The Forever Man - Book 1: Pulse by Craig Zerf
The Belmarsh Boys were on the move. After the attack on the American Embassy, their new leader, or the Chief, as he now preferred to be addressed, had finally forced the mob into some semblance of order.
Firstly he chose five personal guards, then he divided the rest of the gang into roughly four groups of fifty each. He had appointed himself some captains and, below them in the hierarchy a group of lieutenants. Each captain controlled a group of fifty and each group of fifty had been split into five groups of ten. In charge of each of these groups was a lieutenant.
Discipline was harsh and absolute. The few men who had not taken well to the new command structure were simply taken to one side and beaten to death by the others.
And now they were traveling out of London, raping and pillaging as they went, feeding off the general population like the Vikings of old. In the front of the column of evil rode the Chief, Basel Ratford. Or, as the pre-pulse newspapers had dubbed him, the Gentleman Killer. It was an odd moniker to attach to a serial killer as he was neither a gentleman, nor did he in fact, ever kill gentlemen. He was an ex-supermarket packer who killed teenage boys, dressed them up in tuxedo and top hat and then, under the cover of night, posed them in various positions in public places to be discovered by the next morning’s commuters. He had reached the remarkable tally of nine before a police car ran a red light and smashed into Ratford’s car, only to discover a dead, well dressed teenage boy in his trunk.
The police commissioner had tried to spin the story to make it appear like good police work, however the tabloids had run with it under the headline, ‘Keystone cops smash Killer case…literally!’
Ratford rode at the front of the column. His men had taken a new Jaguar XJ and stripped the engine out to lighten it. Then they had gone to the Bonny Bridge riding club in Millbrook road, a mere half a mile from the American Embassy, and commandeered a few horses. Two of these horses were then harnessed via saddle harnesses to a pair of D-rings that had been hammered into the Jag’s coachwork. Then the front windscreen had been smashed out and two drivers sat in the front two seats, one to control the horse’s reins and the other to steer the Jag. The Commander in Chief sat on a leather ‘La-Z-boy’ recliner that had been strapped to the roof of the car.
Behind him, being drawn by another two horses, was an open back Volvo truck, piled high with supplies. But this seemingly huge pile of food and consumables was not nearly enough for all two hundred men, so scavenging was a constant need.
From a distance the column looked like a carnival. The ex-cons had helped themselves to whatever clothes they had wanted from the very best shops in London and had given full rein to their sartorial whims.
Full length fur coats from Harrods. Men wearing women’s felt pillbox hats with long pheasant feathers from Rachel Morgan; milliners to the Queen. Savile row suits with the arms ripped off to cater for massive, prison-grown biceps. Gold chains and Raybans, Duchamp neckties worn as headbands and bright yellow Louis Vuittion shoes.
Chief Ratford had instituted a few strict rules, the major one being that every likely looking house or person had to be searched for food, water, drink, or drugs and weapons. Any of the aforementioned discovered were to be loaded into the back of the Volvo truck for fair distribution by the captains. As a result of this, the horde swept through the surrounding environs like a massive swarm of Schistocerca gregaria or the African desert locust.
The horde had lucked out earlier on that week when, using the weapons that they had, they had stormed the Sportsman Gun Center in Stephendale. Now every member had a firearm of some sort. Mainly double barreled shotguns but also a smattering of hunting rifles and 22 rimfire semi-auto rifles. They had also taken thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Already there had been a number of deaths through accidental discharges. But the commander didn’t mind that. He deemed it the result of natural high spirits.
They had left the larger London area some two days ago and the Chief had decided to take them due North, keeping off the major roads in the belief that there would be more food available in the outlying villages.
So far he had been correct and the first small village that they had come to, Moat Wood, although half deserted, had provided fair pickings. The villagers had organized themselves a committee and had pooled all of their remaining food and water in the town hall. This was guarded by two men with shotguns. The horde had rolled over the village in the same manner that Hitler rolled over Poland. Fast and savage, they left no survivors and burned most of the village to the ground.
Today, however, the Chief was looking for bigger bounty. He had sent two horse riding scouts ahead and one had just returned.
He trotted up to the chief and threw out a perfect Nazi salute.
‘Chief!’
The Chief nodded. ‘Talk to me.’
‘Village about five miles ahead, Chief. Judge’s Hill. It’s on a cross road, got a stream running through. The residents have barricaded the roads. Proper ones, not just piles of furniture. There’s wood fencing and cars parked against it. Guards looking over the top. Armed. Shotguns and rifles.’
