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  Later, when Milandra and the Deputies strolled about the concourse, chatting and smiling and holding the occasional serious-faced discussion with some or others of their fellow arrivees, Milandra passed nearby and glanced at Diane, holding her gaze for a moment. Milandra stopped and motioned for her companion to continue without her. She walked closer.

  “It’s Diane Heidler, isn’t it?” she said. “You were in Los Angeles.”

  Diane nodded.

  “Yes. You sent a one-word response to my e-mail. Um, let me see. . . .”

  “Obeisance,” said Diane.

  “Yes, obeisance. Curious choice of word. Different shades of meaning.”

  Diane shrugged. “It just means ‘I’ll do what you ask’ as far as I’m concerned.”

  “I wonder. . . .” Milandra stared at her intently.

  Diane felt the briefest flutter and slammed the door shut. Milandra blinked.

  “I’m tired,” said Diane, standing. She stood a good three inches above Milandra. “Not seen the sun for a few days. I think I might even need a nap to recharge. I’m going to find somewhere quiet to get my head down.”

  “Sleep well,” said Milandra.

  Diane could feel her regard on her back as she walked quickly away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The car didn’t like to start in cold weather at the best of times. When it hadn’t been used in almost two weeks, Tom had no chance of coaxing it to life.

  It didn’t much matter. He had the run of the neighbourhood and there was a street a little behind his of older, larger houses with walls and gates and drives and huge, mature gardens that Tom could not imagine having to tend. Most of these houses had double garages that contained at least one car, often two, shut away from the elements.

  He gained entry to each of his immediate neighbours’ properties by smashing the glass panes in the back doors with a lump hammer. The first one had been the hardest. Tom gasped at how loud the breaking glass sounded and looked around guiltily, though he knew he was alone. He removed from the houses all usable food and drinks. Some of the neighbours had kept pets—dogs, cats, guinea pigs, hamsters—but none had had the foresight of Dusty’s former master who had at least given the dog a chance by opening four tins of food and leaving the doors unlocked.

  He roamed further afield, to the larger houses, only stopping when he had collected sufficient food and drink to withstand a siege.

  Tom did not enter the darkened bedrooms of the houses, from where the smells emanated. He only went upstairs to empty bathroom cabinets of sleeping pills and painkillers; soon, he had accumulated quite a collection. Enough to do the job, he hoped.

  In each house he paused for a moment before each Christmas tree. Many had presents beneath them. One such present, a chocolate orange by the size and feel of it, had the name ‘Mr Evans’ printed on the tag in a childish scrawl. Tom thought he knew which child this house belonged to and could not bring himself to go upstairs, not even to inspect the bathroom cabinet, for fear of seeing the tiny, rotting body. He replaced the present under the tree; it somehow seemed wrong to take it.

  Tom and Dusty ate and drank their way back to strength, the dog’s presence helping to keep the black pit at bay, though not banish it completely. As their weakness receded, they took to going for longer and longer walks in the empty countryside, though Dusty seemed to enjoy them more than Tom. A sense of solitude pressed down on him, making him feel insubstantial, a ghost. This sensation came to a head one late evening when the air was unseasonably mild and the moon hung full and low in a clear sky.

  As he strolled through parkland at the furthest reaches of town, Tom came to a suspended wooden footbridge spanning a lazy stretch of river that was brown in daylight, black at this hour, leading to more parkland beyond. Dusty had gone ahead, snuffling through the sparse undergrowth at the river’s edge.

  Tom stepped onto the bridge and walked down the centre strip, the boards faintly echoing beneath his boots. The raised sides of the bridge were formed of thick wooden beams like railway sleepers and steel girders with cross struts, giving the structure a feeling of solidity that overcame the contrary sensation caused by the slight give in the boards.

  He had crossed the bridge before, had sometimes brought his class to this park on summer outings. But it no longer seemed familiar. He felt like an intruder.

