“I don't know,” admits Tony, “but it seems London's ghosts are getting more substantial by the hour. Can I offer you a lift? I've got a cab waiting.”
Chapter 8: The Beginning of the End
The hospital emergency department is chaotic; doctors and nurses rushing back and forth trying to determine which patients need help most urgently. As far as Graeme can see, the answer is simply all of them. Young and old, rich and poor, all have been struck down by the foul smog that has descended on London. Most are parked on trolleys in the casualty section or in corridors. Even in here the air is bad. Smog seeps around closed doors, windows, and through the air vents.
Sandy is awake now, and Graeme clutches her hand, trying to look like a confident man and not sound like a scared boy.
Got to keep her spirits up, he thinks. Can't let her see I'm frightened. People went through worse than this in the war.
“Everything will be all right! Don't you worry,” he tells her.
The girl starts coughing again, a hacking cough that brings tears to her eyes. The mask that Officer Warner gave her is lying beside her on the trolley, and Graeme notices that its inner surface is covered with yellow phlegm.
My god, he thinks, she must have some disease, surely? It can't just be the smog doing that?
“Won't be long now,” says a nurse, pausing for a moment before rushing to put a bucket in front of a man in a business suit who's coughing even worse than Sandy, head between his legs.
The sound of tortured lungs fills the big waiting room. Graeme sees another ambulance draw up outside but before the paramedics can even open the rear doors an official is waving them on. They refuse to move, angrily gesturing at the vehicle. There's a stand-up row as more hospital staff go out to reinforce their man, angry shouts audible through the closed doors despite the coughing of dozens of patients.
“What's going on?” asks Sandy, weakly.
“I think they're full up here, telling them to take folk to another hospital,” he replies.
She clutches his hand more tightly. “Graeme, will you tell my mum I'm all right? I can give you the phone number.”
He helps Sandy take a small phone book from her bag and finds the right page.
“Will you be okay while I go to wait in line?” he asks, nodding over at a row of payphones. An orderly British queue has formed by them, about two dozen strong.
She nods, smiles. For the umpteenth time this evening, Graeme feels a pang of something strange, rather wonderful.
Am I in love with this girl I hardly know? Maybe, he thinks. Bloody funny way to find out, that's for sure.
He gets up and starts to head towards the payphones, then has an idea. He exits the emergency department and goes to look for a call box. As soon as he gets outside, the smog hits him again, the greenish vapor even more acrid than earlier. Soon, his eyes are stinging and he can barely focus on the red telephone box only a few yards away on the street corner.
Is there someone inside? No queue, at any rate, he thinks, running with his scarf pulled up over his nose and mouth.
As he nears the box he sees that there is indeed someone making a call, a woman judging from their clothes and stature. They seem quite agitated, too.
Probably some poor soul come in with a loved one, he thinks. Just like me.
He stops outside the call box, trying not to seem pushy but at the same time willing the woman to finish. It's rude to stare, of course, so he looks vaguely around at the swirling smog, trying to make out headlights or any signs of life. Suddenly a burly, dark-clad figure rushes up out of the murk and barges past him, almost knocking him down. The woman in the phone box screams and grabs the door handle on the inside while the man seizes the outer handle and starts trying to pull the door open.
“Here!” demands Graeme, angrily. “What's your game, eh? You leave her be!”
The dark-clad man gives no sign of having heard Graeme, instead gives a heave and yanks the door open. The woman, caught off balance, almost falls onto the pavement, receiver still in hand.
“He's here, he's followed me! You've got to help!” she shrieks into the phone.
The intruder seizes her by the throat with one hand and slaps the receiver out of her hand with the other. The two struggle as Graeme rushes forward, grabs the man by the shoulder and tries to pull him away from his victim. The man turns around and Graeme looks into a face that is smiling in a way he's never seen before outside horror films.
“You're meddling where you're not wanted, sonny!” says the man, throwing the woman onto the floor of the call box.
