He opened his eyes. “Eh?”
Barboza was staring at him, wide-eyed. Like he’d just sprouted a second head or something.
“What’s going on with you man?”
“What? Did you say something?”
“Bloody right I did. I said there’s someone down there. Look.”
“Where?”
Barboza pointed towards the entrance of one of the abandoned shop fronts, located on the right hand side of the road. It was a place called Juice Stop, one of those trendy little pit stops where people would grab smoothies and fruit drinks on the go. A withered awning stretched from the front of the shop, extending over an area that might once have been full of tables and chairs.
Somebody was standing under the awning.
It was a man. He was watching them as they approached. Walker took a closer look and his first thought was that the guy looked like a stereotypical homeless tramp – the sort of down on his luck type that would rake the bins at night for scraps, all the while covered from head to toe in dirt. He had long filthy brown hair and a bushy beard that smothered most of his face, except for a pair of eager, fast blinking eyes that never stopped moving. He wore a faded black vest top, revealing a pair of wiry looking arms that at first glance, appeared to be badly sunburned. But as Walker got closer, he saw that it wasn’t sunburn after all. The man’s arms were covered in a plethora of red wounds. It looked as if an entire neighbourhood’s worth of cats had ganged up on him and clawed him to pieces. The man had matching wounds on his legs, which were poking out of a flimsy pair of short black underpants. He was barefooted.
He watched them approach, jerking constantly like there was an electric shock going through him every five seconds.
“You think it’s a rogue?” Walker whispered.
“I don’t know,” Barboza said. “If he is then why isn’t he running at us?”
“Look,” Walker said. “He’s moving.”
The man took several tentative steps towards them. As he did so, he placed his hands over his head. He looked like the last holdout, surrendering to an invading army after a long siege.
“Don’t hurt me,” he yelled. The man did a full spin as he approached the side of the road, showing them that he wasn’t carrying any weapons strapped to his back. “I’m unarmed, I swear.”
He stopped a few metres away from them.
“What happened to you?” Walker said. “Did somebody cut you or something?”
“No,” the man said, speaking in a rough, raspy voice. “Nobody cut me. Please, may I lower my arms?”
“Not yet,” Walker said. He squeezed the handle of the axe, but kept it lowered at his side. “What happened to you?”
The man shook his head and looked off into the distance, as if distracted.
Walker and Barboza glanced at one another.
“It wasn’t a tiger, was it?” Walker said to the man. He was thinking back to the encounter they’d had on the New River that morning. Walker still had three long scratches running along his left forearm. And they stung like a bitch. But his wounds were nothing compared to those of the man standing in front of him. The man’s arms and legs were literally covered in sores and scratch marks. Walker had the feeling that if somebody pulled at all those wounds at once, there was a chance they could peel the man open like a piece of fruit.
“No,” the man said. “No it wasn’t a tiger.”
“Your skin looks bad,” Barboza said. “Can we help you?”
The man shook his head. His eyes darted back and forth between Walker, Barboza and their immediate surroundings. Whenever there was a hint of birdsong in the distance or from overhead, his eyes went after it, like a hunter getting his first whiff of prey.
“May I lower my hands?” he said.
Walker nodded. “Aye, I suppose.”
“Thank you,” the man said, sighing with relief. He dropped both arms and shook them out like he was loosening his limbs in preparation of a workout.
Then he immediately began scratching at the claw marks on his body. His long, dirty fingernails tore at the already tortured skin and to Walker’s disgust, the man moaned with pleasure as he upped the ante, scratching ferociously at his wounds. In a matter of second, many of the fresh cuts were bleeding again.
“What the fuck?” Barboza said. “Walker?”
Walker didn’t speak. What was he supposed to say?
The man looked at them as if he’d just remembered they were there. But he didn’t stop scratching.
“No tigers,” he said, grinning and showing off his long, yellowing teeth. And as he continued to scratch, his bright blue eyes danced with joy. “It’s me. I can’t stop. I just can’t stop scratching.”
