On his way back to the vehicle he had met Janet Halstead. Her cheeriness had gone, her face showed rigid lines of strain: she looked old. She, too, had urged him to succeed this time; only if he did could they begin to undo some of the terrible damage that had already been perpetrated. If she could inoculate against the disease, then men would be free to go into the disaster area and prevent others from destroying themselves and each other. He had left her without saying a word. How could he promise to succeed? There were too many other forces involved; he had thrived on risks before, but they had never been of this nature nor so numerous. All he could do was try.
‘My God, look at that!’ Mason was pointing ahead at four blazing cars that had piled up in the centre of the road. The flames were too thick to see if anybody occupied them, but a large crowd of people had gathered round the blaze, silently watching. As Holman and Mason drew nearer, the blood froze in their veins at the horror of what was happening. As the crowd watched, individuals would break from the ring and rush forward to throw themselves into the fire. The crowd cheered and then fell silent until another repeated the action.
‘We’ve got to stop them!’ Holman shouted, unable to take his eyes from the scene.
‘No, we’ve got our orders,’ said Mason firmly. ‘We’re not to interfere in any way. We mustn’t get involved!’
Holman knew it was useless to argue. And Mason was right; they were not to jeopardize the mission. If they were to involve themselves in every incident that occurred along the way, then the odds were that they would never reach their destination.
‘All right,’ he said evenly, ‘if there’s nothing we can do, let’s get away from it as quickly as possible.’
Mason was relieved. ‘We’ll go around,’ he said. ‘Back up, there’s a turning to the left – goes towards the Strand. We’ll go that way.’
Holman reversed the vehicle, narrowly missing a heavy truck that thumped past them, headed directly towards the burning cars and people. They heard the crash, for although the vehicle itself was soundproof, it was equipped with receivers on its exterior to pick up noise, a function that was necessary because of the lack of vision.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ breathed Mason, ‘this is terrible.’
‘It’s only just beginning,’ Holman told him cruelly. ‘It’ll get worse.’
And it did get worse. They passed many burning buildings, more blazing cars; scores of people roaming the streets, insanity evident in their faces; individuals curled up in corners, occasionally staring around with wide, fearful eyes. They passed bodies that had obviously fallen or jumped from the surrounding tall buildings; they heard screams, laughter, chanting; they saw people on their knees praying. And, strangest of all, they saw people behaving normally: queuing at bus stops, walking along briskly as though on their way to work, swinging umbrellas or carrying briefcases, entering the buildings that were open, waiting patiently outside others whose doors had not yet been locked, chatting to one another as though it were an ordinary working day, ignoring the chaos that was taking place around them. But that was their abnormality.
They drove slowly on down Fleet Street towards Ludgate Circus, steeling themselves against the sights, resisting the almost overwhelming urge to stop the vehicle and help those in particularly perilous plights. Holman was thankful they had passed no children. He realized they probably would later on when they passed through the more residential districts, but he hoped they would remain hidden from his eyes behind the veiling mist, for he doubted whether he could prevent himself helping a child in distress.
Suddenly they found themselves surrounded by a mob of workmen at the bottom of Fleet Street. The men began banging on the sides of the vehicle, trying to peer into the small but wide windows. They rapped on the glass, trying to break it. Holman and Mason heard heavy footsteps clunking overhead as some of the men scrambled on to the roof.
‘Christ! Must be all the bloody printers in Fleet Street!’ said Mason.
‘Yes, they must have been working through the night,’ Holman agreed. ‘But surely they would have been warned?’
Mason shrugged his shoulders. ‘We’ll have to drive through them!’ he said.
Just then the vehicle began to rock from side to side.
‘They’re trying to turn us over!’ shouted Holman above the noise.
‘Drive!’ Mason commanded, leaning forward to switch off the sound. He didn’t want Holman to hear the screams as they mowed their way through the crowd.
Holman pressed his foot down hard on the accelerator, sorry for the action he had to take but knowing it had to be done. He remembered Winchester and had less sympathy for the men and more interest in his own survival.
The car leapt forward and the startled men jumped back. Others were slower and disappeared beneath the wheels. Holman felt the car bump as it passed over their bodies, but he kept his foot down hard on the pedal, gathering speed, sending the men on the roof flying off. It ploughed through the thronging mass and Holman closed his mind from thoughts of his unfortunate victims. Perhaps it was because he regarded them as a threat rather than human beings. Perhaps he thought they were less human because of their madness. Or perhaps it was because he didn’t have time to think at all that enabled him to carry on.
At last, they were clear of the mob and travelling up the hill towards St Paul’s. Only then did Holman’s hands begin to shake.
Mason noticed and said, ‘Here, let me take over. You’ve had enough.’
‘No,’ said Holman, ‘I’ll be all right. I’d rather drive than sit and think. You check your instruments; make sure we’re still going in the right direction.’
Mason clapped a steadying hand on his shoulder then turned his attention towards the panel of instruments in front of him. He reported their position back to the underground base and related some of the incidents they had run into and the fact that the fog seemed much thinner. Holman glanced at his watch and saw that they had only been out for thirty-odd minutes. It seemed like hours.
