Domain

JAMES HERBERT

Domain

Also by James Herbert

The Rats

The Fog

The Survivor

Fluke

The Spear

The Dark

Lair

The Jonah

Shrine

Moon

The Magic Cottage

Haunted

Sepulchre

Creed

Portent

The Ghosts of Sleath

‘48

Others

Graphic Novels

The City

(Illustrated by Ian Miller)

Non-fiction

By Horror Haunted

(Edited by Stephen Jones)

James Herbert's Dark Places

(Photographs by Paul Barkshire)

TIME: 12: 37

DAY: Tuesday

MONTH: June

YEAR: The not too distant future…

PLACE: LONDON

ONE: ADVENT

They scurried through the darkness, shadowy creatures living in permanent night.

They had learned to become still, to be the darkness, when the huge monsters roared above and filled the tunnels with thunder, assaulting the black refuge - their cold, damp sanctuary - with rushing lights and deadly crushing weight. They would cower as the ground beneath them shook, the walls around them trembled; and they would wait until the rushing thing had passed, not afraid but necessarily wary, for it was an inveterate invader but one which killed the careless.

They had learned to keep within the confines of their underworld, to venture out only when their own comforting darkness was sistered with the darkness above. For they had a distant race-memory of an enemy, a being whose purpose was to destroy them. A being who existed in the upper regions where there was vast dazzling light, a place that could be explored safely only when the brilliance diminished and succumbed to concealing and pleasurable blackness. But even then the darkness was not absolute; different kinds of individual lights pierced the night. Yet these were feeble, and created shadows that were veiling allies.

They had learned to be timid in exploration, never moving far from their sanctum. They fed on night creatures like themselves, and often came upon food that was not warm, that did not struggle against the stinging caress of the creatures jaws. The taste was not as exciting as the moist and tepid moving flesh, but it filled their stomachs. It sustained them.

Yet in this, too, they were cautious, never taking too much, never returning to the same source, for they possessed an innate cunning, born of something more than fear of their natural enemy; it was an evolution accelerated by something that had happened to their species many years before. An event that had changed their pattern of progression. And made them alien even to those of their own nature.

They had learned to keep to the depths. To keep themselves from the eyes of their enemy. To take food, but never enough to arouse unwelcome attention. To kill other creatures, but never to leave remains. And when there was not enough food, they ate each other. For they were many.

They moved in the darkness; black, bristling beasts, with huge, humped hindquarters and long, jagged incisors, their eyes pointed and yellow. They sniffed at the dank air and a deep instinct within craved for a different scent, a scent which they did not yet know was the sweet odour of running blood. Human blood. They would know it soon.

They tensed as one when their keen, long ears picked up a distant wailing, a haunting whining they had never heard before. They were still, many risen on haunches, snouts twitching, fur stiffened. They listened and were afraid, and their fear lasted for as long as the sound lasted.

Silence came and it was more frightening than the sound.

Still they waited, not daring to move, barely breathing.

A time passed before the thunder came, and it was a million times louder than the giant rushing things they shared the tunnels with.

It started as a low rumbling, quickly becoming a great roar, shaking their underworld, rending the darkness with its violence, tearing at the walls, the roof, causing the ground to rise up and throw the creatures into scrambling heaps. They lashed out at each other, clawing, gouging, snapping frenziedly with razor teeth.

More thunder from another source.

Dust, fumes, sound, filled the air.

Rumbling, building, becoming a shrieking.

More. More thunder.

The world and its underworld shivering.

Screaming.

The creatures ran through the turbulence, black-furred bodies striving to reach their inner sanctum within the tunnel network. Fighting to exist, deafened by the noise, squealing their panic, desperate to return to the Mother Creature and her strange cohorts.

The man-made caverns shuddered but resisted the unleashed pressure from the world above. Sections collapsed, others were flooded, but the main body of tunnels withstood the impacts that pounded the city.

And after a while, the silence returned.

Save for the scurrying of many, many clawed feet.

The first bomb exploded just a few thousand feet above Hyde Park, its energy release, in the forms of radiation, light, heat, sound and blast, the equivalent of one million tons of tnt. The sirens that had warned of the missile and its companions' approach were but a thin squeal to the giant roar of its arrival.

Within two thousandths of a second after the initial blinding flash of light, the explosion had become a small searing ball of vapour with a temperature of eighteen million degrees Fahrenheit, a newborn mini-sun of no material substance.

The luminous fireball immediately began to expand, the air around it heated by compression and quickly losing its power as a shield against the ultraviolet radiation. The rapidly growing fiery nucleus pushed at the torrid air, producing a spherical acoustic shock-front which began to travel faster than its creator, masking the fireball's full fury.

As the shock-front spread, its progenitor followed, quickly dispersing a third of its total energy. The fireball grew larger, almost half a mile in diameter, leaving behind a vacuum and beginning to lose its luminosity. It started to spin inwards, rising at an incredible speed, forming a ring of smoke which carried debris and fission-produced radioactive isotopes.

Dust was sucked from the earth as the swirling vortex reached upwards, dust that became contaminated by the deadly,

man-activated rays, rising high into the skies, later to settle on the destroyed city as lethal fallout.

The angry cloud with its stem of white heat was more than six miles high and still rising, banishing the noonday sun, when the next missile detonated its warhead.

Three more megaton bombs were soon to follow...

Miriam stood transfixed.

What was happening? Why the panic? And that dreadful wailing noise of just a few minutes before.

The sirens of World War Two. Oh no, it couldn't be happening again!

She was too stunned, too frightened, to move. All around people were pushing, shoving, running in fear. Of what? Aeroplanes with bombs? Surely that didn't happen any more. She should have paid more attention to the news. Should have listened more closely to her neighbours. Miriam recalled hearing something on the radio about tension in the Middle East; but she'd been hearing that for years and years.

It didn't mean anything any more. It was just news, words, items read out by smooth-voiced young men and women. It had nothing to do with shopping at Tesco's and washing dirty sheets and spoiling grandchildren and living in Chigwell. And nothing to do with her.

Sixty-seven years old, wide-eyed and bewildered, Miriam stood on the corner of Oxford Street and Marble Arch. It should have been such a lovely day: hot, sunny, June; a day out, a special treat. A whole day just wandering around the shops looking - though not intensely - for a suitable present for Becky's wedding. Beautiful grand-daughter, nice sensible chap she was marrying, a wonderful match. Arnold, God rest him, God forgive him, would have approved. The boy - not handsome, true, but life was never too bountiful - had good manners and business sense. Becky would supply the beauty in the match, and if she, Miriam, knew her daughter's daughter, the driving power behind the man. A match made in heaven maybe not, for certainly the connivance of prospective (and prospecting) in-laws had laid the foundations. Call it an old-fashioned arrangement, but there were a few good families still left who followed the old ways.

What to buy? Not to worry - money was the main present. No forced thin-lipped thank-yous with such a gift. Something in glass or something practical for the wrapped present. Both. A set of crystal glasses, that would be ideal. She had smiled at her own solution.

The smile had vanished when the wailing began.

A young couple collided with her, knocking her back against a window. The girl went down and her companion roughly jerked her to her feet, one hand pushing against Miriam's chest. He shouted something, but Miriam could not understand, for her heart was beating too loudly and her ears were filled with the cries of others. The young couple staggered away, trails of mascara on the girl's cheeks emphasizing the blood-drained whiteness of her face. Miriam watched them disappear into the crowd, her breathing now coming in short, sharp gasps. She silently cried for her late husband: Arnold, tell me, tell me what's happening. There were no more wars, not here, not in England. Why are they so frightened? What were they running from?

The sirens had stopped. The screaming had not.

Stepping away from the wall, Miriam looked towards the lush green park. She had planned such a lovely, leisurely stroll through those grounds, a journey to the lake where Arnold had taken her so many years before. Had it been their first time of walking out? Such a silly woman: who used such an expression nowadays? Walking out! But it was such a nice term. So ... so innocent! Had life been so innocent? Not with Arnold, God rest his devious soul. In other ways, a good man though. A generous man...

A push in the back almost sent her to her knees. No manners these days, no compassion for the elderly. No consideration. Worse. Rape the elderly, slash the baby, were the latest perversions. Such things!

The people were swarming down into the Underground station. Is that where I should be going?

Would it be safe there? They seemed to think so. If only I knew what I should be safe from. Let them go; no sense in an old woman like me joining them. I'd be crushed and they wouldn't care. Tears began to form in her eyes. They wouldn't care about an old woman like me, Arnold. Not these people today, not these, these...

Something made her look at the sky. Her eyes were not too good, but was there something falling? An object, moving so fast; was that what they were afraid of...?

She blinked because her tears had stung her pupils, and in the time it took for that movement, Miriam and the milling, petrified ‘Yourists and shoppers around her ceased to exist. Their clothes, their flesh, their blood, and even their bones no longer were. Miriam had not even become ash. She had been vaporized to nothing.

The garage had always sold the most expensive petrol in town, yet it had always been one of the busiest. The owner, now busily stuffing his pockets with notes from the till -mostly tenners and fivers; pounds were no good for buying petrol in these oil-starved times - knew that position was all, that a prime location was the best asset any shop, pub or

garage could have. His Maida Vale address and corner position were expensive assets rates-wise, but in business terms they could not be beat.

Howard turned sharply when a car in the forecourt tooted its horn. He couldn't believe his ears or eyes.

The warning sirens had ceased and, if it wasn't a false alarm, within a few minutes the city was going to be blown to smithereens. So this bloody fool wanted petrol! He waved an irate hand at the motorist who waved back and pointed at his fuel tank.

Howard banged the till shut, leaving loose change in there. Hell, it was only money. He stamped to the door as the horn sounded again.

'Excuse me, can you fill her up please?' The motorist had wound down his window.

'Are you fucking serious?' Howard asked incredulously.

People were running past the garage, cars were bumper to bumper trying to move out of the machine-clogged city. He could hear the rending of metal as vehicles collided.

'I'm nearly empty,' the motorist persisted. 'I haven't got enough to get home.'

Take the bloody train, mate,' Howard shouted back at him as he ran to his own car. He pulled open the door, then thought better of it. No way out in these jam-packed streets. Better to get below ground somewhere. Find a basement. Not much time. Shit, I knew it was going to be a bad day.

He ran back past the motorist who looked at him pleadingly. 'Please,' the man said, the word rising to a whine.

'For Chrissake, help yourself.'

Where to go, where to run to. Oh shit, nobody thought it would ever happen. Nobody ever really took it seriously. Everyone knew we were on the brink, but nobody considered it would really happen. It had to be a false alarm. Had to be!

'Leave the money on the counter,' he called back to the

motorist who had left his car and was holding the pump nozzle, studying it as though not sure of its function.

Howard looked right and left. Any building would do, anything with a basement. Wasn't that what they told you? Get downstairs. Paint your windows white, barricade yourself in with sandbags, get into the cellar, build a shelter, stock yourself up with food and water and stay down there until the all-clear sounded. All in the matter of four or five minutes. Oh Christ, if he only had the paint!

He reached a pub doorway. That would do, they had a big cellar, had to store the beer. He pushed at the door, but it did not budge. Bloody hell, they couldn't close, it wasn't calling-time yet! He tried the public bar and banged at the glass in frustration when he found this door, too, was locked tight.

'Bastards!' he screamed, then turned to look back at his garage. The motorist seemed to have found out how to work the pump.

Howard cursed himself for having wasted time emptying the till. Edie was always calling him tight-bloody-fisted; maybe she was right. He should have been tucked away in some nice little basement by now. Still, it could be a false alarm. Nothing had happened yet. Yeah, that was it, he reassured himself. They'd made a mistake, bloody idiots. If anything was going to happen, it would have before now. He checked his watch and shook it. Couldn't have stopped, could it? Seemed a long time since the sirens had started. He grinned. What a mug! He'd acted like everyone else, running, panicking, telling God he was sorry. He tried to chuckle, but it came out as a choking sound.

Well, I'll tell you what, matey, you're gonna pay for that petrol. Howard began to walk back towards his garage, his little empire, shaking his head in resigned bemusement at the people rushing by. His two attendants, who had fled without his authority as soon as they had heard the sirens, were in for a rollicking when they returned. Huh! He could just see their sheep's faces now.

The motorist was climbing back into his car.

'Hold up, Chief!' Howard called. ‘You owe me ...'

The blinding flash stopped his words. His legs felt suddenly weak and his bowels very watery. 'Oh no

...' he began to moan as he realized it actually was the real thing, there had been no mistake; then he, his garage, and the motorist, were scorched by the heat. The petrol tanks, even though they were below street level, blew instantly and Howard's and the motorist's bodies - as well as the bodies of everyone around them - were seared to the bones.

And even those hurled through the air began to burn.

Jeanette (real name Brenda) stared out from the eighth-floor window of the London Hilton, her gaze upon the vast expanse of greenery below. She casually lit the cigarette dangling from a corner of her lipstick-smeared lips while the Arab and his two younger male companions scrabbled around the suite for their clothes - the older man for his pure white robes, the other two for their sharply-cut European suits.

The buggers deserve to panic, she thought without too much rancour, a stream of cigarette smoke escaping her clenched lips. According to the newspapers, they were the cause of all this, holding the world to ransom with their bloody precious oil, sulking at the merest diplomatic slight, doling or not doling out the stuff as the mood took them. Acting like a spoilt kid in whose house the party was going on: you can have a cake, Amanda, but you can't, Clara, 'cos I don't like you this week. Well now they'd all paid the price. The party was over.

She studied the scurrying people in the street below, the riders spurring their horses along Rotten Row, the lovers running hand-in-hand through the park. There were some, resigned like her, who were just lying down in the grass, waiting for whatever was on its way. Jeanette flinched when a pedestrian trying to cross the traffic-filled Park Lane was tossed over a car bonnet. The person - no telling whether it was a man or woman from that height - lay by the roadside, not moving and with nobody bothering to help.

At least he or she was out of it.

Behind her the Arabs were screaming at one another, pulling on trousers, shirts, the old, fat man the first to look decent because he only had his long frock to wriggle into. He was already heading for the door, the other two hopping half-undressed behind him. Fools. By the time the lift came up it would be all over. And they wouldn't get far down the stairs.

At least the sirens had stopped. They were more frightening than the thought of the oblivion to come.

Jeanette drew in on the cigarette and enjoyed the smoke filling her lungs. Forty a day and it wasn't going to kill her. Her laugh was short, sharp and almost silent. And her looks would never fade. She glanced around the empty hotel room and shook her head in disgust. They lived like pigs and they copulated like pigs. How would they die? No prizes.

Still, she'd met a few on her Park Lane beat who were real gentlemen, who treated her with respect and a certain amount of gentleness. They were a bonus. These days she had learned to be less choosy.

Her best years, although they hadn't fulfilled the ambition, were what she termed the 'up-and-down years'. It had worked for a celebrated but unrated actress acquaintance of hers, a woman only famous for being famous, for being recognized because of the big wheelers she slept with. The strategy had landed that particular lady with a millionaire husband, who had soon divorced her, making the venture highly profitable. Countless pop stars and name photographers had added to her notoriety and bank balance. The technique was simple, although it could prove expensive.

The hotel Jeanette had used (as had her 'actress' friend) was further along Park Lane, its flavour more English than the Hilton. She had booked into the cheapest room possible (which wasn't cheap) and spent most afternoons and evenings riding the elevators. Down the guest lift (from the top) through the huge reception area or lounge, a short walk round the block to the service lifts, up to the top again, then back down via the guest lift.

She nearly always scored when just one man, or maybe two, occupied the elevator with her. A small, shy smile from them, a word about the weather, an invitation to take tea, or a drink in the bar, perhaps dinner, and that was it. She was home and dry. Of course it didn't take long for the hotel staff to cotton on, but any such establishment, no matter how high-class, allowed a certain amount of licence in such things. So long as there was no trouble, the hookers weren't obvious, no money went missing, the management turned a blind (yet watchful) eye. Jeanette had never got the live one, though. Plenty of almosts, but never the McCoy. Now it was just a little bit too late; her looks were not as fresh, the bait not as succulent. Hence the Park Lane/Mayfair 'beat'. Assignments were often made by phone, but nowadays it paid to pound the pavement. She could do without these sessions with three or more participants, though; they were a little too exhausting.

She turned back to the window, pressing her forehead against the cool glass. The cries from those below drifted up and her eyes began to moisten. Is this all it amounted to? Is this where it all led? Eight floors up in a hotel bedroom, naked as the day I was born, sore from the abuse to every orifice in my body by the three clients. Some climax, some joke.

Jeanette pushed herself off the window pane, stubbing out the cigarette on the glass. Maybe there was something better waiting. Maybe there was nothing. Well, even that was better.

She tried to blink when the world became a white flash, but her retinas had already shrivelled to nothing. And her body and the glass had fused into one as the building fell backwards.

As the heat wave spread out from the rising fireball, everything flammable and any lightweight material burst into flame. The scorching heat tore through the streets, melting solids, incinerating people or charring them to black crisps, killing every exposed living thing within a radius of three miles. Within seconds, the blast wave, travelling at the speed of sound and accompanied by winds of up to two hundred miles an hour, followed.

Buildings crumbled, the debris released as deadly missiles. Glass flowed with the winds in millions of slicing shards. Vehicles - cars, buses, anything not secured to the ground - were tossed into the air like windblown leaves, falling to crush and maim. People were luted from their feet and thrown into the sides of collapsing buildings. Intense

blast pressure ruptured lungs, eardrums and internal organs. Lamp standards became javelins of concrete or metal. Broken electricity cables became dancing snakes of death. Water mains burst and became fountains of bubbling steam. Gas mains became part of the overall explosion. Everything became part of the unleashed fury.

Further out, houses and buildings filled with high-pressure air and, as the blast passed on to be followed by a low-pressure wave, the structures exploded outwards. Anyone caught in the open had their clothes burnt off and received third-degree burns from which they could never recover. Others were buried beneath buildings, some to die instantly, many to lie beneath the rubble, slowly suffocating or suffering long lingering deaths from their injuries.

One fire joined another to become a destructive conflagration.

Police Constable John Mapstone was to remember his fifth day on the Force for the rest of his life.

He'd always had a bad memory (fortunately, required educational standards for the Force were dropping by the year) but, because his life was only to last for a few more minutes, this proved to be no handicap.

As soon as he heard the sirens begin their bladder-weakening wail, he knew where the crowds would be headed. He quickly forgot about the two Rastafarians loitering by the outside displays of the jeans shop and made his way towards Oxford Circus Underground station, keeping his stride firm and controlled, although swift. A glance back over his shoulder told him that the Rastafarians had taken the opportunity to snatch a pair of jeans for themselves, plus a canvas shoulder-bag. Good luck to you, he thought grimly. Wish you well and long to wear them.

He tried to maintain his poise as he was jostled by the crowd, wishing someone would turn off the bloody sirens that were inciting the pandemonium. The red and blue signs of the London Transport Underground were directly ahead and he was already engulfed in a heaving mass of arms and legs.

'Steady on!' he told the people around him. 'Just take it nice and easy.'

