The Night of the Triffids (36 page)

    'Great flying, David. Now we need to get you to a safe house until we're ready for the flight back home.'

    'I thought I'd be staying with the aircraft. There's-'

    'Too risky. There's no guarantee that this place won't be searched. You'll be assigned a guide who will take you to an apartment. You're to sit tight there until you're brought back here. Got that?'

    I nodded.

    'Make it snappy,' he said. 'We need to be away from here in ten minutes flat.'

    By the time I'd left the aircraft, most of our people were already moving out. I noticed that the Marines had been divided into small squads of anything between four and eight members. Each had what I took to be a local guide. They left the hangar by a side door at staggered intervals. Gabriel had been assigned to one of the groups. From across the building he caught my glance and gave me a salute. Then he slipped away with a squad of Marines into the night. My group was the last to leave. I saw I was in the company of the television technician and a pair of sappers. No manpower was wasted. I found myself carrying a heavy backpack, as well as my own rucksack.

    'What's in it?' I asked.

    'Don't ask,' came the reply. 'But when you set it down on the ground treat it like you would your grandmother's best china.'

    'Oh.' Now I could guess what the backpack contained.

    After that I treated it with tremendous respect.

    A moment later we were through the side door. Once more I had the solid ground of Manhattan beneath my feet. In the distance I heard cars mingled with a metallic clanking that could have been some factory. Ahead of me, a road separated the dockside from a cliff.

    Our group now consisted of about a dozen people. Sam Dymes, after conferring with our guide, loped up to me.

    'Stick close to the rest of the pack,' he told me. 'We're moving off in one minute.'

    'Aren't we going to look conspicuous, strolling through the streets of Manhattan with all this on our backs?' I nodded at the team with their bulging backpacks. Several were sporting sub-machine guns as well. All of which would make us pretty suspicious-looking even to the least observant of policemen.

    'Don't worry, David. We're north of the 102nd Street Parallel. This part of Manhattan's a lot different to the fancy part you know in the south of the island.' With a distracted air he looked repeatedly about him, as if afraid that we'd be spotted. This didn't inspire a whole lot of confidence. 'What's more we'll be using a rather special route… ah.'

    'What's wrong?'

    'Nothing. It's just our guide. She's here at last.'

    I turned to see a slim figure step out from the shadows. There was something about the walk… A second later she turned her face toward me.

    I stared.

    'Kerris?'

    

    

    

    'KERRIS?' I repeated her name as she stepped out further from the shadows. Immediately I moved towards her, my arms stretched out ready to embrace her. She recoiled as if I was about to attack her.

    'Kerris, what's wrong?'

    She lifted her chin as she looked at me. At that moment I saw a cruel disfiguring scar running diagonally across her face from her right temple to the left-hand corner of her mouth. A vivid red slash that cut her face in two. I stopped dead. All of a sudden I thought:
Torrence has done this to her.

    'Oh, God, Kerris, what's happened?' Once more I made as if to embrace her. She glared furiously at me. 'Kerris-'

    I felt a hand on my shoulder. 'Easy, David.'

    'Sam, look what the monster's done to her. She used-'

    'David… David, no, listen.' Sam gripped my arm. 'That isn't Kerris. It will be her sister. Maybe even a twin sister. I don't know.'

    'Good grief…' I turned to her. 'I'm sorry, I'm truly sorry. I thought-'

    'David, I regret this.' Sam said quickly. 'It looks like a dirty trick, but it's not. I had no idea that a sister of Kerris's would be here tonight…' He turned to the girl. 'I'm sorry, ma'am. We mistook you for someone else.'

    A small dark figure appeared beside us. 'Marni don't speak.' The man touched his tongue. 'The cops thought she was speaking too much as a kid.' His fingers mimicked a pair of scissors.

    'I don't understand.' I shook my head. 'She's one of Torrence's children? And he's done this to her?'

