After the Revolution - Part 9

Good morning, all! This is the final part of 'After the Revolution' - the (hopefully) thrilling conclusion. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it, and thank you again to everyone who has taken the time to look at it. If anyone would like a hard copy of the book then please contact me through the comments section. Thank you again.

After the Revolution - Part Nine

Nineteen

(After the Revolution)

Alex’s heart raced as he darted through the war torn streets of the city that had once been his home. Desperately running, trying not to think about the agonising pain in his back, his mind set on one thing. Home. He needed to wake up from this nightmare, and he needed to wake up soon. He kept to the darkness, hiding in the shadows of the twisted remains of buildings for fear of being picked up by Wilson’s POLA again. Ralph was gone. He thought about the child’s body, lying so still on the cellar steps. He was an innocent. What had he done to deserve that fate? He was just a child; another innocent casualty of Wilson’s regime.

As Alex approached the abandoned school where he had left his machine, the fist few flakes of a snowfall began to drift silently through the dark air. Even the snow here looked grey and bleak. It looked polluted… had Wilson taken that to? As the snowflakes drifted towards the ground, they landed in thick piles of ash from the air raid and rested in puddles of grey slush.

Alex looked left and right. They’re watching me… They’re waiting for me… Stoltz was right… they’re always watching. When he was sure that all was clear, he began to climb across the rubble towards the school.

Bernard flipped the switch on the television, stunned that the power was still running, and watched the screen come to life. He had been hiding out in this classroom, next to some huge metal machine for two nights now and this was the first time it had occurred to him to try the television.

No signal, of course. Just static.

He picked up a DVD from the teacher’s desk and looked at the cover. It read ‘Britain after the Revolution: How Wilson reclaimed Great Britain for the people.’ Bernard actually laughed out loud as he read the title to himself and looked at the artist’s impression of a gleaming and prospering London on the front cover. He’d watched these kind of videos at school as a child; Wilson’s standard classroom propaganda.

It’s not exactly primetime entertainment, he thought as he slipped it into the player, but it’ll do under the circumstances.

As Alex approached the door to the classroom, he began to hear something coming from inside. Talking. He stood for a minute, listening to the sound through the wall. He couldn’t pick out any individual words, just a mumble of sounds. He knew he had to go in there, people or not. His only chance of escaping this world lay on the other side of that wall; and he had to escape. Slowly he pulled the gun that he had seized from the POLA guard up to his face and turned the corner and into the classroom through the hole in the wall. As he stood on the threshold, pointing his weapon into the dark disused classroom, he saw his machine, illuminated only by the glow of the blaring television that stood next to it. In front of the television, he saw a man sitting with his back to Alex in the teacher’s chair watching the screen. Before he even had time to think about what he was doing, the words bellowed out of his mouth.

‘What are you doing?’

The man jumped up and turned around to face Alex, eyeing the gun in his hand. ‘Whoa, mate… take it easy. I found this place… I found it fair and square. Let’s not do anything rash.’

Alex coughed, and snapped through pained breaths. ‘Get out of here. Now.’

‘Come on mate,’ replied the man. ‘We all need a place to hide these days… I found this place… Just let me be.’

‘You found this place… but I’ve got the gun. Now move.’ Alex began to walk towards the man, any fear he would have once felt now soaked in adrenaline. ‘Move!’

The man began to walk towards Alex, shuffling towards the other end of the room with his hands raised. ‘Okay, mate,’ he said, ‘you’ve got the gun.’ When he had passed Alex, he began to run and darted out through the hole in the wall.

As Bernard stood on the mound of rubble and looked out towards the decaying city, he shivered and pulled his collar around his neck, anticipating another night of the bitter cold. He turned back and looked only once towards the school.

Idiot.

Alex felt comforted to see his machine. It was something comforting… something he knew; something from his world. He glanced briefly at the television screen as he leapt into his machine, ready to return home. He pulled the door closed and prepared to leave, but as he tried to power up, something was wrong. Shit. It wouldn’t go. It couldn’t get enough power up. He leapt out of the machine, barely even noticing the searing pain in his back anymore to assess what the damage was. As he circled the machine, he suddenly felt a terrible feeling of claustrophobia. He felt trapped. Would he ever return home?

Then he saw it. One of the side panels had come loose and it looked like something had been chewing the wires. Stupid bloody rats.

He immediately dropped to his knees and began to repair the damage as best he could with no tools. His heart began to pound in his chest as he anticipated being stuck in this world forever. As he worked, he listened to the television that was still blaring in the corner of the room.

