Quatermass (18 page)

A pack.

Domestic pets no longer domesticated. Real this time, not like his imagined cat. Real and dangerous. Out after rats and anything else they could find, scenting a man in a state of fear, worth investigating.

He could never outrun them, if it came to that. Better hole up. He pushed at the door behind him, and it gave.

He found himself in another back yard. But this one was half full of wooden crates, just the sort of thing to jam that swinging door against the dogs. He tugged at one. He heaved—and the crate fell apart. Bottles cascaded from it, shattering and bouncing on the stone. There was a sharp reek of vinegar.

The bottles were still rolling. Stupid, dangerous noise. It could draw the attention of more than dogs.

Another door ahead.

It had evidently been a place where they used a lot of vinegar. Perhaps a fish-and-chip shop. The door was jammed. Not locked, because it gave a little. Stuck. He put all his weight against it and it flew wide.

He tumbled headlong.

It was minutes before he could move. He was quite unable to make out what had happened.

He was in a hole. A crater, probably a bomb crater. He was lying painfully on broken bricks and stone. There were splinters in his hand. His ankle hurt.

He looked up at the open, treacherous door. For a moment he fancied he saw one of the dogs there watching him, but it made no move. A trick of the last light. He heard some barking. It seemed to be going away. The pack, if it had been that, had lost interest.

Check for injuries.

Neck, arms, everything seemed to move. It was when he put some weight on his ankle that he knew fear. He gasped with the pain. He felt it with his hands and it was puffing up fast.

He had a moment of curious mad peace then. He could simply lie here and die. Make an end. He was old enough and he had done enough. Even if he had got through with Annie and the child he would have been up against the impossible.

Then he saw the rat.

It was only a swift movement in the rubble a few feet away. He knew what it was. He threw a stone at it. It did not show itself.

He would not lie here and wait for them.

He started crawling. When he came to a section of broken wall he pulled himself upright and resolved. He was going to stay on his feet. He would hobble and hop and endure the pain. He would walk that foot into a bloody stump if he had to, and stay on it.

But not rats.

The moon was almost full and the sky cloudless.

Quatermass was able to make out every detail of the preposterous place he had come to. His senses were dulled by the pain now but it was as if his brain were getting information piped through to it on some separate channel. He was in a graveyard of cars.

There were thousands of them stacked in great heaps. Piled on top of each other, wheels crushing roofs. Like a huge last cataclysmic stunt.

They must date from a time when the authorities still had the will and means to collect them. He sniffed their decomposing oil and rubber. Death again, but here it was the death of machines.

He made his way carefully. There was a winding track through it but this was repeatedly blocked by the tumbled carcases. He had tripped several times in the darker places and knew himself to be coated with rusty oil.

He halted, hearing shots. A short fusillade, then a diminishing scatter. All in the distance.

Then others nearer. He ducked, an automatic reaction. But they were not so very close, perhaps half a mile. A reply to the others.

Where did they get so much ammunition, he wondered. Stolen, probably. If not, there were plenty of those in the world who would provide it for their own reasons.

He untangled his foot from a length of wire cable. On again, splashing through an unseen puddle.

He froze and sank into shadow. He could hear voices chanting!

It took him a little time to grasp that this had none of the breathy excitement of Planet People. These voices were singing, and what they were singing was a hymn.

He turned in their direction, squeezing between rusting shells of trucks. He got a grip on a flaking mudguard and peered.

Candles were flickering.

They lit up the faces of those holding them. Old faces, half a dozen of them, and white heads. They were as old as himself. No, older, plainly older. They were singing quietly and badly together, as if fear had cracked their voices. No wonder, he thought, when he took in what they were doing there.

They were burying a body. Two old men were worrying at a sheeted shape, tugging it into a shallow grave.

A scrap of mudguard broke off under his hand.

They heard it. Their singing petered out and they were frowning at each other over their candles.

“What was it?” whispered an old woman.

“Over there.” Another one pointed.

“Gangs?”

“Make it quick—get him under!” Hands scrabbled earth and rubbish over the body. One or two of them were already moving away.

Quatermass called out: “Wait, please!”

They hesitated. One of the old men picked up a steel halfshaft to use as a weapon. Quatermass limped forward.

“Will you help me?”

“Help?” It was the man with the steel bar, a squat creature who might well be the oldest of them. He also seemed to be the strongest.

“Oh, look at him, Jack!” cried a woman. It sounded like concern.

“Edna—quiet!”

“He’s hurt,” said Edna.

“Where d’you come from?” asked Jack.

His fellow gravedigger flashed suspicious eyes. “They told you about us? Told you to come here?”

Quatermass had no idea what the questions meant. He took another step and his ankle twisted. He found a strong arm under his. It belonged to the woman Edna. She steadied him. “Oh, poor love,” she said, “he
is
in a state.”

“What do we do with him?” It was the suspicious wiry man again.

“Let’s get him down,” said Edna.

“Eh? We don’t know who he is!”

“Oh, Arthur!”

Quatermass attempted to explain himself and found he had no idea where to begin. The numbness that had dulled the pain had made him stupid.

“Down then.” It was Jack who made the decision. “Let’s go.”

Arthur pulled a sheet of scrap metal across the grave to hide it. He held up his candle in a last salute.

“ ’Bye, Dick,” he said.

There was a sniffle of grief from one of the old women. Then candles were being put out. The moonlight was strong enough for them to pick their way along. “Done yer ankle in, haven’t you, love?” said Edna. “Lean on me.” He felt a stout biceps that must have done hard work in its day.

“Down where?” he asked.

She had no time to explain. “Come along, love,” she said. “You’ll see in a sec. Over this way now.”

He saw the two other old women turning into the open back of a big van. He frowned as Edna led him towards it.

