by Simon Rosser
In the two hours since being attacked, she’d had time to contemplate her situation, and also try and figure out what the hell was going on. She’d had to conclude that whatever had attacked her clearly wasn’t anything created or controlled by the military, or even humans; how could it have been? She had to accept, that, whatever it was, it may not actually be from Earth, as preposterous as that sounded.
The weird celestial events, of a few days, earlier had to be connected, and they were what she was basing her conclusions on. She had nothing else to go on. She’d been unable to contact any of her friends, or her family in West Wales, and although she feared the worst, she didn’t want to think of the potential ramifications.
Maybe she hadn’t been able to get hold of anyone because the phone lines were dead, or maybe the phones at their end weren’t actually ringing; anything was possible. Maybe this freak event was limited to London, and help was on its way, she just didn’t know. She wasn’t prepared to think beyond the current situation and just needed to stay safe tonight, get out of London, and make her way to her family, as quickly and safely as possible.
As she stood there considering her next move, another explosion rumbled across the city. Amber ran to the window and looked out, but there was no sign as to where the blast could have originated from. What she did notice however was that a weird fog-like grey mass was gathering on the other side of the Thames, and creeping towards the river. She realised she could no longer see the stationary vehicles or bottoms of the buildings on the other side of the river.
She looked up at the darkening sky, and noticed that it also appeared strange. The sky was filled with massive grey and angry-looking clouds, and the air itself seemed to be filled with fine particles of dust or soot. It was difficult to see, as the sun had been obscured all day, but as she stared out the window, she could see fine particles floating in the air just a few inches away on the other side of the glass. The windowsill outside was gathering a fine layer of the stuff, but it was being blown away occasionally by passing breezes, so it was not solidifying.
Amber moved away from the window and went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. She realised she was starving, as she hadn’t eaten since breakfast time. She grabbed some eggs and pulled them out. In the kitchen cupboard she located some tinned foods and she found a tin of baked beans and opened it. She poured the contents into a dish and placed it in the microwave. She then cracked two eggs into a frying pan.
Egg and beans on toast would have to do. She placed some bread in the toaster and set the timer on the microwave for two minutes.
As she ate her supper, she made a mental note of all the things she would need to take on her trip. She wouldn’t be able to carry much, as it would slow her down. Flour, she realised, had to be the number one priority, but how much of that could she carry? She’d need to borrow a car too if she had any hope of getting back to Wales.
She found a notepad and pen and started scribbling down some notes;
Flour x 10 bags/5 KG
5 Water x 1litre bottles
Kitchen knife
Knickers/Bras x 10
Small travel/Toiletry bag.
Jeans x 2 pairs
Trainers/Boots
Socks x 5
Tops x 2
London street map
Diary
Smartphone +charger
Sunglasses
Amber had a rucksack, which she could use to ensure she remained as agile as possible, which meant she needed to somehow fit everything on the list into it.
She couldn’t think of anything else she might need to take. The only problem was that there were only two bags of flour left in the panic room, but they were clearly her main priority. She needed to stop off at the local shop, at the end of the street, tomorrow to stock up on the essential item. Her uncle had stored up plenty of packs of water, however. Water wasn’t a problem, for now, but she wouldn’t be able to carry much of it.
As she folded the paper containing her list, she recalled the bottle of water she’d taken to the gym in the morning had oddly evaporated, just like the bottle in the fridge, and this was a huge concern. What if somehow the aliens, or whatever they were, had the ability to soak up or vaporize water?
Was that why she’d felt the headache, dry throat and gritty eyes, when in the presence of the Bernie-thing? She frowned at the thought and then pushed it to the back of her mind. All she had time for now was concentrating on getting out of the apartment and then out of the city.
Amber laid out all the items she’d listed, on her bed, except for the flour, which she’d collect tomorrow from the shop. Her rucksack was one she’d bought to go hiking in the Brecon Beacons in Wales, with some friends, a few years ago. It wasn’t huge, but if she packed everything correctly, she should manage to get it all in.
After an hour of packing and rearranging a few items, she managed to cram all the things she needed into the pack, with a little room to spare for the extra flour.
The time now was 9.45 p.m. and she felt her eyes beginning to tire. She went back into the lounge and dimmed the lights to look out of the window. At first glance it looked pitch black outside, not a single light was visible. As her eyes focussed on the scene beyond the window, she realised that she was looking at a swirling mass of grey dust, as far as the eye could see. Through the swirling dust, she could just make out the outline of Battersea Bridge below, but that was about it.
“What in the world is causing it?” she whispered to herself. Then a horrifying thought occurred to her. She considered the piles of ash she’d seen in the gent’s cubicle, and on Margaret’s sofa, and of the small piles of ash by the pot plants. Could the dust, swirling around outside, be all that is left of London’s eight million residents?
Tears welled in her eyes as she looked at the grey ash gathering in small piles on the window sill outside. Before it had a chance to pile up, it was blown away again, before being replaced by another pile almost as quickly.
