by Tim Hehir
Julius looked through the open door leading to the back parlour. Soulcatchers were growing up the wall and across the ceiling. He dropped the poker in horror. Hundreds of white tendrils reached towards him and the wall of soulcatchers quivered as if in anticipation.
The metal spider leapt through the window and landed on the floor. Julius backed away. The soulcatchers’ tendrils flicked and slithered inches from his face as the spider examined the broken vase.
Julius looked into the gloom, trying to see where the soulcatchers were growing from. It was an old man. He was sitting in a chair with his head thrown back. Stems issued from his mouth, nose and eyes. One mummified hand lay on the arm of a chair, still holding a pipe.
The spider tossed the broken vase aside, scrabbled up to a cabinet and pulled open a drawer. It climbed inside and began to throw out cutlery, thimbles and keys.
Julius silently edged past it and out into the passage. He unbolted the front door and opened it a crack. There was no one about outside.
He walked along the street, looking through parlour windows at soulcatchers sitting by long-dead fires. He ran through Vine Yard and out onto Pickle Herring Street on the southern bank of the Thames. His chest heaved from his sprint as he stared across the river at the Tower of London. Down river, the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral rose above the rooftops. A few seagulls glided on the breeze. The centre span of London Bridge had collapsed. He looked up and down the river. As far as his eyes could see, all the ships were gone. Only broken barrels and rotting planks floated past.
The grey sky was growing darker and a cool breeze blew across the river. Julius sniffed it. Something was missing. Then he realised. The stink of the Thames was gone. The water ran clear and clean. He shivered from the cold and looked at his clothes for the first time. He had a sturdy pair of workman’s trousers, a waistcoat and a jacket. All were well worn and stained. A large handkerchief was tied around his neck and a flat cap was rolled up and stuffed into one pocket and a pair of thick leather gloves in the other. He put the cap and gloves on.
The light was fading rapidly. Where could he go? Were there soulcatchers in every house? Where was safe? Julius wandered around until he came to New Street. Large grey blocks of stone lay on the road—an ornamental turret had fallen from the roof of St Thomas’ Hospital. Julius noticed that one of the hospital’s doors was open. He took a last look up and down the street and went inside.
He found himself in a wide corridor. There were long scratches in the dull green paint as if a giant claw had scraped the walls. Bloodstained rags and smashed teacups lay across the floor. Julius listened. There were no sounds.
He went through the nearest door. Five or six small metal creatures scurried over a cabinet and table containing an assortment of medical implements. There were oddly shaped scissors and knives, as well as drill bits of various sizes and a small hammer. The metal creatures were blindly examining them with their antennae. A creature resembling a large ant but with many more legs pushed aside a smaller creature and snatched away the scissors it was trying to pull apart. The smaller creature wrestled to retrieve its prize, but the larger one turned on it and savagely tore it to bits. The pieces tinkled when they hit the floor and the other creatures scrambled down and began to pick through the disassembled corpse.
Julius backed away. He opened another door and gasped. Lined up along both sides of the ward were hospital beds. Each one contained a mummified patient with a soulcatcher growing from it. The plants stretched across the walls and spread out along the ceiling. Small metal creatures clambered across the tangled sheets and blankets and through the orchid tendrils like ants at an abandoned picnic.
Julius left the ward. He ran along the corridor, looking for a broom cupboard or a laundry room he could hide in for the night.
A loud crashing sound made him halt, and a sharp chill ran up his spine when he heard the scrape of metal against stone. He knew that sound. Suddenly the claw marks on the walls made sense.
Julius looked back the way he had come. The entrance was too far away. The scraping sound rattled through the corridor, like giant nails on a huge blackboard. He had to keep going—away from the sound.
Around a corner Julius tried a door. It was locked. The next door he came to had been pulled from its hinges. The scraping sound was growing louder, sending vibrations through the floor. Julius ran and pushed a set of double doors. They opened into another ward—it was full of soulcatchers. He let the doors close back on him. Perhaps he could climb out a window.