“You leave her be you evil bastard!” shouts Graeme, and before his mind catches up with his instincts he's thrown a punch. His fist connects with the round, smiling face and goes into the pulpy flesh. The man seems to shimmer for a moment, like a flickering light bulb, then reels back.
“Oh, this one's got some fight in him!” says the stranger, his voice distorted by half of his squashed mouth.
Graeme looks down at his fist, back at the man, who's now pulling something out of his dark coat. A knife, with a long serrated edge.
“I don't normally do boys, but I'll make an exception for you, sonny!”
Graeme lashes out again, punching harder, taking careful aim at the middle of the face with its lopsided smile. He grabs the man's knife arm with his left hand as his right fist goes through the pulp that isn't quite flesh, and then breaks what isn't hard enough to be bone. There's a weird hissing sound, and the man falls flat onto his back.
“Are you all right, miss?” asks Graeme, turning back to the phone box.
But the woman is gone. So, too, is her black-clad assailant when Graeme looks around.
I must have spoiled the show, in a way, he thinks. Ghosts acting out sick stuff, like it's all about scaring people. What's that about?
Shrugging, he gets into the phone box and replaces the receiver in its cradle before taking out Sandy's little black book.
***
“Lord, another one!” exclaims the driver.
The cab swerves to avoid an abandoned car, standing in the middle of the road, doors open. There is no sign of driver or any passengers.
“How many is that?” asks Tony, looking around as the vehicle disappears into the murk.
“Lost count, boss!” says the driver. “Maybe a dozen. Must be hundreds all over London. Some people don't have my spirit of adventure, eh?”
“Maybe he wasn't expecting a big tip,” returns Tony.
“You might have something there!”
They keep chatting and joking, trying to lighten the mood as the taxi gradually emerges from the smog, following the main road north out of London. Tony feels like a passenger in some fantastic spaceship, rising through the clouds of a hostile world. He feels relief when, on the outskirts of the city, they finally leave the Thames valley and he sees regular street-lights around them and a black winter sky sprinkled with stars above.
“Well, at least we can breathe clean air for the last leg of the journey, eh, boss?” laughs the driver. His habitual jollity has almost recovered after their bizarre experiences in the smog.
“It's a relief,” agrees Tony. “What the hell do you think is happening?”
“No idea, boss!” says the driver. “But I'm sure glad I'm not obliged to sort it out!”
Good point, thinks Tony. What are the authorities doing? Is there something I should be doing, for that matter? God, what a mess it all is.
“Don't worry, boss,” says the driver. “These things often seem better in the light of day, yes?”
Tony looks back at the sea of yellowish smog covering the capital.
“Trouble is,” he points out, “a lot of people aren't going to see daylight, are they? By the way, my name's Tony.”
“Nice to meet you, Tony!” replies the cabby. “I'm Gideon.”
“Gideon?” exclaims Tony, involuntarily, then adds, “Sorry, I was just surprised.”
“No problem! All got Biblical na
mes in my family,” he says, still smiling. “We got a Joshua, a David, a Solomon, and my little sister's a Rachel.”
“That's my wife's name!”
“And a fine name it is, sir,” replies Gideon. “Strong woman, virtuous, brave. Or so I tell my sister when she gets called names at school. Lot of racism about these days. Not good for us folk just trying to make something of our lives.”
“No, no it isn't,” agrees Tony, feeling vaguely ashamed. “Some people are just ignorant.”
“Too right, Tony! Well, here we are, or very nearly,” adds Gideon.
The taxi passes a sign, HEATHROW 1 MILE, and then another sign warning of low flying aircraft. There is a roar and a large plane passes overhead, flashing red and green lights, the only thing to be seen in the pitch darkness. The airliner recedes into the distance, and Tony leans forward to peer ahead. He can see runways outlined in landing lights. Heathrow, a US bomber base during the war, is just far enough from London to avoid being fogbound.
