End of the End Read online

  Barnden got to his feet. “Thank you, Laura,” he said, making her beam. He winked at Jane before he left, but didn’t say goodbye.

  AS THE CROWD gathered outside the long building, Jack made a point of not looking up at Nathaniel and Alice, the friends he’d failed to save. He wouldn’t be able to hide his revulsion, which wouldn’t help him or Jane.

  Yet, as they congregated with the rest of the community waiting for the show, a woman in a stripy jumper caught his eye and nodded, sharing his horror at what was being done but not daring to say it out loud. Jack gaped at her then quickly turned away, so no one else would spot the moment of connection.

  So, not everyone delighted in the killing of two teens. In fact, Jack could spot them, the individuals in the crowd whose smiles didn’t convince.

  He could have made a speech, tried to rally them—and perhaps others would have joined the cause, made a stand. There was the tantalising prospect of being torn down by this crowd, which seemed a bit more heroic than a slow death by radiation. This was exactly the kind of thing that made him want to be King: giving people a cause, something more than brute strength and the baying of the mob.

  Jane clasped his arm and he thought he must have been showing his anger. No, she’d seen something and it took a moment to follow her line of sight. A ladder had been set against the side of the building, and there was a team busy with two long ropes. Each rope had a hangman’s noose at the end. The idea seemed to be that Kit and Nina would both be alive as they were pulled up to the roof, kicking and flailing for the crowd’s delectation.

  That wasn’t what had given Jane the start. Next to the men with the ropes was a brightly coloured stand, at which people in tall hats cooked bubbling blobs of meat. A queue had formed to receive these tasty treats, the food served right where Kit and Nina were about to die.

  The cooking meat made Jack’s stomach turn over. Jane led him away, back towards the door into the building, dodging children feasting on toffee apples on sticks. He felt hot and giddy, tears streaming down his face. Around them, adults and children guzzled food and chattered, caught up in the excitement.

  And didn’t immediately notice the fire.

  The first Jack knew of it was a woman screaming. Then there were more shouts and people running off to the shanty town. Jane held Jack tight by the arm so they wouldn’t be separated. And then they saw the flames, licking round the side of the building, reaching up right to the roof to taste the first of the bodies hanging there.

  “The town’s on fire!” someone shouted.

  “Save the children!” shouted another. Jane led Jack to the door of the building, against the stampede.

  They walked into sudden darkness. A blanket of smoke crept its way across the ceiling, blocking the sky lights. Jane and Jack hurried to the far wall, and could feel the incredible heat of the blazing tents and sheds on the other side. Amid the roar of the flames were desperate, pitiful cries, people calling out instructions and names. Jane didn’t hesitate, tearing the lid off the first of the crates and seizing two rifles. She checked they were loaded, handed both to Jack and took two more for herself.

  Without a word, they marched out the building and made their way up the low rise to the fence. There were fewer men and women with shotguns guarding it—some had clearly been allowed to enjoy the execution party. The rest seemed torn about what to do about the blaze. Some came forward as Jack and Jane approached. Others raised their shotguns.

  “Laura sent us,” Jack called ahead—his throat sore, his voice gravelly from the smoke he had inhaled. “We can cover the fence with these, so more of you can help with putting out the fire.”

  Some of them dropped their shotguns and ran. The man in the suit Jack had seen before turned to one of the women pointing a shotgun at Jack. Jack could see her wavering, eyes on the blaze down the hill. Fuck, thought Jack, they might just pull this off without having to shoot anyone.

  “Stop!” yelled a voice from far behind them. “Don’t let them near the fence!”

  The woman in front of Jack fired at him and he let her have it with the rifles. The recoil almost knocked him backward, juddering through his arms and shoulders and jaw—and the weapons tore the woman apart. He sprayed more bullets into the man in the suit and the others at the fence. They didn’t stand a chance.

  “Fuck!” said Jane, beside him in the silence that followed the shooting. “Fucking fuck.”

