by Guy N Smith
Wooden barriers blocked the road. A red and white police patrol car was parked on the side, one uniformed officer seated behind the wheel, another standing by it, waving for them to continue back up the two-lane road and on to the A5. That in itself was bad enough. It was the third member of the obstruction team who caused Gerald Pitkin's heart to miss a beat. Tiny beads of sweat formed on his forehead. A soldier, stoic-faced, wearing camouflage denims. An automatic rifle was cradled beneath his arm and he watched the Fiat intently as though half-expecting some kind of resistance from its occupants.
Bertha started to wind the window down, but Gerald stopped her. His foot had eased up on the accelerator but now it pressed down hard again and the car picked up speed.
"We'll get back on the A5 and go through Wellington," he said.
Bertha was white-faced, shaken. Harry stirred and sat up in the back. Neither of them said anything. There was nothing to say.
As they dropped down into Wellington, through Ketley, they were aware of an increased flow of traffic coming towards them. Cars, vans, all piled high with luggage, hastily strapped roof racks, occupants with resigned expressions on their faces. Bumper to bumper, they crawled, came to a standstill, moved again.
Yet Gerald Pitkin had to see for himself. He tried to convince himself that it was nothing more than a flow of holiday-makers returning from the Welsh coast. Their expressions? Well, nobody enjoyed coming back off holiday, did they?
There was one other car behind them. He watched it in the mirror. A Reliant three-wheeler, grossly overloaded.
The heat was oppressive. The sky had clouded over, but Gerald knew it would not rain. Four months of drought now. The overcast sky increased the humidity, and Gerald Pitkin tried to tell himself that that was why he was sweating. The back of his shirt and trousers were stuck to the upholstery.
The oncoming traffic was at a standstill by the Cock Hotel. One car had broken down, overheated, and those following were having to overtake it. Impatience was growing. Horns blared. Drivers were leaning out of their windows in an attempt to determine the cause of the delay. And still the road ahead of the Pitkins was free of obstruction.
The second roadblock was some way out of Wellington. It consisted of another patrol car, two policemen, a soldier and, of course, an automatic rifle.
"Damn it!" Gerald Pitkin drove slowly up to the barriers. Apart from the following three-wheeler there was no other traffic here. It was as though the initial panic was over. The public had accepted the situation, resigned themselves to it. They had been told to go back to their homes and die like good citizens. And they were obeying.
Gerald pulled up alongside the barriers, wheels half-turned in anticipation of the U-turn he would be forced to make.
"Sorry, sir." A policeman stepped forward. "I'm afraid you'll have to turn around and go back."
"We're on our way to Shrewsbury. To my brother's place."
"I'm sorry, sir. The A5 and all roads to Shrewsbury are closed."
"There's been an accident?"
"I don't know what's happened, sir. But the roads are all closed. Now, please move on."
The soldier had moved forward as though in support of the constable, the rifle no longer carried casually, the muzzle swinging in an arc until it pointed at the Fiat. "All right." Pitkin nodded. "We'll go back." The three-wheeler was already following them as though the driver had never expected to be allowed through. Like everybody else, he had to satisfy himself that he had made the attempt.
"Well, so much for that," Bertha groaned. "Now for the long haul back to Birmingham. You ought to have phoned the AA first."
"We're not going back," Gerald stated firmly.
"What!"
"I said, we're not going back. Can't you see what's going to happen? By tomorrow there's going to be rioting in the city. Folks won't take this lying down."
"What on earth can we do, then?"
"We'll take a right turn back here." Gerald braked as they caught up with the tail of the traffic queue. "I think it's signposted Little Wenlock. You can get up on to the Wrekin that way."
"How will that help us?"
"We'll ditch the car and go on foot. They can't patrol the whole countryside, they won't have enough men. We'll get through. We'll wait for dark, though, and with luck we'll be in Shrewsbury by morning."
"You're mad," Bertha Pitkin said, but she did not argue.
