‘Oh God! Help m-‘

  The young woman screamed in fear and then in agony as a bony knee caught her in the side of the face, yet somehow she managed to clamber dizzily to her feet. Those around her pushed toward the centre of the bridge, spilling over the internal barrier and into the road, bringing the busy traffic to a halt. Caught like a leaf on a flowing river, Danielle Sanderson was borne along with them, her feet barely touching the ground.

  As she neared one of the many turrets an ear-splitting boom shook the bridge, knocking scores of people to the ground and flinging some over the side and into the river. She threw her hands over her ears as the turret began to collapse, filling the air with thick dust and grit as tons of crushing masonry came crashing down.

  Then the ground beneath her feet began to shake violently. Huge cracks appeared in the concrete, steel supports groaning as they were slowly wrenched apart. The floor fell away, throwing screaming bodies down into the water along with cars and girders and contorted metal. Unable to hold on, Danielle Sanderson joined them, her body striking the river’s surface amid a mass of plummeting stone. It smashed into her, crushing her sternum and shattering her ribs, puncturing her lungs and shredding her heart; killing her in a hundred different ways.

  And as the carnage continued above water the doomed twenty-two year old drifted down into the gloomy depths, her haunted eyes still wide open in disbelief.

  Barbara Howard looked both ways before she crossed Telegraph Road on the way to Putney Heath.

  ‘Hold on, Billy!’ she said, tugging sharply at the lead of the small tan Cocker Spaniel. Every day was the same; as soon as he got near to the park excitement would get the better of him and he would start to pull. ‘We’ll be there in a minute!’ she said, reeling him back in.

  Pushing eighty, Barbara had enjoyed the company of the little dog ever since her husband had died five years ago. George hadn’t been much of a dog person but even he would have warmed to Billy (although he would probably have joked about being replaced by a mutt!). Barbara smiled. Dear old George was never far from her thoughts.

  Upon entering the heath she looked around (to make sure that nasty Alsatian wasn’t nearby) and then bent over to free Billy from his lead. Surprisingly, for this time of the day, the place was empty. The spaniel immediately scampered twenty feet ahead and cocked his leg against a post while Barbara checked her pockets, making sure that she had enough doggy-doo bags and a handful of treats. It was at that point that a sudden surge of wind almost knocked her off her feet.

  Barbara gasped and turned toward the gust, her eyes focused on something over the tops of the trees away to the east. It was the criss-cross pattern of bombs descending on the capital...

  ‘Oh my-‘

  The first distant explosion made Barbara flinch, her mouth quivering and falling open as black smoke rose up from beyond the horizon. Then other blasts began to echo across the morning sky, and along with them the old lady was certain that she could hear people screaming.

  Painful memories flooded back.

  Barbara Howard had only been a very young girl during the blitz but the fear of those days returned to her now as clearly as if they had been yesterday. Back then she had been one of the few Londoners not to be evacuated and she could still remember huddling under the kitchen table as the doodlebug engines cut out. She recalled staring into her brother’s frightened eyes, feeling ashamed as they prayed for the flying bombs to land in any street other than theirs.

  With a yelp Billy was suddenly at her feet, whining and shaking with fright at the sound of thunder on the horizon.

  ‘Billy! Come here, boy!’

  Barbara bent over to clip the lead back into place, terrified along with everything else that the dog would run off. And at that exact moment the most incredible pain she had ever felt bolted through her chest.

  She pitched forward, falling onto the ground with her hands clutched tightly to her breast. Her eyes were creased in agony as she gasped for air and stared up at the sky, feeling a darkness closing in. And as she faded away the explosions continued along with the frantic bark of her frightened dog.