Perhaps his face was too fresh and pink, his manner too youthful; nobody took notice of his reassurances.

There's plenty of time to get under cover.'

He tried to keep his voice low-pitched, remembering his training, but it kept rising towards the end of each sentence. The blue uniform is a mark of authority, the training sergeant had told the recruits in a loud voice that had resonated with that authority. People expect to be told what to do by someone in a blue uniform. This lot obviously hadn't heard one of the sergeant's lectures.

PC Mapstone tried again. 'Please don't rush. Everything will be all right if you don't rush.'

The staircase, one of the many smaller entrances to the Underground station, seemed to be swallowing up the mobs, and the policeman was gulped down with them. The clamour below was horrendous and he desperately looked around for colleagues, but there were too many people to distinguish any individual.

A struggling convergence had been caused by the electronic ticket entrances, but people were sliding and climbing over them as fast as they could. Others were fleeing through the ticket-collecting exits, making for the moving stairs, wanting to be deep below street level before the impossible, the incredible, the 'nobody's-mad-enough-to-press-the-button', happened.

PC Mapstone tried to turn, holding up his arms, Canute commanding the advancing tide. His helmet was knocked askew, then disappeared among the heaving shoulders. He could only let himself go, moving backwards, his boots barely touching the ground.

If they would only act sensibly, he told himself. There was no need for all this. But the fear was contagious and soon it would chip away at the fragile barrier of his own calmness. He became part of the herd.

His back struck something solid and he was dimly aware that he had reached the metal turnstiles. By now, the restricting cushioned arms of the ticket machine had been twisted from their bearings by the immense pressure of the crowds and Mapstone was carried over one side by the bodies streaming through. He managed to turn and land on his feet, and began to push his way towards the escalators, using his arms like a swimmer moving through thick, viscous liquid. The up-staircase had come to a halt because of the crowds treading downwards; the down-staircase appeared to be working normally. He was on it now and the movement, slow though it was, almost unbalanced him. He tried to grab the thick band of moving rubber that was the handrail, but there were too many people on either side. A body slid past on the immovable centre between staircases, the man obviously realizing it was the quickest way down. Another followed him. Then another. Another. Then too many.

A jumble of bodies slid down, going fast, arms flailing, grabbing at anything, trying to hold on to the upright bodies on the stairways. A desperate hand grabbed an arm and held on; bodies piled up behind; the weight was too much; the person on the stairs was dragged forward; the people in front began to fall; those behind began to tumble. PC Mapstone began to scream.

The staircase, its mechanism no longer able to cope with the overload, suddenly jolted to a stop. And then there was no control at all in the spilling, tumbling mass.

Many of those on the centre section fell into the people on the adjacent escalator, creating another human avalanche.

Mapstone, young, strong, but no longer eager, tried to keep upright, using his hands against the bodies in front, grabbing for the handrails on either side. It was no use. He managed to get one hand around the thick rubber band, but his arm was immediately snapped at the wrist by the crush behind. He shouted in pain and the sound was no louder than the shouts around him. His light was blocked out, sudden bright chinks appearing but disappearing just as quickly, creating a twisting, nightmare kaleidoscope in his vision.

Before the blackness took over completely, before his chest bones and ribs were forced back into his lungs, before his throat was squeezed completely closed by a knee that had no right to be in that position, and before all sensibility left his besieged mind, he thought he heard and felt a deep rumbling that had nothing to do with the chaos around him. A sound that seemed to rise up from the very bowels of the earth.

Oh yes, he assured himself. That would be the bomb. About bloody time too.

Eric Stanmore felt his knees slowly give way and he slid, his back against a wall, to the floor.

Those crazy bastards,' he said aloud, his words and expression disbelieving. No one heard him, for he was alone.

Above him, standing six hundred and fifty feet over Tottenham Court Road, paraboloid dishes collecting super-high-frequency radio beams transmitted from other, much smaller towers, each one a link in the chain of microwave stations strategically positioned throughout the country. The signals were channelled down to radio receivers at the base of the giant Telecom Tower, to be passed on by landline, or amplified and retransmitted through an identical set of aerials.

His hands pressed against closed eyes. Had they known? Was this the reason for the sudden stepping-up of inspection and maintenance on all government communications systems? Other threatened hostilities had caused similar drives in the past - more times than the public were ever aware of - and although the situation in the Middle East was grave, Stanmore had considered the latest directive as standard crisis procedure. He knew that the microwave systems would play an important part in the British defence in time of war, for there was no telling what damage other sections of the telecommunication network - underground cables and overhead lines - would sustain under enemy attack. The microwave system, radio beams passed on from one station to the next in line-of-sight paths, would prove invaluable if the normal system broke down. Even if relay stays were knocked out, the beams could be re-directed to others further along the line. The official reason for the system was to provide an unbreakable and economic (so-called) link between the three major cities of London, Birmingham and Manchester, but Stanmore knew that in an expensive operation (in progress since 1953

and at the time code-named Backbone) the network had been extended to cover many government installations. A good number of S-RCs, sub-regional control centres whose purpose was to liaise and implement orders from the National Seat of Government and the twelve regional seats, were located close to such repeater stations, and Stanmore was well aware that a prime function of the system was to provide a failsafe connection between control centres. One of the most important in peacetime, although not crucial in wartime, was the tower he helped to maintain: the Telecom Tower in London. And it was the most vulnerable of all.

He knew there was no sense in trying to reach its base where adequate shelter was provided against such a world mishap - he almost smiled at the understatement, but his mouth and jaw had become rigid with tension - for the descent, even if he could get a lift to collect him, would take too long. The sirens had stopped now and he knew there wasn't much longer to go. His whole future spanned a matter of moments.

Stanmore began to tremble uncontrollably and sobs jerked his chest muscles as he thought of Penny, his wife, and Tracey and Belinda, his two little girls. His house was in Wandsworth, his daughters' school close by. Penny would try to reach the school as soon as she heard the terrible wailing of the sirens; she would never make it, though. They would all die separately, the girls bewildered, not understanding the full importance of the warning sounds, but frightened because the grown-ups around them would be frightened, and Penny would be in the streets, racing towards the school, exposed and panic-stricken.

They had always planned in such morbid-thought moments of their marriage (the times perhaps when neither could sleep, when physical urges had been satiated and there was nothing left but to talk the small hours away) to barricade themselves in their home, to build a cushioned fortress under the stairs in the hallway, to follow the edicts in the local authority's Protect and Survive leaflet as closely as possible, and to stay there cocooned until the worst was over.

Neither of them envisaged - or, more truthfully, cared to admit - that there was a possibility that they would all be apart. They should have known, should have made some arrangement, some pact, to cover such a possibility. Now it was too late. They could only pray for each other and for their children. Let the rest of the world pray for itself.

He pushed himself to his knees and crouched there, his body tucked forward, hands still covering his face.

Don't let it be true, dear God, he pleaded. Please don't let it happen.

But it did happen. The huge tower was split into three sections by the blast, the top part in which Stanmore prayed travelling for a distance of almost a quarter of a mile before crashing to the ground to become unrecognizable rubble. Eric Stanmore had been vaguely and briefly aware of the floating sensation before displaced machinery and concrete had flattened his body wafer-thin.

Alex Dealey was running, his breathing laboured, perspiration already staining his white shirt beneath his grey suit. He hung on to the briefcase almost unconsciously, as if it mattered any more that 'sensitive'

government documents could be found lying in the street. Or among the rubble which would be all that was left. He should have taken a taxi, or a bus even; that way he would have arrived at his destination long ago. He would have been safe. But it had been a nice, warm, June day, the kind of day when walking was infinitely preferable to riding in enclosed transport. It wasn't a nice day any longer, even though the sun was still high and bright.

He resisted the temptation to duck into one of the many office buildings that flanked High Holborn, to scurry down

into one of their cool, protective basements; there was still time to make it. He would be so much better off if he reached his proposed destination, so much safer. Also, it was his duty to be there at such a catastrophic and, of course, historic occasion. Oh God, was he that far down the bureaucratic road that he could mentally refer to this as historic? Even though he was only a minion to the ruling powers, his mind, his outlook, had been tainted with their cold, logical -inhuman? - perceptions. And he had certainly enjoyed the privileges his office had brought him; perhaps the most important privilege of all lay just ahead. If only he had time to reach it.

Someone in front, a woman, tripped and fell, and Dealey tumbled over her. The pavement jarred his hands and knees and for a moment he could only lie there, protecting his face from the moving feet and legs around him. The noise was terrible: the shouts and screams of office workers caught out in the open, the constant belling of car horns, their progress halted by other abandoned vehicles, the owners having fled leaving engines still running. The awful banshee sirens, their rising and falling a mind-freezing, heart-gripping ululation, full of precognitive mourning of what was soon ...

They had stopped! The sirens had stopped!

For one brief and eerie moment there was almost complete silence as people halted and wondered if it had all been a false alarm, even a demented hoax. But there were those among the crowd who realized the true significance of the abrupt cessation of the alert; these people pushed their way through to the nearest doorways and disappeared inside. Panic broke out once more as others began to understand that the holocaust was but moments away.

A motorbike mounted the pavement and cut a scything path through the crowds, scattering men and women, catching

those not swift enough and tossing them aside like struck skittles. The rider failed to see the prostrate woman whom Dealey had fallen over. The front wheel hit her body and the machine rose into the air, the rider, with his sinister black visor muting his cry, rising even higher.

Dealey cowered low to the ground as the motorbike flipped over, its owner now finding his own course of flight and breaking through the plate-glass window of a shopfront Sparks and metal flew from the machine as it struck the solid base of the window frame. It came to rest half-in, half-out of the display window, smoke belching from the stuttering engine, its metal twisted and buckled. The rider moaned as blood seeped down his neck from inside the cracked helmet.

Dealey was already on his feet and running, not caring about the woman left writhing on the pavement, not even mindful of the lost briefcase with its precious documents, only grateful that he had escaped injury and even more anxious to quickly reach his particular refuge.

The Underground station, Chancery Lane, was not too far away, and the sight gave him new hope. His destination was not far beyond.

Too soon the world was a blinding white flash, and foolishly, for he of all people really should have known better, Dealey turned to look at its source.

He stood there paralysed, sightless and screaming inwardly, waiting for the inevitable.

The thundrous, ear-splitting roar came, but the inevitable did not. Instead he felt rough hands grab him and his body being propelled backwards. His shoulder crashed against something that gave way and he was being dragged along. He felt himself falling, something, perhaps someone, falling with him. The earth was shaking, the noise deafening, the walls collapsing.

And then there was no longer burning white pain in his eyes, just the cool darkness of unconsciousness.

The initial nuclear explosions - there were five on and around the London area - lasted only a few minutes. The black mushroom clouds rose high above the devastated city, joining to form a thick layer of turbulent smoke that made the day seem as night.

It wasn't long before the gathered dust and fine debris began its leisurely return to earth. But now it was no longer just dust and powder. Now it was a further, more sinister, harbinger of death.

He kicked out at the debris that had covered his legs and was relieved to find nothing solid had pinned them down. He coughed, spitting dust from his lungs, then wiped a hand across his eyes to clear them.

There was still some light filtering through into the basement corridor; Culver groaned when he saw smoke filtering through with the light.

He turned towards the man he had dragged in from the street, hoping he hadn't killed him in the fall down the stairway. The man was moving, his hands feebly reaching for his face; there was debris and a fine layer of dust over his body, but nothing too heavy seemed to have landed on him. He began to splutter, choking on the fine powder he had swallowed.

Culver reached towards him, groaning at the sudden pain that touched his own body. He quickly checked himself, making sure nothing important was fractured or sprained; no, everything felt okay, although he knew he would be stiff with bruises the next day - if there was a next day.

He tugged at the other man's shoulder. ‘You all right?' he asked, twice attempting the question because it had come out as a croak the first time.

A low moan was the only reply.

Culver looked towards the broken staircase and was

puzzled by the sound he heard. As more dust and smoke swirled into the openings he realized he could hear a wind. He recalled reading somewhere that winds of up to two hundred miles an hour would follow a nuclear blast, creating an aftermath of more death and destruction. He felt the building shifting around him and curled himself into a tight ball when masonry began to fall once again.

Pieces struck his brown leather jacket, one large enough to cause his body to jerk in pain. A huge concrete slab that half covered the staircase started to move, sliding further down the wall its bulk leaned against. Culver grabbed the other man's shoulders, ready to pull him away from the advancing segment.

Fortunately, the concrete settled once more with a grinding screech.

There was not much to see through the gaping holes of the ceiling above and Culver guessed that the upper floors of the building - he couldn't recall how many storeys the office block had, but most of the buildings in that area were high -had collapsed. They had been lucky; he was sure they had fallen close to the central concrete service column, the strongest part of any modern structure, which had protected them from the worst of the demolition. How long it would hold was another matter. And the choking smoke meant another problem was on its way.

Culver tugged at the shoulder nearby. 'Hey.' He repeated his original question. ‘You okay?'

The man twisted his body and pushed himself up on one elbow. He mumbled something. Then he moaned long and loud, his body rocking to and fro. 'Oh, no, the stupid idiots really did it. The stupid, stupid ...'

"Yeah, they did it,' Culver replied in a low voice, 'but there are other things to worry about right now.'

"Where are we? What is this place?' The man began to

scrabble around, kicking at the rubble, trying to get to his feet.

Take it easy.' Culver placed a hand around the man's upper arm and gripped tightly. 'Just listen.'

Both men lay there in the gloom.

'I... I can't hear anything,' the man said after a while.

That's just it. The wind's stopped. It's passed by.' Culver gingerly rose to his knees, examining the wreckage above and around them. It had seemed silent at first, then the rending of twisted metal, the grinding and crashing of concrete, came to their ears. It was followed by the whimpers and soon the screams of the injured or those who were in shock. Something metallic clattered down from above and Culver winced as it landed a few feet away.

We've got to get out of here,' he told his companion. The whole lot's going to come down soon.' He moved closer so that his face was only inches away from the other man. It was difficult to distinguish his features in the gloom.

'If only we could see a way out,' the man said. We could be buried alive down here.'

Culver was puzzled. He stared into the other's eyes. 'Can't you see anything?'

'It's too dark ... oh no,... not that!'

When I grabbed you out on the street you were looking straight into the flash. I thought you were just shocked ... I didn't realize ...'

The man was rubbing at his eyes with his fingers. 'Oh, God, I'm blind!'

'It may be only temporary.'

The injured man seemed to take little comfort in the words. His body was shaking uncontrollably.

The smell of burning was strong now and Culver could see a flickering glow from above.

He slumped back against the wall. 'Either way we're beat,' he said, almost to himself. 'If we go outside we'll be hit by fallout, if we stay here we'll be fried or crushed to death. Great choice.' The side of his clenched fist thumped the floor.

He felt hands scrabbling at the lapels of his jacket. 'No, not yet There's still a chance. If you could just get me there, there'd be a chance.'

'Get you where?' Culver grabbed the man's wrists and pulled them from him. The world's just a flat ruin up there. Don't you understand? There's nothing left! And the air will be thick with radioactive dust.'

'Not yet. It will take at least twenty to thirty minutes for the fallout to settle to the ground. How long have we been down here?'

'I'm not sure. It could be ten minutes, it could be an hour - I may have blacked out. No, wait - we heard the winds caused by the blast; they would have followed soon after the explosion.'

Then there's a chance. If we hurry!'

'Where to? There's no place to go.'

'I know somewhere where we'll be safe.'

‘You mean the Underground station? The tunnels?'

'Safer than that.'

'What the hell are you talking about? Where?'

'I can direct you.'

'Just tell me where.'

The man was silent. Then he repeated: 'I can direct you.'

Culver sighed wearily. 'Don't worry, I'm not going to leave you here. You sure about the fallout?'

'I'm certain. But we'll have to move fast.' The man's panic appeared to be over for the moment, although his movements were still agitated.

Something overhead began a rending shift. Both men tensed.

'I think the decision is about to be made for us.'

Culver grabbed the other man below his shoulder and began to pull him towards the dimly lit staircase.

The huge slab of concrete lying at an angle across the broken stairs began to move again.

We haven't got much time!' Culver shouted. The whole bloody building's about to cave in!'

As if to confirm his statement, a deep rumbling sound came from the floor above. The building itself began to shake.

'Move! It's coming down!'

The rumbling became a roaring and the roaring an explosion of crashing timber, bricks and concrete.

The wide basement corridor was a confusion of swirling dust and deafening noise. Culver saw the right-angled gap between tilted slab and staircase narrowing.

'Come on, up the stairs!' He pushed, shoved, heaved the stumbling man before him, lifting him when he tripped over rubble, almost carrying him up the first few steps. 'Get down! Now crawl, crawl up those bloody stairs for your life! And keep your head low!'

Culver wondered if the man would have followed out his instructions had he seen what was happening.

The side of the stairway was collapsing, its metal handrail already twisted and torn from its mounting; the blast-caused sloping roof over the stairs was slowly descending, slipping inch by inch down the supporting wall. Culver could just see the murky grey daylight creeping in from the streets faintly tingeing the top steps. He quickly ducked and followed the blind man's scrambling body, unceremoniously pushing at

his ample buttocks. The man suddenly flattened as part of the concrete stairs fell inwards.

'Keep going!' Culver shouted over the noise. ‘You're okay, just keep going!'

The descending ceiling was brushing against the top of his head now and Culver considered pulling out, going back. But the situation was even worse behind: the downfall had become an avalanche and he knew that most of the floors in the building must be collapsing inwards. He pushed onwards with renewed vigour, not bothering to shout encouragement that could not be heard anyway, just heaving and shoving, forcing his way through the narrowing tunnel. He was soon flat on his stomach and beginning to give up hope; the edges of each step were scraping against his chest.

Then the obstruction in front was clear: the blind man had made it to the top and was rising to his knees and turning, realizing he was free, one hand waving in front of Culver's face to help him. Culver grabbed the hand and suddenly he was being yanked upwards, the blind man shrieking with the effort, his mouth wide open, eyes shut tight Culver's toecaps dug into the stairs, pushing, the elbow of his free arm used as a lever to heave himself up. The screeching, heard clearly over the background roar, was caused by the concrete slab tearing deep score marks in the supporting wall.

His torso was out and he curled up his knees, bringing his feet clear as the coffin lid all but closed.

He scrambled to his feet, pulling his companion with him, hurrying on, making for the wide doorway that was the entrance to the office block. The big glass double doors they had thrown themselves through only minutes earlier had been completely shattered by the blast; walls on either side of the hallway were beginning to crack.

They staggered out into the shattered, devastated world. Culver did not take time to look around; he wanted to be as far away as possible from the collapsing building. The blind man was limping, clinging to him, as though afraid he would be left behind.

Vehicles - buses, cars, lorries, taxis - lay scattered, disarranged before them. Some were overturned, some just wildly angled; many rested on the roofs or bonnets of others. Culver quickly found a path through the tangled metal, climbing between locked bumpers, sliding over bonnets, dragging his companion with him. They finally collapsed behind a black taxi, half the driver's still body thrusting through the shattered windscreen.

