Richard looked at her. “There was no one there?”
“No. We looked everywhere, but it was abandoned. The cells were all open, and it looked like maybe there’d been a scuffle. No one was around.”
“Damn it,” said Riaz.
Carol looked at Riaz. “Do you know if the police force is still intact? London fell last night, but we haven’t been able to find out if there’s still a force in place.”
Riaz shrugged. “Last I heard, all local uniforms had headed to the city. I have no idea what forces in the other regions are doing.”
“Same is true of the ambulance service,” said a voice Richard recognised.
“Oliver? The paramedic from yesterday morning?”
The tall, shaven-headed man smiled. “Seems like forever ago, doesn’t it? You never called.”
“Sorry, things have been bad.”
Oliver patted him on the shoulder. “For us all. I’m glad to see you again. I was planning to head home, but my ambulance got knocked off the road by some cheese dick in an Alfa Romeo. Pure luck someone spotted me from the windows of this place. I’m not used to standing around in an emergency doing nothing, but I don’t know what else to do. I just wish I knew more.”
Carol tucked a bunch of her greying blonde hair behind her ear. “No news is good news.”
“Strange motto for a newspaper,” said Leonard.
“And you’d be right. Anyway, enough doom and gloom. Who is this handsome young man we have here?” She was talking about Dillon and moved gently towards him, reached out to touch his face.
Dillon remained expressionless, but muttered, “Hello.”
“You’ve had a tough time, huh, my lovely? Never mind, you’re safe now.”
“Mummy.”
Carol was a smart enough woman to understand. She nodded compassionately. “She’s in a better place now. If a person ever needed proof of Heaven, then Hell on earth is that. Must be a God and angels if there are demons, don’t you think?”
Dillon nodded. A single tear spilled down his cheek, and his bottom lip quivered.
Carol touched his chin and lifted his head. “No need to be upset, my lovely. I have someone you should meet. Alice? Alice, where are you?”
A little girl appeared from underneath a desk. She had an unopened chocolate bar in her hand and a smudge of a previous one on her cheek. Her face was sullen, not innocent like a child’s should be. “What is it, auntie Carol?”
“I want you to welcome our new friend…”
“Dillon,” said Richard.
“Dillon. He’s had a tough time, just like you, so I want the two of you to stick together, please.”
Alice nodded. She looked at Dillon, but didn’t gawp at his Down features. She offered out the chocolate bar. “I used to share with my brother, Kyle, but the monsters got him. I can share with you now, if you like?”
Tentatively, Dillon reached out and took the chocolate bar. “T-Thank you. I lost my mummy.”
Alice nodded. “I bet you miss her. I miss my brother. We can miss them both together.”
“Go on, you two,” said Carol. “Go play in the fort Corporal Martin built for you.”
Alice nodded and took Dillon by the hand. Richard felt his heart lurch at the sight of his traumatised son taking the little girl’s hand and allowing himself to be led away. Even after all the bloodshed of the last couple of days, there was still kindness in the world.
How much longer could it last?
“How bad are things?” Richard asked Carol. The woman was a tough old bird, he could see it written into every crease of her face, but the question drew a dark veil across her face that seemed like it might suffocate her.
“As bad as they can be without being over. London and New York are both graveyards. Tokyo, Paris, Melbourne, Chicago, I could go on. The world is finished. We’ve been invaded, successfully. All we can do now is try to survive. There’s a massive movement assembling in Turkey right now led by the Yanks. The Russians say they’re holding their own, but who knows. Corporal Martin has been in touch with what’s left of our Armed Forces here at home, and they’re in the process of fortifying Portsmouth. Several battalions stationed abroad are on their way back. Humanity is still alive and kicking, but we’re bleeding from every orifice.”
Richard collapsed into a nearby chair and placed his hands on his knees. He vomited on the carpet. Afterwards, he wiped his mouth and apologised.
