But there was a further movement A trembling ran through the ironwork, and I realized the bridge hadn’t stopped at all, that it was slowly, ponderously, continuing its descent. The machinery controlling its operation had been disturbed by the blasts, cogwheels and pressure points released so that the bascule’s own weight was bringing it down. A quick glance across the river to the opposite bascule told me only this side seemed to be affected – the other bridge didn’t appear to be moving at all. I wasn’t sure how it was possible – the big engine room that controlled Tower Bridge was on the Thames’s south side, far away from the explosions – but guessed it was the levers or braking system inside the control cabin on the south pier that had been disturbed, along with the bascule itself, the balance shifted, with nothing to hold it in check. The cogwheels could only control the fall.
I pulled myself tight against the rail, prepared to ride it all the way, hoping the bridge wouldn’t level out with too much of a jolt. I might have even enjoyed the trip, knowing my game plan had panned out, I’d fought the battle and won, if a black-stained, raw-scalped, red-eyed head hadn’t appeared above me. McGruder hadn’t been thrown off when the bascule had shifted – hell no, he’d hung on and then crawled along the apex to get to me. And now he was a spit away, gaping down at me with hate in his eyes and murder in the sick thing he called his heart.
His clenched fist struck my forehead, almost dislodging me. He tried again, reaching over as far as he could, but this time I dodged. With his next lunge, he’d grabbed my hair and was hauling me up. Tears blurring my vision, I gripped his wrist and forced his hand away, some of my hair going with it My feet slid from their holes in the rail and I was hanging by one hand, my legs kicking empty space while he took full advantage, clambering down the other side of the rail, using its openings and decorative swirls as a crude ladder as I had. Then he was leaning round, trying to break my grip on the rail, pushing at my shoulder, tugging at my other arm, all the while the bridge continuing its sluggish, lumbering descent My ears suddenly cleared and I could hear the straining of metal against metal, the groaning of rusted machinery forced into motion after years of suspension. And I could hear McGruder’s frustrated grunts too as he tried to tear me loose.
I swung out over the river, the bascule at least a third of the way down by now, and dizziness nearly overcame me again as the river spun beneath my feet From that height, I knew hitting the water would be like striking concrete.
A searing pain shot up my arm, the one poking through the rail’s fancy ironwork, and I yelled hard and loud, my neck stretched as I tried to see the cause. On the other side of the rail McGruder had his teeth sunk into my bare flesh.
I swung my leg, managing to get a toehold on a metal lip above a line of rivets, then, with the added support, I began to hoist myself back up. Ignoring the pain, I made sure I was secure before pulling the arm that was under attack from McGruder’s teeth out of the hole. Blood – that precious ABneg stuff those leeches cared so much about – streamed from the deep wound and somehow the sight of it renewed that old rage. I guess I’d spent so long protecting my own life’s liquid that the thought of this bloodsucker gorging himself on it – yeah, I know, he was only trying to make me lose my grip, but I wasn’t exactly rational by then – while I was busy doing other things sent me a little crazy myself. Scarcely realizing my own actions, I was suddenly hauling myself over the rail, that anger stirring up whatever last reserves of strength I had (yeah, more last reserves). I jumped down onto the steep road on the other side and pounded McGruder’s upturned face with my fist.
Keeping an arm linked around the top of the thick rail, my feet braced against the slope, I slugged him again and again, showing no mercy, giving him no chance to strike back. His body slid under me, only one of his hands maintaining a hold on the ironwork, his back against the stone slabs of the tilted kerbside and for a moment – just one fleeting moment – I thought I had him licked. But he came up with all the power I’d known he had, sickness or no sickness, almost defying gravity for a split second by lifting his back from the stone and shoving me away from him with both hands. I swivelled round, my spine striking the rail with a jarring thud, almost losing my grip, and as he began to slip down the incline, he wrapped his arms around my lower legs, checking his descent, his weight weakening my own grip. And he was chuckling, he was holding on and twisting and tugging to make me let go of the rail, and goddamn chuckling while he did it. I brought my free fist down on his head and neck, but it seemed to have no effect on him, none at all. He only laughed all the more, grinning up at me so that I could witness the full extent of his madness. And then he did something even more peculiar: he twisted his neck and deliberately looked down the slope, the movement so exaggerated I knew he wanted me to follow his gaze.
