“Da. Is reflection of ideas and beliefs of the time.”
Bill ponders. The zeitgeist of Britain? A Britain that seemed to be tearing itself apart. A Britain with weak leadership. A Britain obsessed by self. Jeez even the word ‘selfie’ was in in the dictionary now. A Britain obsessed by social media and self-promotion. A whole generation obsessed with the consumption of material goods, vapid celebrities its heroes. Self. Self. Self. “So, basically, we’re screwed.”
“Da. Screwed.”
Bill’s stomach rolls and an ache spreads across the back of his head. “No! I won’t believe that.”
Uri remains silent.
The cone of the car’s lights spreads across the dual carriageway picking out the cats’ eyes that mark its boundaries. Bill motors along the middle and pushes his foot to the accelerator. To hell with it. He could speed if he wanted—there were no cameras to catch him.
“Slow down, Bill.”
“No one to catch me!”
“Da, but there will be cars and lorries stopped in road. We will crash.”
Bill takes his foot off the accelerator and allows the car to slow to a cruising speed alert again for any obstacles. “Should only be a couple of more miles. Been clear so far.”
“Sure.” Uri replies.
“You don’t say much.”
“I speak when I need to.”
“Sure.”
“Pull over!” Uri tugs at the steering wheel.
“What the!”
“Pull over, Bill. There are lights ahead.”
Bill puts gentle pressure on the brakes and slides the car onto the hard shoulder then turns off the headlights. Uri makes a terrible passenger but he’s right; ahead and to the left, harsh lights brighten the area.
“That is petrol station, da?”
“Da. I mean yes. It should be.”
“You don’t know?”
“I’ve never been. I’m following directions remember?”
“Is petrol station,” he says with certainty.
“It is.”
“Drive closer. No lights.”
As the car pulls parallel with the station, Bill steers the car to the hard shoulder and kills the engine. He sits with Uri in silence then steps out into the night. Bright lights fill the space illuminating the buildings. Men move about and the sound of chugging fills the air.
“They’ve got a generator.”
“Who is it?”
“No idea. Want to go and ask?”
“Niet.”
“We have to get some of that petrol, Uri. We haven’t even got enough to get back to town.”
“We get some then.”
“Get the cans out of the boot.”
Sitting the petrol can and a mid-sized plastic barrel down on the tarmac, Bill gently closes the lid of the boot. It locks with a muffled click.
“Let’s go.”
Leading the way, Bill, an empty container gripped in each hand, runs to the middle of the dual carriageway. Without the torches there’s enough light from those running on the generator to brighten the way. Within minutes he’s standing with Uri at the barrier that demarcates the grounds of the petrol station. They squat at the entrance, hidden by a wide brick pillar and a hedgerow of hawthorn.
Six pumps sit in two rows in the middle of the forecourt. Behind the station’s shop is a car wash and way over to the right is another building. A boarded up roadside café—a Little Chef with its signage still intact. Plates of fish, chips and mushy peas, and a toasted teacake complete with cup of tea, goad him. His stomach growls.
“Your stomach! They will hear us.” Uri states as Bill’s belly rumbles.
“I’m starving!” Bill admits and rubs at his guts. It has been hours since he ate the bread bun. Hours too since his last sip of water. His body was beginning to complain.
“Me too. We get food from shop.”
“Not with that lot standing guard.”
Bill stares into the forecourt. To the side, next to the shop, an industrial generator, complete with wheels and tow bar, sits chugging. Two cars sit silent and there are four cars that have been rolled off the forecourt and into the hedges.
“This place has been commandeered.”
“Commandeered?”
“Yes, someone’s taken it over. It’s deliberate. Doesn’t look like the owners either. Those cars have been rolled into the hedges. Look at that one,” he says pointing to a silver BMW 3 series. “The driver’s window is smashed. They’ve taken off the handbrake and rolled it forward.”