Carol shrugged. “You know how much blood and puke I’ve seen lately?”
“Not as much as we have. I watched my wife get her head crushed by a seven-foot skeleton. What the Hell are these things?”
“Demons. Did you ever think they were anything else? Those gates lead straight to Hell, I would bank my pension on it. We are at war with Lucifer’s legions.”
Riaz snorted. “You can’t verify that.”
Carol raised an eyebrow. “Want a bet?”
“How?”
“I can verify it because we captured one of the bastards alive and have him locked in a cupboard.”
They all laughed, except for Carol who never changed her expression.
“What? You’re telling the truth?” said Aaron.
Carol smirked. “David, show them.”
The disfigured man appeared and nodded to the door behind him. “Right this way, ladies and gentlemen.”
They went back out into the hallway where David opened a door to a broom closet. Inside, tied to a chair, were the remains of a human being. It blinked at them when they turned on the light.
Vamps
Vamps ducked behind an abandoned tour bus and tried to understand what he was seeing. After escaping the warehouse, they had found themselves on Oxford Street outside the Selfridges building.
Where it all began. Where the London Gate had opened and spilled evil upon the city.
And the gate was still open, its glow lighting up the night making it seem like day.
“I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” said Mass. “Now that we’re looking right at it…”
Vamps nodded. “I know, Mass. I know.”
“Come on, you pussies,” said Pusher, already moving along the side of the bus with his two guys. “Time to get the fuck out of here.”
But Vamps didn’t move. The gate was a hundred metres further down Oxford Street, but even at that distance, he could see the huddled masses of human beings cowering before the shimmering lens. Demons moved everywhere, lining the street, but the section of road directly before the gate was filled only with frightened people—chained up like the ones Vamps had seen Prime Minister Windsor hand over.
What were the demons doing? Why were they keeping people alive?
“We can’t leave all these people,” said Vamps. “They need our help.”
Pusher stopped moving and looked back. “Are you fucking kidding me? We need to run. Look at your ginger muppet. He’s lost the plot.”
Vamps looked at Ginge and rubbed his friend’s wide back. He had not said a word since Ravy had died on the floor of their cell. “He’s fine. He’ll be fine.”
Pusher sniggered. “Yeah, whatever, mate. He’ll get you sodding killed. Unless you leg it right now.”
Vamps looked back at the people huddled in front of the gate. He winced when he saw one of the demons step forward to grab a young girl—a child—and hoist her up against the shimmering lens.
“Mass, we have to help them, right? Mass?”
“I dunno, man. What can we do? There are a hundred of them monsters there.”
The gate pulsed, and the little girl screamed. The demon holding her pulled out her arm and held it straight. Something glinted in the light and streaked across the poor girl’s flesh. She screamed again and blood jetted out of her wrist. She tried to struggle, but the demon held her in place. Eventually, her struggles weakened, and the only thing holding her on her feet was the demon.
The gate pulsed faster. A bolt of lightning shot out, struck the girl in her chest. She bucked a
nd seized, but then stood straight and shoved aside the demon holding her. The little girl turned around, wickedness glowing in her eyes.
“I think they just possessed her,” said Vamps, feeling sick. “She’s… she’s one of them now. What the fuck?! That’s why they have all those people chained up! They want to possess them!”
“Then we don’t have no choice,” said Mass.
Vamps looked at his friend.
“We have to help those people.”
Vamps grabbed his friend’s hand. They pulled each other close and enjoyed the last moment of peace they might ever get as they were probably about to throw away their lives.
They had no choice.
Vamps turned to get Ginge, to try one more time to talk his friend back to reality, but he was taken by surprise when Pusher grabbed Ginge by the back of the shirt and tossed him into the road. Ginge tripped over his own feet and sprawled against the tarmac. Instinctively, both Vamps and Mass ran to gather him back up, but as they did, Pusher yelled at the top of his lungs, “Hey bitches, enjoy Hell.”
