Graham Masterton - The Doorkeepers

Not only that, they could both hear the deep droning noise of another wave of approaching bombers.

“Oh shit,” said Petty. “They’re really going to give us a pasting tonight.”

Josh gave the door another tug. It might be more dangerous outside, with fires raging all across London’s West End, but he couldn’t stay buried in this cellar any longer. He was beginning to hyperventilate already.

“We’ll be safer here,” said Petty, but he shook his head. He didn’t want to admit to his rising panic.

He heard more bombs falling, only a few streets away, and that gave him the strength to wrench at the door again and again, until he had pulled it half-open. Outside, the hallway was blocked with debris. The staircase had collapsed, and the banisters covered the cellar like a fence. Huge blocks of broken brick were piled on top of each other, some of them still plastered and wallpapered.

“We’re going to have to move some of this stuff if we’re going to get out,” said Josh. “Come on up here and give me a hand.”

He managed to twist three uprights out of the banisters, backward and forward, until they eventually came free, and toss them out of the way. Crouching down like Quasimodo, he climbed out of the cellar, underneath the banister rail, and into the hallway itself. His shoes slid down a heap of pulverized dust and glass and broken china. He saw half a willow-pattern teacup and a doll’s face with staring blue eyes, as well as a vegetable-strainer and a diary with all of its pages singed at the edges.

“Come on, Petty,” he insisted. “You too.”

Awkwardly, she climbed out after him. “God, look what the bastards have done to my house!” she wept. “This is my house, this is where I live! What right have they got to come and smash it all to pieces? What right? I don’t care if they’re part of the bloody Empire or not!”

Outside, the sky was growing lighter.

They looked around, in that gray hallucinatory light just before the sun comes over the horizon, and they could have been standing in a stage set, meant to depict the end of the world. Drury Lane was nothing more than two parallel heaps of bricks, with fires burning everywhere. It wasn’t even recognizable as the same street that Josh had been walking up earlier this morning. The theaters had gone, the shops had gone, the houses had gone. There was nothing but rubble and slates and broken chimney pots and twisted fire escapes and skeletal roof timbers. And fires everywhere, and acrid smoke.

“Are you OK?” he asked Petty.

Petty was shivering, but she nodded. “I’m all right. I wish it was over, that’s all.”

Josh put his arm around her. “Cocks and chocolate?”

She managed a smile. “That’s right. Cocks and chocolate.”

“I guess we’d better find ourselves someplace to hole up.”

“What about your friend? The one you came here to find?”

“John Farbelow? I’m not sure that he even exists in this London. Even if he does, he may not even be the same guy.”

“Well, we’ve got to do something. Can’t we go back to your London?”

“We can. Well, I hope we can. But not yet. We have to wait until one o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, wonderful. And what do we do in the meantime?”

Josh stopped, and listened. “Do you hear something?” he asked her.

She wrinkled up her nose. “Like what?”

“Like a sort of drumming noise.”

“Don’t ask me. I can’t hardly hear nothing after that last bomb went off.”

Josh listened even harder, gripping Petty’s wrist so that she was sure to stand still. They could hear fire engines racing around London, their bells frantically ringing. They could hear the diminishing drone of scores of heavy bombers, circling around East London on their way back to their bases in Normandy. But they could hear something else, too. They could hear drumming. Ratta-tat-tatt! Ratta-tat-tatt! And they could hear barking, and the piercing whistles of dog-handlers.

“Oh God,” said Josh. “I don’t believe it. It’s the Hooded Men.”

“The Hooded Men? Who the hell are the Hooded Men?”

“Ask me later. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

He grasped Petty’s hand and started to jog northward, up toward High Holborn, where automobiles were burning. But Petty said, “I can’t, Josh. I can’t go any further.”

“You have to. Don’t you realize what these people can do to you?”

She slowed down to a walk. “I don’t care what they do to me. I’m not going to run any further. I can’t.”

Josh stood beside her. The drumming sounded louder, and sharper. The dogs began to bark more enthusiastically, because they had obviously picked up the scent.

“Come on,” he urged Petty. “They’ll kill us if they catch us.”

He pulled her behind him with her bare feet reluctantly slapping on the ground. Up ahead of them, the street was filled with billowing black smoke from a burning office building. “Come on, we can use the smoke to get away from them.”

As they neared the smoke, however, Josh heard more drums, right in front of them. He stopped, and turned around. The drums were still following them. He turned back, to see four men approaching through the smoke. A drummer, with his side-drum, beating out an endless and terrifying rattle. Two dog-handlers, with bull terriers wheezing at their leads. And a tall man wearing an angular black hat, his face covered by a hessian mask. As he walked toward them, he swung his shining sword from side to side, as if he were cutting off wheat stalks.

“Is that a Hooded Man?” asked Petty, gripping Josh’s arm.

Josh nodded. Behind them, the drums came closer and closer, and he could hear the dogs yapping in a frenzy of excitement.

“Who are they? What are they going to do to us?”

“I don’t know. It’s me they want. They must have followed me here.”

There was no point in trying to run. Josh knew that the dogs would catch them before they had covered less than fifty feet. All they could do was stand and wait as the Hooded Man walked up them; two more Hooded Men appeared from behind.

“Well, Mr Winward,” said the first Hooded Man, in a harsh, muffled voice. “We have you.”

“What the hell are you after me for?”

“Isn’t murder enough?”

“I never murdered anybody. What those guys did when they rescued me, that was nothing to do with me.”

“Come now, Mr Winward. The murder was committed in effecting your release from custody. That makes you a co-conspirator.”

“I told you that I wasn’t interested in making trouble. If you’d let me go—”

The Hooded Man lifted his sword and prodded Josh in the chest with it, again and again. He didn’t prod hard enough to penetrate his shirt, but Josh could feel the point against his ribs.

“You are a liar and a subversive and a murderer, sir. You are one of the rats that run in the sewers beneath our society, spreading the plagues of dissent and faithlessness. Believe me, you will suffer for what you have done.”

Another of the Hooded Men came up to Petty, and took hold of the sleeve of her dress. “And who is this whore?”

“Don’t touch the girl. Let go of her. She has nothing to do with this.”

“I can find that out for myself, thank you. Both of you are coming with us.”

“Well, sorry about that. I’ve only been here since one o’clock this morning. I can’t go back to your London. Not for seven hours yet.”

“We’re not taking you back there,” said the Hooded Man. “We have a house here, just as we have houses in every reality that we can visit. Now, let’s be moving on, shall we?”

The Hooded Man prodded Josh again, in the shoulder this time. Then he prodded him yet again, and again, and this time the point actually broke the skin. Josh stepped back, covering his shoulder with his hand. The Hooded Man stabbed him in the forearm.