CHAPTER 76
10.09 p.m. GMT London
When the sky had started to darken she knew she
had only a little daylight left to make use of. Jenny decided it
was dangerous to be walking out in the streets on her own. The
length of pipe she had picked up earlier today had felt like an
all-powerful mace capable of dealing out death with one blow. But
that had been back when it was in the middle of the afternoon.
She’d felt a lot braver then. Now it was dark, and every shadow
promised to be the poised form of some starving ghoul, waiting for
her to get just a little bit closer before leaping out at
her.
Her big metal pipe, right now, felt about as
effective and menacing as one of those long twisty party balloons
you can make a poodle out of.
Her feet were tired and blistered. She must have
walked ten or fifteen miles from Watford.
Along the way she had counted the number of people
she had spotted; 47, that was all. Most of them through windows,
behind curtains and blinds, picking through piles of discarded
plunder in the doorways of stores, or cowering in the dim shells of
their homes.
As she had passed through the outskirts of
north-west London, entering Kenton, and started seeing bodies,
pushed to the kerbside, half-buried down rubbish-strewn alleyways,
tucked behind wheelie bins, she’d decided to count them too.
She gave up at 100.
As she passed north-east of Wembley and spotted the
unmistakable archway of the stadium in the distance, she entered
Edgware. It had gone ten in the evening when she decided the
prudent thing would be to find somewhere discreet to curl up and
hide until the morning, even though Shepherd’s Bush was now only a
few miles away. It would be the cruellest irony if only three or
four miles from home she was jumped by someone.
She found a furniture store that had been broken
into and some of the stock dragged out and carried away. She was
bemused by that, that someone would decide now was a good
time to get their hands on that lusted-after leather couch. She
felt confident that no one would be lurking inside though. There
was no food or water to be had here. That meant it was relatively
safe.
She found a comfy couch near the front of the shop,
where she could look out of the still intact display window on to
the high street, yet she was shielded from view by the high back
and the over-large cushions. Safe-ish, comfortable, a good enough
place to quietly curl up, watch the sky darken and wait for dawn to
come. She finished off her last bottle of water.
She awoke with a start. It was fully dark. The
glow-hands on her watch showed it was 10.31 p.m. Something had
prodded her awake. A sound? She could hear nothing right now.
It was pitch-black inside.
Outside, on the other hand, was faintly
discernible, lit by the pallid glow from the moon. There was
nothing she could see in detail, just the outlines of the buildings
opposite. There was no movement of any kind. But something had
awoken her from a very deep sleep. Something had jabbed her sharply
to pull her out of that.
And then she sensed it wasn’t anything outside on
the high street. It wasn’t anything inside the furniture shop
either. It was within her. An alarm going off; a shrill, terrifying
shriek warning her at an intuitive level, that something was
happening right now, to her children.
‘Oh no,’ she whispered to herself.
Her adult mind chided her.
Just a nightmare, Jenny. God knows you’re due
one after everything you’ve been through this week.
Yes . . . a nightmare. That was it. But the
sensation was strong; an overpowering sense of being hunted,
chased, fleeing from certain death.
Classic nightmare material is all this is, Jen.
This really isn’t what you think it is.
Isn’t what? Maternal instinct? Of course not. She
reminded herself that that was the sort of nonsense that belonged
in those silly agony aunt columns, or tales from the heart short
stories you’d find somewhere in the middle of those glossy Moronic
Mummy Mags, tales of mothers sensing their child calling out
to them for help.
But it felt so intense, so real, that Jenny found
herself sitting up, and clasping a hand to her chest. It hurt,
something in her was hurting, like a stomach ulcer that had
gravitated up into her chest.
‘Please . . . please,’ she cried, as huge rolling
tears coursed down her face in the absolute darkness, her hand
kneading her breastbone.
She desperately wanted to rush out into the street
and start running towards home. She was maybe as little as what . .
. five or six miles away? She could be home in the space of an
hour. But it was dark out there, in which direction would she run?
She might start running in the dark, and end up in the morning
further away, lost amidst some anonymous suburban warren in
Finchley.
Your kids need you to be smart, Jenny. Not
stupid. It was a bloody nightmare. Lie down. Get some rest. Just a
nightmare . . . just a nightmare. You’ll see the kids
tomorrow.
Jenny did as she was told. She lay down. She
couldn’t sleep though.