The shout was loud enough to alert the demons at the gate.
Pusher and his two guys legged it into an alleyway and were gone from sight in seconds.
Vamps and Mass tried to pick up Ginge, but he was a dead weight, not even trying to help them by standing. No matter what they did, they could not get him moving. But no way were they leaving him.
Vamps looked at Mass, who looked back at him. Both of them were scared, but neither was about to leave the other. They were family, and that was how brothers on the street lived and died.
“I got your back,” said Mass.
Vamps nodded. “And I got yours, brother.”
They managed to get Ginge to his feet just as the demons surrounded them. At least Vamps had been able to hide his grandfather’s Browning under his t-shirt before they grabbed him.
Witnessing a mass of demons racing through the night towards you is terrifying, it doesn’t matter who you are or how tough you might be. That was why Vamps found himself shaking for the first time in his life.
The burnt men were accompanied by their ape-like companions, and other demons more human—more like greying zombies. There were also a couple of flesh-and-blood human beings, but their eyes were pure Hell. They were possessed.
“You want to fight?” Mass asked, holding Ginge against his big chest so that their friend didn’t see what was coming.
Vamps shook his head. “Not yet. We fight now, we die. Maybe later.”
“Later we’ll probably be dead too.”
“But not for certain. We fight now and it’s certain.”
Mass let his body relax just as the demons fell upon them. Vamps swore as a burnt man clobbered him around the back of the head and shoved him. Before he had chance to shake it off, he was grabbed on either side and restrained. One of the ape-like creatures backhanded him with one of its long, bony arms. Vamps saw stars and went limp as they dragged him away, but turned his head enough to see that Mass and Ginge were being brought along too. Least they were still together.
Being this close to the demons—with them actually touching him—made it hard to breathe. The air was like spoiled fish on a barbecue.
What lay ahead was worse.
Further up Oxford Street, the imposing gate shimmered in all its wretched glory. Before it huddled a mass of frightened people, as many children as adults. Their fear was intoxicating. It made Vamps want to throw up.
“Sssit down,” one the demons hissed. Vamps was about to oblige, but the thing hit him in the back of the shoulders. It knocked the wind from his lungs, and he ended up panting on his hands and knees. Mass and Ginge got clobbered too, but Ginge didn’t cry out. He was too far gone to even register pain.
Vamps reached out and touched Ginge’s arm. “Ginge, man. Please!”
One of the demons kicked Vamps in the backside. “Quiet!”
That the demons could speak was frightening. Vamps had considered them monsters until now, but they were more intelligent than that—monsters with an agenda, enemy soldiers that could be cruel and vicious all on their own. They were so confident of their own strength that most of the prisoners weren’t even secured. Their fear kept them in place.
Vamps shuffled up beside his friends and kept his mouth shut. He still had to believe there would be an opening—not just to escape, but to help some of these people. Pusher may have screwed them over, but Vamps was right where he had been intending to be—sat in the road in the heart of the city with his family beside him. If he was going to die, better it be here. If he was going to live, better to fight here.
The demons grabbed a young man—perhaps thirty—and shoved him towards the gate. His screaming face was awash with snot and tears. “Please, I have a family. I have children. I’m a school teacher.”
A burnt man whacked the man in the kidneys and shut him up. Then sliced open his wrist. “You are nothing.”
The gate shimmered and popped.
Another lightning bolt.
It struck the man the same way it had struck the girl. Only a few seconds passed before he turned around and smiled at his comrades. “My brothers!” The school teacher now spoke with a German accent. “My brothers, thank you. I am back in this world of eternal struggle, and I am ready to fight!”
The demons continued their work, shoving people up against the gate and bleeding them. All manner of accents materialised. Vamps heard people change their speech to German, Spanish, French, and many tongues unrecognisable.
Who was possessing these people, and why had they not been able to escape through the gates like the other demons?