‘… and then thirty years ago, the world changed forever, when Wilson led the Great Britain to victory, defeating the Conservative government who were crippling the country, and restoring power to the people in the British Revolution. But our great leader came from humble beginnings. He was born in London where he was raised by his mother…’

As Alex worked, he glanced up at the screen. As he did, his blood turned to ice and his stomach turned to lead. There, on the screen, looking out through her big dark eyes, was the face he had seen all week, every time he closed his eyes. Looking down at him from the television screen was his wife. He froze and stared intently at the screen.

‘…Wilson adopted his mother’s maiden name from birth, after his father…’ Alex felt physically sick as he saw a photograph of himself flash on the screen. ‘…was locked up in the Stewart Mental Institution for attempting to kill his wife when she was pregnant with Wilson. Many speculate that it was because of this trauma to his life and his mother’s life that led Wilson to have such strong morals regarding leadership and guidance…’

Alex was numb as he replayed what he had just heard again and again in his head. Tears began to stream down his face. All of this… It’s my fault… It’s all because of me.

Still he kept tweaking at wires, trying to repair the loose connections as his world crumbled around him.

At last he finished, and unsure if the thing would even work, he replaced the panel and began to climb back in. He clutched Ralph’s scarf tightly as he pulled the door closed, taking one last look at the terrifying nightmare that he had travelled to, and began to power up the machine. This time it felt different, he could feel that it was working better. He set the coordinates for the exact point in time that he had left from and took a deep breath as he prepared to engage. Suddenly there was a flash of blinding light, and a deafening roar. Alex snapped his eyes tightly shut and tensed every muscle in his body as the machine began to shake underneath him.

Then, just as quickly as it had come, the light disappeared and Alex tentatively opened his eyes. All he could see was smoke; thick smoke. Did it work?

With the little strength Alex had left, he pushed the hatch door open and fell on to the ground. He lay on the floor, shaking and taking deep, exhausted breaths, trying his best to see anything through the smoke. Then he heard a voice, slipping through the grey fog.

‘A… Alex?’

As Alex turned, he looked up and saw her, and just before he lost consciousness, he managed to speak.

‘Annie? Is that you, Annie? I… I’m back…’

‘…I’m back.’

Twenty

(Present Day)

The trial didn’t last long. It was pretty much unanimously agreed that he was guilty. Even Alex knew that. And then there he was, back in a cell again. Back in the darkness, only this time he didn’t have Ralph by his side to comfort him. Ralph wouldn’t even exist for another forty years. Forty years… and it seems like just yesterday.

He looked up at the grey walls that towered around him; it could be fifty or a hundred years from his own time. How would he know? There is no way to keep time in this cell. They thought that he was a madman… they thought he was dangerous… so they threw him in here for the rest of his time on this earth. What did time really mean, anyway? It could be the very dawn of time or the end of the world and it would be all the same to Alex. No windows… no contact. They’ll turn me into a madman…

But he had done what was right. He had done what needed to be done. They didn’t know it… they would never know it… be he saved them all. Now there will be no revolution. He thought about that seed; that seed of evil that was growing inside his wife. He had stopped it – for the greater good.

He laughed as he found himself muttering the same three words over and over to himself.

Power… Strength… Freedom.

Power… Strength… Freedom, Power… Strength… Freedom.

Not anymore. He had saved them all… and all it had cost was his life and freedom.

How had this all begun? Alex though back to his messy workshop and the device. Only a matter of weeks ago it had meant everything to him… But now it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Alive or dead… free or incarcerated… none of it mattered anymore.

How could a heap of metal cause so much trouble?

Some things are too great for man to cope with. No man should know what lies ahead. It’s enough to send him mad.

Alex jumped as the metal shutter on his cell door screeched open and a long shaft of light poured into the black room. A steel food tray was pushed through the opening, and the guard on the other side hissed through.

‘Hey,’ he said, sneering, ‘I just thought you’d like to know… she’s gonna be fine. Your girl? The one you beat up? She’s gonna be fine… you failed, you piece of shit.’ The guard slammed the shutter closed and cell was once again in darkness.

No… It can’t be true. He had left her for dead. He thought she was dead. All my work could be in vain! The baby couldn’t survive… It can’t have.

Alex stood up and began to pace the tiny cell, hoping and praying that all he had done had not been in vain; that he had stopped the revolution.

He began to get frustrated and started banging on the wall, shouting at the top of his lungs to anyone who could hear him.