They gulped in mouthfuls of dust and smoke-filled air, shoulders and chests heaving, bodies battered and bleeding, their clothes torn and grimed with dirt. They heard the crumpling falling sound of the building they had just left, and it mingled with the noise of other office blocks in similar death throes. The very ground seemed to vibrate as they tumbled, their structures no more than concrete playing-cards.

As the two men began to recover from their ordeal, they became aware of the other, human, sounds all around them, a clamour that was the discordant outcry of the wounded and the dying.

The other man was looking around him as though he could see. Forcing himself to ignore anything else, Culver quickly appraised him. Although it was impossible to be sure, because of the white powdered dust that covered his clothes, he looked to be somewhere in his late forties or early fifties; his suit, dishevelled and torn though it was, indicated he was perhaps a businessman or clerk of some kind -

certainly an office worker.

Thanks for the helping hand back there.' Culver had to raise his voice to be heard.

The man turned towards him. The thanks are mutual.'

Culver could not manage a smile. 'I guess we need each other.' He spat dust from his throat. 'Let's get to this safe place you mentioned. Time's running out.'

The blind man grabbed his arm as Culver began to rise. ‘You must understand we cannot help anyone else. If we're going to survive, nothing can hinder us.'

Culver leaned heavily against the side of the taxi, flinching when he saw the jumbled corpses of its occupants. There was a child in there, a little boy no more than five or six years old, his head resting against a shoulder at an impossible angle; a woman's arm, presumably his mother's, was flung protectively across his tiny chest. A fun day out shopping? A trip across town to the cinema, a show? Perhaps even to see Daddy in his great big office. Their day had ended when the cab had been picked up and thrown through the air like some kid's toy, its weight nothing to the forces that had lifted it.

For the first time he took in the devastation and his eyes widened with the horror of it all.

The familiar London landscape, with its tall buildings both old and new, its skyscraper towers, the ancient church steeples, its old, instantly recognizable landmarks, no longer existed. Fires raged everywhere. Ironically, he realized, the whole city could have been one vast conflagration had not the blast itself extinguished many of the blazes caused by the heat wave and fireball. The skies overhead were black, a vast turbulent cloud hanging low over the city. A spiralling column, the hated symbol of the holocaust, climbed into the cloud, a white stem full of unnatural forces. He looked around and for the first time understood that more than one bomb

had fallen: two rising towers to the west - one well beyond the column he had been watching - one to the north, another to the north-east, and the last to the south. Five in all. Dear God, five!

He lowered his gaze from the horizons and slammed the flat of his hand against the taxi's roof. He had witnessed the stark face of ultimate evil, the carnage of man's own sickness! The destructive force that was centuries old and inherent in every man, woman and child! God forgive us all.

People began to emerge from buildings, torn and bloody creatures, white from shock, the look of death already on their faces. They crawled, staggered, dragged themselves from their shattered refuges, some silent, some pleading, some in hysterics, but nearly all separate islands, numbed into withdrawal from others, their minds only able to cope with their own individual hurt, their own personal fate.

He closed his eyes and fought back the rage, the screaming despair. A hand tugged at his trouser leg and he looked down to see the grimy face of the sightless man.

What... what can you see?'

Culver sank to a squatting position. ‘You really don't want to know,' he said quietly.

'No, I mean the dust - is it settling?'

He silently studied the blind man for a few moments before replying. There's dust everywhere. And smoke.'

His companion rubbed at his eyelids as though they were causing him pain. 'Is it falling from above?' he asked almost impatiently.

Culver looked up and frowned. ‘Yeah, it's coming. I can see darker patches where the air is thick with it. It's drifting slow, taking its time.'

The other man scrambled to his feet. 'No time to lose, then. We must get to the shelter.'

Culver stood with him. 'What is this shelter? And who the hell are you?'

‘You'll see when - if - we get there. And my name is Alex Dealey, not that it's important at this particular point in time.'

'How do you know about this place?'

'Not now, for God's sake, man! Don't you realize the danger we're in?'

Culver shook his head, almost laughing. 'Okay, which direction?'

'East. Towards the Daily Mirror building.'

Culver looked to the east. The Mirror isn't there any more. At least, not much of it is.'

The announcement had no visible effect on Dealey. 'Just go in that direction, past the Underground station towards Holborn Circus. And we keep to the right-hand side. Are all the buildings down?'

'Not all. But most are badly damaged. All the roofs and top floors have been skimmed off. What are we looking for?'

'Let's just move; I'll tell you as we go.'

Culver took his arm and guided him through the jungle of smashed metal. A red double-decker bus lay on its side, crushing the cars beneath it. Figures were emerging from the shattered windows, faces and hands smeared with blood. Culver tried not to hear their whimpered groans.

An elderly man staggered in front of them, his mouth and eyes wide with shock. As he fell, Culver saw the whole of his back was a pincushion of glass shards.

Bodies, mostly still, lay strewn everywhere. Many were charred black. He turned his eyes away from limbs that protruded from heaped rubble and beneath overturned vehicles. His foot kicked something and he almost retched when he saw a woman's head and part of one shoulder lying there, the rest of her nowhere in sight.

Shattered glass crunched under their feet and even in the false dusk it glittered everywhere like spilled jewels. The two men skirted around a burning lorry, shielding their faces from the heat. Something fell no more than thirty yards away from them and from the squelching thump they knew it had to be a body; whether the person had jumped or accidentally fallen from a high window of one of the more intact office blocks, they did not know, nor did they care to know. They had a goal to reach, something to aim for, and neither man wanted to be distracted from their purpose. It was their only defence against the horror.

Another building on the opposite side of the road collapsed completely, sending up billows of dust and smoke, engulfing the two men in thick clouds. An explosion nearby rocked the ground and they fell to their knees. Coughing, choking, Culver hauled Dealey to his feet once more and they stumbled on, a cold determination keeping them moving, awareness of the sinking poison their driving force. Others were moving in their direction. Now many were helping the injured, leading them towards the only place they felt could be safe. Groups carried those unable to walk, while those who could crawl were left to make their own way.

We're just passing Chancery Lane Underground station,' Culver said close to Dealey's ear. 'Everyone seems to be taking shelter down there. Everyone that's left, that is. I think we ought to do the same.'

'No!' Dealey's expression was grim. 'It will be too crowded to get through. We've more chance if you do as I say.'

Then where is this place? We haven't got much more time!'

'Not far, not far.'

Tell me what the hell we're looking for.'

'An alleyway. A wide, covered alleyway that leads to a

courtyard and offices. There's a big open iron gate at the entrance. It should be just a few hundred yards ahead.'

'I just hope to God you know what you're doing.'

Trust me. We'll get there.'

Culver took a last wistful look at the opening leading to the Underground tunnels, then shook his head once. 'Okay, we'll do it your way.'

The nightmare continued, a dream far worse than any Culver had ever experienced. Destruction to a degree he had never imagined possible. A mad, stumbling journey that tore at his mind and made him weep inwardly. Havoc. Madness. Hell exposed.

A woman - no, girl: even in her dishevelled state he could see she was just a girl - rushed at them, tugging at Culver's jacket, pointing and pulling him towards an overturned car.

Dealey held Culver back. We've got to get under cover,' he said grimly. "We can't stay out in the open much longer. Even now it might be too late.'

Culver jerked his arm away. *We can't just leave her. She needs help.'

The blind man snatched at the air, trying to grab hold of him. ‘You can't help any of them, you fool.

Don't you see that? There are too many!'

But Culver had allowed the girl to drag him away. As they approached the overturned car, the girl crying hysterically and refusing to let go of his arm, he saw the body lying half beneath it. One arm lay across the man's chest, the other was flung outwards, his hand clawed, already stiffening. Culver knelt beside him and fought back the sickness. The body was that of a young man, perhaps the girl's boyfriend; his eyes stared sightlessly towards the blackened sky and his tongue protruded from his open mouth as if trying to escape. His stomach had split and his intestines lay exposed and steaming.

'Help him,' the girl pleaded through her sobs. 'Please help me get him out.'

He held her shoulders. 'It's no use,' he said gently. 'He's dead. Can't you see that?'

'No, no, it's not true! He'll be all right if we can get that thing off him. Please help me push it off!' She threw herself at the overturned car and strained against it. 'Please help me!' she cried.

Culver tried to pull her away. 'He's dead, don't you understand? There's nothing you can do for him.'

A hand lashed out at him. "You bastard, why won't you help me?'

Dealey crawled towards them, their voices his only guide. 'Leave her. She'll never listen to you. We've got to save ourselves.'

Culver tried to hold on to the distraught girl. 'Come with us, we can find somewhere safe.'

'Leave me alone!' she cried.

There's nothing you can do,' came Dealey's anxious voice once again.

The girl thrust Culver away and sank down beside the dead man. She threw herself across his chest and her small shoulders heaved with her sobs.

He knelt. 'If you won't come with us, get down into the Underground. The air will be contaminated with radioactivity soon, so you've got to get under cover.'

There was no indication that she understood.

Culver stood and wiped an arm across his eyes. He caught sight of Dealey on his hands and knees; he stepped towards him and helped him up. 'How much further?' he shouted, irrationally beginning to hate the man.

'Not far. We should be nearly there. Cross a small side-street, go on a bit more, and we're there.'

Culver yanked him around and led the way, Dealey's grip on his arm hard, as if he would never again let go.

After a short distance, Culver said, There's a break in the kerb here. This must be the side-street, only now it's just piled with rubble. The buildings on one side have collapsed into it!'

'Just ahead, then. Not far.' A look of hope was on the blind man's face.

They had to move out into the vehicle-littered roadway to skirt debris and Culver suddenly caught sight of the alleyway's entrance. 'I can see it. It looks as though it's still intact.'

Their pace quickened, both men desperate for refuge. They plunged into the darkness of the entrance and tripped on rubble lying there. Culver pushed himself onto hands and knees, then moaned aloud. 'Oh, Jesus Christ, no.'

Dealey looked towards the sound of his voice, eyes closed tight against their pain. "What is it? For God's sake, what is it now?'

Culver slumped against one wall and closed his own eyes. He drew his legs up, resting his hands over his knees. 'It's no good,' he said wearily. The other end's blocked, piled high with debris. There's no way we're going to get through.'

They were running again. Frightened, exhausted, wanting to wake up, to see the sun streaming through parted curtains, wanting the nightmare to end. But they were running. And around them the fires raged, the dead lay still, the injured writhed their agony. The nightmare refused to end.

The steps leading down to the Underground station were heaped with rubble; the round metal handrails were wet with blood. It wasn't as crowded below as Culver imagined it would be; he guessed that most of those who had reached the station had gone further down, away from the ticket area, into the tunnels.

As far away from the crazy world above as possible. Even so, there were still many people scattered around the gloomy circular hall with its ticket kiosk, machines and few shops.

We may need light,' Dealey told him, the irony not lost on him. If only his eyes did not hurt so much. If the stinging sensation would just go away. He forced his mind to concentrate. We have to get into the eastbound tunnel.'

We should have tried this other entrance in the first place,' Culver said, quickly looking around. Other figures were still staggering into the Underground station.

'No, only under extreme circumstances are secondary access points to be used.'

'Extreme circumstances? You've got to be kidding!'

Dealey shook his head. 'Only in an emergency. I knew the station - the tunnels - would be filled with people. It would have been too dangerous to use; now we have no choice.'

'Are you saying this ... "shelter" ... is only available to certain people?'

'It's a government shelter. There isn't room for the public.'

That figures.'

The government has to be practical. And so do we.' Dealey's voice became tight, as though he were fighting to keep control. 'I'm giving you a chance to live through this; it's up to you whether or not you take it.'

‘You can't make it without me.'

'Possibly not. It's your choice.'

For a few long, sightless moments, Dealey thought that the other man had walked away from him. He breathed a silent sigh of relief when he heard him speak.

'I doubt there's going to be much left to survive for after this, but okay, we'll find the shelter. I'd still like to know how you know about this place, though. I take it you work for the government.'

"Yes, I do, but that's not important right now. We must get into the tunnels.'

There are some doors on the other side of the hall. I can just about make it out in the darkness; one could be the stationmaster's office, so we're bound to find a torch or a lamp of some kind.'

There's no light down here?'

'Nothing. Just daylight - what there is of it.'

The emergency lighting may still be working in the tunnels, but a torch might come in useful.'

'Right.'

Dealey felt a hand on his arm and allowed himself to be

led across the hall. The cries of the injured had died down, but a low coalescent moaning had taken its place. Something clutched at his trouser leg and a voice begged for help. He felt his guide hesitate and Dealey quickly pulled the other man to him. "You haven't told me your name yet,' he said to distract him, walking on, keeping the other man going.

'Culver/ came the reply.

'Let's concentrate on one thing at a time, Mr Culver: first, let's find a torch; second, let's get to the tunnels; third, let's get into the shelter. Nothing else must sidetrack us, not if we want to live.'

Culver knew the blind man was right, yet it was difficult to disregard his own misgivings; would it really be worthwhile to survive? Just what was left up there? Had most of the northern hemisphere been wiped out, or had the strikes concentrated only on major cities and strategic military bases? There was no way of knowing for the moment so he closed the questions from his mind, just as he kept further, more emotional, thoughts at bay. Only the mind-numbing shock would see him through, so long as it did not affect his actions; for now, nothing else but finding a torch mattered.

The ground trembled briefly and screaming broke out once more.

The two men stopped in their tracks. 'Another bomb?' Culver asked.

Dealey shook his head. 'I doubt it. An explosion not too far away, I think. It could be just a fractured gas main.'

They reached the first door and Culver twisted the handle. Locked. 'Shit!' He took a pace back and kicked out. Once more, and it gave. Another, and it was open.

Culver went in, Dealey following close behind, a hand on his guide's shoulder. A voice came from the darkness. 'What

d'you want? This is London Transport property, you're not allowed in here.'

Culver was not surprised at the irrationality. Take it easy, we only want a torch,' he reassured the man whom he could just see crouching behind a chair in one corner of the tiny room.

'I can't let you ...' his voice broke. What's happened out there? Is it all over?'

'It's done,' Culver said, 'but it's not over. Is there a torch in here?'

There's a flashlight on the shelf, to your right, by the door.'

Culver saw it. Reached for it.

The crouching man raised an arm to protect his eyes when Culver flicked the switch and shone the beam in his direction.

'My advice to you is to get into the tunnels,' Dealey said. ‘You'll be safer there.'

Tm all right where I am. There's no need for me to leave here.'

Very well, it's up to you. Are you the stationmaster?'

'Mr Franklin is dead. He tried to control the crowds. They were panicking. He tried to hold them back, tried to make them form queues. Instead, they trampled him. None of us could help. Just too many!'

'Calm yourself. The crowds have gone, most are below in the tunnels. And the nuclear attack is over.'

The attack? Then it really happened, they really did it? They dropped the Bomb?'

'Several, I should think.'

Culver decided not to mention the five separate cloud stems he had seen; he would tell Dealey later, when they were alone.

Then we're all finished.'

'No, not if everyone stays under cover for now. The worst damage from radiation should be over within two to four weeks, and by then the authorities should have everything under control.'

Culver almost laughed aloud, but the effort would have been too much. 'Let's get out of here,' he suggested instead.

'I can only repeat: you'll be safer in the tunnels,' Dealey told the crouching man, who gave no reply.

Culver turned the beam away, switching it off as h£ did so. The flashlight would be useful: its casing was made of heavy-duty rubber and the lamp reflector was wider than normal. We're wasting time,' he said quietly.

If Dealey was surprised at his guide's sudden resoluteness he did not show it. 'Of course, you're right.

Let's hurry.'

They made their way through the ticket barrier towards the escalators. There were three and none was working. Culver noticed that the ticket hall had filled with more people, most of whom appeared to be totally disorientated, their movements uncertain, their eyes blankly staring. He told Dealey of what he saw.

'Is there nothing we can do for them?' he whispered harshly.

'I'm afraid not. I only hope we can help ourselves.'

Concentrate. The stairs. Have to ease our way over to them. Ignore the old woman sitting on the floor rocking her blood-covered head backwards and forwards. Forget about the kid clinging to his mother, yelling for her to take out the horrible pieces of glass from his hands. Don't look at the man leaning against the wall vomiting black blood. Help one and you had to help another. Help another and you had to help everybody. Help everybody and you were finished. Just

help yourself. And this man Alex Dealey, who seemed to know so much.

They were soon at the top of the centre escalator. Bodies were sprawled all the way down, sitting, lying, some just slumped against the handrails. He could just make out dim emergency lights below.

We'll have to be careful going down,' he said. The stairs are packed with people and we'll have to work our way through them.' He released the blind man's arm and clamped Dealey's hand around his own. 'Hold tight and stick close.' He pushed his way through to the stairs.

Men and women looked at them, but no one objected. Some even tried to move aside when they realized Dealey was blind. It was slow progress and Culver was careful not to trip, allowing his companion to lean on him, to use his strength for support; one slip and they would never stop rolling.

They were halfway down when people below came pouring from the platform entrances.

They clawed at those on the escalators, trying to get on to the stairways, calling out, screaming something that Culver and Dealey could make no sense of. The renewed panic was infectious: the confused mass on the stairs rose as one and began to beat their way back up, punching out at those who blocked their path, pushing their way over those who lay injured.

'What now?' Dealey asked in frustration as they were shoved aside by the group just below them.

What's happening down there, Culver?'

'I don't know, but maybe it's not such a good idea after all.'

We have to get into the tunnel, don't you understand? We can't go back up there.'

‘You know it and I know it; try telling them!' A fist struck him in the chest as a man struggled to get by.

He staggered back, but resisted the urge to retaliate. Instead, he shouted above the din, There's only one way down, and it's going to be dangerous for you!'

'It can't be more dangerous than what's behind us!'

Culver pushed him against the rubber handrail and lifted his legs onto the centre section, jumping up himself, holding on to the rail with one hand, his arm crooked under Dealey's, the flashlight still grasped tightly. 'Use your feet to control your slide and I'll try to keep hold of the rail!'

The descent began and both men soon found it impossible

to maintain a regulated speed. The arm-lock Culver had on *

Dealey became too difficult to maintain; his other hand slipped from the handrail and they plunged downwards, feet striking the climbers on the stairs, so that their bodies twisted, their descent becoming completely uncontrolled. It was a frightening, helter-skelter ride towards another, unknown terror, a heart-churning rush into fresh danger.

Their fall was cushioned by the desperate figures massing around the bottom of the escalators. They landed in a flurry of arms and legs, wind knocked from them, but striking nothing hard which could cause serious damage. Culver was only slightly dazed and the flashlight was still gripped firmly in his hand.

'Dealey, where the Christ are you?' he shouted. He pulled at a hand rising from the bodies beneath him and released it when he realised it wasn't the blind man. 'Dealey!'

'Here. I'm here. Help me.'

Culver used the flashlight to pinpoint the voice's source; the emergency lighting was very limited. He found Dealey and tugged him free.

‘You okay?' he asked.