The Chief nodded. Pleased. He beckoned to one of his captains who came running over.
‘Captain,’ said the Chief. ‘Make sure that all of the boys have ammunition. We’re going shopping.’
Five miles away a young girl pulled her horse to a halt outside a barricade made by two Landrovers that had been pushed across a gap in a fence to form a gate. Four men pushed them open and she rode through as they closed behind her.
She trotted down the narrow road and pulled the horse to a stop in front of a large Georgian house. She jumped from the saddle and simply left the horse. The animal stood still and cropped at the short lawn as the girl ran up the steps, opened the door and went to the first room on the right.
‘Axel,’ she greeted as she walked in.
A young man looked up from the desk that he and two other men were standing over. All three men were dressed in identical No. 4 warm weather service dress of the Queen’s Royal Surrey Regiment. They all had three captains’ stars on their epaulettes.
‘Jenny,’ he replied. ‘How goes?’
‘Not good,’ she glanced at the two other young men and greeted them before she answered Axel. ‘Patrick, Dom.’ They nodded their acceptance. ‘That band of nut cases is close and heading our way. Probably five miles out or so.’
‘Are you sure?’ Asked Axel. ‘Definitely heading this way?’
Jenny nodded. ‘Definitely, brother mine.’
Axel stood up straight. ‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Looks like the time has come. Sound the general alert and let’s get to it.’
Both Patrick and Dom left the room and, less than a minute later, the banshee like howl of an old Second World War air raid siren shattered the clear English air.
Axel and his two friends, all captains in Queen’s Royal Surrey Regiment, had been rotated out of the endless Afghanistan war and sent home for three weeks R&R. Axel had invited the other two for a week at his father’s house in the country where they would ride and shoot grouse and drink until the early hours. His younger sister, Jenny, was also there although his parents had stayed on at their townhouse in London.
The first night that they arrived the pulse hit. Within two hours the three officers knew what had happened, although they all thought that it had been the result of a low level nuclear strike as opposed to a natural event. The three of them had immediately donned their uniforms in order to help impart a measure of authority to what they were about to do. They then called on the local priest, the local councilor, the head of the village Rotary Club and the president of the village Women’s Institute and insisted on a meeting at Judge Hall, Axel’s father’s house.
The three soldiers had explained what a pulse was and the inevitable outcomes. They put forward a plan to fortify the village, pool recourses and start a militia. They did not brook any arguments. As a result of their meticulous planning and the backing of the village notewo
rthies, they had erected a ten-foot fence around the entire village within three days. This fence had been constructed from material pillaged from fences in the interior of the walled area, Then it was fortified with earthen embankments and had a walkway six foot up to provide sentries with a good vantage point from which to see and to fire.
They had then collected all of the firearms and ammunition in the district and surrounds and put the priest in charge of the armory. The food was taken to the village hall and the Women’s Institute was put in charge of that. The local doctor and nurse were deemed to be in charge of all medicines and care.
Axel had then taken all of the able bodied men, of which there were one hundred and fifty, and organized them into fifteen groups of ten. For no other reason than it was easy to do, he then put one of each of the local rugby team, into each group and designated them, Team Leader. These fifteen Team Leaders reported directly to him, Patrick and Dom. The groups were then put into three groups of five teams, the idea being that each group would spend eight hours on watch out of every twenty four with the second group being on standby as the third group slept.
All told there were thirty-six weapons of various vintage and caliber. Enough to arm the watch group and the standby group plus the three officers. The weapons consisted mainly of 12 gauge double barreled shotguns although there were two first world war Webley revolvers with a surprising amount of ammunition (some one hundred rounds), owned by the ninety-four year old mister Sturgeon who was partially blind and almost wholly deaf. However, mister Sturgeon absolutely refused to relinquish both revolvers arguing that, if push came to shove it would be left to him to sort the whole mess out.
Axel had taken the second revolver and eighty rounds of ammunition. He had also taken one of the two pump-action shotguns that they had found. Patrick took the other and they both removed the block in the magazine so that, instead of the legal two round limit, they could load a full five rounds plus one up. Dom opted for a Savage model 11 hunting rifle in a 380 round with a four plus one box magazine. Dom had also found a two-handed broadsword in the village hall that he had strapped to his back. But then, that was Dom for you. The rest of the weapons were handed out on an ad hoc basis.
The British soldiers did not stop there. Firstly, Axel instituted a series of long sweep patrols, on horseback, to ensure that anything that was happening within twenty miles of the village was reported and planned for and, secondly, he and his two friends started putting in more defenses.