  The attacks started in the heart of London. Knightsbridge, Bloomsbury and Westminster were hit with blasts that detonated just before impact, causing maximum devastation to streets, buildings and people. Blinding flashes and ear-splitting explosions reverberated around the capital, throwing cars and buses and bodies into the air in a maelstrom of destruction. Screams merged with car alarms and emergency sirens as echoing eruptions sounded in the distance only to be swallowed up by the deafening blasts of nearer explosions. Fires broke out and water pipes ruptured. Sparking wires cavorted from fallen utility poles and exposed gas lines hissed from holes in the ground. Within a matter of minutes thousands of broken bodies were scattered far and wide in hundreds of separate attacks.

  At 10.40am the next wave hit Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds, destroying entire estates and turning roads into rubble. Shopping centres were razed to the ground. Tower blocks toppled. Bridges collapsed.

  At 10.42am Glasgow and Edinburgh were struck, erasing whole generations of families while turning city centres into mass graves.

  Then followed Swansea, Penzance, York, Carlisle, Southampton, Canterbury, Thurso, Birmingham and Norwich...

  People fled their houses, running through the streets with bloodied heads and broken limbs, desperately trying to find their loved ones or trying to contact them on mobile phones that showed ‘no service’. The skies above Britain were red with fire, the air thick with acrid smoke and clouds of ash. The echoing of distant thunder - the falling of the bombs - would last a total of forty-five minutes.

  And that was just the beginning.

  ~ 6 ~

  Ben Reilly gasped and sat upright, his heart thumping in his chest. Oily black smoke was billowing all around him; smoke so thick and cloying that nothing was visible beyond two feet in any direction. His consciousness had returned, but with it came a pounding in his temple and a pain behind his eyes. In panic he tried to call out but the cry left his mouth as a strangled croak. He coughed, cleared his throat, and tried again.

  ‘Katie!’

  His throat was dry and sore; it hurt when he shouted and hurt even more when he swallowed. In desperation he called out a third time, and this time somewhere in the acrid gloom a woman’s voice answered.

  Ben scrambled to his feet and staggered blindly through the smog, stumbling over the uneven floor and yelling out with every step. Suddenly, his searching arms found another’s and he pulled Katie to him.

  ‘Thank God!’ he cried, hugging her tightly and kissing her forehead. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘N-no…’

  ‘Christ, I thought I’d lost you! Quick, we’ve got to get out of here! ’

  Only at this point did Ben notice why the floor was so uneven. It had buckled in the crash and the carriage was tilting slightly upwards as if it had concertinaed on impact. There was no doubt in Ben’s mind that they were both lucky to be alive, but unless they could get out now they were likely to suffocate.

  ‘Stay close to me’ he shouted, taking Katie’s hand and lurching over to the other side of the train, finding the electronic double doors. They were already partly ajar, showing just enough of a gap for him to get his fingers through. He planted a hand on the edge of each door and with all his strength tried to force them open, teeth clenched as he strained every sinew. Slowly, inch by inch, the gap between the doors began to widen.

  ‘Quickly! Get through here!’

  Katie stumbled forward from behind him, ducking under his arms and through the broken doors out onto solid ground. Her legs buckled as she collapsed onto a rubble strewn platform and moments later Ben landed next to her.

  They coughed and choked, straining for air between each wheezing gasp. Ben was doubled up, his chest heaving, swallowing rising bile in his throat while also trying to fight the fear that was attacking every nerve of his body. With his head spinning he reached down and grabbed the collar of Katie’s blouse, hauling her up from the ground.

  ‘Get up!’ he yelled, his eyes red and streaming. ‘We have to get away from here! Quickly, this way!’

  Awareness slowly returned as the couple fought their way along the platform through clouds of smoke and piles of debris. Suddenly, other figures were around them; other scared voices, other running bodies that shouted and screamed and cried out for their loved ones. And there were more sounds too; sirens and alarms and the muffled blasts of distant explosions...

  ‘What’s happening?’ Katie yelled as they were borne along amid a stream of human panic. Ben shook his head. The train had crashed, of course, but what were those other explosions? What were those things that they had seen falling from the sky?

