He sat bolt upright on the bunkbed, nauseated by the foul smell, but desperate to draw in the thinning air. His face was pale in the glare of the gas lamp.
How many would be alive out there? How many neighbours had died not laughing? Always a loner, would he now be truly alone? Surprisingly, he hoped not.
Maurice could have let some of them in to share his refuge, perhaps just one or two, but the pleasure of closing the hatch in their panic-stricken faces was too good to resist. With the clunking of the rotary locking mechanism and the hatch airtight-sealed against the ring on the outside flange of the conning tower, the rising and falling sirens had become a barely heard wailing, the sound of his neighbours banging on the entrance lid just the muffled tapping of insects. The booming, shaking, of the earth had soon put a stop to that.
Maurice had fallen to the floor clutching the blankets he had brought in with him, sure that the thunderous pressure would split the metal shell wide open. He lost count of how many times the earth had rumbled and, though he could not quite remember, he felt perhaps he had fainted. Hours seemed to have been lost somewhere, for the next thing he remembered was awaking on the bunkbed, terrified by the heavy weight on his chest and the warm, fetid breath on his face.
He had screamed and the weight was suddenly gone, leaving only a sharp pain across one shoulder. It took long, disorientated minutes to scrabble around for a torch, the absolute darkness pressing against him like heavy drapes, only his imagination illuminating the interior and filling it with sharp-taloned demons. The searching torch beam discovered nothing, but the saturating lamp-light moments later revealed the sole demon. The ginger cat had peered out at him from beneath the bed with suspicious yellow eyes.
Maurice had never liked felines at the best of times, and they, in truth, had never cared much for him. Perhaps now, at the worst of times (for those up there, anyway), he should learn to get along with them.
‘Here, moggy,’ he had half-heartedly coaxed. ‘Nothing to be afraid of, old son or old girl, whatever you are.’ It was a few days before he discovered it was ‘old girl’.
The cat refused to budge. It hadn’t liked the thundering and trembling of this room and it didn’t like the odour of this man. It hissed a warning and the man’s sideways head disappeared from view. Only the smell of food a few hours later drew the animal from cover.
‘Oh, yes, typical that is,’ Maurice told it in chastising tones. ‘Cats and dogs are always around when they can sniff grub.’
The cat, who had been trapped in the underground chamber for three days without food or water or even a mouse to nibble at, felt obliged to agree. Nevertheless, she kept at a safe distance from the man.
Maurice, absorbed more by this situation than the one above, tossed a chunk of tinned stewed meat towards the cat, who started back, momentarily alarmed, before pouncing and gobbling.
‘Yes, your belly’s overcome your fright, hasn’t it?’ Maurice shook his head, his smile sneering. ‘Phyllis used to be the same, but with her it was readies,’ he told the wolfing, disinterested cat, referring to his ex-wife who had left him fifteen years before after only eighteen months of marriage. ‘Soon as the pound notes were breathing fresh air she was buzzing round like a fly over a turd. Never stayed long once the coffers were empty, I can tell you. Screwed every last penny out of me, the bloody bitch. Got her deserts now, just like the rest of them.’ His laugh was forced, for he still did not know how secure he was himself.
Maurice tipped half the meat into a saucepan on the gas burner. ‘Have the rest later tonight,’ he said, not sure if he was talking to the cat or himself. Next he opened a small can of beans and mixed the contents in with the cooking meat. ‘Funny how hungry a holocaust can make you.’ His laughter was still nervous and the cat looked at him quizzically. ‘All right, I suppose you’ll have to be fed. I can’t put you out, that’s for sure.’
Maurice smiled at his own continued black humour. So far he was handling the annihilation of the human race pretty well.
‘Let’s see, we’ll have to find you your own dinner bowl. And something for you to do your business in, of course. I can dispose of it easily enough, as long as you keep it in the same place. Haven’t I seen you before somewhere? I think you belonged to the coloured lady two doors along. Well, she won’t be looking for you any more. It’s quite cosy down here, don’t you think? I may as well just call you Mog, eh? Looks like we’re going to have to put up with each other for a while . . .’
