Adrift 2: Sundown

by K. R. Griffiths

On the crowded, slow-moving streets of Camden, the lights were blinking on and the stream of daytime shoppers was slowly preparing to hand over ownership of the streets to the night-time revellers. Much of the expansive market was shutting for the day, the stalls trying to shift a few last items before the sun went down.

  The vampire erupted near a railway bridge, spearing up from the ground into a crowd of people who were determined to spend the last few minutes of daylight sitting in a beer garden at the rear of one of Camden’s most popular pubs.

  It emerged from the dirt already swinging.

  Its first victim didn’t even have time to scream.

  But others did.

  *

  In Oxford Circus, the traffic had slowed to a crawl as the evening rush hour began. Tourists moved in almost aimless herds, winding their way from one pedestrian-crossing to another, waiting patiently for the traffic to ease, or simply walking out in front of it and delaying the whole process still further.

  The vampire rocketed from a manhole in the middle of the road, leaping onto the roof of a bus under the gathering darkness, and shrieked as it clawed a courier from his bicycle, sweeping him up and tearing him apart in a dull explosion of blood that spattered across windscreens and stunned faces.

  In the distance, others answered.

  With a roar, the vampire charged toward a group of stunned pedestrians, impacting upon them like a speeding combine harvester, chewing up muscle and sinew as it carved through them before smashing into the window of a large department store.

  *

  They came from the river; from the soft ground beneath parks and gardens. From the tunnels and stations of the Underground; scattered across the city, but rising as one.

  Blood flowed across London.

  And the last scraps of weak daylight dissolved.

  Sundown.

  24

  Stay in the light.

  Jennifer Craven’s warning rattled in Leon Mancini’s head like small arms fire as the van headed toward London.

  It would be full-dark by the time the van reached the city, despite the fact that it was only around six in the evening, and it felt like reaching England’s capital was taking forever. The roads around the south of the country were nothing like those back home: no wide, fast-moving highways here; instead, single-lane traffic crawled at infuriatingly slow speed through village after village.

  And then there were the ‘roundabouts.’ Navigating them was logical enough, but the behaviour of the other drivers made each one a little hair-raising.

  And slowed them down even more.

  If Mancini had been able to speak to a local, they would have reassured him that the van was actually making short work of the trip to the capital; he wouldn’t have believed them.

  Still, the journey did give Mancini plenty of time to absorb the story that Jeremy Pruitt told. The Rennick family had attempted to satisfy a vampire rising on a massive scale, unleashing the creatures on a cruise ship and then sinking it to bury the evidence.

  Not a bad plan, all things considered, but somewhere along the way, one of the ship’s passengers had begun murdering the monsters, and what was left of the UK arm of the Order when the dust settled was Herbert Rennick, an idealist in his twenties with more balls than sense, and a group of young clerics, most of whom, Jeremy said, had entered the mansion, but had never come back out.

  But Dan Bellamy had, and Herbert Rennick had bundled him into a chopper, fleeing to the north just minutes before Mancini and his team arrived at the compound. According to Pruitt, the Rennicks owned an apartment in the city. It was there that Herb would head, the Brit was sure of it.

  In a way, Pruitt’s certainty made Mancini’s heart sink. If Bellamy and Rennick had really disappeared; if they were on the wind, never to be seen again, he wouldn’t now be heading toward the epicentre of the apocalypse.

  Braxton drove, navigating the winding roads with only the occasional curse, and when Pruitt finished filling them in, Mancini held up a hand to silence him and pulled out his cellphone. He was only supposed to break radio silence in extraordinary circumstances.

  He figured this counted, and punched in a number.

  Jennifer Craven answered immediately.

  “We’re too late,” Mancini said. “The vampires are already on the surface. By the look of things, they have been for a while. The Rennick compound is gone.”

  For a moment, Craven said nothing, and he wondered if she was suppressing a smirk at his sudden acceptance of the fact that vampires did exist after all.

  “What about the Hermetic?” she asked finally.

  Mancini was sitting in the front passenger seat alongside Braxton. He glanced through the windshield at the sky ahead. Smoke was gathering over London, and several small fires lit up the skyline from east to west.

  “Looks like he’s in London.”

  “You know where?”

  “Maybe. But London ain’t looking so healthy right now.”

  “Yes. I’m watching the news. Tragic. Do you know where the Hermetic is?”

  Mancini gritted his teeth.

  “We ran into the guy who called you. Pruitt. He thinks he knows where Rennick took him.”

  “So what’s the problem? Go get him.”

  “Half the team’s already dead, Jennifer. I damn near died myself, and that was only coming up against one of them—”

  “You saw one? What happened?”

  “Some people died, some people ran. Defeat, Jennifer. That’s what happened. Comprehensive fucking defeat. And now you want us to go into a city full of these things?”

  Craven snorted.

  “Like I said, I’m watching the news. They don’t know what they are dealing with yet: reports are talking about sudden bouts of mass hysteria; people attacking each other or killing themselves. But they do know how widespread it is. So far, eight separate incidents have been reported across London. Which means eight vampires.”

