The Silent Neighbours (Watchers Book 2)

by S. T. Boston

  * * *

  In the darkness Lucie waited, sure that the sound of her laboured breathing could be heard from a good half a mile away. She wasn't unfit by a long shot, swimming was more her thing, though. Running always made her lungs want to burst, and as such it was a physical activity that she avoided at all costs, now she wished she'd partaken in it a little more and conditioned herself. Still no one ever planned to be actually running for their lives, did they? She held her breath, so as to better let her ears hear what was happening in the world above her subterranean hidey-hole. She tried not to gasp the halted breath out as the sound of the window being opened echoed through the dilapidated mill. Carefully she exhaled and drew another much needed breath, trying to shallow out her breathing as much as she could without feeling as if she'd pass out.

  Heavy feet slapped down onto the floor, the other side of the ledge, halted then began to pace patiently through the building, searching. As if working in alliance with the pursuer, in some attempt to make her give up her position, a spider dropped onto her chin from one of the silky webs above. She couldn't see the creature but she knew what it was, and it was big. Part of her head told her to lay still, this was Southern England and although there were a few large species of domestic arachnid, none were dangerous. The other irrational half screamed at her to escape the bug-ridden hole before it bit her and sucked her brains right out of her head. Screwing her face up in disgust she felt the agile legs scurry over her lips, they navigated over her nose and tightly closed eyes, brushing her eyelids and making her want to retch, before scuttling across her wet hair. Hew new companion drew her attention away from the real threat for a few tense seconds, but with the spider now gone and no doubt planning how he could devour such a large and juicy meal, she heard feet on concrete once again. Fear coursed through her veins like a paralysing elixir that wouldn't allow her to spring from the sawdust pit if a Camel Spider dropped onto her face. He was close, six feet maybe, now five. Closer, until those eager shoes almost walked over the plywood cover, they stopped. Lucie waited for the board to be lifted, it was all she could do.

  Chapter 28

  Sanderson McCormack, or Sandy as his friends called him, a shortened version of his name that he hated as it led to no end of ribbing from the kids when he'd been at school, mainly down to it being the same as the female lead in Grease, sat in the pleasantly cool Tokyo night air. The roof garden bar at the Palace Hotel afforded him a spectacular view over the city, a network of tiny lights sprawled out in every direction like countless twinkling stars. Intermingled with them were toy-sized vehicles scurrying about like a multitude of self-illuminating bugs, fireflies negotiating a maze that had no end.

  A light gust of wind rustled his dark hair and carried a small shiver through his slightly inebriated body, to counter it he took another sip of his gently warmed Sake and instantly felt it chase the chills away. Autumn was well on its way and within a few more weeks the temperature would start to drop, making nights like this a little more uncomfortable without the burden of a heavy jacket. However tonight, his large knit cream sweater and blue jeans were just enough, with the aid of a little booze, to keep him feeling toasty.

  Sandy had been residing at the luxury hotel for three weeks now, studying the efficient way that the Japanese had rebuilt the capital's electrical systems and infrastructure, for there were no curfews here, not like there were back in DC. Here in Tokyo life was virtually beating at a regular pulse, no one turned the power off at one AM and then back on at six, which seemed to be the rule for the entire western world, and the local police patrolled the city street, not backed up by the army, like in Washington, New York and many of the European cities. Here there was a lesson to be learned for the whole western world, and he was learning it. Once back in DC he'd have to pen a lengthy report for presentation to the city council and ultimately President Hill himself, on just how Japan had done things so quickly and efficiently.

  Placing the warm beverage onto the metal coaster, he lazily thumbed through his passport which sat on the table, his return ticket tucked neatly into its centre pages. The ticket was dated for tomorrow and with a morning flight he really should be heading to bed, or at the very least preparing his report, and not drowning his sorrows in an attempt to bury the past in Sake, which he had no doubt would be no more effective at the task than any of the poisons he turned to at home. It was a sad fact that at only thirty three years of age, Sandy only now lived for his job, but it was a good job, it had brought him on an extended visit to this magnificent city, in a time when most of the population couldn't even stretch to a holiday in the next state. But in truth, Sandy's life had ended on the day that had changed the modern world for ever. His wife, Sarah, whom he'd met in college at just seventeen and was no doubt the only woman he'd ever love had died, not killed by The Reaper as so many had been, but in a far more cruel way.