“That's the place,” comments Gideon, “flights coming in round the clock, now. Very annoying for the locals! You should hear them complain! But what I say is, ‘You can't stop progress!’”
“True enough,” agrees Tony. “Wherever it's taking us, it's got us in its grip good and proper.”
And there are far worse things than progress, he adds to himself.
***
Charlotte can't sleep. The acrid stink of the smog has crept into her flat, despite her efforts to insulate the windows with old pairs of pantyhose.
But it's not the smell, she thinks. It's my conscience.
She gets out of bed, pulls on a heavy overcoat to keep out the chill, and goes to the window. She can make out blurred patches which must be streetlamps. A slightly brighter, more diffuse glow appears, and then passes by. She feels a slight rumble.
More likely a big truck than a night bus, she thinks. If any buses are running, that is.
Charlotte peers into the gloom seeking distraction, just as she stared into the glow of nursery fire, a girl at a loose end on a long-past winter's night.
She thinks of the patterns she saw in the flames. Dragons, knights, Alice and the Red Queen. That was before I found out that some things in fairy tales exist in real life. Ghosts. Sorcerers. Devils.
Suddenly, the street is alive with movement, not road traffic, but a crowd. Dark shapes running, voices raised in panic or anger. Charlotte can see lights held in upraised hands.
Are those burning torches?
She hears the neighing of frightened horses, the crash of glass, rowdy cheering, and then a series of loud bangs in the distance.
Gunfire? Have riots broken out?
Charlotte decides to open the window despite the smog, raises the sash and leans out. She can hear the shouts more clearly now. The language is English but the accents are odd, Cockney but somehow distorted. But amid the flurry of shouts, she can make out one phrase repeated over and over:
“No Popery!”
For a second, it doesn't register, then she leans back inside and slams the window shut. She dredges up vague memories of her costly schooling, a teacher who tried to impart a love of British history.
‘No Popery,” she thinks. I know that from somewhere.
Then she remembers. It was the slogan of the mob during the Gordon Riots, an outburst of religious violence that almost destroyed London.
When was it? 1780 seems about right. My God, every act of violence, every moment of terror, every impulse of hatred is rising up out of the past. All the dark ghosts of London are emerging from the smog.
The phantom rioters vanish as quickly as they arrived. The street is silent again, but still smog-bound. Charlotte goes to the phone, then remembers that she can't contact Bryce directly. She walks into her tiny kitchen instead, opens a drawer, and takes out a small brown-glass bottle. She turns it over in her hands, reading the label for the hundredth time. It reads, “Eye Drops, Not for Internal Use.”
The bottle does not contain eye drops, and the contents are intended for internal use.
I'm surrounded by lies, she thinks. How did I get tangled up in all of this? With him? And where will it end?
She goes back into her bedroom and sits in an armchair. She dozes fitfully till a slight diminution in the darkness tells her that dawn, of a sort, has come.
***
“Lockheed Constellation! What a beauty!” shouts a plane-spotter, pointing his camera into the night.
A great silver airliner lands at – what seems to Tony – a dangerously high speed, somehow slows and then taxis towards the passenger terminal. A wheeled staircase is shoved out when the plane comes to a halt, and the ground crew position it carefully as the door swings open.
Tony remembers the hand-lettered sign in his pocket and takes it out. The first passengers appear at passport control, and start to go through the rigmarole of having visas checked.
Tony tries to make out Rachel's father. Nate Rubin, fifty-four, wiry, full head of gray hair, not too tall, he thinks. I should have brought a photo with me, though. Didn't even think to ask Rachel if she had one.
As the first group of passengers file into the Arrivals lounge, there are two or three men who, from a distance, might fit his father-in-law's description. Relatives and friends rush forward to embrace, businessmen and bureaucrats exchange more formal greetings. Then Tony spots a man, who seems about fifty, looking around, remembers his sign, and holds it up. RUBIN. At the sight of the word, the man gives a wave, picks up his luggage, and struggles through the turnstile. Tony rushes forward.
