The Gates: An Apocalyptic Novel Page 7

  “After three,” said David, now standing beside her. “One…two…three!”

  Together, they shoved the table up and over. It fell free of the girl, and she screamed in renewed pain, but there was a hint of relief creeping into her cries now. They grabbed her under the armpits and dragged her out of the restaurant and onto the pavement. Nobody came to help or even paid much attention, for everybody in the crowd had some place to be, and it was unanimously away from here.

  Mina and David had retreated from Oxford Street south into Soho when the gate opened, avoiding the initial slaughter, but they hadn’t escaped the mass exodus from the city. Everyone in London knew they were under attack. That nobody understood by what made their panic even worse. They had made it as far as the Soho Theatre before they had slowed down, and then they headed west onto Meard Street to catch their breath.

  “What’s your name?” Mina asked the girl, trying to stop her screaming and attracting attention.

  “G-Gabby.”

  “A beautiful name. Gabby, we need to go. I know your leg hurts, but you need to hop as fast as you can.”

  “We can’t bring her along,” said David. “We have work to do.”

  Mina glared at him. “I’m not taking any more pictures, David. We have to get out of here.”

  David looked at her like she was mad. “This is the news story of the century—of all human history. Do you want to be a bystander, or do you want to be the photographer whose pictures remain in the archives of mankind until the end of time?”

  “I want to be one of the survivors. Which is why I’m getting out of here and taking Gabby with me.”

  David flapped his arms and stamped his foot, almost comically. “You will regret this for the rest of your life, girl. Think about it.”

  “There’ll be no rest of my life to live if I hang around here.”

  “We’re all going to die,” Gabby moaned. “They’re coming to kill us.”

  Mina grabbed the girl’s head and seized her focus. “Gabby, we will be just fine. Move as quickly as you can, okay?”

  They continued south towards the theatre district, Mina propping up Gabby, and David following behind and complaining about what a mistake she was making. Part of her wondered if a real photojournalist would do as David suggested and continue taking pictures. War zone photographers stared death in the face every day, but she was choosing to run away. This felt different though. This didn’t feel like a situation where reporters should be expected to hang around and document.

  They’d not yet witnessed the invading creatures first hand, but the scattered survivors fleeing the city had screamed and wailed about burned monsters tearing people apart. One woman even barked at Mina about a giant angel come to smite them all. People had gone mad with terror. David tried interviewing some of them, but most of what he got was confused babble.

  The roads were clogged with wrecked vehicles and broken glass covered the pavements. Slow-moving lines of exhausted survivors funnelled along where there was a gap, and uniformed shop workers stumbled side-by-side with executives and public servants. Several thousand refugees looking for a way out—and this was only one small part of the city. How bad were things? People were already starting to turn on one another. Mina saw a topless man strike a cyclist with a brick before making off with his bike. The previous owner still lay unconscious in the gutter outside a media office. David insisted on getting a picture.

  Helicopters buzzed overhead but did nothing to help.

  Gunfire clattered in the distance.

  Gabby moaned before they even made it to the end of the street. “I need to stop. My leg…”

  “We can’t stop, you stupid girl,” cried David.

  “I can’t go on anymore.”

  Mina eased the girl up against the bonnet of a crumpled Royal Mail van and stepped back. “Thirty-seconds,” she said, “but then we don’t stop until we’re safe. Do you understand, Gabby?”

  Gabby nodded, fresh tears down her cheeks. “I’m not even from London,” she muttered. “I live in Stroud. I only came here for a job interview. My mum will be so worried about me.”

  “Sorry,” was all Mina could say.

  David tapped his foot and generally looked pissed off. Mina did the only thing she could think of to oblige him—she lifted her camera and started taking pictures. She zoomed in on an old man lying beneath an overturned motorised scooter. There was a chance he was alive, but nothing anybody in the street could do for him. His head was smashed open and his brains were bleeding out. Mina had to cover her mouth to keep from throwing up.

