The Smog (The Sentinels Series Book 3)

by David Longhorn

  All too soon, the newsreel rends and the house lights come up. Sandy doesn't let him pull away quickly enough, as there's an appreciative whistle from a couple of rows behind them. Sandy giggles, adjusts her hair, and takes another handful of popcorn. Looking around, trying to seem casual, Graeme straightens his tie and wonders if there's something wrong with his vision. Then he realizes that it's the fog – No, the smog, filthy stuff – that's the problem. Yellow vapor is pooling at the front, making an opaque curtain of smog just under the screen. Already people in the front rows are coughing, and now there's a clatter of seats as customers start to move back and upwards, out of the tainted air.

  “That's new,” says Sandy, with mild curiosity, “never seen it indoors before, not like this anyhow. You'd think they would do something about it.”

  She takes out her red-and-green tinted glasses and puts them on. Graeme follows suit, though he wonders if the management will continue with the program. People are still coughing, some sounding really ill, some are actually leaving. An usherette, covering her face with a handkerchief, helps one old man up the steep rake of the aisle towards the exit. But then the house lights dim again.

  “The show must go on,” Graeme says, trying to sound manly, sensible.

  “Don't forget about the show down here, tiger,” whispers a voice in his ear.

  Graeme is genuinely torn, now, as the opening credits roll for Blood from Dracula's Tomb while Sandy moves closer again. The coughing dies down, everyone who had to move seats or leave has apparently done so. Sandy climbs expertly over the arm rest, is suddenly on his lap, a bundle of wriggling warmth. Graeme forgets the film, the smell of the smog, almost everything else.

  “Watch out for the popcorn!” he warns, way too late.

  The half-empty carton falls to the floor. On the screen he glimpses the legend TRANSYLVANIA 1889, a coach hurtling along a dirt road through a dark forest. The coachman lashes two pairs of snorting horses as Sandy's head rises up and blocks Graeme's view.

  “Come on, tiger, they always take ages to get to the scary bit,” she breathes.

  “Oh, crikey,” he whimpers, and she giggles.

  “You're a nice boy, I can always spot 'em.”

  Graeme's 3D glasses are knocked askew as she fastens herself on his face again.

  Like a vampire! Or an alien brain-sucker! But those ideas are soon swept aside by more immediate concerns.

  “Oh, Sandy, you're so gorgeous, I've always fancied you!” he gasps.

  “You smooth-talking devil!” she says, with another giggle, shifting her weight.

  “Ow!” he exclaims, as he's forced into the arm rest.

  “Don't worry, I'll be gentle,” she murmurs.

  Graeme's almost lost in the moment, just a tiny fraction of his mind still aware of the film. The usual bunch of hapless British travelers are stuck at a wayside inn thanks to a broken coach wheel. Someone remarks that the landlord seems inordinately fond of garlic and crucifixes. The inevitable question about the distance to Castle Dracula is asked, the peasants stare in horrified silence.

  Hang on, he thinks, Sandy was wrong. There's a scary bit now!

  A dark figure has appeared in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, looking oddly out of proportion. Is it a kid, standing in front a bunch of peasant extras? The shape doesn't fit the scene, and then the director cuts back to a close-up of the British tourists. The figure stays in the same place. On the screen. Or rather, sticking out of it.

  Bloody hell, that's a clever 3D effect, Graeme thinks.

  “What's up, darling?” asks Sandy, pausing in her exploration of his ear with her tongue. “Don't you like it?”

  “Can you see that?” he asks, nodding at the screen.

  She turns, stares, he feels her tense.

  “What is it?” she whispers urgently. “It is somebody behind the screen?”

  “No!” he says in his new-found manly voice, squeezing her nylon-sheathed thigh reassuringly, “it's just one of them three-dimensional tricks, innit?”

  She turns to look at him, and he realizes she's not wearing her 3D glasses. And nor is he. He looks back at the screen and sees more dark shapes emerging from the screen. Not so dark that he can't see the images from the projector playing across ragged clothes, charred flesh, exposed bone. Seats are clattering again as people get up, some are scrambling in panic towards the rear exit over the rows rather than heading for the aisles.

