Terminal by Roderick Gordon
Elliott took her hand from the console and the image was immediately extinguished. ‘Not just them,’ she said. ‘Maybe it’s the Armagi.’
Grinding his fist against his palm, Will was filled with foreboding. ‘I have to find a way to get back,’ he said. ‘If it’s not already too late.’
In broad daylight, Drake and Jiggs stole through the disused airfield until they found the Portakabin where the security men were usually based. The door was unlocked and nobody was inside, nor was there any sign of a vehicle.
Jiggs tried the light switch, clicking it on and off. ‘No power. Somebody forgot to pay the bill,’ he commented.
Drake had gone straight to the telephone on one of the desks. ‘This is dead too,’ he said. As he replaced the receiver, he noticed some unfinished tea in a polystyrene cup. ‘There used to be an around-the-clock guard on this place, but there’s mould growing on that drink. Appears that nobody’s been here …’ he pulled a face as he peered at the mould in the cup, ‘… in weeks. Wonder why that is?’ For a moment Drake considered the bars of light coming through the strip blinds, where motes of dust danced slowly. ‘Anyway, the priority is to get in touch with my father or Eddie. Let’s figure out the fastest way to do that without compromising ourselves.’
There in the cabin they carried out an equipment check, laying each item of kit out on the floor. The problem was many of the items that Drake had had on him or been carrying in his Bergen had been badly burnt in the nuclear blast.
‘This is totally kaput. The circuits are fried,’ Drake said, lobbing his satphone over to Jiggs, who also tried to make it work. ‘So we’ve got some weapons and ammo, a couple of empty booster rockets, my lens, a tracker and a couple of beacons.’
‘And my knackered shortwave radio, which won’t get us anywhere,’ Jiggs added, putting it on top of the pile. As he began to pack the equipment away again, Drake slumped into a chair at one of the desks.
‘We have to get to the nearest house with a phone and leave a message on the remote server,’ Drake said. ‘As we have no idea where Parry’s got to, it’s the only way I can think of to contact him, and find out how the operation’s gone up here on the surface.’
‘I agree, but unless we’re lucky and find a vehicle, we’re going the slow way – on foot,’ Jiggs replied, swinging the Bergen onto his shoulders.
‘So be it,’ Drake said, hauling himself up wearily.
Although it was still winter, the sun was shining brightly in the clear sky as they ducked through an opening in the airfield’s perimeter fence and headed across a field of wild grasses towards the nearest road.
‘Warm for the time of year,’ Jiggs commented, undoing another button on his shirt.
Drake tried to catch the rays on his face. ‘This is glorious. Funny how much you take for granted,’ he said poignantly, allowing his eyes to shut for a moment. ‘I’ve probably been out in the morning sun on a thousand days precisely like this one, but this is first time I’ve really felt it.’
They pushed through a hedge and scrambled down a grass verge, finding themselves on a minor road. Their boots thudded on the tarmac as they walked as fast as Drake could manage, neither of them remarking on the branches and debris scattered everywhere. The road shouldn’t have been in such bad condition, unless there’d been recent storm winds, and neither of them could see any other evidence for this.
Drake pointed at a small wooded area. ‘That’s where I hid the Range Rover when I dropped Will and the poor old Doc off.’ He laughed to himself. ‘It wasn’t that long ago, but it feels like a lifetime now.’
‘Hold up,’ Jiggs cut in, bringing them both to a halt. ‘See the vehicle up ahead?’ He unclipped the top of his holster but didn’t take his handgun out.
‘Got it,’ Drake said.
They advanced slowly towards the car, taking their time because it had been left at an angle right across the road, making it impossible for anything to get past.
‘Someone stopped in a hurry,’ Drake noted, directing Jiggs towards the skid marks. ‘What happened here?’
But Jiggs was already by the driver’s door, staring intently at it. ‘This is odd.’ The door panel itself was pushed in as if it had been hit with some force from the side, and the window had been broken – pieces of it were scattered over the road. ‘The key’s still in the ignition, and there’s dried blood on the seat,’ Jiggs said as he ducked his head inside the car.
