Into the Fire (3 page)

“We're only stopping for a few hours,” I reminded her. “I want to be away from this place as soon as we can.”

I waited for a protest that I was being obsessive, but there was none, and I realized she'd already fallen back to sleep. I kissed her on the forehead. I mean, whatever or wherever, I'm still the luckiest dumb old big guy in the world. No question.

The last thing I reminded myself before I finally succumbed to that unfamiliar darkness was that it was up to me. I would have to get everyone up at first light, ignore their inevitable grumbling and get them out on the road. Too bad if they hated me for it. Above everything, we needed to get away, out into the country, and resurrect our bid for freedom and a better life.

Though, in fact, did I but know it, it was already too late.

Sometimes I wonder if it's sleep that won't come to me, or me that won't allow it, that I don't care for what it brings. Maybe it was being back in the City, my memories getting all stirred up, but I dreamed it was the old days and I was driving Mr. Meltoni.

I could see that proud smile of his in my rearview mirror as he gazed out the window at his domain, the streets he owned, people nodding and bowing as we went by. As his main muscle and minder, I had it pretty good, I can tell you. Fancy lifestyle, plenty of money . . . plenty of R.E.S.P.E.C.T. And yet, somewhere along the line, I dunno why, and no matter how much I loved the guy, I began to feel that what I was doing wasn't right. That nothing was worth what was going on, and especially not money. Even before he died, I'd stopped getting my hands dirty. When he did finally pass on, well, it was an easy decision: I was going straight, off to start a new life. The only problem was, my timing couldn't have been worse. The world economy hadn't had another hiccough, more of a damn cardiac arrest. A combination of greed, demographics and straight-out stupidity meant that even governments had gone broke, and could no longer afford to look after the needy, or the old, or the sick,
nor could they provide any of the essentials like hospitals or schooling. If you couldn't pay for it, you couldn't have it, and that was it.

The pension I'd contributed to every month for all those years got “lost” somewhere, probably in some fat cat's pocket. I was classified as an “unsupported retiree”—an old person with no money or family—and sent out with the rest of society's waste to live on the “Island”: a mountain of landfill in the middle of a polluted sea.

I never dreamed I could hate life the way I did out there. No chance of escaping, not with those punishment satellites—if you tried, you got zapped. The only other inhabitants apart from us old folks were the kids. Kids who never got to go to school; who'd always been told that old people and their selfishness were to blame for the world's misfortunes, some who'd got into trouble and whose parents couldn't afford to pay for their incarceration. And boy, did they have it in for us. Though the real bane of our torturous existence was the Wastelords.

The Wastelords were the dyed-in-the-wool Island survivors, young offenders, now adults—who abused the smaller kids in every way. They fed them drugs when the fog came down and the satellites weren't working and encouraged them to go up to the Village and “have a good time”—in other words, to run amok, butchering us, burning us out . . .

I guess there's a worse life somewhere in this world, but I can't imagine it. However, if there's one thing I do know, it's to never give up hope. One day I stumbled on this blind young woman living alone in the old subway tunnels, and from then on everything changed. Lena saved me, she took care of me, and finally, she gave me something I never thought I'd know in my sad old big-guy life: love. The two of us lived underground with Jimmy and Delilah, later joined by Gordie, Arturo and Hanna: the kids we captured, who became our friends—well, more like family really.

Eventually the day came when we were forced into fighting the Wastelords—but Jimmy had other, much grander ideas. He may be in his seventies, but when it comes to original computer geniuses, you won't find any better. He's always tinkering with stuff, pulling it
apart, putting bits with other bits so it does something else, things I wouldn't even begin to understand. He found a way of destroying the punishment satellites, which is how we all ended up out on that ocean last night.

