The Chop Shop Read online

  They set the car alarm off, only for it to be silenced again by a hammer blow to the front of the bonnet.

  Michael felt the tingle of sweat on his skin and the vibrations of the steering wheel, as the engine rumbled softly. He drove back onto the road and headed further along until he could take a left turn and parked out of sight. The houses here were bordered up and condemned; yellow leaflets warning of disease outbreaks drifted across the street. More were taped to doors and windows.

  Michael got out, locked the door and double-checked that it was secure. He inspected his .45 and pulled back the slide to chamber a bullet. The skinheads were still at the other end of the road when he came back round the corner. He walked slow, trying not to draw attention to himself.

  One of the gang stared at him with the hollow cheeks and dark, sunken eyes of a heroin addiction. He slipped into the alley next to the chemist. The rubbish had been swept to either side of the path, and an iron fence blocked his path. The gate was locked and bolted shut with a padlock. Blue paint flaked away, revealing orange rust beneath it.

  He pressed the buzzer mounted on the wall. Footsteps came from behind, and he turned in time to see somebody run past the alleyway. A lone figure descended a set of metal steps in matching blue paint. The staircase rattled.

  The man wore a police uniform, and he carried his rifle in one hand, eyes darting back and forth across the courtyard as he moved to the gate.

  “Are those skinheads still out there? They dropped out of sight of our cameras,” the policeman said. He fumbled with his set of keys.

  “They're at the end of the road laying waste to somebody's car,” Michael said, flashing his ID at the policeman.

  The policeman unlocked the gate. “Come on, we should get inside before they come back.”

  He relocked the gate with trembling hands once Michael was inside.

  “Anything I should know about?” Michael said.

  The policeman shook the gate to check it was secure, rattling the razor wire mounted on the top. He shook his head. “Just the usual trouble. We need to get inside before they hear us.”

  Michael followed the policeman up the stairs. “They've already seen me coming in. Is that a problem?”

  “Probably not. They take a lot of drugs, and it turns them into a bunch of vicious dogs. Generally you're okay as long as you don't draw too much attention to yourself. No sudden moves, no loud noises, and no staring at them. They've been roaming this area for a days. I keep calling HQ for support, but they're stretched pretty thin at the moment. Skinheads rank a little lower on the priority list, know what I mean?”

  They went inside the flat, and the policeman locked and bolted the door behind them. Two others were inside the lounge, backs turned, hunched over computers. They wore headphones. Tape recorders clicked and whirred.

  “Charlie, we've got a visitor,” the policeman said. He shook the man on the right.

  Charlie swivelled around in his chair. His eyes widened a little as he ripped off the headphones. “Bloody hell. Bloody hell. Ten years, and you still don't look so different.”

  Michael smiled. He shook Charlie's hand. “What are you doing here? If I'd known you were working for Assurer, I would have stopped by ages ago.”

  “I've been around a bit. Got myself a rather cushy job here, if you ignore the roving gangs outside. So you're a real honest to God detective?”

  “If you can call it that.”

  Charlie spun in his chair to face the others. “I was in the war with this guy. Fucking Berlin, what a mess. I thought you were dead when they dragged what was left of you back to England on that helicopter. What brings you here, anyway? Want a drink?”

  He flipped open the mini-fridge by his foot and removed a soft drink. “No alcohol, sorry.”

  “It's okay, I'm fine. Business brings me here. You heard all the radio chatter about the shooting up top?”

  “Oh, that,” Charlie said, nodding. “Yeah, that's been non-stop.”

  Michael glanced at the stack of tapes and burnt discs. “You've been recording it all, right?”

  “What we could. We have to monitor the surrounding areas as well. Most of it is unimportant junk communication.”

  He unfolded a printout and placed it in front of Charlie. “That's the guy who did it. He's got a radio in that picture, you see? It doesn't look like something with a long range. Check the time stamp; would you have picked anything up?”