  “Yeah,” Mancini hissed, “eight so far. I doubt this is all playing out in front of the cameras, Jennifer. We have no idea how many—”

  “It’s a big city, Mr Mancini. I’m sure a man with your qualifications should be able to grab one civilian and get out in one piece. That is what I pay you for. No?”

  Mancini pulled the phone away from his face for a moment, fighting back the urge to throw it out of the window. When he pressed it back against his ear, Craven was still talking.

  “…chances of us stumbling across another Hermetic in this or any other lifetime are virtually zero. You do realise that understanding this Dan Bellamy could be the key to stopping the vampires once and for all? To understanding how they are able to live for so long? Their abilities? War is coming, Mr Mancini. The secret is out. In a few hours, there won’t be anyone left on the planet who doesn’t know about vampires, and humans tend to respond badly to threats. It doesn’t matter whether the vampires come after us, or we go after them. The end result will be the same. We’ll need to be able to defend ourselves with something other than walls. He is the key.”

  “Great,” Mancini said. “And what if I can’t get him?”

  Craven paused.

  “Then don’t bother coming back. And pray for a quick death.”

  She hung up, and Mancini gripped the phone so tightly that he felt the plastic casing beginning to buckle.

  He sucked in a deep breath, and focused on the burning city ahead.

  Braxton shot a glance at him.

  “Mancini? What’d she say?”

  He slipped the phone back into his pocket.

  “We go on,” Mancini growled. “But at the first sign of trouble—the first fucking sign—we’re turning this piece of crap around and hightailing it outta here. I don’t give a fuck what Craven says. I’ll take her Gulfstream as severance pay. Fucking gladly.”

  Braxton glanced at him again, his eyes widening when he saw the anger written on Mancini’s face, and apparently thought better of asking any more questions.

 
; When the furious silence became too much to bear, Mancini leaned forward and flicked on the van’s ancient radio, twisting the dial until he heard a breathless news reporter reeling off facts that they clearly had trouble believing.

  There had been outbreaks of ‘unexpected violence’ across the centre of the city, and large parts of London to the north of the river were burning. All residents of the city were advised to evacuate immediately or to barricade themselves in their homes until the all clear was given. The military had been called in to restore order…

  In the rear of the van, Montero and Burnley were bickering quietly, just as they had for most of the flight across the Atlantic.

  Jeremy Pruitt just sat there, frowning at the floor, muttering to himself.

  Mancini tuned it all out, and tried to persuade himself that Jennifer Craven wasn’t worth it; that she hadn’t been for a very long time. That the only rational thing to do was turn the van around and get the hell out of England immediately; find some way to disappear.

  He said nothing, glaring at the road ahead, watching the miles creep by.

  His gut told him that his entire world was about to be reduced to a single imperative.

  Stay in the light.

  25

  Conny only rolled out from beneath the train when Remy finally began to struggle. She released her grip on him, and he scampered out into the tunnel. It was the best indication she could get that it was truly safe for her to move.

  She hauled herself to her feet, a little unnerved at how shaky her legs felt beneath her.

  Remy was busy peeing. He glanced at her apologetically, and Conny almost laughed. She had damn-near pissed herself beneath the train. Under the circumstances, she thought he’d done pretty well to hold it in.

  She left her flashlight switched off, seeing only by the soft glow of the train’s emergency lights. Twisting her head left and right, trying not to look at Robert Nelson’s body and failing miserably, she saw only darkness in either direction.

  “Which way, Rem?”

  Remy finished his business and trotted toward her, turning to face the left. The opposite direction to the one the monsters had taken. He looked up at her, tongue lolling out, and seemed relatively like himself for the first time in a couple of hours.

  “Left it is,” Conny said quietly, and smiled.

  She detached Remy’s chain leash from his collar, afraid of the noise it might make. She would travel in complete darkness, she decided, sticking to one tunnel and using her light only occasionally, if she needed to get her bearings. Ideally, she wanted to travel completely silently, too. She placed the chain gently on the ground, and Remy gave it a look of disdain.

  “Now, stick by my side, right, Rem? No running off and leaving me down here, okay?”

  Remy tilted his head and sighed indignantly.

  Conny shot a final, despairing glance at Robert Nelson’s body, and set off.

  She moved slowly, listening to every sound. The soft whisper of her boots as she crept through the tunnel; Remy’s claws, clacking occasionally on the concrete floor, making her heart leap. Something dripping somewhere. After around ten minutes, she heard faint scratching that made her pull up in alarm, until she realised it was probably just a rat. That was a good sign, she decided. Rats tended to flee from predators.

  Like cowards.

  Conny shook the thought away with a grimace.

  She pressed on.

  *

  The light hurt her eyes, even before she rounded the bend and saw the distant platforms and the signs, and finally knew exactly where she was.

  Monument Station, on the north bank of the Thames.

  It was one of London’s less-busy stations, and by the look of the platforms, it had been evacuated and secured: the cavernous space was flooded with the same soft orange light that she had seen in the ghastly train carriages. The amber glow made the instantly-recognisable walls of the station otherworldly and threatening, barely keeping the shadows at bay.