Harry Pitkin said nothing. He never had been a conversationalist. A loner from boyhood, he accepted life as it was. If his father said they were going on an all-night hike then he would trudge along with them.
Somewhere over the Wrekin there was a rumble of thunder, followed a few seconds later by a flash of lightning. But there was no rain.
Chapter Ten
St Philip's Churchyard was crowded shortly after daybreak. The overnight cloud formation had vanished, and once again the new day was threatened with scorching heat. There was to be no letup.
People sat on the grass, dishevelled, weary after a sleepless night. They came from all walks of life, the social barriers having been destroyed by the Prime Minister's speech a few hours previously. In the background a couple of uniformed and helmeted policemen watched intently. Their presence was only a formality. If anything happened they would be powerless to prevent it. Their radios were futile, for there were not sufficient numbers of police at Digbeth station to answer the call. Every available man was out on the roadblocks.
The crowds were demoralized. Even the early frustration had gone. Despair was widespread. The church was full. Those who were unable to get inside knelt and prayed on the steps. A team of clergymen were administering Holy Communion. Several other religious bodies congregated into separate groups. Others were proclaiming the end of the world, insisting that there was salvation for those who followed in their path. Only they would be saved.
There were political meetings, too, the voices of the speakers carrying in the still atmosphere above the lower tones of those who prayed.
Marcus Vandon rejoiced in the crisis. On six successive occasions he had lost his deposit in local elections; Now at last he would be able to sway the masses. They would listen to him now. He had something positive to offer. Action. The current government was a negative one, deserting its people in their hour of need, leaving the dying to bury their dead.
There was something commanding about Marcus Vandon in spite of his small stature. His voice demanded attention. He had a command of the English language far superior to most politicians. Small of build, it was his eyes, wide and staring, and the lean determined features which made him stand out from other men. Some had compared him with Hitler, and there was a marked similarity. People faced with the curtailment of their freedom as well as possible death are always prepared to listen to alternatives. And Marcus Vandon had a solution to offer. Standing on the small stool which he had brought along to give him an extra few inches in height, he addressed those nearest to him.
"We are being deserted in our darkest hour by those whose duty it is to protect us." he began. "We have been singled out for sacrifice. Our police and armed forces are determined that we shall not escape. Why? I ask you, why?"
He paused for a second, glancing around, noting with satisfaction that his audience was swelling.
"Because of the disease," somebody replied half-heartedly.
"Yes, but why is the disease here in our midst, destroying us? They tell us that an unfortunate accident has come about, and that these bats escaped from the Biological Research Center on Cannock Chase. I put it to you that they were deliberately released!"
An uneasy murmur greeted his words.
"Think about it." Vandon continued, "We have an overpopulation problem. Immigration goes unchecked. Inflation is soaring. An application for an IMF loan has been turned down. Unemployment is approaching the two-and-a-half million mark. What is the answer? I ask you, what is the answer when a ruthless government is determined to stay in power and continue to pursue their poli
cies which have already failed?"
He paused again. Angry mutterings reached his ears, and with difficulty he suppressed a smile.
"I'll tell you. Reduce the population. And that is exactly what this government is doing. It has sentenced all of you to death. Each and every one of you. They have chosen an area which is both highly populated and can be cordoned off efficiently. Within weeks each and every one of you will be dead. Myself included."
"What are we going to do about it, then?" a man at the front of the crowd which surrounded Marcus Vandon asked. "You tell us this, but what's the answer?"
"It is partly your own faults." Vandon lowered his voice, a perfect mild reprimand, a father offering to forgive and help his erring son, "You refused to heed me in the past. Only a small minority gave me their votes, I could have been your mouthpiece, asking these questions in Westminster, and it is doubtful whether this government would ever have dared to attempt such an atrocious act of treason and mass murder had they had one amongst them protesting and remonstrating with them. But it is still not too late, my friends! Are we going to huddle in our homes and await death, as they order us to?"
