Domain (18 page)

The older man shrugged. Who knows what's happened in the upper layers of the earth's atmosphere.

Perhaps the rain is cold around the equator now.' He became a little angry. ‘You keep treating me as though I'm in some way to blame for all this. I'm just a tiny, insignificant cog in a huge government wheel, Culver. My job has always been to protect lives, not destroy them, and as such I've had more battles with Whitehall ministers than I'd care to relate to you. The Civil Defence Corps was due to be scrapped totally just a few years ago, until we roused public opinion enough to prevent it.'

Culver was about to respond when Fairbank interrupted, nodding towards the rain-soaked stairway and saying in a no-nonsense voice: 'I'd like to take a look up top.'

Culver's smile was slow in coming, and his eyes neither changed expression nor left Bryce's. ‘Yeah,' he said. 'I think we'd all like to see what's left.'

He stepped out into the rain.

It felt good, so good. A cleanser, a purifier. He turned his face upwards, closing his eyes, and the heavy raindrops pelted his face. McEwen was right; it was warm, unnaturally so. But it was alive and it was wonderful. He climbed the steps, the others close behind.

Culver reached the top and stopped while the others caught up with him. They looked around, their faces white with shock, the warm rain battering their bodies, its sound the only sound.

It was Bryce who fell to his knees and cried, Wo, no, no...'

Many years before, when Culver was no more than a boy, someone had shown him a sepia print of Beaumont Hamel, a small town in a sector of the Somme front. The old photograph had been dated November 1916 - the time of World War I - and the image had stayed frozen in his mind ever since.

The battle long over, just thin trees remained, bare and stunted, without branches, their tops jagged charcoal. No grass, not one solitary blade poking from the solid mud. No buildings, just rubble. No birds. No growth. No life. Only desolation, total, unremitting. And unforgiving.

If he could have stepped into that picture, if he could have actually stood in that granite mud, breathed the charred and gas-tainted air, he had known that nothing would have stirred, the scene would have remained a frozen still, the reality imitating the reproduced image.

He had just stepped through that frame and found the concrete equivalent to the sepia waste.

The ruined city lay humiliated and crumbled around them, nothing moving except the relentless rain.

Not every building had been completely demolished, although none had escaped anything less than excessive damage; those remaining stood like broken monoliths amid the mountains of rubble, misshapen parodies of man's construction powers. Some rose up

with innards exposed, gigantic doll's-houses with one wall removed so that furniture and decor could be viewed; all that was missing were the tiny dolls themselves. Of others, only skeletal frames were left, the steel girders twisted, buckled, yet still proclaiming their resistance to whatever forces their makers could thrust upon them. There appeared to be no definite order by which one building had collapsed completely while another had remained partially erect, although the damage seemed worse in the distance, as it the power of the Shockwaves had reduced as they swept outwards, each preceding office block or dwelling absorbing a fraction of the force, dissipating the fury, affording a small protection to its neighbour.

Among the rubble, like tossed-away toys, lay cars, buses, other vehicles, some merely black-stained husks, completely burned out, others smashed into irregular shapes. The roads - what could still be discerned as roads - were metal graveyards, full of silent, defunct machines. Most lamp posts were bent, many doubled up like matchstick men with stomach pains; some, torn from concrete roots, lay stiffly across other wreckage, defeated but unbowed. Office equipment, furniture, television sets, tumbled from the debris, shattered and somehow incongruous in their exposure.

Also shattered, but far less incongruous because the search party had almost become used to them, were the misshapen bundles that had once been living, moving humans. They lay everywhere: in cars, in overturned buses, among the debris, in the roads. Many were huddled in doorways - whatever doorways were left - as if they had crawled there to await the poisoned air's descent.

The four survivors were relieved that the insects were held at bay by the rain torrent Shock upon shock hit them, sweeping through in waves,

their numbed minds mercifully dulling the rapid, horrifying visions. Yet the full impact of one sight could not be defused, for it was literally a panoramic statement of what had come to pass, a cruel affirmation of the devastation's magnitude.

Standing at street level in the heart of the nation's destroyed capital, they could now see the land's natural horizon, a view that before had always been obscured by a raggedy, concrete skyline, a growth-chart of varying greys against a blue background. Gentle hills that encircled much of London were no longer hidden, and to the east and west there was open space, broken only by a few upright buildings and the higher mounds of rubble.

