He was nearly there and already the air seemed cleaner. He sobbed with relief. But he could see shapes coming through, figures filling the opening, blocking the light, taking away the clean air. There were shouts and they reminded him of earlier sounds, the jeering as his face had been lowered into the heat, the sneering curses of men and women who had become worse than rabid animals, who had become like the vermin that roamed the underground world, mutilating not just to live, but for the pleasure it gave them. He roared, plunging towards the figures in the opening, pushing at fallen beams to get to them, wanting to feel their flesh open beneath his fingers.
The others heard the grinding sound and sensed the shift in weight over their heads.
‘It’s giving way!’ Dealey screeched.
There was no need for further words. They moved as one away from the tearing, grinding noise above them, slowly at first, almost cautious as if haste would precipitate the avalanche; but as the rending and cracking became a co-ordinated rumble and the walls creaked outwards, they began to run blindly towards the rear of the building.
There had probably been screams from those trapped at the entrance, but they could not be heard as the rest of the building collapsed section by section about them. The inclination of Kate, Fairbank, Dealey, Ellison and Culver was to huddle beneath furniture or against pillars, but the crashing masonry and timbers followed them, driving them onwards, allowing no respite, jaws of an alligator snapping behind leaping toads. It was an insane jumble of movement and noise.
Kate fell, was up, not knowing if unseen hands had helped her, running, sliding, but never stopping, constantly moving ahead of the enormous surge, prodded by its cloudy draught. Towards light ahead, a sliver of light, a thin fraction of yellow-white. A door, still upright, slightly ajar, the building’s lower portions protected by other buildings on the opposite side of the road, they themselves shorn of their upper floors.
Someone was pulling at the door from the inside, opening it wide, sweeping aside the clutter at its base; and Fairbank – she thought it was Fairbank – was ushering her through, telling her, she thought, to keep on running, the instructions inaudible, and she was outside, others crowding behind her, all of them running away from the crashing building, climbing the long slope of rubble opposite, not stopping until there was no breath left, no more energy to carry them on, until clouds of dust covered and choked them, making them fall and hide their faces, lying there and hoping, desperately praying that they were far enough away, that they could not be reached by crushing rubble. Waiting for the rumbling to diminish, to fade away, to stop.
And eventually, the tremors did stop.
Kate raised her head and wiped dust away from her face and eyes. Her body was at an angle, the horizon of the slope she had tried to climb ending abruptly fifty or sixty yards above her, broken parts of the building it had once been standing like monoliths along the ridge. Someone groaned nearby and she twisted to see a figure coated in what appeared to be white powder but which was, in fact, pulverized masonry, slumped as she was, and just beginning to move. It was Ellison.
Kate sat up. Below her was Dealey, he, too, barely recognizable under the dust layers. Much further down, Fairbank was beginning to rise, wiping his face with one hand, the other still clutching his axe, and turning to survey the demolition, much of the building’s outer shell still standing – at least on their side. There was no sign of Jackson and no sign of their pursuers and no sign of—
‘Steve?’ It was a mild question asked of the dust clouds. ‘Steve!’ This time Kate screamed the name.
The three men with her on the incline jerked to attention and looked at the rubble below with dismay. No, not Culver, they needed him! The sudden loss made it clear in all their minds just how much they needed him. Dealey sat down on the slope and ran a hand through his thin and now powdery hair, his brow knotted in exasperation. Ellison shook his head in despair; he hadn’t liked Culver, yet had to admit there was something very reassuring about his presence. So much so, he wondered if they could survive without him. Fairbank’s usual cheerful countenance was a mixture of grimness and incredulity, his eyes disbelieving, his mouth set straight, held rigid; Culver had come through too much to be killed in this stupid way. Kate was in shock, her senses numbed for the moment. She stared into the billowing clouds, listening to the smaller sounds of the fall-in’s aftermath, the settling of stonework and glass, the sliding of objects and gravel; the tail-end of her scream had left her mouth open and her fists clenched tight before her.
