Disaster came from the stars ... des astres. Alice’s astrologer friend had told her this, and that one day soon the human race would be brought to its knees. She had laughed at her.
But now this. One minute a rapturous, crowded bowl of pounding rhythms and lights, the next, pitch blackness and thousands of young voices screaming. Omygod, omygod, omygod! ... the empty blasphemy filled with desperate fear now and close to prayer as bodies crushed each other in a blind struggle through tunnels and doors and stairs. There was no light anywhere. There was no moon. There were no stars. Only the crazy flicker of mobile phones lit the panic and one by one they died. One by one they died.
Alice leaned against a building, shaking, with the smell of blood and filth in her nose. Somehow she had reached the main road. She must call her Mum, then a taxi to get home. The emergency fare would still be in her bra. She could barely keep her hands steady to scroll through her contacts. Mum. Press Call. No signal. Try the taxi. No signal. What was happening? She felt for the money between lace and skin - it was gone. Was it the boy? Where was he now? Home was ten miles away through the endless suburbs and she hurt, and she was thirsty, and felt horribly sick. Where was all the traffic? She listened. She could still hear crying and screams behind her; and in the distance the pulsing wail of police cars. Where was everybody? It was half-past one in the morning. In bed. Asleep. Unaware. Then tyres on the road, one car’s headlights slowly filling the darkness and picking her out as she stepped off the kerb. The driver braked and opened a door.
“What in heaven’s name has happened here?”
The youngster in her torn and bloodied dress burst into tears. Her elderly rescuer eased her into the back seat, made sure she was safe, and restarted his engine.
“We need to get you to a hospital.”
“What about all the others?”
“The others?”
“There were thousands of us. We were all in the arena. Lots of people are hurt really badly and our phones won’t work.”
The man stared in his rear-view mirror at the sobbing girl.
“We’ll find the police. Maybe someone can send help.”
Lights were coming closer. Blue lights, orange lights, eye-dizzying in the blackness. The headlights picked out a scrum of vehicles and amidst them the columns of dead traffic-lights. There was steam, and smoke, the stench of escaping fuel, and a chaos of crumpled metal. The noise of cutting gear shocked the surrounding silence. An officer approached their car.
“You were lucky. Half an hour earlier and this would have been you.”
“This child needs urgent help. And you need to get ambulances to the arena; there seems to have been a panic when the power went. We may have another Hillsborough.”
“Every ambulance is out. It’s not just the city, it’s the whole country - maybe the continent. Maybe even global. We can’t cope. Something has knocked out the satellites, computer systems, the power grid. People with generators are doing their best, but the fuel won’t last, we can’t pump any more, and then we’re sunk.”
“Are there any phones?”
“The last few viable landlines are failing already; all we have is battery power and short-wave radio.”
“What am I to do with this poor girl?”
“I want to go home.” She was shuddering and weeping.
“What is your name? Where do you live?”
“Alice Treadwell. I live in Altrincham.”
“Over ten miles away. And over the river... and you, Sir?”
“Edward Bunning. I’m local - I have a flat. I came out to see what I could do.”
“Then may I suggest this? Not far from here in Livesey Street is a convent. The sisters do have some medical expertise, and this may be the safest place for the moment for this young lady. Would you drive her there? It’s far too dangerous to try to cross the city and the suburbs in these conditions. And with all due respect, Sir, you are not a young man.”
“How do we get through this lot?”
“My constable will guide you round the back streets. Follow his bike, and pray for a clear run.”
“Thank you,” said Edward. “And good luck.”
“We’ll all need it.”
They did get a clear run to Livesey Street. The young constable waited on the drive with a torch while the old man delivered Alice to her new sanctuary, and then led him back through the dark to the horror of the cross-roads.
At first Alice thought no-one was coming to the door. The nuns were probably all in bed. But the lock turned and an elderly woman in blue drew her into the hall with “Oh you poor lamb!” and “God bless you Sir for bringing her here on this terrible night.” Conscious of the mess she was in, Alice, who wanted to hug Edward for his extraordinary kindness, could only touch his hand and whisper “Thank you” before he turned back to the car and slowly drove away.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get to the door more quickly,” said the sister, “but all the lights are out and I had to feel my way downstairs. We have a generator, but we can’t get it going till daylight, and maybe our handyman will come to help us. So I can’t offer you tea, much as you need it, only some milk or fruit juice.”
“I only want some water. I feel so queasy.”
“Of course you do. Now here, I’ve found a torch and it seems to be working, so come into the kitchen and we’ll get some fluid into you and then get you out of those clothes. Dear God, whatever happened to you?”