Around the next corner he came to a flight of stairs. He ran up, trying not to make a sound. At the first landing his path was blocked by a scramble of chairs as if someone had made a hasty barricade.
He cursed and searched in the scant light for a way through. He swung his leg over the banister and climbed his way past the chairs but accidentally tapped one of the chair legs. The barricade fell crashing and tumbling down the stairs. Julius gripped the banister, squeezing his eyes shut as the avalanche resounded through the hospital.
Julius ran up the stairs. At the top he turned for an instant to see Abigail’s red eye looking up at him from the foot of the stairs. She had added to herself since he had last seen her, and she had a new claw to replace the fork one she had lost. She scrambled up the stairs. At the turn she became entangled in the fallen chairs and she flailed her limbs in rage, bashing them to pieces.
Julius ran. Would she remember him from the sewer? Would she be angry about her missing claw?
He came to a long empty corridor and sprinted along it. Abigail roared, rattling his skull and making the walls quake.
If he had a few seconds to prepare, he could time-jump to escape.
Julius’s mind raced. Where could he go? Tock had released soulcatchers all over London. It seemed he had captured all the souls, just like he said he would. What had happened to Emily and Mr Flynn? What about his mother and grandfather? Were they sitting in armchairs somewhere with soulcatchers spewing from their mouths?
Abigail was coming up the stairs.
Julius ran through a door and collided with a trolley, knocking it over. Surgical knives and saws clattered around him. A torture rack stood in the centre of the room. Julius shuddered. Then he realised it was an operating table. Thick leather straps with sturdy brass buckles hung from it. There was no way out but through the windows or back the way he had come in. In the near dark he scrabbled amongst the operating tools to find the biggest knife.
‘Aaagh,’ he cried out, when a blade cut through his glove and into palm of his hand. Blood oozed through the gash and down his arm.
Abigail scraped along the corridor outside. Julius sprang up and slammed the door. It was made of thick oak with brass bolts top and bottom. He closed the top bolt just as Abigail collided with the door. It shuddered with the impact. Julius closed the bottom bolt as another blow came. Boom. It made the knives and saws rattle.
Julius pulled the leather straps out of their brackets on the operating table. He fumbled to thread the four belts through each other to make one long one. Abigail roared and hit the door again. It split down the centre.
Julius slid the top buckle behind a water pipe close to the window to anchor it and threw the end of the belt through the window. He looked out to find out what was below, but it was too dark to see. Above, the clouds were thinning and the ghost of near-full moon could be seen through them.
Abigail pounded the door with faster and harder blows. The bolts rattled and the screws holding them began to loosen.
Julius cried out with exertion as he heaved the operating table against it.
Boom. Abigail hit the door again. This time the top half of the door came away, narrowly missing Julius’s head, and he saw what she had replaced her fork-claw with—scalpels twisted like corkscrews. The claw raked through what was left of the door, shredding it. Julius jumped up to the windowsill and grabbed the leather belt.
Abigail filled the doorway, grinding and screeching her way thr
ough. She pushed the operating table aside.
Julius slid off the windowsill and gripped the belt. He screamed in agony, as his injured hand tightened on the leather, but the bloodied glove made his hand slip. Abigail’s snout came through the window. Her red eye glared at Julius as he dangled from the belt. She opened her razor-toothed mouth and roared. Julius’s hand slipped again. He let go.
That’s the last thing you’ll see or hear, Higgins.
Julius fell. He wondered how long it would be before he was safely dead and would not have worry about anything ever again. He wondered if he had a soul. He hadn’t given it much thought until now. He wondered where it would go.
Julius’s back crashed through something. Above him he saw a circle of broken glass surrounded by thousands of tiny spinning shards, all twinkling in the moonlight as he continued to fall. It reminded him of the galaxies he had passed through to get here. He wondered if he was dead yet.