  He paused before he reached the end of the bridge. The rectangular arch that supported the cables formed a perfect frame for the moon. Its light spilled over him and he glanced behind at his shadow that stretched back down the bridge like an elastic man. Or an alien.

  An abrupt feeling of utter desolation threatened to overwhelm him. He glanced at the girdered sides, estimating the ease with which he could scale them. From the top, he could topple to the blackness below, probably knocking himself unconscious in the impact with the surface or the river bed. The water would finish the job.

  Tom looked ahead, knowing that he lacked the courage to throw himself over, despising himself a little for recognising that fact. He shivered, regretting his decision to come out without a jacket. Calling to Dusty, he turned and walked away from the moon. He did not venture far on foot again.

  On the day that Tom awoke and felt as healthy as he ever had, he nudged Dusty, who slept on the top of the duvet next to him, and said, “Hey, boy. How do you fancy a ride in a Jag today?”

  The dog wagged its tail and yawned.

  When they stepped outside, it was onto a thin covering of snow. It wasn’t deep enough to leave a track, crumbling and melting away under the pressure of a boot or paw, but it was snow nevertheless. Dusty lowered his head and sniffed hard, causing a sharp, snotty sneeze.

  “Well, Dusty, my old boy,” said Tom, placing a gloved hand on the dog’s head, ruffling his ears. “Did you know that according to the calendar on my watch it’s Christmas Day today? Merry Christmas.”

  Tom gazed at the smattering of snow.

  “At least the bookies got something right,” he muttered. “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas . . . I guess nobody will be taking their decorations down this year so it’ll be Christmas every day. Ha! Roy Wood got his wish.”

  Dusty sneezed again in reply and Tom glanced down, suddenly concerned.

  “Hey! Don’t you dare come down with something. Let’s get you into the car. Correction. The Jag.”

  Parked at the pavement where Tom had left it the previous night sat a pale blue Jaguar XJ6. Tom didn’t care much for the colour but cared very much for the smooth purr of the engine, the worn leather upholstery and the walnut dashboard. The engine had roared into life with the first turn of the key. Tom had driven it out of the garage and the few streets to his house feeling like royalty.

  Now he was itching to sit behind the wheel again, even if he dreaded going where he intended to go. The car had over half a tank of petrol: plenty to take a drive for pleasure afterwards.

  Tom opened the driver’s door and held it wide. Dusty glanced up at him.

  “Come on, then,” said Tom. “In you get.”

  With an effortless bound, the dog leapt into the car and stepped over to the passenger seat as though he knew the driver’s seat was for Tom.

  Tom got in and closed the door. It made a satisfying, silky clunk.

  The thin coating of snow on the road crunched lightly under the Jag’s wheels, but was too shallow to affect the tyres’ grip on the surface.

  Tom saw many vehicles on the drive to town, but all were parked outside houses or on driveways. He saw no evidence of mass panic. Apart from the fact that everywhere was deserted, all seemed orderly. The only incongruous sights he noticed were the rear end of a camper van sticking out of a deep ditch and a small pack of dogs, maybe half a dozen of mixed sizes and breeds, some wearing collars, that stopped to watch the Jag go past. Tom looked in his rearview mirror as he pulled away: the dogs watched the car for a few seconds and then, as one, they set off again, running in the opposite direction.

  Dusty pricked
up his ears as they passed the dogs and uttered a small whine, but otherwise was still. He seemed to be accustomed to riding in cars, though not perhaps one as posh as the Jag, and took it in his easy canine stride.

  The traffic lights in town had stopped working and Tom felt that strange sense of disassociation once more. Quite why the non-working traffic lights should have that effect Tom had no idea, but the haunting feeling that he was the only person alive returned.

  He turned into the road that led to the sport centre and slowed the Jag’s speed, remembering the last time he had driven here. The road block was still there and more military vehicles were parked behind the truck that blocked the road. A soldier in uniform and gas mask sat on the road in front of the truck, rifle laid across knees.

