Dealey had once again defined the chain of command, but giving more details than he had at the first briefing Culver had attended.
The country would now have been split up into twelve regions, and each one could operate as a separate unit, a self-reliant cell. Under the National Seat of Government would be the twelve regional seats, under these, twenty-three sub-regional headquarters, which would issue orders to county controls, down to district controls and sub-district controls. At the bottom of the list, the last in the pecking order, were the community posts and rest centres.
Each region had its own armed forces headquarters, the regional military commanders and their staff housed in deep bunkers: these forces, working with police and mobilized Civil Defence units, would ensure the new emergency laws were obeyed. Warehouses, pharmaceutical and otherwise, even supermarkets, would now be under strict local government control. Certain buildings, motorways and key roads would be commandeered by the military. Mass evacuation had not been planned. In fact, it would be openly discouraged, for it would cause too much disruption in an already disrupted world, too much disorder to carefully laid-out plans.
Culver shuddered to contemplate the New Order that must have already taken over. Unless of course, the damage had been far greater than anyone had ever anticipated, the world itself dying and unable to respond to any kind of organization.
His thoughts were interrupted. The doctor had come to a halt as an engineer approached her and said something in a low, agitated voice. He turned without waiting for a reply and quickly strode back the way he had come.
'What's wrong?' Culver asked.
Tm not sure,' Dr Reynolds replied, 'but there seems to be something interesting going on. Ellison wants me to hear something.'
She followed the retreating figure and came to the ventilation plant room.
A group of men, some wearing white overalls, others in ordinary clothes, were gathered around a large air duct, the shaft of which, Culver assumed, rose to the surface. He guessed filters removed any radioactive dust from the air intake. Fairbank was among the group.
'Something we should know about?' Dr Reynolds asked of no one in particular, and it was Fairbank who replied. There was a brightness to his eyes, but also an uncertainty.
'Listen,' he said, and turned back to the air duct.
Above the hum of the generator they could hear another, more insistent sound. A drumming, a constant pattering.
"What is it?' Kate asked, looking at Culver.
He knew, and so did the doctor, but it was Fairbank who answered.
'Rain,' he said. 'It's raining up there like never before.'
Two: Aftermath
Their time had come.
They sensed it, they knew.
Something had happened in the world above them, a holocaust the creatures could not comprehend; yet they were instinctively aware that those they feared were no longer the same, that they had been damaged, weakened. The creatures had learned from those who had hidden in the tunnels, killing and feeding upon the humans, satisfying a lust that had lain dormant for many years, repressed because survival depended on that repression. The bloodlust had been revived and set loose.
And the tunnels, the sewers, the conduits, the dark holes they had skulked in never knowing nor craving a different existence, had broken, allowing the world of light to intrude upon their own dismal kingdom.
They crept upwards, stealthily, sniffing the air, puzzled at the relentless drumming sound, emerging into the rain that drenched their bristle-furred bodies. The brightness dazzled their sharp eyes at first, even though it was muted an unnatural grey, and they were timid, fearful, in their movement, still hiding from human eyes, still apprehensive of their age-old adversary.
They moved out from the dark places and stole among the ruins of the city, rain-streaked black beasts, many in number, eager for sustenance. Hunting soft flesh. Seeking warm blood.
Sharon Cole thought her bladder might easily burst if she didn't do something about it soon.
Unfortunately, the dark frightened her and she knew that beyond The Pit the darkness was absolute. All the others appeared to be sleeping, their breathing, their snores, and their murmured whimpers filling the small steep-sloped auditorium with sounds. If you couldn't sleep, the horror was ever-present; yet sleep and the nightmares allowed no peace.
They knew it was night only because their watches told them it was so, and dutifully, by agreement made between them all in the first days, they endeavoured to maintain a natural order, as if adherence to ritual would bring a semblance of normality to abnormal circumstances.
Only three precious candles kept complete darkness at bay, the men deciding the torch batteries were more precious and not to be wasted in hours of inactivity. One or two had suggested a total blackout at night, but the majority, as many men as women, had insisted on keeping some light through the sleeping hours, perhaps believing, like their Neanderthal forefathers, that light held back any oppressive spirits.
Most rationalized that there should always be some light source in case of emergencies, and it made sense, but each of them knew they drew comfort from those small flickering flames strategically placed around the underground cinema.
Sharon shifted uncomfortably in the three seats she was sprawled across, the movement only causing the uneasy weight inside to press more insistently. She groaned. Oh God, she'd have to go.
'Margaret?' Sharon whispered.
The woman who lay in the same row as her and whose head almost Touched Sharon's did not stir.
'Margaret?' she said, a little louder this time, but there was still no response.
Sharon bit into her lower lip. She and the older woman had formed an unspoken alliance over the past few weeks, a bond of mutual protection against the embarrassments as well as the hazards of their predicament. They were among a group of survivors, fewer than fifty in number now that several had recently died. Sharon was just nineteen, a trainee make-up artist from the theatre on the upper level, pretty, slim, and a pseudo-devotee to the arts; Margaret, fiftyish, round, once jolly, and a member of the brown-smocked corps of cleaners to the huge concrete cultural and business complex. Both had offered reciprocal comfort when the stresses of their existence had become too much, their frequent (but becoming less so) breakdowns managed as if by rota, relying on each other to be strong while one was temporarily weak. Both assumed their families - Margaret a husband and three grown-up children, Sharon parents, a younger sister as well as several boyfriends - were lost to the bombs, and both now needed a support, someone to cling to, to rely on. They had become almost like mother and daughter.
But Margaret was sleeping deeply, perhaps for the first time in so many weeks, and Sharon did not have the heart to waken her.
She sat and looked down at the dim rows, each one filled with restless bodies. One candle glowed in the centre of the
small stage, its poor light barely reflected from the grey screen behind. To one side lay the hastily gathered and meagre provisions from the destroyed cafeteria two levels above the tiny, plush cinema known as The Pit. The food had cost dearly.
A security guard had led six others, all men, on a forage after one week's confinement, driven out by hunger. They had brought back as much unspoilt food as they could carry, as well as torches, candles, buckets (to use as water containers), a first-aid kit (which they had yet to use), disinfectant, and curtains for blankets. They had also brought back with them the cancer that was the nuclear bombs' deadly aftermath.