‘I’ll find out later,' came the reply. 'So long as we can both walk, that's all that matters for the moment.

We must find the eastbound tunnel.'

'It's over there.' Culver pointed the beam in that direction as though the other man could see.

"Westbound is on a lower level than this.' The flashlight was almost knocked from his hand as someone hurtled by. The congestion at the foot of the escalators was growing worse and both men fought to resist the human tide. Culver helped up one of the men who had cushioned his fall moments earlier.

He pulled the man's face close to his. "Why is everyone running from the tunnels? It's the only safe place!'

The man tried to get away from him, but Culver held on. "What is it? What's in there?'

'Something ... something in the tunnel. I couldn't see, but others did! They were cut, bleeding. They said they'd been attacked in there. Please, let me go!'

'Attacked by what?'

'I don't know!' the man screamed. 'Just let me go!' He tore himself free and was instantly swallowed up by the crowd.

Culver turned to Dealey. 'Did you hear that? Something else is in that tunnel.'

'It's mass hysteria, that's all, and it's understandable under the circumstances. Everyone's still in a state of shock.'

'He said they were bleeding.'

Td imagine there are not too many people who haven't been injured in some way. Perhaps a rat or some other creature got trodden on in there and bit back. Whoever was bitten obviously panicked the others.'

Culver wasn't convinced, but he had no intention of returning to the world above where the air would be laden with radiation-contaminated particles by now. "We'll have to fight our way through.'

'I'll do what I can to help.'

'All right. Get behind me and hold tight. I'm going to push my way in - you can put your weight behind me. Keep pushing, no matter what.'

Culver shielded his face with his arms, the torch held before him as an extra guard, and together he and Dealey forced their way through the mob like swimmers against a strong current. It was hard going and both men were soaked with sweat before they reached the outer fringes of the crowd. There they found others who had not joined the throng, those who were wary of what lay behind them, but who realized the danger from above. And then there were those who could not move: the injured, the dead.

The platform's through here,' Culver said as they reached one of the platform's entrances. He glanced back at the escalators, at the thick mass of shuffling bodies, the stairs crammed with a struggling, heaving crowd. One slip, he thought, and hundreds will be crushed. He was glad not to be among them. And then he noticed there were more pouring from the shorter staircase leading up from the westbound platform; they frantically joined the mass, their shouts mingling with those of the others. He was curious: why should the panic have spread to a totally different tunnel, the one below the eastbound?

We can't stop here, Culver. We must keep going.' Dealey was leaning against the smooth, yellow-tiled wall, his portly frame sagging, clothes in disarray. Culver pushed the disturbing thought from his mind and led the other man out onto the platform. There was no train on the track.

'D'you think there's still power in the lines?' Culver asked worriedly.

'I doubt it. Didn't you say that only the emergency lights

were on? I think the main power has been cut. Is there a train in the station?'

'No.'

Then the trains are probably stuck in the tunnels; I think we can assume the tracks are dead.'

You assume it. I'll walk between the lines.'

Take me to the tunnel entrance. To the, er, left, the east. We have to go back down the line.'

'Look, I'm not so sure. Those people seemed pretty scared of whatever was in there.'

"We've been through all that.'

'People were running from the other platform too, the one below this. How do you explain that?'

'I don't need to. We have no choice but to find the shelter.'

We could stay here. It's deep enough underground to be safe.'

'Not necessarily. It isn't sealed; there are openings, vents, all along the tunnels where radiation can penetrate.'

'Are you always so pessimistic?'

'I'm sorry, but it's pointless pretending optimism under these circumstances. From now on, we must consider the worst possibilities if we're to live.'

'How far into the tunnel is this entrance?' Culver looked towards the round arch of the dark tunnel, his brow furrowed in anxious lines.

'Eight to nine hundred yards. It won't take us long.'

'Let's get on with it then.'

The platform entrance was not far from the tunnel itself and the two men approached the black gaping hole cautiously. Culver stepped close to the platform's edge and shone the flashlight into the darkness.

'It looks clear,' he called back over his shoulder to Dealey.

'If there was anything in there the crowds probably scared it off long ago.'

'Let's hope you're right.'

Dealey had felt his way along the side wall and had caught up with Culver. 'How do your eyes feel?'

Culver asked him.

'Bloody sore, but not as bad as before. The stinging is slowly fading.'

Culver nodded and pointed the beam straight into his face.

'Can you see anything at all?'

Dealey blinked. 'No. It hurt even more for a moment, though. Did you shine the light at me?'

'Straight into the pupils. They shrank.'

'It could mean nothing.'

Yeah, keep up the pessimism. Grab my shoulder, and keep your left side against the wall; we're going down.'

The air was cool, clammy, in the tunnel, and they could see the emergency lights stretching one after the other into the blackness, their dim glow barely making an impression. It felt to Culver as if they were descending into a void, an emptiness that was itself threatening. Perhaps it was just the unnatural stillness after the turmoil above; or that he felt an unseen presence, eyes watching him from the shadows. Perhaps his nerves were just stretched to breaking point. Perhaps.

The tunnel curved slightly, the single chain of lights ahead disappearing. The dim glow from the platform behind vanished as they rounded the curve, leaving them in total isolation. Their footsteps echoed hollowly around the arched walls.

Culver noticed there were gaps in the wall to his right; he shone the beam in that direction and light reflected back from another set of tracks.

'I can see another tunnel,' he told Dealey, his voice strangely loud in the confines of the shaft.

'It must be the westbound. Keep your torch to the right -I'd hate to miss the shelter.'

Dealey's weight dragged against him now and he knew the man was near to exhaustion. His eyes must have hurt like hell and the mental agony of not knowing if he was permanently blinded couldn't have helped much. Again, he wondered who the man was and how he knew about the shelter. Obviously he—

Something had moved in the darkness ahead. He'd heard it. A scurrying sound.

Why have you stopped?' Dealey was clenching his arm tightly.

'I thought I heard something.'

'Can you see anything?'

He swung the torch around in a wide arc. 'Nothing.'

They went on, their pace quickened despite the tiredness that dragged at them, their senses acutely aware, a sudden, awful foreboding growing within. Culver frantically searched for the opening, the doorway that would lead them to safety. There were recesses in the wall, but none held the magic door.

Surely they must be near. They'd walked more than eight hundred yards. It felt like eight miles. They had to find it soon. Jesus, let them find it soon.

He fell. Something was lying across the line. Something that had tripped him.

'Culver!' Dealey shouted, suddenly alone. He stumbled forwards, arms outstretched, sightless eyes wide, and he, too, fell over the something that lay across the line.

His hands touched metal and quickly recoiled. At least they were now certain of one thing; there was no power in

the line. His hands scrabbled around in the darkness. Felt something. Soft. Sticky soft, a head, a face.

'Culver? Are you all right?'

His guide's voice came from further away. 'Don't move, Dealey. Don't touch any more.'

But it was too late. His groping fingers had found the eyes. But there were no eyes. Just deep, viscous sockets that sucked at his fingers as he withdrew them. He fell back and his hand touched something else. It was warm, and it was abhorrent. It was something slippery and it belonged inside a body, not outside.

'Keep still!' Culver's voice commanded again.

Dealey's throat was too constricted to allow speech.

Culver, lying sprawled across the outer track, shone the flashlight around them. Bodies littered the tunnel. Black shapes moved among them, feeding off them.

They crouched, eluding the beam. Or scuttled away, back into the shadows.

'Oh, no, I don't believe it.' Culver's voice was a moan.

Tell me what's there, Culver. Please tell me.'

'Keep still. Just don't move for a moment'

Slowly, very slowly, he pushed himself into a sitting position. The light flashed across a bristle-haired humped back; the creature tensed, fled.

He half rose, the flashlight held before him. Its beam fell upon a human foot, a leg, a torso, the wicked yellow eyes of the animal squatting on the man's open chest. The creature plunged its bloodied snout deep into the wound, pulling flesh free with huge incisor teeth.

It stopped eating. It watched the man with the torch.

'Dealey.' He kept his voice low, but could not control the tremor. 'Move towards me - slowly - just move slowly.'

The other man did exactly as he was told, the fear in Culver's voice all the warning he needed.

Culver carefully reached for him, remaining crouched, avoiding any sudden movement. He drew the crawling man to him, then moved back so that they were both against the tunnel wall.

What is it?' Dealey whispered.

Culver took a deep breath. 'Rats,' he said quietly. 'But like I've never seen before. They're big.' He wondered at his own understatement.

'Are they black-furred?'

'Everything's black down here.'

'Oh God, not again, not at a time like this.'

Culver glanced at him curiously, but could not see his expression in the darkness. He did not want to take the beam away from the dead bodies or the shapes that moved among them. His eyes narrowed.

Wait a minute. There were a couple of outbreaks of killer Black rats some years ago. Are you saying these are the same breed? We were told they'd been wiped out, for Christ's sake!'

'I can't see them, so I can't say. It's hardly the time to discuss the point, though.'

Teali, I'm with you there. But what do you suggest - we shoo them away?'

'Can you see the shelter door? We must be close.'

Reluctantly, and very slowly, Culver swept the beam across the carnage. He winced when he saw the tangle of torn human forms and fought back nausea as the creatures steadily chewed at their victims. He had never before realized that blood had such a strong odour.

He froze when he saw one rat stealthily creeping towards them, its long body kept low, its haunches hunched and

tensed. The torch beam reflected in its eyes and the creature stopped. It moved its head away from the glare, then moved back a few paces. It slid back in the darkness, unhurried and unconcerned.

'Have you found the doorway yet?' Dealey hissed urgently.

'No. I got distracted.'

The light resumed its slow journey, revealing too much, each new horror chilling him to his core, causing the hand guiding the torch to tremble so that the very cavern seemed to quake. He deliberately aimed the beam along the wall he and Dealey rested against; Dealey had said the doorway was on the right-hand side of the eastbound tunnel. He hated the idea of allowing darkness to conceal the gorging creatures once more, for he felt somehow it was only the light holding them back, as if it were a force-field of sorts. Deep down, he knew he was wrong. They had not been attacked because the vermin were content with their kill for the moment; their hunger could be satiated without further effort.

But if they felt threatened the slaughter would start again, and this time, he and Dealey would be the victims.

Oh Christ, where was that bloody shelter?

The slow-swinging beam came to a halt. What was that?

He moved the light back a few feet.

It came to rest on a figure standing in one of the openings dividing the two tunnels.

She was perfectly still, eyes staring directly ahead into the brickwork of a column opposite the one she leaned against. Her clothes were torn, dirt-smeared; her hair matted, unkempt. She did not appear to be breathing, but she was alive. Alive and shocked rigid.

'Dealey,' Culver said, keeping his voice low. There's a girl on the other side of the track. Just standing there, too scared to move.'

He tensed as a black shape appeared in the opening, at the girl's feet. Its pointed nose twitched in the air before it leapt off the small ledge to be among its gluttonous companions.

'Find the door, man, that's more important.'

Culver grimaced, a smile without humour. You're all heart,' he said.

'If we find the shelter, then we may be able to help her.'

'She could collapse at any moment, and if she does she'll fall right into them. She'd have no chance.'

There isn't much we can do.'

'Maybe not.' Culver began to rise, his back scraping against the brick wall, the movement slow, easy.

'But we're going to try.'

'Culver!' A hand grabbed his sleeve, but he shook it off. He began to move away from the slaughter, backing off in the direction they had come.

'Stay there, Dealey,' he whispered. You'll be okay. They're not ready for dessert just yet.' His black humour did not amuse even himself.

When he felt he was at a safe distance - although a few hundred miles would have felt safer - Culver crossed the track. Then began the cautious, deliberate walk back, keeping the beam low, not wanting to disturb the unholy feast. His footsteps light, Culver stepped through one of the openings onto the adjacent track, hoping none of the creatures was lurking there. Less intimidated by the bloodletting because now it was out of view, he made faster progress.

The girl scarcely blinked at the glare as he reached her from the other side of the opening. He stepped up onto the small ledge and faced her.

'Are you hurt?' he asked, raising his voice a little when there was no response. 'Can you hear me? Are you hurt?'

A tiny flicker of life registered in her eyes, but still she gave no acknowledgement of his presence.

'Culver,' came Dealey's hissed voice from the other side of the tunnel, twenty feet or so back from the opening Culver and the girl stood in. 'I can hear them getting closer. You've got to help me. Please find the shelter.' He sounded desperate, almost tearful, and Culver could understand why. The sucking guzzling of the vermin was nauseating as well as terrifying, and the cracking of small, brittle bones cruelly accentuated the horror.

Becoming impatient with his own caution, Culver quickly swung the wide beam along the opposite wall, starting at a point further down the tunnel. There was more than one recess set in the brickwork, but none held a doorway, until -there it was\ Almost opposite. A goddam iron bloody door! Unmarked, but then it would be!

'Dealey! I've found it!' It was difficult to keep his voice low. 'It's just a little ahead of me, about thirty yards from you. Can you make it on your own?'

The other man was already on his feet. He began to inch along the wall, feeling with his hands, his face almost pressed against the rough brickwork. Culver turned his attention back to the girl.

Her face was smeared with blood and dirt, although he could see no open cuts, and her eyes remained wide and staring. She might have been pretty, he couldn't tell, and her shoulder-length hair might have looked good with the sun reflecting highlights, but again, it was hard to tell and not the uppermost consideration in his mind. When his hand touched her shoulder the air exploded with her scream.

He staggered back from her thrusting arms, his head striking the column behind. His eyes closed for just an instant, but when they opened she had gone. He swung the torch and found her again. She had fallen among the half-eaten bodies, startling the black vermin so that they scurried away. And now he saw just how many of the creatures there were.

Hundreds! My God, more. Many more! 'Dealey, get to the shelter! Move as fast as you can!' The girl was trying to rise, trying to crawl away from the glare, and the rats had stopped, were turning, were watching her, were no longer afraid.

He jumped, slipped, lay sprawled, the flashlight gone from his grasp. His hands were in a sticky mess and he quickly withdrew them, afraid to see what they had touched. The girl was only a few feet away and he lunged for her ankle to prevent her moving any further, for the beasts were waiting for her just beyond the circle of light.

She screamed again when he gripped her leg and pulled her back. His other hand scrabbled around for the torch, ignoring the wet, mushy things he touched in the darkness. He grabbed the handle, but the girl was fighting against him, kicking, turning and beating at him with her fists. The taste of blood was in his mouth and he turned his head aside to avoid the blows. A weight thudded against him and he felt something tear at his thigh.

He cried aloud and brought the heavy flashlight down hard on the rat's spine. It squealed, high-pitched, piercing, but its teeth would not release their grip. The flashlight came down again, harder, harder, again, and the creature's claws scrabbled at the dust beneath it. It released its hold, squealing, the sound of a baby in pain. Culver struck again and it staggered sideways. But it did not run.

Culver jumped to his feet, the fear overcoming his exhaustion; he stamped on the creature's skull, his boot crunching bones, squashing the substance beneath. The rat writhed, twitching spasmodically between the human bodies it had been feeding off, its screeches becoming a mewling sound, fading as it died.

He saw the other rat just before it leapt and brought the torch round in a crushing swing, striking the black, bristling body in mid-air, his whole weight behind the blow, losing balance as he followed through.

He was on the ground again, among the corpses. Why didn't the creatures attack in force? What were they waiting for? The answer flashed into his mind as he scrambled to his feet: they were testing his strength! The first two were just the advance party; the rest would follow now that they knew how weak their opponent was! There was no time to wonder at their cunning.

He pulled the girl up, holding her around the waist, and flashed the light around the tunnel.

They were waiting there, watching him. Dark, hunched monsters, with evil yellow eyes. Slanted eyes that somehow glinted an unusual intelligence. Their bodies quivered as one and he knew they were ready to strike.

The girl pulled against him and he clamped a hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming again.

He ignored the pain as she bit into him. In the periphery of his vision he saw Dealey edging his way along the wall.

'It's just a few feet ahead of you,' he said, fighting to keep down the hysteria. 'For Christ's sake, Dealey, get that bloody door open.'

Culver began to make for the recess himself, forcing the girl to go with him, moving inch by inch, careful not to stumble over a body, to slip in the blood. Fortunately, the girl seemed to realize what was happening. She was still tense, stiff, but she no longer fought. He eased his grip over her mouth.

The rats had started to creep forward.

He risked a look at Dealey. The blind man had reached the door. But he was sagging against it. His face was turning in Culver's direction. His eyes were closed tight and his mouth was open in a silent moan of agony.

'Dealey?' Culver said, still moving towards him.

The keys. The keys were in my briefcase!' His last words were screeched and his fists began to flail at the door's metal surface.

'Don't!' Culver warned, but it was too late. The screams and the banging had spurred the black creatures into attack.

Culver cried out as the leaping bodies slammed into him, his arms instinctively protecting his face. Both he and the girl went down under the weight and a million razor-sharp teeth seemed to sink into his skin.

He kicked, thrashed out with his arms, shouted his pain and terror.

The tunnel shook. Dust and bricks fell from the ceiling. The explosion ricocheted around and around the curved walls, spiralling towards them, heaving the earth. Three hundred yards away, the tunnel collapsed, flames roaring through in a great ball that billowed outwards.

The vermin screeched, their attack on the two humans forgotten. They cowered to the ground, a mass of dark quivering bodies, completely still, they themselves now rigid with fear.

Culver rose to his elbows and swiped at a rat nestled on his lap. It fell to one side with a snarling hiss, but did not retaliate.

Another explosion, louder than the first, and the fireball expanded, raced towards them along the tunnel, filling every inch, a swelling yellow that scorched the walls.

The creatures ran, scrabbling over the bodies, slithering past or leaping over Culver and the girl, squealing in alarm,

they themselves the hunted now, the fast-approaching billowing flames the merciless hunter.

Culver was on his feet, lifting the girl, the vermin forming a dark-flowing river around his legs. He ran with her, just a few feet, praying that the recess in which Dealey knelt would offer some protection, the wall of fire hurrying to meet them, eager to incinerate them in its fiery embrace.

It was too near, they could never make it! He jumped the last few feet, the dead weight of the girl unnoticed in his panic.

They crashed into the metal doorway as the flames reached them and Culver felt the searing heat against his skin, licking at his clothes.

It was hopeless. The narrow refuge could offer little protection as the fire swept by. They would all be burnt to a crisp.

And then he was tumbling forward with the others, falling into a different light, the metal door giving way, the scorching flames at his back, dropping, tumbling, over and over and over, never wishing to stop, the world just light and pain and sound...

And then blackness.

'Oh, Jes—'

A gentle hand forced him back down onto the narrow

bunkbed. •

'It's all right,' a voice equally gentle said. You've got a nasty wound in your leg; we're dealing with it.'

Culver looked up into the white face that seemed to hover above him. The woman was frightened - he could just detect the glimmer of alarm hiding behind her outwardly calm gaze - but she worked steadily, professionally, swabbing away the blood from the gash in his thigh.

You were lucky,' she told him. 'Whatever did this just missed the artery.'

You sure?'