He heard over the speaker a voice telling Mason that people were fleeing from the town in their thousands; large internment camps had been set up and police and troops from all over the country had surrounded London with blockades, and were trying to hold everyone who was leaving, imprisoning them for their own protection. It was an impossible task, of course, to save everyone, but fortunately, most of those that had fled were unaffected as yet by the disease and willingly turned themselves over to the authorities in the hope they would be protected when the madness struck them.
Helicopters above the cloud had reported that the fog seemed thickest around the river and thickest of all around the dockside area past the Tower of London. Although it had spread further, they confirmed that it did seem to be thinning particularly on its outer fringes. They could also see the glow of many large fires all over London.
The voice informed them that aircraft from all over the country were already on their way, loaded with calcium chloride in an attempt to avalanche the city with the chemical, but it would take hours for the operation to be put into effect.
It promised to send any further information that would help them and wished them both good luck.
Mason switched off and said to Holman, ‘It all checks. We’re going the right way – it’s somewhere down by the docks.’
They were now passing St Paul’s Cathedral and were amazed to see scores of people sitting on its steps, their faces expressionless, their lips unmoving.
‘Switch on the sound again,’ said Holman.
Mason did so but they heard no noise from the gathering.
‘They remind me of a flock of birds,’ said Mason. ‘One loud noise and they’ll be fluttering all over the place.’
Holman remembered the pigeons in Trafalgar Square and told Mason of it.
‘Christ!’ said Mason. ‘It gives me the creeps – let’s move a bit faster.’
He increased the speed as much as he dared and they soon left the historic building behind.<
br />
‘You notice how they seem to be mostly grouping together,’ observed Mason.
‘Yes. It’s as though with the breaking down of their brain cells, they’re losing their individuality, flocking together the way animals do. Look how they’re gathering at bus stops, a natural grouping place for people. At first, I thought in their shocked state they were queuing, but now I realize they’re grouping together at spots that are familiar to that idea.’
‘Look at him!’ Mason was pointing at a figure that had suddenly emerged from the fog ahead of them. The man was completely naked and was brandishing a long, curved sword. He advanced on the vehicle.
Holman turned the wheel sharply and swerved around him, narrowly avoiding running him down. Mason swung his head around to watch him through the rear windows, but he had disappeared into the mists again.
‘It seems, even in total madness, there are a few individuals though,’ he commented.
They passed fewer people as they drove through the City, but when they left its grey canyons behind they were faced with a spectacular scene.
Across the road in front of them was a mass of white-pink bodies, a sea of writhing limbs. As their eyes narrowed to focus, they saw it was made up of small groups of people, but packed so tightly together they represented a solid mass. All were engaged in copulation.
‘Jesus!’ said Mason slowly. ‘Look at them! A bloody street orgy!’
‘It probably started with one couple and the others just joined in,’ said Holman.
‘But there’s some there that must be in their sixties.’
‘And others not more than kids.’
‘What do we do?’ asked Mason, tearing his eyes away from the scene to look at Holman.
Holman smiled thinly, a faint feeling of satisfaction at his companion’s sudden perplexity causing the smile. Mason’s calm throughout had bothered him.
‘Well, we don’t join them,’ he said, and then, more grimly, ‘we go around, of course.’
He turned the vehicle and found a narrow side street. As he drove away, Mason craned his neck to keep the spectacle in sight for as long as possible, cursing at the fog when it obliterated it.
‘Incredible,’ was all he could say.
Holman turned into another, wider street to get them back on their original course. They had travelled no more than fifty yards when he stopped the vehicle with a sudden jerk.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked the startled Mason who had been checking his instruments.
‘Look,’ said Holman, pointing ahead.
Mason narrowed his eyes and peered into the fog. He heard her screams before he actually saw the girl. She looked to be no more than fifteen and she was backed into a doorway. Even at that distance, they could see her eyes were wide with terror and her screams echoed round the cramped interior of the vehicle.
Advancing on her were two men, both heavy set, both wearing clothes that were in tatters, both grinning at the girl. Their faces and hands were black with filth giving them an even more menacing appearance. But most frightening of all was their actions upon themselves for it made their intent obvious. Each had unbuttoned his trousers and was slowly stroking his penis, calling out to the girl, mouthing obscenities, informing her of their intentions upon her small body. She crouched in the doorway – whether she, herself, was mad yet was not apparent – whimpering, holding her hands up to her face as if to hide the sight from her mind.
‘Oh God,’ said Holman.
‘Look, we can’t go out there. In this suit, I’d be no help to you at all. And you’re too valuable to risk your life. And if we stopped to help everybody we see in trouble, we’d never get to the nucleus!’
