Surviving the Fall: How England Died

by Stephen Cross

  Chapter 10

  Screams rang through the elevator and it swung from left to right as the weight shifted under the panicked stampede away from the corner.

  A man on Harry shoulders, about to pull himself through the hatch, fell as hands grabbed at him. He disappeared into the throng of legs below.

  And then there was a pause in the chaos…

  A terrible, deep noise. A moan that filled the air, an eruption of dread from the corner from the elevator.

  Desperate cries of anguish cut the thick air in response. All semblance of order evaporated. Harry pushed himself and Grace away from the under the hatch as they suddenly found themselves under a mass of bodies trying to climb out.

  “Come on Harry, to the wall,” shouted Grace.

  Another soul wrenching scream, and a fountain of blood spurted high. It splattered a dark red pool like squashed coral on the ceiling. It was followed by the hideous sound of bones crushing and tendons ripping.

  Grace and Harry reached the wall. She could see Taylor, only four people away. So close. He stood still in his corner, placid; although a few strands of hair had escaped his lacquer’s hold and hung over his face.

  A man nearby pulled himself up on the lady’s shoulders in front of him. She buckled under the weight and they both fell.

  “What now?” said Harry.

  “I don’t know,” said Grace. She hugged him tighter.

  She saw Taylor move from the corner of her eye.

  Taylor’s hand moved into his suit jacket and emerged with a gun. The gun that had killed the Professor.

  He raised it into the air and fired. A deafening bang split the air of the elevator and a sharp clang followed as the bullet passed through the metal roof.

  Another second of silence, another shock.

  Renewed panic.

  A moan, answered by another, then the crunch of something breaking, maybe a bone. The ripping sound of flesh. Screaming again in earnest. The death throes of a crowd of people with no way to escape.

  Taylor fired again, and again.

  “Open the doors!” His voiced boomed like the voice of God. It cut across all the screams, all the terror.

  Eventually silence.

  He leveled his gun through the crowd and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit a woman with red hair and a white suit in the head. A small hole in her forehead, but the back of her skull opened like a garish orchard.

  “Open the doors or I’ll kill you all, before they do.”

  He fired again and this time a young man, Grace recognised him from the canteen, fell back, his head dashed with thick rivulets of red.

  The elevator lurched to the left as the people shifted, away from the man with the gun, away from the zombies.

  One person had been paying attention though. The doors hummed into life and they swished open, quickly. The black walls of the elevator shaft stood empty against the lights of the elevator, like the abyss. There was a gap of a few feet between the doors and the shaft wall.

  “Puuuushhh!” shouted Taylor, suddenly a circus ringmaster. He was smiling. The men around him were smiling. And they pushed against those nearest to them.

  Like a wave, their pushing rippled through the crowd until it reached those at the edge of the door.

  The front line grabbed the side of the door, grabbed other people, knuckles white with desperation.

  “Help!”

  “Please, stop!”

  “No!”

  One by one, they slipped over the edge. Some pushed by those next to them.

  Screams sounded then diminished in pitch and volume as their owners fell down the shaft to the ground below. A series of sickening thuds punctuated each dying scream.

  One after another. And still the people pushed.

  Grace buried her head in Harry’s shoulder, and she screamed into his chest. Her heart beat viciously.

  “Puuuusssssshhhhh!” shouted Taylor above the pandemonium. Over and over again.

  The pressure against her and Harry diminished. They had room to breath.

  Room to despair.

  More screams, more thuds.

  The moaning had stopped.

  The was a jerk, and the whine of machinery.

  The lift started to move, slowly at first, then it picked up speed. A bump as it passed over the damaged part of the cable.

  Grace took her head out of Harry’s shoulder and pulled back.

  The lift was nearly empty, only ten people were left; her and Harry, Taylor and his four friends, and two men and one woman, standing still, staring at the lift shaft, tears streaming down their faces.

  One of the men was jabbering, repeating over and over again, “We had to do it, we had to do it, we had to do it.”

  “Well done everyone,” said Taylor. He walked to the door of the elevator and looked over the edge.

  She could run now, and push him, She could kill him just like that.

  Taylor turned and looked Grace in the eye, holding her gaze.

  She was rescued from his stare by a series of heavy thumps on the ceiling. It was the people who had made it onto the ladder.

  Feet appeared in the hole and then a woman dropped down. She landed with a bump and looked around the elevator; confusion.

  “Where is everyone?”

  No one spoke.

  The rest of those who had climbed dropped back in, one by one. The same confusion, but they didn’t ask any questions.

  “It looks like we are going to make it,” said Taylor.

  Grace opened her mouth and moved forward. Harry put a hand on her shoulder and stopped her. He shook his head, tiny movements.

  Grace stopped and stood back against the cold elevator wall, waiting for them to reach the top.

  The motors whirred quietly.

