Alex Scarrow - The Eternal War

Several of the eugenics did as they were told and shambled off reluctantly down the alleyway towards a smaller intersection at the far end, looking over their shoulders unhappily … hoping Samuel was following close behind.

The ape holding Sal and dragging Lincoln by the arm, hesitated to leave Samuel as some of the others waivered uncertainly, shuffling from one foot to the other.

‘Sam? You come too?’

Samuel flapped his hands. ‘Go … all of you … jusht go!’

Sal wriggled. ‘Let me go! Please!’

The ape’s voice growled. ‘Sam … you come too?’

‘I … can’t … keep … up … any more.’

Coming from further down North Charles Street, they heard more gunshots and the screams of eugenics brought down. It seemed the whole city was beginning to stir to life with creatures emerging from their bolt-holes in blind panic, like rats leaving a sinking ship. Sal suspected the city had been home to far more than the hundred and fifty or so they’d seen at the theatre meeting.

The gunshots seemed to be echoing from different ends of the avenue. The soldiers were coming from all directions, tightening a noose round them.

Sal looked up at the ape’s face. ‘Put me down! Let us go, and pick Sam up instead!’

The ape nodded, loosening his hold on Sal. ‘I carry you !’

The small eugenic shook his oversized head. ‘No … but … do ash she shaid. Let ’em both go.’

The ape placed Sal down and released Lincoln’s wrist. Lincoln snarled with relief and rubbed his arm where the brute’s hand had been wrapped round it.

Sam sighed. ‘You go to thoshe sholdiersh if you want.’

Sal remained where she was. She knelt down in front of Sam. ‘Sam, you’ve got to run now!’ she said. ‘Me and Abraham, we’ll stop them, stall them somehow. Buy you some time! But you’ve got to leave now!’

His brow creased. Confused. ‘You want me to eshcape?’ he wheezed.

‘Yes!’ She looked at Lincoln. ‘Yes, we do, don’t we?’

He nodded. ‘Odd creature as you are, I see in you — ’ he looked for the right words — ‘I see in you admirable qualities , sir. A good soul.’ He knelt down beside Sal. ‘Better than quite a few I’ve met.’

Sam looked up at him, wide-eyed. ‘Never been called shir before.’

They heard gunfire and shrieking from the far end of the alley. Sal turned to see the eugenics who’d headed down that way doubling back to rejoin them. Beyond their shambling forms at the far intersection she saw a row of four-legged creatures, like hunting dogs, but no … not quite. Behind them, a row of uniformed men with guns. The far end of the alley was blocked off.

‘Shadd-yah!’ She shared a glance with Lincoln.

What do we do?

The alleyway — it was little more than a rat-run — lay in the dark shadow between two old brick-built tenement blocks. Most of the windows and doors were boarded up, but some of the boards had worked loose and fallen away. The creatures could lose themselves inside those buildings, hide in the gloomy labyrinth of rooms and hallways, but only for a while. They’d be trapped in there.

She heard noises from North Charles Street: soldiers pulling the jam of vehicles roughly aside. The splintering crack of old cartwheel spokes, the groan of stressed rusting metal being dragged to the kerbside. They were busy clearing a way through the traffic jam.

And then she felt it … a cold tickle on her cheek. She felt it again. Moisture.

I’m not crying, am I?

She felt a cold tingle on the back of her hand and looked at Lincoln. A snowflake was fluttering lazily between them, seesawing down.

‘Snowing?’ grunted Lincoln.

It was. More dancing flakes of snow descended around them. She looked up at the narrow strip of daylight above and saw nothing but blue sky. For a moment her mind instinctively queried why, how, it could snow on a sunny September morning … then a dark form obscured the sky. The alleyway dimmed as the blue vanished to be replaced with the smooth dark copper hull of some gigantic vessel.

‘They here now,’ said the ape, looking up, his small eyes wide as pennies.

2001, Dead City

Captain McManus nodded at the message coming in over his earpad. ‘Right you are, we’re on our way over.’

He turned to Liam. ‘Good news, Mr O’Connor. We’ve got a report of a handful of the runaways boxed up in a small alleyway … couple of guests along with them. One girl; one man, quite tall. Sound like your two?’

Liam exhaled a sigh of relief. ‘Are they all right?’

‘Apparently. They’ve both been seen on their feet. That’s obviously a good sign.’ McManus opened up a map of the city. ‘Just nearby the old university on North Charles Street.’ He looked up from his map to the streets around them, taking a moment to get his bearings.

‘Ah … yes, very close indeed.’ He pointed up at the carrier hovering over the city a block away. ‘Just over there, in fact. Right underneath her.’ He tapped a switch on his mouthpiece. ‘All units in the vicinity of the carrier … this is Captain McManus. We have a group of eugenics and their human prisoners bottled up in an alleyway. Nobody is to engage them. Repeat … no firing. Just hold your positions, chaps, until further orders.’

He tapped the switch on the mouthpiece to turn it off. ‘Well, now, gents … shall we?’

A wretched look of belated relief stretched across Liam’s face. ‘Aye.’

‘We go hide,’ said the ape anxiously, pointing up at the fire escapes and the dark open windows of the tenement blocks.

‘No!’ said Sal. ‘No … if you run from them, if you hide in those buildings, they’ll come after you! They’ll kill you all!’

A mewling whimper of fear rippled through the creatures huddled around Samuel.

‘What we do, Sam?’ asked one of them. ‘What we do?’

Sal craned her neck to look out of the alleyway into the wide avenue. She could see dozens of red tunics now hunkered down with guns trained on them. The soldiers had dragged several vehicles and carts aside to create a narrow access way up and down North Charles Street. She turned to look down the far end of their alley. The soldiers and their dogs were settled there, patiently waiting. Above, the sky was still blocked by the air vessel, a searchlight occasionally blinking on and combing up and down the alley.

‘I’ll go out there,’ she said, pointing to the soldiers. ‘Let me talk to them! Let me explain you’re not dangerous … that you’ve not hurt anyone. That you’ll come out peacefully.’

‘They kill us!’ one of them gasped.

‘You have to trust me!’ she said. ‘I think they must’ve come to rescue me and Abraham. If we go out and show them we’re not hurt, they’ll — ’

‘ Sodjers kill others. Me saw it!’ said a eugenic from another group. ‘Wuz all hands up … and they does the bangs bangs!’

‘If you try to run, I’m sure they’ll shoot you down!’ snapped Sal. She turned to Samuel. ‘Please, Sam … let me go out and talk to them!’

He scratched his chin, his fingers trembling. His eyes darted from one end of the alley to the other nervously. ‘You think sho? You can make it shafe?’

‘You’re not monsters … you’re not dangerous. I can tell them that.’

He pressed his ragged lips together. ‘You … tell ’em, then. Tell ’em we’re not bad. We didn’t hurt no one.’

She nodded. ‘I will.’

Samuel smiled. ‘I trust.’

‘OK,’ Sal smiled. She got to her feet.

‘A moment, young lady!’ said Lincoln. He tore the bottom half of the sleeve off his dirty shirt. ‘A white flag … well, truth be, it’s brown, but they shall understand it as a flag of truce,’ he said, tying it round a strip of wood. He got up and walked cautiously to the mouth of the avenue. ‘Allow me.’