A Symphony of Echoes (3 page)

Chapter Three

People think we historians are lightweights. They think we whizz up and down the timeline, document a couple of battles or the odd revolution, swan back to St Mary’s, and spend the night in the bar. To some extent, that’s true. However, when it goes wrong for us, it really goes wrong. I remembered my friend and fellow-trainee, Kevin Grant, killed on his very first mission. Or Anne-Marie Lower sitting on the floor of her pod, blank-eyed and covered in blood, as her partner died in her arms. But this was the worst thing that could happen. Worse than death because our end was not going to be quick and it was not going to be easy.

We were contaminated.

It’s not supposed to happen. Pods are not supposed to be able to jump with any foreign objects on board. If ever we inadvertently brought something into the pod then it just wouldn’t jump. Simple as that. God knows how this had happened. However, happen it had and we were really in the shit. The rules were very clear. No one was getting out of this pod. Ever.

And we couldn’t take him back. History states very clearly that Mary Kelly was his last victim. After tonight, he vanished. And now we knew why. So we couldn’t jump back to Whitechapel and just kick him out to continue his reign of terror. Even if we could, we wouldn’t.

I looked at Kal, who had obviously come to exactly the same conclusion as me. She gave me a small, sad smile, and after only the briefest pause, said lightly, ‘Would you do the honours please, Max?’ and slipped her hands into her muff.

I activated the external speaker together with the internal cameras so they could see what was going on. Whatever was in here with us mustn’t know that we knew, so I said slowly and calmly, ‘Attention, please. This is Pod Five. This is Pod Five. Code Blue. Code Blue. Code Blue. I say again, this is Pod Five declaring a Code Blue. Authorisation Maxwell, five zero alpha nine eight zero four bravo. This is not a drill.’ I sat back leaving the mike open.

‘Balls to the wall, Max,’ said Kal softly and stood up. I got to my feet as well and we both moved casually, oh so casually, to the door, where we turned, to face back into the pod, backs protected, shoulder to shoulder. And much good it would do us.

She drew herself up and said commandingly, ‘Show yourself. We know you’re here. Show yourself.’

It wasn’t invisible. But there are ways of not being seen. Something changed in our perception. Like staring at those 3D coloured dot pictures and suddenly you realise you’re looking at a giraffe riding a bike. Nothing changes, but suddenly you can see it.

We saw it now.

It was tall and bony. Man-shaped. An unhealthy grey-white pallor. A bloodless thing. Damp skin glistened in the harsh light of the pod. I thought of a white slug, except slugs are fleshy. This thing had no flesh on it anywhere. Huge hands, big as shovels, with thick, yellow nails were caked with Mary Kelly’s dried blood. Long arms hung loosely at his sides, reaching to his knees, palms turned backwards. The eyes were dark and hidden within creases of moist skin. They reflected nothing – light was captured, but not reflected. A one-way entrance to something unspeakable. The proportions of its face were all wrong. The too-big mouth was half way up its face. The chin was long, pointed, and not symmetrical. The nose was not central but set off to one side. There was no septum. This was something that had been put together wrong. I could smell bad earth. My stomach clenched. I clutched my stun gun in one hand and pepper spray in the other, but my defiance was only for show. This was the thing known as Jack the Ripper and his record spoke for itself. There was no escape for us. This was going to be bad.

Kal spoke again, and her voice was firm and without fear. I never admired her more. ‘Can you understand me?’

It dipped its chin.

‘Then listen closely. I know who you are. I know what you’ve done. Look around. You are imprisoned in a pod. You will never leave it again. None of us will leave this pod alive. Do you understand?’

It dipped its chin.

‘You heard my colleague. She declared Code Blue. That means we are contaminated. This pod is no longer under our control. We cannot open the door. We cannot get out. You cannot get out. We will all die in here. Do you understand?’

It hissed.

I gestured to the screen. ‘Look.’

It leaned forward and I took the opportunity to move half a step closer. Outside, all the techies had disappeared. They’d dimmed the lights to a blue glow. A double ring of hazmat-dressed security guards surrounded the pod. Front row kneeling; back row standing. They all had some very serious weaponry pointed directly at us.

It dipped its chin.

