The Cult of The Enemy: The Dark Places Trilogy

by S. G Mark

  “What do you know about them?”

  “Not much. I know a few people who attended their church, or whatever it was,” Jack instinctively thought it best to voice his true opinions on the matter on this occasion. “I personally find them more than a little creepy.”

  The officer tilted his head with curiosity, “How so?”

  “They made my friend believe… things. She wasn’t well and they made her believe that I was the problem,” Jack cast his mind back to the sunny afternoon on Cramond beach, Charlie screaming at him.

  “Yes, they are very manipulative,” the man simmered on a thought, “Have you had any recent contact with this… friend?”

  “No, not in several months,” Jack said, “To tell you the truth, I avoid the whole lot of them now. I know not all of them are extremists, but I find them very uneasy to be around. I always feel that they are judging me, or that I’m not quite good enough to be in their company.”

  It was exactly what the officer wanted to hear. He smiled, and dropped Jack’s ID card back on the table.

  “The CRU are here for you, whenever you need help,” the man said, “If they should threaten you again…”

  Jack nodded, “I’ll give you guys a call.”

  They parted on an awkward laughter, as the officer showed him to the door.

  It was a strange encounter. The man had a strikingly different attitude towards questioning than any other CRU officer Jack had had the misfortune of meeting. He had a pride in his job that others lacked, or at least shielded during interrogation. It left Jack with the distasteful feeling that the man really believed in what he was doing - and that seemed far more dangerous than any of his historic interrogators.

  As he walked free from the interview room, a wave of heads turned towards him. Their features were split between surprise and perplexion. Jack quickly gathered that seeing a man walk free from that room was not a regular occurrence.

  As he marched from the station with purpose, his feet quickly floundered as they began to realise they were determinedly going nowhere. He was standing outside the entrance to the Tube. Signs had been erected and tape smothered the gateway. No entry: Station Closed Due to Terror Threat. It read casually, as if it were simply closed for maintenance. A solitary officer stood sentinel outside, eyes glued to a spot far in the distance as boredom crawled across his eyelids. People passed, spying the sign and tutting loudly before migrating to the busy bus station.

  That was when he saw it. A shade of dirty red pulled into the road, green emblazoned letters reading Camden on the front. Jack ran to the bus station to join the queue, which had become more of a conglomeration than a line. He dug into his pocket and grasped a handful of change. It was hopefully going to be enough. He didn’t know how far he needed to go, but he hope it was at least in the right direction.

  Hopping on the bus, he sprinkled the change in the tray by the driver, who nodded and let him pass. He took a seat on the lower deck, by the window - but his attention was not drawn to the bleak nightscape outside. A couple had just boarded and were taking up the pair of seats in front of Jack. They were talking in low whispers, but Jack’s ears were trained for certain words. When the word Resistance took flight from the man’s lips, Jack was hooked on every subsequent word.

  “At least it’s not The Resistance,” he said, “I dunno what it is, but I just feel that at least these God’s Disciple people have a point to make - I mean it’s not like I believe in what they’re saying, but it’s a damn sight better than this senseless killing those bastards are doing. I mean, what exactly are they resisting? Just a bunch of psychopaths if you ask me.”

  The woman seemed to be falling over her words for a moment before she spoke, “I-I don’t know enough about either of them. I just get pissed off that the fucking Tube is closed every other day because of them. All I want to do is get home at a reasonable hour. Fat chance of that these days. This is my third bus ride in two days because of these alerts.”

  “It’s a bit shit, yes,” the man agreed, “But I’d far rather the police protect us than let us be blown to smithereens.”

  “What on earth is smithereens, anyway?” the woman pondered, staring out the window as the bus took a drastic right hand corner.

  “God knows, but everyone seems determined to make us them,” the man said and the pair fell silent.

  Jack had the distinct impression that the woman entirely disagreed with her boyfriend, but it was an opinion that she felt must be kept secret. Her entire body language was shy and forcibly unassuming.

  They got off one stop before Camden, squabbling about what shopping they were able to get with their collective Rations. It signalled a time for Jack to pay attention to where he was. For the past fifteen minutes he had been lost in a trail of thought and when he had reached the end of it, he had picked away at his journey like Hansel and Gretel trying to find their way home. Internally, he was trying to remember what it had been like for him before he knew of the true goal of the Resistance. The strange thing was that he couldn’t remember overtly hating them - sickened by their actions he had been at the time, it was never something he dwelled on. His days were spent panicking about money and Rations, worry over personal matters and trying to bury his feelings for Eliza. He hadn’t spared a minute for fear - but at the same time he had feared them. When Alex revealed himself as their leader, he was scared. For weeks afterwards he was scared. But what from? He struggled to recall… was it the possibility of an attack? But something in what the man on the bus had said was unsettling. God’s Disciples attacked out of religious dogma…. but he was right. From the public’s perspective, The Resistance didn’t stand for anything and that was altogether more frightening.