‘You don’t know what you’re doing! He’ll kill us all!’ he banged louder on the steel door. ‘Everything will change after the revolution! Can you hear me? Can you hear me you vile pigs? Power! Strength! Freedom!’

* * * * * *

‘It’s a miracle!’ said the nurse, turning to her colleague, who was washing her hands. ‘Have you ever seen anything like it in all your days?’ She looked down as she placed the newly delivered baby into the incubator. ‘He’s a little fighter.’ As she turned around to take a wristband from the highest shelf, she caught a glimpse of the mother, lying on the bed with a sheet over her head. ‘What a shame the poor soul lost his mother, though… what did she say her name was?

The other nurse wiped a tear from her eye as she dried her hands. ‘Annie. Her husband beat her up - nearly killed her. They locked him away for a very long time. It’s a miracle she survived long enough to deliver this little fella.’

‘…what a shame.’ The nurse pulled a tiny wristband from a box on the highest shelf and flipped the lid from her pen and sat poised. ‘What’s the mother’s maiden name?’

The other nurse checked her notes and looked up.

‘Wilson…’

The End

After the Revolution - Part 2

Well, it's Friday again, thank goodness! And with it comes the second instalment of my new novella, 'After the revolution'. A huge, huge thank you to all of you who took the time to read part one. If you need to catch up on the story, then check out my last post. Anyway, here's part two, which contains chapters two and three - Enjoy!



Two

Alex didn’t talk much in the weeks following that evening. He spent most of his time sitting alone in his workshop, staring into space with a terrified look on his face. He would offer the most basic of pleasantries to his wife, good morning, good night and even the odd thank you, but that was all. When Annie would quiz him about what had happened that night, he would recoil and leave the room sheepishly. She tried to make small talk in an attempt to return to normality.
‘I see the beard’s become a permanent fixture, then.’
No reply.
‘I kind of like it,’ she said. ‘It’s kind of rugged. Wild.’
He turned his head only a quarter of an inch and make eye contact with her. He didn’t smile. He didn’t frown.
She recognised the look in his eyes. Beneath the obvious sadness and fear, she saw desperation. In that flash of light only a few nights ago, her husband had become a stranger.
‘You know you’re gonna have to talk to me sometime, Alex.’
He frowned, turning fully away from her.
‘I’m your wife. You’ve barely spoken three words all week.’ She ran her fingers through her red hair. ‘What the hell happened to you? I realise that you’re scared… but… but I can help you. But I can’t help you if you won’t let me help you, Alex.’
She sighed and turned away, before reconsidering. ‘Maybe you should go and see a doctor.’
‘I don’t need a doctor.’ He roared those five words with the most enthusiasm he had shown all week. ‘I just need… I just need…’ Tears began to well in his eyes.
‘What do you need, Alex?’
He paused before replying.
‘I just need… to be left alone.’

She wondered if he knew that she was crying in the kitchen. She wondered if he cared. What has happened to my husband? Where is the man I fell in love with?
Something happened to him. Could it be true? Could it really have worked? Tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared out of the kitchen window into the darkness. She pulled out a cigarette from a packet on the worktop and slid it between her lips. She had quit nearly three years ago, but in a teary bundle of nerves she had bought a packet that morning.
Where is my husband?

He had been staring at the same rivet for nearly an hour, now. He had inspected every shade of silver within it and mapped every detail of it. All he could do now was think. He knew he had to do something. He had to think of something.
He sat there hour after hour, day after day replaying what he had seen in his head. All the terrifying memories.

And it must have happened in the blink of an eye for her.



Three

One Week Earlier

He opened the hatch at the bottom and climbed in, smiling to himself. Where will we be in fifty years? He pulled the hatch door closed until it clicked. Through the window he saw Annie turning round. She’s watching…
He set the controls. He was about to become the worlds first time traveller. This is the most historic mission ever embarked upon by mankind…
He tapped in the destination. February Twenty Seventh, two thousand and sixty. His ninety fifth birthday.
He was blinded by a flash of light and he snapped his eyes tightly shut.
It works.

