I lay my head on the ground, close my eyes, and take several deep breaths.
If I didn’t know this was real, I would be convinced I was having the worst nightmare of my life, or without knowing it, I had somehow entered a horror movie. One where I am the only actor.
It occurs to me that at this point, if a swarm of zombies was to come running round the corner from Charing Cross, I would throw my arms open and hug them all!
But as I sit up and look around me, I see that none are coming.
I am alone. In a silent, very silent world.
With unendingly empty skies.
Empty streets.
A world full of nothingness.
It’s then that my stomach rumbles for the first time, and I realise that unless I can make pigeon pie, my troubles are just about to get even worse.
Chapter Nine
In trouble
The Spitfire chases the Stuka Dive.
The voice booms out across the square, literally making me jump. It seems to hit me from all sides, echoing around the square and bouncing back at me from the fountains and the enormous granite lions that guard Nelson’s feet at the base of his statue.
“Police! Lie down on the ground, face down, and do not move!” the voice commands.
“This is the Police! Comply or be tasered.” The voice prompts again when I start to look around the square to see where the voice is coming from.
Within a second I am on the ground, eating the concrete. Whatever they want, I will do it.
One, because this is getting really weird. Two, because I don’t want to be fried. Three, I’m too tired, confused and hungry to do anything else.
“Face down. Do not move.” The loud voice booms from all around me. Where the hell is it coming from?
I comply. Again.
A moment later I hear footsteps running towards me from different sides. Then, without any further warning, I feel someone kneeling on top of me, and rough hands grab my wrists, pull them together, and then something is clipped around them. I’ve just been handcuffed.
“Roll over, and face the sky.” The voice again.
Pushing with my knees and elbows I manage to roll onto my side, then onto my back.
Four people - I can’t immediately tell their sex - are standing over me. They’re dressed like storm-troopers - their heads are encased in helmets. Two are pointing tasers directly at me. One of the other police officers steps forward, kneels down and holds what looks like a mobile phone with a large screen in front of my face. There’s a slight flash, not too bright, and then the police officer steps back, looks at the screen on his device and then down at me.
“James Quinn,” he starts… how does he know my name?... “Under the Emergency Powers Act, Sections 5,6,14 and 22, we are arresting you for breaking curfew, vagrancy, being in a public place without a permit, and not wearing a mask and gloves.”
Then in what could be straight out of a film, he proceeds to read me my rights. “Do you have anything to say?” the person asks afterwards - I think it’s a man - but before I can clear my voice and plead insanity or beg for mercy, or ask, politely, just what the fuck is going on, two of the others reach forward, grab me by my arms and manhandle me up to my feet.
“Spit into this,” one of the police from Star Wars commands me in a deep voice. Definitely a man. I look at what he is holding in front of me. It’s a small plastic dish… like a Petri dish from Chemistry lessons in School. I spit into it, then wait for some sort of explanation. There is none.
As if from nowhere, a vehicle appears, and I am bundled into the back of it without any warning or further friendly kind words. The doors are closed, and a moment later, I can feel the vehicle gathering speed. Oddly, there is no noise. Incredibly, the vehicle seems to have no engine. Or perhaps I am flying.
My mind is a whirr of thoughts and emotions. I start to replay the last few moments again in my mind, but don’t get very far.
In what seems only like a few minutes, the vehicle comes to a halt and the doors open again.
“Out.” I am commanded.
I comply. I really don’t have much choice. There are two of those tasers pointing directly at me, held by another two officers standing a few metres away from the vehicle in front of the entrance to a building. One of them points to a wheelchair, of sorts, and orders to me to sit down in it.
I comply.
Then several pairs of hands reach forward and around me and when they retreat I see that I have been strapped into the chair, very, very securely.
A moment later everything goes black.
The suddenness of it catches me off guard, but there is some relief to be had when I realize I am not unconscious. Instead, it turns out, someone has just placed a helmet over my head. I can breathe, hear and see out through a dark, tinted plate of glass or plastic, but I immediately feel hot and humid. And I notice, for the first time, that my breath absolutely stinks.
Surely that can’t be the reason they’ve done this to me? Can no one just give me a mint instead?
And then I am on the move again. Someone is pushing me.
Doors open automatically in front of me and blindly I glide down several corridors, propelled at great speed by someone behind me. Then I’m in a lift, going down… and then I am in another long corridor.
A door is opened. I’m wheeled in. I’m lifted off the chair and dumped on the floor. My helmet is removed, and the restraints are removed from my hands behind my back.
There is a loud bang. A light goes on.
And I discover that I am alone in a police cell.
Shit.
On a more positive note, at least I no longer have to worry about where I’m going to spend the night. I’ve just found it.