I don't know when exactly, but somewhere along the line my subconscious must've decided that Lena had earned the right to be as present in my dream world as she is in my real one. And I guess as we've kept each other company just about every minute of the day and night since we became an item, that's not exactly surprising. What
is
surprising—and I can think of any number of people who'd raise an eyebrow or two—is that this level of companionship should happen to
me
. I'd always seen myself as a loner, someone who prefers his own company to that of others. But I guess the truth is, there aren't too many who want to admit to being lonely, and I'm no exception. There's a stigma attached, an implication that you ain't so much lonely as a loser. I mean, I'm sure there are people out there who prefer being on their own, 'course there are, but contrary to appearances—contrary to what I'd always assumed myself—I ain't one of them.

And don't get the idea that Lena's around just to alleviate that condition either. Nothing could be further from the truth. That woman's taught my tone-deaf old heart to sing. I'd give my life a thousand times over for her—and that ain't just talk either. I'd die happy knowing I prolonged her existence for just one single day. And as I sit here, holding her in my arms, both of us silently gazing out across the lake in the park to the shimmering warmth of the trees on the other side (it's gone now, they built on it twenty-odd years ago), I know two things: one, that I'm dreaming, and two, that when I awake, when I make that transition from this world to the other, she'll be there beside me too.

My eyes slowly blinked and batted their way open, instantly filling my mind with confusion: what the hell? Where was I?

The first penny to drop was that I really was off that Island, that I hadn't dreamed it; the second was that I hadn't woken at dawn as I'd promised myself; there'd already been a big bite taken out of the day.

I grabbed my watch, cursing when I saw it was nine-fifty, and sat up with a real jolt. Lena woke but didn't say anything, just tried to pull me back down, to keep me with her a little longer.

“No,” I told her, “we gotta go!” I released myself from her grip and struggled to my feet, aware that I was painfully stiff from last night's activities, that my old body was again complaining about being asked to do the work of a young one.

Stumbling through to the showroom, I found the others also still asleep.

“Let's go!” I shouted, jolting Jimmy's shoulder. “Kids, come on! We gotta get moving.”

I was about to go back and check Lena hadn't returned to sleep when it occurred to me that there was something odd about the light—it was kind of dull and purplish. I went to the front of the store and took a look out.

At first I thought it was fog. I mean, they don't get a lot on the Mainland, not like we did out on the Island, but it does happen. However, I soon realized it was something else: a thick gauze of smoke that I saw first, and then smelled, kind of hot and dark and strongly chemical.

I threw back the door and rushed out. One look was enough to see we had real trouble. There was a building burning further down the block, but it wasn't just that, the possibility that the flames might spread to us; more this feeling that during the night we'd somehow got trapped.

I hurried back inside. “Come on,” I shouted, frustrated by everybody's slow progress, particularly the kids, who didn't even seem to have the energy to get themselves upright. “Let's go!”

“I'm hungry,” little Arturo whined.

“Me too,” agreed Gordie.

“Later,” I told them. “Now, come on!”

As we emerged from the store, the nearby blaze exploded across the narrow street as if from a flame-thrower, instantly setting another building alight.

“Jesus, Big Guy!” Jimmy gasped. “Did you see that?”

I never commented, just took Lena's hand, the two of us locking together now like it was second nature. A dozen or so paces on, I glanced back and found Jimmy still gaping at the fire. “Jimmy!” I shouted, and he turned and started to peg after us, soon catching up with the dawdling kids. Little Arturo was still complaining he wanted something to eat and Delilah had a consoling arm around his shoulder.

Lena kept sniffing the air, almost like she was taking in random samples for analysis. “I can smell it again,” she told me, “that odor I noticed on our way over from the Island.”

“It looks a bit like the Island,” I observed, gazing around, “'cept this is smoke.”

“How far can you see?”

“I dunno—maybe forty, fifty yards? It depends.”

Again she sniffed, shaking her head as if she didn't quite understand. “What is it that's burning?”

I looked at her for a moment, then back at the fire now disappearing into its own smoke. “Everything,” I told her, only in that moment realizing that was true, that there didn't seem to be a thing in that City that wasn't flammable.

She was about to say something more but fell silent when I stopped at a junction, looking this way and that, trying to work out which way we'd come the previous evening.

“That way,” she told me, and without questioning it for a moment, I set off in the direction she indicated.

