Into the Fire (19 page)

I stood up, about to make my way over and exercise a little frustration, when I stopped dead . . .

Foggy night!

Jesus, no! It didn't mean a great deal here on the Mainland, but it sure as hell had out on the Island: it meant we were about to be attacked!

And at that precise moment, almost as if someone'd been waiting for that thought to trigger it, a familiar yet terrifying noise echoed out across the City, instantly turning the hairs on the back of my neck to icicles. Maybe 'cuz it was quite close—possibly in the Square—I could clearly hear each separate component: the shattering rhythm of the beaters, pounding everything they came across, yelling into the night; the hullabaloo of the heavy machinery, the thrumming Dragonflies. There was an army gathering, hell-bent on genocide, on eradicating all those who represented an inconvenience to them, and don't ask me how, but I just knew they were coming our way.

I turned back to see my graffiti artist hurrying off in the opposite direction. “Hey!” I hollered, “
Hey!
” but their only reaction was to start running.

I chased after them, calling out again, but it soon became apparent that they were way too fast for me—and more importantly, that I needed to get back to the churchyard.

“Hey!” I shouted one last time as I stumbled to a breathless halt, and then, 'cuz I could think of no other way to do it, I cried, “Thank you!”

But they'd already gone, lost somewhere in the loudly erupting night.

I stood there for a moment, trying to get my breath back as people started emerging out of the smoke, panicking as they ran around me. In the distance I could just about make out the glow of an advancing wall of discordant light. They were going to run through and over everything again, mopping up those they'd missed the other night, and this time I was sure the crypt wouldn't survive.

I started to run back, a swimmer against the tide, ignoring the many people who tried to tell me I was going the wrong way. Panic was spurring me on, urging me ever faster, the realization that with
half the buildings already flattened, the Specials would arrive a lot quicker this time.

I found the others already outside, gaping in the direction of the advancing army, Delilah looking like she was about to start screaming—and I didn't exactly blame her either.

“Big Guy! What we gonna do?” Jimmy begged.

“Grab what you can,” I told them, directing everyone toward the crypt.
“Quick!
We gotta go.”

“Where?” Delilah asked.

“Not far,” I told her, in my haste almost pushing her down the steps.

We took everything we could, scrambling around in the dark, so aware the noise was getting closer by the second, fumbling our way back up. All but one of us, that was: Jimmy was still down below.

“Jimmy!” I screamed down the steps as the Dragonflies emerged out of the smoke, breaking ranks and flying forward like the pilots couldn't wait to start shooting. “
They're here!
”

“Okay, okay,” he shouted.

“We're going!” I told him.

Finally he came tottering up, carrying, not the last of the food or essential supplies but as much of his damned techno junk as he could manage.

“Come
on
!” I yelled as the Dragonflies started to sweep their searchlights from side to side.

I showed them the way through the jungle of razor-sharp blackthorns, stopping to move the branches I'd used to disguise the path. I'd always known the day would come when we'd need that place, and finally it had.

Jimmy was so determined not to drop any of his stuff he got his arms badly scratched, but not even the growing noise, the approaching lights of the Dragonflies, could persuade him to discard anything.

“Where we going, Big Guy?” he kept repeating, though he didn't look like he was in any fit state to register an answer. “What's the plan?”

“Keep moving,” I told him.

Finally, we made it to that sheltered area I'd found right up against the wall, protected by ramparts of nature's spikes and spears. I couldn't see even Infinity beaters being game enough to try to get through there. 'course, they might've sent the dozers over—but if they couldn't get in, I was praying they'd assume that no one would get flushed out.

They were right behind us. Another few seconds and we would've been seen. There was that same crashing tsunami of noise: walls being toppled, a cacophony of wayward crying and screaming, the occasional shot, and it frightened the hell out of us—it'd frighten the hell out of anyone. They flattened almost everything in their path, anything that might possibly have offered refuge or provided a hiding place, and just as I'd feared, the floor of the church gave way, one of their machines almost disappearing into the hole.