  “You’re not the one who did it,” he said, hurrying forward to the fence.

  “Yeah, but what about the rest?”

  Jack looked behind them. The whole building was ablaze, and the shanty town beyond it, the flames blinding to look at, black smoke filling the sky. No one could get close to the flames, let alone combat them, which left nothing for them to do but follow Laura, brandishing shotguns, as they made their way up the hill.

  Jack dropped his rifles in the bloody earth and reached into his pocket for Barnden’s grenade. There was the fence post with the blue jersey, but with the grenade in his hand, Jack realised he didn’t know how to set it off, at least not without being caught in the blast.

  “Fuck’s sake,” said Jane, handing him one of her guns and taking the grenade. He covered her as she worked at the base of the fence. He fired over the heads of the crowd, but they kept on towards him, brandishing shotguns and knives. The mob included children.

  “Move,” said Jane, and she led him along the side of the fence for about fifty yards, then turned back in dread. Nothing exploded behind them. It hadn’t fucking worked.

  A bullet spanged off the fence. Jack fired back at the crowd, now easily within range and two people danced backward and fell. Others dropped to the ground beside them—he couldn’t tell if they’d been wounded or not. But the rest of the mob kept on coming.

  Jane raised her other rifle, firing down the line of the fence, back the way they’d come. “Get down!” she yelled at him over the noise—just as the ground whipped away under his feet.

  Jack hit the ground hard and tumbled head over heel, losing grip of the rifle. Stunned and sore, he scrambled back to his feet and retrieved the weapon. Jane, crouched down as she’d fired, was already running. Jack caught her up, and they gazed in dismay at the carnage.

  The grenade had obliterated the fence post and all the rubbish entwined in the fence for about five metres either side, but the fence itself remained intact. There was no way through. Jack stood before it, gun trained on the mob now gathered around them. Men, women and children, baying for his blood.

  “Sorry,” said Jane. “Thought I’d dug it in properly.”

  “It’s going on your permanent record,” he told her. “Might affect your chances of promotion.” They both trained their guns on the crowd.

  “Thought it was a stupid idea coming here,” said Jane. “I mean, what else can go wrong?”

  He was formulating an answer when someone shouted from the crowd.

  “Your Majesty!”

  Jack and Jane stared in horror as Nina stumbled forward through the mob and into the open. Her nose had been broken, there was bruising round her eye, and Laura jabbed a pistol into her throat.

  “She says you’re the King,” said Laura, as if it were a joke. Some of the crowd around her even laughed. Jack didn’t say anything. He couldn’t think of any way to save Nina without killing an awful lot of people, and he could see that Nina knew it. She stared back at him, tears cutting lines down the blood and muck on her face.

  “Does it make any difference what I am?” Jack asked Laura.

  “It might have done. We’re reasonable people.”

  “Apart from stringing up children,” said Jane.

  Laura smiled, showing bloody teeth. “We had a system. Regular sacrifice to keep everyone else in line.” Her smile faded. “The Ranger’s dead. This one told us what you’re planning to do. I’m afraid we can’t allow it.”

  “What about Kit?” said Jane.

  Laura shrugged. “A lot of people are missing i
n the fire. Who knows how many you murdered? If you’re the King, surely you agree that there must be justice. Drop your guns, surrender to us. Or I shoot the girl.”

  The fire raged behind the crowd, but a cool sea breeze whispered around Jack. He felt perfectly calm and sure.

  “Shoot her,” he said. Some of the crowd gasped, but Laura stood her ground.

  “Don’t doubt that I will,” she said.

  “I know you’ll kill her,” said Jack. “Whether we surrender or not. You need to, to keep your hold on power. But I can’t let you prevent us doing the job we came to do. We can stop the reactor exploding and we can save everyone here. And we’re willing to die to do that. All of us. Even Nina.”