  The crowd began to thin out as they passed the Apollo Theatre, enough people having fled to the further reaches of the city leaving Soho mostly deserted. If not for David’s constant lingering, they would have been out of there too.

  Ominous grey smoke rose above the skyline back toward Oxford Street and across the river, the spiky summit of the Shard rose solemnly in the background. London burned, but the gunfire in the distance might have been the Army fighting back. Could the situation be dealt with? Could the city be reclaimed from whatever abominable horrors had spilled out onto Oxford Street?

  Mina took her last picture—a snap of a dirty Labrador trotting down the pavement with a rolled up newspaper in its mouth—and was about to turn away when she noticed something in the distance. At first, her eyes only registered movement, but then she took in some of the finer detail. Something was definitely there.

  Unsure of what she was seeing, she looked through her camera’s viewfinder and zoomed in 12x. Something massive strode across the road several blocks back. The semi-naked figure walked like a man but was five lengths taller and had the remnants of wings on its back. Mina thought about what the crazy woman had barked at her earlier: A giant angel. Could such a thing be true?

  Just as she started to accept what she was seeing, the giant creature disappeared into the next street and was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

  David grabbed her arm. “Time to go.”

  “Did you see that?”

  “See what?”

  Mina shook her head. “There was… Nothing.”

  A scream.

  Mina and David turned to find Gabby on the floor. She crawled backwards as something stalked after her.

  A creature had leapt up onto the roof of the Royal Mail van. It was so horribly burned that its nostrils had fused over and one eye socket was hollow. It leapt down on top of Gabby and seized her by the arms, hoisting her up off the ground like a child.

  Mina went to help, but David grabbed her shoulder and twisted her around. “You already saved her once.”

  More creatures surged into the street from a side road up ahead. They leapt on any stragglers they could find, and agonised screams soon filled the air. Gabby screamed too, as the burned man gouged out her eyes with its blackened thumbs. It was enough to extinguish any hopes Mina might have had of saving the girl. There was barely a chance to save herself.

  David was already running, but Mina caught up with him once she got a hold of herself. The creatures pouring into the street moaned in ecstasy as they tore the heads and limbs off screaming victims. One of them spotted Mina and gave chase.

  “David, help,” she screamed.

  David tilted sideways at a sprint and pointed ahead. “Over there.”

  A pharmacy lay ahead, its door hanging wide open. David made directly for it, leaving Mina little choice but to follow if she had any chance of escaping the thing tearing after her. She leapt up on the pavement and sprinted.

  The creature chasing her dodged around a shattered bus shelter and headed her off from the front. Unaware, David carried on running. To her astonishment, the creature spoke. Its charred lips cracked and peeled as they formed words.

  “Nowhere to run, little girl. We are everywhere. The Red Lord will make you his slaves.”

  Before Mina could reply, the creature leapt at her, a roaring beast snatching out with skinless hands. Mina grabbed the only thing sh
e could—her camera—and swung it as hard as she could. The heavy, digital SLR struck the burned man in the side of his skull and dropped him to the pavement where he went still. The strap broke and the expensive piece of equipment shattered on the ground.

  Mina got moving, and made it through the pharmacy’s door just as David was closing it. It slammed behind her, and David quickly tipped a display rack over to act as a barricade.

  The streets filled with terrified screams.

  “Quick, get back here,” said David, crouching behind a service counter at the back of the room. Mina leapt over, and they both scurried to a storage area at the back stacked with pills and medicines.

  David put a hand on Mina’s shoulder and eased her back against the wall. “Did any of them see you?”

  “Wouldn’t they be in here by now if they had?”

  “I saw that one attack you. I think you killed it.”

  “What? You mean you saw me in trouble and didn’t help?”

  “What could I have done? Besides, you handled yourself pretty well. If a little woman can kill those monsters, then the Army should get this whole mess sorted out soon.”

