by Adam Millard
Brandie paddled the door forward, knowing she would be quicker on foot, in the water. The only problem with that was, she knew what animals the zoo kept, what they would do to said foot if they had half a chance. She also knew that any number of parasites could be swimming around beneath her and that by leaving her door she was practically inviting them to swim up inside her and make themselves at home.
She reached the cathedral door and banged three times. It was like that bit in The Wizard of Oz, only the Emerald City didn’t have quite as much graffiti.
Come on, come on, I’m burning to death out here! Brandie thought. The sun’s rays were leaving their mark on her usually pallid flesh. It was currently a toss-up as to what would kill her first: the escaped animals or skin cancer.
She knocked again, this time with the ball of her fist. Imagining a roomful of survivors just beyond the door was enough to drive her to distraction. She hoped there were some biscuits left when they finally let her in.
She was about to knock one last time when a voice interrupted her.
“You’re wasting your time.”
Brandie almost fell off her door. “Who said that?” She looked this way and that, up and down, and then she saw it. At first she though it was just a head, severed perhaps, floating along on the floodwater like a baby’s turd. Then she remembered that severed heads seldom have the propensity to natter or blink, and this one appeared to be doing both.
“What are you doing down there?” Brandie asked. It seemed like a reasonable question as it left her lips.
“I’m dying,” the head said. “Two hours ago I was surrounded by beautiful women, and now I’m up to my neck in pissin’ seawater and something’s chewed my fuckin’ arms off.” As if to prove he wasn’t lying, the man raised his stumps, glanced at them in turn before dropping them back into the water. “And there’s no one in there. I thought there would be, but it looks like we’re the only ones who’ve made it this far in one piece.”
Brandie wanted to correct him. She appeared to be the only one in one piece, but she kept it to herself. The guy was clearly having a bad day without her denigrating him further.
“What’s been eating your arms?” Brandie frowned. It was one of those questions that you should be able to go through life without having to ask, like “Are you sure the baby is mine?” and “Who would you rather sleep with? Meat Loaf or Carrot Top?”
“Dunno,” the man said. “I was swimming along when I realised I wasn’t going as fast as I had been.”
“Oh, that sucks,” Brandie said. “Could have been worse, though.”
The head looked incredulous. “How?”
“Well, if you’d only lost the one arm, you’d still be out there now, swimming in circles.”
The man thought for a moment, all the time regarding Brandie the same way he might regard a piece of roadkill, then said, “Anyway, I don’t think I’m going to make it. I’ve lost a lot of blood already, and I’m pretty certain something is nibbling at my toes as we speak.” As if to confirm he was telling the truth, three chubby severed toes plonked up to the surface. “Bloody knew it,” he said. “Oh, well. I suppose it’s my duty as mayor of Cromer to sacrifice myself for the good of the town.”
Holy shit! This wasn’t just any old soul; this was the mayor, Donkadonk. He looked so different without his arms.
“Want to know a little secret?” the floating bald head asked.
Brandie paddled the door toward him. Intrigued, she said, “Is it to do with how you syphoned off years of government money, spent it all on a house in Sandwich and jewellery for your three mistresses?”
Donkadonk shook his head. “No, it’s about—hang on, where did you hear that?”
“Everyone knows about it,” Brandie said. “Not to mention the secret love-child you have with Sarah Ferguson, the crystal meth you have stashed in your grandma’s mattress, and your affiliation with the Scientologists, mainly Travolta because of how much you loved him in Michael.” She shrugged. “Common knowledge.”
Under ordinary circumstances, Donkadonk would have been concerned. Since he was being gnawed to death by unseen creatures, his corruptness didn’t seem to matter anymore. Still, he hoped she hadn’t heard about the Macaulay Culkin incident.
“Anyhoo,” he pressed on. “I didn’t just happen to arrive here by chance. I was on my way to a top-secret base when I realised my arms were gone.”
“What top-secret base?” Brandie almost fell off her raft. “Where?”