  Camden: weird, wacky and thoroughly neglected. Gangs of teenagers loitered in closed shopfronts, smoking shared cigarettes and scowling at the rest of the world. The cold air rushed around Jack, slithering under his clothes. He had no idea where he was going. The only reason he had jumped off the bus was because the nearby signposts had Camden plastered all over them. He was lost. A part of him resented Kyle for just sending him down here without help or specific instructions. But then he was twenty-seven years old. He could cope with finding his own way in a strange city.

  Steam billowed up from the roofs. Curry swam warmly in the air. Parades of teenagers swarmed by, giggling and dressed in an almost uniform black. Jack walked along the main road for a few minutes, assessing his bearings and keeping an eye out for street names.

  From the media, he had heard Camden was known for its eclectic culture. But the Camden he currently was standing in was quite disconnected from its reputation. Most of the quirky shops showed signs of being shut down for months, or even abandoned in the case of a few where merchandise was sporadically splain across the floor. Where there might have been a Banksy, there were only CRU posters warning to be vigilant. Oppressive eyes watched from CCTV cameras. Patrols of fluorescent uniforms circulated the market stalls, eagerly anticipating crime to the point of conviction of thought.

  Burnt out cars smouldered as bedraggled men limped by, laden with shopping and misery. Bins had been toppled over, their contents spewed across the pavements. Everything was brushed with an opaque grey that drained any joy from the vicinity. There was even an old building, doors and windows blasted open and wrapped with police tape. From the blackened brick and fragile balance of what remained of the building, Jack guessed what had happened here many moons ago. Another bomb attack, another few lives killed and the survivor’s wounded forever.

  It was with great relief that Jack at last spotted Inverness Street glistening in the amber streetlight hue. Hope reignited, Jack marched down in search for number one-hundred and nineteen. London architecture was different to Edinburgh’s magnificent town houses. By contrast, Camden was bedraggled by age and worn down by weather and neglect. The windows and doors led into doll’s houses in which Jack imagined families shuffling around each other in the tight spaces as stuff cluttered c
orners glared at them through the musty darkness of their bitter disappointment. This was not Edinburgh. Life was cramped and the decrepit dust flaking from the buildings themselves told a story of hardship that Jack had no comprehension of. Pollution-smothered posters had evolved over the grime and, through the thrill of natural selection, only the stronger, more vibrant advertisements peeked through the grey hue. God’s Disciples’ warming message of hope and togetherness in an endless battle for attention with the CRU’s instructive warnings, twisted with their threatening undertones so subtle they might even have been disguised by the smearing dirt.

  Jack felt increasingly uncomfortable. Looking around his shoulder became an activity undertaken far too frequently for his liking. Quite who or what may be watching him from the dark side streets or from the tall, unlit windows he did not know. It was not wholly the CRU that toyed with his frightened little heart either. The claws of criminality traced the streets with its sharp, cracked fingernails. Safety was a stranger here and though there was no obvious illustration of this, Jack quickened his pace regardless.

  The black door stared at him blankly and yet Jack feared it. It was an ordinary, if poorly constructed, door with chipping paint showing all its previously colourful lives. Behind it was probably an old, mucky staircase leading to a set of equally depressing looking flats. Beside it a buzzer smirked at him. Had a friend been at the other end of the intercom, he would not have been so ripped with apprehension. But he was not in Edinburgh; there was no agenda of video games and pizza for the night. He had no clue who would answer the buzzer. Male or female, he had to instantly form a connection of trust. His arrival was unexpected; his face was unfamiliar: there was no reason for them to trust him but for the word he must utter when the door was answered.

  “Hello,” the woman’s voice came over the loudspeaker, crackling with interference.

  “Marylebone,” Jack said, leaning in closely to the buzzer.

  A second later the door clicked open and a raft of warm, stale air encompassed him as he ascended the narrow staircase up to the very top floor.

  Apprehension fermented in his stomach as he approached the forest green door, battered by age and upon which a dull and grubby number seven clung desperately to one rusty nail. As he walked towards it, it began to open and a shadow of a figure glared from within; the whites of their eyes were glowing orbs in the black.

  They stepped back and let the door fall ajar. Only the light from the stairwell spilled in to reveal the scragged, stained carpet. Seeing this as an invitation, Jack stepped over the threshold. The door slammed shut behind him. Not a splinter of light broke the darkness. The walls span away from him and all sense of distance disappeared in a spike of panic. He reached out with his arms to find his bearings but grasped something soft instead - an arm. The same arm grabbed his own and pushed him back against the far wall; its strength unyielding. Another hand patted him down, and he felt instantly more at ease when he realised that what they were doing.

  A light snapped on. Everything was cast in a translucent glare of low wattage bulb. Two people stared at him. The closest was a balding man, fiercely good looking but incongruently dangerous too. He wore a leather jacket, that matched the colour of his jet black eyebrows, through which an old scar railroaded his near perfect skin. In the background the girl leant against the wall, her head nearly skimming the ceiling. Her arms were folded and she was staring at him intently, as if she were interrogating him superficially. Her black skin shone in the dull amber light.

  “Where have you come from?” thick London accent ripping through his initial perceptions of her.

  “Leeds,” he said, not taking his eye from her.

  “Lock the door, Sam,” she instructed, “And shut the lights off. It’s dangerous tonight.”