  Tom’s stomach began to churn, but he drove slowly forwards, dropping his speed to crawling pace, staring intently at the soldier. He stopped about ten yards away from the truck and cut the engine.

  The soldier hadn’t moved. Tom glanced at Dusty and rubbed his head.

  “Stay here, boy,” he said.

  He opened the door and stepped out. He closed the door softly. This time the clunk did not seem so silky; instead, it seemed incredibly loud to Tom’s heightened senses and he glanced anxiously at the soldier. He—or she; it could be a she under that mask and uniform for all Tom knew—hadn’t moved.

  Tom did not expect the rifle to be raised and to stare down the infinite blackness of the barrel again, but he feared it, too. He stepped forward, one deliberate pace at a time, pausing between each like a bridal march. Or funeral.

  When he was only a few paces from the soldier he realised that his fears were unfounded. The shoulders of the soldier’s tunic, the top of the full-head mask and its snout-like nose piece, the rifle, the legs and toes of the black boots, all were sprinkled in a light dusting of snow.

  Not aware that he had been holding it, Tom let out his breath in a deep sigh and felt his shoulders sag like a marionette whose strings have been cut. He stepped around the soldier and the back of the truck.

  The car park in front of the sport centre wasn’t littered with parked cars or rubbish or military equipment, but with bodies. Soldiers, civilians; men, women, a few children. Despite the cold, they had bloated and discoloured, and gave off the sweet stench, though it was less noticeable here outside.

  As Tom picked his way between the corpses, a movement caught his eye. Big black birds, crows or some such, feasted on the bodies. With a cry of disgust, Tom ran at them, making them take to the air with startled caws.

  He was gaining a fair idea of what he would find inside the building, but he made for the entrance anyway. Not all of the bodies scattered about the car park had died of the Millennium Bug; at least, not the civilians. Most of them were surrounded by pools of blood; some had severe injuries that not even the savage beak of a crow could inflict. Scattered on the ground around many of the soldiers were spent brass cartridges.

  Tom reached the side entrance to the main sports hall. The emergency doors were propped open by a tangle of blood-soaked bodies; people had been shot as they tried to get out.

  The stench here was much stronger and Tom held his hand to his nose as he stepped over the corpses, trying to avoid stepping in congealed blood, finding it impossible not to. The thin winter daylight only penetrated a few yards into the hall. The rest stretched away, hidden in darkness like the inside of a cave.

  The sounds of scrabbling and squeaking came to his ears. He yelled. The shout died almost as soon as it left his lips, swallowed by the stinking blackness. The scrabbling and squeaking, if anything, increased. He didn’t yell again.

  As he took a few more paces in, flies buzzed up at his face. Maybe they could feast and lay eggs here where it was a little warmer, shielded from the wind and snow.

  At the furthest edge of illumination, just before the darkness proper began and Tom’s courage ended, he found what he was looking for. She lay face up, almost unrecognisable if it wasn’t for the mole on the cheek, the Monroe mole, the one he had kissed the last time they had been together.

  Tom looked down at her for a long moment.

  The scrabbling in the darkness seemed to be coming closer, or Tom’s imagination made it feel that way, making his skin crawl with revulsion. He knew that he ought to drag her out of there. Afford her a decent burial if he could manage to dig another grave in the frozen earth.

  His physical strength had returned, but he required a different sort of toughness to bury another person dear to him. A toughness that he had surprised himself once by demonstrating but that he doubted he would ever possess again.

  “Goodbye, Lisa,” he whispered. Then he turned and almost ran from the sports hall.

  Gaining the fresh air, he stopped and doubled over, gulping in cold air. Just when he thought he must lose his breakfast, the wave of sickness passed.

  “Got to get away from here,” he muttered and made his way at a trot-march back to the Jaguar.

  He opened the driver’s door and looked in.

  Dusty gazed back at him, tail thumping against the leather upholstery.