  Nina was weeping, shaking her head, but that didn’t matter. Neither did Laura, finger twitching on the trigger of the gun pressed into Nina’s neck. What mattered was the crowd, the confusion on their faces—and, in some of them, the slowly dawning hope.

  “It’s true,” Jack told them. “I’m the rightful King of England—and my life is yours. You can kill me yourselves, or you can let me die by going into the reactor to save you.”

  For a moment he had them: he could see their need to believe.

  “Fuck you,” said Laura, and Nina’s head exploded. Then so too did the crowd. A dozen pairs of hands reached for Laura, grabbing her, pulling her backwards, tearing her clothes and flesh. She tried to scream, but more hands smothered her mouth.

  The crowd wasn’t united. People pushed and shoved and threw punches. Guns went off. But Jack could see the light in the eyes of those his words had affected.

  “We need to get through the fence!” he yelled, and the mob descended on him. Jane tried to drag him out of the way as people surged forward, but they were caught in the throng and knocked back into the barbed wire. Barbs pricked through his clothes and skin, but the crowd kept pushing. He lost grip of Jane’s hand. He couldn’t breathe.

  Then, somewhere something snapped and he was falling backward as the fence gave way.

  There was no jubilation as the crowd unpicked themselves from the fence and long grass to get back to their feet. Many people looked horrified by what they’d done. They backed away, not daring to stand in such close proximity to the thundering reactor, as if a few paces would make any difference. A little distance off, Laura knelt in the mud by Nina’s body. A man stood over her, a knife glinting in his hand.

  “What you want done with her?” the man asked Jack.

  Laura looked up imploringly. Jack hated her for all that she had done. If he’d had a weapon in her hand, if there hadn’t been a crowd watching him, he might not have hesitated. But there she was, on her knees with everyone looking on.

  “Let her go,” he said. The man looked astonished, then appalled. “We defeated her,” Jack told him. “There’s nothing more she can do. Nothing worse than I’m about to face anyway.”

  The man didn’t like it but wouldn’t argue with Jack. He poked Laura with his toe.

  “Go on,” he said. “Get.” She didn’t need any encouragement, and scrambled away into the night.

  “That really such a great idea?” whispered Jane.

  “Am I not merciful?” he said, but his smile faltered. For all that people were slinking away, there were still plenty watching Jack and Jane, eager to see the King head into the reactor and save the world as promised.

  Through the tall grass, he could see a door in the wall of the reactor building. There was nothing between him and the door; he just had to start walking.

  “Well, then,” he said.

  “Well, then,” said Jane.

  “You don’t have to come with me.”

  “No,” she said.

  “You should go home to your son.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I might just about manage without you.”

  She sighed. “Not a chance.”

  “Well, then,” he said.

  She took his hand in hers and they went together.

  Dear Lee,

  This note is for when you turn 16. I hope the world is better than when I knew it, that there’s some kind of peace.

  But I also know that it’s the quiet times that can do the worst damage, because it’s when people deal with what they’ve been through and lost. I looked after lots of kids at St Mark’s and I saw how the quiet could eat them up. So you need to hear this:

  What happened to me isn’t your fault. I chose to do what I’m doing so you’d be happy and safe. That isn’t me giving you permission, it’s an order: be happy and safe. Don’t feel bad for what happened or because you forget me.

  I love you.

  Mum xx

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE DOOR WOULDN’T open. Jack almost wanted to laugh. He and Jane tried again, smacking and battering the cold metal surface to no avail.

  “Makes sense though,” he said at length. “They wouldn’t just let you wander into a nuclear reactor.”

  “What are we going to do?” said Jane. Behind them, beyond the broken down fence, a crowd continued to watch them.

  “We could go round the building,” said Jack. “See if there’s another way in. You know, a main reception with big displays about how completely safe this place is.”

  “Maybe,” said Jane, then ran back the way they’d come. People jeered, disappointed that she’d given up so soon, but Jane clearly had no intention of abandoning the mission. She searched the mud around the fallen fence and retrieved one of the assault rifles.