“Are we going in this?”

For the van had no wheels.

Edna grinned at him. She hoisted him with the skilled lift of one used to weights, into the van. Now he saw what “down” meant. There was a trap door in the floor of it, through which faint light came flickering. The two old women ahead of them were making their way down a ladder.

“Now, love,” said Edna, “I’ll go first, then you’ll have something soft to fall on, eh? Hang on tight to them rungs. Keep yer bad foot clear.”

Only when he got to the bottom was he able to get his breath and glance round.

They were in a tunnel. The walls were shored up with metal garnered from the scrap yard, with doors removed from cars and vans.
A. R. Hume, Family Butcher
, read the faded paintwork on one. Another carried the insignia of Selfridges’ store.

“Never seen the like of this, have you?” said Edna. “It’s all made out of the old motors.”

There was a thud above as the trap door shut. Arthur and Jack were following down the ladder. “Keep moving there,” said Jack. He unhooked one of the tin lamps that seemed to provide what light there was, and they started through the tunnel. More car doors. A post office van . . .
Jas. Harper, Removals . . . Shell . . .

“Doors are strong, y’see,” explained Edna, “and you can get ’em off. God intended a use for everything, that’s what I say.”

The tunnel widened.

They were in a catacomb of metal. Cell-like cubicles opened off it, curtained with material that must have been ripped out of car roofs. An old woman was drowsing in one of them on what was plainly a car’s rear seat. There were a score of these cells at least, round an open space. Here the corrugated roof was shored up by oil drums built in columns, and beyond it other dark tunnels led off. More car seats were arranged round an oil heater and a table with a velvet cloth covering it. There were plastic flowers in a vase. Rough shelves held nodding dogs and other rear-window ornaments, that must have annoyed many a following motorist in their time.

There were about a dozen old people here, all of them between seventy and eighty years, Quatermass judged. Their clothes had seen a lot of repair but they were respectable.

All eyes were on him. The old women who had gone before were muttering their tale to the rest.

“Over here now, love,” said Edna.

He collapsed on to a car seat. Soft, best quality hide, probably from a Rolls. The thickset man Jack moved closer with his lantern so that they could all take a look.

“Found him up top, did you?” said another old man.

“Who is he?”

“We dunno,” said Arthur. “That’s what’s wrong.”

Jack pushed his face near. He had eyes that seemed pouched in solid muscle. “Gangs, was it? Gangs after you?”

Quatermass said: “I think—Blue Brigade.”

An old woman began to sob.

“All right, Susie.” Edna patted her and turned to Quatermass. “They done her old man. Now let’s have a look, love, and see what the damage is.”

“Just leave me—” Quatermass only wanted to rest.

“It’s all right,” said Edna. “I used to do some nursing. Once upon a time. I look after all these when they get bad, don’t I?” Faces nodded. She applied herself with a gentleness that surprised him, considering her thick arms. “His head’s split, that’s one thing to watch. Got a patch on it, he has.”

What was that? Of course, from the mugging, whenever that had been—

“You’ll need to bathe it,” said another old woman, in a voice so fragilely beautiful it made Quatermass look at her. But clearly she had never been a beauty.

“That’s right, Jane,” said another. “It’s the brain, you see.”

“I was pointing that out, Winnie,” said Jane.

“Yes,” Winnie said, “you got to look after your brain.”

All the time Edna was neatly and expertly easing his ruined jacket off. “All right so far,” she said. “Now let’s have a look at that ankle. No need to rip your trouser leg up, it’s been done for me.”

Quatermass winced. But her hands were deft on the hurt.

“They really give it him!” cackled Arthur. As if wishing to seem less rude he leaned across and repeated it. “I said they really give it you!”

Quatermass nodded.

Jack narrowed the muscular pads round his eyes. “He’s a good age.”

“Aye, he is that,” Arthur agreed. If Jack wasn’t troubled about making personal remarks, he was absolved too. “A right old pot.”

“What d’you reckon?” said Jack. They turned away. Quatermass realized that the mutterings which followed were about him. What to do with him, no doubt. He made an effort.

“I’d be grateful,” he said, “if you can just fix me up. Help me . . . get on my way. So much to do. Please . . .”

Edna gave him a pat that must have been meant as reassurance. She turned to the two men. He heard her whisper: “He could have Dick’s place.”

“I dunno.” Jack drew in his breath.

Old Susie, who had been straining with curiosity, caught the name. “What about Dick, though?”

“Dick’s gone,” whispered Jane.

“Eh?” Susie looked confused.

“We buried him tonight,” said Jane, and to ease the confusion: “You weren’t there. You didn’t come.”

Susie looked even vaguer. “Oh . . . yes,” she said.

The others were still murmuring together, throwing wary glances. Quatermass took a firm grip on the chair back—the squab it was correctly called in motoring parlance—and pulled himself round to face them. “No,” he said, “I mustn’t stay here. It’s kind of you to consider it, but . . . there’s no time and . . . it’s extremely . . . vitally important . . . find those people . . . explain to them . . .”

They were staring at him as if he was crazy. He hardly knew what he was talking about, except that there was something he had to do and it was fast slipping away from him. He jerked himself to his feet and cried: “I’ve got to go!”

He took one step forward . . . and landed his full weight on the injury. The ankle seemed to scream aloud.

This time there were many hands to grab him . . .

9

Q
uatermass was drunk. Or half drunk. It was difficult to assess it precisely, even when he studied the problem very seriously indeed. It had been a mistake to come to this bloody pub with old Trethearne, at least with the intention of having any serious discussion. And the steerage system of a rocket was a very serious matter. The design had reached a serious, critical stage. If they couldn’t get it right, what hope of the bloody thing ever carrying mails from London to New York?