“Mr. Rubin? Welcome to England!” he says.
“Call me Nate, everybody else does!”
They shake hands awkwardly, one struggling with suitcases while the other tries to put away a piece of folded cardboard.
“I'm guessing you had help with the sign?” asks Nate.
“Yes, Emily helped, hence the wobbly letters,” replies Tony. “Here, let me help you with those. We'd better move or all the taxis will be gone.”
“Ah, those famous London taxis,” says Nate. “Looking forward to that. Not to mention sightseeing.”
“Ah,” says Tony, lifting Nate's biggest suitcase. “You might have some problems with that.”
“Right, the pilot mentioned it as we were coming in to land,” says Nate. “Who'd have thought I'd arrive in London to find a fog like something out of Dickens or Sherlock Holmes? Kind of quaint.”
“Wait till you smell it,” warns Tony. “Nothing quaint about it. And I have to tell you now so you know, it's not just the smog. There are . . . presences, in it.”
“Presences?” asks the older man, as they exit the terminal and head towards the taxi rank. A driver hurries forward to take Nate's luggage.
“Yes,” says Tony. “You know how Rachel has this special power? Sees ghosts? Communicate with them, help them sometimes?”
Nate nods.
“Well, now a lot of other people are seeing ghosts in the same way.”
They get into the cab and Tony shares what he knows as they head back into the smog-shrouded metropolis.
***
Rachel sleeps fitfully under a heap of blankets, body enfolding her daughter much as Emily's is curled protectively around Bradshaw. Emily sleeps deeply at first, having gone to bed so much later than usual. But as the night draws on, the girl starts to stir and mumble. Rachel listens hard but can't quite make out the words.
Would I feel better if I could? she wonders.
Occasionally, a noise from the smog-bound city interrupts Rachel's light slumbers. Eventually she gives up trying to distinguish real from ghostly sounds. Sirens are probably lingering relics of wartime terrors, she feels sure. But what about shouts of panic or rage, alarm bells, masses of people racing along the sidewalk?
Impossible to know, impossible to help, she thinks. I can only look after my own as best I can.
Rachel wakes one more time to feel Emily stiff, not breathing. For a moment, she fears th
e worst, then realizes that Emily is tense, alert. Then she hears the whispering and knows the Sentinels are near. Rather than face them again, she pulls the blankets over both of them and gives her daughter a reassuring squeeze. She feels a slight movement.
“It's all right,” Emily whispers. “If we can't see them they can't see us.”
Another squeeze.
“Honey, do you know what they want?” Rachel whispers.
“They want to stop the things that live on the other side,” replies Emily.
“The other side of what?”
“They didn't say,” says the child. “But they're very worried about it. And angry, too.”
Rachel can think of nothing to say. After a while, Emily starts to breathe deeply, regularly, and eventually Rachel, too, finds true sleep.
After what seems like only a moment, Rachel wakes into the blackness of a winter morning with the impression of a dream fading in her mind.
Tony was there, she thinks, and Emily. And someone else, someone I know, but I couldn't see their face.
Then the images are gone, and she starts to get up. Emily stirs, anxiously murmurs something about a man with a pig's face.
“Good morning sleepyhead,” says Rachel, “time for our porridge!”
“Are dreams sometimes real?” asks Emily.
“Sometimes,” Rachel admits, “but I don't think you need to worry about any piggy-faced men coming to get you.”
***
The thirteen men meet at eight a.m. As members of the Order arrive, each one brings a slight whiff of the smog with him, the taint of the polluted air on his clothes, his hair. All are wearing the masks distributed by the government, though not over their mouths and noses. They have them ostentatiously hanging about their necks.
Lord Garmouth, first to arrive as usual, nods in approval as each member arrives.
“Well done, gentlemen,” he says when all are seated. “It's important to give the peasantry a false hope that can be dashed at some point, to add to the general sense of confusion. Those we serve will be pleased.”
The Smog (The Sentinels Series Book 3) Page 10