City in the Fire

by Fred Crawley

  The sound of falling bricks like an explosion caused her to turn around. The cascading sound kept on coming and the smokey air filled with fresh debris that whipped around her face. She was bleeding but there was no time to think about that now. She had to run.

  She ran because she would not simply lay down and let her daughter die inside her. She ran even though there was no hope of sanctuary or reprieve. She ran even though she knew he was coming for her and his strength made him more dangerous than ever before.

  More buildings were falling down around her so she couldn’t seek safety inside. All she could do was keep running and hoping but she didn’t even know what she was hoping for. A miracle, she supposed, because that was about the only thing that would save her now.

  The road ended suddenly and she found herself skidding to a halt in front of a wall. She looked left and right and didn’t know which was to run. In the end she supposed it didn’t make any difference but right felt better so she went that way.

  She was gasping for breath and her body ached. She didn’t know how long she could keep going for but she didn’t intend to stop until she was forced to, either by exhaustion or something else.

  He was getting closer, she could feel him and her skin crawled. He was somewhere close by. Her heart hammered so painfully in her chest that she thought it might burst out and now the baby was starting to kick. Slow down mummy, it seemed to say, you’re shaking me up like a paint can in here.

  She would have stopped if she could but she couldn’t. She was certain that he was going to get her. She could hear him, ragged breathing and heavy boots. In a flat out race he would beat her easily so she had to be smarter.

  There was an alleyway to her left, it was dark and narrow between two tall buildings that might not last much longer. But it was better than being on the open street. If she could hide somewhere maybe he would give up and leave her alone. She didn’t believe that, not for a second, but she didn’t have anything to lose and precious few other options. She ran towards the alleyway and into the darkness.

  It was a mistake. She realised it as soon as the narrow corridor had engulfed her. She couldn’t even run at her top speed without the risk of running into a wall hard enough to knock herself out. She had to waddle along with a hand out in front of her to check for turnings and all the time he was getting closer.

  “You’re wasting your time,” he said from somewhere behind her, or maybe he was above, sound echoed from the walls and confused his location. “Give it up.” His voice sounded more menacing than she remembered.

  It seemed to be moving around her and worst of all he was right; there was nothing she could do. She had a painful stitch in her side, he back and legs ached terribly and she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. If she wasn’t so dehydrated she thought she would cry.

  This was it then, it was all over. She would try to fight him off but it wouldn’t do any good, he would over power her and then he would hurt her. Whether he would leave her for dead or finish her off himself it didn’t seem to matter.

  She stopped with her back to the wall, there was nowhere else to go now.

  He emerged from the smoke like a monster. His skin was scorched and blackened, his eyes swollen and bloodshot. Something was wrong with him but even if he died right now it wouldn’t save her. She could sense it inside him, some terrible hateful energy that was using him up. Blood oozed from his mouth and down his chin. When he spoke he didn’t move his mouth.

  “You’ll do,” he said. “A nice young body. Should last long enough to get me out of here.”

  She couldn’t move. She could feel the hatred coming through him and it was directed at her. She imagined this was what radiation poisoning would feel like, rotting her healthy body with pure malevolence.

  She tried to step away but she was weak and her legs finally gave out. She fell to the floor and the only good thing that she could hold onto was that this wouldn’t take long. The naked hatred would soon devour her and then she would be gone, no longer herself just a shell to be used up.

  Victor fell forwards. He landed face first on the hard concrete floor making no attempt to protect himself. Tendrils and spirals of smoke, plumes of red and black, poured from his vacant body towards her. They swept around her and in through her pours. She could feel them in her bones and she screamed.

  Then there was only the dark.

  CHAPTER 22

  GWEN STEPPED INTO THE CONTROL CENTRE WHERE THEY were re-watching the thermal of the chef running through the street. “It’s definitely the hostile,” said one of the geeks, a young woman with mousey blond hair and a pierced lip. “Look at that heat sig and the speed.”

  “Is there an agent in the area?” asked another.

  The girl turned back to her computer and started tapping away. The footage had come in five minutes previously. No one except Gwen watched the pregnant woman he was chasing. They had lost sight of them both moments later in an alleyway near a CoffeeKing.

  “Has anyone seen Dawson?” she said before the girl could answer. She hadn’t been able to reach him on his phone.

  “No M’am,” said the girl.

  Gwen turned and left them to it. She couldn’t understand where he had gone. He’d worked for her for three years and he’d always just been there. Always at her right hand, ready to take an order, even before she knew she needed to give one. Now he was gone and she felt like she’d lost a limb.

  She thought about the pregnant woman they’d seen on the video footage together. Really she was more like a girl, small and vulnerable and for some reason the hostile was chasing her. She and Dawson had stood together and watched it coming through live. When she had turned to look at him she’d seen emotion on his face for the first time.

  A terrible thought occurred to Gwen; what if Dawson had gone into the city to try and help the girl? It wasn’t impossible, they were close enough to the city that he could fly in by helicopter, land and try to get her out.