------------------------------------
I find it difficult to sleep. My stomach is rumbling so loudly that I can hear it echoing back from the walls of my cell. My small rucksack is gone. Presumably confiscated by the police. There’s nothing of value in there, but it’s all I’ve got. About two hours later… I’m guessing… I have no idea… the door opens and someone walks in. It’s a man, carrying a tray with some water, bread and a bowl of soup on it.
“You’re clear. Your test was negative.” He says brusquely. He puts the tray down on the floor and steps back.
“Can I see a lawyer?” I ask.
“James, you don’t have a lawyer.”
“How do you know?”
“You didn’t have one last month, or on any of the previous four times you were arrested.”
I look surprised. The man sees the confusion on my face, and for a moment I see his features relax.
“I know the answer is no, but I’ll ask just in case. Is there anyone you want us to call who may be able to bail you out?”
“Bail?”
“Yes.”
“Since when are we bailing people out of prison? This isn’t America. Yet.”
The man smirks. “Is there anyone?”
I hesitate.
“I need to think about it. What time is it now?”
“Just gone eleven.”
I nod.
“I have some questions,” I say, sitting on the edge of the bed that occupies one wall of my cell. “Actually, I have a lot of questions. Do you have a moment, please?”
I think it was my politeness that catches the officer off-guard. He half-smiles, then replies, “Go for it. What do you want to know?”
“I get that I’ve been arrested for breaking the curfew. And for vagrancy. By why is there a curfew? And why is London empty? Where is everyone?”
The policeman’s eyes open a little wider.
“Do you need to see a doctor? Are you feeling okay?” he asks.
“I… no… I don’t know. I’m very confused. I don’t know what’s going on.”
And then, in a flashback to the first time I arrived in this world, when I ended up in hospital in a coma, I suddenly know how to play this to my benefit.
“I
think I banged my head, somewhere. Somehow. I must have concussion, or memory loss. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m very confused, and I need some answers…”
The police officer stares at me, then takes a step backwards, saying, “I’ll arrange for the doctor to come and look you over.”
“No, wait…” I quickly reply. “Tell me, please. Why is there a curfew and why is London empty? Where is everyone?”
“James, I need to get that doctor for you. But you were arrested for breaking the curfew, covering the whole of the UK, not just London. And London is empty because no one except key-workers and permitted government or council staff are allowed to leave their homes.”
“Why?” I ask, more urgently.
“Because of the pandemic. To stop people dying or infecting everyone else.”
“What ‘pandemic?’ ”
“James, I need to get that doctor for you.”
“What ‘pandemic?’ ” this time louder. “Please…”
“The Sars-2-Covid pandemic. And it’s not just in Britain. It’s everywhere. The whole world.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I reply in frustration, shaking my head. “Since when have we had a pandemic going on?”
“James, I’m getting worried about you… I need to get…”
“How long has the pandemic been going on for?”
“Since May, two-and-a-half years ago.”
This makes no sense. There has been no pandemic at all in the whole year I’ve been living in the new world.
“And the curfew?”
“About two years. You’ve already been arrested three times for breaking it…”
“Two years?” I ask him again, getting him to confirm what I already heard before. The man is starting to turn away from me, insisting that he needs to get the doctor.
The next words come out of my mouth before I realise that I’ve said them. “What year is it?”
The policeman turns in the doorway, grabbing the door handle and pulling it closed after him. The last words I hear him say are, “It’s 2021.”
He says some other words too, but I don’t hear them.
The only thing that registers with me is the number.
2021?
And then it all drops into place. All the clues come together and it suddenly makes terrible sense.
This morning, when I woke up, it was 2013. Before I stepped through the door of the underground train earlier this evening, hoping to make the jump back to Sarah and my girls, Keira and Nicole in my own world, I had already spent almost a year in the parallel world. The choice to step through the portal and hopefully travel sideways in time from one parallel world to another, had been a hard one.
I’d decided to leave the new Sarah I’d met in my new world behind… even though she was now pregnant. I had let down all my colleagues and friends at the advertising agency where I had worked since day one of arriving in the new world. And I’d had to abandon my wife from this world - Jane, and the two children which were mine, but were also not.
I’d abandoned them all, so that I could go back to my own world. To Sarah, my real wife.
But what is now obvious to me is that this didn’t happen.
Instead of travelling sideways in time, I have travelled forward. From 2013 to 2021.
I’ve jumped eight years into the future, where, unlike the world in 2013 where I was a rich, successful advertising executive with the world at his feet, I am now a down-and-out tramp, probably an alcoholic to boot, living on the street with no friends in an apocalyptic world being ravaged by a global pandemic.
Then, just as I am trying to deal with this new reality, another question hits me.
Is this even the same world I tried to leave earlier this evening? Or have I possibly jumped to another new parallel world? A third world where I also exist, but as a tramp, and not an advertising executive?
And if that is the case, will Sarah exist in this world too?
But - and this thought is perhaps the scariest of them all - if she does exist here, in this new world, if indeed it is a new world… How do I know that she hasn’t fallen victim to this pandemic?
