I was hitting all the buttons.
I shafted faster.
Harder.
Christ, this was the best ever.
Fucking like this…the best thing ever.
Hearing her panting.
Seeing her face, eyes screwed shut, lips pressed tight.
Feeling her concentrate on that sensation.
Pressing so tight to her; I felt as if part of my spirit (as well as my body) was there deep inside her; touching that magic place inside, hitting that button to release—
‘Ah!’
She screamed.
Screamed again.
‘Ah — yaaaa!’
Suddenly her eyes opened; her expression seemed to unfold, to open out.
Those green eyes locked on mine as the orgasm tore through her body.
‘Oh!’
I’d blown, too. Coming in a burst of heat inside of her.
Almighty God. We were like an explosive meeting a spark. The blast of ecstasy left me dizzy, breathless, not even knowing where I was, only that Kate was there with me. Her arms and legs wrapped tightly round my body, her face, burning hot, pressed against my throat, panting, her soft words streaming into my head.
We lay there, bodies cooling. The wind rustled the branches in the trees; the curtains billowed gently in the breeze coming through the open window. It was just like any hotel room. Big double bed (message at the foot of the mattress to probably long-dead chambermaids: Turn mattress once every six months), a mini-electric kettle, the flex still neatly coiled, a basket that once contained complimentary tea, coffee, jiggers of UHT milk, a pack of chocolate-chip cookies.
There were plush carpets in a royal blue (never mind the shadow-like stain where some guest long ago spilt a glass of wine); then there were the usual bedside cabinets, a Gideon’s Bible, Thomson London local directory, radio, telephone now forever silent. TV standing in the corner.
Just like any other hotel room, I thought, lying there, hazing out in a delicious wash of relaxation, Kate Robinson snuggling close beside me, her bare skin touching mine. Just like any other room. The kind of room I’d have been staying in if Thunder Bud had made the big time. We’d have done those coast-to-coast tours. We’d have played the MTV Unplugged show. I’d have hung electric guitars alongside the gold and platinum discs on the walls of my apartment that I’d bought in…where? LA, New York, Paris, maybe here in this very London street.
I put my arm round the beautifully long back of the woman beside me.
That dream was gone now. I’d never be a rock star. I’d never play sell-out gigs at twenty thousand-seater stadiums. This was the new reality now. A city drowned beneath a flood. Fire creeping up from the Earth’s core to burst through the soil beneath your feet.
On that conveyor belt of hard realities was the fact that I’d loved Caroline. That I’d lost her. And had had to burn her once lovely body on that funeral pyre on the hill-top.
Lightly I touched Kate’s hair. I’d gone head over heels for Kate. If I lost her, too, could I take that kind of pain again?
She kissed me lightly on the chin.
‘Rick?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m glad you found me.’
‘I’m glad, too…very glad.’ I meant it, but the words stung. It was almost a replay of what Caroline had said the day she’d died. When I’d sensed that fear, that pure naked fear hovering over us like some dreadful bat-winged monster.
Waiting to strike.
For a second I felt its monstrous presence again.
Christ, no, I couldn’t lose Kate. I couldn’t bear that brutal realization—that sheer sense of knowing I was alone again.
I held her tight.
The wind rustled the leaves, bringing that sound again. Like surf hissing across the beach. Rising, then falling to a gentle whispering sound before surging loudly once more.
My eyes closed.
We were running. The dream was unusually clear. We were running down the hill from my home at Fairburn. There was my brother Stephen as he looked then; his silk shirt inflating as the blast of air fills it. He’s holding the little girl, Lee, in his arms. Also, I see Caroline, her face and bare arms mottled red as if splashed by red wine, boiled by the geyser. She runs too, eyes wide with fright. Then I see Dean, Howard, Ruth; even ten-year-old Jim Keller, who lost his thumbs—and his life—in that car accident all those years ago.
And I see myself. I’m ten years old again. My little trainers slap the cinder track as I run.
Slap, slap, slap…my feet send up puffs of black cinder dust. The plastic Robocop mask jiggles around my neck.
We’re running for our lives.