Everything stopped, the Specials paused in their relentless rhythm, and several people came to peer down. An earnest conversation took place with the Dragonflies hovering overhead, illuminating the scene. Eventually someone picked their way down into the crypt, disappearing for a moment, and it went through my head that maybe they'd known we were there—that they were looking for us. The guy climbed back out and I couldn't tell whether he'd guessed anyone had been living down there. Whatever, they bulldozed the remains of the church into the hole so no one could ever seek that particular sanctuary again. I turned to the others and saw the fear frozen on their faces. I put my arm around Hanna.

When they were finally satisfied no one would ever make that place a home again, the order was given, the noise resumed, and everyone slowly moved forward. I heard Delilah give this little moan. I thought at first it was relief that we'd escaped again, but then I saw they'd run over Arturo's memorial stone, the one that she'd so lovingly scratched out, smashing it along with all the others.

I waited till I heard them clear the churchyard, then began to tentatively pick my way back out through the blackthorn bushes. Seeing the last of the Specials disappearing into the smoke, try as I
might, it was impossible not to think of the last time they'd paid us a visit; when we'd lost our little Arturo.

“Shit,” Jimmy muttered, appearing at my side, looking at the further devastation around us.

“They wanted to warn us,” I told him.

“Who?” he asked, mystified.

I pointed toward the other side of the street, but Infinity had done an equally thorough demolition job over there and very little was left standing.

“Whoever's been leaving the messages.”

I told him the whole story, but I guess he didn't think it mattered much in that moment. With no more than a grunt he returned into the bushes: our new home.

It must've been another thirty or forty minutes before we finally heard the noise we'd all been dreading. Not one of us spoke as volley after volley rang out. Hanna put her hands over her ears to try and shut it out, rocking back and forth, just the way I used to sometimes when the kids were raiding us out on the Island. But again it was Delilah who took it the hardest, sitting there with a thousand ghosts playing on her face, every shot a reminder of the one that had killed Arturo.

“Sick,” was all Jimmy could say, as he sat there cleaning his scratches. “Sick society.”

After we'd all positioned and repositioned our sleeping bags several times over, trying to work out the driest and warmest places, we bedded down for the night. As it turned out, it was that bit more comfortable than the crypt—softer underfoot, without that invasive cold and damp—and Gordie wanted to know why we hadn't moved over there sooner. Despite what we'd been through, everyone fell asleep remarkably quickly.

Everyone, that was, of course, 'cept me. Once again I was left just lying there, listening to their various nocturnal noises: Jimmy's wheezy creaking, Delilah's heavy sawing, Gordie's precociously loud snore and, if you could pick it out, the absolute silence that surrounded Hanna.

I felt a little sad that we'd moved. It might've been forced on us, but if Lena came back she'd find everything wasn't exactly the way she'd left it, and that made it feel like she was just that bit further away.

I also couldn't stop thinking about our phantom artist. Who the hell was it? For sure I didn't recognize them—and yet whoever it was knew something about Lena—about both of us. And the way they'd tried to warn us, they were apparently on our side. But did they know where Lena was? Did they have any real information?

I sighed and turned over, for a moment enjoying the slight disturbance of the outside wafting over my face. Whoever this graffiti artist was, they represented my only hope. Somehow I had to find them.

People are never one hundred percent consistent one hundred percent of the time—after all, it's a boring person who can always be predicted. Jimmy might say I respond purely to instinct, that I'm some kind of animal who never thinks things through, but I have my moments, even if they ain't that frequent.

The following day I walked slowly up to the Square, then turned around and walked back down again, checking what little remained after our second visit from Infinity. The answer to that question was . . . not a helluva lot. There was barely a building that hadn't been rendered to rubble by the Specials, smashed to bits and obliterated, completing the job the fires had begun. In fact, it reminded me of the Old City out on the Island, the way it had been left after the riots. Just like over there, there was still the odd finger of a building left standing—a doorway that refused to topple, an occasional stubborn slither of wall—and as I made my way back to the churchyard I made a mental note of each and every one.

