Road to London: City of the Dead

VI
June 14th

Katrina watched as Conrad and some of the other year elevens hauled shopping trolleys full of food and other such supplies into the school sports hall. One of the trolley’s front wheels buckled and the contents spilled onto the floor. There was a volley of various swear words as crisp bags exploded and fruits were crushed until the anger transformed into hilarity and the group descended into a state of unified laughter.

Although he wasn’t laughing himself, Conrad had a clear grin on his face. Seeing him smile made her happy. He hadn’t looked happy in so long. After taking it upon himself to take charge of the school populous with the recent events, Conrad hadn’t been given a single moment’s rest. She had watched him in wonder and amazement as he gathered the hundreds of students in only a few hours, forming a well ordered and almost self sustaining society from scraps and bones.

When all of these people had cowered in the corners and waited for something else to sort out all their problems for them, Conrad had stepped up to the challenge. She knew him well enough to understand that he hadn’t wanted to accept this much responsibility. The chances were that he’d believed that it was his duty. Conrad had always felt obliged to put himself before others, since she’d first met him.

It was at times like this that Katrina felt sad that she had ever let him go. The closest thing to perfect she had ever known and at the time she’d been stupid enough to believe that she wanted more. Every day she felt like sprinting over to him, spilling her guts about how sorry she was and pleading for a chance to make things right. As it was she had never done this and doubted that she ever would. Conrad would never allow himself to be put in a position where he could be hurt again and Katrina didn’t trust herself enough to not hurt him again.
As Conrad’s eyes turned and met hers by pure coincidence, she averted hers. Her heart skipped for a moment.

Looking around at different parts of the room she saw that already the students had divided themselves into groups of various sizes. There were the larger groups made up of “cliques” and “gangs” that seemed as old as time itself, but there were also smaller clumps of twos and threes. People who’d always wanted to be friends but had never got round to it until now.

The Television at the front was still showing static, as it had been ever since three days ago when someone had the idea to bring it in from Mr Burn’s house and switch it onto BBC One. Although the fact that the landlines didn’t seem to work and mobiles couldn’t any service whatsoever, this really brought it home to the students of St. James’ that something big and terrible was happening. Whatever it was. It wasn’t just in St. James’ and Carmyu.

There were others here as well. Teenagers from the villages of Carmyu who had been encountered by Conrad and the others during their supermarket raids. Some were local Corns but most were chavs whose parents had moved to the area looking for work when it ran out in the cities like Bristol. Katrina really didn’t want to be a snob but at the same time she really didn’t like the look of them.

She saw a group of quiet types in one corner looking sheepish, all apart from James, who sat next to her in history and was a mate of Conrad’s. She liked James, he was nice. But it had been weird talking to him ever since the breakup. James saw her looking and shot her a thin, cool smile.

She was about to return it when she noticed a scuffle on the other side of the room. Three large year tens who Katrina all knew were on the rugby team were squaring up to a couple who she recognised instantly as the notorious Israel and Latiwa. She had no idea how it had started but the Punks (or Goths or whatever they were) must have done something pretty bad for the threesome to pick a fight with them.

She saw two more of the rugby team stand up from a few metres away and begin to make their way over. She also saw Conrad attempting to push his way through the crowd of teenagers, obviously trying to stop this before it escalated. By now Israel and an ugly Irishman called Wayne or something had their foreheads pressed together and were swearing loudly in each other’s faces.

One of Wayne’s friends tried to come around the side and land a punch on Israel but out of nowhere Latiwa’s fist smashed into his nose, sending blood into the air and knocking him unconscious. Israel took advantage of Wayne’s surprise and retracted his head a few inches before nutting him hard on the bridge of his nose.

As Wayne staggered back into a group of petrified year eight girls, another of his allies swung at the huge Israelite. Even though the punch was easily dodged by a simple side-step, it kept going, eventually planting itself right between Conrad’s eyes, who had stepped into the middle of the scrap in a last ditched effort to break it up.

Again using the element of surprise created when the aggressor saw who he had struck, Israel grabbed the boy by his throat, pushed him against the wall and twatted him one in the face, then repeatedly in the stomach and ribs. The boy’s eyes became bulbous and terrified as he realised that he had no choice but to take the beating.

Katrina ran over to Conrad, calling out his name. She knelt next to him and was shocked to a large cut above his left eye. “Don’t worry its nothing,” he protested as she frantically tried to wipe away the blood. Although he was asking her not to, Katrina could tell that he was appreciative of the attention.

While this was going on, Wayne had recovered slightly and regained his footing. Katrina was horrified to see that he held a dark cricket bat in his hands (she had no idea where he had gotten it from). As Israel was about to finish laying into his victim, he saw the bat and began to back away. As crazy as he was, a broken arm or leg would not be appreciated at a time when a trip to the local hospital was no longer an option.

His withdrawal took him to a position just in front of Katrina and Conrad, who was still dazed. This meant that she couldn’t see what was going on. She wanted to crawl to a safe distance but she couldn’t leave Conrad down there on the floor so she hugged him tightly.