Alice managed to tell the sister about the arena, and the panic, and the deadly crush, while she sipped water and then allowed herself to be eased out of the ripped and filthy dress, her blood-stained shoes and the soiled underwear.
“What shall I be doing with these, now?”
“I don’t want them. You can throw them away.”
“Wrap yourself in my cloak till we get you into a bath - there may be just enough hot water in the tank, but that will be the last of it because the pump won’t work. Then I shall patch you up and find you some pyjamas ... Alice, isn’t it?”
“Yes. What is your name, please?”
“Sister Mary, after Our Lady. We have a special devotion to her here. And won’t she be looking out for you now.”
Alice didn’t know what to say. This was as weird as her friend’s astrology. But the soft Irish voice comforted her, and she let herself be led to the promised bath, to be gently but thoroughly washed from head to toe by candle-light, injuries treated, and clad in the nuns’ roomy pyjamas.
“It’s bed for you now,” said Sister Mary, “and no alarm clocks. If you feel ready to eat again by the morning just tell one of us and we’ll find you something for breakfast. We’re lucky to keep propane gas here, so out will come the camping stove tomorrow and any soul who turns up for a hot meal can have one. Jesus teaches us to be well prepared for emergencies!”
Despite the pain in her body and the nightmare in her head, Alice slept.
There was no news next day. TV, radio, printing and internet were all dead. The police were going from door to door checking on people, giving them whatever information was coming through on their short-wave receivers. The army was out on the city streets; there had already been looting and further panic and violence was expected. There were rumours that satellites were crashing, that solar storms were about to engulf the earth, that Armageddon had started ...
“What will happen to us?”
Sister Mary put an arm round Alice’s shoulders.
“We shall have to learn all over again to live by God’s rules.”
“God’s rules?”
“To be content with little. To honour the natural world. To work hard by daylight and sleep when it is dark. God love you, what were you thinking, dancing and drinking and shouting all night long?”
“We were having fun.”
“Fun, is it. Hmm. Well, there’ll be no music now except your own sweet singing. And no more texting, my girl. Now sit down and write a letter in proper English to let your mother know you are safe; she will be out of her mind with worry. The postmen are going to be very busy people! Then you can help us pick lunch from the garden.”
Alice never saw her mother again. Like millions of others that winter she died of hunger and cold, forced to live on a world slowly repairing centuries of damage.
But now this. One minute a rapturous, crowded bowl of pounding rhythms and lights, the next, pitch blackness and thousands of young voices screaming. Omygod, omygod, omygod! ... the empty blasphemy filled with desperate fear now and close to prayer as bodies crushed each other in a blind struggle through tunnels and doors and stairs. There was no light anywhere. There was no moon. There were no stars. Only the crazy flicker of mobile phones lit the panic and one by one they died. One by one they died.
Alice leaned against a building, shaking, with the smell of blood and filth in her nose. Somehow she had reached the main road. She must call her Mum, then a taxi to get home. The emergency fare would still be in her bra. She could barely keep her hands steady to scroll through her contacts. Mum. Press Call. No signal. Try the taxi. No signal. What was happening? She felt for the money between lace and skin - it was gone. Was it the boy? Where was he now? Home was ten miles away through the endless suburbs and she hurt, and she was thirsty, and felt horribly sick. Where was all the traffic? She listened. She could still hear crying and screams behind her; and in the distance the pulsing wail of police cars. Where was everybody? It was half-past one in the morning. In bed. Asleep. Unaware. Then tyres on the road, one car’s headlights slowly filling the darkness and picking her out as she stepped off the kerb. The driver braked and opened a door.
“What in heaven’s name has happened here?”
The youngster in her torn and bloodied dress burst into tears. Her elderly rescuer eased her into the back seat, made sure she was safe, and restarted his engine.
“We need to get you to a hospital.”
“What about all the others?”
“The others?”
“There were thousands of us. We were all in the arena. Lots of people are hurt really badly and our phones won’t work.”
The man stared in his rear-view mirror at the sobbing girl.
“We’ll find the police. Maybe someone can send help.”
Lights were coming closer. Blue lights, orange lights, eye-dizzying in the blackness. The headlights picked out a scrum of vehicles and amidst them the columns of dead traffic-lights. There was steam, and smoke, the stench of escaping fuel, and a chaos of crumpled metal. The noise of cutting gear shocked the surrounding silence. An officer approached their car.
“You were lucky. Half an hour earlier and this would have been you.”
“This child needs urgent help. And you need to get ambulances to the arena; there seems to have been a panic when the power went. We may have another Hillsborough.”
