by Sam Kates
“No. Sinead drove. I took the bus.”
“I drive, but I can’t get to my car. There was rioting in my street and it’s blocked. I’ll have to find one nearby. When he’s back, I’ll nip out on the pretext of using the loo. . . .”
“No! Don’t leave me alone with him.”
“Okay, although I really will have to use the loo. I’ll be quick.” They both looked towards the sound that came from the door. Howard raised his finger to his lips.
Clint came back in. The cheroot still dangled unlit from the corner of his mouth.
“Where are you folks spending the night?” he enquired.
“Here,” said Colleen.
He snorted. “There are better places than this, you know.”
“We like it here.”
“There are places that have, you know, beds and stuff.”
“We like it here,” repeated Colleen.
Howard waved his arms towards the bar. “Yeah, places with beds don’t tend to have such well-stocked bars. So, Clint, you heading on back to your pad?”
“Thought I might hang out with you guys for a day or two.” He looked pointedly at Colleen and she felt her skin crawl with revulsion. “The view here is a lot pertier.”
Pertier? Colleen thought. He actually said ‘pertier’?
Howard glanced regretfully at his empty whiskey glass. He took a last puff on the cigar and stubbed it out in the bottom of the glass. “Well, it’s time to hit the sack for me,” he said. “I have to pay a short visit across the road first.”
While he was gone, Colleen busied herself preparing the sleeping area. They had dragged two mattresses in and they occupied a space on the wooden floor that might once have been used for dancing. She pushed her mattress tight to the wall and nudged Howard’s a little closer so that Clint would have to clamber over him to reach her. She could feel him observing her as she worked.
She nodded towards a padded bench that ran along the wall opposite her mattress.
“You should be comfortable enough there,” she said.
He smirked. “Would be even comfier sharing your mattress.”
The candlelight glinted off something in his hands. With a start, Colleen realised that he had extracted the knife. The blade was once more extended.
“What are you going to do with that?” she asked with a little difficulty: her mouth had abruptly dried.
“Oh, I like the feel of it in my hand. It’s comforting. Not as good as a woman’s tit, but nice enough for now.”
The door banged shut behind Howard as he came back in. Clint made the knife disappear but the smirk remained on his thick lips.
* * * * *
The oldest continuous settlement in the U.K. is the town of Amesbury, seven miles north of Salisbury and a mile or so from Stonehenge. Inhabited since the end of the last ice age, the Millennium Bug all but emptied the town of humans. The sole survivor, a woman in her forties, stepped into her car one rainy day in late December, called by the Commune. As she passed beyond the town limits headed for London, so Amesbury became devoid of human life for the first time in more than ten thousand years.
Now, late on a bitterly cold January afternoon, humans were returning, in red double-decker buses. That is, an approximation of humans, with muddied minds and vacant stares.
The caravan of buses and coaches had left the M3 near North Waltham and joined the A303, which led to the chalk plateau known as Salisbury Plain. Sparsely populated even before the Millennium Bug due to huge tracts being given over to the Ministry of Defence, the Plain remained an expanse of largely unspoiled grassland covering gently rolling undulations.
The bulldozers had gone into Amesbury and cleared the narrow main roads of all vehicles. The side streets were now choked with dented cars and vans, but the main roads through town provided easy passage for buses and coaches, even those steered by inexperienced drivers.
The lead bus, expertly driven by Rodney Wilson, lately of London Transport, came down High Street in what would have been the wrong direction of the one-way system in the pre-Bug days and into Church Street, passing shops and hostelries. Near the Church of Saint Mary and Saint Melor, before Church Street crossed the River Avon, Wilson brought the bus to a halt. Behind him, the snaking line of buses and coaches also came to a halt, the rearmost coach barely having made it into the beginning of the town. When they were ready to make for Stonehenge, they would all be facing in the correct direction and could be driven along Church Street until it became Stonehenge Road, back to the A303 and then the short distance to the ancient monument itself.
