Christopher Nuttall - Their Darkest Hour

He leaned forward. “I understand that change always worries those who do not want to see any change in how the world is run, but I appeal to those who are still fighting the aliens,” he added. “They are not bluffing. Unless the captive is released within two days, they will take punitive measures against a city on the British mainland. Please, for the love of God, release the captive before millions die.”

London

United Kingdom, Day 45

The entire city had gone crazy.

“Damn it,” Robin yelled, as he ducked to avoid a hail of rubbish being thrown at them from the flats. “Where the hell is our backup?”

“Caught up in their own riot,” Sergeant Wiggin shouted back. They’d entered the East London housing estate looking for a suspected resistance organiser. And then the entire estate seemed to have exploded around them. The alien threats against a human city had triggered off a whole series of riots. “They’re stuck for the moment!”

Robin gritted his teeth. The housing estates had been slowly decaying into criminality for years, despite programs designed to give the inhabitants pride in their community. They were notoriously unfriendly to the police, even before the invasion. Their police car had been tipped on its side and they’d had to flee into an alley in the hopes of escaping the crowd. It was apparently worse along the outside of London, with humans desperate to escape the city clashing with police and alien guards equally intent on keeping people in. The internet had named a hundred different cities that might be targeted and they’d all gone crazy.

Outside, there were over five hundred youths, probably all members of the same gang. The gangs had been defending their territory ever since the invasion, even though they were drawing food and drink from the aliens. If they were waiting before giving chase to the policemen, it suggested that they were expecting others to arrive and fall into the same trap. Or maybe they were just biding their time. Robin wished, once again, that the aliens had allowed them to carry firearms. The crowd outside was better armed than the police.

He looked around and saw a drainpipe leading up to a window. Quickly, before he could think better of it, he ran over to the pipe and scrambled up it. It was a harder climb that he’d expected, but the crowd outside the alley was a powerful motivator. He managed to push the window open and fall face-first into the flat, gasping for breath as the stench of death reached his nostrils. Someone had been using the flat to smoke drugs, but had overdosed — or perhaps it had been a murder. Judging from the condition of the body, it had been at least a fortnight since death had taken place. He leaned back out of the window and waved frantically to Wiggin. Wiggin was older and fatter than Robin, but with a little help he made it into the flat.

“Jesus,” he muttered, as he tried to avoid breathing. “What the fuck happened here?”

“No idea,” Robin said, shortly. He glanced around the flat as they came out of the bedroom and up to a bolted door. Someone had attached no less than five bolts to the door, making it much harder for anyone to enter without breaking down the door. Drug dealers tended to be paranoid, not without reason. Their list of enemies didn’t stop at the police. “I bet you that the back door outside is blocked off too.”

“That’s a fire hazard,” Wiggin said. They shared a droll look as they opened the door. It didn’t smell much better outside. An overpowering stench of urine almost sent them staggering backwards. Robin had never been able to understand how anyone could willingly live in such a dump, although he had to admit that most of them never stood a chance. The gangs were simply too powerful for ordinary people to overcome. Who would bother cleaning the stairwell if they knew it would simply be vandalised again within the week?

Robin glanced outside through a broken window and saw that the mob was getting stronger. There was little hope of anyone coming to help on the ground, unless they were armed and willing to cut down enough of the gang members to convince the others to flee. It wouldn’t be long before they decided to go after the two trapped policemen — and it wouldn’t take their leaders long to guess where Robin and Wiggin had fled. He glanced down at the crowd again before heading up the stairs. There should be a way to get onto the roof from the stairwell.

The stench seemed to grow stronger as they raced up the stairs. Robin had made arrests in places like the estate before and knew that the closed doors hid all sorts of crimes — and people living their lives of quiet desperation. A drug dealer, a prostitute and her pimp, terrorists, racists… all hidden behind closed doors. The BBC might prattle on about the benefits that alien rule would bring to the country, but he doubted that any benefit could help those trapped on poor estates. Very few people born and bred on such an estate ever managed to climb out and build a proper life for themselves. The pressure just to sink into criminality was overpowering. There were some girls who were grandmothers at thirty, assuming they lived so long.

At the top of the stairs, he glanced up and saw the hatch leading to the roof — and a small set of metal climbing handles. Quickly, he climbed up and pushed at the hatch, before making the mistake of looking down. Dizziness almost overcame him, but he closed his eyes and pushed at the hatch again. It opened and fell to one side with a loud bang, almost as loud as a gunshot. He scrambled out onto the roof and peered out over London. A dozen fires were burning brightly in the distance, towards the centre of the city. He could hear the sound of alien weapons being fired, suggesting that the rioters were trying to take out the alien patrols. Maybe they’d even succeed…

“Call for a helicopter,” he ordered, as Wiggin scrambled up beside him. Peering over the side of the building brought on another fit of vertigo, but he managed to overcome it long enough to realise that the crowd had realised that its hostages were missing. They were thronging around the block, looking for trouble. “Tell them we need an emergency pick-up right now.”

He closed the hatch and dragged a number of fallen bricks over to make it difficult for anyone to reopen it from inside the building. The rioters had probably used the rooftop as a place to defend their territory in the past, throwing bricks down towards their enemies. Wiggin joined him and between them they stacked up nearly fifty bricks. It would be almost impossible for someone to open the hatch, Robin told himself, and hoped that he was right. After their escape, the crowd wouldn’t be feeling merciful to the policemen if they caught up with them.

The sound of helicopter blades grew louder and he allowed himself a moment of relief as a police helicopter came into view. A rope ladder was already falling down towards them as it slowed and came to a hover directly over the estate. The sound of the crowd grew louder as Wiggin took hold of the ladder and started to scramble up into the helicopter. Robin heard a series of bangs and thuds from under the hatch that suggested that someone was trying to push the hatch open and come climbing out onto the roof. He took tight hold of the rope ladder and climbed up himself, following Wiggin. The helicopter seemed to bank in the sky the moment he reached the top and was helped into the cabin, tilting away from the estate and heading back towards Central London. From overhead, entire streets seemed to be jammed with rioters, or protesters. He could see riot teams unleashing CS gas on some mobs, while leaving others to shout themselves hoarse. It looked as if London was dissolving into chaos.