    Sam looked grim. 'Torrence has hundreds of children. Those that don't meet his criteria wind up here. I gather he's highly selective when it comes to being a father… if that's what you can call him. Wait, what's that, ma'am?' The scarred girl who otherwise bore such an uncanny resemblance to Kerris appeared to lose patience. She patted Sam on the shoulder, then pointed toward the cliff.

    'Oh, uhm, right,' he stammered. 'Looks like we should be moving out.'

    We moved in pairs across the street. The small dark man led the way, while Marni followed, clearly making sure we didn't lose any stragglers. If I slowed down even slightly I felt her hand against my backpack, urging me on. I didn't hesitate to obey her wordless instructions. I didn't know how much shoving the contents of the bag could take.

    If I'd expected to find some path running up the cliff I was mistaken. Instead we turned along the bottom of the rock face where we came upon a long low building that stretched from the water's edge to the cliff. We were ushered inside (with a helpful shove, where required, from Marni). Inside the building were sets of rail tracks. The guide lit a kerosene lamp, then gestured for us to follow.

    I'd only been walking for a little while before I realized the building didn't end with the cliff. The twin sets of rail tracks continued on into a tunnel.

    'The subway?' I asked Sam who walked beside me.

    'No, look at the rust on the rails. This hasn't been used for years. I guess this must be the coal-transportation tunnel. In the old days coal came down the Hudson on barges, then got shipped underground by train into the city.' He looked round at the arched tunnel cut through the living rock. 'It might not be the pretty route but if it gets us to our destination without being seen then it's OK by me.'

    We walked on. Even though I tried hard not to, I found myself repeatedly glancing back at Marni. Her hair, eyes, the shape of her face and ears - all her features, with the exception of the scar that daubed a blood-red line across her face, were identical to Kerris's. She was an eerie wordless doppelgдnger who shadowed me as we moved deep beneath the city.

    I thought:
I'm moving into a place of nightmares. I see the mutilated twin of the woman I love. I'm walking through a cave that never seems to end. On my back are eighty pounds of high explosive. Meanwhile, our guide's lamp seems to be failing. Darkness is closing in. How long before the ten million ghosts that must haunt Manhattan come swirling out of that dead tunnel?
I shivered. The air had grown much colder. All I could see were the luminous eyes of my companions. Behind me Marni's green eyes seemed even brighter. Like shining balls of glass that hung suspended in the darkness.

    The weight of the explosive pressed hard against my back. A lunatic itch started between my shoulder blades. This had the resonance of a nightmare, all right. I wished someone would speak. Or whistle. Or hum some idiot tune, come to that. Instead, we toiled on in silence. While all the time the darkness settled on us like a physical weight.

    
Welcome to hell,
I told myself.
Welcome to hell.

    This underworld journey finally came to an end. Beside a pile of rusting machinery that could only be some ancient conveyor belt that once took coal to the surface was an iron staircase. Wearily, we ascended. My eighty-pound pack of explosives now felt closer to a ton. Legs shaking, I made it to the top of the steps, then shuffled through an open door.

    All of a sudden I was outside in what appeared to be a coal merchant's yard. Mounds of chopped firewood stood alongside pyramids of coal. Moving stealthily now, our party crossed the yard to a gate set in a wall. The guide moved through the gate. Quickly he checked that the way was clear and then we were beckoned forward. Behind me, the impatient Marni ensured that there were no stragglers.

    The sight that met my eyes revealed a very different New York. Here, buildings were low, stunted things. They ranged from one-storey shacks to five-storey tenements. And they were about as appealing to look at as a row of rotting teeth.

    The moonlight revealed more. Open areas of ground - formerly city parks, I surmised - were given over to a kind of shanty-town industrial estate. From tightly packed huts smoke poured from stovepipes, while I couldn't help but hear the incessant hammering and sawing vying with the clatter of metal on metal and the whine of power tools.

    'The night shift,' Sam told me in a low voice. 'Torrence likes to keep his workforce busy round the clock… yes, ma'am. I'm coming.' Marni's long arm reached out to push Sam firmly in the right direction.

