Колин Бейтман - Titanic 2020 - Cannibal City

He foot-skimmed the floor until it came to a hole, then felt around with his hands to detect the circumference. Yes, wide enough. And there, a ladder.

'Jimmy . . . ?'

'Down here.'

He lowered himself into the hole, then began a rapid descent, no thought for what might be below.

'Jimmy — wait for me!'

'Come on!'

As they disappeared below ground level the whump and crump of the explosions faded, to be replaced by the sound of gushing water. The stink of sewage and rats. They came suddenly to the dank, slippery floor and stood in the complete and utter darkness. For the first time, Jimmy was actually lost — there were only two ways to go, but it was impossible to be sure which way was right. He was almost overwhelmed with the despair of realising that he had come so close, but was now on the brink of failure.

There was nothing for it but to yell.

'Claire!'

'Shhhh!' cried Ronni. 'What if—'

'Claire! Claire!'

They heard it echo along the sewage tunnel.

'Jimmy . . .'

'Shhhhh listen . . .'

Then there was nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Until, from a distance of not more than a metre, a torch blinked on and they were blinded. As they shielded their faces and prepared for the worst a familiar voice said,' What?'

It was not exactly as Jimmy had imagined it, this reunion, deep in the sewers beneath a theatre which was being reduced to rubble by a man who had deluded himself into thinking he was the President of the United States. Claire stood in the back-glow from the torch, bedraggled, thin, pale, angry. Jimmy didn't have the faintest clue what to say. He wanted to hug her, but could not bring himself to. He wanted to apologise for what he'd done, for letting her down, for allowing her to be shot, for betraying the Titanic.

But all he could manage was: 'Bad hair day, is it?' The torch flashed from Jimmy to Ronni. 'Who's she?'

'Ronni,' said Ronni.

'She's my friend,' said Jimmy.

'Bad luck you,' said Claire to Ronni.

From away along the tunnel Dr Hill yelled: 'Claire! Come on!'

Claire looked at them. 'Well if you're coming, let's go.'

She spun away. They didn't see her wipe a tear from her eye.

Jimmy, obviously, didn't wipe a tear of his own away. That would have been ridiculous. Absolutely not. No way.

Ronni said, 'Are you OK?' as they quickly followed after Claire.

'Yes, of course I'm OK. Why wouldn't I be OK?'

'I thought she was your best friend?'

'I never said that,' said Jimmy.

After a while they stopped, gathering in a wider section of the sewer tunnel where it branched out in several directions. Jimmy was surprised to see how many of them there were — not just Claire and Jeffers and Dr Hill, but various crew and passengers he recognised, plus an odd assortment of men and women in animal masks which they were only now beginning to discard — wolf heads and cheetah heads tossed into the river of sewage and drifting away.

While Jeffers and Dr Hill conferred at the crossroads, Jimmy sat on the damp floor. He said nothing, he asked no questions. Ty had given him a big hug and tried to engage him in conversation, but as soon as he established the extent of the frostiness between Jimmy and Claire he decided to leave them to it. He winked at Ronni, then drifted off. Claire sat with her back against the wall, looking wherever Jimmy didn't.

Ronni crouched beside her. 'Aren't they cannibals?' she whispered, nodding towards the group still partially attired in animal costumes.

'No,' said Claire, 'they're actors.'

'But they're cannibals as well! They all are!'

'No,' said Claire, 'it was a trick. Everyone thought they were eating human flesh, but it was rats. Rat stew, mostly.'

'That's . . . not possible — I saw them . . .'

'You thought you did. You didn't. Is he your boyfriend?'

'Who, Jimmy? No. I thought he was yours.'

Claire snorted. 'I don't think so. So how come you two hooked up?'

'We were both at Fort Hope.' Claire's brow furrowed in the torchlight. 'Fort Hope — it's like the President's . . . where he keeps his army . . .'

'The President? The President President?'

'No,' said Jimmy, finally approaching, talking to Claire but not looking at her. 'He just thinks he is. He used to be a senator or something. That's his army up there, attacking New York, saving it from cannibals.'

'Well, what are we doing down here, then?' Claire asked Jimmy, although she was looking at at Ronni. 'Shouldn't we be up there supporting him? Telling him they're not cannibals?'

'No,' said Jimmy, 'we shouldn't, for the simple reason that the second part of his master plan is to sieze the Titanic.'

Without looking at him she asked if Jeffers was aware of this piece of information.

'No,' said Jimmy.

'Well don't you think you should tell him?'

Jimmy grunted, and passed on up the line.

Although the rat-catching actors had explored some of the sewage system, their escape from the theatre had taken them beyond those limits, and without any kind of map or guidance system, Jeffers decided it was time to take everyone back up into the city in order to establish their bearings. Then they would make their way back to Grand Central to hook up with the other groups — if any of them had made it back. Hopefully from there they would also be able to re-establish radio contact with the ship and warn Captain Smith of the coming Presidential attack.

Jeffers sent out a scout into each one of the tunnels in order to locate an access ladder to the surface. Within a few minutes a shout went up that one had been discovered. The other scouts were called back and the entire group set off into a right-hand tunnel. When they found the ladder Jeffers was the first on to it, climbing rapidly, followed by Dr Hill; the rest bunched around the bottom, pushing and shoving for their turn. They were all desperate for fresh air, and without the natural discipline Jeffers' presence encouraged, it all became a bit chaotic. Jimmy and Claire found themselves squeezed towards the back, while Ty grabbed Ronni by the hand and forced her forward. They were amongst the first to pull themselves up out of the scrum to begin their climb towards the world above.

Jimmy and Claire looked at each other. They looked away. There were a thousand things they wanted to say, they each wanted to know every detail of what the other had experienced. But still neither of them was ready to make the first move.

Jimmy took an elbow to the ribs as one of the former wolf men shoved in front of him. He cursed and stepped back out of the crowd. Claire pretended not to notice. She stepped into his space and pushed forward.

He was happy and angry. He wanted to hug her and slap her stupid head.

One by one they hauled themselves up until finally there was only Jimmy left. He looked up at the feet and bums disappearing upwards, moving towards a faint dot of light, like astronauts returning to their planet, mission accomplished. As he put his hands on the bottom rung and was about to pull himself up he was distracted by a noise off to his left — there, along the sewer, another prick of light.

Someone was coming.

Tracer bullets lit the night sky. The thump of explosions continued to shake the earth. The group of fugitives snaked along the debris-littered sidewalks towards Grand Central, ordered to silence, torches off, terrified that at any moment their presence might be revealed and they would be captured or shot by the President's men. The cannibals themselves no longer seemed such a threat. When they had first emerged from the sewer they had spotted small, ragged bands of them fleeing west, away from the advancing troops. They saw others carrying white flags going in the opposite direction. Those that were still resisting would surely soon be overwhelmed, and then there would be nothing to stop the soldiers racing across the city towards the Titanic. They might not be able to lure it into harbour, the way King Slash had planned, but there was no shortage of abandoned boats the soldiers could use to get them close enough to use their undoubted firepower to force Captain Smith to surrender the ship.