  Finally free of the train’s billowing smoke they were at last able to see things clearer. They were among a group of people behind a larger crowd desperately trying to fight their way up a packed stairwell. But despite yelling, pushing and shoving the mass of writhing bodies weren’t moving forward. Seeing the exit ahead blocked the couple wrenched themselves away from the swelling crowd and over to one side. At that moment Ben glanced back over his shoulder, taking in the level of carnage around them properly for the first time.

  The front carriages of the train had ploughed into the station platform, ripping most of it away. A battered metal sign denoting ‘Bromley South’ lay bent out of shape among the wreckage. And then of course there were the bodies.

  Dozens of people lay scattered on the tracks around the train, some partly covered by piles of rubble. Most were deathly still but a few continued to twitch away their final dying moments, their bodies mutilated by the impact of the crash. Ben threw his arm around his wife’s shoulder and stared up at the sky. Distant clouds of dark smoke were rising up from the ground in every direction, merging with criss-crossing vapour trails.

  He had not imagined it. The country was being bombed.

  ‘Oh, Ben’ cried Katie. ‘What are we going to do?’

  Ben started to speak but raised voices made him look off in another direction. Away to the right another group of survivors had crossed over the tracks and were kicking out at a large chain-link fence that ran parallel to the railway line. It had started to pitch over, buckling under the weight of human panic. ‘Come on!’ Ben shouted, grabbing her hand once more. ‘We can get out through there! Be careful, don’t touch the rails.’

  Dropping from the platform the couple leaped across the tracks and joined others clambering over the fallen fence. Once on the other side they pushed through a line of trees, finding themselves in a narrow back road. More people were there, running in all directions through a stream of moving cars. Horns sounded repeatedly as the vehicles bumped into each other and anyone that dared blunder into their path. Gasping, Ben ushered Katie away from the traffic and delved into his pocket, pulling free his mobile phone.

  In his shaking hands, the display still read the same as last time: ‘No service’.

  ‘Fuck!’

  Katie’s head was spinning, the feeling of vulnerability was so intense, the threat of death so very real. They were clearly under attack, but from whom? Flashing memories of 9/11 made her shudder, horrific images flooding back into her brain. Amid the screams of terror all around her she suddenly recalled the tragedy of that day.

  ‘Look out!’ yelled Ben, pulling her to him. A battered estate car mounted the kerb, narrowly missing them as it drove past with its horn blaring. In panic the couple retreated back under the tree cover away from the road. Ben squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, desperately trying to clear his head enough to think. ‘It’ll be okay baby’ he said, with no confidence whatsoever.

  They were stranded at least twenty miles from home with no transport and no one either willing or able to help them. Oily clouds of black smoke now covered great areas of sky in every direction, suggesting destruction and loss of life on an unprecedented scale. Every person around them was in a frantic hurry, running or driving who knows where away from who knows what. ‘Come on’ said Ben, throwing his arm around his wife’s shoulder while trying to sound as calm as possible. ‘We can’t stay here.’

  Reg Herbert put his glasses on and fumbled in the pocket of his jacket for his car keys, finding them just as he opened his front door to the craziness outside. He had been listening to his favourite show on the radio when the bulletin came in. Delivered frantically by a normally reserved presenter, it had lasted just thirty-eight seconds before static intervened and the power disappeared completely, but that was time enough to let him know that London was under attack. Now, with the walls of his house shaking from nearby explosions, his thoughts were only for the welfare of his wife.

  Maureen had gone to stay with her sister for a week in a little village called Shoreham about ten miles away. She was due back home in a couple of days but with the phone lines down and no other way of contacting her Reg knew that he had to get to her as soon as possible.