‘Here, too, where someone’s been dragged,’ Drake said, as he stepped slowly away from the car, following the dark smears of blood. ‘But no sign of a body, just some personal belongings.’ He picked up a wallet and mobile phone from a drainage ditch at the side of the road.
‘I don’t understand,’ Jiggs said, as he tried to piece together what had happened. ‘Something impacts the car – hard – then the driver is yanked out through the window?’ he asked, as he squatted to examine the pieces of torn-off cloth that had snagged on the broken edges of window, and all the blood on the exterior of the door itself.
Drake was trying the mobile to see if it was working. ‘Typical! No signal,’ he said, ‘although it could be because the battery’s low.’ Then he flipped through the wallet he’d found. ‘The driver was local,’ he began saying, but then abruptly dropped the wallet and began to sway on his feet.
Noticing something was wrong, Jiggs helped him over to the car.
‘Sorry,’ Drake said. ‘Legs went on me all of a sudden.’
Jiggs was looking at him with concern, at the sheen of fresh sweat on his face and the way he was shaking as he leant against the car. ‘You’d better get in, and we’ll make tracks for the nearest village,’ he suggested. ‘I need to get you to a hospital.’
The car started without any problem, and they set off along the road. They hadn’t been driving for more than five minutes when they went over a small humpback bridge, only to squeal to a halt because the road was blocked by a group of around twenty men. Some were wielding shotguns and small calibre rifles, while others had pickaxe handles and even pitchforks.
‘Good grief – are we about to be butchered by a lynch mob?’ Jiggs said.
‘I suppose we are in Norfolk,’ Drake replied.
A portly man in a tweed jacket stepped forward from the group. ‘Would you two gentlemen please step out of the car?’ he asked. ‘And for all our sakes, kill that engine!’
Drake began to cough – it sounded so raw that it was painful to listen to him. Jiggs leant out of the broken window, but left the engine running. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘And what’s the story here?’
‘Turn off the engine and step outside the car, then we’ll tell you,’ the portly man said impatiently. As Drake continued to cough, the man glimpsed his head and all the bandages covering his burns. ‘Your friend … he doesn’t look in great shape.’
‘He’s not,’ Jiggs said, studying the portly leader. He guessed the man must be in his sixties, while a number of others appeared even older. Then there were some young bucks in the mob who clearly liked being armed. Jiggs could tell that from how they were holding their weapons, and he immediately began to worry about twitchy trigger fingers.
‘Okay, I’m coming out,’ Jiggs agreed, switching off the ignition and opening his door slowly. Then, with his assault rifle held high in one hand, he stepped out onto the road. He turned to Drake, who seemed to have recovered from his coughing fit. But as Drake emerged from behind the car door and finally raised his head, in each hand he had a Beretta pistol. Trying to ignore the pain from his wounded shoulder, Drake was aiming one pistol at the portly leader, while moving the other over the rest of the group.
‘Who are you lot?’ Drake demanded. ‘Because I feel as though I’ve just wandered onto the set of The Wicker Man. And I never liked the way that film ended.’
‘Very droll,’ the portly man replied. ‘We’re just people from this area, trying our best to stay alive. And every second we dilly-dally here makes that less likely. So I suggest we all put our w
Catching Drake’s eye, Jiggs gave him a nod. Drake lowered his handguns, and then, with the portly leader walking between them, they left the road, following up a slightly inclined field.
‘You two soldiers? We’ve had quite a few army bods through here,’ the man asked, his eyes flicking from Drake to Jiggs. The man was wheezing from the exertion by the time they reached the top, and turned towards Drake. ‘And what’s the matter with you? Your breathing sounds as rough as mine. Asthma?’
‘No, radiation sickness,’ Drake gasped, his chest heaving as he broke into another coughing fit. It took him a moment to recover, then he asked, ‘You have to tell us what’s been happening recently.’ He frowned. ‘I mean, what’s with all the weapons? And why aren’t the mobile networks working?’
