Last Hope, Book One: Onslaught (29 page)

The vision was such that Budd would’ve turned his back on it had he not feared that the fast-increasing pressure on the fence, caused as more and more of the beasts reached the blockage, crushing those at the front, would be too much for the structure to withstand.

The soldiers backed away, loading their guns.

Despite Budd’s apprehension, and the occasional creak as the fence moved on its concrete surround, pulling on its securing pins, the gate held firm.

For now, they were safe.

“Let’s move out,” Captain Brooks said, turning from the gate and using his light to sweep across the large chamber. “Come in, Jackson. Do you read me?”

“I never regained visual contact with him, sir. The line was too slow.”

Brooks touched his earpiece again. “Sergeant Jackson, please respond. Over.”

I guessed Jackson was the soldier who’d led the way through the office building waging a one-man war against door locks, but I hadn’t seen him alive since. I also hadn’t seen his body ripped to pieces either, so perhaps it wasn’t all bad news for Jackson.

But then again…

“Okay, he knows we’re heading for the pier, we’ll have to hope he’s there in time. Bogey, sitrep?”

“I obtained this map, sir,” the soldier answered. He let his MP-5 drop from his hands to hang on its shoulder strap and pulled a folded pamphlet from his back pocket. Captain Brooks took hold of the paper and stretched it out on the concrete floor. While the officer passed his light over the colorful maze of underground lines, Bogey used a glove-encased finger to trace out a route across a part of the network.

“We have to follow this line to the next station. It should come up approximately three-hundred meters from the pier.”

Budd did some quick mental math and realized that they would have about 1,000 feet to cover between the end of the tunnel and the beginning of the pier. Standing close to where the two soldiers were having their discussion, he took the moment of relative calm to glance around. The other four soldiers, using their lights to break up the darkness, were exploring the cavernous room, but kept looking back to the metal fence, their eyes drawn to the frightful groans of the swarming beasts.

“Well done, soldier. Is this place secure?”

“Negative. I’ve not been beyond this room. I locked the prisoners in the public toilets.”

“There’s no time to reconnoiter. Get them ready; we’re moving out.”

“Yes, sir.”

Captain Brooks studied the map by flashlight for a while longer and then folded it away and tucked it into a compartment on his belt.

“What’s going on?” Budd asked.

Captain Brooks looked him in the eye, barely visible behind the glare of his torch. “The end of the world, Mister Ashby.”

“That doesn’t explain very much.”

“I’m glad you’ve been released,” Brooks said, ignoring Budd’s comment. He slipped a spare handgun from its holster on his belt. From another pouch, he took a small flashlight, designed more for reading than illuminating any substantial distance. “Take these.”

Budd recognized the weapon as soon as his hand wrapped around its polymer handle: a Glock 17. He kept his finger away from the trigger, remembering that the weapon lacked a separate safety switch. He clicked the button on the small, metallic light and a faint pool of light engulfed his boots. “Thanks, buddy,” he said.

“Keep yourself safe. We need you alive.”

“I’ll do my best.”

I still had no idea what was going on, but a gun and a light were better than a pair of handcuffs…

Lost in the darkness behind Captain Brooks’ shoulder came Charles Deacon’s voice. It was filled with a hint of anxiety. “We should be moving now,” the scientist said.

“Patterson, Sanders, take point, head south on the Princess Diana Memorial Line. Pope, Lewis, you’ll be in the rear.”

Budd looked around, his attention captured by the sudden sound of nearby footsteps in the darkness. He caught sight of the line of hotel survivors being marched into the chamber, accompanied by the light of Bogey’s MP-5-mounted tool. The procession stumbled onwards through the dark, although their attention was held by what was trapped on the other side of the metal fence.

At the opposite end of the chamber, two of the flashlights descended out of view, sinking into the darkness until even the faintest reflection of the glow had vanished. The other two, who had been exploring, had now come to a halt close to where the leading two had vanished; they were sweeping the path ahead of the line, illuminating the floor.

“
Monsieur
Ashby, we should stay close to them,” Juliette said.

Budd took one look back at the mass of fast-movers pressed against the fence. By the light of Captain Brooks’ powerful beam, he saw that the faces of the beasts in the front were now lifeless and bloody, their bodies crushed against the metal links by the surging horde behind them. He looked away with a shake of his head. “I think you’re right, sweet thing.”

Budd tucked the Glock 17 into the waistband of his pants, nestling the handgun into the small of his back. He pulled out his blue sweatshirt to hide it. After this, he took hold of Juliette’s hand and, with the small flashlight aimed at the floor in front of them, led her as they hurried to catch up to the group.

Under Bogey’s command, the other hotel survivors were still being forced to walk with their hands on the shoulders of the person ahead. While this made their progress slower, with people shuffling their feet and tripping over one another, Budd could now see a practical reason for it; as they journeyed through the darkness, the precaution prevented them becoming separated and lost.

“The smell is getting worse,
Monsieur
Ashby.”

She was right. The stench was overpowering. It reminded me of my second wife’s fish stew…

Letting his eyes dart between the moving spheres of light, Budd saw that they were nearing the edge of the chamber. Several corridors led from its walls, like strands from the center of a spider’s web, and each one was marked with an overhead sign that indicated which line it would access. The sign above where the two soldiers had first disappeared from view was green with a purple stripe. This was the Princess Diana Memorial Line, newly built during Greenwich’s redevelopment.