  Mina bit her lip at the sexist remark. Too much had happened to get into a petty argument. She wasn’t good with confrontation on a normal day—had been meek and shy ever since her mother died and her father began home schooling her. She wanted to sit in silence and try to make sense of it—but could the fact that London was under attack by bloodthirsty monsters ever make sense?

  She thought not.

  ***

  David pulled his phone out of his pocket and tried to make a call. Several times he had tried in the last hour, but the mass panic had caused the network to fail as thousands of people used their phones at once. This time, however, looked promising as David glanced at Mina urgently from where he sat. “Yes, hello? Carol, is that you? Oh, thank God. Yes, it’s David. I’m okay…”

  Mina kicked out a leg at him across the floor.

  “…Mina is with me too. We’re stuck on a London backstreet somewhere in Soho. There are monsters attacking—that’s the best way I can explain it. Do you want a quote from me? How about-”

  Mina kicked him again. “Can she get us help?”

  David rolled his eyes but took the hint. “We need help, Carol. We’re trapped inside a grimy little pharmacy, and I don’t know how we’re going to make it out of the city. Things are bad. That stone in Oxford Street opened some kind of portal.” He paused and listened, then said, “I don’t know if it’s aliens. They don’t look like aliens. They look more like demons. Carol, you need to send help. In the meantime, I can conduct an interview over the phone. Carol? Carol…?” David glanced at his phone and cursed. He immediately redialled but couldn’t get through. “Damn it.”

  Mina honed in on something he’d said and mentioned it now. “Demons?”

  David looked at her curiously. “What?”

  “You said they look like demons.”

  “Don’t they?”

  “Yes, they do, but if they’re demons then the gate that opened was…”

  David finished her thought. “A gate to Hell.”

  Mina nodded. “That would make things a whole lot worse than we even thought.”

  “We’re not being invaded by Hell, you silly girl. I won’t even consider it. Heaven-Hell, it’s all a load of codswallop.”

  “Well, wallop me a cod,” said Mina. “Because those monsters outside are demons.”

  David huffed. “Aren’t you a Hindu?”

  “What? Because I’m one of the brown folk? There’re as many Christians in India as Hindus, but that’s beside the point. Up until today, I was an atheist, same as you. Yet here you are, talking about demons.”

  David folded his arms across his chest. “Fair enough. You may still consider me still an atheist though.”

  “Even after everything you’ve seen?”

  “Those monsters could have been anything. Escaped lab specimens for all we know.”

  “What about the…” Mina trailed off.

  “What about the what?”

  She knew David wouldn’t believe her, but she was burning to talk about it. “I saw something else,” she said. “There was a giant. It looked like a man with wings. It looked, I suppose, maybe, a little, you know, like… an angel.”

  David bellowed with laughter, then flinched and covered his mouth. “Sorry,” he said in a whisper. “But you must be mad.”

  “Come on, David. You just don’t want to admit the truth.”

  “The truth has a way of evolving, Mina. I’ll wait until we have all the facts before drawing conclusions. Now, let’s think about getting out of here.”

  “Go back outside? It’s not safe.”

  “No, perhaps not, but we can’t sit around here forever. You think those chumps from the Chronicle are holed up somewhere cowering?”

  “No,” said Mina. “They’re probably dead.”

  David huffed. “It’s gone quiet. Let’s just take a look.”

  Mina closed her eyes and had to summon courage to even get up off the floor. When she eventually managed it, David had disappeared into the front of the shop and lurked behind the barricade. She hurried over to join him and dared to take a peek out of the window. The demons had gone. In their place was a carpet of bodies. Hundreds, maybe a thousand people dead. A fire had started at the end of the road.

  It was Hell on Earth.

  “We have to get out of here,” said Mina, completely changing her mind about staying. “No one is coming to save us.”

  David glanced up from over the barricade and saw all the bodies. “I agree. Somebody has to tell these people’s stories.”