Then he landed on a table. Two of the legs collapsed, spilling Julius onto the hard floor. A second later the galaxy of glass rained down on him. He curled into a tight ball, shielding his face as much as he could.
When the shower ended, Julius lay still for a few seconds. He could not feel anything except his blood surging through his body and surprise and relief that he was still alive.
Abigail roared somewhere above him, comfortingly far away. Julius staggered to his feet. Pain shot through every part of his body at once. He clutched his cut hand and looked up through the hole in the glass roof. He could see Abigail’s head two storeys above. She appeared to be trying to force her way through the hospital window.
When Julius took a step, his right leg nearly gave way. He leant against the remains of the table to steady himself. Dead and dried plants in cracked pots littered the floor. He was in a conservatory of some kind.
He began to tremble uncontrollably, but he managed to stumble against the glass wall searching for a door. His hand found a handle and pushed down. He fell out onto gravel, scraping his knees. When he rolled over for a moment to collect himself he saw Abigail poised on the windowsill ready to jump.
Julius was too exhausted and in too much pain to be afraid anymore.
Why can’t this be like cricket, Higgins? You get a tea break after a good innings.
Abigail’s red eyes stared down at him. Then her nose dropped and she dived.
Julius did not wait to see any more. He staggered away, ducking down a side street as the metallic crash of Abigail landing in the conservatory rang out.
Julius kept going until he arrived back at the bank of the Thames. The moon came out and shone down on the surface of the water. Across the river the craggy black skyline of the city could be seen against the night. The only sound was the distant metallic grinding sounds of Abigail trying to disentangle herself from the conservatory.
Julius rested against the embankment wall and laid his head on his arms. His shoulder throbbed, but not as much as his wounded hand. His back ached, his face was covered in tiny cuts and his clothes were strewn with glass shards
But he was alive. It felt so good he would have laughed if he’d had the energy.
He tried to think. Abigail would free herself soon and come looking for him.
He ran along the embankment wall until he came to the stone stairs leading down to the river. He climbed down and stood on the muddy riverbank. Stars peeped through gaps in the clouds.
Somehow, Tock had made this happen.
You didn’t stop him, Higgins. You failed.
From where Julius stood he could see that the middle of Southwark Bridge was demolished too. Someone was blowing up bridges. Was it to keep Abigail away? The dome of St Paul’s rose above the rooftops, beckoning him across. He wanted to go home to Ironmonger Lane and sit in his fireside chair and think things through.
Driftwood and pieces of rope lay along the muddy shore. Julius dragged planks of wood and laid them out like a raft. He had to walk hundreds of yards each way to find enough rope to lash it all together.
To Julius’s surprise the raft floated when he pushed it out. He kept pushing until he was up to his knees in the water, all the time hugging his wounded hand to his chest.
When he sat back on the raft his corner sank below the water so he rolled to the centre to try to spread his weight more evenly. The tide took the raft and carried it up river, under London Bridge and through to the other side. Julius lay on his back, trying to summon the energy to sit up and paddle. All he had to do was to use the plank to part-paddle, part-stir it to the other side.
He managed to sit up without disturbing the raft too much and braced the plank under the arm of his injured hand so he could grip it with his good hand. He wedged it between two of the raft’s struts and tried to stir a course for Cheapside.
The river became rougher the further he got out into the middle. Most of the time the raft was bobbing just below the surface and by now Julius was wet through. He prayed the raft would hold.
The river was only a hundred yards across, but the other side seemed like the other side of the world. He had drifted under Southwark Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge. Both had been demolished in the centre.
The muddy shore was only yards away when the raft began to fall apart.
Julius sloshed through the mud and crawled to the shore. The tide was high, leaving only a couple of yards of riverbank. He staggered along the embankment wall until he found another set of steps and sat exhausted on the second one.
Julius woke with jolt. He sat up shivering and looked at the expanse of river before him. Every cell in his body was cold and aching, and he was hungry enough to eat a plate of Brussels sprouts.