‘They cannot get in,’ I lied. ‘This pod is impregnable. They have only one purpose. To shoot dead anything and everything that might try to leave. They have firepower the like of which you cannot imagine. If you do somehow manage to get out, they will shoot you dead. And me. And my colleague. Everything in this pod is doomed. Do you understand?’

For the first time, it shook its head.

‘I think not.’

Its voice was deep, thick and sibilant, with a slight accent. It had difficulty speaking. Its tongue was purple and far too big for its mouth. Yellow and brown saliva crusted the corners of its lips. The thought of them touching me was unbearable.

It spoke again. ‘I think they will not be so happy to see such pretty girls … suffer. I think when you have both screamed for a day, then they will be willing to open the door. Especially when they hear you beg.’

Kal shook her head. ‘That will not happen. That door will never open again. There is no food or water here. After a week, we will be dead, either by your hand, or by ours. The guards will not move. They will stay until they see we cannot possibly be alive. On that day, they will take this pod and bury it forever. It will be your tomb. I don’t know what you are, or if you can die or not, but I hope for your sake you can, because otherwise you will sit here in this tiny box, alone in the cold and the dark, until the end of time. You should not have followed us here. You have made a big mistake. Do you understand?’

It dipped its chin. ‘I understand but I do not agree. I propose to put it to the test.’

Suddenly it was in front of us. I never saw it move. I jerked up my stun gun but it was knocked from my hands before I could fire. The same blow knocked me sideways. I rolled as I heard Kal scream. Her gun went off. I saw its arm rise and fall, rise and fall, slashing and ripping. Kal screamed again. I grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall and jabbed it into the side of its face. Something gave, but it had no real effect. Kal swung her arm and I heard the bottle break.

I reached behind my head and pulled out a long hairpin. I meant to shove it down its ear but it turned its head, and I sunk it into its eye instead. No credit to me, it did it to itself. It uttered a shrieking, wailing sort of cry and fell backwards, clawing with clumsy hands. I followed it up with a short blast of pepper spray, directly into its ruined eye.

It wailed again and threw itself at me. I saw nothing, but suddenly my face was on fire. I thought it had thrown the kettle at me. I could feel hot liquid running down my face and thought I’d been scalded. Its breath was in my face, its tongue falling from its mouth. I thought I was finished when, from the floor, Kal said hoarsely, ‘Now,’ and wrapped her arms around its legs, just below the knees. I shoved hard. It crashed to the floor. Hard. The impact caused a locker door to swing open, and hazily, I saw the fire axe.

I seized the extinguisher again and dropped it from waist height onto its face. It bellowed, its broken mouth opening and closing. Its arms flailed on Kal’s back, ripping through fabric and flesh, through to the bone. She was still screaming, but she never let go. She wrapped herself around it, hampering its movements as best she could. She was my friend and she never let go.

I fumbled for the fire axe.

It’s really not that easy to chop someone’s head off. I swung the axe wildly. I couldn’t see properly. I nearly took my own foot off twice. It took eleven strokes. I counted them. Every one. There was blood everywhere. Our blood. Kal’s and mine. Kal was soaked in it. I couldn’t make out the colour of her hair. I wasn’t even sure she was still alive. My whole front was red with fresh, wet blood. I had no idea where it was all coming from. I didn’t know half my face was hanging off.

On the eleventh stroke, the mangled head slowly rolled away from the body. A small amount of a thick, brownish-fluid oozed sluggishly from the torso, wrinkled almost immediately, and began to congeal. The smell made me heave.

Suddenly, there was silence.

A soft moan from Kal brought me back. Without letting go of the axe, I pulled out a pillow and got her to curl up around it.

‘Press hard, Kal; try to stop the bleeding.’ She was deathly white, but nodded slightly. She was still with me.

I stepped back, carefully avoiding that sticky pool of fluid. I leaned against the wall, chest heaving in that sodding corset and tried to get a grip. I had a vague idea of re-setting the co-ordinates to somewhere such as the Cretaceous, and just pitching it out of the pod. I really didn’t want to spend what little time I had left with that thing rotting nearby. However, I had no longer had any control over this pod. We were going to die in here. We couldn’t get out.

I turned and looked at the screen. All the security team was still there – no one had moved. The Boss, Dieter, Peterson – they would all be watching this from the monitor room. I spared a thought for them. And Leon Farrell – what was he feeling at this moment? I couldn’t afford to think about that now. I turned back into the pod.