She didn't smile. 'If the artery had been severed we'd have both been painted bright scarlet by now.

And you'd be considerably weaker than you appear to be. No, the blood's deep red and it's flowing rather than spurting, so it's not too serious. What did this, anyway?'

He closed his eyes, but the memory became even sharper. 'I don't think you'd believe me.'

The woman stopped working momentarily. 'After today, after this madness, I'm prepared to believe anything and anybody.'

A silence fell between them, one which Culver eventually broke.

There were rats in the tunnels,' he said. 'But like no goddam rats I've ever seen before.'

She looked at him curiously.

They were big, some as big as dogs. They ... they were feeding off people who'd fled into the tunnel.'

They attacked you?'

He nodded. They attacked. It's hard to think ... I don't know how...'

'Some of the engineers heard you pounding on the emergency door. You literally fell in among us.'

He tried to look around him. 'Just who ... what is this place?'

'Officially it's the Kingsway telephone exchange. Equally officially, but not for public knowledge, it's a government nuclear shelter. You happen to be in the sick bay at the moment.'

Over her shoulder, Culver could see other two-tiered bunkbeds. It was a small room with grey walls and ceiling; strip-lighting glared overhead. There were other figures around a bed further down.

The woman followed his gaze. The girl you brought in with you is being treated for shock. I took a look at her first - she doesn't appear to have sustained any serious injuries, just minor cuts and bruises. Her hair is a little singed, but you must have protected her from the fire out there.'

'Fire?'

'Don't you remember? The engineers said the tunnel was ablaze for a few seconds, a fireball of some kind. You'd have all roasted if the door hadn't been opened at the crucial moment. As it was, you were lucky you were wearing a thick leather jacket or your back would have peeled ...'

"Where's Dealey?'

'... the skin on your hands and the back of your neck is scorched...'

'He didn't make it.' Culver sat up.

A hand splayed against his chest and eased him back down again.

'He made it. He's talking with the CDO ...'

The what?'

'Civil Defence officer. Dealey wanted me to take care of you and the girl first.'

‘You know he's been blinded?'

'Of course. With luck, it may only be short-term; it depends on how long he looked into the flash. I assume that's how it happened?'

"Yeah. And it was only for a split-second.'

'He may be fortunate, then. It'll be a long wait for him, though.'

She busied herself tending his wound and for the first time he was aware of his naked legs.

'If it was a rat bite we'll need to disinfect. You'll need an anti-tetanus jab, too,' she muttered. 'Feeling strong?'

'Not particularly. Who are you?'

'Doctor Clare Reynolds.' Still no smile. 'I'm only here for a meeting with Alex Dealey and several others which was scheduled for this afternoon.'

‘You work for the government?'

This time a brief, tight smile flashed. 'I was drafted in when the situation reached crisis point. Normal precautions; nobody thought it would escalate to this. Nobody.'

She turned to a small trolley by her side and poured fluid onto a small pad. Wisps of premature grey mingled with the dark auburn of her hair, which was cut short in a practical rather than glamorous style.

Her features were pinched taut - not surprising in the circumstances - and her pale skin seemed almost anaemic, although that could have been due to the harsh lights above (or again, the circumstances). He noticed she was wearing a wedding ring.

She turned back to him. This is going to sting,' she warned, brushing the soaked pad into the gash.

'Shhhhh—' Culver gripped the sides of the bunk '—iiiiit!'

'No masochist you. Okay, it's done. No need for stitches, just a pad will do. We don't want to bury any infection. You've a mass of smaller wounds and abrasions but no serious burns from the fire. I'll treat them and then I want to put you out for a short time; you've been through a lot.'

Td rather you didn't.'

'Sure you would. Just think yourself lucky to be out of this for a while. What's your name, by the way?'

'Steve Culver.'

'Pleased to know you, Mr Culver. I think we'll be seeing a lot of each other.'

What happened, Doctor? Why did they let it happen?'

'It all comes down to greed in the end.' Some of the forced stiffness went out of her. 'And envy. Let's not forget our old friend envy.'

She finished dressing the wound, and administered the anti-tetanus injection; then she reached back into the trolley for a Diazepam-filled syringe.

He awoke to find a different pair of eyes staring down at him. Her blonde hair fell around her face, a face that was still marked and grimy from the ordeal in the tunnel. Her eyes were wide, and unlike the doctor's cried out her fear. A hand clutched at his shoulder.

'Where am I?' she asked, almost in a whisper. 'Please tell me.'

He struggled to sit up and his head rode a coaster. Her hand tightened on his shoulder, digging into the flesh.

Take it easy,' he begged. 'Just give me a minute.'

Culver slowly eased his back against the wall behind and waited for the spinning to stop. His head began to clear, making way for jumbled thoughts to rush in. His senses sharpened rapidly as he remembered. The dread drifted down into the lower regions of his stomach like a ship sinking to the sea bed. He looked at the girl, then pushed a hand between her hair and cheek.

‘You're safe now,' he told her softly. He wanted to hold her, to hug her to his chest, to tell her it was all a bad dream that had ended. But he knew it was just beginning.

We're in a government shelter,' he said. The entrance was in the tunnel near where we found you.'

He watched her shudder.

'I remember.' Her voice, her gaze, was distant. We heard the sirens. No one could believe it was really happening, but we ran, we hid. We thought the tunnels would protect us. Those things ...' She broke and he pulled her to him.

Her sobs were muffled against his chest and he felt his own emotional barrier, a shield that was tissue-thin, beginning to tear. There was a closeness between them - he was sure it was shared - an intimacy imposed by what they had both been through, a desperate touching of spirits. Culver held on to the girl and fought against his own despair.

After what seemed a long while, her shuddering stopped, although she continued to tremble slightly.

She pulled away from him.

Were ... were you the one who helped me? Out there, when those ...Oh, God, what were they?

'Vermin,' he answered, keeping his voice calm. 'Rats that must have been breeding underground for years.'

'But their size! How could they get to that size?'

'Mutants,' he told her. 'Monsters that should have been wiped out years ago when they first appeared.

We were told that they had been, but it looks like we were misinformed. Or deceived.'

'How could they survive, how could they breed, how could they go unnoticed?' Her voice was rising and Culver could see she was beginning to lose control again.

'Maybe we'll find the answers later,' he answered soothingly. The main thing is that we're safe now.

Whatever's above, whatever's in the tunnels, can't touch us here.'

He would never forget the haunting shadow that touched her face at that moment. 'Is ... is there anything left ... above?'

He could not answer. To have done so, to have had to think of it, would have broken him. Push it away, Culver, save it for later. It was too much to take right now, too much to envisage. Keep away thoughts of black-charred children, torn bodies, crushed, bewildered children, a devastated, ravaged city, country - world? - contaminated, shrieking, children, children, children!

He had cried out then, not loudly, not frenziedly; a piteous sound that was faint, but nevertheless, an outpouring of anguish. And now it was the girl who comforted him.

The doctor came for them a little later. She stopped for a moment in the doorway of the small sick bay, briefly wishing that she, too, had a pair of arms to fall into, someone who would hold her, tell her things would be all right... if

only she knew if Simon ... mustn't think about it, mustn't even consider her husband's death.

'How are you both feeling?' she asked, professionalism stifling rising emotion.

They looked at her as if she were some weird alien, perhaps the creator of the havoc above; but the man, Culver, recovered quickly.

'How long were we out for?' he asked as they separated.

'About six hours,' Clare Reynolds glanced at her wrist-watch. 'It's now just after seven. Evening.'

She approached them. 'Now tell me how you're feeling. Any aches, pains, you think I should know about? You?' She looked at the girl.

'I'm just numb.'

The doctor now looked even paler to Culver, if that were possible, but she managed a sad smile. We all are mentally. How do you feel physically? Do you hurt anywhere?'

The girl shook her head.

'Good. Do you want to tell us your name?'

The girl sat upright on the edge of the bed and wiped a hand across her eyes. 'Kate,' she said.

'Surname?'

'Garner.'

'Welcome to the survivors' club, Kate Garner.' The icy tone hardly sounded welcoming. 'How does your leg feel, Mr Culver?'

'Like it was bitten by a rat.' Culver raised his knees beneath the single blanket and rested his wrists over them. What's been going on while we were asleep?'

That's why I'm here. A meeting is about to start in the shelter's dining room. You'll find out all you want to know there. Are you fit enough to get dressed?'

Culver nodded and realized that, for the moment at least, he had put something behind him. The pain, the tormenting images, could be kept in cold storage for a while. They would never leave him, of that he was sure, but for the time being they could be suppressed. A cold fury was taking hold inside and he knew it would help sustain him throughout whatever was yet to come. For a while.

The doctor reached up to the bunkbed above, then tossed his clothes into his lap. 'Jacket's a little burnt and your jeans and shirt are somewhat torn, but no need to worry - the meeting won't be formal. Kate, could you come over to another bed? I just want to have another look at you.'

Culver quickly dressed, wincing at the pain sudden movement caused. He must have been more bruised than he realized, and the whole of his thigh had stiffened. He found his tan boots beneath the bed and grunted as he bent to lace them up; it felt as though someone had slammed a medicine-ball into his stomach. He stood, using the upper bunk as support until he felt steady, then joined the doctor and the girl.

'Everything okay?' he asked, looking from one to the other.

'No serious damage.' The doctor stood. 'Let's join the others.'

'How many "others" are there?' Culver said. 'And who are they?'

'Engineers mostly, technicians permanently based here to operate the telephone equipment. The rest are ROCs -members of the Royal Observer Corps - and one or two Civil Defence people. More should have joined us at the first warning of attack, but...' she shrugged '... such clinically devised plans don't always work out in practice. Especially when a whole city is in a state of panic. There are nearly forty of us in all.'

She led them from the sick bay and both Culver and the girl gasped at the size of the area they had entered.

Impressive, isn't it?' Dr Reynolds said, noticing their astonished looks. 'It would take well over an hour to walk around the whole complex. I won't bore you with a list of technical equipment housed down here

- mainly because I don't understand most of it myself - but we have our own power plant and two standby plants. We also have our own artesian well and purification plant, so water won't be a problem.

That's the switching unit area to the left and the power plant is just ahead of us. Further on is the kitchen, dining room and welfare department; that's where we're headed.'

The harsh glare from the overhead neon lights added to the atmosphere of machine-sterility; no warmth reflected from the grey-green walls. A quiet hum of power indicated electronic life in the non-human world, but Culver noticed that no individual machinery appeared to be functioning. He briefly wondered if there was anyone else left to communicate with.

Eventually, after what seemed like a long journey through confusing corridors, a different kind of humming reached his ears, but this was distinctly human: it was the sound of many voices in low-pitched conversation. The three of them entered the dining room and heads swung round in their direction, all conversation coming to a halt.

Dealey sat at one end of the room, white pads held by a bandage covering his eyes; at the same table, positioned at a right angle to the three rows of dining tables, were two blue-uniformed figures, one female, and two other men in civilian clothes. One of the latter whispered something to Dealey, who stood.

'Please come forward, Mr Culver,' Dealey said. 'And the young lady, too. Dr Reynolds, if you would join us at this table.'

Many of the people in the room were wearing white overalls and all looked pale and tired. They watched Culver and Kate curiously, almost as though they were interlopers gatecrashing an exclusive club. Two seats were offered them and they took their places close to the top table. The doctor sat next to Dealey.

Two mugs and a coffee pot were pushed towards Culver and he nodded his thanks, pouring for himself and the girl. No sugar or milk was offered. The buzz of conversation had started again and, as he raised the mug to his lips, he was aware of the barely suppressed stridency that prevailed. He glanced at Kate; she was gazing into the dark brown liquid as if it would somehow reveal some insane reasoning for all that had happened, some crazy logic as to why man should choose to shatter the very earth he lived upon. He wondered

what she had lost personally - husband, family, lover? No wedding or engagement ring, so perhaps lover or even lovers. Parents, brothers and sisters. The memory of them all had to be bombarding her emotions, a relentless tormentor that only oblivion itself could vanquish. Everyone in the room was going through the same ordeal, the loss of relatives, loved ones, the sense of waste, futility, the fear of what lay ahead for themselves. Culver felt the coldness spreading through him like a creeping night shadow.

He sipped his coffee, realizing he was probably more fortunate than those around him, his losses back there in the past, the worst of his suffering carefully stored away, the lid shut tight. And though he had fought to survive that day, he wasn't sure it really mattered so much to him.

Dealey was conferring with the doctor and the civilians on either side, all three keeping their voices low, conspiratorial. The blind man looked weary, the unhealthy pallor of his skin heightened by the harsh overhead lighting. Culver had to admire his stamina, wondering if he had taken any time at all to rest after their arduous and gut-wrenching ordeal. He must be in pain from the injury to his eyes, and the mental anguish of not knowing whether or not the damage was permanent must in itself have been draining. He seemed different from the frightened, disorientated man that Culver had dragged through the wreckage, almost as if his badge of office (whatever office that might be) had reaffirmed the outward shell, officialdom his retrieved armour. Dealey looked up at the assemblage, his head moving from right to left, as if picking up threads of conversation.

The man next to him stood. 'Can I please have your attention?' he said, his words calm, measured, a rebuttal of the pernicious hysteria that skitted around the room from person to person like some quick-darting gadfly.

Conversation stopped.

To the few who don't already know me, my name is Howard Farraday, and I'm the first line manager or senior engineer of the Kingsway telephone exchange. At the moment, because there is no one of senior position here, that makes me the boss.' He attempted a smile that was barely successful. He cleared his throat. 'Since further excavation work, begun in the 1950s, Kingsway has had a dual role: that of automatic exchange, carrying some five hundred lines, and as a government deep shelter. Most of you will be aware that the first ever NATO transatlantic cable terminates here.' He paused again, a tall man whose normal stature would have been described as robust had not the events of that day dragged at his shoulders and hued shadows of weariness around his eyes. His voice was quieter when he continued, as if his earlier confidence was fast draining from him. 'I think you'll also have been aware of the increased activity regarding Kingsway over the past few weeks; standard procedure, I might add, in times of international crisis. Although ... although the situation was regarded as serious, no one imagined this ...

this ... that events would escalate to such disastrous proportions..."

Culver shook his head at the jargonized description of the genocide. The coffee was bitter in his mouth and the wound in his thigh throbbed dully. His rancour, his deep-felt hate for those who had instigated the devastation, was frozen within for the moment with the rest of his emotions.

'... because of the increasing hostilities in the Middle East, and Russia's invasion of Iran, all such government establishments have been receiving similar attention ...'

The man droned on and what he said meant little to Culver. Words, just words. Nothing could adequately convey the horror, the dreadful loss, the ravages of what was yet to come. Once more his eyes were drawn to the girl; her gaze was still cast downwards, both hands clasped tight around the coffee mug, oblivious to its heat. His fingers curled around her wrist and at first there was no response; then she looked his way and the mixture of anguish and anger in her eyes bored into his own steadied emotions. He exerted soft pressure and now her expression was one of confusion: she seemed to be silently asking him why had it happened, why had they been spared? Questions he asked of himself and questions to which there were no answers. Man's madness to one, God's will to the other. No real answers.

Farraday was gesturing towards the seated man on his left '... senior Civil Defence officer, Alistair Bryce. Next to me here, on my right, is Mr Alex Dealey who is from the Ministry of Defence, and next to him, Dr Clare Reynolds, who has been associated with this particular establishment for some time now, so many of you will already know her. Then we have two Royal Observer Corps officers, Bob McEwen and Sheila Kennedy, whom you may also have seen from time to time on inspection duty. There should have been several other, er, officials, with us today - a meeting had been planned for this afternoon.

Regrettably, they did not reach the shelter.' He swept back a lock of hair that dangled over his forehead, his upper body tilting backwards as if to assist the manoeuvre. 'Perhaps, Alex, you would like to continue.' The tall man slumped rather than sat, his hands clenched tight on the table before him, his shoulders hunched. Culver had the impression that Farraday's address had ended not a moment too soon; the man was ready to crack.

Dealey did not rise. And there was something chilling about listening to a man whose expression was hidden behind a white mask.

'Let me start,' he said, his voice surprisingly filling the greyish-green-walled dining room without raising itself beyond conversational level, 'by saying I know how each and every one of you must be feeling.

You're afraid for your families, your loved ones, wondering if they have survived the nuclear explosion.

Afraid, too, for yourselves: is this shelter safe from fallout, is there enough food, water, what will be left of the world we know?

Two things I can reassure you of immediately: we are all well protected here, and there are provisions to last for six weeks, probably longer. As for water, those of you who are employed here will know that the complex has its own artesian well, so there will be no risk of contamination. I think it's important to stress these factors to relieve your minds of just some of the terrible burden they are bearing.'

There was still an uncomfortable, unnatural silence around the room.

'Mr Farraday has already mentioned that I'm from the Ministry of Defence. Actually I belong to the Inspector of Establishments division and I suppose you could call me a government shelter liaison officer

- one of the chaps who sees that our underground defence units are in running order and in a permanent state of preparation.'

He leaned forward on the desk as if taking the whole room into his confidence. 'It's because of that specific role that I have full knowledge of every underground shelter and deep shelter, both public and governmental, in London and the surrounding counties, and that I can assure you that we are neither alone nor isolated.'

At last there were murmurs among the gathering, at last a reaction. Dealey raised a hand to bring the room to order.

'Before I give you general details of these shelters and operations centres, I think it best we appraise our present

position and, of course, I'm sure the questions uppermost in your minds must be what exactly has happened, and what is the extent of the damage to our country?'

He placed both hands flat on the table. 'Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing the answers.'

This time the murmuring was stronger, and angry voices could be heard over the general buzz.

Farraday quickly cut in.

'Communications with other stations have temporarily been lost. For the moment we cannot even make contact with the underground telecommunications centre near St Paul's, which is less than a mile away.'

'But the tunnel network should have protected the system,' a black engineer sitting close to Culver said sharply.

Tes, you're quite right: the cable tunnels and deep tube tunnels should have afforded ample protection for the communications system. It would appear that the amount of damage nuclear bombs could cause has been badly underestimated and that vital sections in the network have been penetrated.'

Dealey spoke up. 'From information gathered before communications failed, we believe at least five nuclear warheads were directed at London and the surrounding suburbs.' He licked his lips, betraying the first signs of nervousness since the meeting had begun, and his next words came quickly, as though he were anxious to impart the information. "We're not absolutely sure, but we think those targets were Hyde Park, Brentford, Heathrow, Croydon and the last somewhere northeast of the city. The nuclear weapons themselves would have been a mixture of one and two megatons, ground bursts and air bursts.'

Culver was confused. Wait a minute,' he said, raising a

hand like a child in a classroom. ‘You're talking about a cable system being knocked out, right?'

Although their recent conversations had been fraught, mainly shouted, Dealey recognized the voice.

That's correct,' he replied.

Then why can't we communicate by radio?'