I did. And I understood his intention.
At the bottom of the ever-decreasing hill, where the bascule joined the tower’s approach span, was a long dark trench stretching across the road. Inside there, inside the pier itself, were the cogwheels – the quadrants, I think they were called – that helped raise and lower the bridge on this side of the river. I had no idea what other machinery was inside the black hole, but knew McGruder wanted to take us both sliding down into it What the hell, he didn’t mind a quick death, so much better than a slow one. I hit him harder, turning my own body to shake him off, but it was no good, it was as if he didn’t feel the blows. Without warning, one of his hands shot up and grasped my wrist, the one holding on to the rail, and he started to tug at it, trying to pull it away. My fingers began to open, the strain on them too great; soon only the tips were around the ironwork.
My other hand found his throat, and I squeezed, my thumb pressing into his windpipe. His grin only broadened as my boots began to slip on the concrete. My hold on the rail was almost broken, my fingers almost straightened.
And then I remembered the knife.
Letting go of his throat I reached round to my back and drew the dark blade from its sheath. It slid out smooth and easy, and I plunged it down hard between McGruder’s shoulder blades, just beside his spine.
His eyes bugged in shock, their tiny veins almost embossed on the whites. Whether it was because of the sudden pain, or it was intentional, his arm clamped even more tightly around my legs, causing me to jerk upright, my hand releasing the knife. But he lost his grip on my other wrist and his grin vanished, his eyes took on a distant look. The pressure on my legs slowly lessened, and then he was slipping away from me, his fingers clawing their way down my leg.
But when his hand had almost reached my feet, the fingers suddenly wrapped themselves around my ankle, jerking it from under me, so that I fell flat on my back. Sheer reaction made me grab a lower part of the rail again as I started to slide, but it took all the strength I had left – and there wasn’t much – to hold myself there as my body stretched, dragged down by McGruder’s weight.
My arm trembling with the strain, my back flat against the stone, my spine feeling the vibrations rumbling through the groaning bridge, I raised my head to look down at McGruder. He was on his stomach, the knife angled into his back, and both of his hands were now clenched round my ankle as he tried to drag himself back up the incline. There was no expression on that blackened face now, even though his eyes still stared into mine.
He pulled himself upwards, using my leg as a rope, his shoulders quivering with the effort. And as his head drew level with my knee, that sick, lunatic’s grin returned. Oh the eyes were still distant, kind of glazed over as if his mind was off in some faraway place, but those blistered and cracked lips were spread wide, the blood-smeared teeth bared in a grin that was just for me. I raised my other foot and smashed the heel of my boot into his nose.
Blood – bad blood, diseased, coagulated blood – burst from his nostrils like lanced poison, and his hold on me relaxed. Then he was falling away from me, slithering towards that long black narrowing gap at the bottom of the slope, his last gaze fixed on me all the way. I
turned over and scrambled upwards, reaching for the top edge of the bascule, dragging myself up onto the apex. I slumped there, riding the summit, one leg and arm roadside, the other half of me over the edge, and I watched McGruder as his fingers raked the roadway and his legs slid into the thinning gap.
His chest rose from the concrete and I realized the bottom of the bascule was angled to join the underside slope of the roadway itself when the bridge was level. The rest of his body was too bulky to go through.
It was terrible, but I couldn’t turn away, I couldn’t close my eyes to the horror. McGruder screamed and screamed as hundreds of tons of concrete, iron and lead crushed his hips and legs, the sound abruptly cut off by the thick explosion of blood that squeezed through his body to erupt from every opening in his head.
The gap closed completely and the bridge was down. And I was falling, shaken off my perch by the sudden fierce bump as the roadway levelled, tumbling over and over ‘til I hit the cool waters thirty feet below.