  “Oh god, please don't leave me!” cries Sandy, as Graeme lunges to his feet, almost spilling her onto the row in front of them.

  He grabs the sobbing girl round the waist, together they rush for the aisle. He doesn't want to see the shapes emerging from the screen, but he can't help glancing back. The figures are moving up the aisle now, some limping, some crawling, and now he can hear them, howls of pain and panic that blend with the cries of the fleeing audience.

  “Oh god, that smell,” says Sandy, gagging.

  Graeme smells it too, even more acrid than the smog, the reek of burned cloth and worse. He feels Sandy collide with something or someone, almost loses his grip on her as she falls. They're both weeping in terror but he stays with her, even when thin fingers grab his ankle and almost bring him down.

  “Come on Sandy! Nearly there!” he shouts to bolster his own courage. The light from the cinema foyer is close. More claw-like fingers rake at his legs. Sandy stumbles and screams again, almost drowning out the dialogue still booming from the speakers.

  “Nobody goes to Castle Dracula! It is an evil place. You'd be well-advised to turn around and go home, good people!”

  ***

  “Yes,” says Garmouth, “he wants a temporary change in policy. Quite. But he insists, and you know Winston.”

  Garmouth's secretary, listening to her boss's call through his open office door, smiles to herself. She knows Winston, too.

  Serves you right, Mister Smuggypants, she thinks. About time somebody put you in your place.

  “Well, of course,” Garmouth goes on, “it's going to take a week or two to feed through. After the relevant orders are issued, they'll have to cancel existing orders, or put them back. That'll cause offense, as well as fiscal penalties. I know, but try telling him that.”

  Garmouth goes on fussily explaining that the switch to high quality coal will happen before Christmas, but only just. Then her boss's voice drops, and he says a few words she can't make out. There's a silence, and she hears footsteps padding on the plush carpet.

  Garmouth appears, smiles his oily smile, and says, “Ah, Janice, still busy filing, I see? Why not go home early tonight? It's terribly foggy out there, traffic will be a nightmare.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” she replies, getting her coat.

  Garmouth gives another oily smile then steps back inside in his office, closes the door. Janice wrestles with her conscience for a moment, then tiptoes quickly to the door, presses an ear to varnished oak.

  Damn! He's talking too quietly. “Already ... phase ... irrelevant ...” Usual boring stuff, she thinks. She makes out another word, a very familiar one in the political jargon of the day.

  She shrugs, annoyed, starts buttoning her coat, gathers up her purse. It's all very well going on about sacrifices, she thinks. But it's never that lot that makes them, I notice.

  ***

  “Well, honey, we can't leave you alone at night because the Raggedy Men might come and scare you,” says Rachel, trying hard to keep her voice level.

  Emily looks from her mother to her father, back to Rachel, then gives a wise nod.

  “I suppose Bradshaw isn't big enough to protect me from ghosts on his own,” she says, looking down at the bear propped on the sofa next to her.

  “No,” says Tony, “he's very brave, but he's not that big a bear. And he's quite old. Even older than me.”

  “Yes,” replies Emily, “and, to be fair, he can't move because he's just a toy stuffed with straw.”

  Tony and Rachel laugh far more than they shou
ld.

  “Not much gets past you, sweetheart,” Rachel says. “So you're okay with sleeping in our bed?”

  “If I can stay up late, it will be worth it,” her daughter replies.

  “I think she gets her tactical skill from you,” Rachel tells Tony, getting up to prepare the cocoa.

  “Well, cheeky face,” explains Tony, “it'll be a late night for you and Bradshaw and an early night for Mummy and me. And I'll be sleeping down here on the sofa so I don't disturb you all when I get up really early to go and fetch Granddad from the airport! That's called the art of compromise. Now, shall we do this jigsaw or would you like to play tiddlywinks?”

  Rachel stands at the kitchen sink for a moment, looking out into the night.

  “Smog's really getting up, now,” she remarks. “I doubt if anybody out there can see more than a few yards.”

  She carries a tray of cocoa mugs back to the dining room table.

  “A good night to be tucked up in bed, in fact,” says Tony.