And then, oh God, the worst moment of all.

Even as I looked, the head, a good eighteen inches from the torso and with one of my hairpins still sticking out of its eye, rolled back on itself. Back towards the body. The remaining eye opened, found me, and faintly, the lips smiled.

I’ve had some bad moments in my life and there were more to come, but this was one of the worst because I realised then that this was just part of the game. These were just the opening moves. I looked around at the blood-soaked pod, Kalinda, unconscious and possibly dying at my feet and then back again to this un-killable thing. This was it. This was hell. There was no escape. We were damned for all eternity. And this was just the first fifteen minutes.

The gun! Somewhere in this abattoir was Kal’s gun. We had no hope of survival, but I could make our ending a great deal easier. I would shoot Kal and then myself. Then they could bury the pod, or drop it into the sea, and that would be the end of it.

I scrabbled one-handed, clumsy because I wouldn’t take my eyes off whatever it was for more than a second, and I wasn’t going to let go of the axe, either. I found the gun kicked under my seat. Only one shot fired.

I stood over Kal, emptied my head of all thoughts, and commended our souls to the god of historians.

Something crackled and I imagined that a voice said, ‘Max, stand down. Put down the gun.’

I tightened my grip and blinked away the tears. Don’t weaken now.

The door opened. Four masked and suited guards were there, two standing, two kneeling, weapons raised and swinging back and forth, covering every inch of the pod.

Major Guthrie said, ‘Max, it’s me, Ian. Put down the gun,’ and stepping carefully through the blood, crossed to the toilet and pulled open the door. Another guard immediately took his place. Together, they formed an impenetrable barrier across the door. Nothing could get out.

He shouted, ‘Clear!’ and shouldering his weapon, bent over Kal, looking for a pulse. ‘OK, let’s get her out.’

Two men entered, picked up Kal, and carried her out.

I said, ‘Make sure you don’t stand in its blood,’ but they told me afterwards it just came out as a series of meaningless sounds.

He came to stand in front of me. ‘Max, it’s Ian. Let go of the gun and the axe.’

I kept trying to look around him. I must not take my eyes off the head. I tried to tell him.

Finally, he said, ‘What?’ and I tried to signal with my eyes.

He turned round and said, ‘He’s very, very dead, Max. He’s never going to do anyone any harm ever again,’ and, then, thank God, just as he looked, the head moved again. Another small movement. Back towards the body.

He stood frozen for a minute and then said in a very different voice, ‘Where’s that axe?’ He swung once, twice, three times, powerful blows with the full force of his body behind them. We both stared at the crushed, ruined head. Even then, I wasn’t convinced. Neither was he.

‘I’ll see to all this, Max. Let’s get you out. Leave all this to me.’

I tried to say something about contamination, but he said, ‘Will you trust me to do this right?’

I nodded.

He carried me out of that stinking pod, through the plastic containment tunnel, into a small plastic treatment room and wonderful, glorious, fresh air.

I couldn’t see Kal at all for the people bending over her. She was hooked up to all sorts of drips and stuff. They were calm but urgent. The bloody pillow lay on the floor with soiled dressings all around. They were cutting her clothes off her.

Masked and suited figures appeared around me, cutting off my view. My turn.

Someone said, ‘Close your eyes,’ and I felt cool liquid running across my face.

Someone else said, ‘Keep irrigating. Don’t stop.’

I recognised Nurse Hunter. Dr Foster must be with Kal.

Hunter bent over me. ‘Hello, Max, what have you been up to now? Everything’s fine. We’re just going to have a look.’

They started to cut off my clothes, as well. Mrs Enderby, our wardrobe mistress, was not going to be pleased with us at all. I tried to tell them to bag everything, but no one was listening, and after all, we were in an isolation tent. It wasn’t likely they would just carelessly toss it all away. Let them get on with it.

I started to shiver.

‘OK, let’s have some heat pads here. Elevate the feet. Hang on, Max.’ Voices came and went, the way they do when you doze off in front of the television.

‘Cuts and abrasions on her forearms – probably defensive wounds, one is very deep indeed. Two deep gashes across her left ankle and some minor cuts to the abdomen. Nothing too serious, Max. You’ll live to be grateful to that corset. In fact, we’re ditching the Kevlar and replacing it with whalebone.’