William Meikle - The Creeping Kelp

John turned and spoke softly, hoping to calm his passengers. He had no idea whether they understood him, but just the act of it was something familiar , something to hold on to while things went to shit and worse outside.

“We’re okay in here,” he said. “This cab is built to handle anything. Good British engineering, none of that Japanese rubb…” He stopped short as the kelp crept over the bonnet. The passengers started to scream—John felt like joining them as the windshield view filled with green fronds. The kelp looked moist, slightly oily. It slapped wetly against the glass. When a slit appeared and a white eye looked in on them, John’s screams joined those of the tourists.

He was only vaguely aware that the cab seemed to be floating among the kelp, carried in a flow that was taking vehicles up and over the guard way to the river below. The last thing he saw as they tumbled over the edge was a mass of kelp that spread across the whole of the river Thames and was even now spreading westwards towards the city centre.

There was no warning. A wave of green vegetation flowed up river with the tide and engulfed everything in its path. Several curious people stood on London Bridge looking down at the river. Tendrils whipped and lashed and the people were taken, only a faint scream from far below to tell they had even been there.

All along the lower lying streets on either side of the river the kelp flowed and fed. People tried to flee, piling up into panicked groups at dead ends and getting trapped by cars in rapidly forming jams. All this achieved was to give the kelp a purpose-built feeding ground, one it fell on in a frenzy of fronds and stingers.

Some people, thinking themselves safe once they had ran a good distance away from the river, turned to watch the carnage. But the kelp wasn’t about to let a potential meal go to waste. Dark buds formed all along the surface of the carpet of vegetation and with an audible, almost explosive pop, were fired in small parabolic arcs to land on the roads, bounce, and roll like soft, almost squidgy, cannonballs. Whenever they rolled up against something, be it lamppost, vehicle, or leg, they opened out, bat-wings clinging like a limpet and small tendrils lashing like whips.

Even above the sound of screaming and wailing, the predominant noise was cracking and ripping as everything made of plastic, Perspex or rubber was torn away and transported—first to the river, then, like a rock-star crowd surfing, away across the top of the fronds to be carried out towards the open sea.

Noble and Suzie walked briskly in thin drizzle.

“When is the train?” Suzie asked.

“An hour and a bit. We should make it okay.”

They’d have been in plenty of time if they hadn’t been kicked off the Tube train at Victoria Station when the whole network shut down due to “a major incident in the London Bridge area.”

Noble was starting to fear that he knew the nature of the incident.

But he couldn’t spare the time to worry. His main concern now was to get Suzie back to Weymouth as quickly as possible, before her obvious frustration boiled over into incoherent rage. He didn’t want to be in the firing line if that happened. It was lucky that he knew his way around London, for their quest for a taxi-cab was doomed to failure as several thousand people left Victoria Station at the same time and with the same purpose in mind.

“Let’s head down Vauxhall Bridge Road,” he said. “Maybe we’ll have more luck there.”

Twenty minutes later he was starting to regret that decision. His leg ached and complained bitterly at this new indignity forced on his recent wounds and there wasn’t a single cab to be had. In fact, traffic seemed remarkably light for a weekday morning in Central London.

He had just started to wonder why, when the first shout of alarm rose ahead of them, from Vauxhall Bridge itself. As he approached the area, he saw that the whole eastern edge of the bridge was crammed with people looking up the river. Something had their attention and from the look on their faces, it wasn’t good.

He saw for himself seconds later. Suzie’s grip on his hand tightened as they pushed through for a view from the front. His suspicion was correct—the kelp had arrived in the capital.

Not just arrived. It’s taking over.

Downstream from the bridge, the Thames was nothing but a mass of thrashing fronds. Above the waterline it had spread far and wide beyond the confines of the river; going as far as completely engulfing some buildings that were at least five stories high. The air was full of cracks and rips, as plastic and Perspex was torn away from the facades.

Suzie tugged at his arm.

“Time to go,” she said softly. “It’s coming fast.”

He saw that she was right. Even now, the kelp was less than a hundred yards from the bridge.

“Time to go, people,” he shouted, but the crowd ignored him—there was a spectacle in front of them and no visible signs of immediate danger. Noble was pushed aside, back towards the road.

“If you don’t want to watch, make room for some as does,” a Londoner said.

Noble shrugged and let Suzie drag him away. They reached the kerb just as a throbbing sound started to rise from the West.

Choppers. A lot of choppers.

They came overhead in a seemingly endless fleet, the roaring almost deafening and the downdraft threatening to knock Noble off his feet. Suzie kept dragging him away, but even she stopped to watch as the choppers reached the area above the kelp and began their bombardment.

Napalm washed across the full width of the river and the crowd on the bridge had to stand back as a wave of heat blew over them. A pall of black smoke started to rise high in the air and a wall of flame blazed for nearly a mile down the river.

Yet still, the kelp thrashed and continued to try to feed.

More napalm flowed. The kelp crisped and blackened, sending burning particles of charred weed into the air. Some of it fell on the front row of the crowd on the bridge. They tried to brush it off, leaving black smudges on their skin.

Suzie went pale.

“It really is time to go . ”

She pulled Noble away as more ash started to fall around them. They started walking, then running, across the bridge, the ash beginning to drop like snowflakes.

“We must get inside,” Suzie shouted. “Right now.”

He didn’t wait to be told twice. He threw open the door of the nearest car and they both got in. Suzie was rolling up the windows before Noble even got the driver’s side door shut.

“What’s the rush?” he said.

“ A fleck of blackness betwixt thumb and finger that no amount of scraping will shift,” she said softly.

Noble remembered her words to the Minister.

It might be contagious.

Outside, more and more of the crowd could be seen unsuccessfully trying to brush black marks from their skin. The screaming started almost straight away.

“Can we get out of here?” Suzie said, a hitch in her voice, and tears not far off.

Noble checked the steering column. The keys were in the ignition. He looked over at Suzie.

“We can leave a note at the station if it’s theft you’re worried about,” she said. “But we need to go. Right now.”

He was getting used to jumping when requested. He pulled away from the kerb, noticing in his rear view that he left tyre tracks through a black snow that was already half an inch deep –a snow in which people stumbled and fell as if they were choking on it.

They left the bridge behind seconds later.