by Simon Rosser
Amber steered the small boat under the Vauxhall and Lambeth bridges without any problems. Both were traversed with the liquid-based tendrils, which disappeared off in all directions to various parts of the city.
As she passed under Westminster Bridge, the London Eye came into view on the right bank. The massive structure was now just a convenient support for a network of huge water-filled tendrils, which extended back to Waterloo Station behind and to the Sea Life Aquarium just off to the side. It seemed that none of Earth’s creatures had been spared by the celestial event, which had begun only 24 hours earlier.
She continued on, the river now bending back around to the right. She navigated under Waterloo Bridge and The Shard finally looked within reach, about a mile further along the river. The steel and glass structure stretched up to the dark clouds, now rolling above the city. She was still too far away to see if it had succumbed to the alien invasion, and prayed that the building may have been spared, due to its height.
The approaching storm was a concern, especially if it was accompanied by lightning. Amber didn't relish being at the top of The Shard in the middle of a lightning storm.
Amber finally reached the Millennium Bridge, also spared from being used as a tendril support structure, and navigated towards the Bankside Pier, a small pontoon used by the river boats. It would be the most convenient location for her to get from the boat and onto solid ground again.
She reached the pontoon and cut the motor.
“Thank you,” she whispered to the engine, whilst patting the black casing. She found some old rope dangling from the pier and tied the boat up, in case she needed to use it again; that’s if the Thames still existed when she returned.
She grabbed her backpack, and climbed out and onto the steel platform, and towards the street. In front of her was The Swan Pub, and behind it, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. To her left was a Pizza Express, which set her stomach rumbling. The thought of walking in and ordering her favourite pizza, a Four Seasons with a drizzle of chilli oil, was almost too much to bear. Her stomach now ached for Italian food. She checked the time; 12.20 p.m. She realised she hadn’t eaten for around five hours. Once she got to The Shard, she’d pull out a few bars of chocolate to keep her going for another hour or so, before having to find lunch.
The quickest route for her to take was along New Globe Walk, which lay directly ahead of her. She could then turn left, onto Park Street, which would take her virtually all the way to St Thomas Street and on to The Shard, about a fifteen minute walk, under normal conditions.
Amber walked up the narrow street, passing an apartment block to her left, which appeared free of any evidence of the alien tendrils. The numerous hanging baskets of flowers were all withered and dead like the rest of the trees and plant life around. She took a left along Park Street. The narrow streets were pretty much free of ash as well, but they were dark, the storm clouds above blocking out much of the natural light that would normally grace them.
Up ahead, the top third of The Shard came into view above the surrounding buildings. She reached a railway bridge that crossed over the street, and checked the dark steel underside of it for any tendrils, but there were none. She ran under the bridge anyway, just in case something was lurking there.
She reached a junction. There were some bicycles laying on the road, and a Bentley and a Jaguar, which had collided head on with one another, the air bags in each vehicle now smothering the ash remains of their owners.
Amber continued along Park Street, passing a Premier Inn on her left. There were numerous vehicles parked up on either side of the street where their owners had left them, now never to return. She reached another junction, checked there were no dangers lurking, and turned right, continuing along Park Street.
As the street narrowed, Amber noticed more of the grey ash now swirling along the pavement, the light wind blowing it towards her. She then heard a faint whining sound, which was just audible above the breeze. She stopped to listen, wondering what it could be. She moved cautiously on, passing numerous small businesses, sandwich shops and cafés, once thriving, but now deserted.
Amber finally reached the end of the street, the whining sound much louder now. Ahead of her was the Borough Market, The Shard clearly visible just behind, reaching up to the dark leaden skies above.
The grey ash was being blown from the market area. Abandoned steel carts full of goods and racks of dead plants lined the entrance. The sound she’d heard was coming from within the market. It appeared that the wind was producing an eerie whistling sound as it passed through the glassed-roof market building.
Amber turned right, avoiding the market, and hurried along Stoney Street, passing abandoned delivery vehicles and drifts of more grey ash. She reached the main road, negotiated her way around the abandoned and crashed vehicles, and crossed over to St Thomas Street, The Shard was now just 400 feet or so ahead.
Amber’s pulse started to quicken as she made her way along the street. She’d seen a few of the alien tendrils snaking across the glass roof of the market, but this street, so far, was clear of them.
Amber finally reached The Shard, the building she’d dined at, with her friends, only two evenings before. She could hardly believe what had happened since then, and kept wishing she was going to wake up out of a frighteningly real dream.
She looked up at the building and the steps leading up to the main entrance. Thankfully, the glass facade was free of the tendrils. Perhaps the fact that there was still not much going on in the building – the ridiculously expensive apartments were still mostly unoccupied – made the building a particularly unattractive target, or indeed, not a source of water. Whatever the reason, Amber breathed a sigh of relief, at the thought of being able to safely get to the top without encountering any of the alien life-forms.
