Dark Ages. John Pritchard
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Author’s Note
As touching the terrors of the night, they are as many as our sins. The night is the Devil’s black book, wherein he recordeth all our transgressions.
Thomas Nashe
She had no truck with horoscopes. No way could someone’s future be predicted by the stars. And yet, as Frances glanced at them with casual disinterest, her own was written there for her to see.
The sky tonight was orange and polluted, but frosty sparks were showing here and there. The only shapes she recognized were two her mum had shown her – out in the back, one bedtime, long ago. From the flyover embankment, she could see them well enough. The Great Bear, rising upward from the dark fields to the north; and setting in the west, the Northern Cross.
Cars passed fitfully, racing westward through the night; the junction left behind before they knew it. In the lengthy gaps between them, the dark and silent countryside drew closer. Fran turned on the spot, then pulled back her glove to check her watch. Just past midnight. They’d got here first this time.
Wrapping her long coat closer, she went back to the car. It was parked up a service road, just short of the underpass. The others had sat tight; she didn’t blame them. Paul leaned across to open the passenger door, and she climbed in, drawing a shivery breath between her teeth.
‘Anything?’
Fran shook her head. ‘Dead quiet.’
The CB crackled briefly, then lapsed into an empty, spooky hiss. She gave it a glance. The set was clamped below the dashboard, its digits glowing green.
‘Nothing on that?’
His turn to shake his head. ‘Not since Merlin.’
Ten minutes since that last, half-garbled contact. As if the silence of the night had clogged the airwaves. The sense of isolation was insidious: creeping up. Bullington Cross felt cut off from the world – a lonely, lamplit island in the murk.
‘Want some coffee?’ asked Marie from the back. Fran turned gratefully in her seat, and took the thermos cup she proffered. The coffee was too hot to taste: a gulp of scalding water. She wriggled as it seared its way down.
‘So when are we going to meet this boyfriend of yours?’ Marie teased in her ear.
Fran turned her nose up coyly. ‘When I let you.’
‘Knows about these midnight escapades, does he?’ Paul murmured.
‘Yeah …’ said Fran. ‘He knows.’ Her eyes flicked down. She took another sip.
‘And does he think you’re mad?’ Kate asked.
‘He thinks I’m bloody crazy.’
Paul grinned at that, and raised the CB handset to his mouth. ‘This is Catkin at Bullington … any news on the convoy, over?’
The edgy pause that followed made them all hunch forward: waiting. The radio snapped and squawked. And then a woman’s voice came through – tone firm but faint with distance.
‘… call for Herbs and Watchers along South Route … Four launchers, two controls, out of Yellow by ten past twelve …’
‘Shit,’ Kate whispered, shifting.
Fran swallowed. ‘Twenty minutes …’ She felt a tingle of relief: it wasn’t a false call. Then her stomach hollowed out. They’re on their way. They’re coming.
Heart thudding, she climbed out; the others followed. Paul unloaded placards from the boot and passed them round. Glancing up, Fran saw that a police car had appeared while they’d been talking: it was parked on the flyover above them, watching the A34.
The four of them walked in silence through the underpass, emerging in the day-glo of the link road. A handful of others were there already. Fran recognized old faces, said hello. Chatting, someone cracked a joke: she giggled with delight. The tension sometimes got to her that way.
A transit van came crawling past, and dropped off several coppers. She watched one cross the road to shine his torch into the woods. The others started spacing out along the nearside kerb.
‘Come far?’ one asked her, amiably enough.
‘Oxford.’
‘So when’ll you be getting to bed tonight?’
She shrugged. ‘God knows.’ Not much before three, if we follow it down. And I’ve got a tutorial in the morning …
‘This may be a silly question, right … but why are you wearing shades at half-past midnight?’
She reached up to adjust them with an impish little grin. ‘To preserve my anonymity, of course.’
‘Famous, are you?’
She shook her head. ‘Notorious, more like.’
The snarl of motorbikes made her heartbeat quicken. She turned her head as the outriders reached the underpass, and paused to rev their engines. Four or five patrolmen, helmets swivelling: waiting for the signal to proceed. They had it a moment later, and peeled off past her, roaring up onto the flyover and westward.
Frivolity had fizzled out. The thump of her heart felt as heavy as lead. Dry-mouthed, she started up towards the crest. A couple of Watchers were waiting there, well-marked. Silent now, the copper matched her pace.
The police car on the flyover came suddenly to life: drove backwards, blue lights flashing, to block the access road. Fran looked beyond it – but the A34 lay empty in the darkness.
A glance back at the others: they’d stayed down in the shadow of the heavy concrete span. But then she’d always been the type to strike out on her own.
A squad car – London plates – came cruising past.
‘Here they come,’ called someone; and turning, she saw the line of lights come streaming down the hill. It nosed into the far side of the system, and came snaking slowly through it: the vehicles still hidden by the roundabout mound, but their noise now rising clearly to her ears.
She’d never forget the noise they made. Above the growl of engines, a clatter and squeak that made her hairs stand up.
Transits and patrol cars rumbled past her, driving steadily upslope onto the flyover – and then the first military vehicle came off the roundabout. A camouflaged command car, riding high on its wheels – a mottled, muddy shape behind the sleek white escorts. Whistles blew; a football rattle whirred. The turnout was too small to do much shouting. But Fran’s voice would have failed her if she’d been among a crowd. All she could do was stare, and search their faces: those bleak, unsmiling faces, staring back.
Pursing her lips, she stepped up to the verge and held her hand up, proffering a silent V for peace. The copper tensed, expecting her to lunge. The first Control was following already – a clanking monster, flexing like a serpent for the turn. She challenged the gaze of its armoured cab: a skull with a sarcophagus in tow. The second rumbled after it – and then the missile launchers, in a sinister cortege, their long, low backs enshrouded with tarpaulins. Engines roared at