Uri grunts in agreement. Both men sit and watch. Somewhere out of sight voices rumble. Someone shouts and then a figure walks from behind the shop. Bill stares. His hand clenches the handle of the barrel. The man is holding an automatic rifle and he’s dressed in the now familiar black of the extremists terrorizing the towns and cities! Where the hell do they get their guns from? He would have no idea how to get hold of illegal arms in England. Abroad, sure. Here? No.
“Terrorists!”
“Shh!” he hisses.
“They have strategy in place. They are organised.”
“Yes.”
Watching the man in silence, Bill scans the forecourt. Another figure appears and then a third. He waits.
“Only three.”
“Looks like it.”
“Then we can take them.”
“They have guns, Uri.”
“So do we,” he replies patting at his chest.
“Can you get them from this distance with that?”
“Da.”
“It’s your show then,” Bill says watching the men walk across the forecourt. “Take them out.” Bill has every confidence that Uri can dispose of the men within the next minutes and relaxes on his haunches. His thighs burn with crouching. He pushes to a stand behind the brick pillar, relieving the ache in his muscles, stretches out his back, then crouches down again. Uri pulls the trigger. The hammer trips. Nothing.
“Is jammed.”
“Hell!”
Uri takes out the magazine, reloads, and takes aim. He pulls the trigger. Again, it fails to fire.
“Needs repair.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll have to go old-school then.”
“Da.”
The bright arc lights flood the area surrounding the pumps but, beyond the brightness, the area is deep in shadow. Bill keeps to the shadows as he makes his way parallel with the shop. Uri behind, they crouch low and wait. One of the men sits on the shop’s raised platform and stubs out a cigarette on its herringbone brickwork, then sits back, legs bent, feet splayed, resting his head against the wall. An automatic rifle lays across his lap. His straggling beard quivers as the wind blows at him and he reaches for another cigarette. A dark-bearded male with a shock of the thickest black hair and monobrow Bill has ever seen sits in the driver’s seat of a blue Ford Capri, another vintage piece, lovingly restored and gleaming in the lights.
Bill gesticulates to Uri to go around the back and deal with the man in the car. Bill will deal with the rifle. He pulls his knife from the sheath strapped to his leg. Uri digs into his pocket and holds up his knife, sharp metal glints as it extends with a satisfying click then locks into place. Uri runs ahead, hugging the shadows, and disappears behind the back of the building.
A shout and the man leaning against the shop’s wall stands. He shouts back in an Arabic dialect Bill doesn’t understand. Stepping off the platform, the terrorist runs to the car as the engine starts. The other car’s engine starts and then they’re gone. Still crouched, Bill waits. Uri signals for him to join him.
Damn! “They’ve gone.” Bill’s adrenaline is surging and he’d been ready for the confrontation, welcomed the chance for a kill.
“They will be back.”
“Yes,” he replies with a disappointment edged with relief, “and in the meantime we fill up the barrels.”
“They could be back anytime.”
“True,” Bill says ey
eing up the pumps. “Sod the barrels,” he says with determination. “Let’s fill up the car.”
“But they could be back.”
“We can get a full tank. It’s worth the risk.” He gives Uri a challenging stare.
A glint of excitement stares back from Uri’s blue eyes. “I stay here and fill barrels. You get car and fill tank.”
“Agreed.”
Heart racing, Bill runs across the forecourt, jumps the low hedge and runs down the embankment to the car hidden in the dark on the other side of the dual carriageway. His heart thuds hard in his chest as he slides into the driver’s seat and starts the engine. If he can get the tank filled they can get Clarissa to the hospital no problem. She’d looked so pale asleep in the chair, pale and in pain. He clenches his jaw. She’d looked like Colin had before just before he’d died. He pulls the car onto the road and makes a smooth acceleration to the large roundabout at the end. The headlights illuminate the signs. A red ‘H’ for hospital gleams on the painted metal board. They had a choice of hospitals then; this way, or over the bridge and into the city. Bill makes his choice; it would have to be the city hospital—twenty miles closer and without a gang of terrorists waiting for them at the end of the road.