28
CISSIE WAS YELLING at me and pumping my chest at the same time, and I’m not sure if it was the pain or her shouts that brought me out of my stupor. I retched river water and tried to turn onto my side. She helped me and began thumping my back. I started to protest, but more water belched from me. I could only moan and gulp in air between heaves, my head jerking off the soaked concrete with every spasm.
‘Why?’ she was yelling at me, her voice ringing off dank cavern walls around us. ‘Why didn’t you listen to me? Why did there have to be more killing? You bloody, bloody fool! You nearly got yourself blown to pieces, just like I said you would!’ She began to sob, her blows becoming more feeble. ‘You never listen and you never talk. I still don’t even know why you stayed in this bloody awful city, living with corpses, always on the run, killing just to stay alive!’
She babbled on, weeping and cursing, pounding water from my lungs and generally giving me hell ‘til I started to laugh. My chest and shoulders lurched as though I were having some kind of fit, but the laughter expelled the last drops of water I’d swallowed in my swim across the Thames to this tiny quayside underneath the bridge’s northern span. Luckily for me the shock of falling into the river had helped put some life back into my exhausted body, just enough to get me fighting again, kicking water, keeping myself afloat on the currents. I knew I’d drown if I didn’t make the effort, and that seemed pretty silly after all I’d been through, so I struck out for the shore (the currents had already carried me close to the north tower), swimming through debris and human flotsam thrown from the high walkway by the explosions. I clung to the pier for a while, fingers digging into the cracks between its stone blocks, getting my breath back and working up some strength for the rest of the journey, then inched my way round, every so often my numbed hands slipping off the concrete’s slimy surface and my whole body shivering from cold or shock, probably both. On the other side I could see the stone steps leading up to the covert landing stage tucked beneath the first span, and where once they probably dragged suicidal bridge jumpers from the river, it didn’t seem so far and, goddamn it, I was gonna try for it. What choice did I have? I kicked off my boots, unbuckled the gun holster, and headed for shore.
I think I went under two or three times – it’s hard to recall just how many – but on each occasion I’d pop up again, thrashing out with more vigour for a few strokes before settling into a weary but steady rhythm. When I thought the game was up, only yards from that little hideaway dock, and began to sink, my feet touched something solid underneath me, something I could push against to get me back to the surface. Another couple of strokes and I was able to stand; I could walk – I could stagger – up the long, sloping ramp towards the two sets of steps leading to the landing stage and, when the water was only waist-high, there was Cissie running down those steps, calling my name. She’d jumped into the river and waded out to meet me, tucking herself under my shoulder, and helping me reach safe ground, weeping and babbling on about how she’d watched me fall from the bridge, knowing it was me even from that distance because I wasn’t wearing black, and how, when she’d searched for a boat, she’d found the tunnel leading to the concealed landing stage under the approach road. She had to drag me up those slippery steps and that’s when I’d buckled and she’d begun pounding my chest, afraid I was going to drown on dry land.
She didn’t understand I was laughing – she thought I was choking – and she beat my back even more, shouting at me not to give in, that I was going to pull through, and please, please, please, don’t die, Hoke, don’t die. I lifted an arm to ward her off, but I was too weak.
‘Cut…cut it out,’ I managed to gasp, and she quit immediately.
‘You’re all right.’ She seemed stunned.
‘I guess,’ was the best I could do. I didn’t have the energy to laugh again, but I stoked up a grin.
She just wailed. She just threw herself on top of me and blubbered. Pretty soon I was blubbering with her.
And eventually, when our tears had dried and we both sat shivering in that gloomy, damp, brick cave, my arm around her shoulders, holding her close, I told her why I’d never left the city.
29
THERE WAS NOTHING left for me here any more. Nothing left for me to do.