Farraday gave the answer. 'One of the effects of a nuclear blast is something we call EMP - electro magnetic pulse. It's an intense burst of radio waves that can destroy electrical networks and communication systems over an area of hundreds of miles. Any circuits with sensitive components such as radios, televisions, radar, computers, and any systems attached to long lengths of cable - telephones, the electricity power grid - are subjected to incredible surges of current which overload and destroy. A lot of the military equipment has been EMP-hardened by putting sensitive circuits inside conducting boxes and laying cables deep underground, but it looks as though even that hasn't been so effective.'

'Jesus, what a fuck-up,' Culver said quietly and those near him who heard nodded their agreement.

Dealey attempted to still the disquiet that was rumbling around the room like muted thunder. 'I must emphasize that these conditions are only temporary. I'm sure contact with other shelters will be made very soon. Mr Farraday himself has assured me of that.'

Farraday looked at him in surprise, but quickly recovered. 'I think we can safely assume that other such shelters have been left intact and are already trying to link up.'

Culver wondered if his statement was as dissatisfying to others as it was to him. He was startled when Kate, her voice dulled but clear to everyone in the room, suddenly said: Why was there no warning?'

'But there was a warning, Miss, er...' Dr Reynolds leaned towards him and whispered the name '...

Garner. Surely you heard the si—'

'Why didn't anybody know it was going to happen?' This time there was an icy shrillness to the question.

There was a short, embarrassed silence at the top table before Dealey answered. 'Nobody, not one person in his right mind, could imagine another country would be foolish enough - no, insane enough! - to begin a Third World War with nuclear arms. It defies all sensibilities, all logic. Our government cannot be blamed for the lunatic suicidal tendencies of another nation. When the USSR land forces invaded Iran with a view to overrunning all the oil states, they were warned that retaliatory steps would be taken by the Combined World Forces ...'

They should have been stopped when they took total control of Afghanistan, and then Pakistan!'

someone shouted from the back.

'I'm sorry, but political debate is useless at this time. Remember though, at the time of the Afghanistan conflict, there was no Combined Forces, just NATO and the Alliance Pact. Simply, the Western powers did not have the muscle to turn back the Russians; or at least we weren't confident enough to exercise whatever strength we had. It was only when the Gulf States finally decided that the West was the lesser of two evils, that we were able to deploy our forces in strategic positions.'

'But if we hadn't starved Russia of grain and then oil in the first place, they would never have been desperate enough to invade!' the same voice came back.

'Mr Dealey has already said this is not the time for such a discussion,' Farraday interrupted, fearing the meeting could

so easily get out of hand. Hysteria was thick in the air; the smallest upset now could turn it into outrage and perhaps even violence.

'It may not even have been the Russians who fired the first missile, so until we know more let's not argue among ourselves.' He instantly regretted his words, realizing he had just implanted a fresh seed of thought.

Dealey quickly tried to cover the mistake. The point is that nobody imagined the situation had reached such a critical state. Our own government was making provisions for war, just in case, against all odds, it did break out.'

Then why weren't we, the public, told that it was so imminent?' Culver's cold anger was directed solely at Dealey, as though he, the representative figure of government authority, was personally responsible.

'And create nationwide panic? What good would that have done? And besides, nothing was certain; the world has had more than its share of false crises in the past.'

And the world had cried 'wolf' too many times before, Culver thought sourly. The girl was shaking her head, a slight, mournful movement that bespoke bewilderment as well as despair.

'I repeat,' Dealey went on, 'the prime motive for us all is survival. We've managed to live through the worst, now we must cope with the aftermath.' His eyes seemed to bore through the white gauze covering them, defying every man and woman in the room to deny the rhetoric. 'Retrospection in our present circumstances can be of no constructive value whatsoever,' he added unnecessarily.

The uneasy silence indicated reluctant agreement.

'Now perhaps our CDO can advise us on what will happen over the next few weeks.' Dealey sat back in his chair, his

masked face inscrutable, only the quick darting of his tongue across already moist lips again betraying an inner nervousness.

The senior Civil Defence officer decided he would carry more authority if he stood. Alistair Bryce was a small, balding man, whose jowls hung in flaps on either side of his round face; heavy pouches under his eyes completed the impression of a face made up of thick, spilled-over liquid. His eyes were sharp, however, and never still, bouncing quickly from left to right like blue pinballs.

'A few words, first, about what's likely to have occurred above us. What I'm going to say will frighten you, will distress you, but the time for lies is long-gone. If we are to survive, we have to work together as a unit, and we've got to trust each other.' His eyes took a more leisurely sweep around the room. 'I promise you this: our chances for survival are good; only our own fear can defeat us.'

He drew in a long breath as though about to plunge into deep water, feeling, in a metaphorical sense, this was the case.

'Anywhere between sixteen and thirty per cent of people in the Greater London area will have been killed outright. I know official figures lean towards the lower estimate, but as I said it's time for honesty.

My opinion is that the number of dead will be at least twenty-eight per cent, and that's on the conservative side.'

He allowed a little time for the unsettling information to sink in. 'Another thirty to thirty-six per cent will have been injured by the blast alone. Many will have been crushed or trapped in buildings, or cut by flying glass. The list of various types of injury would be endless, so it's pointless to itemize. It's enough to say that burns, shock and mutilation will be

widespread, and many will have received permanent or temporary eye damage caused by retinal burns from the initial flash.

'Blast pressure from each of the bombs will have damaged approximately seventy-five per cent of the Greater London area: most tall buildings and many bridges will have collapsed, and the majority of roads will have been blocked by rubble, fallen telegraph poles and lamp posts, and overturned vehicles. About thirty per cent of the houses in the city and suburbs will have been reduced to rubble, and over forty per cent too badly damaged to be repaired in the immediate future. I hardly need to say there probably won't be an unbroken window left in the capital.'

Bryce's face looked drained of blood, his overhanging jowls resembling empty money pouches.

Perversely, he seemed to be taking refuge behind his own cold facts, as though the words had no real meaning, but were the considered statistics of an imagined war. It was a stance that enabled him to cope with his own emotion. 'Fire damage will be extensive and I'm afraid our fire services will be little more than useless. It may be that most of London above us is in flames.'

The cries, the sighing moans of despair, could no longer be contained. Several men and women were weeping openly, while others merely sat grim-faced, staring straight ahead as if seeing something beyond the room, beyond the shelter. Perhaps the suffering that was out there.

Kate had slumped forward on the table and he drew her close, using soft pressure against her initial resistance. She, along with Dealey and himself, had probably gone through more horrors that day than anyone else in the room, for they had been out there in the destruction, running for safety with the crowds, taking refuge in the tunnels. Almost eaten alive by rats. He wondered how much more her mind could take without losing grip totally.

Bryce raised both hands to quieten them and said reluctantly, There is still a consequence of the attack that must be dealt with. I know it's difficult for every man and woman in this room, but the reality of what has happened and what is going to happen must be faced now. If we are all aware of the worst effects of nuclear war, then nothing will be unexpected, nothing more will further demoralize us. Hopefully,' he added ominously.

The next problem for every survivor of the blast is fallout. Most of the city's population would have had less than half an hour to get under cover before radioactive dust fell. Those still unprotected within six hours of the attack will have received a lethal dose of radiation and will die within a matter of days or weeks, depending on the individual dosage. And of course, anyone injured by the blast or its effects will be even more susceptible to radiation. Unofficial figures indicate that around four million people within the Greater London boundaries will be dead or dying within two weeks of the attack, from a lethal dose of more than 6,000 rads.'

Farraday's voice was shaky when he spoke and Culver had the impression that he asked the next question for the benefit of his staff rather than his own curiosity.

'Can you tell us how many will be left alive after all this?'

Eyes riveted on the Civil Defence officer. He was thoughtful for a moment or two, as though silently counting bodies.

'I would say, and this is purely a rough judgement on my part, that barely a million Londoners will survive.'

He paused again, his eyes cast downwards, as though expecting uproar; but the hushed silence that filled the room was even more daunting.

We can't be sure of any of these figures,' Dealey said, his voice hasty but sombre. 'No one can really predict the results of a nuclear attack because there are no precedents - at least, not on this scale.'

That's perfectly true,' Bryce accepted, 'but my observations are more than mere conjecture. There have been many well-researched reports, official and unofficial, on just this subject over the past few years, using the devastation inflicted upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a basis for speculation. The sophistication and advanced striking power of modern weapons were obviously taken into consideration, along with the living conditions of today's society. I'm basing my assumptions on a compromise between government and independent calculations.'

'Nevertheless, we cannot be sure.' Dealey's rebuke was unmistakable. Culver guessed that there had been an earlier, more private meeting between those at the top table, a clandestine conference to decide just what the 'masses' (there was now a tragic irony in that word) should be told. It seemed they hadn't all been in agreement.

We've got families out there!' It was a wild shout and Culver turned to see a small man at a centre table who had risen to his feet, his fists clenched, a moistness to the anger in his eyes. We've got to get to them! We can't leave them out there on their own—'

'No!' There was a brutal coldness to Dealey. We can't leave this shelter to help anyone. It would be fatal.'

'Do you think we care about that?' This time a woman was on her feet, her tears unrestrained. 'Do you think there's anything left for us here? Any life for us to live?'

Other voices joined hers.

'Please!' Dealey's arms were raised once more. We must not lose control! It's only if we survive - and other units like

ours - that we can help the people outside. If we panic, then the survivors of the blast will have no chance at all. You must understand that!'

Farraday leapt to his feet. 'He's right. If we leave this shelter too soon we'll be subjected to lethal doses of radiation poisoning. How will killing ourselves save those on the outside?'

They understood the logic of his argument, but such high emotion was not subservient to hard fact.

There were more shouts, some of them abusive and particularly directed towards Dealey, as a Ministry of Defence employee.

It was Dr Reynolds who calmly brought the room to order.

'If any of you go out from this shelter now, you'll be dead within a matter of weeks, possibly days.' Her voice was raised just enough to be heard over the clamour. She too was standing, her hands tucked into the pockets of her open white tunic, and it was probably the uniform of her profession that gave her some credibility. She represented the physical antithesis of Dealey, a man who was the puppet of a government that had brought their country to war. Their vehemence towards Dealey may have been unjustified (and most of those present realized this despite their anger) but he was there, one of the faceless bureaucrats, within their reach, within striking distance.

Dr Reynolds was well aware of whom the rising hysteria was aimed at, and in some respects could understand it, for these shattered people needed something tangible to blame, someone to be held responsible. Dealey, as far as they're concerned, you're it!

'I can tell you this,' she said, the noise beginning to subside. 'It won't be a pleasant death. First you'll feel nauseous, and your skin will turn red, your mouth and throat inflamed. You won't have much strength. Vomiting will follow and you'll suffer pretty excruciating diarrhoea for a few days. You may start to feel a little better after this, but I promise you it won't last.

'All those symptoms are going to return with a vengeance, and you'll sweat, your skin will blister and your hair will fall out.

"You women will find your menstruation cycle will ignore the usual rules - you'll bleed a lot, and badly.

You men will have pain in your genitals. If you do survive - which I doubt - you'll be sterile, or worse: the chances are that any offspring will be abnormal.

'Leukaemia will be a disease you'll know all about - from a personal point of view.

Towards the end your intestines will be blocked. You might find that the worst discomfort of all.

'Finally, and perhaps mercifully, the convulsions will hit you, and after that you won't care very much.

You'll sink into a brief coma, then you'll be dead.'

The eyes behind the large glasses were expressionless.

Jesus, thought Culver, she didn't pull her punches.

There are other milder results of irradiation if you'd like to hear them.' She was coldly relentless, deliberately frightening them into staying. 'Food won't do you any good - you won't be able to extract essential nourishment. All the tissue in your body will age dramatically. There'll be a contraction of the bladder, bone fractures that won't mend, inflammation of the kidneys, liver, spinal cord and heart, bronchopneumonia, thrombosis, cancer and aplastic anaemia which will lead to subcutaneous haemorrhaging - in other words you'll bleed to death under the skin.

'And if that isn't enough, you'll have the pleasure of watching others around you dying in the same way, watching

the agonies of those in the more advanced stages, witnessing what you, yourself, will soon be going through.

'So if you want to leave, if you want to expose yourself to all that, knowing you'll be too ill to help others, I don't see why we should stop you. In fact, I'll plead on your behalf to allow you out, because you'll only cause dissension in this shelter. Any takers?'

She sat when she was sure there wouldn't be.

Thank you, Dr Reynolds,' said Dealey, 'for explaining the reality of the situation.'

She did not look at Dealey, but Culver could see there was no appreciation of his thanks.

'Perhaps now that you've heard everything at its pessimistic worst, we can continue on a more constructive note.' Dealey briefly touched the bandages over his eyes, as though they were causing discomfort. 'I said earlier that we were not isolated here in this shelter. I know our lines of communication have been temporarily cut, but at least we're secure in the knowledge that there are many others who will have survived the blast in shelters such as this. And all these within the central area are connected by either the Post Office tube railway or the London Transport Underground system.'

'It stands to reason that if our radio and telephone connections have been knocked out then these tunnels will have been destroyed too,' someone called out.

True enough. I'm sure a few of the tunnels have been damaged, perhaps even destroyed completely, but there are too many for the whole system to have been wrecked. And also, certain buildings have been constructed to withstand nuclear explosions, buildings such as the Montague House "Fortress" and the Admiralty blockhouse in The Mall. I won't give details of all the bunkers and what are called

"citadels"

that have been built since the last World War, but I can tell you that there are at least six shelters on the Northern line tunnel system alone, below stations such as Clapham South and Stockwell...'

Culver had the feeling that however candid Dealey was appearing to be as he listed other sites in and around London, he was still holding back, still not telling all. He mentally shrugged; it would be hard to trust any 'government' man from now on.

'... and a National Seat of Government will be set up outside London, and the country divided up into twelve regional seats, with twenty-three sub-regional headquarters ...'

Was anyone in the room really listening to Dealey now?

'... county and district controls ...'

Did any of it make sense?

'... sub-district controls, which will liaise with community posts...'

'Dealey!'

Heads turned to look at Culver. Dealey stopped speaking, and the tell-tale tongue flicked across his lips.

'Have you told anybody about the creatures out there?' Culver's voice was level, but there was a tightness to it. Kate beside him stiffened.

'I hardly think it need wor—'

'It's got to worry us, Dealey, because sooner or later we've got to go out there into those tunnels. The main entrance is blocked, remember? The tunnels are our only way out.'

'I doubt they'll stay underground. They'll scavenge for... food ... on the surface. And in that case, they'll die from radiation poisoning.'

Culver smiled grimly. 'I don't think you've been doing your homework.'

Farraday broke in. 'What's he talking about? What are these creatures?'

This time it was Dr Reynolds who spoke. She removed her glasses and polished them with a small handkerchief. 'Dealey, Culver and Miss Garner were attacked by rats outside this shelter. It appears they were particularly large and, to say the least, unusually ferocious. They had attacked and were devouring survivors who had taken shelter in the tunnels.'

Farraday frowned and looked back at Culver. 'Just how large were they?'

Culver opened his arms like a boastful fisherman. 'Like dogs,' he replied.

More silence, more stunned dismay.

They will be no threat to us,' Dealey insisted. 'By the time we leave this shelter, most of these vermin will be dead.'

Culver shook his head and Dr Reynolds answered. ‘You really should have known this, Mr Dealey. Or perhaps you wanted to forget. You see, certain forms of life are highly resistant to radiation. Insects are, for instance. And so, too, are rats.'

She replaced the spectacles.

'And,' she continued in almost a sigh, 'if these creatures are descendants of the Black rats that terrorized London just a few years ago - and from their size, I'd say they were -then not only will they be resistant to radiation, but they'll thrive on it.'

A noise.

He listened intently.

A scratching sound.

He waited.

Nothing. Gone now.

Klimpton tried to stretch his body, but there wasn't room even to straighten his legs. He flexed the muscles in his back and twisted his neck from side to side, refraining from groaning, not wanting to wake the others.

What time was it?

The digital figures of his watch glowed green on his wrist. 23.40. Night.

There was no other way of telling night from day, not there, not in their small dusty prison.

How long? Dear God, how long had they been down there? Two days? Three? A week? No, it couldn't be that long. Could it? Time didn't count for much when shadows failed to move.

But what had woken him? Had Kevin cried out in his sleep once more? What did the boy think of the grown-up world now?

Klimpton reached for the small pen-light he carried in his shirt pocket and flicked it on, sheltering the small beam with his hand. The urge to switch on the larger lamp hanging from a peg just above his head was strong, but he had to conserve the batteries; no telling how long they would have to stay down there. The candles, too, had to be saved.

He shone the light towards his son, the pin-point of light barely touching the boy's eyes. His sleeping hours had been erratic and restless enough without spoiling what now appeared to be a deep slumber.

Kevin's face was peaceful, his lips slightly parted, only a dust smear on one cheek giving evidence that all was not quite normal. A slight movement of the wrist and another face was revealed close to the boy's, but this was old, the skin grey, like dry, wrinkled paper. Gran's mouth was open too, but it held none of the sensuous innocence of his son's. The opening - hardly any lips any more - was too round, the cavern too black and deep. It seemed every breath exhaled let slip a little more of her life. And, face turned towards her, his son drew in that escaping life in short, shallow intakes, as though quietly stealing his grandmother's existence.

'Ian?' Klimpton's wife's voice was distant, full of sleep. He turned the light towards her and she closed her barely-opened eyes against it.

'It's all right,' he whispered. Thought I heard something outside.'

She turned from him, snuggling further down into the sleeping bag. 'It was probably Cassie,' she mumbled. 'Poor dog.' Sian had already returned to her dream before he switched the torch off, and he was hardly surprised; like him, she had only slept fitfully and not for very long since they had been ensconced in the improvised shelter.

Ian Klimpton sat there in the dark beneath the basement stairs, his ears sensitive, eyes watching the blackness. There had been many noises through the dark hours, the wreckage above them settling, distant thunder, far-away explosions that

still managed to make the remains of his house shiver. Sometimes it felt as though the trains were still running below the foundations, but he was sure this couldn't be so. Everything above - and even below -

must have been destroyed by the bombs. At the very least, there could be no more power to run trains.

Thanks to him, his family had been saved. Sian had scoffed when he had studiously read the Home Office's survival booklet and he himself had felt embarrassed by his own attention to it. Nevertheless, he had taken it seriously. Not at first, of course. His initial inclination when the booklet had fallen through the letter-box onto the doormat was to glance through it, then toss it into the waste bin; but something had made him keep it, to hide it between books in his study. A rational fear that someday the instructions might come in useful. And later, tension around the Gulf States had caused him to retrieve it and study the directions more thoughtfully.

The booklet had advised householders to find a protected refuge in their own houses, a cellar or cupboard beneath the stairs. Klimpton's house had both: the steps leading down to the basement area had a cupboard beneath them. To go to such lengths as whitewashing all the windows of his house would have made him the laughing stock of the neighbourhood, even when the world crisis was reaching breaking point, but internal measures could be easily taken without public knowledge. Things like collecting one or two plastic buckets (for sanitation purposes as well as storing water) and stocking tinned food, not upstairs in the larder where it would disappear through daily use, but down in the basement itself, on a shelf where it would be forgotten, unless (or until) it was needed. Keeping sleeping bags and bedding somewhere handy, somewhere they could be conveniently grabbed from should the emergency arise. Having more than one torch - and a lamp - plus a supply of batteries. Candles. Containers. Portable stove. First-aid kit. Other items like magazines, books, comics for Kevin. Toilet paper. Essentials, really.

