by Tim Flanagan
Through the crack in the door frame they watched as one of the windows in the front door erupted in a shower of glass shards. A gloved hand then reached through and twisted round until it found the lock. The fingers fumbled about, feeling for the outline of the lock, identified the latch and pulled it up to release it.
The lock clicked again, and the door sprung open.
Two men stood in the door frame. They were dressed as if they were going hunting with padded tweed waistcoats, thick jeans and heavy walking boots. To complete the look they each carried a hunting rifle in their hands. Today, instead of hunting grouse or pheasant, they were hunting humans.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ shouted one of the men into the house. ‘We won’t hurt you. We're survivors like you.’
The two men cautiously stepped into the hall crushing the shattered glass beneath their heavy shoes. On the left they could see an open door to the dining room, whilst on the right another door opened into a bedroom. On the bed was a large unzipped hold-all with clothes hanging out. The first man silently pointed to the bedroom, signalling that he was going inside whilst the second man continued to move along the hall towards the kitchen.
‘Survivors are going to Osborne House,’ said the first man again, trying to tempt the occupants of the bungalow out of hiding. ‘You will be given food, shelter and protection from the creatures,’
As soon as the first man stepped into the bedroom, Tracker emerged from behind the door. He swung his fist into the man's face causing him to stagger backwards before his knees gave way and he fell onto the ground, holding his broken and bloody nose.
‘We’ve already tasted your protection once,’ said Tracker.
Suddenly the doorframe exploded in a shower of wood. Seeing his colleague sitting on the floor with blood over his face, the second man had released a shot from his rifle towards Tracker, who managed to dive back inside the room just in time. Tracker grabbed his gun and waited for the man to enter the room, but all he heard was talking from within the hall.
‘It's safe. You can come out now Tracker,’ shouted Steven.
Emerging from the room, he saw Steven standing behind the second man with his gun in his back. Georgia had collected the men’s weapons.
‘What are you doing?’ asked the first man, wiping the blood from his nose. ‘You have no way of surviving on your own. The creatures will find you and kill you. Come with us, we are part of a growing community that is safe.’
‘How many elderly people are in your community?’ Steven asked.
‘Almost none. What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘And how many disabled people?’
‘None. The last ones died on the journey to the island. Why?’
‘Where did you come from?’ interrupted Tracker.
‘London. We were part of the Downing Street Community that merged with two others to come here. The island allows us to pool our resources and skills and work together. There was supposed to be a third community, but something had gone wrong. Contact had been lost. We think their building had been breached, making them vulnerable to creature attacks.’
‘In Downing Street, had many in your community been ill?’
‘Yes, lots. People died everyday, despite the medical team trying to help. They didn’t seem to be able to do anything to stop it.’
‘What about since you’ve been here?’
‘The only ones to have died have been those too old to work. Some members of the community are more vulnerable to infection than others. I guess they just simply gave in. What’s your point?’
‘It is no coincidence that the death rates have gone down since you came to the island. Your community is being manufactured and manipulated so only the strongest survive.’
The second man laughed and shook his head.
‘There’s no way that can be true,’ he said.
‘Even if it was,’ continued the first man. ‘What would be the harm in that?’
‘A strong community where everyone has a function would certainly be the most efficient. But, that’s not what the human race is about. What if the elderly are your parents? What if a disabled child is your son? We should not be picking and choosing who lives and who dies. What if you fell and broke your leg so badly that you couldn’t work within the community? Would you be happy to be rejected by them and left to die?’
Suddenly the conversation was interrupted by a crackle of static followed by a distant voice.
‘Jonas. Report in.’
Tracker looked towards the first man. Both then looked at the walkie-talkie that was hooked to his belt. He quickly made a grab for the walkie-talkie but Tracker expected it and swung his rifle round and knocked it out of his hand. It spun across the floor towards the bungalow entrance and the shattered pieces of glass. Tracker leapt over and scooped it up in his hand.
‘Jonas…. Are you there?’
Tracker walked into the dining room and pressed the button on the side of the handset.
‘Jonas here,’ he said, trying to sound like the first man as much as he could. ‘Poor reception. Nothing to report.’ He released the button and waited for a response.
There was silence for a few seconds. Tracker wondered if he they had noticed that the voice sounded different, or maybe there were code words that he should be using but didn’t know.
Eventually the handset crackled to life again.
‘What about the boat?’
‘Seems to be a stray, unmanned boat. No sign of anyone,’ Tracker replied.
Again, there was a silence that seemed too long for a normal conversation. Tracker was sure the person on the other end of the line knew there was something wrong.
‘Report back to Fort Albert. Out.’
Tracker hooked the walkie-talkie onto his belt and went back into the hall. Georgia had tied the hands of the first man behind his back with some string from the kitchen. Tracker looked at the two men. They both had a faint smile across their faces and appeared to be more relaxed. Tracker had a bad feeling. He wondered if the men had overheard his conversation and knew that help would soon be on its way.