He took a step closer, walking onto the road. Then he lifted up his vest top and Walker heard Barboza gasping out loud. Or maybe it was him. The man’s body was splattered with countless wounds that made him look he was part of some post-mortem science experiment. The skin was torn and bleeding and there were chunks of thick, decaying flesh hanging off the self-inflicted wounds.
“I can’t stop,” the scratching man said. “Help me please.”
Barboza tugged on Walker’s arm. “I’m going to puke Walker. Or faint. Or something.”
The scratching man’s hands were working their way up towards his neck. Walker felt his stomach lurch as the man’s fingers crawled up his body like two five-legged flesh spiders. Once they arrived on the lower neck, they tore ferociously at the damaged skin. The tips of the man’s fingers were covered in fresh blood.
“I say, you couldn’t do me a favour,” the man said, calling out to them. He was glancing at the axe in Walker’s right hand. “Any chance you could kill me please? It’s just that I can’t stop this bloody scratching and I don’t think I’m ever going to stop until…it’s such a terrible way to go. It’s like there are things crawling all over me and it doesn’t stop. It doesn’t ever stop. Please just kill me.”
He reached a hand out towards Walker and Barboza. There was fresh blood dripping off the tips of his fingers.
Barboza grabbed Walker by the forearm, almost yanking it clean off. Walker grimaced, but he understood the message.
They began to back away from the scratching man. Slowly at first, but increasing the pace with each step.
The scratching man stood there, close to Juice Stop. He was watching them as he scratched every inch of his body from top to bottom. Once or twice, he stopped for a moment and his body immediately jerked convulsively, like it was telling him to start all over again. Walker saw a tremendous sadness in the man’s eyes and for a moment, he felt only pity that somebody could end up like that.
The scratching man looked at Walker and Barboza again. Then, without warning, he came running after them.
Walker’s heart exploded like a bomb.
“Run!” he yelled in a voice that was loud enough for half the city to hear.
Walker and Barboza took off, both of them sprinting down the road with the fierce sun on their backs.
As Walker ran, he heard the scratching man’s footsteps behind them. But worse than that, he could still hear that terrible slicing sound of the man’s nails digging into his flesh.
Walker and Barboza ran down Harringay Road as fast as they cold. Walker felt as light as a feather, even though he was carrying a rucksack over his shoulder and he had the axe in his hand too. Fear was his fuel. Walker didn’t want the scratching man to touch either one of them, in case he was carrying some sort of contagious disease. That was all either one of them needed.
Walker didn’t think about slowing down for at least two or three minutes. When the adrenaline finally started to wear off, Walker looked behind them and the scratching man was gone. There was just a long, endless empty street leading back towards North London. Walker and Barboza slowed down further, content in the knowledge that their pursuer was no longer following them.
Walker and Barboza dropped their rucksacks onto the road. Two loud thuds, accompanied by
the sound of heavy breathing. Now they were really sweating and it was time to take on some more water.
They didn’t stop for long however. They were keen to press on towards Liverpool Street Station and what’s more, they couldn’t be sure the scratching man wasn’t still coming after them at his own leisurely pace. They were still on the A105 but now they were closing in on the centre of London. As they travelled further south, Walker marvelled at the abundance of ruined shops – pound shops, travel agents, fast food places, hairdressers – all of them with their windows smashed in and with shelves and other pieces of debris lying visible inside. It took his mind back to the London riots of 2011, where it had all started.
“Are we close to the station?” he asked Barboza.
“Yeah,” she said. “I think so.”
They walked south onto Green Lane, which took them past a wildly neglected Finsbury Park. Occasionally, Walker and Barboza heard voices in the distance. Shouting or screaming – it was hard to tell.