  Charlie turned back to his computer. “Maybe. We can't listen to everything, but if there was something on another channel the computer might have picked it up and logged it.”

  He spun the trackball about, navigating a blue, grey and yellow user interface that was more text than picture with a chunky block cursor. “There's a lot of traffic at this time. We could be here for days, unless... I recognise that type of radio handset. Very short-range. We might have gotten something, let me change that. Here, listen to this.”

  Static erupted from a set of desktop speakers. A distorted voice cut into it, impossibly deep, like one of those children's tricks where people played music backwards to uncover satanic lyrics spoken by the Devil. It faded out and then came back again.

  “What do you make of it?” Michael said.

  “Something was screwing with the signal. I'm not sure, to be honest. It's like some kind of poor man's attempt at encryption, except they've actually done a rather good job of it. The only people with the expertise to figure it out these days are the people who won't; the army.”

  Michael nodded. “Can you put it all on a disc for me? Those antennas on the roof are good for something, right? Could they have triangulated the location of the signal source with some of the other listening posts? If we can't work out what they're saying then finding out where they were is the next best thing. I'll need to check the place out. They're probably long gone by now.”

  Charlie took a long sip from his drink. “If the source was close enough the computer would have logged it, yeah. John, make him a copy of all this. You'll have to do a little investigating, Mike. Real investigating, like getting out of your car and searching individual buildings. These piece of shit computers aren't very good. Give me a minute.”

  “It's a start, and it's not like I've got anything better to go on.”

  “Pass me your map,” Charlie said. He drew a rectangle around an area north by the Thames.

  “That's further than I thought. There used to be another listening post around there. Maybe they picked up a better signal,” Michael said.

  A thin smile spread across Charlie's face. “Your luck isn't that good, mate. They shuttered it last March and moved the equipment to somewhere they deemed more important. This area here, it's all abandoned warehouses, if there's anything left of them; they've been like that since the war ended. There's some dockland there as well.”

  John slipped the copied disc into a plastic sleeve and handed it to Michael. The clank of metal outside drew their attention.

  “Ah, shit. Somebody must have tipped them off,” Charlie said. He pointed to his computer monitor, now displaying footage from the camera in the courtyard.

  Skinheads rattled the gate and beat at it with hammers and metal sticks. Others hurled bottles over the barbed wire. Glass shattered across the courtyard, and one struck the staircase. A chorus of cheers and screams went up outside.

  “That gate doesn't look very secure,” Michael said.

  Charlie took a set of keys from his belt. He tossed them to John, who opened the weapons locker on the wall. They put on their body armour and loaded rifles and shotguns. “It's stronger than it looks. They're going to come out of this far worse than us if they try and get in here.”

  “We think they have an arms cache around here somewhere, but it'll take time for them to get organised,” John said.

  Michael started to speak.

  “I know, you can't wait around all day for them to go away, and backup will be a while, if it ever comes. Don't worry, mate; there's another
way out of here. Come on, I'll show you. John, watch that gate. If they get past it, splatter them over the concrete.”

  “Will do, Corporal.”

  Michael followed Charlie through a kitchen littered with the left overs of corned beef ration packs and into the bedroom. An extendible ladder leaned against the wall.

  “I suppose this happens a lot to you, then? You haven't broken a sweat or anything yet,” Michael said.

  “Yes, more or less. If it isn't skinheads trying to beat down the gate, it's motherfucking metal thieves on the roof trying to steal the antennas and radio equipment. Caught one up there the other night. We shot him to pieces, and the dogs were happy enough to clean up the mess. Help me with this.”

  They pushed the tattered sofa across to the other side of the room. A wooden door lay beneath it, which Charlie kicked away to reveal the hole in the floor. He extended the ladder and lowered it through the hole. “Down here.”

  The smell of dead rodents hit him like poison gas, as he stepped off the bottom rung. Cats meowed from the shadows. Charlie cracked the glow stick in his hand and gave it a shake. A green glow spread across the room, lighting up animal faeces and startling the cats. One of the felines hissed at them.