‘You really have no idea?’ the man asked with astonishment.
‘Assume we know nothing,’ Drake replied.
The man drew in a wheezy breath before he began to speak. ‘The TV and newspapers reported that there were terrorist attacks when it first kicked off, and then it turned into something far worse.’ The man gave Drake a curious look, as if suddenly suspicious of him. ‘So you don’t know how it’s brought about the collapse of … of everything?’ he answered, groping for the right words. ‘You two been hiding in a hole or something?’ he asked.
‘You’re not far wrong,’ Drake told him, as the portly man waved them over to a copse of trees.
‘If you’ve missed out on all the fun and games while the country’s gone to rack and ruin, you might want to watch this,’ he said, pointing down the slope to where several of the younger men had remained with the car. They had the bonnet up, while another was playing out a cable from a drum. ‘We reckon they’re highly sensitive to the vibrations engines give off. It draws them in from miles away.’
‘Draws who?’ Jiggs quickly asked.
‘The glass beasts – you’ll most likely see one for yourself in a jiffy.’
‘Glass beasts?’ Drake repeated in a croak.
‘We honestly don’t know what they are. There’s a group of them by the old airfield in West Raynham – if you drove close to it, you were damned lucky to get this far. But because you brought that car into our area, they’ll not be long in turning up, and we can’t have them nearby or we’ll be overrun like the other villages.’
‘But you said glass beasts – what exactly do you mean?’ Jiggs pressed him.
‘It’s hard to describe them,’ the man replied. ‘They drop out of the sky, and they sometimes come by water, but those ones look different,’ he replied. ‘However they arrive, it doesn’t matter; they’re all equally savage, and more of our people than I care to remember have been taken by them.’
Drake and Jiggs met each other’s gaze. ‘Armagi?’ Drake said.
‘You know something about these beasts, then?’ the portly man put in.
Drake was shaking his head. ‘Not much, but we had an inkling this might happen.’
‘Better get out of sight now,’ the portly man said, and Drake and Jiggs followed his example as, with much grunting, he lowered himself down onto the ground. Once there, he clicked his fingers, and another man in the group immediately came over with a holdall containing some quite sophisticated telescopes on small tripods and handed them out. As Drake raised his eyebrows at his scope, the portly man explained, ‘Got some die-hard twitchers in our village – you know, bird-watchers – so we’re always spoilt for scopes.’
As the car could be heard starting up, the portly leader explained, ‘We leave the engine running by weighing down the accelerator – nothing too loud, but if they’re on the trail, it’ll bring them in quickly, like mice to cheese. You see, the glass beasts always seem to travel in pairs, and if we don’t stop them here, they just keep looking till they find someone.’
The men on the road were quickly moving away from it now. ‘Focus your scope on the car, then keep an eye out around it. You don’t want to miss the grand entrance,’ the portly leader said, chuckling. ‘Bit different from watching sandpipers over at Blakeney Point.’
Then, as they waited, in a muted and grim voice he began to recount to Drake and Jiggs what had been happening on the surface; about how the police and army seemed to have disbanded, and how all the utilities – electricity, gas, telecoms – all of it had simply stopped. ‘You know, you two remind me of some curious people we had through the village a while back,’ the man said suddenly. ‘They didn’t seem to know where they were either. And why they just came to mind is because they were both plastered with mud and appeared as though they’d just been pulled out of the River Wensum, same as you.’
Drake raised an eyebrow. ‘What did these people look like?’
‘They strolled into my village shop early one morning before opening. I said to my wife at the time that I had a feeling something was in the offing – and it wasn’t long before all these funny goings-on started, and the country went to pot.’
‘Can you describe them?’ Drake asked.
The portly leader thought for a second. ‘There was a lad, wild-looking, with long hair as white as snow, and an older man, also with very long hair, who appeared to be his fath—’
‘The older one wore glasses?’ Drake interjected, a big smile spreading across his face. ‘What sort of shop did you say you have?’