We’re being chased by a creature with huge wings; it has no eyes but its bat-ears stick up high from its skull. In its slash-like mouth are oversized rats’ teeth.
I know it can fly.
Even as the thought runs through my head, it spreads its wings and launches itself forwards. It glides down at us. I look up. Clearly I see the wings; the feathers are grey.
I look up again. This time I see properly. They aren’t feathers. They are rows and rows of grey men, glued side by side, head to foot. Their eyes are open. They are all blood-red. They are fixed on me.
And I know it’s me that they want.
The creature beats it wings. They make a huge thudding sound, loud enough to vibrate the bones in my head.
Thud, thud, thud…
It swoops down at me.
Thud, thud, thud…
‘Hey, wake up in there!’
‘Rick…Rick.’
I opened my eyes. Kate, kneeling up on the bed, was shaking me by the shoulder.
Thud, thud, thud.
The sound was someone pounding urgently at the room door.
‘Hey…wake up!’
‘It’s Tesco,’ Kate said. ‘Be careful. He might try something.’
‘Christ…can’t you hear me?’ Tesco bellowed. ‘Open the fucking door!’
‘Why?’ I called.
‘Open the door!’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Hurry up, open the door, or it’ll be too late!’
We started to drag on clothes. What if Tesco was standing there, waiting to blow off my head with a shotgun? Cautiously I called, ‘What’s happening?’
‘If you open this fucking door I’ll fucking tell you!’
‘Careful, Rick,’ Kate warned.
‘If you don’t open this door, Kennedy, I’ll bust it down.’
I knew I had no choice.
‘Hurry up, Kennedy. I’ve got something to tell you. Hurry, it’s important.’
I took a deep breath and opened the door.
Chapter 74
After I answered the door Tesco bundled us downstairs to meet Jesus at the entrance of the hotel. Then he, Tesco, Kate and myself walked down the street. For a moment Jesus didn’t speak but you could sense the urgency, the sheer electric tension. The strips of silk tied to Tesco’s arms and legs rippled and cracked in the breeze.
I didn’t know where the Hell we were going, or what would happen when we got there. Maybe Jesus had changed his mind about his South Seas trip?
Perhaps Kate and I would be chained to stakes at the water’s edge? Then the rats would come back. This time there would be no canine cavalry. The rats would strip the skin from our faces.
Suddenly Jesus began to talk; he didn’t pause in his rapid stride: ‘Kate. Rick. The situation is this. Remember the island where you landed?’
I cast a look at Tesco. ‘Remember it? We can hardly forget it.’
Jesus breezed on. ‘Well, a plane landed there about half an hour ago.’
‘A plane?’
‘Your plane. A four-seater Cessna.’
‘Whoa, wait a minute,’ I said. ‘We weren’t expecting our plane until tomorrow, Wednesday.’
‘So he’s a day early,’ Tesco snapped.
I said, ‘You’ve spoken to the pilot?’
‘No,’ Jesus st
opped. ‘We didn’t want to scare him off. Cowboy and a couple of our lot are keeping a discreet watch on the island.’
‘But he’s a day early,’ Kate said. ‘We can’t be sure it’s even our plane.’
Jesus looked at Tesco. ‘Did we get the plane’s registration number?’
‘No. But we got a description of the plane. Like you said, it’s a four-seater Cessna.’
I sighed. ‘Cessnas are just about the most common plane in the world. It might not even be ours.’
‘You know, Kennedy, you might just be right.’ Tesco’s scarred lips broke into a smile.
I didn’t like the smile. And I realized he knew this might put a different and dangerous spin on the situation.
‘Come on.’ Jesus frowned. ‘Surely we got a better description of the plane?’
‘We did. Tutts has a note of it.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Waiting down on the jetty.’
‘Come on, then,’ Jesus sounded impatient. ‘If we waste any more time our pilot might just decide not to wait any longer.’
Tesco’s grin widened in a way I didn’t like at all. ‘Just a moment. I remember Tutts mentioned the colour of the plane.’
Jesus looked at me. ‘What colour is your plane?’
‘White.’
Tesco’s grin turned malicious. ‘Pity…the colour of this one is yellow.’