A chill ran down her spine and she felt her body start to shiver, as she stared out through the window. She quickly pulled the curtains closed, to block out the sight of the dust storm raging outside, and sank onto the sofa. She realised she hadn’t tried calling anyone for a few hours. She picked up the phone and called home. After a few rings, the line connected, but she was greeted by her father’s same answerphone message.
She called Lucy, but there was no answer. She dialled 999 and was answered by an automated message, asking Police, Fire or Ambulance? Amber hit the ‘1’ key for police, but the dialling tone just continued and no one picked up.
Amber threw the phone across the room in frustration. It skidded across the wooden floor and disappeared under the shelving unit at the far end of the lounge. She stood up and went to check the front door again; making sure that nothing had attempted to enter. All seemed as she’d left it an hour earlier, the tape covering the keyholes and base of the door were untouched.
Amber then checked that all the tape securing the apartment’s taps were still in place, and double-checked the windows were still locked.
With the time now approaching 11 p.m., she grabbed her rucksack and dragged her duvet and pillows, from her bed, and over into the panic room. She left one side light on in the lounge and turned all the others off, just in case her apartment stood out as the only one still obviously occupied.
She arranged her duvet and pillows in the small gap between the back wall of the panic room and the packs of water and snuggled down to sleep. The long day had taken its toll. Despite being scared, and worried about her family and friends, there wasn’t much she could do to prevent her eyelids from closing. A few minutes later, she finally succumbed to sleep.
CHAPTER 11
Post Event – day 2
AMBER AWOKE IN a cold sweat, her heart thumping in her chest. She sat bolt upright and looked around the dimly lit room. Where was she? Had she been dreaming? As the fog of sleep quickly dispersed, she recognised the pallets of wa
ter and beans, and realised she was in her uncle’s panic room, and quickly recalled the reason why.
Oh God, she thought, as the events of the previous day flooded back into her mind. She pushed the duvet off, reached over and picked up the half-empty bottle of mineral water from the floor and drank it in one. Her throat was as dry as a bone. She checked the time on the small clock on the rear wall – 07.40. She had slept for a little over seven hours, and felt much better for it.
She placed her ear against the room’s steel door and listened. She heard nothing. Ok, here it goes, she thought, picking up the two remaining bags of flour. She got into a position that allowed her to throw them at anything that might be lurking outside the room, and slowly tapped in the code to open the door.
Whoosh, the door slid back and Amber stepped back, ready to launch the bags of flour. She sighed in relief at the sight of the empty room in front of her.
She peered out, checking both left and right, before stepping into the lounge. The small table lamp was still on and she walked over and turned it off.
A shaft of weak light penetrated through the gap in the curtains. Amber placed the bags of flour down on the sideboard and went to the window to pull the curtains back. The scene outside was like something from a movie set. It was a surreal scene; central London looked like the Sahara Desert, devoid of all life, with dunes formed from grey dust and ash that had drifted up against the stationary vehicles and the entrances to buildings. Only the river was still recognisable. The sky was still an angry grey colour, but the odd shaft of sunlight was now managing to punch its way through the thick cloud cover.
The ash-drifts would certainly make it more difficult to get out of the centre of town, especially if the scene outside was reflective of the situation in London as a whole. Amber frowned, as she turned away from the window, thinking about her plans for escape.
She walked to the bathroom and half-filled the sink with bottled-mineral water, so she could wash. There was no longer any water coming out from the taps, so a bath or shower was out of the question. She washed her face, and soaked a flannel to wash her breasts, and under her arms, and between her legs. She finished her ablutions by pouring some water onto her toothbrush, along with toothpaste and brushing her teeth, before packing her toothbrush and toothpaste away in her toiletry bag.
She stuffed the toiletry bag into the top of the backpack followed by the remaining two bags of flour, pulled the top flap over, and secured the straps to hold it in place.
Amber suddenly started to feel anxious and she took a few deep breaths to calm herself. The thought of leaving the confines of her apartment scared the hell out of her, but she had no choice. Staying in the apartment, alone with whatever that thing was roaming the building, scared her even more.
She carried out one final sweep of the apartment, to make sure she’d not left anything essential behind, pulled the backpack straps over her shoulders and headed for the door.
Amber pulled the duct tape away from the mortise lock so she could unlock the door. She then pulled the deadlocks back. As she was about to open the door she heard something. Her heart almost jumped out of her chest, as she froze to the spot.
A familiar monotone voice, whispered, “A-m-b-e-r, come with us…”
Amber slid the disk away from the spy hole. Her stomach did a double back flip as she looked upon four forms standing directly in front of the door. It was the Indian family from the apartment at the end of the corridor. Only it wasn’t them, but their liquid equivalents, or copies, swaying gently back and fore, vacant smiles on their faces. It was the parents with their two teenage children.
“Please A-m-b-e-r, join us,” they repeated.