And so Maurice J. Kelp and Mog had teamed up to wait out the holocaust.
By the end of the first week, the animal had ceased her restless prowling.
By the end of the second week, Maurice had grown quite fond of her.
By the end of the third week, though, the strain had begun to tell. Mog, like Phyllis, found Maurice a little tough to live with.
Maybe it was his weak but sick jokes. Maybe it was his constant nagging. It could have been his bad breath. Whatever, the cat spent a lot of time just staring at Maurice and a considerable amount of time avoiding his stifling embrace.
Maurice soon began to resent the avoidance, unable to understand why the cat was so ungrateful. He had fed her, given her a home! Saved her life! Yet she prowled the refuge like some captive creature, shrinking beneath the bunkbed, staring out at him with baleful distrusting eyes as if . . . as if . . . yes, as if he were going mad. The look was somehow familiar, in some way reminding him of how . . . of how Phyllis used to stare at him. And not only that, the cat was getting sneaky. Maurice had been awakened in the dead of night more than once by the sound of the cat mooching among the food supplies, biting its way into the dried food packets, clawing through the cling-film-capped half-full tins of food.
The last time Maurice had really flipped, really lost control. He had kicked the cat and received a four-lane scratch along his shin in return. If his mood had been different, Maurice might have admired the nimble way Mog had dodged the missiles directed at her (a saucepan, canned fruit – the portable own-flush loo).
The cat had never been the same after that. It had crouched in corners, snarling and hissing at him, slinking around the scant furniture, skulking beneath the bunkbed, never using the plastic litter tray that Maurice had so thoughtfully provided, as though it might be trapped in that particular corner and bludgeoned to death. Or worse.
Soon after, while Maurice was sleeping, Mog had gone onto the offensive.
Unlike the first time when he had awoken to find the cat squatting on his chest, Maurice awoke to find fierce claws sinking into his face and Mog spitting saliva at him, hissing in a most terrifying manner. With a screech, Maurice had tossed the manic animal away from him, but Mog had immediately returned to the attack, body arched and puffed up by stiffened fur.
A claw had come dangerously close to gouging out one of Maurice’s eyes and an earlobe had been bitten before he could force the animal away from him again.
They had faced each other from separate ends of the bed, Maurice cringing on the floor, fingers pressed against his deeply gashed forehead and cheek (he hadn’t yet realized part of his ear was missing), the cat perched on the bedclothes, hunch-backed and snarling, eyes gleaming a nasty yellow.
She came for Maurice again, a streaking ginger blur, a fury of fur, all fangs and sharp-pointed nails. He raised the blankets just in time to catch the cat and screeched as the material tore. Maurice ran when he should have used the restraining bedcovers to his advantage; unfortunately, the area for escape was limited. He climbed the small ladder to the conning tower and crouched at the top (the height was no more than eight feet from hatch to floor), legs drawn up and head ducked against the metal lid itself.
Mog followed and claws dug into Maurice’s exposed buttocks. He howled.
Maurice fell, not because of the pain, but because something crashed to the ground above them, causing a vibration of seismic proportions to stagger the steel panels of the bunker. He fell and the cat, still clutching his rear end, fell wi
th him. It squealed briefly as its back was broken.
Maurice, still thinking that the wriggling animal was on the attack, quickly picked himself up and staggered towards the other end of the bunker, wheezing air as he went. He scooped up the saucepan from the Grillogaz to defend himself with and looked in open-mouthed surprise at the writhing cat. With a whoop of glee Maurice snatched up the bedcovers and raced back to the helpless creature. He smothered Mog and thrashed her body with the saucepan until the animal no longer moved and tiny squeals no longer came from beneath the blankets. Then he picked up a flat-bottomed cylinder of butane gas, using both hands to lift it, and dropped it on a bump where he imagined Mog’s head to be.
Finally, he sat on the bed, chest heaving, blood running from his wounds, and giggled at his triumph.
Then he had to live with the decomposing body for another week.