How do I know that Sarah is still alive?
Chapter Ten
Freedom
.
An hour later, the doctor leaves. His examination, for better or worse, gives me a clean bill of health. He even quips that I am unusually healthy, given the circumstances, and that in spite of a raging pandemic, I am not infected.
After he’s gone, one of the police officers comes into my cell with some more food. It’s late now, about one o’clock, but I’m really hungry and smile when I see the food arrive.
“Doctor Stone suggested we give you something more to eat. He’s worried that you are a little weak, but apart from that he’s told us not to transfer you to the other prison where you would now normally be sent. You’re a healthy man, surprisingly fit, and if you go to the other prison you might not make it out alive. All the prisoners there are riddled with ‘The ’18’. You’d catch it within a few days. And possibly die.”
The officer puts the food down on the floor in front of me, and steps back, crossing his arms.
“I think the doctor liked you. Probably your Scottish accent. Anyway, we need to talk about what happens next. You’ve been arrested too many times to just release you with a caution like we did in the past. This time you either have to be remanded into custody or released into someone else’s care. But we can’t keep you here. There’s no room. So, it’s either the other jail, or someone else in London. We’ve got a few names on files from the last times you were arrested. You’ve always insisted we don’t call them before, but this time you have to get someone to post bail, or you’re not getting out. So you have to give me a name.”
My focus at this point is mainly on the food on the floor, and my mouth is watering terribly. I’m listening to every word the officer is saying to me, but when it comes to the mention of a name, I’m stumped.
“You want a name?”
The officer nods.
“Can I eat first, and think about it. My mind is really slow at the moment…”
“I’ll be back in ten minutes. Then I need that name. Who do you want me to call?”
“Does the person have to be in London? Or can they be somewhere else?”
“We can call anyone you want. But you need to be released to someone within an hour of this station. Because of the lock-in, you can’t be sent anywhere far outside of London.”
I nod.
“My mum? Can I be sent to my mum’s?”
“How old is she? And does she have any underlying health conditions?”
“I think she’s about seventy-five, and last time I saw her she was very healthy.”
“When was that?”
I swallow hard.
“Probably about eight years ago. In 2013.”
“Maybe. But you haven’t mentioned her before. She’s not on your list of possible contacts. Do you have a number for her?”
I reel off the telephone number for my mum and the officer types it into an electronic device he pulls from a pocket.
“We’ll try to find her.”
“It’s really late, can we leave it until the morning?”
“James, this isn’t a hotel.”
“She’ll be asleep, and she’s old.”
The police officer nods.
“Fine, we’ll contact her first thing in the morning. In the meantime, eat your meal, then get some sleep.”
“How do I turn the light off? It’s very bright.” I ask.
The police officer laughs, turns around, and walks out.
“I’ll see you in the morning, James. By the way, do you want a Continental or full English for breakfast?”
“A full English please.”
I hear the police officer laughing again as he locks the door from the outside. Then I’m left alone to devour the best meal I’ve eaten in … eight years?
I don’t sleep much. It’s my first night in a prison cell, and it’s enough to convince me that from now on, I’m going straight! Before I made the jump between my two alternate worlds, another of my fantasies had always been to be a cat burglar, or a sophisticated art thief. I’d live in Monaco, have a big fast boat, a luxurious house, and Sarah would wear the most expensive jewellery money could buy. After tonight, that dream is being consigned to the bin. As soon as I get out of prison, I’m never stepping foot in one again.
Cold, noisy, smelly, uncomfortable, and that’s just for starters. And my cell comes with a CCTV camera which I’m sure can see me going to the toilet in the corner of the cell. Whatever it takes to make sure I never come back, I’ll do it, even if I have to cut a round circle on top of my head and become a monk!
The hours pass slowly, and after a few hours of tossing and turning, I give up trying to sleep. I’ve heard that sleep is like a cat: if you chase it, the cat runs away from you. But if you just stop, and give up the chase, the cat will come to you.
Bollocks.
After hours of waiting for sleep to find me, I’m still wide awake.
Instead I lie there on my back, on the blue plastic padded seat which doubles as a bed, and stare at the ceiling. I think about this morning – how when I woke up I had so much hope. In my mind, I run through the last moments I spent on the tube train before stepping through the portal. I see the face of the Professor, full of expectation, as he started filming me, hoping he was going to record the first human being travelling in time and space. I remember the moment when Sarah came up to me, and how she informed me that she was pregnant.
And then I remember waking up in the dark, eight years later, a down-and-out tramp, hiding in the underground tunnels of London.
Where did it all go wrong? What the hell happened?
Mostly though, I think of Sarah. And her last words.
I force myself to think of something else, anything else. I don’t know why, exactly, but I think it’s got something to do with being very scared about Sarah and her child. My child.
Am I Dead? Page 5