With a trembling hand, Amber slowly tried to push the door’s dead bolts back in place, but it was too late. A thin column of gravity-defying liquid appeared through the keyhole and attempted to latch on to the back of her hand.
“A-m-b-e-r,” they taunted again.
Amber managed to push one of the dead bolts in place before turning, and running along the corridor to the lounge. Panic had now taken over and she felt adrenalin surge through her veins. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and confusion was setting in. “Shit…damn…think…think!” she told herself.
She heard a clunk from the end of the corridor and saw that the tube of liquid had latched onto the dead bolt and was sliding it open. She watched in horror, as it then moved onto the door handle and pulled it down. The door slowly pushed open, and the four Indian-family-things moved forward into the corridor.
Amber felt her legs turn to jelly. The signals from her brain, telling her legs to run, didn’t appear to be getting through. Then, a fraction of a second later, another surge of adrenalin flooded into her system. She fled across the lounge and into the second bedroom, slamming the door behind her and quickly locking it.
As soon as she’d shut the door, she saw a thin tube of water snake through the keyhole and latch onto the handle. The handle was then slowly pulled down.
Amber grabbed the small window-lock key from the window sill and tried to insert it into the window lock holding the latch in place, but it fell out of her fingers and landed in the small gap between the skirting board and carpet.
Behind her, the door handle had now been fully pulled down by the thin tendril of liquid, and another thin tendril had pushed through the keyhole, and was latching onto the chrome lock in order to twist it open.
Amber looked back to the floor, pinched the key between her shaky thumb and forefinger and pulled it from the narrow gap it had wedged itself into. She quickly inserted it into the small lock, which clicked open.
Behind her, the chrome door latch was moved to the ‘unlocked’ position by the liquid tendril, and clunked open.
Amber pulled the sash window up and threw her backpack out onto the small square tiled roof outside. She turned to look at the door, just as the Indian-family-thing burst into the bedroom; their lower bodies now morphed into one solid column of undulating liquid, which was held together in a solid thick column, extending behind them and out into the hallway.
Amber jumped through the open window onto the roof and slammed the window closed behind her, just as the Indian-family-thing slapped up against the pane of glass. Eight pairs of vacant eyes now stared at her, through the glass as the thing tried to push its tendrils through it. The ends of the liquid tendrils whipped about on the other side of the window pane, as they tried to find purchase on the smooth surface.
Amber had seen enough. Freaking out, she pulled on her backpack and carefully negotiated over a large drift of ash that had accumulated on the fire escape platform, and descended the steel ladder as quickly and safely as she could.
As she descended, she saw rolling ash-coloured clouds filling the sky; only the odd shaft of sunlight managed to break through, like spotlights over a theatre stage, illuminating the unnatural landscape below.
The steel steps were clear of the ash/dust stuff, but at the bottom of each section of stairs there was a steel platform, which was ankle deep in the stuff. Amber continued down, glancing up briefly at every level to make sure the thing wasn’t following her. There was no sign of it yet. She briskly descended the remaining three levels and finally dropped down into a narrow rear alleyway, alongside the apartment block. She stood still, listening for any sounds, but heard nothing.
She slowly made her way to the end of the alleyway and looked out towards the Thames. An alien landscape greeted her. Four foot drifts of ash had built up against the sides of the stationary cars parked along the streets. The entrance to the buildings and shops on Elcho Street behind her, were also blocked with the stuff. At least Hester Road, the route she intended taking, looked a little less choked with the grey ash.
She stood there in complete shock, unable to believe what she was seeing. Since last night, an idea had been mulling over in her mind, and now it seemed like a perfectly reasonable, but risky option. She needed to see how much of London had been affected by w
hatever had happened, which meant getting to the highest possible vantage point. That meant only one thing, she needed to get back to where she and her friends had dined the previous night, London’s tallest building, The Shard. There was only one problem however; it was about five miles northeast of her present position.
CHAPTER 12
AMBER WALKED SLOWLY along Hester Road, towards Battersea Bridge Road, keeping as close to the buildings and banks of ash as possible, in case someone, or something, saw her. The ash wasn’t as bad as it had been at the end of Elcho Street, but the same eerie silence blanketed the street. The last time she’d experienced a similar environment was back home in the early eighties, after a week’s worth of snow had fallen. She recalls the streets, back then, had been devoid of all people, and even animals, the banks of snow muffling out all sounds.
She made it onto Battersea Bridge Road and turned right, towards the small minimart that was situated on the next street corner. She surveyed the scene around her. The vehicles she’d seen littering the road from her lounge window were wheel deep in the ash stuff. It was like a volcano had erupted somewhere nearby, covering central London with volcanic ash. But she knew there was no volcanos anywhere close, unless Mount Vesuvius, in Italy, had decided to erupt, and violent winds had blown the ash northwest. If only the explanation, for what she was witnessing, was as simple as that.
As she continued along the street, heading in the direction of the bridge and the River Thames, she heard an odd clanking sound. She stopped to listen. There was a light wind blowing her way and the sound was, intermittently, in earshot.