  Sarah was working as a teaching assistant for a history lecturer at George Washington University and had been on her way to a field study trip in Egypt when the EMP struck. A trip that she'd been brimming with excitement over for the best part of a year. The gang of fifteen students, two teaching assistants, of which his wife had been one, and two lecturers, had been up in the air when it happened. Their 747 was on approach to Cairo when the EMP hit, the craft had ended up crashing into the city streets below, killing over half of the passengers. Had two of the students not survived, then remarkably also managed to evade the virus and return home, he'd have never known just how his beloved Sarah had died. He'd had three agonisingly long months of not knowing before they'd managed to get back to the USA and report to the college, confirming his worst fears. He had hated himself for wishing one of the two survivors had been his wife, but then anyone would have felt the same, he was sure of that, but it didn't make things any easier. Why she'd had to die while they'd lived. Once he'd been a man of religious belief but now he hated god, for if he did exist then he'd well and truly turned his back on humanity, and in return Sandy had turned his back on him.

  Being young and both caught up in good and prosperous jobs they'd delayed having a family, both believing that they had all the time in the world to become parents. They'd been wrong. Now Sandy felt alone, nights in their formerly cosy two bed apartment in Penn Quarter were long, and often spent with him trying to find solace in a bottle of bourbon.

  Sliding the ticket from the passport he looked at the date and began to get an undeniable urge to add a week's leave to his trip, just to delay that moment when he'd arrive home to a silent and cold apartment. Gripping his ticket tightly Sandy glanced to the west, out over Chiyoda, where the city lights subsided slightly thanks to the more rural parklands, the sky was clear, beautifully so but the cities ambient light blocked out many of the stars. His eyes caught the moving dot of an aircraft, another stark reminder that tomorrow he'd be heading back to reality. He followed it with his eyes and began to question if it were a plane at all, it seemed for too high, and as it drew closer and lost altitude he could see a tail of flame streaking from its rear end. Was it a meteorite? Or could it be an aircraft in trouble? A thought that sent another stab of pain through Sandy's body. As his vision struggled to concentrate on it the falling object exploded and in an instant Tokyo was bathed in a daylight created by its very own new but deadly sun.

  * * *

  Ben Hawker closed a number of the screens on his control panel, the ones monitoring the western world's launch and defence systems, and concentrated on Kwangmyŏngsŏng which had just finished running through its start-up process and was live. From over nine thousand miles away he watched the engineers run through a few test targeting procedures and smiled as he thought about how the United States Government would give just about anything to see this information. Their systems selected targets for each other their rather meagre, but nonetheless deadly, twenty five megaton nuclear warheads. The vehicles which carried the deadly payloads were a very close copy of the R-36 Russian missile, but unlike its Russian ances
tor each rocket only carried one nuke. It was not the greatest nuclear arsenal in the world, but it was the most primitive, and that had meant it was the simplest to get ready and re-program. The nukes that Hawker was most excited about were the Russian fifty megaton babies, the ones that the USA had thought to be dismantled in late 2017, before the virus, but more than a few remained and formed part of the stockpile that he would very soon be putting to good and deadly use.

  As the programmers on the other side of the world finished their targeting program, Hawker scanned the list.

  Seoul, Tokyo, London, Paris, Berlin, New York, Washington DC, LA, Chicago and San Francisco were the ten honey pots that they had selected. Of course there was no launch planned as far as Hawker knew, but they were pre-loaded targets so that in the event of an attack the birds would already know just where to fly. He only needed one for now, the other nine Enola could use as she saw fit when the rest of the world's nuclear powers came back online. Even if the North Koreans tried to shut it down in panic, they'd fail, his systems now had primary command and they didn't even know it.