‘Shut up,’ said Holman quietly. He stabbed his foot down hard on the accelerator and the vehicle leapt forward with a jolt. As it gathered speed it mounted the kerb and sped towards the two men, two wheels on the pavement, two wheels in the road. The two men just had time to see it coming, their grinning faces barely registering the fear that had begun its swift climb, before the vehicle hit them. One disappeared beneath the wheels, the other was tossed into the air to slam against the merciless concrete of a building. Their short screams, and the longer, more shrill scream of the girl, spun around in Holman’s head even when the sound had stopped. He brought the vehicle to a screeching halt, throwing the astonished Mason forward on to his instruments. Holman swung around in his seat and looked through the rear apertures just in time to see the girl running into the fog, her face still hidden in her hands in an effort to block the horror.
He saw the crumpled figure of one of the men lying in the road, lifeless and somehow withered. The other lay propped up against the foot of the wall he’d smashed into, his neck twisted so that his open eyes seemed to be staring after the vehicle which had inflicted such a terrible death upon him.
Holman turned away from the sight and leaned forward on the steering wheel rubbing a hand across his eyes then staring blankly downwards.
Mason pushed himself upright and silently placed a hand on Holman’s shoulder, giving it a little shake of comfort. Without a word Holman looked up and started the vehicle rolling forward again, guiding it back into the roadway and slowly building up a steady speed.
As they continued their journey, their minds became more numbed to each new incident, whether horrifying or just bizarre: the sight of an elderly woman pushing the obviously dead body of a man in a pram, leaving a stream of blood trickling from the carriage on to the road behind her, barely penetrated their consciousness; three men sitting by the roadside drinking from what looked like a can of paraffin, waving dirty handkerchiefs at the vehicle as it passed meant nothing to them. For Holman, it was probably the fact that he had just killed other human beings; nothing could surpass the horror of deliberately taking the lives of other men, whether they were mad or not. Remorse had not yet set in, but repulsion for the act had and, because he had been forced to take such measures, his resolution to find the means of destroying the disease was stronger than ever. For Mason, it was the mere consistency of the strange happenings, consistency being the steadiest ally to acceptance.
The scenes had not become unreal to them, but they, in their enclosed mobile compartment, had become remote from the scenes, observers moving through a strange, cloudy world, like explorers in a diving capsule on a sea-bed.
From time to time, Mason reported back to the underground base, coldly describing the scenes around them: the fires, the havoc, the waste of human life. Suddenly, he asked Holman to stop the vehicle. Holman had no idea of their exact location, but he guessed they must be somewhere near the East London docks by now. He looked askance towards his companion.
‘We’ve lost it,’ said Mason. He checked his instruments again then reported back to base, speaking sharply and urgently.
‘How could we have lost it?’ asked Holman.
‘We’re being guided by a helicopter above the fog,’ Mason told him. ‘They have sensors that have been keeping track of the mycoplasma’s centre; they relay the information back to headquarters who operate our directional finders from there. It has to be that complicated because obviously the chopper can’t see which area it’s over through the fog. But now, nothing’s happening; our finder’s just gone loose.’
A voice came over the speaker and echoed round the small compartment: ‘Hello, D.V.1. Base here again. Do you read?’ Mason acknowledged and the metallic voice went on, ‘Trouble, I’m afraid. D.V.1, Charlie 2 says they’ve lost the nucleus. Nothing at all shows on their instruments but they’re going to scout around the area until they find it again. We don’t understand how it’s happened unless the bloody thing’s gone into the river – you’re near it – but that’s hardly likely. Anyhow, sit tight for a while until you receive further instructions. Won’t be long, I’m sure. Over and out.’
Mason sat back in his seat. ‘Sod it!’ he said, then added, ‘We were close.’
‘D’you think they’ll find it again?’ Holman asked.
&n
bsp; ‘Who knows? They lost it before.’ He glanced nervously around, looking through the apertures out at the fog-shrouded streets. ‘Must say I don’t much like sitting around in the open like this.’
‘Nor me,’ said Holman. ‘It’s too vulnerable. Let’s get over against a building. It’ll give us some shelter, at least.’
He moved the vehicle forward more slowly this time, angling it across the wide road, looking for a building that might give it some protection.
It was just then that the bus emerged from the fog like a huge red monster, its lights appearing a split second before it like two glaring, searching eyes. Its front was splattered with a darker red, the bloodstains of the many victims it had struck down in the course of its frantic journey. It swerved towards their vehicle and, guessing the driver’s intention, Holman pressed down hard on the accelerator in an effort to get clear, but he was too late.
The bus struck their vehicle side on, towards the rear. They felt themselves lifted violently as the vehicle was pushed into the air and then over on to its back. The grey world became suddenly black.
For the second time that morning, Janet Halstead felt the room spin dizzily around her. She was beyond the point of exhaustion, she knew. What little sleep she had had during the past few days had been fitful and disturbed and last night’s had been interrupted by the fresh, major crisis. But she had to keep going; countless lives depended on the work she and her colleagues were involved in. She realized Professor Ryker and his team of scientists, microbiologists and virologists were close to the answer and wondered if it had really been necessary to send Holman out into the fog once again. She sighed wearily, wondering if it was just her concern for the man himself that caused these thoughts; she had grown fond of him in a maternal way and it made her uneasy to see him used as a pawn, an instrument, by the great body of officials that ruled the country.
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