  There was a blood stain on the floor of the elevator door. Five longs lines, where fingers had tried to grip, before their owner plunged into a literal and figurative darkness.

  She was aware of Taylor’s presence, just behind her. She could feel it like a homing beacon in her brain. Anger seethed through her body. She clenched her teeth and gripped her hands into a tight fist. Her nails dug hard into her palms.

  But Taylor was right, they would have all died if he hadn’t opened the door.

  Her anger grew.

  Chapter 11

  There as no indication of the time it took to reach the top. Minutes, hours, Grace had no idea. Her mind was blank, like the snow that used to buzz on old TV sets when the aerial was broke.

  The brightness of topside caught her by surprise.

  The shaft ended suddenly and the elevator was bathed in an unnatural white light, blinding her for a second.

  She blinked several times and rubbed her eyes. A mumble of conversation and the clank of footsteps on the metal floor shook her from her revere.

  Harry’s voice. “Come on Grace, let’s go.”

  Taylor walked past her and she watched him as he walked ahead.

  The topside receiving room was a large hall bathed in bright white light from powerful fluorescents. In the middle of the room was a line of desks with metal detectors and X-ray machines, like an airport. Grace was used to seeing the security checks manned by blanked face soldiers.

  Today, they were all empty.

  The group fell mute, as if scared to break the watchful and deadly silence of the receiving room. Only the distant buzz of the lights broke the absolute emptiness.

  Taylor walked ahead of the group, the other men in suits following him. His footsteps clicked and echoed like a metronome.

  Grace walked after him, her eyes fixed on the back of his head.

  “Grace,” said Harry, following her. “Hey, Grace.”

  She continued walking. She didn’t look at the other survivors, confused and exhausted, nor at the huge hall and its gleaming white. Her gaze was fixed on Taylor.

  Harry pulled her arm. She spun round, the anger inside her wanted her arm to swing, but she stopped it, just in time.
>
  Harry looked shocked. Had he sensed the aborted swing, or was it a look in her eyes? If her eyes looked like her mind felt, then Harry must think she was crazy. She breathed slowly and tried to fix herself in the present.

  Harry guided her behind one of the security gates, behind a large metal detector.

  “Are you ok?” he said, his voice low, his eyes darting up and down to see where Taylor and the others were.

  She nodded. Then she shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  The sounds of screams echoed in her mind. The sound of people scrambling for freedom, for life. And then the sight of them being thrown to the bottom of a lift shaft.

  So she could live.

  “We should let them walk on,” said Harry. “I don’t want to be part of anything that happens with those guys from now.”

  Anger dulled the pain, stopped the voices in her head. Her thoughts suddenly became clear. She shook her head at Harry.

  “We need that usb stick.”

  “No,” said Harry. “He has a gun. He’s insane.”

  “Yes, he is,” said Grace. She walked away, dodging Harry’s attempt to hold her back.

  Ahead, the other survivors from the lift followed Taylor blindly. They looked like they were drunk, dazed. They exited the receiving room.

  Grace knew where they were going, she had taken this journey countless times. After the receiving room was a corridor that led into a series of offices. Fake offices staffed with fake office workers. Then followed an exit into a MOD owned industrial estate. No-one knew it was owned by the MOD, to any visitors it looked genuine, but every company on the estate was a MOD front.

  Then would then come the car park. And beyond, the normal, non-MOD world.

  Except none of it was normal any more.

  Grace followed Taylor closely. She heard Harry behind her, his voice whispering for her to stop.

  But she didn’t stop, she couldn’t. If she stopped the horror in her mind would start again.

  Taylor and the band of numb survivors left the building, entered the car park.

  When thinking about the events that occurred in the next minute, Grace was hard pressed to remember the full series of events. She had only several intense frames in her mind.

  The normal sky. She had been surprised at that. It was blue, a lovely blue.

  The stone in her hand. The large grey stone she had picked up from the garden separating the building and the car park.

  Running, breathing deeply.

  Shouts around her. Pushing away a hand.

  Taylor turning to face her, to look at her. For the first time, his calm exterior shattered. True fear in his eyes.

  The feeling of the rock hitting Taylor’s face would haunt her more than the sight of the people dying in the elevator. The second she felt his skull crack, she knew she had made a mistake, a dreadful and terrible mistake. The rock hitting his head jarred through her arm, right to her spine, to her soul. But she couldn’t stop. The only thing that could make it better was to do it again.

  She followed him to the ground and reigned blow after blow upon Taylor’s face. The sight of his imploded face, white and fragmented skull mixed with bright red blood and purple flesh would stay in her dreams for years.

  But she still couldn’t stop.

  Harry saved her. He pulled her off and wrapped his arms around her again, holding her tight.

  “Sorry,” she whimpered, staring at the dead body on the ground.

  She looked around her. The people, the other survivors, stared at her in horror, their faces twisted in fear and disgust. They backed away.