They used villagers to dig a series of wide shallow ditches, not to stop, merely to impede any charge of people or horses. Then they stripped the hardware store of all of its steel nails over one inch in length. They took the nails to the local blacksmith who, with the help of a veritable crowd of villagers, soldered them together in sets of two. Each nail was then bent at an opposite ninety-degree angle to form a caltrop. Basically, an anti-personnel weapon that always lands with one spike facing up when thrown onto the ground. The blacksmith churned out over ten thousand of these and Axel got the villagers to spread them liberally around the approaches, particularly in the shallow ditches.
Finally, the three officers collected all of the large kitchen knives, carvers, chefs’ knives and so on, as well as all of the broom handles in the village. Then, using a knife, a broom handle and a length of duct tape, they fashioned a rudimentary but deadly spear for all of those who did not have firearms.
All of these precautions had been implemented in order to prevent roving gangs of outsiders draining the meager stocks of the village. All newcomers were turned away unless they were returning residents or blood relatives of current villagers. However, the soldiers were under no illusions that their defenses could easily be breached by a determined force of over two hundred armed desperados.
‘So,’ said Dom. ‘When do you think that they’ll get here?’
Axel shrugged. ‘Can’t be one hundred percent sure. If it were me, then I would camp up a mile or so away. It’s getting late. Then I’d hit us at first light or just before.’
‘Makes sense,’ agreed Dom.
‘What do you rate our chances?’ Asked Patrick.
‘Zero to none,’ answered Axel. ‘Can’t see us keeping them out for more than a day. We’re outnumbered, outgunned and the perimeters too large.’
‘What about evacuating?’ Suggested Patrick.
Axel shook his head. ‘Already spoken about that to all of the worthies. The general consensus seems to be, here we stand. I tend to agree. We all know what it’s like out there. One could run for now but not forever.’
‘My God,’ said Dom. ‘What I’d give to have ten fully armed chaps from the regiment with us. Now that would be a no-brainer.’
Axel chuckled. ‘Yep, we’d win for sure. Pity.’
‘I notice that your father keeps a particularly well stocked wine cellar,’ ventured Patrick. ‘I think that I spied upon a magnum of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 2009. Do you think he’d be awfully peeved if we guzzled that down?’
‘Course not,’ answered Axel. ‘What’s a thirty thousand dollar bottle of wine between friends? Anyway,’ he continued. ‘You only live once.’
‘True,’ agreed Dom. ‘And sometimes not even that long.’
They laughed and headed for the wine cellar.
Chapter 15
Firstly he chose five personal guards, then he divided the rest of the gang into roughly four groups of fifty each. He had appointed himself some captains and, below them in the hierarchy a group of lieutenants. Each captain controlled a group of fifty and each group of fifty had been split into five groups of ten. In charge of each of these groups was a lieutenant.
Discipline was harsh and absolute. The few men who had not taken well to the new command structure were simply taken to one side and beaten to death by the others.
And now they were traveling out of London, raping and pillaging as they went, feeding off the general population like the Vikings of old. In the front of the column of evil rode the Chief, Basel Ratford. Or, as the pre-pulse newspapers had dubbed him, the Gentleman Killer. It was an odd moniker to attach to a serial killer as he was neither a gentleman, nor did he in fact, ever kill gentlemen. He was an ex-supermarket packer who killed teenage boys, dressed them up in tuxedo and top hat and then, under the cover of night, posed them in various positions in public places to be discovered by the next morning’s commuters. He had reached the remarkable tally of nine before a police car ran a red light and smashed into Ratford’s car, only to discover a dead, well dressed teenage boy in his trunk.
The police commissioner had tried to spin the story to make it appear like good police work, however the tabloids had run with it under the headline, ‘Keystone cops smash Killer case…literally!’
Ratford rode at the front of the column. His men had taken a new Jaguar XJ and stripped the engine out to lighten it. Then they had gone to the Bonny Bridge riding club in Millbrook road, a mere half a mile from the American Embassy, and commandeered a few horses. Two of these horses were then harnessed via saddle harnesses to a pair of D-rings that had been hammered into the Jag’s coachwork. Then the front windscreen had been smashed out and two drivers sat in the front two seats, one to control the horse’s reins and the other to steer the Jag. The Commander in Chief sat on a leather ‘La-Z-boy’ recliner that had been strapped to the roof of the car.
Behind him, being drawn by another two horses, was an open back Volvo truck, piled high with supplies. But this seemingly huge pile of food and consumables was not nearly enough for all two hundred men, so scavenging was a constant need.