  Gwen stopped suddenly, convinced that she was right. She went to the little landing area that had been set up and a pilot confirmed that he’d seen Dawson take one of the black choppers.

  What was she supposed to do now? She paced around in a small circle in front of the pilot but as far as she was concerned he wasn’t there. She had to do something, she had to. A few more circuits of the landing area and she had convinced herself.

  “You need to fly me in,” she said to the pilot.

  “M’am?”

  “You heard me, I’m going in. Get number six ready to fly in two minutes.”

  The pilot nodded. “Yes M’am but...”

  She shook her head, “no ‘but’s’, we have an agent gone AWOL and he needs to be found.” She didn’t wait to hear him say he understood. Don’t give people an option to argue their way out of something and they invariably end up doing what you want, that’s how she understood it anyway.

  Gwen walked across the small camp to the armoury truck. Inside there were racks of weapons, most of which wouldn’t be suitable to the task at hand. She selected a couple of pulse guns and then went to get changed.

  She had one last stop to make before she could get on the helicopter, a final order to make. She walked into the control room where the geeks were joking and laughing about something or other. She didn’t have the time to spare to find out what. “Are the subways full?” she said.

  The mousey haired girl swivelled around in her chair. If she was surprised to see Gwen dressed in combat gear she didn’t show it. “Yes M’am and the doors are locked.”

  “Good,” she said. “Release the gas and tell our boys to get out of there.”

  “Yes M’am,” said the girl and turned back to her desk. She pressed a finger to her ear to activate her headset. Gwen stood there long enough to hear the order being given and then she walked away to go and deal with Dawson.

  CHAPTER 23

  ABI LAY ON THE FLOOR OF THE ALLEYWAY not moving. Her eyes were closed but twitched as if s
he were having a dream. The body of Victor was a few feet away, limp and lifeless. She had gotten so close to the coffee shop where Craig was waiting for her. She didn’t know it but he stood by the window watching smoke and debris roll down the street wondering if he would ever see her again. He blamed himself, she was pregnant, he never should have let her out of his sight. If he could do it all again, he thought, he would stay with her every second of every day.

  He turned away from the window. The smell of coffee was driving him crazy. He would have killed for a cup but the electricity was still off so he couldn’t make one. He paced around the shop, weaving around the tables that had been abandoned hours before. He wondered where Abi and her mum had sat and where they were now.

  He returned to the window, unwilling to leave it for long in case she passed by and he missed her. Where was she, where was his Abi and little Victoria?

  CHAPTER 24

  SOMETHING WASN’T RIGHT. IT WAS TRAPPED AND IN the dark. Why wasn’t the bitch waking up? It struggled to move, tried to wiggle a finger or open an eye but it didn’t seem to have control. It was a passenger and couldn’t get out. It was a million years old but this had never happened before. It didn’t understand.

  It had been born out of chaos, it was anger and hatred and it had lived quite happily on the banks of the river they now called the Thames. It had made its home in what they called a city, feeding off the anger and hatred and generating more. The city had the highest crime rate in the country; murders, violent sexual assault, robberies, it caused them all and fed on the pain and suffering they generated.

  At first it hadn’t understood why people continued to come. The city was a dark and miserable place, filled with hatred and loathing. The people, humans, should have stayed away but they didn’t, they kept coming back and when people died others took their place. It had realised centuries ago that people could feed on those things too.

  Now it was dying. It hadn’t even known it was capable of dying but there it was. A searing pain tore through the streets which were its limbs and clogged the arteries of its grey concrete buildings and parks. They were burning it out, forcing it to act and while it was in a weak human body they could kill it.

  It tried to wake up the girl, burning brightly it took its life from her. She wouldn’t last long, perhaps longer than the last one, but if she didn’t wake up soon then it would be trapped there where it would die alongside her. It screamed and shouted and tried to wake her but she wouldn’t move. It wondered if she was already dead.

  CHAPTER 25

  GWEN JUMPED OUT OF THE HELICOPTER BEFORE IT had even touched the ground. She ducked down and ran beneath the whirling blades, turned back when she was clear and watched the pilot land. “Wait here for me,” she said and the pilot gave her a thumbs up sign. Then she was gone.

  She ran through the smoke filled streets, the infra-red filters on her helmet allowing her to see the buildings and roads in an eery red projection. She was off the book now, acting outside of established protocol and potentially putting the whole operation at risk. But they had never planned for anyone doing what Dawson had done.

  There was a part of her that understood. She had seen the girl on the screen, just as he had, and she would have been lying if she’d said she hadn’t felt something. She felt pity for the poor creature, she had probably spent the last few months buying baby clothes, painting the babies room and all the other stuff she understood people who were expecting a child did. She was building a nest for a future that she would never have. If she could have stopped that girl from going into the city she would have, but done was done and she couldn’t change the past.