The dust clouds slowly dispersed, taking with them the surrounding mist, until the scene was only thinly veiled by floating particles.
Kate broke down when Culver appeared from behind a mound that had once been a car, now half-buried in debris. Brushing powder from his head, shoulders and arms, he strode up the incline towards them.
‘Thought you’d lost me, huh?’ he said.
It seemed that Kate’s tears would never stop. The others sat some distance away, uncomfortable and anxious to move on, while Culver cradled her in his arms and did his best to stem the outpourings of her misery.
‘I thought you were dead, Steve,’ she managed to say between sobs. ‘After everything else, I couldn’t stand that.’
‘It’s nearly finished, Kate. We’re nearly clear of all this.’
‘But that can’t ever be so. There’s nothing left for any of us.’
‘We’re alive. That’s all that matters. You may think it’s impossible, right now, but you’ve got to put everything else out of your mind. Just think of living and getting through this mess; think beyond that and you’ll go mad.’
‘I’m close to it, Steve, I know I’m close to madness. I don’t think I can take any more.’
He kissed the top of her head. ‘You’re the sanest one among us.’
Her trembling was gradually subsiding. ‘But what’s left for any of us? Where can we go, what can we do? What kind of world’s been left to us?’
‘It might just be a peaceful one.’
‘You can say that after what we’ve been through this morning? And last night?’
‘This morning was to let us know that a holocaust doesn’t necessarily change the nature of all men for the good. We’ve seen enough to know self-preservation can bring out the worst.’
The tears still flowed, but the shuddering sobs had stopped. ‘We realized that inside the shelter.’
‘Yeah,’ he mused, ‘there was a certain lack of camaraderie. But it grew from fear and desperation.’
‘Those people this morning didn’t look desperate. They looked as if they were enjoying themselves.’
‘Let’s just say we’ve been knocked back a few thousand years to a time when other tribes are the enemy and certain breeds of animal are dangerous. We got through it then, we’ll do it again.’
‘You’re hardly convincing.’ Some of the colour was returning to her cheeks.
‘I know. I don’t believe it myself. But our ancestors may have had the right idea about one thing: they spent most of their time considering how to live, not why they were living. They were too busy finding food and building shelters to concern themselves with despair.’
‘Thank God I found the oracle to take care of me,’ she sniffed. Culver smiled. ‘All I’m saying is, concentrate your mind on here and now, and nothing else. The rest is too big to contemplate. Use Fairbank as an example: it’s as if he’s on autopilot. Maybe he’ll crack up eventually, but it won’t be until he’s got time to, when he’s in safer and more stable surroundings. As far as I understand him, he’s not interested in yesterday, nor tomorrow. Only now, this moment, today.’
‘It’s unnatural.’
‘Not for him. And not for these times.’
‘But we have to think ahead if we’re to live.’ Her crying had stopped, and he wiped away the wetness, smearing the dirt on her cheeks.
‘We think as far as a destination.’
‘We have one? You mean out of London?’
r />
‘Closer. You feeling a little better?’
She nodded. ‘I’m sorry. I thought I’d lost you . . .’
He kissed her lips. ‘I’m the bad penny.’
‘You look terrible.’
‘You’re no picture.’
‘Are the others watching?’
‘They’re trying not to. Why?’
‘I need you to touch me.’
‘That’s good. You’re thinking for the moment.’
‘I’m thinking for several moments.’
‘Does a good cry always make you feel raunchy?’
‘More often than not.’
‘That’s worth knowing.’
He kissed her then, and there was more than consolation in the touch. They broke away by mutual consent, neither one prolonging the sweet torment. A little breathless, Culver beckoned to the others.
‘Ready to move on?’ he asked them.
‘Waiting for you, pal,’ Fairbank answered.
‘Move on to where? I’ve been beaten almost to a pulp, dragged through the ruins and nearly crushed to death.’ Ellison spat dust from his mouth in disgust. ‘How much more do you think I can take?’
