the world.'
'Unless the airport has been destroyed,' said Clare Reynolds, cigarette smoke streaming from tight lips.
'In which case, transport can be provided to another part of the country,' Dealey replied. He tapped unconsciously on the desktop with his fingers. 'As yet, we have not been able to communicate with the Embankment headquarters, and it's vital we make contact soon. We intend to send out a small reconnaissance party to explore the conditions above us when the fallout level permits. We also need to evaluate the state of the tunnels, which may provide a safer route to the main government shelter.'
He stared directly at Culver. We hope you'll agree to be part of that reconnaissance group.'
'Are you hungry, Steve?'
'Since you mention it, yes, I am.' He grinned at Clare Reynolds, who had asked the question. 'In fact, I'm starving.'
'Good, that's how it should be. You'll be good as new in a day or two.' She nodded her head in the general direction of
the canteen. 'Let's get you something to eat, then I want you to rest for a while. No sense in overdoing things.'
She led the way, Kate and Culver following close behind. 'I could use a stiff drink after that long meeting,' she said, looking back at them over her shoulder. 'It's a pity the hard stuff is being rationed so frugally.'
'I could use a drink myself,' Culver agreed. 'I guess they didn't store much away down here, right?'
Wrong,' said Kate. There's plenty, but Dealey thinks it wise to keep it under lock and key. Too much firewater no good for natives.'
'He may have a point,' the doctor said. The natives are restless enough.'
'It's really that bad?'
'Not that bad, Steve, but it's not good. Dealey may be suffering under a slight persecution complex because most of the resentment is directed towards him as the token government man. But large though this complex is, there's a certain amount of claustrophobia prevailing, and that coupled with a general feeling of melancholia, even repressed hysteria, could lead to an explosive situation. Too much alcohol wouldn't help.'
Culver silently had to agree. The atmosphere in the shelter did somehow feel charged and he could understand Dealey's nervousness. He felt tired once more, the meeting they had just left draining much of the buoyancy he had felt earlier. Culver had been surprised at the elaborate contingency plans that were regularly scrutinized, amended, modified and put into action throughout the decades of the cold war and detente eras, a festering, unspoken conflict, insidious in its durability. Now it had ended, mass destruction the terminator.
Dealey had once again defined the chain of command, but giving more details than he had at the first briefing Culver had attended.
The country would now have been split up into twelve regions, and each one could operate as a separate unit, a self-reliant cell. Under the National Seat of Government would be the twelve regional seats, under these, twenty-three sub-regional headquarters, which would issue orders to county controls, down to district controls and sub-district controls. At the bottom of the list, the last in the pecking order, were the community posts and rest centres.
Each region had its own armed forces headquarters, the regional military commanders and their staff housed in deep bunkers: these forces, working with police and mobilized Civil Defence units, would ensure the new emergency laws were obeyed. Warehouses, pharmaceutical and otherwise, even supermarkets, would now be under strict local government control. Certain buildings, motorways and key roads would be commandeered by the military. Mass evacuation had not been planned. In fact, it would be openly discouraged, for it would cause too much disruption in an already disrupted world, too much disorder to carefully laid-out plans.
Culver shuddered to contemplate the New Order that must have already taken over. Unless of course, the damage had been far greater than anyone had ever anticipated, the world itself dying and unable to respond to any kind of organization.
His thoughts were interrupted. The doctor had come to a halt as an engineer approached her and said something in a low, agitated voice. He turned without waiting for a reply and quickly strode back the way he had come.
'What's wrong?' Culver asked.
Tm not sure,' Dr Reynolds replied, 'but there seems to be something interesting going on. Ellison wants me to hear something.'
She followed the retreating figure and came to the ventilation plant room.
A group of men, some wearing white overalls, others in ordinary clothes, were gathered around a large air duct, the shaft of which, Culver assumed, rose to the surface. He guessed filters removed any radioactive dust from the air intake. Fairbank was among the group.
'Something we should know about?' Dr Reynolds asked of no one in particular, and it was Fairbank who replied. There was a brightness to his eyes, but also an uncertainty.
'Listen,' he said, and turned back to the air duct.
Above the hum of the generator they could hear another, more insistent sound. A drumming, a constant pattering.
'What is it?' Kate asked, looking at Culver.
He knew, and so did the doctor, but it was Fairbank who answered.
'Rain,' he said. 'It's raining up there like never before.'
Two: Aftermath
Their time had come.
They sensed it, they knew.
Something had happened in the world above them, a holocaust the creatures could not comprehend; yet they were instinctively aware that those they feared were no longer the same, that they had been damaged, weakened. The creatures had learned from those who had hidden in the tunnels, killing and feeding upon the humans, satisfying a lust that had lain dormant for many years, repressed because survival depended on that repression. The bloodlust had been revived and set loose.
And the tunnels, the sewers, the conduits, the dark holes they had skulked in never knowing nor craving a different existence, had broken, allowing the world of light to intrude upon their own dismal kingdom.
They crept upwards, stealthily, sniffing the air, puzzled at the relentless drumming sound, emerging into the rain that drenched their bristle-furred bodies. The brightness dazzled their sharp eyes at first, even though it was muted an unnatural grey, and they were timid, fearful, in their movement, still hiding from human eyes, still apprehensive of their age-old adversary.
They moved out from the dark places and stole among the ruins of the city, rain-streaked black beasts, many in number, eager for sustenance. Hunting soft flesh. Seeking warm blood.
Sharon Cole thought her bladder might easily burst if she didn't do something about it soon.
Unfortunately, the dark frightened her and she knew that beyond The Pit the darkness was absolute. All the others appeared to be sleeping, their breathing, their snores, and their murmured whimpers filling the small steep- sloped auditorium with sounds. If you couldn't sleep, the horror was ever-present; yet sleep and the nightmares allowed no peace.
They knew it was night only because their watches told them it was so, and dutifully, by agreement made between them all in the first days, they endeavoured to maintain a natural order, as if adherence to ritual would bring a semblance of normality to abnormal circumstances.
Only three precious candles kept complete darkness at bay, the men deciding the torch batteries were more precious and not to be wasted in hours of inactivity. One or two had suggested a total blackout at night, but the majority, as many men as women, had insisted on keeping some light through the sleeping hours, perhaps believing, like their Neanderthal forefathers, that light held back any oppressive spirits.