The mayor winced, said “ow!” and watched as another two fat toes drifted past. “Oh, I’m not just going to tell you,” he said, grimacing. “You’re going to have to give me something in return.” He grinned, a shark’s grin. He looked the way a cat did a few seconds before coughing up a furball. “Take off your top. If I’m going to die here today, by God I’m going to do it with a fresh set of boobs in the spank bank.”
“When I make it out of here alive,” Brandie said, “I’ll tell everyone about what you did with that Home Alone boy, including your grandma.”
“It’s in the library,” Donkadonk quickly said. “Second floor, but they won’t just let you in. You need the password.”
Brandie tilted her head.
“Oh, I can’t just give you the password,” Donkadonk said. “Just one boob, please! I…” Just then, a severed and chewed penis appeared in front of the mayor’s bald head. “Well, that’s fucked it,” he said, trying to blow the cock away so it didn’t bounce off his chin. “Oddly, your boobs no longer interest me. The password is EDIE. Tell everyone I’m sorry I couldn’t make it. Hope you get all this nonsense sorted out, and whatever you do, don’t vote Simmons in as my replacement. You think I’m corrupt? I was Mother Teresa compared to that buffoon.”
Already manoeuvring the door away from the slowly dying mayor, Brandie said, “Thanks, Donkadonk. I hope it was enough for God to forgive you.”
“I doubt it,” the mayor said. “But I hear all the good ones are in Hell anyway.”
Brandie steered the door away from the cathedral. As she reached the end of the street, the mayor’s death screams echoed around Cromer. Pigeons took to the skies, along with two owls, a Bald Eagle, and half a dozen macaws.
“Now, if I could just figure out where the library is,” Brandie muttered. Somewhere nearby, a helicopter hovered. She could just about hear it over the sound of Donkadonk’s pained screeches.
Helicopters are good, she thought, sensing that the nightmare would be over very soon. I wonder how many they’ve sent.
15
“Looks like we’re the first on scene,” Ruth Blizzard said, leaning across and sliding the helicopter door open. She’d anticipated at least a dozen news crews hovering over the town, each vying for the best shots of floating corpses and old people stranded on their rooftops. It was a nice surprise, therefore, to find the airspace clear on all sides. Not even the BBC had a chopper in the sky, which was a little strange since they usually had a fleet ready to go.
“Do you want me to get closer?” the pilot asked.
“We’re going live in thirty seconds,” Ruth Blizzard said. “I expect to be almost touching the water by the time we do.”
The cameraman crouching opposite Blizzard handed her a microphone, then pointed out through the open door. “Is that Dame Judi Dench?” he said, his mouth wide open as he followed the ancient actress across Cromer’s rooftops. She appeared to be dragging an old lady behind her.
“Don’t be absurd,” Blizzard said, paying no attention to the cameraman. “Now, how do I look?”
The cameraman shrugged. “You use your eyes, don’t you?”
“Okay, we’re live in ten seconds,” Blizzard said. “PILOT! WE’RE LIVE IN TEN SECONDS!”
The pilot dropped the helicopter several feet in less than a second. The smell of the ocean drifted up to the helicopter as the rotors above whipped it into a frothy frenzy below. Cromer, Blizzard thought, had never looked better.
“Three…two…one
…” The cameraman gave her the thumbs-up.
“Scenes of absolute devastation here in Cromer right now,” Blizzard said, gesturing out through the helicopter’s open door. “This sleepy little town on the East Coast has been hit by what appears to be a large tsunami. As far as the eye can see, the North Sea has covered miles of land, killing hundreds, maybe even thousands. How many people actually live here?”
The cameraman shrugged. Fucked if he knew.
“Well,” Blizzard continued. “A lot of people have drowned, and things don’t look great for those still down there. What we do know is that the town was too cheap to install CCTV cameras, meaning we have no way of locating any survivors and no way of discovering, and playing—on loop and in perpetuity for our viewers at home—the terrors that have unfolded here today. From what we understand, help is on the way for these poor, poor, and in some cases, dead people, but thanks to government cutbacks, it’s taking a little longer than usual.”
