Stewie curled his lips in disgust. It looked like the train before his had gone over it already and pulverized it. Turned it into raw kebab meat.
‘Lovely,’ he grunted. He pulled the cuffs of his hi-vis jacket down to cover his hands, then grabbed the animal’s hind legs. They came away from the carcass with a sucking sound, like loose drumsticks pulled from a well-cooked roast-in-a-bag Sunday chicken.
‘Ugh.’
He swung the legs and tossed them away into a clump of nettles beside the tracks. The rest of the body looked like a mess of minced meat and fluff. Its head was staved in like a deflated balloon.
He stood up. ‘Right. Good enough.’
The carcass wasn’t an obstruction, certainly no danger of derailing him. He turned round and headed back up the tracks towards his waiting train. A minute later he pulled himself back up into his compartment. He clipped his safety belt back on and picked up the mic.
‘Ladies and gents, the obstruction on the tracks is clear now . . . just waiting on a green signal to go.’
He switched channels. ‘Dave, it’s Stewie . . . I just kicked the thing off. I’m good to go.’
There was no response from Dave. Unusual. ‘Helloo? It’s Stewie again, mate. The obstruction’s been cleared. You can cancel the maintenance lads. Can I have a green, please?’
Another minute waiting, then the speaker finally crackled. ‘Sorry, Stew . . . did you say you cleared it?’
‘Yup. What’s going on there? Did I catch you having a dump?’
‘No . . . we . . . uh . . . we’re getting a lot of traffic from above.’ The young lad sounded harried. Distracted. Stewie had never met Dave. Just knew the voice from five years of running Norwich to London. He had a mental picture of some gawky, pale bloke with a pronounced Adam’s apple and goggle-eyes.
‘Problems?’
‘I don’t know . . . something about terrorist action in London, maybe? I dunno . . . it’s all mixed messages coming down from the controllers.’
‘Terrorists? What like a bomb or something?’
‘I dunno . . . looks like they want to shut down all the London stations immediately.’
‘Well I’m out of London, thank God, so any chance I can have my green light?’
‘You said you cleared the obstruction?’
Stewie nodded. He caught sight of his face reflected in the dark windscreen. ‘Yeah, it was just a bunch of mush. Decomposed sheep, I think. Must have been there for days.’
He could see a small dark spot on his left cheek. He swiped at it and looked at his finger. A smear of blood. Oh, lovely. He picked up the napkin that had come with his Costa coffee and vigorously rubbed his cheek clean. He looked at the pink-stained paper for a moment then tossed it out of the window.
‘Dave? Come on, mate . . . Just flip that switch for me.’
‘Yup . . . sorry, there you go, Stew. Green light. You’ll have a good run back. Looks like you’re going to be the last train up to Norwich tonight.’
The light up ahead changed to green. ‘Cheers, mate. Catch you again on Monday.’
CHAPTER 16
As the train began to roll forward, clanking and clattering over bolted joinings, Leon’s phone vibrated. He looked at the screen. ‘It’s Dad.’ He looked at his mum.
She nodded. ‘Might as well.’
He swiped his phone. ‘You OK, Dad?’
‘That you, Leon?’ He mustn’t have heard him answering. The line was rustling with interference.
‘Dad? What’s goin—’
‘It’s here, Leo! . . . It’s right here in the city!’
‘What? In . . . New York?’
‘Yes! There are people dying in the goddamn streets!’
Mum grabbed Leon’s arm. ‘What’s he saying?’
Leon ignored her. ‘Dad . . . where are you? Are you safe?’
‘Leo . . . listen to me, son! Listen! Stay inside! Do NOT go outside! It’s in the—’
‘Dad . . . you said we should try and get out of London!’
‘Listen to me! This thing is airborne! They’re saying it’s like flakes. Stay inside! Stay at home. Tape up your windows and doors and STAY INSIDE!’
‘But we’re on a train, Dad. You said get out of London . . . you told us to—’
‘I know. Shit . . . shit . . .’ Leon could hear voices in the background, the familiar echoing wail of a NYPD siren. ‘Are you close to Mom’s family? Are you near to Norwich?’