It was awesome, and it was intimidating. And each man experienced a terrible loneliness, a longing for the world they had lost, for the people who had died.

Above them the sky was black and low, the new horizon silver. The warm rain drenched them and could not wash away their fears, nor their deep-felt misery.

Bryce was on his knees, his bowed head against the litter-strewn pavement.

McEwen's tears mingled with the rain on his cheeks.

Fairbank's eyes were closed, his head tilted slightly upwards, his body stiff.

Culver looked around, his feelings locked inside.

To the east he could see the round structure of St Paul's, its dome gone, the walls cracked and broken, huge sections missing. He was puzzled, for although there had been little time for observation when he and Dealey had fled after the first explosion the damage had not seemed this bad. Then he remembered that other bombs had been dropped - five had been estimated - and was then surprised the city had not been totally flattened. There seemed to be less damage to the east and sections of the south-west, but the rain made

everything too hazy to be sure. The lower portions of several buildings within the immediate vicinity were fairly intact, although mounds of rubble that had once been their upper floors created slopes from them.

In the distance he could just distinguish red glows where some parts still burned, or where fresh fires had broken out As if to confirm his thoughts, light flared from the north as though an explosion had occurred. The heavy rain was fortunate, not just because it helped clear the radiation dust, but because it had also kept the fires under reasonable control. What was left of the city could easily have become one raging inferno.

He walked over to McEwen and prodded his arm. Try the geiger, see if anything's registering.'

The ROC officer seemed glad to have something more to think about. A surge of clicking erupted from the machine and the needle flickered wildly for a second or two. It's okay,' McEwen quickly reassured him. 'Look, it's settled down. There's a certain amount of radiation around, but it's below danger level.'

He wiped his face to clear its wetness, the tears and rain.

'Fairbank?' Culver glanced at the engineer standing nearby.

There was a strange smile on Fairbank's face when he opened his eyes and turned towards the others.

It was sad, yet a peculiarly satisfied expression, almost as though the tragedy was no surprise to him.

What now?' Fairbank asked.

'Let's get Bryce to his feet, then have a quick look round. I don't want to stay out here any longer than necessary.'

Together they lifted the Civil Defence officer, who leaned against them for several moments for support. His strength returned slowly, but his spirit would take much longer.

'Any suggestions/ Culver said, 'as to where we should look?'

Bryce shook his head. There's nothing left to see. There's no hope for any of us.'

This is just one city,' Culver replied sharply, 'not the whole bloody country. There's still a chance.'

Bryce merely continued to shake his head.

There's a store over there,' Fairbank said, his voice loud so that it could be heard over the downpour.

'It's a Wool-worth's - I used to pass it every day. There'll be food, clothing, other things that might be useful.'

We don't need anything for the shelter yet, but it might be worthwhile taking a look,' Culver agreed.

'Leave me here,' said Bryce. 'I've no stomach for rummaging among the dead.'

'No chance. We're sticking together.'

'I won't be able to make it. I'm ... I'm sorry, but I must rest. My legs seem to have gone. The stress...'

Culver looked at Fairbank, who shrugged and said, 'He'll only slow us down. Leave him.'

'Stay here, then. But don't wander off. We're going straight back into the tunnel when we return.

Remember, the idea was to get back within two hours - we won't have time to start looking for you.'

Yes, I understand. I won't move from this spot, I can promise you that.'

You might be better off out of the rain. Try one of the cars over there, but keep a lookout for our return.'

Bryce nodded, relieved to be left alone. He watched the others making their way through the ruins of what once had been one of London's busiest thoroughfares. Clambering over rubble, weaving between inanimate traffic, their figures soon blurred by the rainfall. Then they were gone and the

acute loneliness they had all felt only moments earlier pressed harder on him, almost crushing in its ferocity.

The feeling of being the last person alive on the chastised planet was overwhelming, even though he knew his companions were not far away. His whole being cried out, in pity, in anguish; but mostly in despair. How much was there left of the human race, and what could its future be? Slow oblivion? Or would eventual procreation breed generation upon generation of debilitated and atrophied offspring, possibly even mutants, degenerates? Who would survive in the plague-stricken lands where even food that could be scavenged might contain the very seeds of lingering death? There was no way of knowing how massively destructive the conflict had been, whether any nations had been left unblemished, any countries untouched. They had failed even to learn the extent of their own homeland's ravagement.