The helicopter swung around, maintaining a constant height of two feet from the water. The cameraman, sensing this was his moment, took the opportunity to get a good long-distance shot of the tragedy. If this didn’t win them a Best News award, nothing would.
Ruth Blizzard, having withdrawals as a result of being out of shot for so long, clicked her fingers, and the cameraman quickly swung his JVC round to frame her once again. “As you can see just behind me, the carnival floats have taken their namesake literally and are now drifting along through the town.” She gestured to a large, paper-mâché mermaid as it bobbed alongside the helicopter. She snorted. “Well this one might just make it to the end of the day, which is more than can be said for the hundreds of Cromerites without fins and tails.”
The cameraman shook his head in embarrassment. Ruth Blizzard chose to ignore it.
“From what we gather, there are no early indications that this is anything to do with Al-Qaeda, Caucasus Emirate, Hezbollah, the Irish National Liberation Army, the Saved Sect, Shining Path, the EDL, or the Pope. However, we now know that several of the youths in Cromer played violent videogames and listened to Marilyn Manson, so I’m pretty sure we know what tomorrow morning’s headlines will be.”
“What the hell is that?” the cameraman said, pointing out across the steadily-flowing water. Ruth Blizzard shot him a glance that said How dare you interrupt when I’m looking pretty and talking at the people!
The helicopter drifted a few metres forwards, almost spilling Ruth Blizzard out the door. She grabbed onto the side of the chopper, preventing herself from becoming another statistic, and it was then that she saw the melee just beyond a large plastic float in the shape of Queen Elizabeth’s head.
Composing herself, she urged the cameraman to continue filming—more specifically, “Point the fucking thing at me!”
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are now looking at what appears to be several large animals fighting over a decimated model of Gary Barlow.” She squinted, trying to make out exactly what she was looking at. “Yes, I can now confirm that two elephants and a hippo are tearing the former Take That singer’s face to shreds. We—well, it’s hard to imagine where the animals came from or what they have against such a delightful chap, but I’m guessing Cromer’s Bingham Zoo has also been affected by this disaster.”
Ruth Blizzard shrugged. This was all a little strange, even for her, and she’d covered several Crufts competitions, two royal weddings, and the story about the woman who insisted on weightlifting throughout her pregnancy, right up to the moment the baby fell out of her (she’d been attempting 240kg at the time).
“Well,” Blizzard said, eyebrows arched, a look of mirth upon her face. “There are times in this job where you think you’ve seen it all, and then something comes along to prove you wrong. I’m Ruth Blizzard, reporting for ITV7, back to you in the—”
Those viewers watching live from the comfort of their dry homes were able to discern the final word as ”studio.” But unfinished sentences would have been the least of their concerns as their third-favourite news reporter (after Susanna Reid and Bill Turnbull) was snatched from the helicopter by what looked like a crocodile. Blood spattered the camera-lens, leaving viewers at home squinting through a haze of dripping red goo. The cameraman fell backwards, hoping to put some space between himself and the wide-open door.
“UP!” he screeched to the pilot, who hadn’t witnessed the demise of Ruth Blizzard and was therefore still keeping the chopper near the water’s surface. “GET US OUT OF HERE!”
Swinging the camera round, he pointed it toward the helicopter door. If that thing, that fucking lizard, was going to return for seconds, then by god he was going to capture it in full HD.
The helicopter suddenly tilted hard to the left, and it was all the cameraman could do to remain on his feet. What was the pilot playing at? Was he trying to get them both killed? But then it all became very clear as the cameraman spotted the slick, grey skin in the water below, the gaping maw reaching up for the landing skids.
“WE’VE GOT A HIPPO ON US!” yelled the cameraman, realising how ridiculous that sounded.
“It’s got a hold of us!” the pilot screamed back. “Try to get it off!”
