Forecast (31 page)

Matthews saw his dagger on the bench with a smear of blood down the blade. “You didn’t use my dagger to amputate his foot, did you?”

“I had no choice. We needed something sharp.”

Matthews’ body stiffened and Sutcliffe anticipated an outburst.

“You could’ve fucking asked me.”

“You weren’t here.”

“It’s mine. It’s valuable.”

“Where did it come from?”

“It’s a collector’s item.”

That’s not what Sutcliffe meant. He was about to rephrase the question when Burch let out an inarticulate moan. Sutcliffe crouched at his side and asked him what he could do. Burch didn’t reply. Hennessey explained that he’d been complaining his dismembered foot was causing him an uncomfortable itch.

“That’s quite normal,” Sutcliffe told her. “The severed nerves are still sending messages to his brain telling him about the itch. I had a friend whose father had his leg amputated from the knee down after he had been involved in a car accident. He complained for weeks of an unbearable pain in his shins.”

He squatted beside Burch. “Keith, you’re going to have to get through this, I’m afraid. The itch isn’t real. It’s all in your mind. Try not to think about it.”

Using spare parts from the damaged extravehicular communicator in the upper portion of Sutcliffe’s life support system, Faraday played with the broken radio, repairing the circuits, and closed the seal on the back of the device hoping she’d done enough to get it operating. Engineering and Technology was the title of her degree and she was considered an expert in her field, though it had been years since she’d had her fingers in the guts of an electronic appliance.

Crouched in the corner of the elevator beside the pyramid of tinned food, with the headlamps from her helmet shining by her side, she stretched the aerial to full height. The crew were relaxing in the next room and were only a shout away if she needed them, yet being out there alone made her uneasy. The walls, ceiling and floor of the elevator had their own pulse and the compact space was thick with the smell of death. Every so often she glanced up through the open hatch to ensure no one was coming. If it hadn’t been for the need to find a signal to bring the radio to life, she would’ve closed it in an instant. Looking up at a rectangle segment of black sky racing by in a whirlwind of smog and dust, she wondered who else was out there. The rivulets of rainwater dripping beside her and the sight of the huge bloodstain on the elevator wall made the space seem even more hellish. A sudden vision of rescue workers milling about the country emphasised her need to make contact with the outside world.

She switched on the two
-
way radio and a loud, whirring sound hummed through the speaker on the ultra-high frequency. One by one, she jumped between the stations. There were sixteen in total. Each station produced a crackly whistle in varied tones. Patiently, she gave each one a good thirty seconds to allow for interference. After the first round of station
-
hopping, she adjusted the range transponder system and went through them again, to no reward. She decided to record a message and set it on a designated channel. Considering what she was going to say before speaking, she pressed record.

“We are six survivors of the war and are living in a basement near the coast in St. Ives. Food and water are limited and we are waiting to be found. If anyone hears this message, please pass it on to the appropriate people.”

As soon as she transmitted the message, she wondered if she’d missed something, if the message could have been better, had she spoken loud enough and had it been too short. Resuming the search, she listened again, hoping that someone had heard her message and would respond. All she got was the deafening shrill of disturbed radio waves.

Sutcliffe came out of the White Room. “Any luck?”

Faraday jumped. “You scared me,” she said, putting her hand to her chest. “It’s working at least. But I keep getting this irritating whistle.”

“I know. That’s why I came out.”

“I recorded a message and sent it out on a high frequency, so fingers crossed.”

Sutcliffe nodded and smiled. “Yeah, fingers crossed,” and he went back inside.

Faraday tried the stations once again. She stood up and lifted the radio high above her head to the hatch and toggled with the receiver. Station one – static. Station two – static. Station three – whistling. Station four – whistling and static. Station five – static. Station six – static. Station seven – a voice. Faraday almost dropped the radio. She tried to lift the volume, but saw it had already been raised to full. She put her ear close to the speaker. The voice she heard had a Welsh accent and belonged to a man. Whistling and sputtering obscured the voice, but she could faintly make out what he was saying.

“…
in London. There is nothing left here. I repeat I am a survivor in London. The bombs destroyed everything. There must be someone out there. I can be found in the Knightsbridge region. I have no water and no food. I have been walking around for days and I have not seen a single person. God help me. Anyone
?”

Faraday’s eyes widened with surprise. “Hello, I can hear you. Hello?”

Sutcliffe came running out of the White Room to join her in the elevator. Matthews and Hennessey were right behind him. Faraday waited for a reply. Out of the unbearable silence came the looped message again drowned out by static and, disheartened, she realised it had been pre
-
recorded and the man was probably dead already.

As time progressed and the hours became increasingly challenging and difficult, the mood in the White Room became intolerably tense. All their annoying habits started to surface and their incarceration had honed their senses to superhuman pitch.

Sutcliffe wished there were other rooms where they could go off for some time alone because sometimes he needed to escape the endless demands on time and energy that confinement entailed. He had developed several mouth ulcers and it was affecting the way he spoke. Everyone had them. Ulcers were just another discomfort to contend with. Then there were the daily complaints of things like toothache, stomach cramps, migraines, headaches, nausea, vomiting and outright boredom. With food strictly rationed to two tins between six per day, livers were being deprived of vitamin reserves and bones of precious minerals. And God it was cold. The room got so cold at night that he figured it was only a matter of time before someone caught hypothermia.

“Listen, everyone,” Hennessey made sure she had everyone’s attention before she continued. “It’s imperative that we exercise. We need to keep a healthy circulation going.”

“What exactly do you suggest, Jen? Laps around the block?” Matthews said.

“Actually, it would be a good idea to go out for a short walk now and again. We have enough oxygen.”