  Sam manoeuvred around Jack and began bolting the front door with numerous locks. The woman invited Jack to follow her further into the flat. He obliged.

  Dimly lit, Jack had just enough time to steal a glance of the living room into which he had been led before the lights cut out. Three men were sat by the window; one leaning over the top and dictating to the others what he saw. A pair of binoculars lay on the windowsill; Jack’s primeval paranoia of being watched, justified. None of them broke their concentration to take notice of Jack’s arrival.

  “Take a seat,” the girl said.

  Jack faintly made out the outline of a nearby chair. Though in secure company, he didn’t feel at all comfortable yet.

  “What’s your name?” the girl asked.

  “Jack,” he replied, not finding the confidence to ask for hers.

  “You don’t sound like you’re from Leeds,” she commented, mockingly.

  “That’s not where I’m from originally,” he continued, “Edinburgh’s my home…”

  “And why were you in Leeds?”

  “Failed attempt to rescue someone,” Jack said, reflecting on the day’s events, “But I’m guessing you already know that.”

  “How so?”

  “Security’s tight - across London. It was a nightmare leaving Leeds,” he said.

  “Really? I find it rather pleasurably,” she said, deadpan, “What made you come here?”

  “I was told to,” he said.

  “By?”

  “Kyle,” Jack said.

  “I don’t know him,” the girl said.

  Jack remained silent, unsure of where to take the dialogue.

  “I’m Lana,” the girl said, “Welcome to Hell.”

  Before the words had even alighted from his lips, his question had been answered. Without warning or dramatic climax, several shots fired across the street below. Eight deafening shots followed by a simple, pathetic scream. He didn’t even hear the limp body crumple to the ground. There was just silence. No victory cries from the gun wielders; no gasps of horror from any hapless passerby. Silence. A creeping silence that fulfilled all promise of dread.

  Nervously, Jack crept towards the window. He didn’t particularly want to see the scene below his feet, but his curiosity was very rarely contained.

  “Keep back from the window,” Lana urged, betraying her previous hushed tones.

  Jack turned around, “Why?”

  “We can’t risk being seen,” she said shifting in her seat, “Not even as a member of the public.”

  Jack shrugged, confused.

  “They prosecute onlookers. Pretend it’s so much as happening and you’ll be carted off in the back of their vans,” she said bluntly, “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen that happen.”

  “Fuck,” Jack sighed, sinking back into his chair, “It wasn’t like this in Leeds, or anywhere else. Christ, even Edinburgh.”

  “That’s because it isn’t,” Lana said, “There ain’t nowhere else in the country that’s like London.”

  The men by the window suddenly crouched low under the windowsill. A torchlight slithered along the ceiling.

  “Take a break for the night,” Lana instructed, “You ain’t gonna record anything we haven’t already seen before.”

  “What are they recording?”

  “Movements, whereabouts of CRU officers and what they are up to,” the man who had been scribbling notes down said, “We’re trying to establish if they have a route or pattern they follow.”

  “And do they?”

  “Nothing so far. They’re random - always random,” he said, crawling into the middle of the floor, “Three days we’ve been stuck in here, unable to leave.”

  “Why?”

  “God’s Disciples have issued a bomb threat and the rest of us have to suffer. Word is that those responsible are hiding out in Camden, so we’re getting the brunt of it. You were probably followed, that’s why those guys are out there.”

  “I’m sorry, I swear I didn’t see them,” Jack said, a lump forming in his throat. He had inadvertently caused the death of a stranger.

  “Don’t worry, they are following everyone. So long as we lay low for the next week we’ll b
e okay.”

  “Lay low?”

  “None of us can leave the flat, or make contact with anyone outside it. As far as the outside world is concerned, this flat is abandoned.”

  “Do we have enough supplies?”

  “There’s a few scraps of food, and there’s water on tap. At least the government haven’t tried to Ration that yet,” one of the men said, “I’m Karl by the way.”

  Jack was unsure whether or not to shake his hand, instead he nodded.

  “I’m Craig.”

  “Neil.”

  Jack greeted them both. It felt strange - like he were back at his first day of high school where no one knew his name and where his past could be restrained into embarrassing memory. No one in this room knew anything about him; they didn’t know the Jack from the Steven, nor that even Steven existed at all. To them he was Jack, Resistance member and fighter for peace, freedom and liberation. There was no convoluted backstory, no clash with Alex, no tarnished memories or dead relatives. He could be whatever he wanted to be - and his only responsibility was to be passionate, a revolutionary: a fighter.

  “We should take it in turns to keep watch,” Jack said, discovering a strength he didn’t realise existed, “I’ll take first watch, anyone want to join me?”

  “I will,” Lana’s lone voice rang out, “These guys have been at it for hours.”

  Jack crossed the room to the windowsill and slunk beneath it as the three men moved out of their way. Lana sat beside him, back propped up by the wall.

  The men disappeared into the kitchen. Jack kept his eyes on the worn carpet at his feet.

  “They come about twice an hour if we’re unlucky,” Lana explained, “Mostly it’s random. Could be ten minutes after their last visit, could be ten hours.”