Chapter One

Saturday Night, Early December.

Rumour had it that the old man had woken up and become a modern day Prometheus, some would even have it that he got out of the bed and pushed his nurse to her death out of the 15^th floor window before crashing back into the coma that he had been in since someone had tried to take his life. Other people would have you believe that the scream the nurse made as she plummeted to her death was so loud that it woke up evil spirits in the bad-lands and stirred forgotten parts of the Wirral, both of which are pure nonsense. Me? I believe he certainly stirred but as for waking up completely, the man was half dead and only the will of the Council was keeping the old man in this realm.

These days the dark came quickly, there are not many lights that show the way as you walk through the city’s mostly deserted streets. Every shadow, a possible threat, a man with a knife, a woman hoping to buy some time off you to feed herself or even the addiction.  There was a time when I was much younger of course, barely ten years old with snot still dropping from my nose, my sunken cheeks feeling the bitter cold that whipped through the valley, when the sun’s rays and vital heat would warm us that had survived on odd days. It all depended on which way the wind was blowing.

I watched as the sun, cold and mocking, started to disappear for another night and I looked down the hill. I saw past the bombed out church, a remnant and a desolate permanent reminder of what the city had endured once before. The nightly bombing raids that had damaged the city and that of the wastelands to the north, where only the foolhardy and feral stepped foot were now long gone. Nearly a hundred years had passed between my grandfather witnessing the bombings raids that shattered a city, but not its heart. The danger was now more real, there was no community spirit to see off a common enemy. Everywhere there was an enemy now, more enemies than friends and me, Halyn Variel, the chauffer, caught between them all, between the past, the real and the ravaged ruins of the Philharmonic Hall.

It grew cold, it was time to get back under cover and avoid the night air. Although an all-clear had been given for five years now, I still didn’t like being up this end of the old city when the sun passed below the skyline of the old faithful Liver Building. I wished the one remaining Liver Bird a fond farewell for the night and headed down towards Bold Street, through the darkened alleyways, past the now abandoned train station and finally to my home just off Liberty Square. My black leather trilby, a relic of a past that didn’t matter anymore, stood firmly against the increasing wind. A group of late stragglers walked past me as I mused in my own particular way. I recognised them from what remained of the old University square. They spent their days talking of past glories, battles won and drinks consumed at the Cambridge. They were considered an oddity in the bleak and darkened world but I kind of liked them, they always seemed a good crew. I felt a shiver as the wind caught the exposed flesh between my hat, my hair and the top of my overcoat. I flipped up the collar to protect my skin. There always seemed to be harsher winds these days, especially in the summer months…summer, there hadn’t been a real summer since 2015. What a glorious time that had been. The people were happy, there was a genuine air of optimism that hadn’t been sensed in the country for such a long time. There was a new beginning. It didn’t last. The panic started in the early September, I was about to start college, the start of what I had hoped would lead to a career in music, in my eyes at least, the start of being hailed as a violin virtuoso. I haven’t picked up a violin now since before escaping from the valley and travelled north to where the worst excess of the virus had seemed to pass by. The panic that had spread so quick, quicker than the disease and war that followed actually had but mistakes were made. I ask you, aren’t there always mistakes? I find there are quite a lot of them made every day, especially in my line of work.

I silently said a prayer to those who lost their lives during the bombing raids of World War Two and to the thirteen burnt bodies found there inside the gothic structure three years ago. I crossed the road and looked up at one of the slits where a window had once looked proudly up the hill. I caught the sight of a gun rifle and listened as the gates rumbled across the road, slammed and clanked together behind me. I was never sure whether it was to keep out any potential trouble or to keep the suffering in. The biting cold would make sure there was no trouble tonight for the residents of the ‘Pool. As I hurried down Bold Street, careful not look carefully into the eyes of a couple of women and an effeminate looking man offering themselves to stragglers who had taken the narrow road into the centre. I saw one of the crew chat up one of the women, share a joke, casually flirt with but ultimately leave angry and frustrated. He pulled that same stunt every night. All three were to be disappointed that night. As I got closer to the bottom end of Bold Street I heard the sound of laughter coming from the Brew House on the corner. I smiled at the thought that rationing on alcohol had been relaxed recently. The clearances the Council had imposed on the old neighbourhood to the north had been successful enough in the last ten years to begin a programme of basic farming again. The boundary, the area of farming which was patrolled every night was close to the edge of the world to the superstitious and frightened, was where the road divided up towards Everton and where the nightly feral activities of those that hadn’t come into the semi protective safety of the city were heard when the wind was blowing the wrong way.