‘Let’s tie them up and get out of here,’ he said to the others. ‘I have the feeling we will soon be joined by others.’ He looked at the first man who turned away, not wanting to reveal anything.
‘What if no one else comes?’ asked Georgia. ‘We can’t leave them at the mercy of the creatures.’
‘When we get a safe distance away, we can radio in their location.’
As soon as both men had their hands tied securely behind them, Georgia then started working on binding their ankles together. Steven rummaged through the kitchen, looking for useful items to take whilst Tracker searched the men, taking their car keys, a short knife and various pieces of paper with writing on.
Steven went out to the car. In the back were more weapons, some bottles of water and a map. He added their bags to it then went back inside. Georgia had finished securing the men. Tracker was carrying a brightly coloured beach towel he had found. As they left the bungalow, he tied the towel around a lamp post at the front of the property as a sign for the men’s rescuers. Georgia was right - the men did not deserve to be left as food for the creatures.
As soon as the other two were inside the car Steven put his foot on the accelerator and spun the car round in a squeal of rubber so they were facing away from the sea. Georgia spread a map out across her knee and directed him out of the holiday park.
15. The Wailing Wall
As soon as it was possible, Rhys Avall had ridden his motorbike away from the Forest of Dean towards London. He entered from the west side, beneath the normally busy flight path to Heathrow Airport, but today, there were no aeroplanes in the sky waiting to land. He continued towards the centre of London and a small area north of Brentford where his son, Steffan, rented a small apartment along with many other commuters to the city.
As he entered the densely populated area, the houses appeared to enclose the road
on both sides. Rhys rode his bike slowly, being cautious and checking each corner for a street name, as well as any sign of life. After a few minutes of coasting along the pavements, which were clearer to ride on than the roads, he spotted the street name he was looking for. He wedged the bike between two cars then checked to make sure no one was looking before unhooking the donestre sword.
The road was deserted.
The only sound came from a loose sign that hung dangerously from a train overpass at the far end of the road. He hugged the brick walls of the buildings, watching as he walked along the road. Occasionally there were signs of break-ins where windows had been smashed or parking meters forced open for the change, but otherwise he saw no sign of life.
Rhys stood in front of a building and read the sign fixed to the wall. It was the address he had been looking for - Ellesmere Apartments. The security door was bent and twisted where it had been kicked in by looters. He stepped over the door and into a small carpeted entrance hall. On either side of the hall were doors to the ground floor apartments, both of them open. Rhys held tightly to his sword ready to use if looters attacked him, or the tenants of the apartments, if they were still alive, tried to defend their property.
In the centre of the hall was a narrow staircase. He started walking up the steps, treading gently to avoid making too much noise. At the top were two more apartments directly above the ones he had seen on the ground floor.
The door to apartment number three was unlocked.
He reached out, pushed it open and stepped inside. As soon as he looked around, he could tell that no one was currently living there. Everything had been ransacked and thrown about by looters looking for anything of value to steal. Rhys pushed the door back into its splintered frame so he could have some privacy inside his son’s apartment.
The first thing he noticed was the framed photographs on the wall. The first showed a picture of his wife’s sister, Melodie, proudly standing next to a man in his early twenties. From the cap and gown he was wearing, Rhys could see the photograph was of Steffan on his graduation day from university.
He wandered around the apartment and stood beside a desk beneath a window to the front of the building. On the carpet at his feet was a small photo frame that had been knocked from the desk. He picked it up and turned it over. What he saw took his breath away. In the frame was an old tatty black and white photograph, faded in places with small red flecks of rust. In the photograph was a picture of Rhys, his wife and their son, only weeks old and wrapped in a crocheted blanket.
Rhys picked up a fallen chair, sat at the desk and looked at the photograph. It had been so many years since he had seen it that he had almost forgotten that it existed. He placed the photo on the top of the desk and slid one of the drawers out. Inside were lots of receipts as well as old tube train and bus tickets. However, the papers in the drawer on the other side of the desk were more neatly organised. He lifted them out and spread them across the desk top. Amongst credit card and bank statements, he found several payslips, all marked with the HM Government stamp at the top. He went back to some of the bus and underground tickets. Most of them had their journey destination as Vauxhall station in the centre of London. Rhys looked around the room and saw the iconic red and white A to Z map of London on the book shelf. Flicking through the pages, he found Vauxhall station on the south side of the Thames right next to one of the most famous British Government buildings in the city - the MI6 building.
He decided to leave immediately for the MI6 building and see if he could find any trace of his son then come back to the apartment for the night, just in case Steffan returned.
He picked up his sword and retraced his steps out of the building and back to the motorbike.
The streets of London were not so easy to negotiate as some of the bigger, less busy ones that he had ridden on earlier. He followed the main artery into the city until he arrived at the back of Buckingham Palace Gardens then turned right in the direction of the Thames. As he approached Vauxhall Bridge, he could see a massive pile of rubble on the other side where the MI6 building should have been. The twisted metal framework stuck up from amongst the stone and river water had flooded the site leaving nothing more than the fractured skeleton of the building. Covering the bridge was a thick white layer of dust that gave the area an eerie ghostly feeling. He parked the bike on the north side of the Thames and looked over to the remains.
