‘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 blazing, 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.
‘I don’t understand,’ Claire said to Jeffers. ‘Usually you never want me along.’
‘This is different.’
‘How?’
‘Because they want to negotiate.’
‘What? How do—’
‘Shhhhh.’
There was a door at the top of the steps with two armed guards stationed outside. One of them opened it and they followed Wolf Man into a large, mostly empty space, with mirrors along one wall. As a child Claire had attended ballet lessons in a room similar to this. A throne like the one she’d earlier seen pushed on to the stage sat at the back of the room. It was empty, but men wearing cheetah heads stood on either side of it. Each of them gripped what appeared to be samurai swords. They stared straight ahead and didn’t acknowledge either of the prisoners as they approached the throne. A tap could be heard running from a smaller room off to one side. Then it was turned off, and a moment later King Slash appeared, his lion head in place, wearing a flowing white gown with some kind of ceremonial dagger in a jewel-encrusted belt looped around his waist. He was wiping his hands on a paper towel, which he rolled up and threw to one side. He nodded at Wolf Man, who turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Slash mounted two steps to his throne and sat. ‘Have you met the
Royal Butchers?’ he asked.
Claire shuddered as the two swordsmen stepped forward, in perfect time, until one was behind her, the other behind Jeffers. Then they performed an about turn, so that they were facing their king again.
‘They will carve the meat from you while you still breathe.’
Claire swallowed.
‘They will suck the marrow from your bones and—’
‘Enough.’ Jeffers’ voice was quiet but steady.
Silence.
Claire wanted to scream at him, Be quiet! Don’t make them angry! They’re going to slice me up alive!
Slash rose slowly from his throne. He stepped down to their level. He stood in front of Claire. He moved his impassive Hon face right into hers. Slash sniffed at her. Sweat dripped down her back.
‘Please . . .’ she whispered.
Pure dread.
He moved on to Jeffers. Two sets of eyes bore into him – the unmoving lion eyes and the brown human eyes, narrow, piercing. Jeffers stared straight ahead.
‘What do you want?’ Jeffers asked.
Slash began to laugh, but it sounded odd, hollow, through the mask. Suddenly, and with considerable speed, he whipped the dagger from its sheath and held it to Jeffers’ neck just below the ear. Claire let out an involuntary cry.
‘What do I want?’ Slash hissed. ‘I want Titanic.’
31
Hang On
They came to their second station platform of the afternoon, but they were still resolutely out in the country. They were exhausted. New York seemed as far away as ever. Jimmy knew they weren’t going to be able to do anything to help Titanic if they didn’t get a move on. The war had probably already started. The President versus King Slash. It sounded like something you’d dream up in a nightmare.
Ronni lay down on the platform and refused to budge. ‘Just ten minutes,’ she pleaded.
Jimmy stared up the line. He thought they were probably walking along a track that had only been used irregularly even before the plague had struck; it just felt remote, even though he knew the massive sprawl of New York could not be that far away. Possibly it looped right around the outskirts of the city, serving small outlying communities. There must be a connection somewhere up ahead which would have transferred the President’s train on to the main line leading directly into the city. But it could still be miles away.
He returned to the platform, wandered past the ticket window and down a set of moss-tinged wooden steps into a small car park. There were three cars there, but they had been stripped of their essential parts and drained of fuel and now they lay with their doors open, windows smashed. It was a pity. A car would at least have gotten them as far as the outskirts of the city. If New York was anything like Miami or any of the larger cities he’d recently visited, that would have been the limit of it’s usefulness – everywhere he’d been the streets had been impassable because of abandoned vehicles.
At the end of the car park there was a wooden shack with a sagging roof which had collapsed at one end. He pulled the bolt back on the door and looked inside, then nearly had a heart attack as a bird or a bat or something flashed past him. He took a deep breath and stepped in. It was a mechanic’s workshop. Benches were piled high with spare parts and tools; it smelled of oil and paint. At the end where it had caved in there was a crumpled tarpaulin which had protected something from the cascade of rotten wood and rubble. Somewhat apprehensive of setting off a further collapse, Jimmy nevertheless cautiously raised the end of the tarp and peered beneath.
Ronni was out for the count. She’d only meant to rest her legs, but her exhausted body had overridden that intention and the moment she allowed her eyes to even flutter, she was gone. What brought her back was a roar. Her survival instincts had been so finely honed by her horrific experiences over the past few months that even before she was really awake she had rolled off the platform on to the track and was running with all the speed she could muster. But the roar was getting closer and closer. She daren’t look back, she just had to escape, she had to—’
‘Ronni, do you want a lift?’
Jimmy cruised effortlessly past her astride a gleaming red Kawasaki motorcycle. Ronni stopped, gasping for breath, as Jimmy turned the bike and came back towards her.
‘Jimmy! You nearly . . . !’
He ignored her. He was in love. He’d occasionally ridden scrambler bikes over rough terrain with his friends back in Belfast, but this was something altogether different – fast, powerful and with half a tank of petrol. The bike was far from new, he could tell that, but someone long dead had lavished a lot of attention on it. It felt fantastic.
