The three of them picked their way through the wreckage and put the M25 behind them. They were within its circle now, and Jane knew that somewhere within its borders, somewhere within this 800 square miles, was Stanley. He thought it would give his gait added swing, but instead he felt more and more enervated. He couldn't concentrate on anything but that great circular concrete road, how it seemed like a trap, a slip-knot that might close around them at any moment, trapping them for ever.
They bade farewell to the A1 where its motorway namesake crossed beneath it. They headed south-west across Edgware to the A5, the ancient Roman Road that would lead them, straight as a rule, to Marble Arch. The nearer Jane got to his goal, the slower the going. The bodies had been increasing in number ever since they passed into the northern environs of the city. In some places they had to double back and find a different route; it seemed as though every person in the street had come together in a mass huddle to die.
Jane tried to leaven the atmosphere with jokes, but his delivery was exhausted, deadpan. He looked into Aidan's grey emaciated face and saw himself there. Nothing for the boy to grow into; he was old before his time. Where could you go from here? Back to Toytown and Sodor and Nutwood? What was there in those places for a boy who had seen heads without faces; death in every possible position and permutation? You couldn't reclaim your youth after that, no matter that it was only a third lived.
He had to gee Aidan along; he was complaining of being tired. 'We're nearly there,' he said. 'Stanley. He's going to love you. You two are going to be great mates.'
'What if he's dead?'
Jane's stride faltered. Becky said: 'Aidan.'
'It's OK, Becky,' Jane said. And to Aidan: 'He's not dead.'
'How do you know? Everyone else is.'
'You're not. Becky's not. I'm not.'
'Everyone else is.'
'I can't explain it to you,' Jane said. 'I can't make you see. But he's not dead. I promise you. Now let's get cracking. Get a wiggle on.'
They followed the road past places Jane had never visited before, names he knew only because of the Tube map. Colindale, Hendon, Kingsbury, Dollis Hill. Aidan fell asleep in the wheelbarrow. Darkness was racing Jane home. He was tired too. He wondered at the irony of collapsing with exhaustion seconds from his doorstep. He glanced at Becky but she was a wraith, much too thin for the clothes she wore; a belt was cinched tight around her waist. She seemed to be fading into the grey of this north-west street.
Cricklewood. Mapesbury. Brondesbury. Kilburn. He didn't recognise anything. Buses and cabs and cars choked the road. Bodies were folded over each other as if they'd been competing to die first. It was fully dark by the time they reached the borders of St John's Wood and Maida Vale. Here were fall-back shops that he'd sometimes trolled out to if they'd been out of milk or bread and nowhere else had been open. Pubs he'd met friends in. Parks where he had taken Stanley on his scooter. Here came the roads he'd walked every day. The shape of things became known to him. The juxtaposition of trees and fences and street corners. He recognised a car that belonged to a friend and it shocked him so much that he thought he might be sick. Dead friends all over the country. Dead friends so much riddled flesh in the North Sea now.
At last he stopped. He was expecting the smell of dogwood and rosemary. The bark of Major at Number 9. Maybe a top-floor window open and a stereo playing music too loud: Interpol or Elbow or White Stripes. The hum of traffic. Female heels tapping on a pavement.
None of that. No street lamps. Just the grey trench of his street and dozens of dead sprawled up it, like procumbent weeds.
'Come on,' he said. He stopped outside Number 7 and shook Aidan awake. Jane could hardly speak for the pistoning of his breath, the hammer of his heart. 'Come on.'
He led them to the door, which was hanging off its hinges. Stanley used to pummel that door like a maniac whenever he got home. 'Stan?' he called, but it crumbled out of him, barely a whisper. He ushered the others inside, his eyes blurring, his fear mounting, his excitement hollowing him out until he thought he might float up the stairs. 'Stan?'
In the street, a dead thing twitched and sat up.
Part Two
LAZARUS TAXON
15. CITY OF CODE
Jane edged his way out of the alley, casting glances up and down a road that might or might not have once been called White Horse Street. Its sign had been prised off the wall years before. He checked windows and doors, rooftops, shadows. Shops here were long abandoned. Word had percolated through the city that the tiger had been seen in this area recently. He stopped outside a hairdresser's. Dust covered every surface inside. Hairdryers lay on counters like science-fiction weapons. Foxed mirrors reflected a throat of stairs to the rear of the shop that he did not investigate. His white breath measured a pulse rate of fear. Black snow lay in drifts against doorways that had lacked for years the wood meant to fill them. It formed a slush that ran and refroze in the roads, creating strange shining curds of pitch. It fell in soft obliques against the dun of the cloud ceiling: slow black bullets, every one of them hitting their targets. The cold reached fingers under the cuffs of Jane's coat and caressed his skin.
He couldn't keep his eyes off those backstage city shadows. It was like seeing a car crash occur in front of you, or a Skinner uncoil within its epidermal prison for the first time.
Ahead of him lay Shepherd Market, a tiny enclave with neighbouring pubs and an alleyway between them leading to Curzon Street, if memory served correctly. To the left, curving away from him, more restaurants, chichi fashion boutiques, jewellers and chocolatiers. People sitting inside a Polish-Mexican bistro at pretty tables waiting for a meal that would never arrive, time having drawn deep runnels into their superdried faces. Nothing moved. He made his way towards the alley, keeping an eye on the oily windows of the pubs.
He walked down Curzon Street past the Mayfair cinema where he and Cherry had watched some Japanese horror film centuries ago. Afterwards, they'd walked home, a fair hike miraculously shortened by the excitement in their conversation and proximity. Love could do that to you, he thought, staring at the broken cinema entrance. It creased time and distance, put you in a bubble. He wasn't going in there either. Not without a flame-thrower and plenty of back-up. And it was another two weeks before he was on incineration detail.
A gust of wind drove a blast of black hail into his face. He flinched from it and pulled the collar of his coat up around him, checked the positioning of his goggles, cycling mask and helmet. He had never grown used to the smell of sunblock; it stuck in his craw like the dense stench of a rancid dairy. He tucked himself into the doorway of a cafe while he went through his backpack, habit lifting his head to check the various approaches every few seconds. There was a bottle of water, a tin of emergency rations, a First Aid kit, a sheaf of tracing paper tucked into a plastic wallet and an Ordnance Survey map of London from 1968. He ignored these and picked out a battered notebook. Loose leaves, old tickets, photographs and torn pieces from maps were tucked in among its pages. Notes to himself. Reminders. Warnings. White spaces on the
The light was failing. He had to find shelter before it vanished completely. Some had taken to riding bicycles around the ruins but he preferred to go by foot. He didn't like the way a bicycle switched you off. Your senses were dulled by the rush of wind and the exertion. You could coast around a corner into any amount of trouble. One step
