Take Back The City - Part One of the 'Life in London Town' series

3 - An Unsafe Haven

    The gunshots were still ricocheting around in my head as I scrambled desperately across the harsh, splintered wooden floors of the graphic novel shop, flinging up a snowstorm of ripped posters and black-and-white comics as I went. Try as I might to keep my movements co-ordinated, subtle and inconspicuous, my limbs and their associates – fingers, feet and toes – always wanted to simply slide about the floor erratically like a pet dog in the company of its master’s new guests. Adrenalin was still pulsating through my veins. My brain knew that I’d have to be as quiet as was physically possible to escape capture, but somehow the message was getting a little bit – how should I put this – lost in translation. As much as that sensible little grey, watery object in my skull kept trying to convince me that everything would be okay if I kept my wits about me and made only tiny, silent movements, not one other part of my body wished to take the message on. My legs were making it their goal to hit every obstacle in sight. And I mean everything – desks, poster-holders and the rock-solid cashier’s desk all made the acquaintance of my bony little feet. Tears were beginning to fly down my cheeks and transmogrify into shrill screams of terror which punctured the darkness which had descended ever further. I heard the heavy clank of black boots upon the streets outside the shop.

     They were getting closer.

     There was a tiny little white staircase towards the back of the shop, just behind the till. It was the only route I had left to take to have any hope of escape. My little legs were becoming ever more manic by the millisecond, slipping and sliding down the sturdy white steps as if a layer of motor oil had been poured over them as part of some dastardly prank by a former resident. There were only about seventeen steps on the staircase, but at the rate I was going up at, there may as well have been seventeen-hundred.

     Clank. Clank. Clank.

     Each footstep pounded upon my heart, acting as an accelerator making it beat ever faster and harder. It was almost beating its way out of my body, like the heart of a children’s cartoon character’s heart would. My foot slipped yet again. I was no closer to the top than I had been a minute previously. I was never going to reach the second level.

    A foot smashed against the door. They knew where I was. I tried to hold back another scream with all the energy I could muster, but nothing could hold back the sheer force of the horrific, high-pitched, piercing sound of terror. My legs finally began to co-ordinate, shuffling my pale white body up the last few steps and into what appeared to be a small bedroom.

    The foot smashed the door again.

    I vaulted rather inelegantly over the double-bed leant against the wall nearest me and ducked between the frame and a large sash window overlooking Brewer Street. The pursuers, all members of the Faceless, were skulking just below the window but I was too frightened to look. I just sat there upon a rough, brown shallow-pile carpet weeping tears of fear and wondering aloud to myself why I’d decided to fight a war I was powerless to end. Why did I decide to stay in London? Why?

    And, come to think of it, where the hell were the rest of the people I was supposed to be fighting with. Where was the rest of my Brigade?

     “Where the bloody hell are you?”

     “You know, there is protocol relating to radio use,” was the reply. “Over.”

     I had pulled a small radio system from the rucksack I carry my equipment within. The sound was incredibly broken and fractured by disruption, but the condescending arrogance rang through loud and clear.

      “I could not give a crap, Will,” I responded. “I am in mortal sodding danger here and all you care about is that I say ‘Over’ every two bloody seconds!”