The Kiss: An Anthology About Love and Other Close Encounters(80)
And she had felt something she had only ever read about before, something which terrified and excited her at the same time.
Simon
He slammed a fist against the wall as tears welled in his eyes. The door to his flat hung loose on one hinge, swaying back and forth. A huge puncture in the centre showed where the Department of Civil Affairs had broken it open.
He listened for a few moments but only silence came from inside. He crept in through the open doorway and looked around. Their things were strewn everywhere. Everything that could be smashed had been, and all their cupboards and drawers had been upended, their contents strewn across the floor like flotsam on a beach after a powerful storm.
Only one thing seemed to be missing.
His father.
‘I told you, I told you…’
They won’t find out, his father had said, over and over, crouched in front of the computer and its illegal internet connection. How could they? Stop worrying, Simon.
They had. The computer was in pieces and his father taken by the government’s henchmen, dragged away into whatever hellhole of interrogation now awaited him.
Simon turned at the sound of footsteps beating out a heavy rhythm on the stairs below. Simon looked up, frowned, and hurried inside, grabbing what he could, stuffing a few clothes and some personal items into a hold-all. He made it back out on to the landing as the first of the looters – maybe alerted to the arrest by the DCA cars in the street – appeared on the landing below.
He had just scrambled up to the higher landing and ducked down behind the metal railing before they barged into his flat and began to ransack it, taking everything they could, pushing each other aside to grab handfuls of food cans, clothing, pieces of furniture. Simon grimaced as a fight broke out, wincing as heavy fists landed with hollow thuds. While the men were distracted he took his cue, hurrying down the stairs and out into the cool autumn air, his bag of belongings wedged under his arm.
He ducked into the nearest alleyway and leaned back against the cold concrete of the building he no longer lived in, sucking in a couple of deep breaths.
Everything he knew had turned on its head. His father would never return, and he would never be able to find him. When the DCA took you, you were gone for good. His father had demanded a modicum of respect in the community, but now the gangs would move in, take over his flat, and steal or sell everything he and his father had called theirs. Simon felt strangely empty; not angry, not disappointed. Relieved, even. While his father had ploughed the digital airwaves looking for some shred of news that Europe gave a crap about life in London GUA, Simon had felt the watching eyes of the DCA hovering at his shoulder.
It could have been worse, he supposed. They could have sent the Huntsmen, and half the building’s tenants would now be dead.
He glanced up at the thin sliver of grey sky peering down at him from between two grimy walls of concrete. It would be dark soon. He had to find cover before then.
St Cannerwells London Underground station, where the Tube Riders hung out, would do. With a bit of luck Marta, Switch, or Paul would be there, and while he couldn’t rely on any of them for somewhere to stay, they could at least help him out with some gear until he found a new place. London was filled with abandoned buildings, so it wasn’t difficult to find a roof. The hard part was finding a safe one. Wraiths that had once been respectable people haunted the dark corridors of derelict apartment
blocks and factories, preying on anyone not resourceful enough to put a lock between them and the outside.
It was only a handful of tube stops to Hopewell, the nearest operating station to St Cannerwells. He could jump the tube and be with his friends in half an hour.
He headed out on to the street, threading himself through the piles of rubbish and abandoned cars, the stench of rotting food and decaying flesh so familiar it barely registered. At the end of the street he turned left, dodged out of the way of the rusty, lumbering hulk of a government-run bio-bus, and hurried across the street to the nearest Underground entrance.
At the top of the steps he paused, his heart sinking. A notice taped to the metal shutter doors at a crooked angle flapped in the breeze.
STATION CLOSED
NO FURTHER TRAINS TODAY
Simon ran a hand through his hair. It was a long way across London to St Cannerwells on foot, and he didn’t dare risk a government bus once twilight set in.
There were too many shark operations that would sell you a ticket and then cut your throat.
The market where he worked during the day was halfway there. Perhaps he could find somewhere nearby to sleep. It was worth a try.
Feeling a leaden weight hanging about his heart, he hurried off into the gloom. Around him, the fires and the lights of London crackled into life.
Jessica
She hung back in the shadows, the hood pulled down over her face. The market was dark, most of the streetlights broken, only a couple of trashcan fires further down and a tired, indistinct moon illuminating the closed market stalls, the awnings pulled down over them and tied up.
The boy who had asked her for the time had been working on one of these little stalls. She immediately felt foolish for coming back here – after all what had she expected, the market to still be bustling with people and the boy to be standing there warming his hands over a paper cup of steaming coffee? She knew London. Nothing savoury happened after dark.