From a distance the column looked like a carnival. The ex-cons had helped themselves to whatever clothes they had wanted from the very best shops in London and had given full rein to their sartorial whims.
Full length fur coats from Harrods. Men wearing women’s felt pillbox hats with long pheasant feathers from Rachel Morgan; milliners to the Queen. Savile row suits with the arms ripped off to cater for massive, prison-grown biceps. Gold chains and Raybans, Duchamp neckties worn as headbands and bright yellow Louis Vuittion shoes.
Chief Ratford had instituted a few strict rules, the major one being that every likely looking house or person had to be searched for food, water, drink, or drugs and weapons. Any of the aforementioned discovered were to be loaded into the back of the Volvo truck for fair distribution by the captains. As a result of this, the horde swept through the surrounding environs like a massive swarm of Schistocerca gregaria or the African desert locust.
The horde had lucked out earlier on that week when, using the weapons that they had, they had stormed the Sportsman Gun Center in Stephendale. Now every member had a firearm of some sort. Mainly double barreled shotguns but also a smattering of hunting rifles and 22 rimfire semi-auto rifles. They had also taken thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Already there had been a number of deaths through accidental discharges. But the commander didn’t mind that. He deemed it the result of natural high spirits.
They had left the larger London area some two days ago and the Chief had decided to take them due North, keeping off the major roads in the belief that there would be more food available in the outlying villages.
So far he had been correct and the first small village that they had come to, Moat Wood, although half deserted, had provided fair pickings. The villagers had organized themselves a committee and had pooled all of their remaining food and water in the town hall. This was guarded by two men with shotguns. The horde had rolled over the village in the same manner that Hitler rolled over Poland. Fast and savage, they left no survivors and burned most of the village to the ground.
Today, however, the Chief was looking for bigger bounty. He had sent two horse riding scouts ahead and one had just returned.
He trotted up to the chief and threw out a perfect Nazi salute.
‘Chief!’
The Chief nodded. ‘Talk to me.’
‘Village about five miles ahead, Chief. Judge’s Hill. It’s on a cross road, got a stream running through. The residents have barricaded the roads. Proper ones, not just piles of furniture. There’s wood fencing and cars parked against it. Guards looking over the top. Armed. Shotguns and rifles.’
The Chief nodded. Pleased. He beckoned to one of his captains who came running over.
‘Captain,’ said the Chief. ‘Make sure that all of the boys have ammunition. We’re going shopping.’
Five miles away a young girl pulled her horse to a halt outside a barricade made by two Landrovers that had been pushed across a gap in a fence to form a gate. Four men pushed them open and she rode through as they closed behind her.
She trotted down the narrow road and pulled the horse to a stop in front of a large Georgian house. She jumped from the saddle and simply left the horse. The animal stood still and cropped at the short lawn as the girl ran up the steps, opened the door and went to the first room on the right.
‘Axel,’ she greeted as she walked in.
A young man looked up from the desk that he and two other men were standing over. All three men were dressed in identical No. 4 warm weather service dress of the Queen’s Royal Surrey Regiment. They all had three captains’ stars on their epaulettes.
‘Jenny,’ he replied. ‘How goes?’
‘Not good,’ she glanced at the two other young men and greeted them before she answered Axel. ‘Patrick, Dom.’ They nodded their acceptance. ‘That band of nut cases is close and heading our way. Probably five miles out or so.’
‘Are you sure?’ Asked Axel. ‘Definitely heading this way?’
Jenny nodded. ‘Definitely, brother mine.’
Axel stood up straight. ‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Looks like the time has come. Sound the general alert and let’s get to it.’
Both Patrick and Dom left the room and, less than a minute later, the banshee like howl of an old Second World War air raid siren shattered the clear English air.
Axel and his two friends, all captains in Queen’s Royal Surrey Regiment, had been rotated out of the endless Afghanistan war and sent home for three weeks R&R. Axel had invited the other two for a week at his father’s house in the country where they would ride and shoot grouse and drink until the early hours. His younger sister, Jenny, was also there although his parents had stayed on at their townhouse in London.
The first night that they arrived the pulse hit. Within two hours the three officers knew what had happened, although they all thought that it had been the result of a low level nuclear strike as opposed to a natural event. The three of them had immediately donned their uniforms in order to help impart a measure of authority to what they were about to do. They then called on the local priest, the local councilor, the head of the village Rotary Club and the president of the village Women’s Institute and insisted on a meeting at Judge Hall, Axel’s father’s house.