He makes a sharp turn to avoid the roundabout and speeds up the exit to the petrol station. No sign of any other vehicles. Heart pounding, he pulls onto the forecourt and then motors down to the first pump. Jumping out of the car he pulls at the pump’s nozzle. The digital display reads £65:13. He pulls the nozzle’s trigger. Nothing.
“Uri. Go inside and turn this thing on,” he calls.
Uri nods and strides to the shop. Glass crunches underfoot as he disappears into the empty shop.
The pump hums to life. Digits roll to zero and Bill thrusts the nozzle into the car’s tank, squeezes the trigger and lets the petrol flow. His heart pounds, and sweat beads at his forehead, as he listens out for the returning cars above the hum of the pump and scans the dark beyond the brightness of the forecourt. The trigger clicks and the pump stops; a full tank.
“Finished! You finished Uri?” he shouts to the broad back of the blond crouching down at the opposite pump.
“Da. I have three filled.”
“Let’s go then!”
“Let me finish last one.”
“Nah. We’ve got enough, let’s go.” Stay calm. Keep it cool.
“Niet. I fill this.”
Bill pops the boot open and strides across to Uri. If the man wasn’t going to listen then he’d speed things up by loading the car. He heaves the cans, one in each hand, and carries them back. He scans the dark beyond the brightness. Nothing. “Uri, come on!” he says as he walks back across to the pump. Bill grabs the filled barrel and crouches, leans it over then takes hold of the bottom. He stands and grunts with the weight.
“Roll it.”
He’s right. Bill leans the barrel to its side, rolls it to the car, then lifts it into the boot, first landing it on the bumper with a grunt, then dropping it to the boot’s floor with another. He stands and peers into the dark. Lights!
“Uri! They’re coming back. Move it!”
Uri pulls the nozzle from the barrel, screws on the lid, and rolls it to the boot. With one heave it’s inside. The lights grow brighter, wider. Two sets appear on the roundabout. Bill turns the ignition. Nothing. No way! You are not doing this. He turns it again. The engine thrums. He slips it into first and the car pulls away. Lights shine behind them just as they slip behind the squat building that houses the shop. Bill holds the car, handbrake on, clutch down, ready to move. Winding his window down, he listens. Engines thrum and a car door slams. Go!
Foot to the floor, he powers the car forward then takes a sharp right and speeds up the exit road. Two cars are stopped beneath the forecourt’s roof, doors flung open. Men stare. He shifts up a gear and swings the car out and onto the road. Another gear shift and the car powers forward. Not bad for a vintage model. Must have a new engine. Into fifth and he takes the roundabout with a sharp turn then speeds back along the dual carriageway. He kills the lights. This stretch of road is straight and the moonlight is enough – just enough – to light the way forward.
He checks the rear-view mirror.
Lights!
He floors the accelerator. Up ahead a slip road leads off the carriageway. He leans forward, squinting into the greyed-out night and takes a left. The car bumps and jolts. He pulls it back to the road. Uri clings to the handle above the door. The car climbs the incline and jolts.
“Slow down! We crash in this dark.”
Bill rights the car to the road once more, checks the rear view then slows. The lights have gone. He slows a little more, heart pounding.
“Looks like we lost them.”
Uri twists in his seat to the rear window. “We have.” He bursts out laughing and slaps his thigh. “My God! That was some ride. You drive like mad man!”
Bill laughs and slaps at the steering wheel. “Wooh!” He exhales with force then leans back and grips the wheel. He quiets. The terrorists were heading straight back to town.
Pushing down on the accelerator, he switches the lights to dipped beam. If they’d blockaded the road into town the terrorists wouldn’t get back in. If they’d blockaded the street then neither would they. If they hadn’t ... He switches the beam to full and floors the accelerator.
“What is it?” Uri asks craning his neck to the back window. “They are not behind us.”
“No, but they’re heading back to town. We have to get there before they do.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Sam counts the men and women gathered round. Eleven. Eleven men and women who were willing to help him protect the town.