  “Right,” she said, hurrying back. “Improvised skeleton key.”

  Jack got quickly out of the way as she unleashed a deafening torrent against the metal surface. The door buckled under the onslaught. Jane stopped firing and replaced the clip on her gun while Jack inspected the damage. The door steamed and hissed, so he didn’t dare touch it. But the shooting had exposed a square shape just under the metal on the right hand side. He was looking at the mechanism for a swipe card.

  Jack pulled off his jacket and wrapped it round one hand. Suitably protected, he bashed at the square mechanism until it popped out and fell to the ground. He grasped the torn metal of the door and pulled—and, with effort, it creaked open.

  They stared in amazement at the corridor within, bright with electric strip lights.

  “The power’s on!” said Jack.

  “Well duh, it’s a power station,” said Jane.

  “It’s working!”

  “That’s not a good thing. Means they didn’t shut it all down.”

  “But we might be able to, I don’t know, just push the right buttons,” he said. “We just have to track down the control room.” So saying, he stepped into the corridor. “In and out quickly, minimum of exposure.”

  “We want to decommission it, not just shut it down.”

  “Okay, but maybe it means there’s been no damage to the cooling system yet, and we can take our time. I’m trying to keep positive.”

  The corridor smelled stale and damp. Water dripped from the ceiling and pooled on the smooth concrete floor, and mould dappled the walls. The strip lights buzzed as if they would explode at any moment. Jack’s footsteps echoed eerily as he made his way forward.

  “What are you afraid of?” said Jane, making him jump. “It’s not like there’ll be anyone here.”

  “Yeah, all right. It’s just weird.”

  “Well, no shit. Come on. Talk me through the reactor core controls we expect to find here.”

  “Um, yeah. Coarse shut-down controls are boron control rods, with fine control from stainless steel rods.”

  “Which means?”

  “Basically, we insert any rods that haven’t been already. Then we look for what safety manuals or procedures they’ve got for us to follow.”

  They continued to test themselves as they made their way through the building. The vestiges of decoration were prehistoric—from perhaps as far back as the 1970s. But over-written on this were signs of life from the time of The Cull. No
tes on a notice board advised on handwashing and reporting symptoms, invited staff to join a pub quiz league with a cash prize of £100, and said there’d be a collection for Muneet’s baby. Jack and Jane moved on.

  At the far end of the building, they found a cutaway diagram of the site, detailing escape routes in case of a fire. It was a very old diagram, from when the complex had been built. The spacious car park contained just three pictured vehicles, all from the 1960s, including an open-topped sports car. The sun was shining and behind the complex of buildings families played on the beach. Nuclear power, it seemed to suggest, was more than just safe—it was fun.

  “Okay, we’re here,” said Jane. “Administration block. We carry on this way to reach Dungeness A.” That was the first of the two reactors on the site, with—remembering from Nina’s notes—four turbo-generators housed in the turbine hall.

  “We could split up, do one each,” he suggested.

  “Might take longer,” said Jane. “We figure out the first one together, then the second one is just doing the same.”

  “Dungeness B is different,” said Jack, piously. “The reactors there are 545 rather than 225 megawatts, and have advanced gas-cooled systems.”

  “Bet the off-switches look the same.”

  “Fine.” Jack traced his finger over the diagram working out the route to the main station control room. “We want to avoid the big machines if we can—there’s a higher risk of contamination. So we head for the services unit and then up this staircase to the viewing balcony. Should be simple enough.”

  They left the administration block and stepped out into darkness, just able to discern a path through the overgrowth to the huge reactor block. A vast cylinder towered overhead, the concrete weathered and cracked from years of neglect. The path took them to a wooden door with a window, but the view inside was obscured by drapes. Jane tried the handle and the door opened easily. They ducked under the curtain of black felt.