The three soldiers had explained what a pulse was and the inevitable outcomes. They put forward a plan to fortify the village, pool recourses and start a militia. They did not brook any arguments. As a result of their meticulous planning and the backing of the village notewo
They had then collected all of the firearms and ammunition in the district and surrounds and put the priest in charge of the armory. The food was taken to the village hall and the Women’s Institute was put in charge of that. The local doctor and nurse were deemed to be in charge of all medicines and care.
Axel had then taken all of the able bodied men, of which there were one hundred and fifty, and organized them into fifteen groups of ten. For no other reason than it was easy to do, he then put one of each of the local rugby team, into each group and designated them, Team Leader. These fifteen Team Leaders reported directly to him, Patrick and Dom. The groups were then put into three groups of five teams, the idea being that each group would spend eight hours on watch out of every twenty four with the second group being on standby as the third group slept.
All told there were thirty-six weapons of various vintage and caliber. Enough to arm the watch group and the standby group plus the three officers. The weapons consisted mainly of 12 gauge double barreled shotguns although there were two first world war Webley revolvers with a surprising amount of ammunition (some one hundred rounds), owned by the ninety-four year old mister Sturgeon who was partially blind and almost wholly deaf. However, mister Sturgeon absolutely refused to relinquish both revolvers arguing that, if push came to shove it would be left to him to sort the whole mess out.
Axel had taken the second revolver and eighty rounds of ammunition. He had also taken one of the two pump-action shotguns that they had found. Patrick took the other and they both removed the block in the magazine so that, instead of the legal two round limit, they could load a full five rounds plus one up. Dom opted for a Savage model 11 hunting rifle in a 380 round with a four plus one box magazine. Dom had also found a two-handed broadsword in the village hall that he had strapped to his back. But then, that was Dom for you. The rest of the weapons were handed out on an ad hoc basis.
The British soldiers did not stop there. Firstly, Axel instituted a series of long sweep patrols, on horseback, to ensure that anything that was happening within twenty miles of the village was reported and planned for and, secondly, he and his two friends started putting in more defenses.
They used villagers to dig a series of wide shallow ditches, not to stop, merely to impede any charge of people or horses. Then they stripped the hardware store of all of its steel nails over one inch in length. They took the nails to the local blacksmith who, with the help of a veritable crowd of villagers, soldered them together in sets of two. Each nail was then bent at an opposite ninety-degree angle to form a caltrop. Basically, an anti-personnel weapon that always lands with one spike facing up when thrown onto the ground. The blacksmith churned out over ten thousand of these and Axel got the villagers to spread them liberally around the approaches, particularly in the shallow ditches.
Finally, the three officers collected all of the large kitchen knives, carvers, chefs’ knives and so on, as well as all of the broom handles in the village. Then, using a knife, a broom handle and a length of duct tape, they fashioned a rudimentary but deadly spear for all of those who did not have firearms.
All of these precautions had been implemented in order to prevent roving gangs of outsiders draining the meager stocks of the village. All newcomers were turned away unless they were returning residents or blood relatives of current villagers. However, the soldiers were under no illusions that their defenses could easily be breached by a determined force of over two hundred armed desperados.
‘So,’ said Dom. ‘When do you think that they’ll get here?’
Axel shrugged. ‘Can’t be one hundred percent sure. If it were me, then I would camp up a mile or so away. It’s getting late. Then I’d hit us at first light or just before.’
‘Makes sense,’ agreed Dom.
‘What do you rate our chances?’ Asked Patrick.
‘Zero to none,’ answered Axel. ‘Can’t see us keeping them out for more than a day. We’re outnumbered, outgunned and the perimeters too large.’
‘What about evacuating?’ Suggested Patrick.
Axel shook his head. ‘Already spoken about that to all of the worthies. The general consensus seems to be, here we stand. I tend to agree. We all know what it’s like out there. One could run for now but not forever.’
‘My God,’ said Dom. ‘What I’d give to have ten fully armed chaps from the regiment with us. Now that would be a no-brainer.’
Axel chuckled. ‘Yep, we’d win for sure. Pity.’
‘I notice that your father keeps a particularly well stocked wine cellar,’ ventured Patrick. ‘I think that I spied upon a magnum of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 2009. Do you think he’d be awfully peeved if we guzzled that down?’
‘Course not,’ answered Axel. ‘What’s a thirty thousand dollar bottle of wine between friends? Anyway,’ he continued. ‘You only live once.’
‘True,’ agreed Dom. ‘And sometimes not even that long.’
They laughed and headed for the wine cellar.
Chapter 15