I’m in the future.
In a car that drives itself, on empty roads, and through an abandoned city.
Within ten minutes I have swept past Vauxhall, skirting the edge of Wandsworth, and I am heading towards the A3 out of London.
As I drive, I begin to relax, starting to trust the car and the computer that’s driving it.
Instead of watching the empty road ahead, my attention drifts towards the windows of all the buildings I am passing.
Where are all the people? Are they inside their homes, behind the curtains? Or have they all run away and abandoned London?
I realise then, also, that my silent electric car must be drawing little attention to itself as it glides seamlessly down the road. Nevertheless, a couple of times my heart skips a beat with excitement as I see a curtain twitch and a face pop up at a window. Twice I see children, and once a mother pointing at my car to them as I pass.
Without realising it, my hand is quickly in the air, waving. They see me, and seem to scream with joy, and wave back.
The mother smiles. I nod at her.
And then they are gone. Left behind.
A moment later, I panic.
So far, almost all the lights have been at green. A constant permission to travel onwards. But all of a sudden, a set of lights ahead of me turns red. I brace myself to slow down, but it doesn’t happen. Instead, the car carries on regardless.
As we cross the junction I tense, expecting the worst, but a quick glance down each of the other roads that intersect at the junction immediately confirms there is no other traffic. It’s just me.
“Sarah?” I ask. “You didn’t stop! The light was red!”
“Please don’t worry, James. I am monitoring other traffic. There is no danger.”
“What other traffic?”
“The London Vehicle Map indicates that there are seven other vehicles currently driving in London. The nearest other vehicle is six miles away. We will not crash into them.”
Seven other vehicles in the whole of London?
I wonder if they still have the Congestion Charge now, or has that been abolished?
A few minutes later we drive around a big, empty roundabout which forms the intersection of four big roads. As we drive round and join the slip road to continue south on a wide three lane strip of the A3, I manage to look North, South, East and West, one after another. All the roads are empty. EMPTY!
Well, not quite. Just ahead of me now there are five foxes playing together in the middle of the road. They look up in disbelief as they see me coming. I can almost sense their indignation and anger at a human intruding upon their world.
Further on, I see two deer who scamper quickly away.
Then as I pass by Wimbledon Common on my left, the road …the A3 …the main road out of London down to the coast…is full of rabbits.
They are everywhere.
Hundreds of the things.
My car slows down.
Then the horn starts to blare, in a series of short, loud, bursts.
“Animals ahead.” Sarah tells me.
I stare at the dashboard and feel a chill run down my spine.
How does the car know there are animals ahead?
Looking back up, I can see the rabbits scamper away for cover in a thousand different directions.
“Resuming travel,” Sarah announces and the car starts off again.
“Stop!” I say. “Sarah, is it possible for me to take over and drive the car manually?”
“Human control is allowed but not recommended. Connected and Autonomous vehicles are much safer than vehicles piloted by humans. Statistics show that…”
“Sarah, will you then now please immediately give control to me and shut your driving control down, but monitor my voice just in case I ask you for something?”
“Yes, James. Active drive and passive monitoring enabled. Enjoy your drive.”
I hear a slight click. The lights on the dashboard flash. And the steering wheel jerks slightly.
I touch the accelerator lightly with my foot and the engine revs.
I depress the brake slightly, and the pedal moves.
I reach for the clutch but realise there is none. And simultaneously my left hand finds empty space in the air when it sweeps left for the gear-stick.
“An automatic. I should have guessed.” I mutter to myself.
Pushing down on the accelerator, the car moves forward.
I depress the brake. The car stops. Quite fast. I jerk forward slightly.
“Yes,” I say to myself. “Now let’s have some fun!”
For the first time in two days, a smile creeps onto my face, and soon I am beaming from ear to ear.
“Approaching maximum permitted speed.” Sarah informs me as we quickly accelerate from nought to sixty in a matter of seconds. “Engaging cruise control.”
“Engage manual override,” I counter, saying the first computer-like thing that comes to my head. Slightly Star-Trekish.
But it works.
“Free driving enabled.” Sarah announces, conceding.
Seventy miles per hour.
Eighty.
Ninety!
“Yesssss!” I shout, the adrenaline pumping into my veins.
Over the years I’ve driven a million times down the A3. I know every speed camera. The ones that flash at you without any film in them, and which you can ignore, and the real ones you have to watch out for that do have film in them and will snap you and fine you, if you ever go faster than fifty.
But now, I’m on my own personal race-track. My own private Grand-Prix.
And I have a Blue Pass, which allows me to do anything I want! (I hope.)
When I arrive in Kingston, just minutes later, my tyres are smoking! And I can’t stop laughing. That was amazing!
Chapter Twenty Eight
.
The euphoria is only temporary.
