Operation: Sahara

-Davies-

Davies took another alley to his left that led into a narrow vennel even steeper than the first. He stopped twenty steps up, sure he had heard more muffled bangs in the distance, but the sound wasn’t repeated. He turned and looked back down the alley; there was no sign as yet that he was being followed but he felt the chase at his back and was again reminded of his youth, fleeing amid the tower blocks of flats in Glasgow’s East End with an angry mob after him for no other reason than he existed in what they considered to be their space.

Well, this time I’ve got a gun. Come and get it, bitches.

He ascended with no other thought than to reach the top, no goal but to reunite with the rest of the squad. This particular alley had dwellings, smaller but no less regular doors and windows spaced up its length, but they would have been dark places in which to live, never seeing the sun, lying constantly in deep shadow and carrying a chill despite the heat of the day beyond the canyon.

Fatigue was slowly taking a grip on him; it had been a while, what felt like an eternity, since either sleep or food. His training told him there was some more still in the tank; but not too much more. He reached the top of the alleyway and looked out over another open concourse, a narrower one this time. He turned to his right and looked up the canyon in dismay; the city rose up and away from him in a dizzying array of alleyways and streets, turrets and balconies.

He still had a lot of climbing ahead of him and wasn’t sure he had the legs for it.

After one more upwards alley, one more long flight of steps, Davies’ legs finally decided they’d had enough and developed a wobble that threatened to topple him backwards to probable broken bones or a cracked skull. He needed rest.

Finding a defensible position proved trickier than he’d hoped but in the end he chose a chamber high in a turret with a balcony giving a view over the lower end of the city. There was only one narrow entrance up a winding stairway; the larger specimens of the beetles wouldn’t be able to negotiate it and he felt confident his rifle would be enough for anything smaller that might seek him out. The high vantage would also allow him to keep an eye open for the rest of the squad. All in all, it was the best he could hope for. Before declaring himself settled, he looked out over the balcony. The drop was sheer and straight from his position, fifty feet down to what looked to have been a marketplace at one time. Now it was empty save for stone and dust; there was no sign of the beetles in this part of the city and the fact that he hadn’t been in sight of one for a good half hour gave him hope that they’d given up the chase.

He sat gratefully with a sigh of contentment to be finally off his feet, with his back to the balcony balustrade, keeping a close eye on the door to the stairwell while he had some water, a cold meal from his rations and a most welcome smoke. By the time he was done he was starting to feel better in himself but cold panic at his circumstances was always bubbling just under the surface now that the adrenaline rush of the fight then chase was wearing off.

He wondered how the others were getting on. He hadn’t heard any gunfire, nor grenade blasts, but that might just mean that they too were hiding out and resting up. He could only hope that would be the case for the thought that they’d been overcome and that he was alone now in this vast empty city would be too much to take.

What with the reminders of Edinburgh, and thoughts of youthful flights from the gangs in Glasgow, his mind kept churning, past misery overlaying present circumstance, all jumbled together until the beetles became doped up youths and the city in the valley melded with the Scottish cities into an amalgam of almost medieval turrets and balconies with modern tower block lighting and windows and Davies’ exhaustion finally wouldn’t allow him to stay awake for a single moment longer.

He slept.

His dreams were troubled ones. He was back in Glasgow, back in his twelve-year-old body, hiding in a tower block stairwell while his tormentors prowled outside. It wasn’t a new dream to him; he knew the beat and rhythm of it well enough from its recurrences over the years, but it never lost its power to unnerve him. He shivered there in the dark, for although he slept in the sun, here in Glasgow it was January, and deep in winter’s grip.

Earlier that day the leader of the gang had got him on his own in a stairwell. That had been the lad’s first mistake, but it had been enough to get him a broken nose and a blackened eye; Davies had been done messing around with the wankers. They’d been taunting him for months, blackie this and nignog that, their gang mentality giving baser instincts free rein in lieu of something better to do in the stairwells. The two punches that Davies threw had been his first ever retaliation; he knew his mother would give him hell for stooping to their level but, bloody hell, it had felt good.

He was paying for it now though; the lad was back from a hospital trip, acolytes gathered around him and the chase was on. So far it had taken them up and down three different blocks of flats; Davies was lucky in that he knew the passageways and stairwells just as well as his pursuers. But they’d almost caught him on the last flight and he’d had to jump over a rail to escape. The drop was higher than he’d have wanted, and he turned his ankle on landing.

Now all he could do was hide, and hope they wouldn’t find him, for if they did, he didn’t fancy his odds of staying out of hospital, or maybe even a coffin.

Cold gripped harder; he felt it seeping through his clothes at his back where he was pressed against a wall. He fought to stop his teeth chattering.

“Hey, Blackie,” his main tormentor shouted from somewhere close. “Give us a smile so we can see you in the dark.”

The only consolation Davies could take was that the lad spoke with a definite slur, courtesy of the newly wounded nose. Davies did indeed smile there in the dark, but it was a grim, tight-lipped one.

He shifted position as he heard them close in on him, pressing himself down into the darkest corner between two rubbish skips; the smell of discarded and rotted fast food was acrid, almost choking, but he was hoping that in itself would be enough to keep them from looking here for him. It wasn’t that much of a hope in truth, for he knew from bitter experience that this lot would go a long way out of their way for any chance to torment him.

All he could do was crouch there in the dark and wait, hoping all the time that he could be somewhere else, somewhere he could see sunlight without fearing the exposure it lent.

Instinct woke him some time later, blinking confused for an instant by the brightness and heat in his hiding place, reality slowly creeping in around the remnants of the dream. He had no idea how long he’d slept, only that he didn’t feel rested and that the sun was still high in the sky. None of that mattered in the face of the sounds coming from beyond the dark doorway ahead of him. Taloned legs scrambled and scratched on stone, clicking and clattering. A high droning wail rose up to wash over the balcony. Davies raised his rifle and pointed it at the doorway.

“Sarge, if that’s you playing silly buggers I’m going to shoot you just for the hell of it.”

It wasn’t Wiggo. The beetle that came out of the shadows was no larger than a small dog and Davies almost laughed in relief. The wee bugger was fast though, he had to give it that, and he barely had time to pull his trigger and blow it apart with two rounds before it reached his feet. He reached down, scooped up the dead thing and lobbed it over the balcony, taking care to avoid touching the sickly black ichor that oozed from where its head had been. As the sound of the echoing gunfire faded and died around the canyon, he realised he’d just made a mistake, possibly a fatal one.

The only thing he had going for him was that the stairs up to his position were narrow, so he’d only have relatively smaller beasts to deal with. He stood, groaning as his legs and back rebelled, and moved inside the doorway to stand at the head of the stairwell. Now he had two things going for him; he also controlled the higher ground. But renewed scrambling and scratching down below him told him that the beetles must be aware of his position and it was only a matter of time before he had company.

He was trapped, no way out save over the balcony, with a limited supply of ammo and no backup.

The scuttling of talons on stone got louder, closer and a high wailing drone rose up from the dark stairwell.

Any time now would be fine by me, lads. Any time now.