  Trying to remain calm, the old man closed the door behind him and quickly moved up the narrow garden path. A scattering of people were running up and down past his front gate, their whimpering cries heard in between the haunting echoes of explosions both near and far. Reg quickly made his way out to the normally quiet street and to his small green hatchback. It was an old banger that had a little rust on the wheel arches and had (especially over the last winter) become increasingly unreliable, but now of all times he needed it to start first time. With a jangle of keys he opened the door and slid into the seat, his heart beating faster and faster. Then, just as he was about to pull the door to, a stronger hand grabbed the outer handle and wrenched back on it.

  Reg looked up into the face of someone he vaguely recognised. It was someone who had moved into the area about six months ago, a gaunt, straggly-haired, benefit-scrounging waster called Jimmy. He lived in the block of flats at the end of the road, the outside of which he had decorated with empty beer bottles and cigarette packets shortly after moving in.

  ‘Sorry’ said Jimmy, as simple as that.

  Reg looked sharply at him, confused, but before he could reply the wiry man leaned in and grabbed the collar of his jacket, pulling him roughly from the car.

  At seventy-seven, Reginald Raymond Herbert was a proud former serviceman. Originally from Newcastle, he had been stationed in Cyprus in the mid 1960’s and had enjoyed much of his time in the army. After various overseas postings he eventually left the forces, marrying his childhood sweetheart and becoming a warehouse manager for a frozen foods company. In recent years he had changed occupations again, trying his luck as a part time taxi-driver.

  Throughout his life Reg had always been a provider, making sure that he and Maureen never struggled for money and had at least one good holiday a year. He always made sure to stand his ground too, constantly prepared to fight his corner. Unfortunately, after only just receiving the all-clear from last year’s battle with cancer, he was in no shape to tackle a younger man that wanted to steal his car.

  But it wouldn’t stop him from trying.

  ‘Get off, you bastard!‘ he shouted, locking arms with his attacker and pulling him closer until their glaring eyes were only centimetres apart. A stunned look flashed over Jimmy’s face as he yanked free of the pensioner’s grasp, lashing out with a grimy fist.

  ‘Geordie wanker!’

  The blow caught Reg on the side of his head, catching the arm of his glasses and knocking them off. They fell into the gap between kerb and road and as the old man reached for them Jimmy pushed him off balance. He fell over on one side, rolling onto the pavement with his face creased in agony. Without a second glance Jimmy stepped over him and swung into the driver’s seat, turning the keys in the ignition. His thoughts were simple and selfish. Have to get away; it’s either him or me.

  The engine whined at the first turn of the key but then coughed into life just as another figure appeared in the open space next to the driver’s door. Looking up at the wrong moment Jimmy was struck with a swinging fist which landed between his eye-socket and the bridge of his nose. A white-hot spike of pain shot through his face as his head jerked back, and then he felt himself being dragged from the vehicle and thrown to the ground. Groaning, he rolled over and tried to crawl along the pavement, blood pouring from his nose. Fearing and expecting another attack, he scrambled unsteadily to his feet and stumbled blindly away.

  Jimmy had gone thirty feet when he realised that no one was pursuing him. He turned back and wiped a sleeve over his bloody nose. A stranger was glaring at him from beside the green hatchback while a blonde woman was helping the old man back to his feet.

  ‘Keep walking!’ shouted the stranger.

  Jimmy sneered. At this moment he wanted the car more than anything. He gritted his teeth and took a step toward the trio before something made him stop. There was a look in the stranger’s eyes that he found disconcerting, an expression that told him the man would be no easy challenge. Gulping, he looked back over his shoulder toward the junction at the top of the road. A larger group of people were there, heading off in another direction - perhaps to safety. Jimmy scowled and spat blood onto the pavement. His mind made up, he muttered ‘fuck it’, and turned on his heels to join them instead.

  ‘Are you okay?’ asked Katie, handing the old man his glasses as Ben watched the straggly-haired attacker disappear around the top of the road.

  ‘Aye, I’m alright...’ said the old man, still a little dazed. ‘Thank you, pet.’

  ‘What’s your name, love?’

  ‘Uh, Reg. It’s Reg...’

 

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