Ahead, the sound of concrete-scraping footfalls changed to the abrupt clatter of shoes on metal. There was an escalator, although without power it was nothing more than a staircase. One after the other, the group descended deeper into the blackness.

“I’ll go first, but you take this. You’ll find it easier, sugar.”

Juliette took hold of the flashlight and pointed it at their feet. Budd saw her smile in the faint, reflected ambience. “Be careful,
Monsieur
Ashby.”

“Why do people keep saying that?”

Having not quite caught the rearmost member of the group before their descent, Budd headed down the steps with Juliette lighting the way. The howling from the metal fence kept his heart racing, but despite his urge to distance himself from the source, he maintained a relatively low speed, judging each step with care.

The temperature increased as they went down, and the air was clogged with the reek that filled the underground station.

“Keep moving,” Captain Brooks called from behind.

Budd ignored the comment, as he was already gaining on the last member of the line, who shuffled along, struggling to remain balanced in the darkness. The black robes and disheveled white hair made Father McGee easily recognizable, and the old priest jumped when Budd’s left hand settled on his shoulder. His head spun around to reveal eyes wide with terror.

“Don’t worry, I won’t eat you. You look kinda gristly.”

Father McGee’s tongue whipped across his lips. “You scared me, my son.”

“I’ll still get to heaven, though, right?”

The priest smiled and then looked forward again.

At the head of the line, Bogey stepped off the escalator into a white-tiled corridor. His flashlight’s beam revealed advertising posters in sealed frames along the walls, and the ceiling arched over at twice the height of a man.

About 125 feet further on, two cones of light indicated that the pair of scouts had reached a dilemma. Uncertainty was obvious in the sweeping movements of their beams. On either side of the corridor stood a wide archway; one soldier ventured into the mouth of the left-hand opening and the other disappeared into the right.

From behind Budd came the rustling of paper. “Either platform will take us to the next station,” Captain Brooks said into his microphone. “Repeat, either platform.”

After a few seconds, the soldier who’d gone into the left-hand entrance crossed over to the right. From then on, Budd lost his view of what lie ahead as he’d reached the bottom of the escalator. With one hand still on Father McGee’s shoulder, and the other held tight by Juliette, he continued on, unable to see anything other than the small area around his feet.

His hearing was assaulted by the distant cries of the beasts that had followed them into the underground; beasts that he was sure were still surging against the metal fence, battling to reach them. He tried to block the sight of them from his memory, but he could not shake the fear of others hiding in the surrounding darkness. Odd, eerie shadows lurked at the edge of his vision.

Such thoughts were not helped when he stepped over a patch of dried blood, which had turned brown through prolonged exposure to the air. He caught a glimpse of more stains and elongated marks on the tiled walls.

At some point, people had died in the tunnel.

Father McGee started to arc to the right and Budd kept hold of him, following the line into the mouth of the opening. Already the front of the line was snaking around again and coming to a halt. They had reached the edge of the platform; to the left and right it carried on into the darkness, but Budd knew that the only place they could still go was down onto the tracks.

These, however, could not be seen.

Polluted, putrid water had flooded them and it was from here that the smell was originating. The two leading soldiers had already made the plunge over the side of the platform, dropping into the filthy ooze to mid-way up their thighs. Disturbing the surface made the water smell even worse. Regardless, the two soldiers continued onwards, heading left from the platform’s opening, the illumination from their flashlights threatening to vanish as the track curved away in the tunnel.

Bogey disengaged himself from the front of the line and then climbed down the four-foot drop, splashing into the water. He swung his MP-5 on its shoulder strap so that the barrel light shone back on the platform and his hands were free to help others clamber down. “Quickly,” the soldier instructed.

The line disintegrated as the more able-bodied members scrambled down unaided, all under the supervision of Captain Brooks, who used his light to illuminate as much of the platform as he could. Father McGee headed for the waiting soldier, as did the doctor, and Bogey helped them one at a time, guiding them to the uneven surface of stones and wooden railway hidden beneath the murky water.

Budd hesitated for a moment, still clutching Juliette’s hand. He saw that she was watching as Jack took hold of Annabel’s tiny waist and lifted her down to the track. As Juliette looked on, her eyes squinted and a scowl formed upon her forehead. The sight of her reaction made Budd smile.

Despite everything that had happened, everything that had changed, human nature was just the same. Now, I’m not exactly sure that this was a good thing. After all, most of the scrapes that humanity’s ever been in have been caused by, well, us really…

“Whoa, sugarplum, if looks could kill you’d be back in handcuffs.”

“I do not know what you mean,
Monsieur
Ashby.”

“There’re plenty enough monsters already,” Budd said, grinning, “without having a green-eyed one on the loose.”

Juliette shook her head, letting her lips form a smile before she stood on her tiptoes and kissed Budd on his cheek. “It is not what you think,
Monsieur
Ashby. That, that, girl is wearing a bracelet I gave to Jack. It belonged to my grandfather.”

Budd looked to Annabel, trying to spot the bracelet, but she and Jack were already down on the tracks and only the shadowy outline of their torsos were visible as they waded away. Many of the others were also moving, urged on by Bogey’s commands.

“You want it back?”

“It does not matter.”

“Get moving, Mister Ashby,” Captain Brooks ordered.

Charles Deacon, still clutching his briefcase, dropped into the water. The two soldiers who’d brought up the rear arrived at the platform. They knelt and aimed their weapons back towards the escalator.

I realized that we were dallying, and that was something I didn’t wanna do. Don’t get me wrong though, buddy; I didn’t want to be at the front, either.