The cloudless sky was a deep blue with a streak of lighter blue along the rooftops on the far bank. He pulled himself to his feet and climbed the steps, his sodden boots sloshing all the way. At the top he sat again. He ached to hear the raucous sounds of London. But none came. There were no horses’ hooves clopping on the cobbles, no costermongers calling their wares, no ships’ bells or the slamming of doors and windows.
The streets were strewn with scraps of newspaper and broken furniture, but there were fewer broken windows and damaged roofs than he had seen on the southern shore.
Julius walked along Water Lane—that would take him past St Paul’s on his way to Ironmonger Lane. Flame-red soulcatchers stretched through open windows and rippled in the morning breeze
St Paul’s loomed overhead. Julius walked across the churchyard. He stopped beside the statue of Queen Anne and looked up the steps to the grand columns. St Paul’s seemed even more magnificent than he remembered it. It was if the cathedral was still as proud of itself as it was when people were teeming inside to marvel at it. Nothing would lessen its splendour.
Julius felt a little lighter in himself. Maybe there were some survivors?
He walked up the steps and stood among the columns. It was like he was in the cathedral’s embrace, imbibing some of its eternal presence. When he touched the cold stone he felt as if the cathedral acknowledged him in some way. He felt a stone-like strength flow through him, a strength that would see him through anything.
The door was slightly ajar.
He looked inside. The early morning light shone through the cathedral’s high windows and onto the soulcatchers inside.
People sat facing the Grand Organ, dotted among the rows of chairs. Their heads were thrown back with soulcatchers issuing from them. The stems and flowers spread out along the chairs, up and around the columns and up the walls.
Nothing moved.
Julius went inside. The thin, cool air held a faint perfume. He stepped quietly, almost afraid of disturbing the terrible beauty of the scene. He walked along the central aisle until he stood in a shaft of light. The hint of warmth tickled his face. He closed his eyes and felt the light on his eyelids.
A soulcatcher nearby rippled. The pale tendrils flicked out as if sniffing the air. He stepped closer to it.
The host was a
woman. Her mouth stretched wide in a silent scream. Her eyes were slits from which the stems grew. Her small hands rested among the flowers on her lap, as if she was holding a bouquet. He recognised the dress, and what was left of her face.
It was his mother.
Julius felt as if the floor had given way beneath him. He ran out the door and collided with a man standing between the columns.
CHAPTER 21
Thursday 24th September 1846
8:05 AM
Julius fell back and looked up at the tall silhouette standing before him.
‘I saw you go in,’ said Mr Flynn. He leaned over and offered his hand. His face was thinner and his hair longer than the last time Julius had seen him.
‘What happened?’ said Julius.
‘Come with me,’ said Mr Flynn. ‘We’ll talk at the top.’ His expression gave nothing away as he walked into the cathedral.
Julius followed him past the soulcatchers and up the wide spiral stairs leading to the balustrade around the dome. The cool air up so high made Julius blink. Far below, the roofs of London stretched out and the Thames snaked past.
Mr Flynn kept his back to Julius. He looked out across the river. ‘I knew you’d come one day,’ he said. ‘Emily told me you stole the pocketwatch. I knew you’d have used it to escape from Abigail.’
Julius clutched it in his pocket.
‘I’ve waited eight years for you to come,’ said Mr Flynn. ‘I wanted to tell you so many things.’ He sighed and lowered his head. ‘None of them seem important now.’
‘What happened?’ said Julius.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Mr Flynn. ‘Tock won. He did what his planned to do. That’s all you need to know.’
‘Emily?’ said Julius. He voice cracked.
Mr Flynn raised his shoulders as if he was drawing a long slow breath.
‘Is she here?’ said Julius.
Mr Flynn turned to face him. ‘There is one thing I’ll tell you,’ he said. ‘She wanted to keep it a secret, but it doesn’t matter now.’
