Adrenal7n

by Russ Watts

  “You think? I think London is burning,” said Tony. “Again.”

  Bashar took a bite of the apple, some of its sweet juice escaping his mouth and spurting over his tie. “What do you mean again?” asked Bashar through a mouthful of apple.

  “Well this is different, obviously, but London was decimated by fire back in 1666. Something like 13,000 homes were burnt to the ground over three days. Even St. Paul’s was burnt down. So many places were built of wood back then that the fire took hold and wouldn’t let go. It’s different now, but the same. We put too much stock in bricks and mortar.”

  “We should watch out for smoke,” declared Bashar. “I think we’ve been lucky so far. This place is relatively untouched. Upstairs is a mess and I don’t think it’ll be open for business anytime soon, but at least we’re safe for now. If the fire catches hold upstairs then we’ll need to get out quick.”

  “Yeah. I think the fire has escaped us so far so it’s just the zombies and diseases we have to watch out for. All those dead bodies walking around up there are like walking time bombs. Maybe the fire is a good thing.”

  “A good thing?” Bashar rubbed his forehead. His injured shoulder was feeling much better, but there was so much to think about that his head literally hurt. “How can that be a good thing? If the streets are awash with fire we’ll never get home, none of us.”

  “It’s like before the Great Fire. They had an outbreak of the Bubonic Plague a year before. That was the rats, of course, but dead bodies host innumerable diseases: hepatitis, cholera, meningitis, HIV and tuberculosis. Quite a shopping list, right? I reckon one bite from a zombie and you’re toast. You heard about Richard, the manager, right? One bite and he was dead inside twenty minutes. Of course that might be because he was actually bitten by one of them things, as opposed to just being exposed to a cadaver. Still, I’d rather take my chances with the fire than fighting another zombie.”

  Bashar thought Tony made a valid point. How was he going to get beyond the city limits? It wasn’t just the fire and the dead he had to worry about. Getting from The Strand to Carnaby Street had been an exercise in risk management. If it hadn’t been for Tony’s driving he wasn’t sure he would’ve made it far at all. Was he really considering finding Nurtaj on his own? He couldn’t ask Tony to drive him to Manchester. Bashar pondered his next move and sat silently next to Tony. They were soon interrupted by a woman’s voice.

  “Tony?” The voice drifted to them from the next aisle over.

  “Present, miss,” replied Tony cheerfully, despite the gloom.

  They waited for a moment and then Lulu appeared with a Mickey Mouse backpack. It was tight across her shoulder, the pink straps more suited to fit a child than an adult. Mickey was dancing beneath a blanket of stars with a smile that stretched from ear to ear.

  “Taking it easy, huh?” asked Lulu.

  “Just taking a quick break. I missed out on my coffee earlier.”

  Lulu nodded. Remembering the coffee shop only reminded her of her friend Angie so she changed tack quickly. “We found some bags and are filling them up with supplies,” she said, patting the backpack hanging off her shoulder. “Lissie asked me to keep an eye out for you.”

  Lulu reached over Bashar’s head and picked up a packet of dried apricots. She stuffed them into the backpack.

  “Can you tell her I’ll be back in a moment? Just having a chat with my buddy, Bashar. “Oh and Lulu, can you do me a favour? Just keep an eye on Amelia for me? I know she’s got her mother, but she’s just a kid.”

  “So? You figure because I’m a girl I can relate to her? You want me to talk to her about ponies and Pokémon?” Lulu zipped up her bag.

  “Look, I’m not asking you to babysit or anything, just keep an eye on her for me. Please?”

  Lulu slung the backpack over her shoulder. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. It’s something I’m trying to change. My boyfriend’s always telling me I speak before I think. I’ll watch her. Only until we get out of here though. I’m just hanging out with you until I can get home. All right?”

  “All right. Cheers,” said Tony.

  Lulu left the two men alone again.

  “I don’t think she’s too fond of me,” said Bashar.

  “She’s young, give her time. I think she respects you more than you know.”

  “Maybe.”