The latest possessed soul spoke with an Arabic accent or similar. The young woman in broken spectacles looked bizarre as she spouted off fiercely. “Ha! I stand in their graveyards as I swore to do one day. I topple their towers and ruin their greatest city. I stab fear into their hearts. But I knew nothing of true terror. Now, I will bring this degenerate world to its knees. The Red Lord will reign.”
Mass looked at Vamps and raised an eyebrow. “Man, I think that’s Bin Laden.”
Vamps said nothing to that. It was absurd. So why did he believe it might be true?
The huddle of frightened people grew smaller with each sacrifice, and the buffer between the gate and Vamps reduced. He wanted to help, yet for thirty minutes he sat and did nothing whilst people had their bodies taken over. Soon he, Mass, and Ginge would suffer the same fate. So why wasn’t he doing something?
Because he had absolutely no idea what to do.
He looked at Mass. “I think it’s time to fight.”
“Really? Shall I take the forty demons on my right, and you take the fifty on your left?”
“Maybe these other people will join us if we start something.”
Mass scanned the trembling, white-faced people. “I don’t think so, blud.”
Vamp sighed, nodded, sighed again. “Then I guess this is it. The Brixton Boys’ last stand.”
Mass sighed too. “Time to die?”
“I think so. You got my back?”
Mass punched his palm. “Till the grave, Jamal.”
The mention of his birth name almost wrecked Vamps. Thoughts of his old dear—the only person who called him Jamal—and the friends he had known and lost, made him want to weep. But it also made him angry. Angry that these fucking demons thought they deserved another shot at the world after screwing up the first time round. They belonged in Hell. They had no right to be here.
Vamps nodded at Mass. “Let’s do this.”
“Quiet!” One of the zombie-like demons marched towards them, looking like a middle-aged postal worker with jaundice. Before the demon struck him, Vamps leapt up and head-butted the fucker right in the face. Mass leapt up and grabbed him around the neck before he fell.
Snap!
Mass let the dead demon fall to the ground where its face fell unnaturally to the side on a broken neck.
All Hell broke loose as
the remaining survivors screamed and cowered. Some leapt up to join the fight, but not enough. This was a fight they would all die fighting.
Vamps was okay with that.
He pulled out his Browning and popped the nearest burnt man in the head. Then he swivelled and aimed another shot into an ape’s face. The next trigger pull brought the echoing click of an empty chamber, so he took down the third demon by smashing the old wooden butt into its face. The scrap of skull between its eyes crumpled and blood filled both eyes.
“Lights out, motherfucker!”
Vamps turned and saw Mass perform a double leg take down, not on a demon but on a gun toting human who was working with the demons. One of Windsors’ men. He knocked the wind out of the son-of-a-bitch and took his pistol. He shoved the muzzle in the guy’s mouth and pulled the trigger without pause. It was messy.
Vamps thought of the rapist he had shot, and froze for a second. Everything around him moved in slow motion, and he wondered if he was paralysed. All sound merged into a single, high-pitched buzz. The only smell was blood.
He was in Hell.
Then he was back.
Back in a world where killing was no longer avoidable.
Mass leapt up and continued firing shots, rounds flying all over the place and striking demons in the kneecaps and arms. One bullet even hit a kid, but there was no time for guilt. These people were dead anyway unless Vamps and Mass somehow pulled off a scene to rival Sparta.
Vamps remembered Ginge and spun around to get him. Surprisingly, the big lad was on his feet. Vamps grabbed him by both arms and looked into his eyes. “Help us, Ginge. Help us get the fuck out of this.”
Ginge stared straight through him. He turned away like he’d just remembered he’d needed to be somewhere. Vamps cursed.
The three or four men who had leapt up to join the fight were now dead—torn to pieces. It had seemed like only thirty-seconds since they had first jumped up. That was how quick it was between a man living and dying in this new world.
Hell on Earth- the Complete Series Box Set Page 52