  “He would have killed you too!” said Grace, her voice breaking into hysteria. “If you had been standing closer to the door, he would have killed you too…” She tailed off. Her legs felt weak. Her knees buckled, and she feel to the floor.

  The cold tarmac offered no comfort. She curled up next to Taylor’s dead body. His pooling blood wet her cheeks. She tried to cry, but she was empty. Her mouth opened and closed in gaping gasps, like a suffocating fish.

  There was the sound of scuffling.

  Some shots.

  Everything went black.

  Chapter 12

  Like a dream the earth rumbled below her. It moaned and lurched, buckling under some unseen force. Like mountains falling.

  Was it an earthquake?

  She was too empty to care. She lay in her darkness and wished for the ground to swallow her up. It was the only way to clear her mind of the images of death that replayed over and over and over.

  She slept.

  Eventually Grace opened her eyes. She was in darkness.

  There was a few seconds of ignorance, and then the reality of the past day hit her like a train. Her breath left her, and she leaned to the side and threw up.

  Hands held her shoulders and a voice said, “Easy, it’s ok.”

  It was Harry.

  She wiped the vomit from her mouth. Harry gently moved her away from the sick. There was plenty of space for the two of them - they were in one of the large fake offices. Harry helped her up and walked her to a nearby desk. He sat her down against it. Moonlight floated in through a skylight. The empty office, quiet and calm, was almost beautiful.

  She looked at him for a moment. He was a handsome man. The Professor had been right. Just an hour or two before Taylor had blown his head off.

  “Why are you still here?” she said.

  Harry shrugged. “Where else would I be?”

  “Anywhere but here. Don’t you have a home to go to?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t really want to know. Not yet. Besides, you needed my help.”

  “Didn’t you see what I did?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “So, why are you still here?” There was an angry edge to her voice, but she couldn’t help it. There was so much anger in her, it had to seep out somehow, or it would eat her up.

  “He deserved it,” said Harry. “I don’t think you did anything wrong.”

  “I killed a man. In cold blood.”

  Harry let out a small laugh. “Taylor shooting the Professor in the head, that was cold blood. Pushing all those people out of the lift… he deserved it.”

  “But he also saved the lives of everyone who made it.”

  “Maybe.”

  She closed her eyes again, but the image of Taylor’s face, imploded like a burst football, blood and skull mixed together in a red soup, flashed in her mind.

  Her eyes shot open.

  Harry had a bruise on his cheek. It looked like his lip had been bleeding.

  “What happened?” she said.

  “When you,” he paused, “took care of Taylor, a few of his cronies went for you. I pushed them off and managed to grab the gun from Taylor’s jacket. I took a few hits. But I managed to let off a few warning shots. They scattered.”

  “Now you’re alone with me. You could be with them.”

  Harry ignored her and rummaged in his pocket. He pulled out a small item.

  “The usb stick…” she said.

  “I think we’ll be struggling to find a computer to use it on. The power is gone.”

  The power was gone… The Facility was gone.

  “What happened, did the bomb go off? I can remember… something…”

  “Yes, about thirty minutes after we reached the surface. You were passed out, I couldn’t wake you. I dragged you into the office here, I wanted to make sure we were hidden from Taylor’s lot in case they came back.” He rubbed his forehead with his hand. His face looked pained. He looked older than he did yesterday. “No other elevators made it up. We were the only ones to get out.”

  So many dead, thought Grace. Was this just the beginning?

  She rested her head back against the desk and let out a sigh. Her body shook involuntarily. Harry sat beside her and she moved her head onto his shoulder.

  “What do we do now?” she said. She didn’t want to make any decisions. The last decision she made had killed a
man.

  “I don’t know. We will have to leave here, and see what’s outside. Is there anywhere you want to go? Anyone you want to see?”

  Her mum. What had happened to her mum?

  “We need to go to Bristol.”

  The Facility was half way between London and Bristol.

  “Should we be heading to the cities? Is it safe?”

  Grace turned to Harry. She had tears in her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. We have to find my mum. I promised her I would call her, but I didn’t.”

  “Ok, Grace. We’ll go to Bristol. We’ll leave tomorrow.”

  She turned her body so she was facing Harry, and she eased herself onto his lap. She wrapped her arms around his waist. If she buried herself in his warmth, in the life of another human, one who hadn’t done the things she had did, she could almost feel the good energy. She could borrow it, and find enough peace to close her eyes and sleep.

  Her body vibrated softly with sobs, and Harry stroked her hair until she drifted from the waking world.

  In her dreams, she reached her home, and Taylor was in her kitchen, leaning over a corpse. He lifted up his mouth, it dripped with blood and entrails. The corpse sat up, its neck hollow, the spine visible. It was her mother.

  Grace leaped up.

  It was still the middle of the night.

  Harry was sleeping.

  Tomorrow, she would have to enter the world again, and see what was left. Of both the world, and of her.