  “She’s right. Getting home is all any of us want to do. Nobody wants to adjust to a new world and if we have to it isn’t going to happen in a day. The phones are still down. No internet, nothing. It’s like the whole world’s gone dark.”

  Bashar let the silence fall over them again. He heard scurrying noises around the food hall as the others gathered supplies. He supposed they should help, but he wasn’t entirely sure what they were getting organised for. He still hadn’t figured out how he was going to leave London. He still had faith that this was contained to the capital. The whole world wasn’t dark, it was probably just watching on the rolling news channels what was happening, with death tolls constantly being revised as they discovered more bodies. There would be Twitter accounts posting which area of London had been cleared and which ones to avoid as the military bombed the dead. There had to be someone out there clearing this up.

  Tony cleared his throat. “Bashar, something’s been bothering me. There’s something odd about all of this. I mean zombies are one thing. I can just about get my brain around that. But I can’t work out what that black beast was – assuming I didn’t just hallucinate it all. It was kind of like a dinosaur, you know, just because of the size of it. And the tail was reminiscent of a lizard. But the face was more like a man than a lizard or a bird. It was almost like a… a demon. Those two horns, the eyes, the tail… it’s like something out of the Bible. Some sort of demon resurrected to bring about the end of days. I don’t know. I can hear myself saying the words, but they sound like gibberish. What do I know?”

  “I think you know a lot, Tony, more than anyone I’ve ever met,” replied Bashar, pleased that Tony had broached the subject first. He wanted to discuss the thing they had seen. They had to understand what they were dealing with if they were to get past it. “I get the impression you know a lot. The Great Smog of 1952, the Great Fire of London, the plague — you have a good grasp of history.”

  “Well, maybe. If you put it that way. I enjoy it. Although the way you put it, it sounds a bit morbid, as if I’m only interested in the bad stuff. It’s not like I just pick up the negative things that have happened. I’m really into the Moon landings right now. What went on back then was amazing, just amazing. To think over fifty years ago we went to the moon. Now man’s focus seems to be on making the latest smartphone or superhero movie. Sometimes I wonder if we’ve got a bit side-tracked. I think you can learn a lot from the past.”

  Bashar’s past was miserable. His country had descended into chaos and he had taken refuge thousands of miles away. He was apart from his wife and not even sure where she was. He was determined he would find her though.

  She’s waiting.

  Bashar wanted to get back on track. “I think you could be right about the demon aspect,” he said. “I saw it too. The way that thing looked. It was like the devil.”

  “Really?” Tony sounded surprised. “I thought I must be way off the mark. I didn’t want to talk to Lissie about it and sound like a mad man.”

  “I don’t know anything about demons but given how today has turned out so far, then I’m open to anything. Remember the woman outside the toy store?” asked Bashar. “She said He was coming. Not it, He. And that other woman we ran into in Leicester Square? She said…” Bashar paused.

  She’s waiting.

  “Well I don’t quite remember, but I distinctly recall something about a demon. She said something about it, didn’t she?”

  The memory of it was fuzzy. Bashar couldn’t remember actually having a conversation with the woman, but her voice had been in his head. It was like a dream, yet he could distinctly
picture her standing in front of the van looking at him, talking to him. He hadn’t imagined that.

  “I’m not sure about her,” said Tony. “But the woman on Regent Street, God rest her soul, definitely implied something was coming. It sounded like she was talking about a God, but I figured she had lost her mind. I mean, she did kind of let the zombies eat her alive. She was pretty out of it.”

  “Is there anything you can think of in those books of yours Tony, anything like this that might have happened before?”

  “Not really. I mean zombies are fictional unless you count the practise of voodoo from Haiti. This is nothing like that though. And the demon? I mean…” Tony sighed. “Okay, yeah, there might be something, but it sounds ridiculous. It’s all a bit of a jumble, but it feels like maybe it’s all connected somehow.”

  “Tony, if we’re going up there we need to know what we’re going up against,” said Bashar. “However crazy it sounds, whatever you tell me, it can’t be any worse than the living dead and what we’ve already faced this morning.”