The drivers turned off the engines and peace descended once more upon the town. The vehicles discharged their passengers. Those from the coaches stretched their legs and seemed glad to be in the fresh air, however chilly. Most of those who stepped down from the red double-deckers shuffled aimlessly to one side. They were herded towards the town centre and immediately put to work.
Like the sports centre in Tom’s home town, the Amesbury Sports & Community Centre had been commandeered by the military during the height of the outbreak and turned into an emergency medical centre-cum-mortuary. Unlike the centre in Tom’s home town, the one here did not appear to have been the scene of civilian slaughter as sick people tried to escape the charnel house that the interior had become and were shot down by soldiers who were probably themselves coughing and sighting down carbines through streaming eyes. The main Amesbury sports hall had been turned into a sick ward with a hodgepodge of fold-up beds, thin mattresses and sleeping mats. Most of their occupants had died where they lay.
Wearing plastic aprons, gloves and masks brought from London to minimise the risks of infection, the drones began to clear the sports hall of corpses and contaminated bedding. The drivers of the bulldozers and crane had done their job well. In addition to clearing the main thoroughfares of stalled vehicles, they had rooted out a small fleet of transits and flat-bed vans that stood ready, petrol and diesel in tanks, keys in ignitions.
Since the work was familiar to the drones, they required little instruction. Without complaint, they bent to the task and soon a steady stream of vans was making its way across town, trailing the stench of stale death behind.
Holders Field at the edge of town, normally the site of the annual Amesbury Carnival and Show, had been designated as the local version of the Burning Fields. The bulldozers had paid a visit here, too, and removed the fences and gates that prevented ready access to the fields. Instead of processions, displays and stalls selling local crafts and cake, the field would now play host to pyres of rotting bodies and stinking mattresses. Summer laughter and gaiety would be replaced by roaring flames and noisome smoke.
The sports centre would house the drones for their stay in Amesbury. The main sports hall would not hold a thousand, so they would overspill into the squash courts, gymnasiums, changing rooms, offices, wherever there was space for an exhausted body to lie.
Nearby houses and hotels and offices were also decontaminated to provide shelter for the people and for the hundred drones excused clearance duties.
Work went on late into the evening. Darkness hid the pall of black smoke that hung in the sky to the east of town, but could not mask the acrid smell that wafted and eddied in the winter breezes.
When the tasks were completed, drones were led through the night, stumbling with exhaustion, to the River Avon where they were made to strip and sluice themselves clean of the filth that caked them despite the protective clothing. Not even the shock of near-freezing waters could stir them from their lethargy.
The storage compartments beneath the coaches had been stocked with food, spare clothes, sleeping bags and supplies of lighter fluid for use in the Burning Fields. Clean drones were dressed in fresh clothes and fed. Handed a sleeping bag each, they were led back to the sports centre where they found a space to lie down. Only perfunctory watch was maintained over them; they were too weary to cause problems, even had they the wit to do so.
In the hot
el suite, Milandra smiled at her Deputies. The bulldozer and crane drivers had just left, having made their report.
“Well,” she said, “so far so good. That’s base camp established for our stay here. In the morning we go to the site and get started.”
“With the crane shouldering the heavy lifting duties, we should be ready within two or three days,” said Grant. “Four tops.”
“Remember the first time?” said Wallace. “Took frigging months to lift everything into place with tree trunks as levers and ropes that kept snapping.”
Simone scowled. “You have to keep going on about the first time. Like it was fucking special or something.”
“Okay, Simone,” said Milandra hurriedly. She didn’t want another squabble on her hands. “We sometimes forget that you were born on Earth Haven after the original Beacon was activated. George didn’t mean anything by it.” She continued quickly before Wallace had chance to say otherwise. “Within four nights from now, we’ll activate the Beacon.”
Simone clapped her hands. “Yay! I want to be in charge of one of the stones.” She shot Wallace a dark look. “Since I wasn’t there the first time.”