  “Let’s go for a drive, shall we?” said Tom. “See what this baby can do.”

  For a moment, Tom thought that Dusty’s ears pricked up and his head cocked at the sound of his voice, but then he heard it, too.

  The sound of an engine, heading their way.

  * * * * *

  Almost five hundred people descended upon JFK Airport, coming from all points of the United States and some from further afield in Canada and Central America.

  A fully-fuelled and safety-checked Jumbo stood ready on the wind- and rain-swept runway. Milandra had discussed departure with the flight crew who were keen to wait for an area of low pressure in mid-Atlantic to move away before leaving.

  The weather forecast systems were still operational. The main meteorological centres in the U.S.A., South America, Canada and the U.K. were manned by skeleton staffs. The American staffs would keep the centres operational until the last flight had departed continental America and would then follow in readied private jets that stood waiting on local airstrips.

  The airways were clear and the only risk would be encountering another of their flights on its way to Heathrow. Geostationary satellite systems for navigation and communication continued to be fully operational and would remain so, even without attention, for many years. The aircrafts’ onboard radar systems would remain effective and there was no reason to suppose that a midair collision was a realistic worry; far less so than before the Millennium Bug.

  The flight crew’s only concern was the weather. Although the Boeing was capable of flying through an electrical storm, the crew would much prefer avoiding any sort of weather systems that might knock out an engine or any of the onboard safety systems. It wasn’t so much the remainder of the flight that would be risky, but the landing in London without a full fire and safety groundcrew on standby. Milandra assured the Captain that they would not depart until he was satisfied that the way was safe.

  “There’s no desperate hurry,” she said, “although we can’t delay here too long. We need to hold the Commune before the survivors get their act together. Once they start grouping, controlling them will become problematic.”

  The Captain, a veteran of over seven hundred international flights on 747s and many more on their predecessors, nodded. “Understood. A window is likely to open within the next few hours. Everyone needs to be ready to board at a moment’s notice. Has everybody arrived?”

  “Just a few more to come. The ones who’ve had the furthest to travel. But they aren’t far away.”

  “Okay. Let me know when they’re here. I’ll be in the control tower. And Milandra. . . .” He paused as if choosing his words carefully. “What we’ve had to do . . . it was essential, wasn’t it? It’s just that I kind of grew fond of some of them. . . .” He tailed off, looking at her anxiously. She didn’t need to probe to sense his need for reassurance.

  S
he placed a hand on his forearm and squeezed. “You weren’t the only one,” she said. “But, yes, it was essential. If there’d been some other way. . . .” She shook her head. “There wasn’t.”

  “I know. Guess I just needed to hear you say it. Okay. . . .” He was brisk and businesslike again. “Call me in the CT then, when they get here.”

  Milandra removed her hand from his arm. “Will do.”

  She was just turning away when she received from Grant: Main entrance. I think you should see this

  As Milandra neared the entrance, she heard a commotion. Raised voices and laughter. A small crowd had gathered in front of the doors. Milandra saw Grant standing to one side, watching her approach.

  Simone Furlong stood at the front of the knot of people, clapping her hands with glee, her gaze fixed on a young woman. The woman—more a girl, probably still in her teens—crawled on the dirty tiled floor on her hands and knees. Now and again, she lifted her head and howled like a wolf. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  Milandra probed. The girl was under the power of Simone and half a dozen or so others in the crowd behind her. With the girl’s mind wide open, it took Milandra only a moment to see the girl’s anguish at watching her family die; her own descent into blackness and emergence again into the light; her spotting of one of Milandra’s people and following them to the airport; her dashed hopes of finding comfort and companionship and safety . . .

  As Milandra started to step forward, the girl stopped crawling and knelt. Mouth twisting in a grimace of humiliation, she pulled her jumper over her head. She was braless and her small breasts glinted in the fluorescent lighting as tears spilled down them.

  “Is this what we’ve come to?” said Milandra in a loud voice. “Are we now animals?”