"We bloody ain't!"
"What else can we do?"
"I'll tell you!" Marcus Vandon stabbed his forefinger in all directions, singling out individuals, making them leaders of men in their own estimation. The choice is yours . . . and yours . . . and yours, sir. We have the numbers, in spite of these hired killers, this so-called British Volunteer Force. They can no more contain us than they can stop the tide from flowing. We must show our strength, and drive these self-appointed upholders of a law which does not exist from our streets! We must break out of this human safari park in which they have enclosed us! Courage is needed, friends. A few will die, but we will all die if we stay. I beseech you, act now! And remember afterwards that it was Marcus Vandon who saved you from certain death."
The two policemen were trying to push their way through the crowd towards Marcus Vandon. Suddenly a dozen pairs of hands. pulled them down, and they were swamped by a human tide of seething fury. Their helmets rolled away, and their hands, clasped over their bared heads, were no protection from the raining kicks and blows as they became the first victims of the rising rebellion.
The clergymen outside the building were still attempting to give Holy Communion to those who knelt patiently in rows on the concrete flagstones, but their muttered blessings were lost amidst the roars of the crowd.
Glass tinkled in nearby Colmore Row where shop windows were already being smashed. A group of teenagers was on the rampage. They had not heard Marcus Vandon's oration, but they sensed the new atmosphere. Just like the old football days.
An old man with dark glasses, wearing a shabby raincoat in spite of the warmth, shuffled his way along the pavement with the aid of a white walking stick. He heard the pounding of running feet and cowered in the darkness of his own blindness. Then the mob hit him, knocking him to the ground, booted feet treading over him as the rampaging youths surged towards Victoria Square.
He lay still, a scarlet pool forming beneath his head, oozing out from the wound in his skull where it had struck the curbstone. Those following in the wake of the first bunch of rioters were slightly more compassionate. Their ranks parted, and they walked around the corpse. Some of them even gave the old man a passing glance, wondering idly how he had died. But it was only the start. There would be many deaths. It was something that each and every one of them had to learn to accept. For only through death would life eventually be found again.
Then the early morning stillness was shattered by the first volley of gunfire, crackling harshly in the city center.
It was a busy day for Marcus Vandon. Later that morning he spoke to a milling throng from the steps of the Town Hall. For once in his life there were few hecklers. His words were greeted with cheers against a background of rifle fire from the bottom end of New Street.
"It is the only way," he yelled, attempting to make himself heard as his speech reached its climax. "We must fight on. Every one of us. For the sake of our families, our homes. Fight!"
Evening saw him in Villa Park, the terraces and stands packed beyond the legal capacity for football matches. Vandon's new band of followers had connected his microphone to the public address system, and as dusk began to cool the fierce heat of the day he exhorted those around him to even greater acts of anarchy.
The conquest of this stadium had not gone without bloodshed. Fifteen or twenty dead bodies lay on the pavements along by the Holte End turnstiles, a thin blue line which had been breached by sheer weight of numbers. Some of the casualties had been civilians, the forerunners of the 70,000-strong mob. As Marcus Vandon had pointed out earlier that day, victory would not be gained without some losses.
Vandon's face was contorted into an expression of maniacal triumph. For him a lifelong dream was coming true. He had seized on an unprecedented opportunity. The anarchy in the Midlands would spread faster than the virus which the bats carried. The government would fall within a week. It was already toppling.
"The hospitals are overcrowded," he yelled. "See for yourselves! The dead and the dying lie in the streets of this, your city. There is only one way to end this disease, and to defeat this militia which those clinging to power by their fingertips have called in at the eleventh hour. Fire, the greatest cleanser of all . . ."
A murmur of shocked horror, the note quickly changing to one of reluctant approval.
"I say that Birmingham must be razed to the ground. Destroyed in the form we know it, and the bats with it. And then we must rebuild. A bigger and better city will rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the old!"