She knelt down, removing her backpack, pulled out a Snickers bar and took a large bite from it. She needed the sugar and the energy it would provide her with. The chocolate tasted good, so she ate the entire bar in three bites. Amber secured the backpack over her shoulders, once again, and went to walk up the steps to the main entrance. Just as she did, a massive crack of thunder echoed above her, almost throwing her off her feet. The thunder was followed by a bright streak of bolt lightning, which exploded against the building somewhere above her.
Amber ran as fast as she could up the steps towards The Shard’s main entrance, whilst praying she was doing the right thing.
CHAPTER 14
AS AMBER RAN through the main glass entrance, a second lightning bolt hit the tower of Guy’s Hospital, just across the street, lighting up the huge external glass panels of The Shard like a Christmas tree.
Bricks and mortar rained down onto the street, just a few feet away from where she’d been standing. Amber ducked into the large foyer/reception area of the building, which was empty. As she did, she turned to look back out onto the street, waiting for the deluge of rain to come, but there was none. The thunder and intense lighting continued to crackle overhead, lighting up the dark street outside.
Amber focused her attention back inside the building and headed up the short flight of stairs, to the main large entrance foyer. A couple of days ago it had been filled with people milling around the souvenir area, or waiting to pay for a ticket to get access to the observation deck. She surveyed the scene in front of her. The one thing Amber had been concerned about was power. How the hell would she have been able to walk to the top of the building if the elevators weren’t operating? Her concern was put to rest, however, as she looked at the large LED screen behind the long ticket counter, which was still displaying the view over London; showing the height of The Shard in comparison to other tall buildings.
It meant that there must be some independent power source within the building, a generator she assumed, which was still obviously functioning and providing power.
“Thank God,” Amber whispered, as she cautiously made her way through the foyer towards the wide corridor and the intern
al elevators.
There were a number of neat piles of ash on the tiled floor, which reminded her of a large garden peppered with mole hills. Mixed in with all the ash was an assortment of watches, jewellery and pendants, and the odd gold filling, still attached to its vaporized owner’s teeth. Amber tried not to look down at the blue carpeted floor as she headed towards the elevator.
Suddenly, something tugged at her left foot and she fell hard to the floor, twisting her left ankle in the process. She yelped in pain, her heart suddenly racing.
Her heavy backpack hadn’t helped either; the weight of it made the sudden fall to the floor all the more painful. Amber quickly turned to see what had caused her to trip. A thick black cable was piled up on the carpet and had looped around her foot. The cable belonged to a stack of photographic equipment, lighting stands, and a laptop that were stationed in an alcove just off the walkway on the opposite side.
As she lay there massaging her foot, she recalled - from her previous visit - that a photographer had been based there, taking pictures of visitors before they embarked on their journey to the top.
Amber got to her feet and wiggled her left ankle around, being careful not to place all her weight on it. Her foot felt okay. It was just a strain, thankfully. She continued along the corridor and turned the corner at the end where the elevator, that had ferried them all up to Oblix on the thirty-second floor two days earlier, was situated.
She ran over to it and pressed the button on the panel on the wall. As she did, a distant rumble of thunder reverberated along the corridor from the direction of the main entrance. The elevator doors slid open silently and Amber stepped in, recoiling immediately as she saw three neat piles of dust and small bone fragments lying on the floor.
She avoided what was left of the elevators’ last occupants and pressed the button for the thirty-second floor. The elevator rose incredibly quickly, climbing 15 feet a second, slowing down almost imperceptibly as it reached its destination. The last time she’d been here, she’d only made it to this level, where the restaurant was situated. To get higher, she had to negotiate another corridor and take a second elevator up to the Observation Deck, on the sixty-eighth level.
The doors slid open and Amber peered nervously out into the corridor. A flash of lightning illuminated the opaque glass panels off to the left, followed by a rumble of thunder. She waited inside the elevator for a few seconds, before stepping out into the corridor. She stood there, listening for any sounds that might suggest she wasn’t alone. When the thunder stopped, all she could here was a faint whistling from the wind outside. Amber noticed a funny odour, one she’d smelled before in the corridor of her apartment. It was like cats urine and she had a bad feeling about it.
The restaurant where she’d dined with her friends, two nights earlier, was off to the right. The thick wooden entrance doors were closed. She walked over and peered in through the door’s glass panels. The restaurant was bathed in an eerie light from the plasma T.V., which was still on, playing the same cosmic images from two nights ago. The tables had all been laid for Saturday night’s dinner, which obviously never came.
A shiver ran down Amber’s spine as she peered in, which was accompanied by a sharp pain in the ankle she’d injured on the way up. She stretched her injured foot and wiggled it around, before backing away from the doors and heading along the corridor to where the Observation Deck elevator was located. As she moved away from the restaurant, the smell of cats pee became less noticeable.
Amber reached the elevator and pressed the call button. The elevator was already waiting and the doors slid open immediately. Thankfully, it was empty. She pressed the button on the internal control panel and the doors closed before the elevator rapidly ascended, through sixty six floors, to the Observation Deck.
The elevator slowed and the doors slid open, to the sound of a ghostly wind whistling around the glass observation deck. A huge lightning bolt zigzagged down from the heavens in the distance, arcing towards the city below. Amber stepped cautiously out from the elevator and onto the polished wooden floor of the observation level.