“Every ambulance is out. It’s not just the city, it’s the whole country - maybe the continent. Maybe even global. We can’t cope. Something has knocked out the satellites, computer systems, the power grid. People with generators are doing their best, but the fuel won’t last, we can’t pump any more, and then we’re sunk.”
“Are there any phones?”
“The last few viable landlines are failing already; all we have is battery power and short-wave radio.”
“What am I to do with this poor girl?”
“I want to go home.” She was shuddering and weeping.
“What is your name? Where do you live?”
“Alice Treadwell. I live in Altrincham.”
“Over ten miles away. And over the river... and you, Sir?”
“Edward Bunning. I’m local - I have a flat. I came out to see what I could do.”
“Then may I suggest this? Not far from here in Livesey Street is a convent. The sisters do have some medical expertise, and this may be the safest place for the moment for this young lady. Would you drive her there? It’s far too dangerous to try to cross the city and the suburbs in these conditions. And with all due respect, Sir, you are not a young man.”
“How do we get through this lot?”
“My constable will guide you round the back streets. Follow his bike, and pray for a clear run.”
“Thank you,” said Edward. “And good luck.”
“We’ll all need it.”
They did get a clear run to Livesey Street. The young constable waited on the drive with a torch while the old man delivered Alice to her new sanctuary, and then led him back through the dark to the horror of the cross-roads.
At first Alice thought no-one was coming to the door. The nuns were probably all in bed. But the lock turned and an elderly woman in blue drew her into the hall with “Oh you poor lamb!” and “God bless you Sir for bringing her here on this terrible night.” Conscious of the mess she was in, Alice, who wanted to hug Edward for his extraordinary kindness, could only touch his hand and whisper “Thank you” before he turned back to the car and slowly drove away.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get to the door more quickly,” said the sister, “but all the lights are out and I had to feel my way downstairs. We have a generator, but we can’t get it going till daylight, and maybe our handyman will come to help us. So I can’t offer you tea, much as you need it, only some milk or fruit juice.”
“I only want some water. I feel so queasy.”
“Of course you do. Now here, I’ve found a torch and it seems to be working, so come into the kitchen and we’ll get some fluid into you and then get you out of those clothes. Dear God, whatever happened to you?”
Alice managed to tell the sister about the arena, and the panic, and the deadly crush, while she sipped water and then allowed herself to be eased out of the ripped and filthy dress, her blood-stained shoes and the soiled underwear.
“What shall I be doing with these, now?”
“I don’t want them. You can throw them away.”
“Wrap yourself in my cloak till we get you into a bath - there may be just enough hot water in the tank, but that will be the last of it because the pump won’t work. Then I shall patch you up and find you some pyjamas ... Alice, isn’t it?”
“Yes. What is your name, please?”
“Sister Mary, after Our Lady. We have a special devotion to her here. And won’t she be looking out for you now.”
Alice didn’t know what to say. This was as weird as her friend’s astrology. But the soft Irish voice comforted her, and she let herself be led to the promised bath, to be gently but thoroughly washed from head to toe by candle-light, injuries treated, and clad in the nuns’ roomy pyjamas.
“It’s bed for you now,” said Sister Mary, “and no alarm clocks. If you feel ready to eat again by the morning just tell one of us and we’ll find you something for breakfast. We’re lucky to keep propane gas here, so out will come the camping stove tomorrow and any soul who turns up for a hot meal can have one. Jesus teaches us to be well prepared for emergencies!”
Despite the pain in her body and the nightmare in her head, Alice slept.
There was no news next day. TV, radio, printing and internet were all dead. The police were going from door to door checking on people, giving them whatever information was coming through on their short-wave receivers. The army was out on the city streets; there had already been looting and further panic and violence was expected. There were rumours that satellites were crashing, that solar storms were about to engulf the earth, that Armageddon had started ...
“What will happen to us?”
Sister Mary put an arm round Alice’s shoulders.
“We shall have to learn all over again to live by God’s rules.”
“God’s rules?”
“To be content with little. To honour the natural world. To work hard by daylight and sleep when it is dark. God love you, what were you thinking, dancing and drinking and shouting all night long?”
“We were having fun.”
“Fun, is it. Hmm. Well, there’ll be no music now except your own sweet singing. And no more texting, my girl. Now sit down and write a letter in proper English to let your mother know you are safe; she will be out of her mind with worry. The postmen are going to be very busy people! Then you can help us pick lunch from the garden.”
Alice never saw her mother again. Like millions of others that winter she died of hunger and cold, forced to live on a world slowly repairing centuries of damage.