“Sorry, I disagree,” said Sutcliffe. “We may need that oxygen later when it comes to looking for food. I think we should preserve it for essential activity only.”

“Fair enough. But we can still do stretches, running on the spot, push
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ups, sit
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ups, squats, whatever you feel comfortable doing.”

Matthews disagreed with her second suggestion too. “We don’t have the energy for doing exercises. Exercising burns a lot of energy. Energy comes from food and water. We barely have either. I don’t want to make myself hungrier and thirstier than I already am.”

“You’ll get used to the hunger,” she stated. “Millions of people all around the world lived a lifetime of famine and they survived. If you’re not active, you’ll be more susceptible to disease and blood complications. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.”

The White Room, unventilated and dark, had taken on a tentative squatter’s home. The room was chilly and Sutcliffe stared at his hot, dissolving breath. Everyone else in the room was sleeping or just doing their best to relax. Faraday had been throwing up all day. She had finally fallen asleep; an exhausted and pale form curled up on the floor. Sutcliffe scanned his eyes across the White Room to where Hennessey sat reading the Jane Austin novel. After a while, she put it down and began staring at the wall. Sutcliffe sat watching her for the best part of an hour, completely absorbed by her beauty. He watched as she returned to her novel and Sutcliffe daydreamed for a while. He thought of Jacqueline, wondering at which point in their relationship his love had ended, whether it even had. Undoubtedly, she had died but Sutcliffe thought little of it. He stared back Hennessey’s way and watched her put down the book again and go around the room clearing up a mounting collection of empty tins. She folded up blankets to make more space for her roommates. She innocently observed her beautiful face in her hand mirror. That was when he realised something. He was very much in love with Hennessey. If he hadn’t known about his feelings before, he certainly did now, the revelation like an injection to the heart and he smiled gaily. He was smiling so distantly that he didn’t notice Hennessey striding towards him.

“What are you grinning about?” she asked.

“Nothing, are you okay?”

“I’m hanging in there. By the way, I never got a chance to thank you.”

“For what?”

“The food. Thanks to you, we’re all alive right now.”

“Well, I’m still trying to decide if that’s a good thing.”

“Maybe not, but dying of hunger is not a pleasant way to go.”

“No, I guess not.”

Hennessey nestled into his arms. There was no message in her actions, just she felt cold and wanted to be close to someone to keep warm. They fell asleep together.

On the other side of the room, Matthews awoke and stretched. He could see his cousin’s face awash with anguish as she slept. He had never before considered himself close to Faraday because they were different in so many ways, though they did share genes. They both liked to live life on the edge, like their fathers. And the edge came no closer than scarcely surviving a fucking nuclear war. Matthews thought about the Cornish rogues. They had been killed, vaporised maybe, like his mounting debt, and he was pleased about that. He could see in Faraday’s face, however, her pain and suffering and he was her only family now.

Faraday was in a deep sleep when she felt something crawling across her scalp. Her eyes flew open. Matthews was crouching over her, combing her hair with his fingers.

“Hello, sleepy head.”

“What are you doing?” She sat up with urgency, her heart in a flutter.

“I saw you sleeping. You just looked so peaceful, so beautiful.”

He was quiet, observing her beautiful, green eyes. “You know, many years ago, family intermarriage didn’t have the problem it has today. Harmful mutations took several generations to reach the stage where intermarriage would be dangerous for the offspring.”

Faraday wasn’t sure how to take that. She was never really sure how to take anything Matthews said, even when they’d been kids. “Seriously, what?”

“Polygamy. It was helpful in populating the world. I mean, shit, one man can create many children through multiple female partners, but there are no multiple females down here. Just you and that bitch over there.” He pointed at Hennessey, who had her head on Sutcliffe’s chest, both of whom were sleeping. “And a woman doesn’t bear more than a handful of children, does she?”

“Right, so you’re saying that it’s up to us to repopulate the world? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m saying that perhaps it is our duty, our responsibility to mankind, even if it is risky. Don’t you agree?”

Two seconds, maybe three, passed before Faraday answered. “I haven’t thought about it, to be honest. But, thinking about it now, how could we possibly bring children into this world? I mean, there are no hospitals, there’s no food, no water, no future. What kind of life would a baby be born into? I think having children would be a huge mistake.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I really don’t want to talk about children, Simon. We are cousins and this is not a real conversation.”

“Children were being born into this world thousands of years before hospitals were built.”

“Can we just drop the subject, please?”

Matthews said nothing more. They both went to sleep.

Trev Gable was being sick in the toilet. Faraday realised his belching had awoken her. She heard him snort up as much phlegm as he could manage and spit it back out into the toilet. Disgusting, she thought. Low voices brushed over the room. Matthews was chatting privately to Sutcliffe in the corner, but she had no idea of its regard. As they spoke, Sutcliffe exercised his leg, his face a picture of concentration. Meanwhile, Hennessey was chewing corn kernels and slurping the juice from the tin. Faraday lay back down, eyes wide open, staring at the dark ceiling, the new day destined to be another uneventful one. She got to thinking about how long things could go on like that, but Gable distracted her when he exited the toilet. His hair was ruffled and he yawned, adding noise. His face was bed sheet white and vomit clung to his thin scribble of beard. He sat down opposite Faraday and looked at the old newspaper with such attention to detail it was obvious that he was trying to distract his mind from the reality of his life.

Sutcliffe and Matthews joined Gable over on the bench, both towering over him, both with arms folded, both with irate scowls. Sutcliffe couldn’t help feeling bitter towards the young man. His son should have been in that toilet, not Gable. Increasingly, something had been bothering him about Gable and now, after discussing it in detail with Matthews, he realised what.