  “A real bad night to be out on the road,” she replies.

  ***

  Officer Jack Warner hears the screams and sounds of running feet in the fog, followed immediately by the blaring of horns and screeching of tires. There's a sickening thud, metal into metal.

  Shit, he thinks, they always drive too fast in this bloody smog.

  He starts running, blowing his police whistle, the signal that means 'Officer needs assistance!' After only a few yards, his throat his burning from the choking foulness he's inhaling. He starts wheezing, slows to a jog-trot, and gropes for the mask he pocketed yesterday without giving it much thought. He loops the thing over his hears, adjusts it over his nose and mouth, and starts to run again.

  Is it any easier to breathe? Maybe. But soon he finds himself gasping just as badly, has to slow to a brisk walk.

  He can see a cluster of lights ahead, headlights and taillights, and the glowing facade of the Hammersmith Odeon. People are running past him, fleeing the scene, he grabs a young man in a smart suit and demands to know what's happening.

  “Let me go!” shouts the man, pushes Warner away, runs into the smog, is gone. Another wave of panicking runners, some coughing and gasping, a young lad holding up a girl who seems to have fainted, her feet dragging on the paving stones. The boy's face is familiar.

  Bloody hell, it's the simple lad, one of Grimsdale's signalers!

  “Here, let me help you with her!” says Warner, unable to remember the boy's name, “She needs medical attention, son, there'll be ambulances here soon. They'll have oxygen! Come on, set her down over here.”

  Together they carry the girl to the steps of All Hallows Church. Others are already sitting there, one gasping with his head between his legs, but a couple make space and they put the girl down. The lad takes off his coat despite the bitter chill, wads it up, and then puts it under the girl's head.

  “Graeme, isn't it?” asks Warner. “You remember me, Grimsdale called me in the other morning?”

  “Yes, I remember,” says Graeme, not looking away from Sandy's face.

  God, she is in bad condition, thinks Warner. Probably panic and hyperventilation, but that can be bad even in a youngster. This foul muck's getting into her lungs. He remembers the mask, takes it off.

  “What's her name, lad? Sandy, right, here Sandy, we'll just lift your head and I'll put this over your face.”

  The girl twists her face away, moans plaintively.

  “No, it's all right!” says Graeme, adjusting the rectangle of cloth over Sandy's face, “It'll help keep the smog out.”

  Or not, as the case may be, thinks Warner. We need better equipment than a bit of gauze on a string.

  The electric bells of emergency vehicles are sounding through the smog, now.

  “What happened, lad?” gasps the officer, taking Graeme by the shoulder.

  “I… I don't know,” says the lad, looking round at the cinema. “It was like these ghosts came out of the screen. They was all burned, like, and there was this smell. Like roasted meat, only sickening.”

  Warner has heard his dad talk about the smell you never forget, when the Nazi fire bombs rained down on London. If they hit a crowded target, like a church or a theatre.

  The Odeon's a new-looking building, he thinks. I remember, it was rebuilt after the war. That must be it. They took a direct hit.

  An ambulance appears out of the smog, swerves to avoid people staggering up the middle of the road, then halts by the church. Warner runs over to ask the paramedics for oxygen while Graeme takes Sandy's mittens out of her pocket, puts them on her cold hands. Warner's gasping, now, and he leans on the side of vehicle as the crew get out a stretcher to take the girl on board. Another ambulance appears, then a police car.

  Reinforcements. Smog's poison fuddling my brain, Warner thinks. This is a real emergency, never known air quality this bad. Surely it can't get any worse? If it is does, we'll never cope. Whole city could break down. Anarchy. Nobody wants that.

  ***

  Tony's alarm watch chimes him awake at half-past three. He decides to skip breakfast in favor of something at the airport. He washes, shaves, and dresses for the weather, but even so, he still feels a stab of cold as he opens the front door. He coughs at the first lungful of coal and gasoline fumes. But he's also surprised by the sheer density of the smog. He holds out a hand while still in the hallway. He can barely see it at arm's length.

  No way I can hail a cab in this, he thinks. If there are any.