‘None of us can handle much more, that’s pretty obvious,’ Culver told him, ‘so you just be your usual charming self and we’ll see what we can figure out.’
He looked out over the hazy ruins and wished he could see the full extent of the damage. The mist was clearing, but it was still impossible to see the small hills surrounding the rubbled city. He wondered what lay beyond.
‘All right,’ he said finally. ‘We can try to make it out of what’s left of the city on foot, finding food and shelter as we go. It doesn’t look as if we’re going to get any help from official sources and I doubt we’ll find any Red Cross soup kitchens set up along the way.’
‘But where is the government help?’ Ellison snarled. ‘Just what the fuck are they doing about all this?’
‘The devastation has been beyond all expectation,’ Dealey began to say. ‘It was all underestimated. No one foresaw—’
‘No jargon, Dealey, no bloody officialese excuses!’ Ellison’s hand hovered threateningly over a brick by his side.
Fairbank stirred. ‘Cut it out, Ellison. You’re getting too much to stomach.’ His words were all the more ominous for their quietness. He turned to Culver. ‘What about the main government headquarters, Steve? Wouldn’t we be better off there?’
‘That’s what I was coming to next. Our friend from the Ministry here and I had a quiet chat yesterday, and he disclosed some interesting details about the place. It seems it’s impregnable. Bomb-proof, radiation-proof, and famine-proof.’
‘Yeah, but is it flood-proof?’ Fairbank rumbled darkly.
‘Each section can be sealed by air-tight doors,’ Dealey said.
‘You can get us in?’ Ellison asked eagerly.
‘He knows the entrances,’ said Culver. ‘We’ll worry about getting inside when the time comes.’
‘Then you think we should make for the shelter,’ Kate said.
‘Yep. Literally go to ground. It’s our best bet.’
‘I agree.’ Dealey looked at them all individually. ‘It’s what I’ve advocated all along. Wait until the radiation has passed, then link up with main base.’
Ellison now had second thoughts. ‘How do we know it really is safe? There’s been no communication from them.’
Dealey answered. ‘The fault must have been from our end, or somewhere between. Remember, we’ve had no contact with any of the other shelters, either. I think it’s not only in our own interest to report to government headquarters, but it’s also my duty as a civil servant.’
Fairbank gave him a tired handclap.
‘It’s a feasible choice,’ said Culver. ‘Agreed?’
The others nodded.
‘Jackson?’ said Kate.
Culver held her arm. ‘He’s dead, you know that. He had no chance in there.’
‘It seems so cruel, after all he’d . . .’ She let the words trail off, aware that they all sensed the futility.
Without further words, Culver helped her up and they all began to clamber over the ruins. They concentrated their efforts on not stumbling over treacherous masonry and avoiding fragile-looking structures, steering well clear of any open pits and fissures. Not far away, and protruding through the low mist, were the supports of the elegant Jubilee Hall, beneath which had been the trendy shops and stalls of Covent Garden. Its very bleakness forced Kate to look away, for she had always known it as a lively bustling square, a favourite haunt of both tourists and young Londoners. The Aldwych was gone, its semi-circular buildings flattened, as was the once magnificent Somerset House, much of it tumbled into the Thames which it had backed on to. Surprisingly, protruding from the rubble was the steeple of St Mary-le-Strand, only the tip broken off. It presented an odd and perhaps ironic sight amid the devastation, but Kate, following Culver’s advice, did not let the thought linger.
Climbing, sliding, and brushing away swarms of oversized insects, they steadily made their way towards the river. A walk that would have taken no more than five or ten minutes in normal times took them the best part of an hour. They became almost immune to the unpleasant sights they came upon, their minds learning to regard the image of mutilated, swollen and rotted corpses as part of the debris and nothing to do with human life itself. Vehicles, overturned, burnt out, or simply askew in the roadway, had to be skirted around or climbed over, their ghoulish occupants ignored. Nowhere did they find walking, moving people; nowhere was there anyone like themselves. They wondered if it were possible for so many to have been destroyed, yet when they looked around at the damage to the inanimate, they understood that very few people could have lived through such destruction.