‘So, what are you waiting for?’ Jimmy laughed. ‘Climb on!’
Ronni looked at the bike, and then at Jimmy, doubtfully. ‘Crash helmets?’ she asked hopefully.
‘Yeah, right.’
In fact, she loved it too. She tucked her legs in and held tight to Jimmy, peering over his shoulder as they roared down country roads, the wind in their hair, teenagers having fun. Even as they entered the suburbs of the city he was able to weave in and out of abandoned cars and mount sidewalks, and it barely slowed them down. Ronni wasn’t quite so relaxed now – she shouted above the engine that the noise of the bike against the silence of the city was sure to attract attention. But he wouldn’t listen. He was enjoying himself too much. Of course he didn’t say that. He shouted back that the further they could get at speed the better. There was no time to waste. They would have to take the chance – and besides, it was a huge city and they’d barely entered the outer limits of it. She had no choice but to hold on. They skirted the edge of Newark Airport, the huge fleets of abandoned planes a stark reminder of the scale of the disaster.
A couple of miles further on the engine began to splutter and cough. Jimmy gunned it, trying to coax life back into it, but within a few hundred metres it died completely.
‘Out of petrol,’ he said as he dismounted.
He looked about him; there were strip malls on both sides of the street.
‘OK,’ said Ronni. ‘It got us this far, now we start walking.’
Jimmy took hold of the handles and began to push it. ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘There’ll be a petrol station further up.’
He was already straining to support the weight of the bike.
‘Jimmy – now it’ll slow us down. You have to leave it.’
‘No.’
He pushed on. Ronni walked out in front, occasionally casting disapproving glances back at him. She was scared now. She had felt a certain measure of security with Jimmy, but now that he was acting so childishly the knowledge that he really wouldn’t be able to protect her if the cannibals spotted them was growing with every step she took. What was she even thinking of, returning here? Why hadn’t she stayed in the security of the camp? What if they’re watching us already? What chance would we have? She tramped on, her eyes darting suspiciously from building to building.
They came to two petrol pumps in front of a 7-Eleven grocery store. But there was no electricity to work them. Jimmy thought if he could gain access to the underground tanks he might be able to siphon enough out to get them going again. While he tried to work out exactly how to do that Ronni quietly picked through what was left of the store – it had already been looted long ago – for something to eat. She was able to forage several bottles of Coke and a box of half-melted Hershey chocolate bars. She smiled to herself as she tucked in: if the plague and the cannibals didn’t get her, the cholesterol probably would.
She was just emerging from the store to offer Jimmy a share when a hand was clamped roughly over her mouth and the muzzle of a gun was placed against the side of her head.
‘Shhhhh.’
Jimmy used a discarded wrench to pry off the metal casing over the underground storage tank, and was just looking down into the darkness, trying to determine if there was actually any petrol left in there, when a shadow fell over him.
‘Raise your hands, you cannibal monster,’ sa
id a ragged voice.
Jimmy raised them.
‘Now turn around very slowly . . . and throw me the keys.’Jimmy started to turn.‘If you try anything I’ll put a bullet in her.’
Jimmy completed his turn.
Ronni was bug-eyed with fright. The man with his hand across her mouth and gun to her head was overweight, steaming with sweat and covered from head to toe in grime.
‘Hello, Jonas,’ said Jimmy.‘Long time no see.’
32
Betrayal
They were given thirty minutes to think about it.
Jeffers remained silent as they were escorted from King Slash’s throne room back to their prison below. Once the door was closed and locked behind them the passengers and crew clustered around Jeffers and Claire, demanding to know what had happened.
Jeffers asked for silence, his face grim.
‘This . . . Slash – he wants the ship,’ he said. ‘He wants us to lure Titanic into port, and then he will seize her. If we do not agree he will kill one of us every thirty minutes and roast our bodies on the fire for supper. He will keep doing this until we give up the ship, or until there’s none of us left.’
They all stared at him. They had expected to die from the moment they were captured, but when it hadn’t happened instantaneously they had allowed themselves some small measure of hope. But now this situation seemed even worse. They were being offered a chance to save themselves – at the expense of the ship that had saved them.
Dr Hill was the first to speak. ‘We cannot risk the Titanic. There are hundreds of passengers and crew still on board – if they get the ship they will surely kill them as well as us. They have no reason to keep any of us alive.’
‘We don’t know that,’ said Rodriguez. ‘Maybe he just wants the ship – not the people inside.’
‘If it buys us some more time,’ said one of the passengers – Mr Robinson, clutching his wife’s hand tightly – ‘maybe we should agree. Captain Smith might be able to find a way to rescue us.’
Dr Hill shook his head. ‘If Captain Smith becomes aware that we’re being held hostage, he will not attempt a rescue. He will sail away rather than lose the ship.’
Titanic 2020: Cannibal City Page 18