The rain was like thousands of question-marks saturating his mind. There were no answers. Not yet.

And perhaps, for this small band of survivors, there never would be.

Bryce pulled up his coat collar, clutching the lapels to his chest, a symbolic gesture; the downpour was tepid, but it chilled his inner core.

There were many vehicles to shelter in; he walked over to a car nearby, its door hanging open as if the owner cared little for security as he fled the havoc - Bryce almost smiled at the thought of someone meticulously locking his vehicle while the city crumbled around him. The windscreen was shattered and he brushed glass fragments from the front passenger seat, relieved to find no bloodstains among them. He climbed in and the rain rattled its steady drumbeat on the metal over his head, splatters still reaching him through the opening, but adding no discomfort to his already soaked person.

A folded newspaper lay at his feet, sodden pages merged into one soft, mildewy lump. He glanced down, then bent to retrieve it, perhaps wistful for a remnant of natural order, a memento of yesterday's comfortable existence. All crispness long-vanished from its malty-grey leaves, the midday Standard threatened to disintegrate when he picked it up.

At first he frowned at the 72-point headline that said: PM URGES: STAY CALM.

Then he began to laugh.

And he laughed so much that tears flooded his eyes, and they were tears of mirth and bitterness, neither emotion giving way to the other.

And his shoulders jerked with the effort.

One leg stamping at the footwell.

Making the car judder.

Causing something in the back seat to stir.

Fairbank was the first to slip through the opening leading down onto the store's shopfloor. Mounds of debris, a hazardous mixture of masonry, powdered concrete and glass, had all but covered the wide display windows and swingdoors, but the three men had clambered up towards the dark opening heedless of the danger. Fairbank's enthusiasm to taste once again the confectionery delights denied to them among the shelter's plentiful but unexciting rations, to don a clean shirt, put on fresh underwear, was too keen for him to be discouraged by his two more cautious companions. And Culver himself had to admit the prospect appealed after their weeks of austere confinement.

He warned, however, that everything could be spoiled by now, and that clothing and other items might well have been ruined by fire.

'Just one way to find out, Culver,' the engineer had replied, grinning, the earlier emotional shock apparently overcome for the moment. Culver surmised that the man was either completely insensitive or a natural survivor, his durability perhaps a strong quality in such times. He had followed Fairbank's scampering figure up the incline.

At the top, Culver turned to McEwen. We'll need the geiger counter in here; the place could be full of radiation.'

Somewhat reluctantly, the ROC officer climbed the slope.

They watched Fairbank slither down the other, much steeper side, using their torches to guide him.

He settled at the bottom, waving his own torch around. 'Christ,' he exclaimed, 'the stink in here!'

We can smell it from here,' Culver told him before sliding into the gap. McEwen quickly followed and all three squatted in the disturbed dust, peering into the gloom, their lights penetrating the darkest corners.

'Ceiling's caved in at the far end,' McEwen observed.

'Everything looks safe otherwise,' said Fairbank. His voice took on a lighter tone. 'Hey, d'you see what I see?' His beam had caught multi-colour wrappers in its glare. He was up and at the sweets counter before the other two had a chance to rise.

'Don't scoff them all, Bunter, you'll make yourself sick,' Culver advised, unable to stop himself from smiling.

'Crunchie bars, Fruit and Nut, Walnut Whips - Christ, I'm dead and this is Heaven.' They heard him chuckle and began to laugh themselves.

'Bournville Plain, Dairy Milk, Pacers, Glacier Min—' his voice broke off.

By then, Culver and McEwen had joined him and they, too, were examining the array of bright wrappers that a fine layer of dust only faintly subdued. They soon discovered what had brought his exaltation to a sudden halt.

'Someone else has been at 'em,' McEwen commented.

'Someone or something.' Culver picked up a loose wrapper, a vision of black-furred creatures snuffling their way through the chocolate bars and sweets sending a prickly coolness along his spine.

'Rats?' Fairbank regarded him with wide eyes.

'Maybe.' Culver popped open the small restraining strap of the shoulder holster.