I eased the military truck through the paralysed traffic as the huge column of smoke and fire rose up over the rooftops far behind me, the funeral pyre only a gesture, a symbolic mark of respect for the passing of so many, those thousands of burning corpses representing the millions that had perished in this city. I’d never had the chance to visit Wembley Stadium in wartime, but now and again, when I’d been unloading all those carcasses I’d collected from the streets, I’d heard – I was sure I’d heard – the ghost-echoes of cheering masses, voices raised in praise of human skill and endurance. They’d never frightened me, those spectral ovations; no, they’d only deepened the sadness, made me even more aware of my own isolation, my own loneliness.
Some miles back, I’d stopped the truck and leaned out the side window to watch the fire, maybe just to make sure it was effective. The blaze was awesome. Giant black clouds, edged with gold and crimson, curled up to the heavens, the flames that drove them violently beautiful as they consumed the heaped legions of fuel-soaked corpses below. I could do no more for the deceased citizens of that once-great place and Cissie had been right when she’d said that the rest would turn to dust in their own time.
And she had finally understood why I’d never left the city.
Under the bridge, huddled together, my strength slowly returning, I’d told her of my love for Sally, how we’d met at Rainbow Corner, a club for US servicemen in Piccadilly, she with girlfriends from her office, me with a couple of pilot buddies from another squadron, how one hello, one dance and one light kiss had meant instant love. We were married less than six months later, both of us sure of our feelings, realizing the risk that came with the war, but that same risk making us see there was no time to waste…
I hadn’t even known she’d been pregnant when I came searching for her three weeks after the Blood Death rockets had fallen; she hadn’t told me, I guess, because she hadn’t wanted to burden me with another worry, at least not ‘til there was no way of disguising her condition. I wasn’t allowed to leave the airbase when the country’s population started dropping dead, because all pilots still breathing were kept under guard in case the enemy launched a grand attack now that they’d knocked out our defences. Hah! It was all so laughable, so insane, none of us knowing what had really happened, communications with the outside world kept tight by our surviving commanding officer, who was carrying out his last orders to the letter. And before long, everyone on the base had gone down with the disease, everyone ‘cept me. I was alone and scared out of my wits, but I was finally the only one left alive. That’s when I’d fled to London and the real nightmare had begun.
I was already traumatized by the time I found Sally lying outside on the steps leading down to our baseme
nt flat, and the sight of her nearly finished me. Her eyes were missing, her flesh torn open. The rats had eaten into her belly and ripped the foetus of our unborn child from her womb. They’d left it on the step, close to her outstretched hand, half-eaten, almost unrecognizable. I’d known what it was though and I’d given in to the hysteria right there beside them both, my wife and our baby, given in to the madness that had sustained me for at least a year afterwards. Maybe not all that madness had left me yet.
All I could do – all I could think of doing – was burn what remained of their poor bodies. There was nothing there to honour, you see, nothing recognizable to pray over. That wasn’t Sally lying on those steps, and it wasn’t our baby next to her. They were just pieces of discarded meat Leavings. Waste. Not my family.
I took them inside the house and set fire to the curtains. Within an hour, the whole row of houses on that side of the small street was ablaze.
And the madness drove me to gathering up other exposed and vulnerable dead ones, hundreds, thousands, of them, and taking them to a suitable burial ground so that they would not just be fodder for the surviving vermin that now openly roamed the streets, to an enclosed place where eventually I could lend some dignity to their passing. Even when the craziness wore off – the bitterness never did – I couldn’t give up. It gave my life some small purpose, I’d told Cissie, it gave me a reason, no matter how senseless, how hopeless, to carry on.
Like I say, Cissie had understood.
But now it was over, burned from me. I think I even smiled at the thought.
She was waiting for me with the others at the corner of Westminster Bridge, just under the statue of Boadicea. I could see them up ahead as I turned the corner from Whitehall, smaller figures among them, the kids and adults I’d set free in the old castle. We’d rounded up fewer than a dozen women and children when we’d returned to the castle grounds, only two men with them, one middle-aged and in poor condition, the other hardly more than a kid himself. Oh yeah, and we’d caught sight of two Blackshirts scurrying away, trying to hide from us; but that didn’t worry me – how long did they have left anyway?