‘Come on,’ Jesus said, ‘We’ve got to get to the island before the pilot leaves.’
‘After you, Miss Robinson. Mr Kennedy.’ Tesco gave an exaggerated bow. The coloured ribbons fluttered. I couldn’t help but notice the way he rested his palm on the butt of the sawn-off shotgun he had shoved through his belt.
I walked alongside Kate. The conversation we had as we walked to the waiting boats was fast and whispered, so Tesco swaggering along behind and Jesus hurrying ahead shouting instructions to his people wouldn’t hear.
‘See the problem?’ I said.
‘Unfortunately, yes. It looks as if it isn’t our plane.’
‘So we’re in the shit again.’
‘I take it they’ll try and make the same deal with the pilot of this plane as they did with us?’
‘Yep. Then they’ll cut us out of the deal once they’ve got alternative transportation.’ I looked at her. ‘As soon as they don’t need us anymore, they’ll think up some pretty way of killing us.’
We reached the boats. They were standing by a jetty built from old housebricks, the outboard motors were idling and Jesus’s men stood holding the mooring lines ready for a fast departure.
Tutts scrambled out of the boat and ran towards us, her silk ribbons fluttering about her. She looked pleased to see me and shot me a huge smile. ‘Your plane’s come,’ she shouted. ‘Rick, your plane’s come. Isn’t it brilliant?’
Tesco gave a wicked grin. ‘It’s not Kennedy’s plane.’
‘Of course it’s his plane,’ she said and squeezed my arm.
Tesco shook his head. ‘Oh no, it’s not. It’s a day early for one. Also it’s not the same colour.’ He stroked the butt of the shotgun with his fingertips. ‘We’ve a new kid on the block with his own wings.’
Tutts shrugged. ‘What’s this about colour?’
Jesus said, ‘Rick told me their plane is white.’
Tesco grinned. ‘And your description is yellow.’
I shivered. Tesco would love killing me.
Then Tutts gave a hiccupping laugh.
Tesco scowled. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘A yellow plane?’ She laughed again.
‘Yes. Yellow.’ Tesco’s annoyance flashed. ‘Yellow, fucking yellow, so what?’
She held up a sheet of paper on which there was a handwritten note. ‘The description was written by Rolle.’
‘Rolle?’ Jesus shook his head. ‘Cowboy should know better by now.’
Tutts laughed again and squeezed my arm in both hands.
Tesco swore, then stamped off to sit in one of the boats.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, totally bewildered. ‘Can anyone explain to me what’s happening?’
Jesus wasn’t amused. ‘Cowboy went and let Rolle write down the description of the plane.’
‘So?’
‘So Rolle did a lot of acid a while back. Virtually everything he sees is bright yellow. Including the sky, people, dogs—and no doubt your four-seater Cessna aircraft.’
Kate said, ‘But we still can’t be sure it’s ours.’
‘Tutts?’ Jesus held out his hand for the note. He quickly read it. There’s another description.’ He looked at Kate, then me. ‘Were there any markings on the wings?’
I shrugged. I couldn’t think of any.
Kate remembered. ‘Ah. On the underside of the wings there were black chevrons.’
Jesus held out the paper. ‘Like these?’
On the paper Rolle had pencilled a series of marks.
Kate smiled, nodded. ‘That’s our plane.’
Jesus said curtly. ‘Let’s hope for all our sakes he’s still there when we reach the island. Please get into the boat.’
There were two fibreglass boats. Each held around eight people, and each was fitted with outboard motors that were so heavy they pushed down the sterns of the boat and lifted the prows out of the water. Kate and I made a point of sitting in the boat which didn’t hold Tesco. He still looked at us with undisguised rage.
‘He nearly had us there,’ I whispered to Kate as the outboard motors pushed us on across the floodwaters. ‘Did you see the look in his eye?’
‘Just pray it is our plane.’
‘You did well to remember the chevron marks on the wings.’
‘Did I, Hell,’ she looked me in the eye. ‘I noticed the marks on the paper when Tutts was cuddling you.’ She turned to look at the half-submerged buildings passing by. ‘So, like I say, just pray to God Almighty it is our plane. And that we do see old Sparky’s smiling face when we land on the island.’