Frowning, the cameraman edged slowly toward the open door. The to-ing and fro-ing of the chopper wasn’t helping, but that’s what happens when a fucking river-horse gets its teeth into you.
“Get off!” the cameraman said. Unsurprisingly, his command was ignored. Time for a harsher approach. “Oi, hippo! Fuck the fuck off our chopper!”
The cameraman fell back as the pilot nudged the cyclic lever forwards. It was like trying to shake Rob Ford off the tow bar of a Honda Civic; in the end, and despite it looking unsightly, you were just going to have to get used to it.
“I’ve got no control!” the pilot yelled. “We’re going to hit the water!”
Well that, the resigned cameraman thought, is just fucking typical.
As if to make matters worse, the crocodile could be discerned just below the helicopter, rolling over and over in the murky depths. The lifeless—presuming life couldn’t continue without a head, which science had all but proved—corpse of Ruth Blizzard was down there too, waiting for her cameraman to join her, waiting for the rotor blade to hit the water and the ensuing fireball to cook them all suitably for the loitering animals.
She didn’t have to wait long.
The explosion was heard several miles away in a quaint little village called Wash Dyke, where a group of geriatrics surrounding a residential home’s television decided they had seen enough action for one day and changed the station just in time for Deal or No Deal.
16
Watching the helicopter go down, probably the scariest thing he had ever seen, Roger quickly changed his mind about swimming across the square. He hadn’t noticed the hippos until now, and it took one hanging from the underside of a whirlybird to make their presence known. Swimming for the cathedral, as was his initial plan, would be suicide and in complete discordance with what he was trying to do.
No, he would stick to the rooftops, trying to skirt the square as best as possible. Up here, he wasn’t exactly safe. Silhouetted against the sun, he was damn easy pickings, but at least he was dry, and as far as he knew, hippos and gators weren’t the best when it came to ascending fire escape ladders. Though back at the zoo, they had never been presented with the opportunity to try.
Maybe they were awesome at it.
Roger walked along the roof upon which he’d watched the chopper fall. He couldn’t be sure, what with the sun’s rays already beating unforgivingly down on him, but the heat from the debris in the centre of the square seemed to reach him. The temperature had certainly soared in the last few minutes, and Roger didn’t think he was going through the menopause, though he was at the right age.
A large gap separated the next rooftop from his. He glanced down at the quickly flowing water between the two buildings, wondering whether it would break his fall or just his spine if he happened to misjudg
e the distance, the trajectory, and the fact that he hadn’t tried jumping from one place to another since he was fifteen years old. There were no beasts down there, which was something at least, but they would find him if he fell and would pick him apart by the end of the day. Something nice to think about on the way down, Roger thought. He glanced down at the water again, and this time saw several small black shapes beneath the surface. Penguins? It certainly appeared to be penguins, swimming in formation, urging him to jump. All of a sudden he didn’t fancy his chances. Those penguins had it in for him.
“You’re not going to make it,” a voice said. “Your legs are too weedy. You won’t get the push-off you need.”
Roger couldn’t believe what he was seeing, and his gormless face said as much. “Judi Dench? Wh…what?”
“Listen, laddie, there will be time for autographs later on. My car-boot is filled with copies of my new autobiography, I Might Be Silver, But You Would, Wouldn’t You?, and for just fifteen quid, I’ll even personalise it, but for now, we need to get across that gap before we’re set upon by monkeys or hippos or god-knows-what.”
The old lady standing just behind Dench grunted in agreement. Roger didn’t know who she was, if she was famous too or just one of Dench’s groupies.
Turning back to the break in buildings, Roger said, “How do you suggest we get across, then?” Yeah, Dench! Answer that one!
The actress took a few steps forward, shaking off the old lady attached to her back as if she was nothing more than an overzealous wasp. After scanning the area for a minute or two, she turned to Roger and smiled, those almond-shaped eyes of hers barely even twitching. “We swing.”