“And then?” said Lavinia. “Back to London?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Milandra. “How about we spend what remains of winter and the spring in Cornwall? It has a milder climate than the rest of this island. And it will be the best place to witness the Great Coming.”
Grant frowned. “Much remains to be done in London. The Grid is to come back online. The water supply has to be restored. Wembley Stadium needs to be decontaminated if necessary and the approaches cleared. Vermin and dogs to control or eradicate. Ongoing decontamination of houses. Food collection. Don’t forget, we’ll have seventy thousand extra bodies to accommodate and feed. It might take weeks or even months for them to assimilate with us and us with them before we can even think about holding the Commune.”
“If a Commune is what’s decided,” said Milandra. She held up her hand to stall Wallace’s protests. “Yes, George, I agree that a Commune to eradicate the surviving humans is the most likely outcome, but I don’t want us to assume it’s the only possible outcome.”
“The only one that makes any sense,” muttered Wallace.
Milandra turned back to Grant. “Everything you say, Jason, is of course correct. All those things and more have to be done over the next few months. But they are already in hand. You don’t need to be there in person to oversee them. I propose we place that charge on another.”
“Who?”
“Tess Granville.”
Wallace snorted. “The Bossy Aussie.”
Milandra smiled. “I prefer the term ‘assertive’. She can keep an eye on things just as well as you, Jason. You can provide her with a full briefing if it will make you feel better. And we can receive regular reports in Cornwall.”
Grant sighed. “I suppose. . . .”
“Good. Anyone else have any objections to spending a few months in Cornwall?”
Lavinia shook her head.
“If it’s likely to be warmer than London then I’m all for it,” said Wallace.
“I was looking forward to hunting more rats,” said Simone, her expression surly.
“Cornwall has rats,” said Milandra. “You can be in charge of keeping them under control, if you like.”
Simone’s face lit up like a child being offered ice cream. “I like.”
“Okay. I was thinking we take one of the London buses. One of the Red Ladies, as Rod calls them. Ever since watching that movie Summer Holiday I’ve wanted to ride in one.”
“Shit movie,” muttered Wallace.
“Oh, it possesses a certain innocent charm,” said Milandra. “We’ll need a driver, of course. I thought Rod might like to come. It seems to be doing him good to be away from the big city.”
“Hmm,” said Grant. “He’ll want to lead the convoy back to London. He feels it’s his responsibility as the most experienced driver.”
“The other drivers will manage perfectly well without him,” said Milandra firmly. “We can send those salt trucks back the night before so there won’t be any problem with icy roads.”
“What about drones?” said Grant. “We’ll need to take some to clear corpses wherever we end up in Cornwall.”
“And to burn the rats,” said Simone.
“Let’s see. . . .” said Milandra. “What if we take twenty drones? The five of us and Rod will be able to manage them easily. We won’t even need to keep them with us. Once they’ve done all we need them to do, we can send them back to London.”
“They’ll have to walk,” said Lavinia.
“There’ll be no hurry. We can instruct them to stop regularly to eat and to rest so they arrive back in London fit to work.”
“Or we can instruct them to step off a cliff,” said Wallace. “Twenty drones less won’t make a difference.”
Simone grinned. “Yes! Let’s make them step off a cliff. Or walk into a bonfire. See if they pop like rats.”
Milandra repressed the urge to shudder.
“We can decide at the appropriate time,” she said. “All we need to decide now is whether we go to Cornwall after the Beacon’s been activated.”
Grant shrugged. Nobody demurred.
“Right,” said Milandra. “That’s settled then. Now we need to eat and rest. There’s work to be done.”
* * * * *
Peter and Diane did not return to the room in which the others waited. Once darkness had fallen, and Will and Dusty were safely inside, Tom went looking. He found them in the kitchen, stuffing their faces with food as though they hadn’t eaten for weeks.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” Tom said. “Bri’s desperate to hear what you discovered.”