Suddenly darkness. Darkness and silence. As he opened his eyes, he saw very little. Just a dark brick wall in front of him. He took a deep breath and sat up. Dust fell around the entrance to the machine as the hatch door slid open. The air outside was thick and oppressive, and he coughed as his feet met the ground. Closing the hatch door, he turned and looked around.
It works!
His machine sat at the end of a long room with row upon row of desks that stretched back. It’s a classroom. It looked like it hadn’t been used in years. He picked up a workbook from the desk next to him, which he assumed was the teacher’s desk, and looked at it.
‘Britain after the revolution.’
He placed it back and looked around.
Long cracks stretched up the wall, creeping along and parting at the broken window at the far end of the room. Like a giant wound, the window sat open, caved in, exposing the world beyond. As Alex looked out, his jaw fell wide open, and he scrambled to the other side of the room for a closer look. Out of the window, he saw his home. London. But it was very different to the city he had left five minutes ago.
Amber flashes intermittently lit up the skyline on the horizon, illuminating the twisted, burnt out shell of the city that used to be his home. In the flash after flash of explosions to the south, he saw that everything was in ruins. I have to get a closer look. I have to find out what happened.
He looked across at his machine, and then back outside. Ten minutes. Ten minutes, then it’s back to Annie.
He looked out again and began to climb up a pile of rubble and out of the classroom.

This is where Bernard spent the evenings, outside the old school, watching the bombs go off in distance. He would come out here most nights when the sun had sunk. There’ll be nothing left to bomb soon. The sky lit up in amber flashes on the horizon, followed by a roar, dulled only by the distance it had to travel to reach Bernard’s ears. He knew better than to be out and about on the streets after curfew, so he nestled himself into the ruins and prepared for the long, cold night ahead. Sometimes he would even find food up here – a mars bar or a packet of crisps, but tonight he was content to just rest and watch the orange blaze on the horizon.
Some way across the rubble, over by the classroom window, he heard something and instinctively ducked for cover. It’ll be them. It’ll be his men again. Bernard knew that the spot he had chosen wasn’t technically breaking curfew, but kept his head low just in case. Suddenly a figure raised its head out of the rubble. It wasn’t one of his men. He could tell that straight away. The figure didn’t move with enough purpose to be one of the POLA.
It was a man. One solitary man, looking around like a tourist at the sights. Bernard raised his head to get a better look and the man caught his eye.
‘Excuse me…’
Great. He’s spotted me. This is my camp.
‘Excuse me,’ said the man running across the debris towards him. ‘What’s going on across there?’
‘What does it look like?’ Idiot.
‘Where am I?’
Jesus Christ. ‘London… well, what’s left of it.’
‘London… but…’
Leave me alone. ‘I’m just trying to watch the fireworks in peace, mate.’
‘Fireworks? They’re bombing London!’
Where the hell has this guy been? ‘Welcome to the twenty first century, mate,’ said Bernard. ‘Everyone’s bombing everyone.’
The man looked out at the explosions in the sky in the distance. ‘Why?’
Bernard smiled and looked straight ahead. ‘Power. Strength. Freedom.’
‘Excuse me?’
Bernard actually laughed out loud. ‘Have you got amnesia, mate? Did one of those rocks fall on you and knock you out?’
‘N… no.’
‘Then how on earth could you have possibly missed the demise of the human race?’
‘What?’
Leave me alone. ‘This is my camp. Go find your own place to sleep.’
The man nodded uncomfortably and began to walk down towards the road. Bernard knew exactly what lay down that road. If he’s stupid enough to go down there, he deserves what’s coming to him.

Alex walked down to the road. His road; Lawson Street. He navigated his way across the loose rubble to the muted roar of the bombs in the distance. Everything was different. They had build a long since abandoned school where his workshop used to be, and the park across the road from his house, where Alex used to walk his dog, was now occupied by the crumbling, burnt out remains of an old warehouse. None of the houses on his street had survived; most of it looked like it had been rebuilt as industrial units before being bombed to the ground.
This was his home. In ruins.
From the brow of the hill that led down towards the city centre, Alex began to hear a rumbling sound, followed by the blinding flash of headlights appearing over the crest. A vehicle was hurtling towards him at high speed, ripping over any debris in its way.
Alex held his hand over his brow to shield his eyes from the blinding light and stepped back off the road. The vehicle, a black armoured four wheel drive, skidded to a halt two feel in front of him, and four men dressed in black with black capes leapt out brandishing weapons. One of the men pushed his gun into Alex’s ribcage.
‘Get in,’ he growled.
‘B… but…’
The dug the gun deep into Alex and gestured towards the vehicle. ‘I’m arresting you for violation of curfew. You know the rules, mate. Get in the car.’
With the cold steel of the barrel of a gun in his back as his motivation, Alex got into the vehicle with his hands raised, and just as quickly as it had come, the car tore off down the road again.

From his perch by the old school, Bernard watched as the POLA raced away with their latest victim.
Idiot.