As I leave the A3 and start to drive through the streets towards Kingston, a sense of dread and foreboding descends upon me.
All around me I see the streets where I have spent many years of my life, now devoid of life, deserted, empty.
The petrol station near the roundabout at the junction of the A3 I exited from is closed. Shop windows are boarded up. Foxes are running amok on the streets everywhere.
Rubbish, the only sign that people still exist, is piled up in large blue bags in small mountains outside the houses. Most are ripped open, their contents strewn across the pavements. The occasional fox lifts his head up from a bag and sniffs the air.
I drive slowly through the street, the foxes scampering away in front of me, but quickly returning to the road behind me as I pass by.
Ahead, a large fox in the centre of the road turns towards me as I approach. His eyes are unblinking. He stares at me. Almost daring me to come closer.
Twenty metres away.
Fifteen.
Ten.
Still it has not moved.
Five.
The stupid fox refuses to move!
I smash the base of my hand against the steering wheel, and a horn blares. I jump.
Thankfully the fox jumps higher.
No longer transfixed by the audacity of my challenge, it scampers away into an alleyway on my left.
As I watch it run away, I notice faces appearing at the windows of the houses on either side of the alleyway. Then in the houses on their left and right.
I sound the horn again.
All around me the windows fill with the faces of people.
They stare at me as if I am a ghost. An apparition.
I stop the car, open the door and step out.
For a moment they stare at me, and I stare back, turning slowly on the spot.
Then a little boy at one of the windows on the first floor lifts his hand and waves, and once again, I am waving back.
I wave first at the boy, then at everyone.
Everyone!
I leave the car for a moment and walk several metre
s in front, waving at everyone with both hands.
Slowly they start to wave at me. And soon they are all doing it.
The look of confusion on their faces is clearly visible. Who is this man in the streets? How is he allowed to walk around without being arrested? Is he someone special? Does he know something we don’t?
A door opens and I hear a man shout at me.
“Do you have any food?” I hear him ask.
For a moment, I am stunned.
I stop waving. Return to my car. And drive on.
I am left feeling rather uncomfortable.
Food?
Are these people starving?
From what I’ve read in the papers at the Professor’s cottage, the country is now in its fifth lock-in. This is the longest. It’s lasted three months already. During the first two lock-ins people’s movements were restricted, but people were still allowed to leave their houses for a short period of time each day or to go to work. But when those lock-ins ended, people who had been starved of other people’s company, returned to work, socialised, and celebrated their freedom too soon. Almost immediately, the virus started to burn through the population again, and as the death toll rose and fear swept the nation, a series of new lock-ins was imposed on the people. Each subsequent lock-in being more severe than the one before, with the current one being the most severe of all.
Yesterday’s paper had been full of conjecture that the current lock-in was due to end soon. Perhaps in a few weeks. Or a few months. In reality, no one really knew. The death rate was going down, the hospitals slowly emptying out as their patients either got better and were sent home, or died. Most importantly, the ‘I’ number which scientists used to quantify the rate of Infections was for the first time in months now below 2. And falling fast. Three months ago it was 6. Then two months ago, 4, then a month ago just 3. Now no one was allowed to leave their homes at all, unless they had a Pass and were designated as being a Vital Worker, or VW, for short. VWs, who were given yellow passes, were allowed out, but only during certain times of the day. By curfew, all VWs had to have returned home, or made it to work. Only Blueys, the nickname for Blue-Pass Holders, were allowed on the streets after curfew.
During the first four lock-ins food supplies to the supermarkets had not been interrupted. Another class of permit, a Green Pass, had allowed anyone involved in the food chain to continue to work, to stock supermarkets, and to deliver food to houses during the day. The Greens and the Blues had become the most important people in society.
But then it had been realised that the Greens were carriers, and were spreading the virus throughout the country. The food channel had become the Achilles heel through which The ‘18 had continued to spread. By the time the current lock-in had been announced, the supermarkets had been stripped bare by people preparing for what was surely going to come next. Everyone knew the food tap was going to be turned off soon. And if you weren’t prepared…if you didn’t have enough food squirrelled away safely in your own house when the next lock-in came, you’d starve.
So far, there hadn’t been any reports in the press of that actually happening yet, but from what James had just heard, maybe that time was approaching soon.
As I pass the hospital going down the hill towards Kingston I see an ambulance coming toward me. Strangely, it’s blue light is flashing. Denoting urgency. Which I get, but as I watch it rushing up the hill towards me, the irony of its strikes me: the roads are empty. There is nothing to impede the ambulance’s progress. Nothing for the ambulance to warn or shout “get out of our way!” at.
The ambulance rushes past, and as it passes I see the driver turn towards me, a questioning look in her eyes, the rest of her face hidden behind her green mask.
I drive on.
I pass a supermarket, a large DIY store, all closed, their car parks empty.