Not even a triple layer of tightly-sealed polythene bags, the insides liberally dosed with disinfectant, could contain the smell, and not even the chemicals inside the Porta Potti toilet could eat away the carcase. In three days the stench was unbearable; Mog had found her own revenge.
And something else was happening to the air inside the shelter. It was definitely becoming harder to breathe and it wasn’t only due to the heavy cat odour. The air was definitely becoming thinner by the day, and lately, by the hour.
Maurice had intended to stay inside for at least six weeks, perhaps eight if he could bear it, all-clear sirens or not; now, with no more than four weeks gone, he knew he would have to risk the outside world. Something had clogged the ventilation system. No matter how long he turned the handle of the Microflow Survivaire equipment for, or kept the motor running from the twelve-volt car battery, the air was not replenished. His throat made a thin wheezing noise as he sucked in, and the stink cloyed at his nostrils as if he were immersed in the deepest, foulest sewer. He had to have good, clean air, radiation-packed or not; otherwise he would die a different sort of slow death. Asphyxiation accompanied by the mocking smell of the dead cat was no way to go. Besides, some pamphlets said fourteen days was enough for fallout to have dispersed.
Maurice rose from the bed and clutched at the small table, immediately dizzy. The harsh white glare from the butane gas lamp stung his red-rimmed eyes. Afraid to breathe and more afraid not to, he staggered towards the conning tower. It took all his strength to climb the few rungs of the ladder and he rested just beneath the hatch, head swimming, barely inflated lungs protesting. Several moments passed before he was able to raise an arm and jerk open the locking mechanism.
Thank God, he thought. Thank God I’m getting out, away from the evil sodding ginger cat. No matter what it’s like out there, no matter who or what else has survived, it would be a blessed relief from this bloody stinking shithouse.
He allowed the hatch to swing down on its hinge. Powdered dust covered his head and shoulders, and when he had blinked away the tiny grains from his eyes, he uttered a weak cry of dismay. He now understood the cause of the crash just a week before: the remains of a nearby building, undoubtedly his own house, had finally collapsed. And the rubble had covered the ground above him, blocking his air supply, obstructing his escape exit.
His fingers tried to dig into the concrete slab, but hardly marked the surface. He pushed, he heaved, but nothing shifted. Maurice almost collapsed down the ladder, barely able to keep his feet at the bottom. He wailed as he stumbled around the bunker looking for implements to cut through the solid wall above, the sound rasping and faint. He used knives, forks, anything with a sharp point to hammer at the concrete, all to no avail, for the concrete was too strong and his efforts too weak.
He finally banged dazedly at the blockage with a bloodied fist.
Maurice fell back into what was now a pit and howled his frustration. Only the howl was more like a wheeze, the kind a cat might make when choking.
The plastic-covered bundle at the far end of the shelter did not move but Maurice, tears forcing rivulets through the dust on his face, was sure he heard a faint, derisory meow.
‘Never liked cats,’ he panted. ‘Never.’
Maurice sucked his knuckles, tasting his own blood, and waited in his private, self-built tomb. It was only a short time to wait before shadows crept in his vision and his lungs became flat and still, but it seemed an eternity to Maurice. A lonely eternity, even though Mog was there to keep him company.
They thought they would be safe in the vast sunken chamber which had once been the banqueting hall of the hotel close to the river. They could almost feel the pressure of thousands of tons of concrete and rubble above them, bearing down, threatening to break through the ceiling and crush them. By rights, that should have happened when the first bomb had dropped, but because of some quirk in the building’s structure, or perhaps because of the way the mighty building had toppled, the ceiling had held. The great chandeliers had fallen, impregnating those early diners seated below with a million shards of fine glass; and most of the huge mirrors had tumbled or cracked. Parts of the ceiling had collapsed, rubble descending in grinding, crushing avalanches, the openings soon sealed by more debris from above. Most of the hall’s stout pillars had withstood the pressure.
Darkness followed within seconds, and the rumbling, the shifting of the earth itself, continued. As did the screams, the cries for help, the sighing moans of the mortally injured. When the city’s death rattle terminated, the other sounds went on.