“Is this it?” Ken asks, discouraged. “There are nearly twelve thousand people living in this town and only eleven turned up?”
“For now. I’ve sent Baz to call on Docherty and Sean, and Andy has gone to find Shipton.”
“Well, if we can get them on board at least we’ve got some men with something about them. This lot don’t look like they’d say boo to a goose!”
“Shh! That’s not fair. Jason’s on the rugby team and I wouldn’t want to come across Sheila in a dark alley on a cold night, and they don’t need to say boo to a flippin’ goose—they just need to help block this road off.”
“And the other roads. There’s two more on the other side of town that need blocking off.”
“I know,” Sam replies pushing his fingers through his hair. “Jason!” he calls shining his torch at the man. Jason’s dark skin glistens through his cropped and air-shaved head as he squints at the torchlight. Sam strides across the road to meet him. Broad shouldered, T-shirt filled to over-capacity, Jason stands inches above Sam. He suddenly feels inadequate—perhaps he should take up rugby. Once this is over he’ll go back to the gym.
“Alright, Sam. Ken,” Jason nods. Ken takes a step back. The small group gathers around.
“Right,” Sam begins.
“What’s the plan of action?” a middle-aged man with the first signs of spread sitting at the waist of his jeans asks. He pulls up the waistband then sits his hands over his hips. Sweat darkens his burgundy T-shirt.
“As far as I can ascertain,” Sam begins again looking around at the pinched faces, “there have been two terrorist attacks in the town. The first was an attempt to burn down the police station and the old library, and the next was on Whitecross Street. On both occasions they’ve attempted to destroy vital emergency services-”
“The Police Station is unmanned! Not exactly vital!” the paunchy man interrupts.
“They didn’t know that!” Ken retorts.
“On both occasions,” Sam continues, “they’ve attacked vital services and also targeted civilians. On both occasions they’ve entered the town through this road.”
A murmur through the group.
“Not likely to come back though are they. They’re all burnt to a crisp and making a mess on Whitecross Street.”
“Well ... true. Those particular terrorists won’t be bothering us anymore.”
“No, but others could!” Sheila pipes up, large blonde curls bobbing against her shoulder, the bleached hair shining in the torchlight.
“That’s right, Sheila. So-”
“They had guns. We need to get some guns.”
“Well-”
“And machetes.”
“Well-”
“We need to arm ourselves.”
“If they come back I’ll chop their fekkin’ heads off.”
Take control, Sam! “Listen. I agree. We need to protect ourselves, but the first thing we have to do is blockade the road.” No response. “There are three roads that lead into the town. Each one needs blocking off-”
“And guarding,” Ken interrupts.
“Yes, thank you, Ken. And guarding.”
“I’m in charge around here!” a voice pipes up from the dark.
Sam groans. Councillor Colin Haydock.
Sheila groans. “Sam’s-”
“I’m the one voted in by the people of the town to represent them.” Councillor Haydock pushes through to the front of the group, shunting Sheila as he barges past. “I should have a say in how they are to be protected.”
Ken groans.
“What do you suggest?” Sam asks. The man is as irritating as hell but Sam won’t be impolite. He’d better hurry up though; they had to get the cars across the road pronto.
“What does he know? He’s a bloody councillor for crying out loud—just sits and yaks and bickers with the other fat-arsed buggers supping tea and dunking their biscuits.”
Someone snorts with laughter. Sheila?
“I’m listening,” Sam continues.
“Well,” Colin looks around. “I, er ...”
“Told you—just a bag of hot air.”
“Alright, Sheila. With all due respect-”
“Pah!”
“With all due respect, Councillor Haydock, we need to take positive action-”
“Yes, positive action,” Sheila interrupts glaring up at Colin.
What is her problem? “... and I suggest that we blockade the road,” Sam continues.
“Blockade the road? Then no one will be able to get in and out. It’s an offence to block the road.”
Blackout & Burn: A Complete EMP Thriller Series Page 40