Soon after, they reached Stoke Newington, about three or four miles north of the city centre. More quiet streets, abandoned houses, overgrown hedges and rotten shop fronts. They made a point of keeping to the middle of the road, their eyes and ears peeled for signs of anything unusual from the back, front and either side.
Eventually they found themselves entering the heart of the city. Everything was silent except for the sky, lit up by the constant music of the birds.
But not for long. Soon there was another noise.
Walker heard it first. He stopped in the middle of the road and Barboza did likewise. It was faint at first, but he was sure that he’d heard something. Or rather, he’d felt something. Like the road was trembling underneath him.
What the hell was that? An earthquake? In London?
He listened again.
Engines. They were coming straight towards them, travelling south to north. It sounded like a pack of motorbikes, and that was something that Walker hadn’t heard for a long time. It was a terrifying, menacing growl that signalled danger.
And it was getting louder, closer by the second.
“Oh shit,” Barboza said. “Whoever that is, we can’t let them see us Walker. We’re nearly there for God’s sake.”
“I know,” Walker said.
He looked around, searching for a place to hide and get off the street fast. Where were they anyway? A street sign on one of the nearby buildings told him they were standing in Curtain Road. Where the hell was that? His eyes raced back and forth, looking for a sign of temporary shelter. Further down to their left, Walker noticed a pub called The Horse & Groom. Like everywhere else, the windows had long since been smashed in, as had the glass panel on the front door.
It was the best of a bad bunch.
“In there,” Walker said, grabbing a hold of Barboza’s arm and dragging her towards the ruined pub. He didn’t have to pull hard – Barboza was in no mood to disagree with his choice of hiding place. There wasn’t time to look for anything better anyway – if they couldn’t hide from the bikers in the old pub then they couldn’t hide at all.
Barboza led the way into the building, clambering through the gap at the front where a large window had once been. It was just a wide rectangular space now, that sat atop a wooden base on the lower part of the pub’s exterior. It was easy enough for both of them to get through.
Inside, the building was a wreck – it was dark and devoid of furniture or anything that would have let someone know that it had once been a pub. Only the sign on the front gave it away now. The walls were black due to smoke and fire damage. There was a horrible smell of urine coming off the floor. Walker and Barboza positioned themselves belly down behind the large wooden panel underneath the window. Dust plumes floated around them. There was ash everywhere and the stale and musty odour of decay was intermingled with the potent, ever-present smell of piss.
Walker and Barboza scrunched their noses up in disgust.
Outside, the motorbikes arrived on Curtain Road. To Walker, it sounded like there was a small procession of them out there – a convoy coming after them with bad intent.
There was a low growl from the engines as the wheels of the bikes slowed to a stop.
Behind the window, Walker gripped the handle of the axe, bringing the weapon close to his body.
The motorbikes sounded like they were stationary now; they were purring in unison like a group of big cats gathered around a fresh kill. They sounded so close it was like every single one of the damn machines was parked on top of Walker’s head.
Footsteps. They were coming towards the pub.
It sounded like one of the riders was standing directly outside, just a few feet from where Walker and Barboza were lying belly down on the pub floor. The footsteps went back and forth along the entrance, like whoever was out there was teasing them – letting them know that they knew they were in there.
“Little pigs,” a man’s voice called out. It was a deep, booming rumble of a voice – a voice that probably showed up on the Richter scale.
“Let me come in.”
Walker put a hand on Barboza, instructing her to stay on the floor. Not that she showed any signs of moving.
“Or,” the man’s voice called out. “If you don’t want me to come in, you could always come out here and say hi. Do that if it makes you feel better. I assure you little pigs that I’m not here to hurt anyone. On the contrary – my friends and I are trying to help the people around here. We have some news to share with you. Will you come out?”
Walker kept his face pinned to the hard floor. He grimaced as he was forced to inhale the gruesome combo of rotten wood and stale piss.
Outside, the riders turned their motorcycle engines off, one by one. The silence that followed felt more dangerous than the noise that had preceded it.