‘I don’t know . . . train’s about halfway, I guess.’
‘OK, soon as you get there. You tell Mom, you tell Mom’s parents they gotta stay inside. Do you understand me! Stay inside, close the windows. Don’t go out again!’
‘OK, Dad . . .’ He could hear his father’s laboured breathing on the end of the line. There were other voices in the background, car horns beeping, more sirens joining in the chorus. ‘Dad? Are . . . are you outside?’
‘Yuh . . . I’m just . . . shit . . . gimme a second . . .’
Grace reached out for the phone. Leon shook her hand off.
‘Is Dad OK?’ she asked. ‘What’s happening?’
He answered her question by pulling the phone away from his ear and putting it on speakerphone. They all listened to the crackle and rustle of the call, their father’s panting breath, distant screaming voices. A gun shot.
Grace’s eyes rounded. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Dad?’ shouted Leon. ‘Dad! Was that a gun?’
‘Listen to me . . .’ The noises were suddenly muted. He must have stepped inside somewhere and closed a door behind him. He was panting heavily. ‘Listen . . . this thing’s in the air. You can SEE it, like . . . like FLAKES. It’s fast! It’s killing people everywhere . . . touching their skin then they’re dying and melting . . .’
The phone signal began to break up.
‘–on’t let it TOUCH you . . . the flakes! Don’t—’
‘Dad . . . your signal’s going. We can’t hear what you’re saying!’
‘. . . liquid . . . There’s lines of it all over the . . . Do not let it . . . you . . . Do . . . understand? DO NOT . . .’
‘Dad?’
‘. . . love you . . . love . . . both . . . God . . . I . . . Hey! Get out of my goddamn way—’
The call disconnected. Leon looked up from his phone, at his sister, at Mum, at the old man sharing the table with them, at the three commuters sitting around the table across the narrow aisle. All of them staring at him, wide eyed, as if he were the messenger delivering news of the apocalypse.
‘That call . . . your call just then? That was from New York?’ asked a woman sitting at the opposite table.
Leon nodded.
‘Oh God . . . my daughter lives . . .’ She didn’t finish her words. Instead she reached into her bag for her phone.
‘Was that about that West African virus thing?’ asked one of the two men sitting across the table from her.
Leon nodded again as he quickly tried callback, but there was nothing but a flat digital tone. He tried again and got the same thing.
‘Miriam?’ The old man sitting opposite Leon was already on his phone. ‘It’s Ben. What? I know . . . it’s getting rather worrying, isn’t it? Look, call the children! What? I know! Call them anyway and tell them . . .’
A minute ago their carriage had been silent, save for the ticking of an under-table heater, a few murmured conversations, the hiss of a young woman’s headphones and the occasional irritated sigh from the woman sitting next to her trying to read on her Kindle. Even the three drunk young men further up the carriage had finally managed to settle down and were sleeping off the alcohol. Now, all of a sudden, the carriage was filled with the gabble of one-sided conversations. A ripple effect rolled down either side of the aisle: a murmured question from one commuter to another, a Chinese-whispered answer . . . the answer evolving, mutating, as it passed from mouth to ear to mouth again. Unrest turning into concern, concern turning into alarm . . . phones coming out and calls being made h
ome.
‘Mom . . .’ whispered Grace. ‘Dad’s in real trouble, isn’t he?’
‘I don’t know, love.’ She was on her phone, dialling her parents. ‘It sounds like we might all be in a bit of trouble.’
Leon stared out into the dark night as the clattering train picked up speed. It all looked so normal out there. The railway embankment had sloped down now to give him a view of a small business park, tidy rows of sole-trader units with Transit vans parked up outside each, and tarmac bathed in the ever-present fizzing sodium-orange blanket of urban lighting. In contrast to this, his imagination was filling in details of downtown New York. It would be mid-afternoon over there. Leon knew what it would normally be like. Manhattan, tourist-busy right now, a couple more hours and it would be commuter-busy. How many times had he taken the subway across the Hudson River after high school for a couple of hours to hang out with his besties? Coffee in a Dunkin’ Donuts, talking gamer stuff, grabbing free wifi and a view across Times Square.