At first glance, from 800 feet up, the city below looked entirely normal, but as Amber moved towards the large thick glass panel in front of her, and looked east towards the Thames Barrier, and Canary Wharf, she could see that it was anything but.
The Thames was now almost completely drained of its water, and was just a muddy strip with a narrow band of black water meandering down the middle of it. Columns of smoke drifted up into the early afternoon sky, from multiple points on the ground, the source appearing to be from burning buildings and houses.
Amber shifted her gaze along the Thames towards the London Eye and the mass of tendrils that covered it, the translucent material only just visible from her location.
The sky above was an angry grey, but over to the west it was much lighter and had a strange crimson hue to it. It almost looked like a sunset, but as it was only 1.20 p.m., it couldn’t be.
Amber positioned herself behind one of the many high-powered telescopic sights, found a fifty pence piece in her pocket, and slotted it in. As she focused on the river and slowly panned out over the city and to the west, the enormity of the devastation hit her. She could see huge tendrils along the banks of the Thames, like translucent pipes, draining the city’s water away. The tendrils rose up over the largest buildings and disappeared into their windows, like huge alien vines, intent on sucking the life out of everything they encountered.
She could also see small fires burning in some of the largest apartments and office buildings, smoke billowing from multiple windows. Amber panned the viewer further west, pulling back as a dark mass blocked her vision.
She moved the telescope slightly and then slowly moved it towards the swirling dark grey mass, tinged with orange. She moved the scope down and slightly to the left, and then realised she was looking at London’s Heathrow Airport. The orange she could see was in fact flames, obscured by the swirling grey mass of smoke billowing from multiple fires dotted along the runway. The terminal buildings were also on fire.
“Jesus,” she whispered, as she realised that the regular explosions she’d heard, over the ten or so hours after she’d woken up yesterday, were probably aircraft arriving into Heathrow, and crashing as they landed.
Amber panned the viewer towards the east, along the Thames, and stopped as she set eyes upon a huge, inverted pyramid-shaped object. Could that be a new building?
It didn’t look like anything she’d ever seen before. It was way off towards the Thames Estuary. As she tried to focus the telescope, her money ran out, and the view was blocked.
An ear piercing crack of thunder made her jump back from the viewer, and she twisted her already injured ankle awkwardly. A sudden electric shock of pain raced up her left leg, and she collapsed to the wooden deck in agony.
She cursed and rolled to her right, reaching down to her left ankle, which was now throbbing in rhythm to her beating heart, and massaged it. The pain was intense, but eased a little as she lay there.
Clearly the event, or whatever it was, had affected the whole of London, and the entire city was now at risk of being slowly engulfed in fire. She recalled her history lessons from school, and remembered learning about the Great Fire of London of 1666. The only reason that she was able to recall the history lesson, that she’d had decades earlier, was because of the name of the location where the fire had started; a bakery, in Pudding Lane. Pudding and bakery had stuck with her, and she’d never forgotten the details.
She looked out through the window across the city below, wondering if, 350 years on, she was going to be the only witness to the next conflagration that would destroy the city.
Amber struggled to her feet, her backpack now feeling increasingly heavy on her back. She put some weight on her ankle, it hurt, but she could still walk.
She headed over to the elevator, just as another crackle of thunder rumbled overhead. The elevator doors slid open and she stepped
in and quickly hit the descend button.
The elevator sped down to the restaurant level and slowed imperceptibly as it reached the thirty-second floor. The doors slid open, and Amber went to step out, with the intention of heading across the corridor to the other elevator that would take her down to the ground floor, when a sudden, strong whiff of cat pee caused her to pause.
As she stood there, feeling anxious, she heard a watery sound. Then, from around the corner, a liquid-based entity quickly advanced, this time in the form of the Asian waiter, who had greeted her and her friends two evenings earlier.
The thing blocked her route, swaying gently back and forth, a large grin spreading over its distorted face.
CHAPTER 15
AMBER SLOWLY BACKED up into the elevator; the only sound she could hear now was the pounding of her own heart, thumping against the wall of her chest like a drum.
“W-e-l-c-o-m-e t-o O-b-l-i-x,” the thing said, in a robotic, gurgling voice.
It was almost as if the liquid-based entity had somehow absorbed some of the traits and memory of the waiter. Amber recalled the Asian man speaking the very same words when he’d shown them into the restaurant, a few nights earlier.
A cold chill raced down her spine, as she stared back at the swaying replica of the waiter, its legs; normal at the top, but joined just below the knees, morphing into a tube of liquid the diameter of a large drainage pipe, which extended back into the now half-open door of the restaurant.
As Amber stepped back into the lift, the stench of cats pee, or ammonia became overwhelming. As the elevator doors started to slide closed, the waiter-thing shot forward into the elevator, its head bobbing back and forth, its mouth forming into an inane grin. Then, in an instant, a long translucent snake-like tendril broke out from the thing’s stomach, and started to arc up to strike her.