  He smiled and turned to look at Asmodeous, who was sitting in the bridge's main control chair, surveying the small Earth-Breed team at work and said, “We are ready to test, sir. On your command of course.” Hawker watched a smile, broader and more charming than any he'd ever seen form on his youthful, yet knowledgeable face.

  “This is good news,” Asmodeous beamed. “Earlier than we expected, too!”

  “By an hour, sir,” Hawker replied smugly. He pointed to the list of targets on the screen and said, “This is what they have pre-programmed, take your pick, or I can re-program one of them if you prefer?”

  “You recommended Tokyo, earlier,” Asmodeous said casually, as if they were picking a fine wine in a restaurant.

  “I did,” Hawker grinned. “It's almost poetic seeing as Japan is the only country to have been nuked in anger in the modern world, and with the name of the program being Enola, it just seems right. Not to mention the political shit that will fly when it goes down. They won't be able to retaliate, either, not even when the rest of the world comes out to play,” Hawker added. “Japan has always had a non-weaponization of nuclear technology policy so it's a good test target.”

  “Make it happen,” Asmodeous commanded, watching the holo-display with interest.

  Hawker nodded and went to work. Enola was already running silently inside their defence systems, they wouldn't know about her until the launch codes went in, then they would be able to do nothing except sit back and watch as their nukes were launched. Two minutes later Hawker was ready, he re-jigged the targeting on the Japanese nuke to test that particular part of Enola's programming, he didn't move it much, just a few miles, centring the twenty five megaton bird of death over Chiyoda, an older part of the city that used to lay in the centre of Tokyo. It didn't matter, the blast would still be strong enough to flatten the Japanese capital.

  Working swiftly Hawker reached the final screen, this test was only a fraction of Enola's capability. Just a simple eight digit nuclear launch passcode was now all that stood between him and the ability to kill around eight million people instantly, with a further two million being sentenced to death as a result of the radiation. He hit the execute button and Enola went to work, decoding the password. Now the North Koreans would know something was wrong, that their system was either malfunctioning or that someone had their hand well and truly down its pants. Hawker glanced at Asmodeous who was watching, a satisfied grin on his face. In less than then ten seconds the bird would be in the air.

  * * *

  Sung-Jae watched nervously from the secret underground nuclear launch bunker as Kwangmyŏngsŏng finished running through the start-up phase. It was now live. From the capital in Pyongyang, at the headquarters of the nuclear program, those in charge of the system had been working around the clock to make sure that his beloved country could defend herself against any oppression form the Western World. Although being only twenty five years of age, and still fresh faced within the country's military, he was not stupid. If he were he'd not have been given such an important role. Sung-Jae knew that the Kwangmyŏngsŏng program was a show of power to the West and nothing more. The chances of them ever actually using the meagre stockpile of nukes was remote, for their main enemies could literally wipe them off the map if the mood so took them. However at this point in time, and if only for a few hours, North Korea was the world's only nuclear power and it made him brim with pride. He was in a team of twenty eight men who worked in pairs around the clock, monitoring for any signs of a nuclear attack and guarding the launch codes, which refreshed and changed their configuration every two hours. If it happened, it was their job to send the ten nuclear weapons toward their preordained targets. Although an important job, it required no special intellect, but Sung-Jea was proud of his role nonetheless.

  He sat back in his seat and glanced as his crew mate, Jun-Seok, a more experienced officer in his late thirties. They'd been buddied up three days ago, since arriving at the bunker that lay some fifty kilometres from the nuclear research facility at Yongbyon. Sung-Jae hadn't really managed to figure out if Jun-Seok liked him or not, he seemed to regard him with an air of subordination that was not uncommon within the North Korean military. Aside from that he seemed like a quiet and brooding man who carried every trouble in the world on his shoulders. It was fair to say that Sung-Jae felt as if he'd drawn the short straw when he'd been paired up and wished he'd been buddied with one of the younger officers more his age. The urgent blaring sound of the launch alarm immediately grabbed his attention away from unimportant matters of his work colleague's attitude and fixed him solely on the job he was being paid to do.