Quick as a flash Israel ducked down in order to avoid a mid-section swing from the batsman. Far too late Katrina saw that the bat was now on course for her face. All she could do in that one hundredth of a second was shut her eyes as tightly as she could and try not to think of the state her head would be in when she opened them. She failed. Her mind was filled with grotesque images of mangled teeth and broken eye sockets. She awaited the head splitting pain that would signal that her worst fears were confirmed.

The pain never came. Perhaps her brain had been so badly damaged that she just couldn’t feel anything. And then as soon as she opened her eyes she’d see the floor covered in her own blood. This thought scared her so much that she didn’t dare do anything except cling on to Conrad as hard as she could. She felt his heart beating through his clothes and skin. Felt. If she could feel him but not the pain then certainly she must be ok?

After summoning as much courage as she possibly could, she snapped open her eyes.

Dark. Was she blind? No. She realised that her face was buried in Conrad’s hair. It smelled nice, like herbal essences shampoo. Using a shampoo like that was a tad nancy but Katrina really didn’t care. Reluctantly she raised her head and looked straight at the wooden weapon, less than a foot away from her forehead.

The hand that held it was trembling. It should be, Wayne could have killed her. Katrina had always hated that wanker, especially when he had started trying to chat her up every day for the first two weeks after she split up with Conrad. But surely that was impossible? That someone could absolutely stop a full swing that quickly? Her eyes moved up the bat from the handle, then stopped on the slender fingers and thumb that were clasped on the head of the sporting implement.

The girl holding the bat was very pale. Almost white. The skin on her hands was also extremely smooth. In fact they were the most beautiful hands Katrina had ever seen, not that she spent exuberant amounts of time observing people’s hands. She looked up at the girl’s face and to her complete surprise, she was not at all surprised by the person standing over her.

Katrina had never spoken a word to Hiya-kō. Nor had she ever heard Hiya-kō speak at all. With most people this would be put down to the fact that she was in the year below and with over a hundred and fifty people per year at St. James’ this meant that there were lots of people with whom Katrina had never spoken. But with Hiya-kō it was different.

Rachael Hung, a Chinese girl who Katrina was friends with, was part of the appropriately dubbed “Asian crew” and so had spent quite a lot of time with the small Japanese girl, but still had only heard her talk on rare occasion. There were also vast numbers of rumours floating around about Hiya-kō’s family, the only believable one being that the girl’s father was a highly influential family member in the Yamaguchi-gumi Yakuza.

Hiya-kō also taught karate lessons after school on a Monday but seeing as she refused to speak (and when she did it was almost always in Japanese) the classes had few members and were mostly occupied by her friends who didn’t need to hear her voice to understand her. These classes were the source of some of the most ridiculous rumours, including the “fact” that Hiya-kō was a Ninja and kept a Samurai sword under her bed.

All in all Hiya-kō was an extremely mysterious girl, which was why Katrina wasn’t astonished by the fact that she had caught a cricket bat with her bare hands. Make that hand. Her face was emotionless. Katrina couldn’t possibly tell if her actions had hurt or caused anger or anything. What she did know was that if it wasn’t for her, Katrina could be dead.

“Th...thanks...” she managed to squeak. Hiya-kō looked from Wayne, down to her. Though no words came out of her mouth the slim eyes gave out a silent “Your Welcome”. And with that she let go of the bat, which subsequently fell to the ground as Wayne had all but let go for fear of being decked in the face. The girl walked off, all eyes in the hall watching her in amazement at having saved Katrina and stopped the fight with one spectacular move.

But something even more spectacular drew the attention of the crowd before Hiya-kō could even sit down. A crackling voice, loud because the volume of the T.V. had been turned up to maximum in a futile attempt to get something out of it. The voice belonged to a boy, no more than seventeen or eighteen. The picture was terrible but Katrina could still make out his blonde hair and spotty forehead.

Everyone in the hall save a few groups began to gather around the magic box, slowly shoving their way to a good view. The boy had a microphone in his hand and looked more nervous than Katrina had ever felt. “Ummm...” he turned to someone outside of camera shot and asked them if it really was working. Apparently it was for he turned back to the audience.

“My, my name is Jasper.” I’m...We’re talking to you from the...” he began to trail off. Katrina silently egged him on, intrigued. “...the BBC broadcast centre in London. If what’s going on here has happened where you are,” he swallowed visibly before continuing, “then a significant proportion of the population of the United Kingdom is dead.”
With this there were a number of gasps from the students. Some even began to cry. Even though their suspicions had been in danger of being true, there had been hope until now.

This was everywhere. Everywhere in Britain at least.

“We strongly urge you not to become alarmed, and to find food and shelter and companionship wherever you can. These are the fundamentals of human survival.” Jasper had gained confidence now and was obviously adlibbing from his pre-set script. “If you are safe where you are, then stay there. If not, we strongly advise you to try and come here, to London where we will look after you.”

A second voice, again from off camera gave Jasper a warning. His nerves returned. “I...I’m sorry everyone, but we’re running off a generator and only have enough power for about a five minute broadcast every day. We will be live tomorrow at this exact time. Remember. If you’re safe, stay safe. If not, get to London.”

And with that the static returned.