  She reached for the radio clipped to her shoulder, and thought better of it. She’d made it this far by moving silently, and she’d be damned if she was going to blow that at the last minute, when the exit was almost in sight.

  Monument was very close to London Bridge Hospital. Once she reached the safety of the surface, she thought, she could radio for help and head directly to Logan. Get him out of the city entirely, if necessary.

  She approached the light carefully, keeping a watchful eye on Remy, ready to turn and run if he so much as blinked. He trotted beside her as if there were nothing out of the ordinary, and she allowed herself to relax a little. When she reached the platform, she lifted Remy up onto it before clambering up herself. The station remained silent, and she glanced up at the CCTV cameras dotted along the platform, wondering if they were still operational and, if so, whether there was anybody monitoring them.

  Probably not. The Chief Superintendent had said they were shutting down the whole rail network: Monument Station would have been completely evacuated like all the others, security staff included.

  She groaned inwardly when she realised that if Monument was totally empty, the gates to the station would surely be shut. She and Remy would be locked in.

  She quickened her pace, heading up the still escalator and into the small ticketing hall.

  Dammit!

  There were two sets of heavy iron gates at Monument: one in the ticketing hall itself, and another at the top of steps that led up to the street-level exit.

  Both were locked.

  She tested the inner gate. It looked like it had been locked electronically. There was some give in it, but there was no way she could open it manually.

  Remy pushed his nose between the bars, sniffing at the fresh air, and looked up at her hopefully.

  “Working on it, Rem.”

  She glanced back at the escalator, half expecting to see one of the hideous creatures following her. Nothing.

  To the right of the escalator, she spotted a door marked staff only, and she headed for it, clenching her fist in triumph when it opened at her touch.

  Beyond the door, a narrow corridor opened out into a small control room and a couple of offices and storage rooms. Somewhere in those rooms, she would find the button that would open those gates, she was certain of it. She waved Remy inside and closed the door quietly behind her, heading for the control room.

  Inside, she saw four blinking monitors delivering the monochrome CCTV feed from the cameras dotted around the station, and a control panel.

  She ran her fingers across the buttons until she spotted what she was looking for.

  Inner Gate.

  Outer Gate.

  She hit them both, and sighed in relief when she heard the hum of the motor revving up out in the ticketing hall. Turning to the CCTV monitors, she saw the inner gate opening.

  “Time to go, Rem,” she said.

  And she flinched.

  Had she just caught movement on another monitor in the corner of her eye?

  Something on the platform that she had walked across minutes earlier?

  “Time to go!”

  She ran, figuring she had thirty seconds, maybe less.

  Burst out into the ticketing hall with Remy at her side.

  Through the inner gate while it was half-open, up the tunnel toward the steps and—

  The outer gate was padlocked.

  The electronic mechanism had lifted the outer gate open a little way; less than a foot, she guessed, but further progress was prevented by a heavy chain and a sturdy-looking lock.

  Remy scampered through the narrow gap easily.

  Conny slammed into the unforgiving metal, jamming herself into the opening that was almost big enough to accommodate her. She pushed with her legs, wedging herself between the gate and the floor.

  She wasn’t going to make it.

  She screamed in frustration, and once she started, she couldn’t stop. Terror and grief and guilt; pouring out of her lungs until she f
elt sure she could never stop.

  “Hey, hey, calm down. We’ll get you out of there. Calm down, it’ll be okay.”

  Her eyes flared openat the sound of the voice. Standing in front of the gate, with Remy at his side, she saw a British Army soldier wearing full tactical gear.

  “It’s behind me,” she snarled, unnerved at the note of primal terror in her voice.

  He lifted a flashlight, pointing it through the gate.

  “There’s nothing behind you.”

  Conny twisted, craning her neck to look back through the iron bars. He was right. The steps that led down to the ticketing hall were empty.

  I’m losing my mind.

  “Hang on,” the soldier said. “We’ll get you out.”

  He waved a hurry up gesture at someone that Conny couldn’t see, and moments later she heard keys rattling.

  When the gate opened, Conny fell out, collapsing to the ground, and began to scrabble away from Monument Station. The soldier who had spoken began to help her to her feet, and she heard another behind her, re-locking the gate.

  “There are things in the tunnels,” Conny gasped, “creatures—”

  “Not anymore,” the soldier said grimly, and he pointed up.

  To the west, above the city’s skyline, the night glowed amber.

  London was burning.

  “They’re on the surface?” she asked weakly, already knowing what the answer must be.

  He nodded, and took her arm, leading her away from the entrance to the station.

  “First reported sighting was in Hyde Park around thirty minutes ago. There have been multiple sightings since then, all over the centre of the city. Nothing confirmed, but it’s chaos out there. Lots of casualties.”

  “Thirty minutes,” Conny repeated absently. “You guys got here quick.”

  “We were already on our way.”

  Conny stared at him, puzzled.

  “The military was called in when we lost the police.”

  “Lost,” Conny repeated slowly. “But that would mean…”

  “You’re the only one that has come back, yeah. As far as I know, anyway.” His stern expression crumbled a little.