    Once more into nightmare. Street lights burned, casting a sickly yellow glow over the neighbourhood. Yet, oddly, though people moved about inside the houses there seemed to be little electric light in these ghetto homes. Now I passed churches that had been converted into factories. Power hammers thundered within once-tranquil havens. From what I could see, there were few motorized vehicles here. Men, women and children hurried on urgent errands with heavy loads of all kinds on their backs - animal carcasses, firewood, lead pipes, scrap metal, car tyres. Here and there, areas of road had been fenced off to provide enclosures for goats, sheep and chickens.

    We hurried on. I noticed that our strange-looking squad attracted no curious glances. Here the population's eyes were dull, whether from overwork, hunger or opiates - or from all three - I could not say.

    I slowed for a moment as a child crossed the road beneath a load so enormous that it sickened me. Its face was a grim mask, lined with pain. Marni moved me on with a firm push.

    So on I walked, passing through that grisly assortment of buildings that housed cobblers, blacksmiths, weavers, bottle makers, potters, carpenters, barrel makers, box makers, soap makers (from where terrible smells of boiling animal fat issued). And all the time my feet slopped through waste material I did not care to identify.

    We reached an alleyway. From one of the tenement windows a saxophone played. But it was a musician gone mad. A helter-skelter of notes spiralled up and down the scale, managing to be both lyrically musical and cacophonous at the same time.

    This was the place for the bleak night journey of one's soul. I sensed a dark, unforgiving oppression. My stomach fluttered in a queasy sort of way and, my God, what wouldn't I have given to have been walking the gentle green hills of home…

    'In here,' our guide said. 'In here. Quick.'

    Rather unceremoniously we were bundled through the back door of a four-storey tenement where we were marched up stairwells that smelled of well-sweated cabbage. A moment later I noticed that the guide appeared to be allocating rooms. Now
that
was a welcome idea. I longed to lie down on a soft mattress.

    My turn. 'In here,' the guide told me. 'You get to eat later.'

    Sam slapped me on the shoulder. 'I'll drop in soon to see how you've settled in.'

    I hadn't expected luxury. So at least I wasn't disappointed. I found I was sharing the room with an assortment of copper tubing and vessels that bubbled and hissed. If my nostrils didn't betray me, the smell of malt boiling in some kind of steel urn suggested that my room-mate was a liquor still. Both the smell and the heat were appalling.

    I turned but the door had already closed behind me, while the sound of tramping feet told me my comrades were still being shown to their rooms. At one end of the room a curtain ran from one wall to the other. Thirty years ago it had been the plush velvet drape of some wealthy homeowner. Now… well, suffice to say that it had seen better days.

    I'd just decided to have a glimpse at what lay beyond the curtain when the door opened behind me. Glancing back, I saw Marni enter. The scar on her face gave her a permanently fierce expression. But then, her eyes were fierce, too. So maybe she really didn't like me. Perhaps she'd misinterpreted my earlier attempt to hug her.

    After giving me a long, furious stare she went to the still. With surprising violence she kicked a cauldron. In turn that sent liquid gurgling through the pipes. She then took an empty bottle from a cupboard, set it down under a pipe and turned a screw. A clear liquid began to drip into the bottle.

    Ignoring me now, she made more adjustments to the still, mainly with the toecap of her boot. Then she went to the curtain and pulled it aside.

    I found myself looking at another figure. The girl sat on a bunk bed. Her red hair had been shaved down to her scalp. Her face was thin. The green eyes, however, were no less bright. Marni turned to scowl again at me.

    I looked back at the two young women. They met my gaze unflinchingly. 'Oh, dear Lord in Heaven,' I breathed. Now there were two near-perfect facsimiles of Kerris Baedekker staring back at me.

    And that was that.

    As my mother was fond of saying when spooning greens onto my plate. 'You've got two choices, David Masen. You can either like it or lump it.' Whether I relished the idea or not, this would be home for the night. Against the wall were three bunk beds. Marni energetically pointed at the top one. Enough said: that would be mine for the night.

    Not that she wasn't helpful. In that manner of hers, which see-sawed between vigour and violence, she all but dragged the backpack from my shoulders.