The rider outside the pub continued to move back and forth, from one end of the building to another. It sounded like he was a trooper standing guard outside a royal palace, stretching his legs. Walker cringed as he listened to the man’s thick boots slapping against the concrete, each one of them like a baseball bat to the head.
“Little pigs,” said the man with the deep voice. “Come on,” he said. “Don’t do this the hard way. Come out now, or we come in. Your choice.”
Walker and Barboza looked at each other. Barboza nodded in resignation at Walker and he knew exactly what she was saying.
What choice do we have?
Walker nodded. He took a deep breath and pushed himself onto his feet. Then he grabbed Barboza by the hand, helping her up too.
There was a big man standing at the window. Behind him, were another four bikers – two men and two women, sitting on their motorbikes in the middle of Curtain Road. The man standing closest to them wasn’t just big – he was huge. Not tall, but wide and barrel shaped – the sort of guy you’d want in your rugby team going into a life or death scrum. That’s what he looked like – a rugby player dressed in biker leathers. Not somebody that Walker wanted to get into an argument with anytime soon.
The others were dressed in the same black biker leathers. The two men and women were sitting on their motorbikes, rigid like statues, and showed no signs of getting up anytime soon.
But they were all staring at Walker and Barboza. And there was a menacing look in every pair of eyes.
Except the big man – he was smiling. He was about thirty years old with a light brown complexion that hinted of Middle Eastern origins. Despite the man’s exotic looks, his accent was all London. He wore his hair closely cropped with the exception of a long ponytail that dropped down to his back. The other two men in the mini-convoy were scrawny in comparison to their barrel shaped leader. Both men sat on their bikes, looking at Walker and Barboza, and the look in their eyes was battle-hardened, as if they’d seen terrible things in their lives and lived to talk about it. One of the men had a wide, flesh-coloured scar of about six inches running down his cheek. The other was bald-headed, with a blond goatee sprouting from his
chin that seemed to go on forever.
The two women meanwhile, were a little younger than their male companions – early to mid-twenties at most. One of them had milky white skin and flaming red hair that dropped to her shoulders. The other had short, spiky peroxide blonde hair. Out of all the bikers, she sported the meanest look and it was directed at both Walker and Barboza with an almost comical ferociousness.
“Wise decision,” the big man said. He took a step back from the window, accompanied by the sound of squeaking leather.
“Now why don’t you come outside?” he said. “All we’re going to do is talk. And trust me, you’ll be thankful for it.”
Barboza was first to step through the empty window. Walker followed close behind her. Now they were lined up on the pavement, side by side, looking back at the five bikers who had them cornered on Curtain Road. Upon closer inspection, Walker noticed that the bikers were all riding Harley Davidsons. As a teenager, he’d had a thing for Harleys and had always envisaged himself owning one when he was older and richer. Of course he’d never gotten around to having that awkward conversation with his parents – the one about how he’d prefer to have motorbike lessons instead of driving lessons.
He was spared that at least.
The big man’s bike was particularly impressive. It was a newer Road King model, although Walker wasn’t exactly sure what year. But even so – the gleaming black bodywork, the old school Harley logo on the side of the fuel tank, the side covers and saddlebags – even in an uncomfortable situation like this one, Walker allowed himself a moment to glance in appreciation at such a perfect machine.
“You probably weren’t expecting us,” the big man said. “But strange things happen in this city. You know how it is – sometimes it feels like you’re walking down London as it was before Piccadilly. Before it all went tits up and kaboom. Everything looks normal, then you blink and when you open your eyes again you’re standing in the middle of a nightmare. Right?”
Neither Walker nor Barboza said anything.
“You two got names?” the big man asked.
Walker nodded. “I’m Walker,” he said, through gritted teeth. “This is Barboza. We’re just passing through and not looking for any trouble. We’re not trying to tread on anyone’s turf either – we’ve never been down this far south and we don’t know the rules.”
The Future of London Box Set Page 40