  “You can’t tell a story until it’s finished,” said Mina, “and this one hasn’t even got started yet.”

  “I fear you might be right.” David took off his jacket and placed it on the counter. He rolled up his sleeves and started taking down the barricade.

  ~TONY CROSS~

  Iraq-Syria Border

  Tony lay on his back gasping. He reached an arm around beneath his back and prodded at himself until he felt the most pain. The most tender area was just below his right shoulder blade, and when he brought his fingers back, they were bloody. He’d been hit. First time in fifteen years. Hadn’t even seen it coming. Because he’d been distracted.

  No, not distracted—mesmerised.

  That strange black stone. Glowing.

  Rough hands grabbed Tony’s webbing and started dragging him. Suddenly, he was sliding along the desert on his back. The person dragging him was out of sight, but in front of him, he saw the ISN soldiers advancing. They’d removed the handbrakes from their vehicles and were using them as rolling cover. A few of their number lay dead, but there was at least a dozen still engaging.

  The ambush had failed.

  Goddamn you, Ellis.

  Tony’s rescuer released his webbing and let him drop against the dirt behind the hill. Lieutenant Ellis appeared before him looking like a ghost with his pale and sullen face. “Anthony? You’ve been hit.”

  “You don’t fuckin’ say?”

  Ellis frowned. “Not too badly, I see. Harris, help the Staff Sergeant up.”

  Tony grasped the meaty hand offered to him and made it up into a crouching position. The pain in his shoulder was bad, but he battled through it. “Sit-rep?”

  “We’ve lost six men, but we’re holding steady,” Ellis informed him.

  Tony groaned. Six young men dead. What a waste. He turned to Private Harris. “Why are you here? You were heading for the fence with Corporal Blake.”

  “Blake’s dead. I saw you were down too, so I abandoned the plan and got you back into cover. You’re lucky the bullet only winged you, Staffie.”

  The pain in Tony’s shoulder didn’t make him feel so lucky, but he patted the private on one of his massive arms and thanked him. “You saved my life, lad, but that means we’re still pinned down without options.”

  Ellis c
lutched his rifle against his chest. “There must be something we can do?”

  Tony couldn’t think of anything besides a full retreat, but then his mind turned to something else. “The stone… Harris, did you see a strange black stone when you rescued me?”

  The young private nodded. “Yeah, the thing was glowing. I almost took a bullet looking at it, so I had to get out of there.”

  “I suppose it’s not important right now,” Tony admitted. “We need to get our arses out of here.”

  The ISN soldiers were right at the base of the hill now—Tony could hear them. He popped his head above cover and saw them pushing closer. He also spotted that strange black stone. The odd glowing had distracted the ISN as well, and with a little luck it might just buy Tony and the others a chance to escape, but when he saw the rear doors of their van open, he feared the worse.

  Two ISN soldiers appeared carrying an AGS-17—an automatic grenade launcher. Tony had seen the weapon only in training videos, but he knew it could spit thirty high-explosive frag grenades in about ten seconds. It would obliterate the hill and any men taking cover behind it.

  “We need to get our arses out of here now!” Tony shouted. “Move!”

  “They’ll mow us down,” Ellis argued.

  “They’re about to blow us up.”

  Ellis understood and grabbed his radio, but before he made a call, something halted the fighting.

  A blinding flash of light.

  A skull-piercing whine.

  Tony cupped his ears, lifted his head from cover and saw what was happening. For a moment, he thought a grenade had exploded, but as his eyesight recovered, he saw that the enemy were stumbling around in confusion.

  A glowing archway had risen twenty feet high above the black stone, and it now shimmered in the air like a cloud of vapour. It looked like some kind of gate.

  Something came through. It materialised from the floating puddle and hit the desert as solid form. Whatever it was was barely human, hunched over like an old crone—more ape-like than person. It was naked and entirely bald, with two curled talons the length of chef’s knives hanging from each arm.

  Tony rose to his feet. “What the f-”