There would be no trouble tonight, the cold and the fresh beer would see to that. Every person in there would be doffing their hat to the Council, swearing allegiance to the elected and they would be loud but they would not dare step out of line. A relaxation can soon be revoked if the Council thought it necessary. The Council saved lives; that much I knew. They had saved my life when I arrived on the banks of the Mersey after swimming my way across from the dangers of the Wirral. They easily could have shot me as they had so many others who they suspected of carrying the virus. They couldn’t save everyone. The overwhelming amount of people that had made their way through the dark tunnels that run underneath the Mersey from the wastelands of the Wirral had become too dangerous. The influx too great, worryingly for the Council thousands poured through, anyone of them could have been infected. Those that made their way through the tunnels first were rounded up, segregated and checked for any sign of the disease. The tell-tale symptoms that went hand in hand were easy to spot. Those with the disease were disposed of and those who didn’t show signs were kept under observation for nearly six months, less than five per cent made their way back into the city and were now a part of the Council’s crowning glory. The tunnels were blown up soon after, trapping many on the other side of the water, killing some who hadn’t heeded the warnings but protecting those within the newly installed gates from any chance of catching the virus.

From the North where the harshness of the land and the where the virus took a dreadful hold came a few survivors; no one came from the other side of the country. From the South East, of what I suppose was still technically England, through the Midland cities and towns that made up the old industrial heartlands of the ravaged United Kingdom, we were told that no one survived. Reports had come that some settlements had been established on the East coast of the country, pockets of survivors in Cornwall and one major functioning city in the South, in the valley, existed but elsewhere no one.

These dark thoughts kept me company as I drew level with the brew house, a moments temptation to go in, have a drink, maybe two, was overwhelming. I paused…briefly, my left hand almost lifting the catch that would have led me to taking myself out from the cold and into welcome oblivion. What made me hesitate I don’t know but which ever guardian angel was urging me to get the books I had found home whispered just at the right time, “She’ll be there”. I smiled weakly; there was no triumph in this moral victory. I was too ashamed to see her yet and the fact that her husband, one of the Council hierarchy, would be there also made me glad that occasionally I listen to that bird that sits on my left shoulder. I lowered my hand and listened for a moment or two at the joy that seeped out from the brew house. It was the rare but enjoyable sound of laughter that caught my ears and for the next half hour I was glad I didn’t go in. The sound of joy, laughter and back slapping all covered the cracks of a city that was teetering on the edge of complete melt down.

I turned away, the night was coming. It wasn’t safe to be out alone, even for the Chauffer now. The night was coming and I badly wanted to be indoors. The little light I had on credit would see me through till the early hours. I had planned a night of reading dusty books from the forgotten library. I crossed the road, no longer an issue of looking left and right as any motor vehicle was now a relic, the family four by four had gone the way of the dinosaurs and had been left to rust in silence. Even my title, The Chauffer was an affectation, a long since dead profession. These days it just meant the courier. I fetched and carried for the Council. It’s what I did; it’s what kept me in lighting credit and the goons off my back. Through the narrow passage I walked, the odd shout from the couple of darkened doors made me hurry. I passed by the old theatre, still in use when there was propaganda to be made, past what was now a sectioned house for those that could no longer cope with the reality we all found ourselves in but at one time I was led to believe was a hotel that adjoined the train station and past the Hall of Speeches. The howls of madness from those that found themselves hidden away found a way out through slight cracks and found new ground in the open air attacked my ears and I scurried on, my coat clutched ever tighter as if that would help me form a barrier against the lunacy. I barely glanced at what once passed for the railway station, bricked up like an exhibit at a museum that could no longer be shown in case it caused offence. I say bricked up, of course it was more like a 1,000 tonnes of rubble dumped all around it as there was no capacity to make bricks good enough to close off the station. I went up the side street that led to my building and as I reached my door, I fumbled for my key. Looking round I saw the welcome sight of a night watchman carrying a flame lamp at the far end of the street. I smiled and turned the key in the lock to find the door wouldn’t budge. I tried several times but the door was being stopped from opening by something on the other side of the entrance. I called the night watchman over to give me a hand and between us we managed to get it to open by about a foot, enough for me to get my head round the door and see the bloodied and discarded remains of a body.

It had been a while since I had seen a dead body. Even in a city that had its fair share over the years, I shied away from such things, it was never in my best interest to get too involved in what the Council looked into and investigated. The last time was the discovery of the burned shells that stood to attention inside the bombed out church. That I don’t mind telling you scared the living shit out of me. I had been walking past early in the morning to take delivery of new books that a scouting party had messaged me they were bringing, never anything new, just the same worn out copies of identical books that had been popular reading material in the years before it all went wrong.

The sick, desperate, mind-numbing feeling I had that day when I first saw those burnt out husks returned as I bent down to take a closer look at the body hiding behind my front door. I had squeezed through the narrow opening, thankfully for my age I had kept trim and not through hunger as had affected a lot of the people in the town, I made sure I kept in shape as much as possible; you never knew when it was advisable to be able to out-sprint someone after your blood. As the night watchman asked me what it was that blocking the entrance, his muscular body and fat neck too large making it impossible for him to even peek through the gap, I quickly searched the pockets of the man. Nothing in either of his trouser pockets and his outside coat pockets were also clean. However as the night watchman started to get frustrated with my lack of cooperating answers I tucked my hand inside his coat and pulled out a wallet and key. Not bothering to look inside the wallet I quickly put them underneath my trilby and shouted back to the night watchman that it was a dead body and it looked like a messy ending.

Ian D. Hall 2013