Even as Marcus Vandon's words were echoing around Villa Park, screams were coming from the crowded stands and terraces. People were pushing, a crush-barrier collapsed, and bodies tumbled out onto the pitch. A wave of instant panic was sweeping through the crowd.
"What. . . " Marcus Vandon's eyes bulged, and at that moment he saw and understood. Like swarms of angry giant moths, bats were flitting from beneath the eaves of the stands, pouring out in their dozens, swooping, then hurling themselves venomously at the terrified people who stampeded wildly below them in an effort to escape.
Many of the bats were smaller than the others, uncertain of their newly acquired powers of flight, fluttering short distances then alighting again on the cross sections of steel girders.
The death-swarms had given birth to their offspring. The time of fearful waiting was over. The new strain of the mutated virus was born!
The soaring, twisting bats were silhouetted against the pale blue of the night sky. It was impossible for the terrified watchers below to estimate the numbers as the creatures spiralled upwards as high as the floodlighting pylons, and then dived like irate hornets at the seething mass of humanity which milled on the pitch.
Marcus Vandon, a messiah to the crowds only seconds before, was forgotten instantly. Terrified men and women fought and clawed each other as they tried to force individual ways in the direction of the exits. Many stumbled, fell, and were trampled to death within seconds. A man was screaming, holding a small child above his head in a desperate act of fatherly protection, but the human tide took them both, and they disappeared from sight.
The raised platform from which Marcus Vandon had been speaking tottered precariously. He clutched at the railings, his voice drowned in the screaming of the injured as he attempted futilely to reason with those around him. He felt himself falling, and thudded softly on to a carpet of squashed bodies, a hillock of corpses, broken limbs dangling loosely, features resembling crushed blood oranges. But even six feet above ground level Marcus Vandon was not safe. Others were clambering blindly over every obstacle, heavy boots crushing and kicking in a mad frenzy to escape. He was conscious of the cracking of his skull, a brief second of agony, and then, for him, it was all over.
Those who had climbed the pylons watched from a dizzy height as man trampled man below them. They were i
n the safest place . . . except for the bats! A fifteen-year-old boy threw up both hands in an effort to ward off a particularly aggressive bat which flew at him for the third time. He felt himself falling, grabbed wildly, missed his hold, and plummetted head first from his perch. A few feet below him he struck two of his colleagues who were endeavouring to climb down, taking them with him on his death fall.
The bats were relentless in their crazed flight, dive-bombing the crowds, reluctant to desert the stadium. The young hung on the stands, watched the antics of their parents, tried to imitate them, and then, when their wings became tired, flew back to rest.
By midnight Villa Park was quiet except for an occasional groan from someone amongst the piles of strewn corpses, a luckless person who still clung hopelessly to life. Bodies lay on the terraces and in the stands, and it would have been impossible even to estimate the death toll.
No ambulances had come. None had been mobile at all that day.
In the guarded Council Chambers plans were being drawn up for the removal of corpses from public places by means of refuse carts.
Gerald Pitkin had watched the sky darkening over the Wrekin for the past half-hour. His head ached, and his eyes seemed to smart in their sockets. Beside him, his wife sat in the passenger seat of the Fiat as though dozing, but he knew that although her eyes were closed she was not asleep. Harry stared out of the window at the rear, expressionless, unspeaking.
"It's nearly dark." Gerald tapped Bertha on the shoulder. "I think we'd better be moving."
"D'you think it's worth it?" Her eyelids flickered open as she spoke, and he saw that she had been crying silently to herself. "I mean, we won't make it, will we?"
"Of course we shall," he replied, trying to sound confident. "It's only about ten miles from here, across country."
"But those guards . . ."
"We'll keep our eyes peeled," he assured her, and eased his door open. "Bet you we don't see a single one."
All three of them got out. The Fiat was parked in an open gateway, its front wheels resting on the stubble of early harvested barley.