What he was imagining right now was all of that normality replaced with a Roland Emmerich disaster movie: burning cars, rampaging crowds, police roadblocks, cops firing their guns into the air to keep order and some action movie hero hustling his kids through all of that chaos.
And Dad’s stuck in that movie . . . somewhere.
He wanted Dad over here with them. They needed him.
He noticed Grace was crying beside him. Quietly, privately. He actually hadn’t seen her cry in ages. Not even when the Big Bust Up happened. She kept that kind of stuff under wraps, probably because she thought it made her look childish. He could hear her breath hitching, saw wet streams of tears rolling down her cheeks past her curved lips and on to her dimpled chin.
He felt an instinct to do the whole big-brother thing, to tell her it was going to be fine, that a week from now the news would be all about how social media fuelled an overnight global panic. How easy it was for hysteria to spread . . . A virus far more quick-acting and communicable than any real pathogen.
He was about to give her a whole load of bull like that to think about when the clattering of the rails beneath the train suddenly changed to a deafening metallic scream.
Leon lurched forward, the hard edge of the table slamming painfully against his sternum. His phone flew across the table into the old man’s lap. Someone further down the carriage yelped, briefcases and laptop bags skated along overhead storage racks and began to pile up and spill out on to passengers below.
The shrill metallic scream increased in volume and pitch, and everyone in the carriage was pulled forward in unison by the braking force, those facing forward bent over their tables, those facing opposite, pushed back into their seats. Everyone’s faces were stretched and crinkled into the same expectant grimace, awaiting the sudden and catastrophic crash of impact.
Instead the breaking force began to tail off, the screaming of brakes died down to a dull whine and, finally, the train lurched to a halt. Everyone in the carriage lurched with it.
For a moment, the entire carriage was completely silent, except for the sound of someone’s can of soda rolling all the way down the centre aisle and the continued soft ticking of an under-table heater.
‘Good God!’ gasped the man opposite Leon. ‘What was that about?’
Leon looked at his mother. She shook her head. She had no idea. ‘Maybe something else is on the tracks?’ Her voice had a tremble in it that she was trying to hide for Grace’s sake.
He looked around at the other passengers nearby – the two men and the woman at the table opposite, the three younger men further down, the young woman wearing the hissing headphones, the older woman beside her who’d been trying to read on her Kindle – all of them now looking at each other wide-eyed and waiting for some kind of an announcement over the intercom.
Finally, the carriage’s speakers crackled. They heard the rasp and rustle of heavy breathing. Then the train driver’s voice . . .
‘. . . Help . . . me . . .’
CHAPTER 17
‘Mum, it’s gotta be the virus!’ said Leon. ‘Maybe he’s got it? Maybe he’s sick?’
‘Leon!’ she snapped at him. ‘For God’s sake, just calm down. We don’t know what’s happened yet—’
One of the passengers sitting across from them stirred. ‘That poor sod sounded like he was having a heart attack or something.’ He was in his mid-thirties Leon guessed, smartly dressed in a way ex-soldiers looked. He looked down at his phone, shifted in his seat, shuffled across the empty one next to him and stood up in the aisle. ‘Does anyone here have a phone signal?’
‘I do,’ said a woman further down.
‘Dial 999, then. Call an ambulance!’
He headed up the aisle towards the carriage door. It hissed and clattered open for him.
‘Where are you going?’ called out Jennifer.
‘I’m an ex-medic.’ The door hissed and clattered shut behind him.
‘What do we do now?’ asked Grace.
‘We just sit tight for the moment, love.’
‘What about Dad?’
‘He can look after himself, Grace. He only needs to take care of himself.’
Leon shot her a look. That sounded like an unnecessary dig.
‘Your father . . . ?’ said the old man, ‘I’m sure I heard him say, on your phone, something about this virus breaking out in New York?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Uh-huh . . . and I heard that too!’ A head popped up over the top of the old man’s seat. A black woman with long turquoise nails. She stared at Leon. ‘Was that your phone, love?’
Leon nodded.