‘I wouldn’t go that way if I were you,’ said a man shuffling up the steps from below the bridge. ‘Don’t worry, I’m no threat to you,’ he said, seeing Rhys instinctively reach down towards a sword strapped to his bike. ‘And, if you’re thinking of robbing from me, you will be disappointed. I have nothing I’m afraid.’
‘What happened to the MI6 building?’ Rhys asked.
‘Don’t know. There was an explosion one afternoon. The sound could be heard right across the city. Like I said - I wouldn’t go that way. No way of telling how strong the bridge is. It’s already got some cracks appearing in it.’ He nodded towards a lamp post in the centre of the bridge which was tipping at an awkward angle. At the base Rhys could see a black split in the pavement, made all the more obvious by the lack of white brick dust.
‘Where are you living?’
‘Just like during the war - in times of trouble, Londoners make their way to the underground. There aren’t many of us, but we are surviving.’
Rhys wondered if the old man had heard his son’s name. ‘Is there anyone you know called Steffan Avall?’
‘No, can’t say I’ve heard his name.’
‘Thanks.’ Rhys decided to head back to Steffan’s apartment to see if he could find any other clue to his son’s location. He twisted the handle on the motorbike and began to turn around.
‘You might want to try the Wailing Wall though,’ the old man suddenly advised.
‘What’s that?’
‘That’s where everyone goes when they’re trying to find someone.
Trafalgar Square. Survivors started writing and pasting pictures up on the wall of the National Gallery and now everyone’s doing it. If he’s alive, your friend might have put up a sign there.’ Rhys nodded. ‘Thanks, I’ll take a look.’
He roared back up the road towards Buckingham Palace, then straight down The Mall and into
Trafalgar Square. He dodged abandoned cars and an iconic red London bus then mounted the pavement and rode into the square. It was eerily silent.
The usually busy tourist spot in London was empty of people. Even the ever present pigeons had flown and were hiding somewhere else. Rhys wheeled the bike around Nelson's column and past the water fountains that were now redundant. Green algae had already begun to grow over the silent water in the pools beneath the fountains. He left the bike at the bottom of the steps then walked towards the columned front of the National Gallery building. Around the base of the columns Rhys could see that the creamy-grey stone wall was covered with writing as well as pieces of paper. It was almost like a massive piece of graffiti had been created.
Rhys studied the writing. There were names written in various colours of lipsticks, marker pens and paint, whatever people could find they had used. Names were usually accompanied by locations around London. In other places photographs had been taped to the wall. Some were small photos of two happy people taken inside a photo booth that would have been kept inside a wallet or purse, others were head shots that had probably been kept in frames and proudly displayed on a wall in someone's home. Every name and photo represented a person that was lost, but not forgotten.
At one end of the long wall Rhys could see a woman trying to stick a photo to the wall. Every few seconds she would sob silently and wipe her nose on her sleeve. It saddened Rhys to see how the human race had learnt to live so quietly and indiscreetly beneath the threat of the creatures. Listening to the woman crying over her lost relative made Rhys understand why this place had been nicknamed The Wailing Wall.
He quickly scanned the wall, looking fo
r his son’s name or a photograph that sparked some sort of recognition in him, but saw nothing. He knew that he would have to leave soon to get back to the apartment before the creatures came out, but he didn’t want to leave without putting up a message for Steffan, just in case he happened to visit.
Looking around him, he saw some bottles of nail paint that had been kicked into a corner. He went over and picked them up, checking each one to see if there was any paint left inside. He discarded two of the bottles but took a shocking red colour back to the wall. He decided to write both versions of Steffan's name. As he began writing the letters, two other people arrived in a car and walked directly towards the wall. The man and the woman knew exactly where to go, checking to see if their message was still there and hadn’t been covered by someone else’s photograph, or maybe they were looking for a sign that their relative was still alive. They glanced across the names, checking to see if they knew anyone. Rhys continued writing. The red paint made the names stand out. He contemplated what message to leave for his son, deciding to write Melodie’s name together with Steffan's home address in Brentford. He was more likely to respond to a name and address he recognised if he happened to see it.
‘Steven Knight?’ said the man who had arrived in the car and was reading Rhys's message.
‘Do you know him?’ asked Rhys hopefully.
‘I heard the name back at the Fort.’
‘What’s the Fort?’
‘Fort Halstead, in Kent.' The man turned to the lady he had arrived with. 'Kim, wasn’t one of the guys from Halstead called Steven Knight?'
'I think so,' his companion replied. 'But he left with those other two.'
'Where did he go?' Rhys asked.
'There were rumours going around that they had left to find other survivors. Went to the Isle of Wight,' said the man.
The lady nodded. 'I heard someone say they were going to rescue a child that had been taken by another community.'
'How long ago was that?'
'Several days now,' Kim replied. 'Come to Halstead with us, we have antibiotics to stop you getting sick from the creatures. We're growing plants and have a supply of water.'