Of course the clutter under the stairs had to be cleared. And a tattered mattress brought down from the loft to lean against the outside of the cupboard door. He was thankful, too, for the old chest-of-drawers that stood battered and unloved in one corner of the basement; that would afford added protection with the mattress against the door. He hadn't blocked up the small basement window whose top half was at street level, and there had been no time to do so when the sirens had alarmed the district. But he had done the best for his family, and they had survived the worst.

Perhaps there was more he could have done. He could have built a brick shelter in the cellar. He could have piled up sandbags against the stairway. He could have reinforced the ceiling over their heads, kept the bath and sinks filled, built a stronger lean-to against the stairs. He could have moved the family up to the Scottish Highlands.

No. He had carried out his duty. Not many men would have done more. And most of all, he had been with his family when the bombs were dropped.

Klimpton was of the new breed of businessmen. His office was his own study, his master and tool the computer he kept there. He could contact every major office of the company which employed him in any part of the world with just a few deft finger punches of the keyboard. No office politics, no commuter travelling, no grovelling to the boss. Even so, it was a busy life and one he enjoyed. It meant he saw a lot more of Kevin.

The scratching sound again.

Somewhere outside, in the basement itself.

Was it the dog? Had Cassie found a way into the cellar?

Impossible. Klimpton had had to lock their pet out, much to the distress of Kevin, for there was no way they could have an animal living with them. It would have been too unhygienic - and Christ, it was bad enough already without having a dog messing all over the place. And Cassie would need precious food as well. They had had to listen to her howling after the bombs had fallen. Then the whimpering, the whining, for days - could it have been a week? - with Kevin more upset by the noise than by the holocaust. They hadn't heard Cassie for a long time now, though, and Klimpton wondered if the dog had wandered off to another part of the house, if there was another part standing. Or was she slumped against the cellar door, nose pushed towards the draughty crack beneath, weakened, frightened? Dead?

Maybe she'd got outside and was trying to get through the basement window.

He shifted his legs, groaning as bones wearily protested. The only way he could sleep was in an upright position; there just wasn't room for them all to lie down.

They were supposed to stay inside the refuge for at least forty-eight hours, and inside the house, preferably the basement, for much longer; two weeks at least, maybe more. The sirens would sound again when it was safe to come out.

He could risk leaving the cupboard now, he was sure. They must have been inside for at least a week.

And the stink from the plastic bucket, dosed with disinfectant and covered with a polythene bag though it was, would make them all ill before much longer.

The others needn't be disturbed. He could push the door open just enough to squeeze through with the bucket. The mattress, wedged against the chest-of-drawers, would provide an escape tunnel. He could check on the dog while he was out there.

Klimpton shrugged himself loose from the covering blanket and groped for the larger torch he kept by his side. His hand closed around Gran's bony ankle, but she did not stir. Her flesh was cold even though the atmosphere inside the cupboard was warm and clammy. She refused to get into the sleeping bag proclaiming it was too much like sleeping in a straitjacket and that she couldn't breathe bound up like that. So she used it as a mattress, having a blanket wrapped around her instead.

He found the torch, then groped for the plastic bucket with its full contents (it was embarrassing for all of them to squat over such a thing in front of others, even though they were family and despite having the lamp turned off - darkness couldn't cover sounds nor smother smells - but Klimpton would not give in to their protests and allow any of them outside the refuge). The bucket was easy to find in the dark -

practically everything was within reach - and he lifted it by its wire handle. His nose wrinkled in disgust.

Half-turning, Klimpton pushed against the small door to his right, only the pressure from the mattress outside giving some resistance. He leaned his shoulder more firmly into the wood and the gap widened.

Sian moved restlessly behind him. 'Ian?' she said, both weariness and urgency in her voice.

'It's okay, go back to sleep. Don't wake the others.'

What are you doing?'

'Getting rid of this damn bucket,' he whispered back.

'Is it safe? Isn't it too soon to go out there?'

We're all right in the cellar. As long as I don't stay out too long.'

'Please be careful.'

'I will. Sleep.'

He had to squeeze through the opening sideways, the chest-of-drawers allowing little more than a twelve-inch clearance. The bucket was pushed before him.

Once he had wriggled himself outside he switched on the torch, waiting for the dazzle in his eyes to fade before venturing further. The mattress, forming a soft, narrow lean-to over him, smelled musty and dank and he dismissed thoughts of what must be crawling around inside it; all those years in the loft must have turned it into a wonderful home for little creeping things. The concoction of smells from bucket and mattress made his stomach want to heave, but then the stench of his own vomit would have made matters even more uncomfortable for them all. Klimpton swallowed hard. The sooner he was out in the comparative openness of the cellar the better.

He wondered if there would be any cellar left. Perhaps the whole house had fallen in, leaving the basement open to the skies. To the fallout. Stupid. They would surely have known if that were the case.

It had been quiet down there. The distant rumbles were just that: distant. And the air was heavy, stale.

The old Islington houses were solid, built in a time when mixtures for bricks and mortar were not skimped. Foundations were solid. Walls were steadfast. Probably not too much of London was left up there, but Klimpton knew there was a certain protection in rows of houses, depending on which direction the blast or blasts came from. His own big terraced house was roughly in the middle of a block, so he might have been lucky, unless the front or the back was exposed.

With a sigh of relief, he was free. He pushed the bucket as far away as possible and rested for a moment, his shoulders clear of the protective corridor. Fearfully, he raised the torch, dreading what he might find, expecting the basement to be in ruins, ceiling caved in, debris everywhere. Perhaps the night sky peering in. He silently cursed himself for doubting his earlier rationalization. The light beam confirmed his reasoning.

The ceiling, though large chunks of plaster were missing, had withstood the impact. Klimpton quickly swept the beam around the basement and stopped when it fell upon the small window. Rubble had poured through, smashing both glass and frame, creating a slope of debris. At least the opening was completely filled, leaving no room for fallout dust to sneak in.

Using elbows and knees, he pushed himself clear of the tunnel and stood, his chest heaving with the exertion, surprised that such a small effort had left him so breathless. All the hours of cramped inactivity combined with the stale air they had been forced to breathe had taken their toll.

The scratching sound again.

His chest stopped its swelling, his breath only half-drawn in. He swung the torch into a far corner.

Nothing there. Then along the base of one wall. An old bicycle of Kevin's, a three-wheeler. Broken laser-beam space rifle leaning against it. Sian's ancient washing machine - bin men had refused to take it away. Record player, the old type you could stack up eight discs on, valves dead and dust-furred inside.

Another corner. Light bouncing back off an old frameless mirror. Nothing more. The next wall, leading back towards the stairs. Nothing. No junk, no discarded furniture, just ... just ... something that shouldn't be there.

A shadow. But nothing to cause it.

He steadied the torch, peered closer, and—

Scrabbling sounds from above!

Frantic. Claws against wood.

The stairs. It came from the top of the stairs.

And then a whimper. A mewling, begging whimper.

Klimpton let the half-breath go, then drew in a full slow breath. Cassie had heard him down there. The poor old bitch was trying to get to him. He shone the torch up the stairs and the scratching became more frenzied. She could probably see the light beneath the door. He'd better calm her down before she woke the others.

Quietly as possible, Klimpton climbed the wooden steps, at once relieved and disappointed that Cassie was still alive. Alive she posed a problem.

A small, excited yelp as he approached. The clawing increased. As his head drew level with the foot of the door, he leaned forward, one hand resting against the top step, his mouth moving close to the gap under the wood.

Below him, something moved from the unusual shadow in the wall.

'Cassie,' he said quietly.

A small, tired bark came back.

'Good girl, Cassie,' he soothed. 'Keep it quiet, there's a good dog.'

The whimpering, the pleading, continued.

'I know, Cassie, I know, girl. You're scared, you want to be with us. But I can't let you in, not just yet.

Understand, I want to, but I can't.'

The rejection was painful, and the urge to open the door was almost irresistible. He had to be hard, though, had to be firm. Human beings were more important than pets. The dog would create too many problems down there, the hygiene risk would be too great. Cassie was becoming over-excited.

Another shape was born from the shadow. It lingered for a moment, a dark form concealed by the surrounding blackness. It moved, stealthily, joining its companion.

Klimpton wondered if he should open the door a little, just enough to reassure Cassie, perhaps calm her. The dog was losing control, becoming too frenzied.

'Hush, girl. Come on, Cassie, be quiet now.' His tone was harsher. The sound of the dog's paws against wood was a continuous rapid friction. 'Hey, cut it out!'

Cassie wailed while other things slid from the deep shadow that wasn't a shadow but a rent in the wall and floor, a fissure caused by the shifting of earth, the movement of concrete. The rupture reached down to the sewers beneath the streets.

The man on the stairs was unaware of the skulking, bristle-furred beasts, these creeping things, as they filed swiftly from the opening like smooth black fluid.

'Cassie, just shut up, will you?' Klimpton thumped at the door with the flat of his hand, but the dog yelped even more, all the weakness gone from her cries. Soon she began to growl and her master wondered if the ordeal had not driven her mad.

Sian's muffled voice came from below: 'Ian, what's going on up there? You've woken all of us.'

'Dad, is that Cassie?' came Kevin's voice. 'Please let her in, please bring her down.'

‘You know we can't. Just go back to sleep.'

Klimpton knew the boy would now be crying in the arms of his mother or his gran. Bloody dog! As if they didn't have enough to worry about.

He pulled back as something solid thumped against the door, rattling the wood in its frame. Good Lord, the dog was throwing itself against the door in its desperation. He should have done something about the animal before they came down there. Should have cut its throat (oh no, he couldn't see himself doing that) or locked it in a cupboard. But there had been no time, no time to think, no time to act sensibly.

Thump.

'Stop it!' Klimpton shouted, banging his fist against the wood. ‘You stupid bloody pest.'

One of the night creatures stood poised at the foot of the stairs, its yellow eyes glinting, a reflection from the torch beam. Two long-clawed feet rested against the bottom step and its back was hunched, giving it an arched appearance. It studied the man for long moments, until its snout twitched, sniffing the air. It moved away from the step and sniffed its way around the plastic bucket, attracted by the aroma of excrement and urine. The sounds of movement close by diverted its attention.

Its night-seeing eyes distinguished the black tunnel from the lesser denseness of the cellar. Different odours drifted from there. The animal approached in a small scurrying movement, poking its long snout into the opening. Further sounds excited the creature, for they were living noises. And instinctively it was aware that the animals who made the sounds were weak. Its jaws opened to reveal long, sharp teeth that dripped with wetness.

The rat entered the tunnel, its body, with its wide powerful haunches and hunched back, fitting comfortably. One of its companions followed. Then another.

The pink, scaly tail of the last rat slithered snake-like through the dust of the cellar floor before disappearing into the inner blackness.

Above, Cassie was barking frantically, running away from the door, then returning with a crashing thump, throwing herself so hard at the wood that Klimpton felt sure she would burst through. He was frightened by her actions, fearing that

if she did break into the cellar, she would run amok. Her screeching bark was near-demented, and Klimpton shuddered to think of the effects of a bite from a mad dog.

He staggered back at the force of the next throw, grabbing the handrail to keep his balance. How the hell could he pacify her, how could he soothe her? How could he make her damn-well stop? Wasn't their nightmare enough?

A scream. From below.

Sian!

Kevin!

He turned on the stairs and the torch beam swung downwards.

Klimpton almost collapsed. And if he had, he would have fallen among them.

For the cellar was alive with thick, furry bodies, a black carpet of moving shapes, squirming, leaping over each other's backs, never still, long pointed noses raised here and there to sniff the air, eyes caught in the glare of the torch, glinting yellow like those of cats, a terrible mass of writhing vermin, so big, so huge, like nothing he'd ever seen before, monsters, hideous ...

'Nooooo!' he cried when his family's screams broke through his shock. Looking over the handrail he saw the creatures disappearing into the mattress tunnel to the shelter. His family was screaming beneath his feet.

Klimpton ran down the steps, leaping the last few, landing among the rats, stumbling, falling to his knees. He lashed out with the torch and the creatures scurried away. He was up, kicking out, screaming at them, tearing at the chest-of drawers, pulling it aside, ignoring the teeth that sank into his calf muscles.

He pulled at the mattress and the cupboard door swung away with it.

Nothing made sense in the torchlight. All he could see

was a jumble of struggling shapes, something white here and there, something white but smeared with dark red, and the red was his family's blood.

A weight thudded against his back, but he did not feel the razor teeth slash his skin, tearing flesh away with his shirt material in a large, loose flap. He did not feel the mouth that tightened around his thigh, the long incisors seeking the warm liquid within. He did not feel the claws that raked the back of his legs, nor the snapping jaws that gained purchase between them.

He only felt the pain of his wife, his son, his mother.

Clawed feet scurried up his back, reaching his shoulders, teeth finding a hold on his neck, knocking him forward so that he fell into the opening to join his family in their blood-drenched refuge.

At the top of the stairs, the door rocked against its frame as Cassie threw herself against it, the blows becoming more rapid, more forceful, the wood rattling against its frame, the air filled with yelps and screams and squealing.

As the screams eventually faded, so the blows became weaker. And when the sounds in the cellar were only feeding noises, the dog's barks became a wailing moan. And when the blows stopped and the door was still, all that could be heard was a muffled, whimpering sound.

And from below, a rapacious gnawing.

'How is he?'

Dr Reynolds, whose eyes had been cast downwards in thought as she closed the sick-bay door behind her, looked up in surprise. She smiled at the girl and Kate saw the tiredness behind the smile. And the anxiety.

Clare Reynolds leaned back against the door, hands tucked into her tunic pockets, a familiar gesture.

'He'll pull through,' she answered, and Kate realized the anxiety was for more than just Culver; it was for all of them.

The radiation penetration was minor - less than a hundred rads, I'd say.' The doctor took out a cigarette pack and offered it towards Kate. 'Do you smoke? I haven't noticed.'

Kate shook her head.

'Sensible.' Dr Reynolds lit her cigarette with a slim lighter. She drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes, face towards the concrete ceiling. The gesture of removing the cigarette and exhaling a thin stream of blue smoke was almost elegant. Her eyes opened once more.

Thanks for helping out over the past few days.'

'It kept me busy, and that helped me.'

That seems to be a problem in this place: very little to do for most of the staff. For some it induces apathy, for others, discontent. They need something other than death and destruction to keep their minds occupied.'

'Farraday's tried to keep them busy.'

'Any luck with communications?'

'Not as far as I know. It could be that we're all that's left.'

Dr Reynolds studied the girl thoughtfully. She looked better than when she had first arrived, but the fear was still there, that barely-disguised brittleness, a reed that could snap at any moment rather than bend.

Her hair was clean, a lively yellow, her eyes softer now, but still uneasy. The torn blouse had been replaced by a man's shirt, hanging loose over her skirt. On one side, high on her chest, a film badge was pinned, a dosimeter that everyone in the shelter had been instructed to wear; at the end of each week, these were to be analysed by the small radiological department housed in the underground complex. Dr Reynolds could not quite understand the need, for there were enough ionization instruments strategically placed around the shelter to give full warning of any radiation leakage, but she assumed they were used for psychological effect, a reassurance to the wearer. What reassurance should they begin to become cloudy?

Would you like a coffee?' she asked. Tm desperate for one. It'd give us a chance to talk.'

Kate nodded and Dr Reynolds pushed herself away from the door. They headed towards the dining area.

Will Steve be all right?' Kate asked again, not satisfied with the doctor's previous answer.

An engineer stood aside to allow them room to pass along the narrow corridor and Dr Reynolds nodded her thanks, smiling briefly. 'Oh, yes, I think he'll be fine. Although the radiation dose was comparatively minor - the worst physical effect apart from the nausea and dizziness was to render him sterile for a day or two, and I'm sure that didn't bother him in his condition - I'm afraid it considerably lowered his resistance to infection from the rat bite. Fortunately, the powers that be thoughtfully provided an antidote to the disease this particular beast—'

Kate had stopped. 'Disease?'

The doctor took her arm and kept her walking.

'Some years ago, this breed of rodent - a mutation, as I understand it - infected anyone it bit with an extreme form of Leptospirosis. A cure was found soon enough, and it was thought that the beggars had eventually lost this extra weapon in their nasty little arsenal. It seems the medical authorities were never quite sure, though, so they decided to play it safe should the worst ever happen. I found our life-saver among the medical supplies.'

Then why wasn't I infected? And Alex Dealey?'

Dr Reynolds shrugged. ‘You weren't bitten - at least not deeply. You suffered scratches, mostly. But I injected you and Culver after I put you out the other day. I wasn't taking any chances. And Dealey wasn't touched by them.'

'But he was ill.'

"Yes, but only from radiation sickness. Both he and Culver received roughly the same amount. Not enough to be lethal, but enough to knock them off their feet for a day or two. As you know, Dealey has recovered fully for the moment.'

‘You mean it won't last?'

'Oh, he'll be okay - they both will. But the sickness is likely to recur within the next couple of weeks. It won't last long, though, not with the small dosage they've received.'

The thrum of the power generator reached their ears and was somehow comforting, an indication that technological civilization had not broken down totally. They passed the ventilation plant and Dr Reynolds gave a small wave to a group of engineers. Only one, a stocky blond man, returned the wave.

'Hope they're not planning a revolution,' the doctor commented, drawing on the cigarette.

The two women entered the kitchen area and Dr Reynolds poured two coffees from the unattended machine on the small counter. One or two groups were scattered around the dining area talking in lowered voices. Kate poured cream into her coffee, Dr Reynolds took hers black. They found a table by a grey-green wall and the doctor gratefully sank into a chair, flicking ash into the scrupulously clean ashtray as she did so. Kate sat opposite and looked intently into the big spectacles windowing her companion's eyes.

'How long will Steve be like this?'

Dr Reynolds blew a stream of smoke across the table, turning her head slightly to avoid Kate. ‘You really care for him, don't you? I thought you were strangers before Doomsday.' 'Doomsday' was the title given to the previous Tuesday, used with superficial lightness, but the dark word appropriate to how everyone in the shelter felt.

'He saved my life.' It was a flat statement.

Dr Reynolds watched a fly land in the sugar bowl and wondered as it walked frustratedly over the wrapped sugar lumps if the insect had any idea of the catastrophe that had engulfed the world outside.

She waved her hand and the insect flew away.

She looked back at the girl. 'Who did you lose?'

Kate's eyes lowered. 'Parents. Two brothers. I assume they're gone.'

The doctor leaned forward and Touched her wrist. That may not be so, Kate. There's still a chance they survived.'

The girl shook her head, and there was a sad, tearful smile on her lips. 'No, it's better this way. I don't want to live in hope for them. And I wouldn't want them to have suffered. Better to believe they went instantly and with as little pain as possible.'