  Where was he? She scanned the streets as she ran, he had to be close by, but he had a head start on her. She couldn’t even see where he had landed. The only thing she could do was go to the girl, if he was anywhere it would be there.

  There was always the possibility that he was nowhere near the city, that he hadn’t taken it upon himself to actually do anything but had simply run away, burying his head in the sand and refusing to take any further part in the operation. But that didn’t sound like Dawson, not the Dawson she had imagined in her head. The Dawson that she thought about at night was someone who took action and she had to stop him.

  CHAPTER 26

  SHE WASN’T ALONE. SOMEONE, OR SOMETHING WAS IN there with her. It was a familiar feeling. Abi had been sharing her body with another living thing for months but two was company, three was a crowd. She could feel it in her, long tendrils of emotion wrapping themselves around her making her hate. She hated it. There’s no room in here, she thought, go home.

  “I am home,” came the reply which surprised her. She hadn’t expected it to speak.

  “You can’t stay here,” she said. Or did she just think it? She supposed that this was all happening inside her so saying and thinking were one and the same.

  “Oh but I think I can, at least for a while.”

  She knew what it was thinking and she knew what would happen to her if she let it stay. She also knew what it didn’t know and that was what might save her. “There’s no room for you here,” she said.

  The thing, whatever it was, a ball of raw emotion is what it seemed to be, was quiet. It searched her thoughts and she let it. She let it know what it somehow hadn’t seen and what it hadn’t known. “No!” it said, anger and hatred and malice and death were in that word and they were all directed at her. If it could have done, she thought, it would have killed her then.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said.

  “No!” it screamed again and, if they had been actual words, she thought they would have deafened her. “No!”

  It was holding on, desperately trying to cling to her life force but she wouldn’t let it. Pushing it away now required little effort, it knew that it was going to die. Abi felt like laughing at its death throws. It’s pain was like a bath for her, it fuelled her and made her happy. It had caused so much pain in its life, it deserved to suffer itself. If she could have done she would have extended its anguish for longer and she thought that if she tried she could. But she was no longer alone in the alleyway. Someone was watching her roll around on the floor.

  The thing, the hostile, the presence, it thought of itself as Chaos, passed out of her body and into the burning air. It’s desperate screams filled the city but it could do nothing to save itself now. Abi opened her eyes in time to see the last of the black and red smoke consume itself.

  When she turned she saw a man dressed in black combat gear standing next to Victor’s dead body and watching her.

  CHAPTER 27

  CRAIG JUMPED WHEN HE HEARD THE SCREAM. IT seemed to fill his head and sounded like Abi. He was halfway to the door before he stopped and checked himself. The sound had been too loud, it was more likely to have been a falling building, his own mind had made it sound like Abi. Even if it had been her, and it hadn’t, it couldn’t have been, the smoke was now so thick that he couldn’t see to the other side of the street, there was no way he would be able to find her.

  He was ready to turn away but then a black shape emerged from the mist. It looked like a woman but he was under no illusions that it was his Abi. Whoever this was walked with a steely determination and had a completely flat stomach. He grabbed the door handle and waited for her to pass, then he slipped outside and followed her.

  CHAPTER 28

  ABI LOOKED AT THE MAN. IF SHE’D HAD the energy she would have gotten up and started running but she felt weak. She had got rid of whatever had been inside her but it had taken something of her with it.

  “Don’t come any closer,” she said.

  The man held up his hands but she still didn’t trust him. “I’m here to help you,” he said.

  “Who are you?” she said. He was square jawed and his dark hair was neatly parted and combed. He looked like he was in the military, maybe a couple of years older than her.

  “My name’s Jarred Dawson. I can get you out of here.”

  She sh
ook her head, not without Craig. She’d come all this way when she could have just gone into the subway with Tina. She wasn’t going to give up until she at least saw he wasn’t waiting for her. “Not without my...” she started to say but was interrupted by another arrival.

  “Dawson,” said a woman. Abi could only see her as a shape in the smoke but the man turned around.

  “Captain Shelton,” he said with some surprise.

  She walked out of the smoke, a tall woman with her dark hair tied up in a neat bun. It looked as if she was holding a gun but if she was it was like none Abi had seen outside of science fiction.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” the woman demanded.

  “Everything’s okay,” said the man with his back to Abi. The two were completely occupied with each other. If Abi had the strength she could have slipped away without either of them noticing. “The hostile’s dead, I saw it myself.”

  “You can’t be sure,” said the woman. “What we’ve done is for nothing if it lives. We can’t do anything to jeopardise that.”

  Now the man turned and looked at Abi. “She’s pregnant Gwen,” he said. “I can’t just leave her here to die.”

  The woman, Gwen, seemed to debate this and then raised the gun and pointed it at Abi. “So we won’t leave her.”

  The man stepped between Abi and the gun. “I won’t let you do this Captain. We can save her.”

  “She knows too much. We can’t let her live.”

  “You’ll have to shoot me too then,” he said.