“Sorry,” said Peter, speaking around a mouthful of food. “We had to eat.”
Tom narrowed his eyes. “Why? What have you been up to?”
Peter swallowed. “We contacted Milandra. The girl needs a doctor. Milandra’s located one.”
“A doctor? Where?”
“Ireland. He should be on his way to Britain. We need to meet him in Holyhead.”
“Holyhead? In Anglesey? That’s miles out of our way.”
It was Peter’s turn to narrow his eyes. “What are you talking about? I didn’t know we had a ‘way’.”
Tom took a deep breath. “Ceri and I are going to Stonehenge.” He held up a hand. “Don’t say anything. I know I’m not Rambo. I know we’re likely to get ourselves killed. But we’re agreed: we’d rather die trying to save ourselves than wait around for it to happen anyway.”
“Tom, just listen to me for a moment. Milandra specifically warned us from trying to interfere with the Beacon. A thousand of our people are travelling there. What chance do you think you’ll stand? It’s suicide, man.”
“Maybe. But we have to try. I’d like you to take me and Ceri back to Wick tomorrow, please. We need to find a car.”
“What about Bri and Will? Going to get them killed, too?”
“No!” Tom thought for a moment. “I know: you two can take Bri and Will and go meet this doctor in Holyhead. We don’t want the kids coming with us whatever happens.”
Peter stared at him for a long moment. Tom held his gaze. Letting out his breath in a long sigh, Peter looked away.
“What exactly is wrong with Bri?” Tom asked.
Peter glanced at Diane who chewed the rest of her mouthful and swallowed before replying.
“Subdural haematoma is my best guess,” she said.
Tom raised his eyebrows.
“The girl has clearly suffered a blunt trauma injury to her forehead,” said Diane. “It’s likely that blood vessels have been ruptured and are bleeding into the subdural space. That’s the gap between the brain and the skull.”
“How do you know this?”
“I was a nurse in the Second World War. Later, I worked in a private hospital in Los Angeles.” She glanced at Peter. “To re
lieve the boredom.” Diane looked back at Tom. “That hospital was very exclusive and we mainly treated the after-effects of botched plastic surgery or the sort of illnesses that beset old wealthy people. But occasionally we’d get a millionaire producer who’d been out on his yacht and forgot to duck at the right moment so I’ve seen this type of injury before.”
“Can Bri be cured?”
“Only with surgery to remove blood clots and relieve the pressure on her brain.”
“Oh, Christ. And if she doesn’t get the surgery?”
“Depends whether it’s acute or chronic.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The speed and inevitability of the outcome if left untreated.”
“Which type do you think it is?”
“Well, when we looked into her mind, I could only see that she’s been suffering from headaches. She hasn’t experienced any other symptoms that might indicate an acute condition. Dizziness, nausea, slurred speech, that sort of thing. There is a gap in her memory—it resembles a patch of fog—that’s concerning.” Diane shrugged. “I’m no doctor.”
“But your best guess is that her condition is chronic?”
Diane nodded.
Tom sighed. “That’s good, right?”
“Better than an acute subdural haematoma, but still not good.”
“What will happen to her?”
“It might take weeks. Months even.”
“What will? Speak plainly.”
“Without surgery, it’s likely that the girl will die.”
Chapter Eighteen
Colleen awoke three or four times during the night with the feeling that she was being watched. Each time she glanced over the softly-snoring form of Howard, certain that Clint was awake, but he was hidden in deeper shadows. Being unable to see him at all, not even the whites of his eyes, somehow made it worse.
She came out of a fitful doze as the interior of the pub was lightening with the dawn. The shadowy figure of Clint gradually came into view. He lay on his side on the bench, facing her. This was the first time she had seen him without the ridiculous Stetson; his hair was a sandy colour and matted with grease. His eyes were closed and he breathed steadily, but she suspected he was faking sleep. She suspected that everything he said and did was fake. Never before had she taken such an immediate and intense dislike for another person.