When we got up to the main street and turned in the direction of the hills—though with the smoke, of course, you couldn't see them—it felt like we'd joined an assault course. Everywhere you looked it was as if madness had been set free and told to do whatever it wanted. All manner of stuff had been discarded, Lord knows why. Maybe they saw something better, or just couldn't carry as much as they'd thought. I noticed this irradia-fry, still in its box, covered in blood, more smeared handprints on the sidewalk nearby as if someone had been forced to crawl away on their hands and knees. Every possible window, every outdoor screen low enough to
be reached, had been smashed. And fires, of course, still burning all over: some big, some small. To Jimmy's continuing fascination, a couple actually exploded in front of us, swear to God, again shooting out streams of flame.

It reminded me of those images you see of the surface of the sun: everything just bubbling away one moment, erupting with rainbows of fire the next. The front walls of several buildings had given way, spilling out across the sidewalk, while the blackened hulks of automatic buses were skewed all along the street, leastways as far as you could see. But you know, despite all the destruction and chaos and the fact that it was probably gonna kick off again later, there were still those determined to carry on with their normal lives. Off to their places of work, the office or store, hell-bent on making it “business as usual.”

The worst thing was the bodies. I don't know how many we saw—it didn't occur to me to count—but it's a sure sign that civilization's breaking down when you see corpses in the street. When no one's come to clear them away. I guess if the kids had come from anywhere but the Island we would've done everything we could to shield them from it. But they've seen stuff like that all their lives. I don't think they gave it a second thought.

There were a few looters already out and busy, very different animals from those who'd rampaged through the previous night. Most of them looked to be old folk, though I didn't notice any Islanders, which made me wonder how many got away from those Dragonflies. There was something almost apologetic about their behavior. They were skulking from one place to another, their heads held low, as if they really didn't agree with what they were doing but had realized they had no other choice, that this was just the latest version of survival.

At one point Hanna stopped, peering into this quaint but rather run-down little store that like a lot of the less impressive-looking places hadn't been touched. I went back to see what had caught her eye and was met by a slightly faded display of ballet clothes. More particularly a pair of shiny pink satin shoes.

To be honest, I'm not sure I would've said anything if she'd picked up the nearest brick, smashed the window and taken them. For sure I don't know anyone who'd put them to better use. And amongst all that ruckus, everything that was going on, what would it have mattered? But she just had her fill of looking, turned, smiled at me and carried on.

The further out we went, into the old migrant suburbs—Chinese, Greek, Italian—the more we got into, well, not exactly home territory, but certainly more familiar. Eventually, despite the dense smoke and the years I'd been away, I began to recognize places: a couple of businesses I used to collect money from for Mr. Meltoni, a pool hall where I used to play as a kid.

It might sound odd, but in a way I was waiting to see what my reaction would be, how I'd take to my first real memory. But do you know something? No matter where we were, or what we saw, there was nothing. I really didn't care I'd spent the majority of my life there, that it was my hometown. For sure it didn't feel like it anymore. All I wanted was to get out into the open spaces, to see a whole horizon contributed to by no one but Nature, and until that happened, I wasn't going to feel truly free.

By midafternoon the road began to ascend and we realized we'd reached the more affluent suburbs, that though we might not be able to see them, we'd started to climb the hills that half-cup the City.

I was reckoning on another three or four hours to get to the other side, but the higher we got, the more difficult the smoke became. It started to really sting our eyes and gouge the back of our throats, and poor old Delilah, with her one lung, was hacking away fit to burst.

“Clancy,” Lena warned.

“I know.”

“She can't go much further.”

I turned to Jimmy and he gave me this look, like he didn't want to say anything but couldn't put it off much longer.

“As soon as we're over the hills, you'll be fine,” I reassured Delilah, feeling a little guilty. “The cleanest, purest air you'll ever breathe.”

Jimmy ignored my attempt at lightening the mood. “I don't think she can make it, Big Guy.”

“I'm all right—keep going,” Delilah told us, but she was coughing so much no one took any notice.

“You go on,” Jimmy said. “We'll go back down. This smoke's gotta clear sometime. We'll follow you.”