‘How much further?’ Ellison complained. He was panting and one hand was clutched tight against his side as though ribs had been damaged in the beating.
‘The bridge,’ Culver said, his own chest heaving with the effort. His cheek was caked with darkish blood and he had realized earlier that a pellet from an intruder’s air-rifle must have scythed a path across it. The wound throbbed, as did the rat-bites in his ear and temple, but no longer stung. The pain in his ankle was sharper, but did not hinder him too much.
‘If we can get to Waterloo Bridge there’s a staircase leading down to the Embankment. We can get to one of the shelter’s entrances from there.’
They journeyed on and were shocked when they reached Lancaster Place, the wide thoroughfare leading up to Waterloo Bridge itself. They should have expected it, but somehow hadn’t. And one more defilement to their city should not really have surprised them. The bridge was gone, collapsed into the river.
They looked towards its broken structure with new bitterness. The open space from bank to bank looked insanely empty. On the other side, the National Theatre was a mound of rubble.
‘Please, let’s not stop now,’ Dealey implored, fighting his own inexplicable sense of loss. ‘The steps may still be intact. They’re in a sheltered position.’
They walked forward and it was strange, so very strange, like walking a gangplank towards the edge of the universe. The great, wide bridge stretched out over the river as if yearning to fingertip-touch the similarly outstretched section on the other side. Vapour rose from the swollen river, thicker here, and hanging heavily.
They looked towards the west and saw the broken shaft of Cleopatra’s Needle.
‘Oh, no,’ Dealey moaned, for he was examining the area beyond the snapped monument.
Culver’s forehead sank onto the wide balustrade overlooking the Embankment road.
‘Steve, what is it?’ Kate clutched at his shoulder. He raised his head.
‘The railway bridge.’ He pointed. ‘Hungerford Bridge.’
They saw that it, too, had collapsed into the river. The metal struts had broken in several places and it hung as if by threads, dangling into the river like a sleeping man’s fishing rod, st
ill loosely connected to the section on their side. This section had fallen onto the roadway, completely blocking it. The others looked uncomprehendingly at Dealey and Culver.
‘There was an enclosure, a compound, beneath the bridge,’ Culver told them. ‘A thick brick wall with barbed wire on the top. A mini-fortress, if you like. It’s been destroyed by the bridge.’
His face set into grim lines and it was Dealey who explained. ‘The main entrance to the shelter was inside that enclosure.’
25
From a distance the wreckage had looked simple, just a collapsed iron bridge, broken in sections so that one part formed a waterchute into the river, the midstream portions mostly submerged, concrete supports shattered in half. Close up, it was a complicated tangled mess of bent and twisted steel girders, scattered red brickwork, huge chunks of masonry, and riddled with cables and wires. A segment of railway line rose from the disorder like a ladder into the sky. An engine lay on its side among the jumble, carriages behind piled up in zigzag fashion, the rear compartments ripped off, the top of one protruding from the river. Culver made a point of not looking into the broken windows; he had seen enough dead for one day without searching out more. He guessed the train driver had made a desperate dash to reach the station, Charing Cross, in the hope that he and his passengers might find a last-minute refuge. Had the train been delayed on the bridge when the sirens had sounded, or was it far back on the southern side of the city? He imagined the race across the river, passengers chilled by the rising and falling sirens, helpless and depending on the driver to get them to safety. The murky grey-brown water below, the panoramic view of London, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament to the left, St Paul’s in the distance to the right, renowned landmarks of an historical city that would soon cease to exist. What must have gone through their minds in those last moments? Impotent rage, unable to help themselves, unable to run, hide, to be with loved ones? Or total, shocking fear that blanketed all thought, that paralysed their senses? It was obscenely terrible, the thought of their sterile waiting. The sudden emptiness as the sirens stopped, the terror of fellow passengers and the chuggajig of metal wheels somehow not filling the silent void. The incandescent flash that would have seared their eyeballs had they looked directly into it. The thunder that followed.