  Jun-Seok sprang into action, looked at him and said in an alarmed voice, that was about as far removed from his quiet and brooding nature as it could be, “The launch system is initiating, who gave the order?”

  Sung-Jae let his hands fly over the keyboard, trying to log into the command system to see just where the computers were being operated from. The only place that could remotely command the systems was in the capital, but that didn't make sense as they'd passed control over to the launch bunker not an hour ago. Frantically he hit the escape key but he may as well have been slamming his fist on the desk, the keyboard was useless. He glanced at Jun-Seok, whose face had turned pale and said, “I don't know, I'm locked out, we don't have control.”

  Feeling panic spread through his body like an unwelcome wave he watched the launch code screen flash onto his monitor. One by one the numbers blinked into the eight boxes. As the third one turned from red to green Jun-Seok grabbed the emergency phone, a direct line to the capital and headquarters, almost immediately he began shouting down the mouthpiece to whoever was manning the other side. By the time the seventh digit was accepted Sung-Jae had heard enough of the one sided conversation to tell that the launch had not been initiated from the headquarters. As the eighth digit blinked onto the screen and turned green Jun-Seok stopped talking and sat in silence, watching the outside camera feed. They felt the deep rumbling first as the R36 inspired ICBM roared to life. The powerful engines caused a deep vibration to thrum through the concrete walls. Sung-Jae watched his paper cup of water dance across the control desk and fall to the floor; he didn't move to stop it. On the outside feed one single rocket emerged from its tube, like a sleeping giant rousing itself to life.

  “Where is it heading?” Jun-Seok asked, his voice sounding thin and taught.

  Sung-Jae looked at his screen which had now turned to target and track mode, “Tokyo,” he said in a hollow voice.

  * * *

  Sandy McCormack had less than half a second to ponder the artificial daylight brought on by the fiery tailed object that he'd seen heading toward the city from the north. For half a second after the nuclear sun rose over the Japanese capital, Sandy was blinded. The blindness was of no real concern as a nanosecond later his whole body was vaporised and scrubbed from the Earth as
if he'd never existed. The heatwave spread out in an unrelenting circle, as well as Sandy's body it vaporised almost every structure for a seven mile radius, leaving only the strongest reinforced concrete foundations as evidence that anything had ever existed there. Ten miles from ground zero the windows were completely blown out of every building, and those of a not so stable nature just crumbled to the ground, as if taken down by a demolition team. The blast's sound wave rolled like thunder across the country and for a further hundred and fifty miles, windows shattered and the boughs of trees bent in a uniformed direction as if succumbing to a violent one-directional storm.

  Before The Reaper, Tokyo had been home to almost fourteen million people; after, and according to the census conducted by the Japanese Government, nine and a half million were left. In less than a minute, and far more efficiently that The Reaper, the vast majority of those remaining nine and a half million souls were virtually washed from the face of the Earth.

  Chapter 29

  Adam had trouble remembering the last time he'd actually been stuck in a traffic jam. The roads in this brave new world, a world that offered a strange mixture of the new and promising, juxtaposed against the ruins of that fateful week, got busy, but never offered the total gridlock of the world before The Reaper. He utilised an empty stretch of motorway to ease the RX7's accelerator pedal into the floor, the car cruised easily past a hundred miles an hour as it raced through Hampshire and toward Wiltshire. He glanced in the rear view mirror at Oriyanna who was cramped uncomfortably into one of the two tiny back seats. Adam had never had the need to take a third person in his car and it made him realise just how unpractical it actually was. The small back seats seemed to have been thrown in almost as an afterthought by a designer who'd wanted to appeal to the midlife crises male who needed to transport his children around whilst having a car that looked a bit sporty. Short of a five minute spin to the local pub or shops, no adult would want to ride in the back.