  “Don’t speak too soon.” Tony looked up and down the aisle. They were alone and he wanted it to stay that way. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I was thinking about that woman in Leicester Square. She was out there walking amongst the dead without any problems, as if she had all the time in the world. They didn’t attack her. That’s the first odd thing. Well, once you take the presence of zombies for granted. Secondly, did you notice the way they came at us. It’s odd, don’t you think? The way the zombies were. The way the dead… moved.”

  “Yeah, of course, it’s odd. They’re dead. They shouldn’t be moving at all,” replied Bashar.

  “I mean, the differences in them.”

  “How do you mean? They all looked pretty messed up to me. They were all after us. I didn’t notice any difference between any of them, either then or on Carnaby Street.”

  “In Leicester Square they were organised, advancing in waves, like an army. Compare that to the chaos around Piccadilly and Regent Street and Carnaby. It’s like two separate factions. I think the woman had something to do with it. I think she might even be able to control them. When she was around they swarmed on us almost as if she had commanded them to. When she was gone, later, they were all over the place.”

  Bashar looked at Tony. “So what does that make her, apart from very fucking special?”

  “A witch perhaps, or a necromancer? At the least it would make her someone who can raise the dead and control them. I’m not sure. It might go some way to explaining that black monster, or demon, whatever it is.”

  “So let’s say this woman can control the zombies. How? And where does that monster come into it?”

  “Look, this is just an idea. I haven’t really thought it through. Necromancy is make believe. Like alchemy. Necromancers are supposed to be able to bring back the dead. It’s like magic, but you can communicate with the dead and bring them back to use as a weapon. It’s black magic, you know, not the kind where Paul Daniels whips a dove out of his hat or that northern fella shows you a card trick. I don’t know how it works. Maybe I’m just talking bullshit.”

  “It doesn’t sound all that far-fetched to me,” said Bashar quietly. “I distinctly remember thousands of dead people chasing us this morning.”

  “Yeah, well that’s just half of it. It can’t be real, it can’t be. Magic is for kid’s birthday parties, witches too. There are some facets of them steeped in history, a little truth behind the stories, but we’re talking about a long time ago. What we think of witches today are nothing like what they used to be. They used to instil fear into places, real terror, and not just the neighbour or the simple peasant down the road, but whole towns.”

  “And so you think that woman might somehow control the dead?”

  “There was this chap, Edward something. He claimed to have solved alchemy. Not just that but raise the dead, using magic to communicate with the Devil. He was just after power and wealth any way he could. Same as folks today I suppose, except now we use spreadsheets and foreign trusts. Some say he was trying to attain immortality. There’s undoubtedly a little truth behind what he did, but how much I don’t know. The Church covered it up. They couldn’t afford, literally, to lose control, so they invented stories. What we know now is a mixture of truth and fiction. I suppose some of it might have loosely been based on truth but nobody really believes anymore. I mean, raising the dead is impossible, right?”

  “Impossible,” replied Bashar.

  The two men looked at each other.

  “And the demon?” asked Bashar. “Where does he come into it?”

  Tony shrugged. “Search me. I suppose in theory if you can raise the dead and communicate with the Devil, then you might be able to raise a demon. A necromancer has the power to do those things, but then necromancers don’t exist. Not in London, not anywhere. Black magic is a myth. I like looking at that stuff in books and on TV but I don’t genuinely believe in all that: God versus the Devil, angels and demons. Just a load of old stories told to frighten the masses.”

  “Right.” Bashar rubbed his head again. “Me neither. Not until I see it with my own eyes.”

  “That’s what worries me,” said Tony. He leaned closer to Bashar. “I’m not sure what we did see out there, and if I’m right then I’m scared to Hell. This is some weird supernatural shit,” said Tony. “Witches? Necromancers? Demons? Fuck me. At least with the jihadists you knew where you were.”