Reaching the island wasn’t as quick or as easy as I’d hoped. The boats were fast—fast enough to make the strips of silk tied to the arms and legs of Jesus’s gang ripple and crack straight out like pennants in the blast of wind. But I soon noticed the boatmen steered the boats in long zig-zags over what seemed a featureless expanse of water.
‘What’s wrong?’ I called to Jesus, sitting at the other side of the boat. ‘Why don’t we travel in a straight line?’
Jesus leaned toward me. ‘The water’s full of debris. Also there are houses just under the water. Look over the side. See those red rings just below the surface?’
‘I see them.’
‘Chimney pots. We’re skimming just above them. If we hit one it’ll knock a hole in the bottom of the boat.’
Kate nudged me. ‘See that? Floating in the water?’
‘A rotting lion?’
Jesus nodded. ‘We’ve seen a few drowned animals from the zoo—zebra, giraffe. Angel once claimed to have seen a hippo swimming by the end of the jetty, but…’ Jesus shrugged. ‘If you’ve spoken to Angel you’ll realize he sees lots of things. Demons. Ghosts riding bicycles. Angels. Hundreds of angels.’
‘How long to the island?’ I asked.
‘Twenty minutes, if nothing gets in our way.’
‘Gets in our way?’ Kate sounded alarmed. ‘What’s likely to get in our way?’
‘Uprooted trees float downstream, sometimes they form a kind of natural raft that might stretch half a kilometre. Also remember that when this was dry land there were subway tunnels, underground sewers, and the bigger tunnels for the trains on the London Underground. Sometimes they act like giant plugholes when the water level drops on the other side of town. You know, remember when the water used to go round and round in your kitchen sink as it went down?’
‘Like a whirlpool?’
‘Yeah, sometimes those appear. Then you have to give them a wide berth, otherwise they pull the boat down like it’s just a bit of fluff.’
I looked out over th
e deceptively still waters. Every so often a house roof broke the surface, sometimes a TV aerial clipped the side of the boat with a loud rattling sound. Everywhere debris floated: wooden crates, empty bottles, a child’s ball bearing pictures of Woody and Captain Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story—the wake spun the ball flashing the slogan TO INFINITY AND BEYOND! Then there were mushy clots of floating newspapers, sections of wooden garden shed, oil drums, even, bizarrely, a coffin lid; oh, and bodies, lots of rotting bodies: dogs, cats, pigeons. People.
In the distance there were the office blocks of central London, the tower of Big Ben, the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, the huge tombstone oblong of Centre Point.
It wasn’t easy to stay calm, cool and collected about all this. I found my palms sweated until they left prints on the plank that served as one of the boat’s seats. I looked at my watch. It was two in the afternoon. For some reason Howard Sparkman (if it really was Howard and not a total stranger who’d stumbled across the island) had made the flight down to London a day early. Why? God alone knew, but there had to be some reason. And you didn’t have to work hard to imagine some reasons. Other survivors had found the camp? Hotspots were breaking out on Fountains Moor, forcing a move? Had something happened to Stephen?
I shut off the horror scenarios running through my head. I’d make myself wait and hear the reason from Howard’s own lips. That was, if he was still there. If he found us gone he’d be tempted to fire up the plane’s motor and get out of there pretty damn quick. If he did that, sure as eggs were eggs, he would never come back.
Chapter 75
SPARKYS ISLAND. PRIVATE. KEEP OFF.
The sign that Kate Robinson had jokingly chalked onto the wall was still legible.
As the boat surged towards the shore I stared hard at the expanse of grass that had once been a football pitch. I was willing myself to see the white plane with Howard Sparkman standing nonchalantly beside it, waiting for us to land. My heart sank.
‘Oh God.’ Kate spoke in a low voice. ‘It’s not there. He’s gone, hasn’t he?’
I stared out across the water. I felt numb. What if we were stranded here in this flooded city? Tesco would think nothing now of blasting us with that sawn-off shotgun of his, then dropping us into the lake. Even if we could somehow escape, how could we walk through hundreds of kilometres of countryside that was lousy with millions of hungry, desperate people?