Dr Reynolds stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray.

'Maybe that's the best way. At least you can't be disappointed. Did you have a lover, a boyfriend?'

'I did.' She didn't categorize. 'But that ended months ago.' The familiar pain was there, familiar to Dr Reynolds because she had observed it in the faces of so many in the shelter. She had seen it in her own reflected image each time she looked into a mirror.

'It's funny,' Kate went on. 'I can't remember his features. Each time I try to concentrate on how he looked, his face becomes hazy, like a badly focused picture. But in dreams it's so clear...'

‘You know, Culver had nobody.'

Kate's attention returned, not swiftly, because memories sought to overwhelm.

'He told you that?'

'Not directly.' Clare reached for another cigarette. 'I wish I could give these up, but there doesn't seem to be much point, does there? I mean, what else could happen?' She lit up and shook the match into the ashtray. 'Couple of nights ago, when his fever was at his worst, Culver was crying in his sleep calling out something, perhaps a name - I couldn't catch it.'

'It could have been someone who died in the attack.'

'No, I got the feeling it was long before. He said over and over again: "I can't save her, the water's got her. She's gone, gone ..." My guess is that this woman, girlfriend or wife, was drowned and in some way he feels responsible.'

Why do you say that?'

'Just a feeling. I suppose his dreams reveal classic guilt symptoms. Perhaps they had a tiff and he wasn't around to drag her out of the water. Who knows? Whatever, he's still bothered by it. Maybe that's why he went for you out there in the tunnel.'

'Because of guilt?' Kate's eyes widened in surprise.

'No, no, not exactly. But it must have been very tempting to leave you there and sneak into the shelter.

Let's face it, the odds were against all three of you surviving an attack from those monsters. Did you know he also pulled Dealey into safety when the first bomb hit? Maybe he's trying to make amends for something he didn't do in the past, or maybe he just doesn't care about himself. Maybe both reasons.'

'It could be he's just a very brave man.'

'Uh-huh. Could be. I haven't met many of those, though.' She flicked ash. 'Anyway, to answer the question you asked before we got re-routed: Culver should be up and around in a day or two. He's sleeping now, but why don't you pop down and see him later. I think you'd be welcome. In fact, I think you'd be good for one another.'

'It's too soon for that. Too much has happened.'

'I didn't mean it that way. I meant you could give each other some comfort, some moral support, if you like - God knows, each of us needs it. But as you implied, if it comes to sleeping together, it's precisely because so much has happened that from here on in, nothing will be too soon. Kate, have you any idea what we've got to face when we get out of this shelter? I'll re-phrase that: if we get out of this shelter.'

'I don't want to think about it.'

"You're going to have to. We all are. Because we may be all that's left.'

'Dr Reynolds—'

'Forget the formality. Call me Clare.'

'Clare, I'm not a fool. I've got some idea of what's happened outside and I know it's going to be grim -

no, not grim, awful, God-bloody-awful - and I know that nothing will ever be the same again. I didn't care at first, but now I want

to live through this, I want to survive, no matter what the world has become. For now, though, just for a little while, I need to adjust. Give me that time and I'll help you in anything you want. I can't promise I'll make a good nurse - I hate the sight of blood - but I'll do my best to help in any way I can.'

Clare smiled, patted Kate's hand. You'll do,' she said.

They drank their coffee in silence for a while and the doctor wondered how any of them would really cope once they were outside. The prospects were daunting, not least for members of her own profession, for she knew that at least half, if not more, of the city's hospitals would have been demolished by the blasts, and many, many doctors, nurses and medical staff would have been killed or injured. The demands on the services of those who survived were too enormous to contemplate.

The 'triage' system of selective treatment would undoubtedly have been put into immediate operation.

The injured would be placed into three categories: those unlikely to survive after treatment; those likely to survive after treatment; those likely to survive without treatment. That meant that anyone with severe radiation sickness, or suffering from fatal burns or injuries, would not receive any treatment at all (or -

and she knew this had not been agreed upon in discussions before the nuclear attack - merciful overdoses of morphia might be administered. She secretly hoped this would be the case). Even in normal times there were only enough burn units in the whole of the UK to deal with no more than a hundred severe cases at once, so what hope now?

Mass blood-transfusions for haemorrhages caused by radiation or injuries would be impossible; only five thousand or so pints of blood were stored in London for emergency use, and how many of those reserves would be left after the

devastation? And how long would the Ministry of Health's drugs stockpiles of morphine, aspirin and penicillin last?

She tried to close her mind to all the possibilities crowding in, but they were ruthless harpies who refused to give her peace.

In the days, weeks, that would follow, other environmental hazards would arise. There would be millions of decomposing corpses, both human and animal, lying in the streets or under rubble, food for insects ... and vermin. God, there were supposed to be a hundred million rats, double the human population, living in England alone, only strict measures controlling their constant growth in numbers.

Those measures would not exist any more ...

'Are you all right?' Kate was leaning forward anxiously. ‘You suddenly went deathly pale.'

'Uh? Oh, just thinking. Just considering the mess we've got ourselves into.' She stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette, then lit another. 'Shit, I should stop doing that. Cigarettes might not be so easy to come by from now on.'

'Do you want to share your thoughts?'

'Not particularly, but since you ask...' She rubbed her neck and twisted it in a circular movement, easing the stiffness. I was just mulling over the diseases that are likely to be rife when we eventually get out. Without proper sanitation, and with everything rotting up there, enteric infections—'

Kate looked puzzled.

'Sorry - intestinal infections could soon reach epidemic proportions. Some of the illnesses will be respiratory -pneumonia, bronchitis, that kind of thing - while others will be disorders such as hepatitis, dysentery, tuberculosis. I think typhoid and cholera will spread. Rabies, too, since we failed to keep it out of the country. Any sickness, you see,

any debilitation, will be exaggerated, and will lead to worse illnesses. Simple measles could become an epidemic. Any childhood infectious disease could wipe out thousands, maybe millions. Meningitis, encephalitis - that's a sleeping sickness caused by inflammation of the brain - even venereal diseases. The list is endless, Kate, just damn-well endless, and I don't think any of us - the government, the medical profession - can do anything about it! They've killed us all, maybe not tomorrow, nor the next day, but eventually. We don't have a hope in hell.'

It was all said in a flat monotone. An underlying hysteria in the doctor's voice would have been less frightening to Kate. Others in the room were looking in their direction and she wondered if they had heard, soft-spoken though Dr Reynolds' words had been.

'Clare, there must be some chance for us. If we can get to another part of the country...'

The other woman sighed deeply. 'I wonder just how much of the country is left. We've no way of knowing how many missiles were used against us. And whatever parts haven't been destroyed will be subjected to fallout drifting on air currents. Oh, Kate, I'd like to have hope, and I know as a doctor I shouldn't be talking like this, but all I feel is a despairing numbness inside, a huge dull-grey blankness. It won't allow room for anything else.'

Kate searched in the older woman's eyes for some sign of inner conflict, a softness, an indication of hidden tears perhaps, or even anger. But the eyes were expressionless. Not cold, not dead. Just void of all emotion.

Kate shuddered inwardly, and a chill Touched her with the knowledge that the nightmare was not over.

It had only just begun.

Culver looked around the sick bay, hoping he might find one of the other 'patients' awake, eager to talk. He was bored, annoyed at his confinement. The others were all asleep, as he guessed they would be, for they had been heavily sedated. Three engineers and one ROC officer had given way under the pressure so far. One of the engineers, a young man somewhere in his late twenties, had sliced his wrists with a razor blade. Only blood spilling beneath the toilet door had saved him. The woman, whom Culver had seen wearing the Royal Observer Corps uniform on the first day inside the shelter, had tried pills stolen from the medical store. The sound of her retching as they forced a rubber tube into her throat had roused him from a deep sleep the night before.

He sank back onto the pillow, an arm going behind his head to prop himself up. Five days he'd been out, according to the doctor, the radiation sickness hitting him first, then reaction from the rat-bite jumping in like some eager bully who wouldn't be left out of the fun. Well, he'd been lucky. The dose was minor although weakening, and Dr Reynolds had found something to counteract the infection. She had explained about the disease the vermin carried and as a precaution had inoculated everyone in the shelter against it. They were safe inside, she had said, but eventually they would have to surface and it was just as well to be prepared

for any dangers that might be out there. Rats would be the least of their problems, Culver had thought.

He lifted the sheet to examine the bite. The wound was no longer dressed and looked an angry red. It felt sore, but not too painful. He'd live.

Letting the sheet drop back over his naked body, he stared up at the bunkbed above. As with the aftermath of any debilitating illness, everything seemed fresh, even the turgid colours of the sick-bay walls. The neon lights shone cleaner, brighter, the wires beneath the bed overhead sharp, their pattern precise. Even the filtered air smelled fresher. He could hardly recall the agonies he had gone through -

save for the acute stomach cramps - but Dr Reynolds had told him he had become yellow as a Chinaman at one stage. Sudden spasms of muscular pains, constant vomiting, and delirium had been the results of the fever, all, she assumed, intensified by the radiation his body had absorbed. Fortunately, the antidote had worked quickly and much of the toxicity had been sweated out or flushed from him within the first couple of days. After that, total exhaustion held him in its smothering embrace and complete rest was the only cure for that.

Culver felt fit enough. Maybe just a little weak, but he was sure his strength would soon return when he was up on his feet. If only he knew where they'd put his clothes.

He pulled the sheets back and swung his legs onto the floor, then rapidly swung them back and covered his lower body, as the door opened. The girl entered and smiled when she saw him half-sitting in the bunkbed.

‘You look good,' she said, walking towards him.

He nodded. 'I feel, uh, okay.'

She sat at the end of the bed, leaning forward a little to avoid the top bunk. We were worried for a while. I never

realized the human body could lose so much waste in such a short period of time.'

"Yeah, well I'd rather forget about that. Did you look after me?' He seemed surprised.

'Dr Reynolds and I took it in turns. Don't you remember? She was with you all the time when your fever was at its peak, though.'

He rubbed the stubble of his chin. 'Sudden images flash into my mind.' He was silent for a few moments, then said: 'I remember you watching me. I remember your face looking down. You were weeping.'

She avoided his eyes. 'I didn't know how serious it was, whether you'd survive. You looked so awful.'

‘You were worried?' Again he looked surprised.

Kate moved closer and ran her fingers through his Tousled sandy hair, using them as a rough comb.

There's a brightness to your eyes.'

'I guess it's all the vitamins our lady doctor is pumping into me.'

'She says that in a strange way you've been luckier than the rest of us.'

He gave a short laugh. This I gotta hear. Just how does she figure that?'

‘You've been away from it. Your mind's been concerned with just one thing over the past few days: self-preservation. Even through your delirium it's been fighting, refusing to let go. And Clare - Dr Reynolds - says your mind's been doing something else too.'

Culver gently caught her wrist to stop her fingers moving through his hair. 'What would that be?'

The brain is a remarkable machine, it can do several things at once. While it was helping you pull through, it was also adjusting.'

'Adjusting?'

To everything that's happened. Oh, you've had your nightmares, some beauties by the sounds of them, but all the time your mind was accepting, going through everything that's happened, and, well... digesting it, if you like. We've had to go through the same stages, but consciously. We've had to live through it over and over again and, as you can see, some of us didn't make it. There are others who still won't.'

He let go of her wrist and her hand dropped into her lap. "Will you?' he asked.

'I'm not sure. At first I thought it would be impossible. Now I don't know. It's incredible what you can learn to accept. I don't mean that this nuclear war will ever be acceptable to any of us, but eventually I think our circumstances will. We'll live with what we have.'

Culver was startled by the change in her. But then she had still been in a state of profound shock in their first few hours inside the refuge. There had never been the chance for him to see what lay beyond that state. He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. 'It seems we've had this moment before. Or something like it.'

Kate managed to smile again. Tes, when we first arrived. It helped me.'

'Me too. Want to try again?'

She blinked, and he guessed it was to clear the moistness in her vision. "We're both wanted elsewhere,'

she told him.

He raised his eyebrows.

'Alex Dealey wants to see you in the Operations Room.'

'So he's already set up a company command.'

This place is more surprising than you think. Even the engineers who worked here on a day-to-day basis had no

idea what the shelter comprised, exactly. Apparently much of the complex was out of bounds even to them.'

'Yeah, that makes sense. The authorities wouldn't want the word to get around that such underground bunkers existed. People might have read something into it and become frightened.' He grinned. "You mean I can get out of this goddam bed without the doc slapping my bottom?'

'She won't condone any more malingering.'

He shook his head once, still grinning. 'She's changed her tune. One problem: do I go naked or do I make a toga out of this sheet?'

'I'll get your things.'

Kate quickly walked to a small door at the other end of the sick bay, glancing at the prone figures lying in the other bunkbeds as she did so. She disappeared through the door and Culver heard the sound of what must have been a locker opening then closing. She returned with some familiar items of clothing.

'Cleaned, but not pressed,' she announced, dumping them in his lap. 'Oh, and I did my best with the hole in your jeans. It doesn't look too good, but at least it's stitched.'

‘You've been busy.'

There hasn't been much else to do.'

He separated the clothing. 'Er, do you want to wait outside?'

She surprised him again by laughing, for there was genuine humour in the sound. 'Culver, I've washed you and wiped you and seen anything you've got to offer. It's too late to be coy.'

His feet Touched the floor, but the sheet remained over his nakedness. He flushed red. This is different.'

Kate turned away, still smiling. 'Okay, I promise not to

peek; but I won't step outside. You may not be quite as strong as you think.'

When he stood, Culver understood what she meant. Dizziness hit him and he grabbed the top bunk.

She was at his side instantly.

'Easy, Steve,' she said. 'It'll take a little while.'

He waited for his vision to clear, one hand on her shoulder, locks of her hair brushing against his fingers. He was conscious of her body's natural scent, its freshness, and the arm she had around him, the warmth of the hand on his hip.

Thanks,' he mumbled. 'I should have listened. I'm coming together, though. If you could just hang on to me for a minute.'

She did, and was glad to.

‘You could easily get lost in this place,' Culver remarked as Kate led him through the grey corridors.

His legs still felt weak, his head still light, but there was a swift-returning vitality to his senses that made Culver wonder just what Dr Reynolds had been dosing him with.

'It's quite a complex,' said Kate. 'I don't pretend to understand any of their machinery, but apparently this place is a repeater station, according to the technician - sorry, engineer - who gave me a guided

‘Your. I'm afraid intermediate distribution frames and motor driven uni-selectors don't do much for me.'

Kate glanced at him. 'It's eerie seeing all this electronic equipment which isn't actually doing anything. I mean, you can feel it's alive, the current is still running through, but it's like some slumbering dinosaur, just waiting for something to rouse it.'

'Maybe it's already become extinct. This kind of technology may not play much part in our immediate future.'

'I don't think I could survive winter without my electric blanket.'

Try a hot-water bottle. Or another warm body.'

She avoided his eyes and he suddenly felt foolish. Stupid remark, he scolded himself. He quickly went on: 'I take it they haven't managed to contact anybody yet?'

'No. They've even used a continuous punched tape on a telex machine, but nothing's come back.

We've no way of knowing what's going on out there.'

That could be for the best right now.'

The corridor opened out and they almost bumped into a small but broad-shouldered figure emerging from behind a ceiling-high row of apparatus. Unlike many of the men inside the complex, he was clean shaven and his light yellow hair neatly combed.

'Hiya,' the man said almost cheerfully. 'How you doing? Feeling better?'

‘Yeah, okay.'

'Good. Catch you later.'

He passed them and strolled down the corridor, hands tucked into overall pockets and whistling tunelessly.

'He seems cheerful enough,' Culver said, watching the man's back.

'His name is Fairbank. He's one of the happier souls down here. Nothing appears to bother him. He's either supremely well-adjusted or crazy.'

'How about the others? From what I saw last time they didn't look too good.'

'Moods change all the time. It's contagious. One day the atmosphere's charged with an unnatural optimism, the next

day you can feel the deep depression hanging in the air like a black fug. You've seen how disturbed some are in the sick bay. One or two others have been treated in there that you wouldn't know about -

you were having your own problems.'

They were in a corridor again and he noticed a heavy-looking door with a small glass slit at face level.

Built into the wall over the door was a red warning light, the light itself switched off. Kate saw him look through the glass.

Would you believe they have their own broadcasting studio?' she said.

He rejoined her. 'Nothing surprises me any more.'

Through here.' She caught his arm and wheeled him into a corridor on their right. That's the repeater standby plant ahead. Not much use when no phone calls are going through.'

They passed a room where rows of batteries sat in long tanks, with rectangular copper shapes above them which he assumed carried the current. Then they found themselves in a large open area which Kate told him was the main frame room. Identical racks of complicated switches and machinery stood in rows, forming narrow corridors; here and there monitors that he recognized as oscilloscopes stood by on trolleys, fault detectors made redundant because nothing was coming into the complex. Culver glanced up and saw masses of cables held aloft by a grid network, filling the ceiling area, an occasional metal ladder leading up to them.

'How much further?'

'Nearly there.'

They finally reached a closed metal door.

'HQ,' she said, pushing through.

The people gathered in the room were facing away from Culver, studying a wall-mounted map. He noticed other maps around the room, mostly of the UK, coloured pins decorating each one. One was marked with a gridwork of thick black lines.

Dealey was pointing at something on the chart before them, stubbing a chubby finger against the plastic-coated paper as if emphasizing a point. Culver couldn't quite register what was different about the man until Dealey turned to face him.

'No bandages,' Culver said. *You can see?'

'As well as ever.' He pointed to a chair. 'I'm glad you're on your feet, but I shouldn't overdo it. Rest.'

Clare Reynolds came around from the desk they had all gathered behind. ‘You look so much better, Steve. You had us worried for a while.'

Thanks for taking care of me.' He was glad to sink into a seat.

'Kate became a dedicated nurse.'

He did not reply, but stared at Dealey instead. The Ministry man had shed his jacket but still wore a tie knotted up to the neck. Others in the room - Bryce, the ROC officer, and several others that Culver didn't know by name - were less formal in shirt sleeves and open collars. Only Farraday matched Dealey for neatness.

'It would appear we were fortunate enough to find cover just in time,' Dealey said, sitting in a chair behind the desk. The others were finding seats around the room, while Farraday leaned back against a wall, arms folded across his chest. 'A little longer and the radiation would have been too much. I want to thank you for getting me here.'

Culver brushed it aside. 'Like I said at the time: we needed each other. I'm glad your vision's okay.'

'Cleared up after the first couple of days. No permanent damage, thank God.'

Culver thought the man still looked drawn, weary, and

who could wonder at it? It was obvious that Dealey had taken leadership on his own shoulders, a responsibility that Culver didn't envy. He looked around the room and saw the same fatigue on the faces of the others. Perhaps the doctor had been right: he, Culver, had been well out of it for the past few days.

We don't know much about you, Culver, except that you can take care of yourself pretty well.' Dealey was frowning, as if the compliment wasn't easy. 'May we ask what your occupation was before the attack?'