  Charlie opened a cupboard door, revealing a rusted hatch. “This goes down into an old fallout shelter, but it has a secondary exit several buildings down. It'll get you out of the courtyard and back onto the streets, but you'll have to be quiet. Air ventilation is bad down there, so don't stay too long or you might suffocate, and don't take the wrong door, otherwise it'll take you straight out into the sewers.”

  The stench of something rotten crawled up Michael's nose. He gagged and covered his mouth, managing only a small nod in response. Charlie handed him another glow stick.

  “What station are you at?”

  “Richmond,” Michael said through his hand. He held his breath, cracked the glow stick and climbed down the rusty ladder. The brickwork scraped at the elbows of his coat. He looked up when he reached the bottom.

  “I'll give you a call sometime; we can have a pint. Be seeing you, mate,” Charlie said. He slammed the hatch shut and sent a thunderous echo down the shaft.

  Michael probed the darkness with his glow stick; there was a dead rat by his foot. His hands trembled. The air felt impossibly hot, as he loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top of his shirt, trying to force himself to take a step forward.

  If he shut his eyes, he could almost believe he was back in Berlin, wading through stinking sewers contaminated with nerve agents and filled with bloated corpses and the hordes of crawling rats that fed off them. A sound echoed off the concrete walls further down the tunnel.

  He reached for his gun with a clammy hand and eased a finger onto the trigger guard. The urge to crawl back up the shaft overwhelmed him. His breath came in short gasps, until he put one foot forward, and then another and another.

  The shape of the shelter door came forward out of the darkness, tinted green by the glow stick and left wide open. Three sets of bunk beds lined the concrete walls, in decay and untouched since the war. Old pillows still gave shape to one of the blankets.

  He stepped on an empty ration pack. A kitchen lay beyond the living area and just past that a bathroom, big enough for one person at a time. Between them was the exit. His heart raced quicker, followed by a sting of pain in his chest.

  The bolts on the door wouldn't shift. He pulled harder, sweat dripping down his temples. He holstered his gun, tossed the glow stick to the floor and tried with both hands. Somebody grabbed him from behind.

  The man's flesh was blistered and felt like leather. He tightened his hold until he began to crush Michael's windpipe, and the stench of a bad tooth escaped his mouth as he wheezed. Michael pushed backwards, connecting his skull with the man's nose.

  Cartilage cracked. The man's hold suddenly went slack. He fell backwards, struck the wall and grunted. Second degree burns had ruined his face, and the glow stick turned him green. He came at Michael again with a fire axe in hand, baring his chipped teeth like a feral animal. Most of his lips were gone from burn injuries.

  He swung the axe, only to miss; his strike hit the door hard enough to cause a spark. Michael slammed him against the door. Several teeth broke free of his gums, as his blood splattered across the metal.

  Michael spun him around, fished for the plastic ballpoint pen in his pocket and plunged its tip through the man's eye. The pen snapped in half before he could bury it further than the midpoint.

  The man let out a rasping scream that echoed all the way back down to the hatch. He convulsed from the pain and sank to the floor. Michael picked up the axe. Its head was covered in dried, crusty blood and notched where it had cut through bone.

  He kicked the man on his side and split his head in half where the jaw joined the skull. The axe slipped from his sweaty hands, and he backed away, light-headed, until his spine touched the opposite wall. His foot knocked something under the bunk; human bones stripped of skin, muscle and flesh.

  The sweat on his skin felt as cold as ice. He picked up the gun, holstered it with trembling hands and tried again to open the door. The bolts gave way. Green light crept into the corridor and revealed a pair of doors, which somebody had labelled with white chalk. He opened the one on the right and found himself in another ladder shaft.

  Michael moved faster, unable to resist the urge to escape any longer. He climbed the ladder, catching his feet on the iron rungs. The hatch was locked. Panic set in. He clung to the ladder with one hand and used his other to fiddle with the locks. He shook violently.