The way I saw it, if this mystery person was still of a mind to communicate with me, the chances were that with the walls across the street gone, they'd look for the nearest alternative stretch of brickwork between here and the Square—a place they knew I regularly passed. Which didn't leave too many possibilities, since most
of what was left wasn't big enough to write a word on, let alone a message. However, I did find one section, five or six yards long, partly slumped over like some old sleeping dinosaur, and only a few minutes along the street.

That night I stole up there and hid amongst the rubble, concealed by the wall itself, on the other side to the street but ready to jump out at a moment's notice. For hour after hour I sat there, ignoring the bricks biting into my squidgy old ass, repeatedly telling myself that no one was gonna come, that they'd either been frightened off or fallen victim to Infinity, 'til finally, with the first faint smudge of smoky light fanning out from the East, I got to my feet slowly and stiffly and walked back to the churchyard, not only pained and aching but fearing that whatever opportunity that artist had presented had now gone.

I spent the rest of the day trying to improve our little shelter as much as I could: weaving black garbage bags into the overhanging branches so that at least a part of our lair would stay dry in the event of bad weather, digging out a pit for a fire so we could attempt a little cooking

Jimmy got his screen back performing its intended function and everyone stopped to see what had been going on. However, it didn't take us long to get fed up with all those endless clips of “crazed looters, degenerates and anarchists,” and up against them, the “gallant Infinity Specials”; there to watch over us, to protect and maintain the status quo, prepared to give their very lives in our defense. According to the reporter, seven Specials had been brutally slain while performing their heroic duty—though much to my relief they didn't go into detail. They also went on to show a gang of executed looters, laid out at the scene of their crime, though I wouldn't have minded betting they were “Clean-up” victims; that this was just more Infinity propaganda.

At the end of a long and predictable sequence about “the battle between good and evil being played out on our streets,” they went on to show us the villains' gallery. Jimmy was still Number One, but according to the report, they anticipated his eradication “any day
now.” I glanced across to see how the little guy was taking the news, but his only reaction was to repeatedly shake his head. He just didn't get how they'd managed to “read” his name—what they used, how they went about it—and I'll tell you, if he couldn't work it out, there wasn't much point in me even trying.

I didn't plan on going to watch for the graffiti artist that evening—I mean, they probably wouldn't risk it again, I even said as much to the others. The only thing I was searching for that night was a good few hours' sleep. But as soon as it got dark, it started to nag at me and in the end I gave in, promising myself I'd just go for a short while, an hour at the most.

Three hours later I was still sitting there, telling myself to go back to the shelter where there was a comfortable sleeping bag waiting for me. But I kept giving it another five minutes, then another, and another.

Where he or she came from, I dunno; wherever it was, they sure came quietly. The first I knew was hearing the hiss of the spray on the other side of the wall. I slowly got to my feet, determined not to let whoever it was get away this time, tiptoeing over the rubble, making sure I didn't dislodge any and give myself away. As long as that hissing kept on going, I had every chance of catching them cold.

I slipped out into the street, tip-toeing up behind them, immediately realizing it was a kid, and why I'd thought they were oddly dressed: multi-layered clothing, feathers in their tousled hair—but you know, I still wasn't sure if it was a boy or a girl.

I grabbed whoever it was, lifted them up in the air and a voice, unquestionably that of a girl, started demanding I put her down. I did as asked, but kept a real firm grip, studying that scowling and dirty face, but Jeez, I didn't know her at all.

“Who the hell are you?” I demanded.

She hesitated for a moment as if slightly puzzled, then resumed trying to wriggle free. “Get
off
me!” she demanded, but I maintained my hold.