James Herbert - ‘48

I think I went under two or three times – it’s hard to recall just how many – but on each occasion I’d pop up again, thrashing out with more vigour for a few strokes before settling into a weary but steady rhythm. When I thought the game was up, only yards from that little hideaway dock, and began to sink, my feet touched something solid underneath me, something I could push against to get me back to the surface. Another couple of strokes and I was able to stand; I could walk – I could stagger – up the long, sloping ramp towards the two sets of steps leading to the landing stage and, when the water was only waist-high, there was Cissie running down those steps, calling my name. She’d jumped into the river and waded out to meet me, tucking herself under my shoulder, and helping me reach safe ground, weeping and babbling on about how she’d watched me fall from the bridge, knowing it was me even from that distance because I wasn’t wearing black, and how, when she’d searched for a boat, she’d found the tunnel leading to the concealed landing stage under the approach road. She had to drag me up those slippery steps and that’s when I’d buckled and she’d begun pounding my chest, afraid I was going to drown on dry land.

She didn’t understand I was laughing – she thought I was choking – and she beat my back even more, shouting at me not to give in, that I was going to pull through, and please, please, please, don’t die, Hoke, don’t die. I lifted an arm to ward her off, but I was too weak.

‘Cut…cut it out,’ I managed to gasp, and she quit immediately.

‘You’re all right.’ She seemed stunned.

‘I guess,’ was the best I could do. I didn’t have the energy to laugh again, but I stoked up a grin.

She just wailed. She just threw herself on top of me and blubbered. Pretty soon I was blubbering with her.

And eventually, when our tears had dried and we both sat shivering in that gloomy, damp, brick cave, my arm around her shoulders, holding her close, I told her why I’d never left the city.

THERE WAS NOTHING left for me here any more. Nothing left for me to do.

I eased the military truck through the paralysed traffic as the huge column of smoke and fire rose up over the rooftops far behind me, the funeral pyre only a gesture, a symbolic mark of respect for the passing of so many, those thousands of burning corpses representing the millions that had perished in this city. I’d never had the chance to visit Wembley Stadium in wartime, but now and again, when I’d been unloading all those carcasses I’d collected from the streets, I’d heard – I was sure I’d heard – the ghost-echoes of cheering masses, voices raised in praise of human skill and endurance. They’d never frightened me, those spectral ovations; no, they’d only deepened the sadness, made me even more aware of my own isolation, my own loneliness.

Some miles back, I’d stopped the truck and leaned out the side window to watch the fire, maybe just to make sure it was effective. The blaze was awesome. Giant black clouds, edged with gold and crimson, curled up to the heavens, the flames that drove them violently beautiful as they consumed the heaped legions of fuel-soaked corpses below. I could do no more for the deceased citizens of that once-great place and Cissie had been right when she’d said that the rest would turn to dust in their own time.

And she had finally understood why I’d never left the city.

Under the bridge, huddled together, my strength slowly returning, I’d told her of my love for Sally, how we’d met at Rainbow Corner, a club for US servicemen in Piccadilly, she with girlfriends from her office, me with a couple of pilot buddies from another squadron, how one hello, one dance and one light kiss had meant instant love. We were married less than six months later, both of us sure of our feelings, realizing the risk that came with the war, but that same risk making us see there was no time to waste…

I hadn’t even known she’d been pregnant when I came searching for her three weeks after the Blood Death rockets had fallen; she hadn’t told me, I guess, because she hadn’t wanted to burden me with another worry, at least not ‘til there was no way of disguising her condition. I wasn’t allowed to leave the airbase when the country’s population started dropping dead, because all pilots still breathing were kept under guard in case the enemy launched a grand attack now that they’d knocked out our defences. Hah! It was all so laughable, so insane, none of us knowing what had really happened, communications with the outside world kept tight by our surviving commanding officer, who was carrying out his last orders to the letter. And before long, everyone on the base had gone down with the disease, everyone ‘cept me. I was alone and scared out of my wits, but I was finally the only one left alive. That’s when I’d fled to London and the real nightmare had begun.

I was already traumatized by the time I found Sally lying outside on the steps leading down to our basement flat, and the sight of her nearly finished me. Her eyes were missing, her flesh torn open. The rats had eaten into her belly and ripped the foetus of our unborn child from her womb. They’d left it on the step, close to her outstretched hand, half-eaten, almost unrecognizable. I’d known what it was though and I’d given in to the hysteria right there beside them both, my wife and our baby, given in to the madness that had sustained me for at least a year afterwards. Maybe not all that madness had left me yet.

All I could do – all I could think of doing – was burn what remained of their poor bodies. There was nothing there to honour, you see, nothing recognizable to pray over. That wasn’t Sally lying on those steps, and it wasn’t our baby next to her. They were just pieces of discarded meat Leavings. Waste. Not my family.

I took them inside the house and set fire to the curtains. Within an hour, the whole row of houses on that side of the small street was ablaze.

And the madness drove me to gathering up other exposed and vulnerable dead ones, hundreds, thousands, of them, and taking them to a suitable burial ground so that they would not just be fodder for the surviving vermin that now openly roamed the streets, to an enclosed place where eventually I could lend some dignity to their passing. Even when the craziness wore off – the bitterness never did – I couldn’t give up. It gave my life some small purpose, I’d told Cissie, it gave me a reason, no matter how senseless, how hopeless, to carry on.

Like I say, Cissie had understood.

But now it was over, burned from me. I think I even smiled at the thought.

She was waiting for me with the others at the corner of Westminster Bridge, just under the statue of Boadicea. I could see them up ahead as I turned the corner from Whitehall, smaller figures among them, the kids and adults I’d set free in the old castle. We’d rounded up fewer than a dozen women and children when we’d returned to the castle grounds, only two men with them, one middle-aged and in poor condition, the other hardly more than a kid himself. Oh yeah, and we’d caught sight of two Blackshirts scurrying away, trying to hide from us; but that didn’t worry me – how long did they have left anyway?

One of the kids saw me approaching and began jumping up and down, tugging at the skirt of the woman closest to him and pointing in my direction. They all started waving, the two boy twins and some others even running forward to meet me. Cissie stayed where she was though. She was unmistakable in her new blue frock, one hand raised in greeting, the other on her hip. Even from the truck I could see she was smiling.

I passed the battered Houses of Parliament, Big Ben tall and looming, and carefully drew the vehicle to a halt, wary of the kids rushing forward in their excitement.