The portly man pulled an unhappy face. ‘Had. Afraid I was forced to close it after I couldn’t get any deliveries through, but it was the village shop – you know, a convenience store with food and newspapers and …’
Drake had begun to chuckle. ‘So you sold chocolate. Did, by any chance, the older of the two stuff himself silly on it that morning? Did he? Because the Doc always loved chocolate.’
‘He did!’ the portly man burst out. ‘He bought several bars, and I saw him scoffing them outside on the pavement.’
‘Will and Dr Burrows,’ Drake told Jiggs, who was looking confused, ‘when they first travelled up from the fallout shelter.’
The portly man was also looking rather confused. ‘But how did y—’
‘Shhh,’ someone behind them hissed. ‘The first beast has landed.’
Jiggs had been concentrating on the car as the other two spoke, and had spotted the Armagi swooping down from over the trees and alighting close to it.
And Drake caught sight of the second one as it sprang from the river flowing under the bridge. ‘My God – there! That’s an Armagi!’ Drake whispered in horror. ‘Adapted to live in water.’
‘And the other is obviously capable of flight,’ Jiggs added.
‘They can alter themselves,’ the portly man said. ‘But watch this.’
The two Armagi approached the car, one with its wings folded behind its back, the other looking like liquid crystal as the water on it reflected the bright sunlight. There was a moment when they turned to face each other over the roof of the vehicle, as if they were communicating.
‘And zambo!’ the portly man murmured.
The member of the group hidden in the field applied a current to the wires running to the car’s full tank of petrol. The explosion lifted the vehicle clean off the ground, the two Armagi blasted into pieces by the huge fireball.
The oddest thing was that for the briefest instant both Drake and Jiggs caught a glimpse not of the transparent beasts against the flames but of the distinct outlines of two men in silhouette.
The portly leader was already on his feet, and telling them to get up. ‘We’ll come along later to check that nothing escaped the fire. You see, we incinerate every last chunk of those foul beasts we can find.’
‘Why do that?’ Jiggs asked. ‘That looked pretty conclusive to me. They must be dead.’
‘You might think so,’ the portly man said. ‘But they can come back to life. We’ve seen it
Drake was frowning as he thought of something. ‘If we can’t use a vehicle with a combustion engine, how are we ever going to reach Parry? I can’t really walk it, not the way I am.’
The same thought had occurred to Jiggs. ‘What if we keep the revs low. Or if maybe we can somehow insulate the engine – soundproof it, that might—?’
The portly man smiled broadly as he cut in on their conversation. ‘If you can convince me that it’s important enough, I have a better idea for you. It’s not the latest word in travel, but it’ll get you where you want to go.’
Chapter Eleven
In the two days they’d been at the farmhouse, Chester, Martha and Stephanie had already settled into a routine, albeit a rather strange one. Martha and Stephanie rarely had anything to do with each other, while Chester was incredibly restless and ill at ease, throwing himself around the place like a bear with a bad hangover. When he wasn’t in his room – the master bedroom which Martha had insisted he have, while Stephanie was relegated to what must have been one of the children’s cramped rooms – he would take himself off for long walks.
Stephanie would watch as he left the farmhouse without a word to anyone, then stomp off across the fields. Martha would often rush out after the boy in an effort to accompany him wherever he was going. But she was never gone long as she found it difficult to keep up with her short legs.
And at all times Chester and Stephanie maintained their distance whenever they were in the same room. Even when Martha was far enough away not to hear, Chester didn’t seem to be in any mood to talk.
But Stephanie couldn’t put up with the silence any longer. It was the start of the third day and they’d just had their breakfast, which hadn’t been a very appealing meal because they’d been forced yet again to eat their cereal with water because there was no way of getting hold of any milk. Martha had just gone outside into the yard to throw the dirty bowls away when Stephanie decided to speak to Chester. ‘You’re still terribly upset, aren’t you?’ she said softly.