‘Sounded scary. Like loads of people rioting.’
‘Panic,’ said the old man. ‘Nothing quite like a good old-fashioned medieval plague to get people running for the mountains and screaming blue—’
The woman tapped the top of his head with a nail to shush him. He turned and looked up at her irritably. ‘That your husband who called, love?’ She didn’t wait for Jennifer to nod. ‘Is he right, do you think? Do we all need to be worrying about this?’
Jennifer bit her lip. Leon noticed there were a dozen faces looking their way. That phone call had carried. They were all looking at his mother for an answer.
‘Tom . . . he . . . Well, he doesn’t normally panic easily,’ she replied. ‘Something’s definitely happening over there.’
A complete non-answer. Heads ducked back out of view. The woman with the nails rolled her tongue over her teeth beneath her lips. ‘Your hubby sounded terrified.’
‘Something’s happening over here too!’
Leon craned his neck into the aisle. It was the woman who was calling for an ambulance. She was waving her phone around. ‘There’re no ambulances! None! They’re all out! I’m sitting in a call-waiting queue!’
Her words hung heavily in the air.
‘OK, and now there’s this,’ said the other man on the table opposite. He tapped on the screen of his smartphone. ‘I’ve got a BBC News notification. There’s some kind of terror alert in London just been announced. All mainline rail stations have just been closed.’
‘Mom . . . I’m scared,’ whispered Grace.
‘I know . . . just . . . just . . .’ Leon could hear the heel of Mum’s shoe edgily tapping the floor beneath the table. ‘Just sit tight, lovely.’
Mum’s beginning to panic. He decided to help her out. He reached for Grace’s hand. ‘It’s OK, sis.’ Normally she would have rolled her eyes at Leon playing the role of big brother. Instead, she clasped his hand tightly and gratefully.
‘Including Norwich station!’ A young man with a thick dark beard and shoulder-length hair popped up like a meerkat beside the lady with the nails.
‘BigTravelGenieDotCom,’ he continued. ‘They’re saying every single mainline station in the UK has just been closed. It’s not just London.’
‘Hey! Does that mean we’re stuck here?’ called one of the hungover city lads further down. ‘You saying we’re s
tuck, mate?’
The bearded guy shrugged. ‘I dunno. I guess so.’
‘Ah, that’s just bloody great!’ The city boy smacked a hand on his table, loosened his tie and swore.
The old man opposite Leon leaned out into the aisle and craned his neck. ‘Can you mind your language back there, please? Swearing isn’t going to help anyone.’
‘Piss off.’
The old man shook his head and tutted. ‘There’s a frightened little girl up here. Just keep it to yourself, all right?’
The city lad ignored him, picked up his phone and checked again for a signal.
‘Uh . . . look,’ started the bearded guy. ‘I work for a news website. We aggregate and package news . . .’
Leon wasn’t sure to whom he was speaking. It sounded as if he wanted everyone in the carriage to hear him.
‘Excuse me . . . everyone? Down the end . . . Can you hear me?’
This end of the carriage quietened down for him.
‘OK, so . . . I work for a news website . . . We had this weird email go around just before I left work this evening. It was something to do with that African virus. A heads-up that we weren’t to post any stories relating to it without getting approval from our senior online editors.’ He shrugged – that’s all he had. ‘I don’t know if that means anything, but . . . I thought I’d share it anyway.’
‘Panic management,’ said the old man. ‘They’re smothering the news.’
‘Right.’ The bearded guy looked down at Leon. ‘Mate, was it your phone we all heard?’
Leon nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘And your dad was calling from America?’
‘Yeah.’
‘He said something about the virus being airborne or something, right?’
Leon struggled to remember exactly what his dad had said minutes ago. Just that he’d sounded really scared. That it had sounded like movie dialogue. Airborne, though . . . Yeah, he’d definitely used that word.
‘Yes . . . I think so.’
‘Then, it’s got to be over here too now. That’s what this station lockdown is all about. It’s infection containment.’ He looked around at everyone. He grinned edgily, looking sheepish and unsettled both at the same time. ‘Or am I just sounding like a paranoid idiot?’