  Bashar tried to process everything that Tony had told him. It sounded completely fanciful, too fantastic to be true, and yet it all fitted: the beautiful woman who could control the dead and the giant Demon destroying the city. If the woman could control the dead, could she control the monster too?”

  “So, now that we’ve solved the problems of the world, Bashar, how about we get back to reality?” Tony exhaled. “Let’s think about something more positive, eh? What’s your plan? Don’t tell me you’ve been sitting in the dark without me not thinking about it. I hope you’re not going to disappear on me. I’m sure you must have a family out there worrying about you.”

  “Once I know what I’m doing, Tony, you’ll be the first to know. My head’s spinning with all of this. I’m an accountant, that’s all. At least I was back home. I’ve been waiting for my wife to join me and was hoping to find a good job before she came, but… well I’m still waiting.”

  There it was again. Waiting. Bashar was sick of it.

  “So what are you waiting for now?” asked Tony.

  So many things, thought Bashar. Not least of which was an idea of how he could reach Nurtaj.

  “My wife is in Manchester. At least she will be in a couple of hours. You found your family. Now I have to find mine. I think it’s time that I—”

  Torchlight flashed across Tony’s face and he blinked rapidly. Bashar put his hand up to protect his eyes as the white light shone directly onto his face next.

  “Excuse me, gentlemen, but I am under the impression that you might have a vehicle?”

  Bashar frowned and looked up. It was the two suited men he had seen earlier. In the dark gloom of the food hall their black suits made them look like nothing more than shadows. The man who had spoken had a clipped British accent that reminded Bashar of Downton Abbey, one of the few shows he had managed to see before arriving in the country. There was a certain detachment in the man’s eyes, a look that said although he was speaking to Bashar, he would much rather not have to. The man would have fitted in with the Grantham’s well. Bashar identified more with the servants, and suspected this man recognised that.

  “Not really,” replied Tony. “I did, I mean I do, but you’ve heard the racket going up there. I would imagine it’s in a bit of a state now. Plus there’s a giant monster and a thousand zombies between it and us. I left my van up on Carnaby Street. Last I saw there was a jumbo jet landing on it.”

  “Hm.” The man who had spoken to them raised a hand to his mouth and whispered something to his colle
ague.

  “Do you think you could point that somewhere else?” said Bashar waving at the torch. “Unless you plan on interrogating us?”

  The man whispered something to his colleague. After a moment he lowered the torch and crouched down. He reached over to the shelf next to Tony, plucking a sesame bar out. “My wife is always telling me to eat better.” The man looked at it and then put it back with disdain. He stood up and looked at Tony. “So the short story is that you do have transport. And I assume you have the keys on you?”

  Bashar could feel Tony tense up. “And they’re staying right in my pocket, mate. I just told you that getting to it is impossible.”

  “Quite, quite,” replied the man. He raised his hand to cover his mouth and whisper to his friend once more. The second man stayed in the shadows the whole time, saying nothing.

  “Look,” said Tony getting to his feet, “we’re not at school now, so why don’t you quit playing Chinese Whispers and just level with me. You want my van. I’ve got the keys. You’re not getting them. End of discussion. If you want to come and talk to us about formulating a serious plan about how we get out of here then be my guest, but my van is off limits. You go up top without it and you’re as good as dead.”

  The man loosened his tie and even in the darkness Bashar could see his cheeks flush. The other man said nothing but watched. Bashar hauled himself up. “What Tony means to say is that we’d appreciate it if you might explain yourselves. I’m Bashar. You clearly know Tony. But we don’t know you, so let’s start over and do the pleasantries.”

  Bashar held out his hand but the blushing man just looked at it as if it were a radioactive space probe. His arms stayed down by his hips.

  “Mr. Bashar you are quite right. I should introduce ourselves.” The blushing man glanced at his friend and then looked at Bashar. “My name is Blake Chelmsford-Whittingley. I’m a little surprised that you didn’t recognise me actually. I’m the Junior Minister for Social Development and Senior Government Party Whip. You might have seen my face on the television, you know, on the news?”