had been born.

  Ellie wondered what the real time was, but she did not know, because Birdman had stolen her watch. The gold watch had been given to her as a present by her father when she had left home to join medical school. It was old fashioned. It had hands and could be wound up: unlike the digital watches that were common in Coney City. It had been made for her. The engraving on the back had read:

  “To my beautiful daughter Ellie, love from Dad.”

  Ellie glared at Birdman’s tattooed wrist which was around Skinny Edd’s filthy shoulder. Jon Li hung between them like a limp rag. Birdman was wearing her precious watch. It did not suit him.

  ‘Almost home,’ Skinny Edd piped up breathlessly.

  Ellie frowned. She couldn’t see any ‘home’. All that she could see were the burnt out walls and rubble of a massive construction, amongst The Wasteland. There was no sign of life anywhere except for them. Drago marched Max forward through what would have been the main station door. It had long since vanished. The railway tracks ran below them alongside of the remains of the building. They disappeared under the piles of rubble. The interior was merely a piece of open ground. It was framed by three wall sections.

  Walking through the remains of the main door seemed pointless to Ellie. She supposed that they did it out of habit, more than anything else and that they could have simply walked in over any of the walls.

  The group stood in the destroyed building: waiting.

  Birdman let go of Jon Li leaving him sagged across Skinny Edd’s shoulder. He wasn’t moving. Birdman scurried around in the dirt searching for something.

  Skinny Edd kicked up a plume of dirt with his boot.

  ‘Man, hurry up. He weighs a tonne’ and I’m starving,’ Skinny Edd cut in impatiently.

  He was sweating from dragging Jon Li’s body so far.

  ‘Who isn’t?’ smirked Drago.

  ‘Right here boss!’ Birdman said.

  He hauled a rusted chain out of the dirt. It had rested just under the layer of filth. Ellie hadn’t even seen it. Lucian helped Birdman tug hard at the chain and the floor began to move as the two men pulled. A gaping hole of darkness appeared in the ground. Lucian and Birdman hauled the wooden boards away from the gap. The entrance had been hidden perfectly. Someone had coated the boards in dirt, and glued on several broken floor tiles. When they had entered the interior it had blended in perfectly. It was only when it had begun to move, that the illusion had been broken.

  A rickety wooden ladder was propped against the sides of the hole. It led down into a chamber below. Its steps were wide. The wood thick, but splintered. Ellie thought that it looked more like a staircase. It was pitch dark down below and a musty smell wafted up from the basement room to greet them. Drago nudged Max towards the ladder.

  ‘Ladies first,’ he taunted.

  Max glared at him before edging forward to try and descend the ladder. He hesitated at the edge trying to work out how best to navigate down it with his hands bound. Drago assisted him with a firm kick to his backside. Max crashed forwards down the ladder and smacked down hard at the bottom like a felled statue. Clouds of dust plumed upwards from the hole where the giant had landed. They could all hear the muffled protests coming up from the darkness.

  ‘Anyone else need help getting down?’ Drago offered, as he turned to the others.

  Nobody else did.

  One by one, the party descended the ladder. Ellie looked upwards at Jon Li who was being man-handled down the steps by Birdman and Skinny Edd.

  At least he won’t know what happened to him, she thought.

  She noticed that Aya still had an odd, vacant look, on her face. It was as though she had been paralysed. Aya descended the steps one by one in a robotic fashion. She won’t know what’s going on either, Ellie thought. Ellie’s heart was in her mouth. She had the horrid idea, that they were walking into a torture chamber, and that they were all going to die in the dark hole underground. She thought about how starved the people looked, and how there had been no signs of life above ground. She felt sick and terrified. Are they going to eat us? She thought. She stepped off the final ladder step and her feet hit a concrete floor. She almost tripped over the prone form of Max who was lying at the bottom.

  Red stayed topside to cover over the entrance again once they had descended. Drago had ordered him to take the side door, wherever that was. Ellie looked upwards at the boards which were being slid back over the hole. The light became a square, and then a thin line. She wondered if it would be the last time that she saw daylight again. The darkness was absolute when the boards above them clanked into place. She could hear the chain fall and scrape faintly, as it was being buried by Red. She could feel the strangers in the gloom around her and she could smell the stench of their unwashed bodies. Someone brushed up against her. Gang-rape, flashed across her mind for the second time in twenty four hours.

  A lighter sparked somewhere in the blackness and her eyes caught the bright sparks as it failed to catch. After some quiet cursing a single tiny flame sprung up in the corner of the room. It blossomed up into a small column of fire when it was applied to a torch. Lucian held the flaming torch triumphantly. He closed and pocketed his lighter. It was a silver ‘Zippo’ lighter.

  His face took on a rugged but handsome appearance in the light and they were standing in a small room which had cracked stone walls on which a plentiful array of Graffiti had been scrawled.

  Ellie could see that behind the wooden ladder, there used to be a doorway, but it was clogged full of rubble. The hole they had come down, had been knocked, or blasted, into the ceiling. Heavy cobwebs dominated the ceiling. She could see the underside of the wooden boards. The room was small and claustrophobic. It felt to her, as though someone had sunk a stone box into the ground.

  On the back wall there was a rusting metal door. Drago ignored their frightened, blinking eyes. Lucian handed him the flaming torch, before heaving Max to his feet. Max did not seem badly injured despite his rapid descent down into the room.

  Drago opened the door. It squealed in protest when the rusted hinge resisted. They were marched swiftly out of the room and into a dark passageway. They could hear the distant noise of movement coming from somewhere deep in the bowels of the
structure.

  Something landed on Ellie as she went to move through the door. She glanced at the big spider that had dropped onto her shoulder. The spider had descended to examine the intruder that had come into its home. The arachnid stared back at her with its eight tiny eyes. She opened her mouth to scream. Her hands went instinctively to brush the horror off - except that they were bound.

  A loud ‘whoop’ came from behind her.

  She jumped.

  Birdman had spotted the new addition to their party. He pounced on the spider gleefully and plucked it off her shoulder with two swift fingers almost dropping Jon Li in the process. Ellie watched in disgust as Birdman stuffed the struggling spider into his mouth. She doubled up trying not to retch. His yellowed teeth mashed the spider up with a sickening crunching noise behind her. She felt dizzy.

  ‘Nice ‘n ripe!’ he said.

  He plucked a few broken legs out of his teeth and grinned at her.

  ‘Get the fuck back here and help me with this,’ Skinny Edd cursed at Birdman.

  Jon Li was hanging off his skinny shoulder and he was struggling to support the weight. Birdman returned to his duty of dragging the limp body of Jon Li through the underground passageways. The group left the room. The door opened into a large stone corridor which led down into the darkness. The walls were covered in square china tiles. Some of them were missing. Extra torches had been bolted to the wall. Skinny Edd and Lucian, had taken two of them to add to Drago’s light. They were in an underground subway station. Trash lined the floor near the walls, and water dripped from overhead in places. It pooled on the floor. Different passageways led away from the main tunnel. Some of them had collapsed. Others led into the blackness. Drago led them down a large stone staircase. He followed the main tunnel downwards until they came to a place which had once been used by commuters to exit from the trains.

  A decaying sign hung from the ceiling.

  It read: Exits, Toilets and Boarding Platforms.