Those in the banqueting hall who had survived the eruption, or who had not been knocked senseless by falling masonry and glass or rendered immobile by shock, cowered on the floor, many beneath tables and chairs, others against pillars. A strange calmness fell upon them, a still numbness not uncommon in times of massive disaster, and those who could crawled towards the helpless injured, drawn by whimpers and pleading. Lighters and matches were lit. A waiter found candles and placed them around the devastated dining hall; there was no romance in their glow, just a dim appraisal of human and material damage.
It did not take long to discover there was no apparent escape route from the hall: all exits had been blocked by rubble and there were no outside windows. There was access to the kitchens and, mercifully for many, to the bar, but no exit from them. The dining hall and its smaller annexes were buried beneath thousands of tons of rubble. They were trapped, the price paid for not heeding the warning sirens and fleeing with those less composed than themselves. Most of those not transfixed by sheer funk had realized that if nuclear warheads really were about to fall, then there was virtually nowhere in the capital that could be deemed safe. It would be better to take the last sip of wine, to taste the last expensive morsel of food, in elegant surroundings, and with grace. For just a few, even conversation continued in a light vein.
The blast and its consequences had dispelled all such fanciful affectations.
Cut and bruised, dazed and fearful, those who could examined the candlelit stronghold around them. For some it came to represent an impregnable shelter where they could wait until rescue came, sustained by a carefully rationed food supply from the kitchens, heartened by the ample stock of alcohol from the bar; for others, more pessimistic, it represented a vast inescapable prison.
They learned to live a frugal existence, caring for the injured, endeavouring to ease the way for the dying. Corpses were wrapped in tablecloths and deposited, after all drink was removed, inside the bar area, the double doors tightly sealed afterwards. It was decided that no tunnelling through the debris would be attempted until at least two or three weeks had passed, for only radiation fallout would welcome their release. They knew that precious air was seeping down to them, for the candle flames were strong even days after the explosion, and often stirred with secretive breezes. And when water began to trickle through the debris and they guessed it to be rainwater from outside, they knew there were gaps that could be followed and widened by rescue teams with correct equipment.
So they waited in their newfound community where title held li
ttle authority, wealth had no use, and the shared ambition was to survive; a thrown-together cooperative with no social and soon no moral barriers – although as to the sexual aspect of the latter, some discretion was still practised: such encounters, enhanced by Death’s skeletal shoulder-tapping, were undertaken in the more remote and darker nooks of the dining hall. Dysentery became rife, despite precautions, and claimed several lives; food poisoning (not to mention alcoholic poisoning) almost took more; infected wounds led to fevers; and suicides reduced their numbers by four. When nobody came to rescue the survivors after three weeks, anxiety mounted. At the end of the fourth, with supplies rapidly depleting, carefully rationed candles running low, and the floor awash with water, it was decided an attempt on their own part to reach the outside had to be made. A tunnel was to be dug.
The stronger of the men collected any tools they could find to dig with – broken table legs, long carving knives, even heavy soup ladles – and selected a point where the water appeared to flow more forcefully than others. They cleared what they could with bare hands, then struck at the more resisting blockages with their implements. They were soon forced to try elsewhere, the barrier before them too solid, and then had to abandon the next ‘dig’ when more debris than they had displaced collapsed in on them. More headway was made with their third attempt.
The earlier tunnels had been tried near the wide entrances to the dining hall; the latest one was where a section of ceiling had caved in, leaving a barely noticeable fissure. The gap was swiftly widened and, although the earth was damp, no water ran from it. The first man, who used to be a waiter in the once renowned and rather grand hotel squeezed through, pushing a candle before him. It was claustrophobic, but then their very existence had been so over the past month. He pressed on, digging at the rubble with a short-bladed butcher’s chopper scavenged from the kitchen. Shouts of encouragement came from behind and he grinned in the gloom, sweat already clogging the dust that settled on his bare arms and shoulders. His enthusiasm almost caused another fall and he forced himself to be more patient when the danger had passed.