Then I pass a funeral parlour, and I see two cars and a hearse parked outside. The lights are on in the building, and although I don’t see any people, I notice that the hearse is occupied. At the back. With someone waiting to start their final journey.
I’m not the world’s most religious person, but I find myself rapidly crossing myself, my fingers rushing from left to right across my chest, then from my forehead to my navel. I don’t know why. Was it out of respect for the person just passed, a person no more…or was it out of fear for myself. A selfish act. Nothing good?
I blink, then turn my attention back to the empty road ahead.
I come to a junction where my road meets the ring road that encircles Kingston town centre.
For a moment I sit at the junction, the light in front of me constantly at green. A childish thought occurs to me. The ring road is a pain. To get to where I have to go, from here, initially I would have to start driving in completely the opposite direction I want to go. I’d have to turn left, follow the ring round around until I got to another junction then turn right and drive through and around the train station, then back out onto the main road to Richmond.
Or I could just turn right…drive down the road in the opposite direction, against the traffic, past the bus station, and then drive straight out onto the Richmond road.
Simple. Direct.
And now, during lock-in , an opportunity of a life-time!
Without a further thought, I turn right.
It’s bizarre. I feel an adrenaline rush. In spite of the fact that the roads are completely empty, it’s because what I’m doing goes against years and years of ingrained conditioning.
I laugh aloud.
And when I eventually get to the junction with the road where the ring road meets mine, I’m sorely tempted to turn left and drive right around the ring road in the opposite direction one more time!
It’s a wonderful thought.
I feel naughty like a little child, putting a finger up to the Kingston Council in defiance of their zillions of road traffic cameras, which would all be facing the wrong direction, and would probably explode when trying to compute what to do with a car spotted going at a ‘minus’ speed in the opposite direction!
Tempting though it is, I turn right, head towards Richmond for a few minutes then turn left into the street where my mum lives.
Lived.
As I turn the corner, one of the mysteries of lock-in is immediately solved.
The answer to the question of ‘where have all the cars gone?’ has now been solved.
The majority of them seem to be parked in this road.
In fact, as I continue down the road at a snail’s pace, I pass several other roads that branch off it, and each is the same.
All the cars that would normally stuff the city centre are now parked outside their owners' houses, in their gardens, and across the pavements, leaving all major highways and main roads clear.
Right now, as I approach my mum’s house, I realise this could be a problem.
The street is jam-packed with cars. Some are even double parked across the pavements, preventing anyone who might want to go outside from being able to walk anywhere but on the road.
The house is on the right-hand side. As I approach it, I begin to have a terrible sense of foreboding.
Until now I have still managed to do a good job of avoiding thinking directly about the reason I am here. If there is indeed any good, valid reason to be here now.
In this world, my mother is dead. Indeed, for a large part of my life, my mother was my world, until I met Sarah, and then Keira and Nicole came along, consuming all my attention and became the very epicentre of my existence.
If there is any reason to be here now, it’s certainly not to see my mum. If anything, it’s because I feel I must come. Just to be here.
And maybe it’s because, for a long time, it was my home too. And in this strange world I am now in, finding anywhere that you can call home, is a good thing.
If home is where the heart is, then perhaps my heart will find some strength for being here now.
Except, immediately I see the house, I
know it will not.
The house is different.
In a bad way.
Neglected.
Run down.
In need of a lot of immediate attention.
Last time I was here… I swallow hard, fighting back a wave of emotion… there was an abundance of large rose bushes in the front garden, all in flower. The paintwork on the windows and front door of the detached house was all green.
Not dark red, as it is now.
A dirty dark red.
One of the windows on the ground floor is also boarded up with wood, the glass behind obviously broken.
I stop the car in the middle of the road, blocking it completely.
At first it seems a selfish thing to do, but then I realise that it probably makes no difference to anyone else. Everyone is in lock-in . No one is going anywhere. Who am I going to upset?
Opening my door, I step out of the car.
I am now parked outside my mother’s house, where I was born, and grew up until I went to Edinburgh University to study Physics.
I stand outside the gate, looking at the double fronted detached building. Something has changed beyond the colour of the paint. The spark that made it special, has gone.
In the corner of my eye, something catches my attention. A light has gone on in the room at the front of the house on the left, and a woman is standing there looking out at me.
I turn slightly, and as I do, I notice that there are others watching me from the windows of the other houses too. Turning on the spot, I see faces at the many of the windows, all staring out at me from the front rooms, or down from their bedrooms, wondering who on earth the stranger is that dares to defy lock-in and park outside their houses.
A window in the house on the left opens, and a voice calls out at me.
“James Quinn? Is that you?”
“Yes!” I reply, turning towards the voice, but not able to make out the face through the window.
“James, go around the side of the house, and I’ll talk to you over the hedge in the back garden.”
Am I Dead? Page 18