  Instead, he makes his way to a cab-rank outside Hobb's End Tube station, only to find no taxis in the line.

  Too early? he wonders. Or have they given up?

  Just as he's about to go home and try to phone for a cab, a taxi shows up. The driver, a West Indian, pulls down a muffler from his face, gives a broad smile.

  “Good morning! Gotta love this English weather, eh, my friend?” chuckles the cabdriver. “Very Dickensian!”

  “I'm glad somebody's enjoying it,” replies Tony, climbing in. “I need to go to Heathrow.”

  “Ah, leaving the country, eh? Don't blame you! Set course for sunnier climes,” says the driver. “I will get you there, sir. Probably in one piece, but don't quote me on that. This has been a crazy night.”

  “Tell me about it,” mutters Tony without thinking. It's a phrase he's picked up from Rachel.

  “Well,” begins the cabdriver, moving off carefully, “for a start there's people seeing ghosts everywhere.”

  “Ghosts?” Tony leans forward, looks the man in the eye via the cab's rear-view mirror. “Are you serious?”

  “Hey, I just know what the guys at the depot say,” replies the driver, “and they say it's like all the dead folk of London are coming back, just popping out of this smog all over the place! Like the end of the world, isn't it? That's one of the signs, right?”

  “That's what some people believe,” replies Tony, sitting back and staring out into swirling yellowish murk. “But I think that's the actual dead rising from their graves, not their ghosts.”

  “Hey, I know what the preachers say back in Jamaica,” says the driver, swerving to avoid a stopped van. “Look at the bloody fool, just parked in the middle of the road! Anyways, they say the dead will rise and the Lord's wrath will descend upon the unrighteous. I reckon that's most of us, you know? I mean, who's righteous? Nobody can afford it, these days!”

  Normally, Tony might find the man's laughter infectious, but not today.

  “Has anyone you know seen these ghosts?” he asks. “I mean, not just gossip, but actually seen one?”

  “Yes, a couple of guys say they saw people in old-fashioned gear, top hats, that kind of thing, you know?”

  The driver looks round, and at that moment, a man-shaped blur looms out of the smog. Tony starts to cry out, but before he can utter a word, the taxi ploughs into the pedestrian. There's a slight bump, and the driver slams on the brakes, sending the vehicle skidding sideways along the wet road.

  “You sa
w that? Right, sir?” asks the driver, his voice shaky now. “He was right in the middle of the road, I had no chance to avoid him!”

  “You did nothing wrong,” says Tony, “but let's see if we can help him.”

  The driver backs the cab up slowly, but they can't see any sign of a body.

  “Did he just get up and walk off?” asks the driver.

  “I don't see how, he was hit fair and square,” replies Tony, peering into the murk. “Look, you stop and I'll get out. Keep sounding your horn every five seconds. Count of five, remember! Otherwise I'll never get back.”

  “Okay, chief,” says the driver. “I'll pull over to the curb first.”

  Tony puts a handkerchief to his mouth but still finds it hard to breathe normally when he gets out of the taxi. The pavement is slippery, he almost falls, grabs a lamppost for support. He starts to make his way back along the road, keeping to the gutter so he can jump back onto the sidewalk if a vehicle appears. He sees flickers of light in the distance that must be headlights, but they soon vanish.

  There's no sign of the man – or woman – that they hit. He calls out, but hears nothing, not even an echo as the smog absorbs the sound. Then he hears something; a clicking, almost regular but not quite, growing gradually louder. A figure emerges from the murk. A man, neatly dressed, incongruously wearing dark glasses on this darkest of winter nights. He's feeling his way along the edge of the curb with a white cane.

  “Excuse me!”

  The man stops, the blind eyes turn towards Tony.

  “Yes? Who is it?”

  Tony explains what's happened, asks if the blind man has heard anyone who might be injured.

  “Oh god, yes, too many,” replies the man. “I ran straight into someone a while back. They were howling and wailing, saying they were on fire. It was terrible, shocking! What makes it even stranger, though, is that although I could smell the burning and feel the heat, the moment I reached out and touched them they somehow crumbled. Like they turned to dust. How can that be, sir?”