  The smell of burning meat hung in the air, as he opened the hatch. Michael padded across the shop floor. Homeless people huddled around their bin fires, one cooking a trio of dead rats on a metal skewer. His shoe crunched glass beneath it.

  They looked up at him, saw the gun holstered on his hip and raised their hands. Michael flashed them his police ID. A woman ran past and into the room he'd just come from. She bolted the door shut. The others remained paralysed by the sight of him, eyes wide, mouths hanging open.

  He stepped through the broken window of the chemist and onto the street. Shouts and laughter came from around the corner; the skinheads beat at the gate. Michael ran down the street, pausing at the corner to make sure nobody followed, and went back to his car.

  The air felt colder now. He shivered. It took him three attempts to get the keys to fit the lock. He fumbled with the handle until it opened, started the engine and hit the accelerator pedal so hard the tires squealed.

  Chapter 4.

  Michael passed several fortified communities on his way north. Razor wire topped concrete walls patrolled by private military contractors, and snipers sat watch on the tallest buildings. It was late afternoon now, and school children walked the streets. Some had uniforms, others wore tattered rags and shoes kept together with electrical tape. Assurer police forces watched from their vehicles.

  He tried to forget about the fallout shelter, but it kept coming back to him. The thought turned him cold, and his pulse began to race. He looked terrible in the rear view mirror, but he felt even worse inside.

  Warehouses and factories emerged out of the darkness ahead. Their security fences had turned to rust, and there were now countless holes where people had cut their way through. He parked on the pavement.

  It was empty here, devoid of life, save for the black bird perched on the fence, nearly as big as his head. The bird watched him with beady eyes as he passed. He felt the gust of cold wind against his skin.

  Michael went through a gap that had been cut in the fence, stepping over rubble and shattered bricks. He shivered. A sound came from behind the security hut ahead. Click, rattle, click; an upturned bicycle, pink, and just the right size for a child. Part of its metal frame had melted and fused with the rubble. Its remaining wheel spun backwards in the wind.

  Click, rattle, click.

  Yellow sheets of paper drifted on the wind from the security hut. T
hey blew across the debris until finally settling amongst a pile of human bones. Five buildings still stood, though one was mostly ruins, and beyond them he saw the riverbank.

  Michael found himself wanting to turn back. He remembered the cannibal in the shelter and wondered if there were more like him lurking here in the ruins. He removed his .45 from its holster and disengaged the safety. The shakes had come back.

  He found the door to the first building lying in two pieces beside the entrance. Patches of rust grew where the paint had flaked away. He went inside. Empty tables and crumbling machinery. Michael plucked a flyer from one of the cork notice boards; fire safety around munitions. He tossed it away, catching an unused shell casing with his foot as he walked on.

  Part of the roof had caved in. Twinkling lights and neon advertisements flashed above. The smaller rooms were occupied by decade old human remains, still dressed in their squalid work overalls. He cleared the next three buildings, but found only looted storage crates.

  The last building loomed a story taller than the others, an ominous shape on the horizon that gave him a sense of unease. Destroyed towers stood in the distance. They had been luxury flats on the river, but now they looked like fingers cut off at the knuckles, each one shorter than the last. Voices echoed off the concrete.

  Michael went down on a knee and hunched beside a chunk of chimney. Humanoid shapes moved in the darkness. They came closer until he could see them clearly, dressed in white sheets like ghosts and wearing shoes made out of rags wrapped around their feet.

  One carried scrap metal under an arm, and another clutched a tire. The others, four of them, chased after something amongst the ruins. They beat about the rubble with sticks. The skinny one, taller than the rest, lifted a fox by its tail and draped the corpse over his shoulder.

  The group turned and continued on towards Michael. He crawled into the industrial chimney. Their footsteps came closer, and he smelt the rancid and festering stench of their body odour, like a combination of old cigarettes and dog faeces.