Titanic 2020: Cannibal City

24 Grand Central

They heard the elephant before they saw it — not just its trumpet roar, but also a metallic dragging sound. Then they saw it, and thanked God that the street to their right was completely blocked with abandoned vehicles so that the creature, huge and mad, with the remnants of a heavy anchoring chain still attached to its leg, could not barge its way through. It tried — with the brute strength of its massive shoulders, with the pointy end of its razor tusks.

'Cool!' said Ty. 'Do you think if I offered him a peanut he'd take it?'

'Of course he would,' said Claire, 'along with your arm, your neck and your head.'

First Officer Jeffers urged them on — although he practically had to drag Claire, who was busy taking photos, and Ty, who just liked elephants.

He kept them moving all morning, every one of them aware, despite the distraction of the elephant, that they were being watched and followed. It wasn't that they caught many actual glimpses of their pursuers — though they did occasionally see shadowy figures ducking down behind abandoned vehicles, or moving back from overlooking windows — it was a feeling, an intense awareness that they weren't alone, that someone, somewhere, meant them harm: had already struck once and would strike again.

Jeffers led them up Broadway as far as 42nd Street and the entrance to the Grand Central Terminal. It was, as far as Claire knew, the largest railway station in the world. Over half a million passengers and tourists had once passed through it every day, but now it was empty of everything but skeletons and birds. Their footsteps echoed around like gunshots on the marbled floors. The main concourse, huge and cavernous, was dominated by a massive American flag, which drooped down, tattered. As they walked along, Ty nudged Claire's elbow and pointed up at the ceiling: it was completely covered in an elaborately decorated depiction of the night sky, an astronomical guide to the stars. 'Though it's completely wrong,' said Ty. 'It's based on some medieval map, and they didn't know anything back then.'

'You've been here before?'

'All the time, with my pa. Loved it. You couldn't move, it was so alive! Man, we'd buy hot dogs and just sit over there and watch . . .'

He stopped. There were tears in his eyes. Claire didn't know what to say. They'd all run out of the right words months ago.

Jeffers waved them forward, down a ramp on to the lower concourse and gathered them in a food court. Some of the tables were still occupied by people who would never finish their meals. A small amount of food had been brought from the ship, and they were able to supplement this with sealed items recovered from some of the many fast food outlets dotted around and about. They drank warm Coke and snacked on potato chips. But they didn't have much of an appetite. The whole area stank of rotting food. Guards were posted at the top of the ramp while Jeffers, Jonas and Dr Hill spread out a free tourist map of the station, one of hundreds lying scattered about, and debated their next move. When they'd come to a decision Jeffers took two crewmen with him and returned to the upper concourse, and from there back outside, trying to get the best radio signal he could in order to inform Captain Smith of his next move.

Claire kept an eye on Cleaver, sitting at a table by himself, the brim of his hat pulled down to leave the top half of his face hidden so that she couldn't tell whether he was reading the small Bible open before him or sleeping. As she watched, the man in the Hawaiian shirt, whose wife had disappeared earlier that morning, sat down opposite him. The minister's head scarcely moved up as the man began to speak. Within a few moments he abruptly jumped back up and stomped away. Cleaver's head remained bowed.

Claire slipped out of her seat and approached the Hawaiian man where he was leaning against a pillar on the far side of the food court. His cheeks were flushed and he kept firing angry glances towards the minister's table.

'Is everything OK?' Claire asked.

'What do you think?' the man snapped. He glared at her for a moment, before sighing and shaking his head. 'Sorry. It's just — I asked that. . . that reverend to say a prayer for my wife, and he just refused . . . he just said if she was gone it was the will of the Lord! You imagine that?'

Claire was trying her best to calm the man down when there was a sudden commotion as Jeffers reappeared with his gun out and one of his crewmen supporting the other, who now had a rough bandage around his arm. His white shirt was ripped and soaked in blood. Dr Hill hurried up to examine him as Jeffers helped ease the injured man on to the floor.

'He's been shot,' said Jeffers. 'There's a lot of people moving out there, coming this way.'

'Why're they shooting at us?' one of the passengers asked in panic.

Jeffers glanced at Dr Hill, but didn't immediately respond.

'Maybe they don't realise that we can help them,' said another passenger. 'If we just try and talk to them maybe—'

'No,'Jeffers said firmly, climbing back to his feet. 'It's not safe.'

'We have to at least try,' continued the passenger.

Jeffers took off his cap and wiped his brow. He looked around the passengers. 'Listen to me, all of you. Whatever survivors there are out there, they're not friendly. Whatever happened in this city after the plague has reduced them to cannibalism.'

He let it sit in the air. Claire already knew, but she still felt a shiver run through her.

'You're not serious...' said one of the passengers.

'Deadly serious. Dr Hill and I have both seen the evidence. We're not safe out there — which is why we're not going back out.' This set off a flurry of questions, but Jeffers quickly held his hand up for silence. 'Folks — you are here out of your own choice. We are here because we need to retrieve a vital part for the Titanic. If you wish to travel on to your homes in different parts of the city or beyond, if you wish to try and track down relatives, then I believe this station provides you with your best chance — perhaps your only chance of getting to your preferred destination safely. I'm going to split you up into small groups. You will use the underground rail tracks to traverse the city; we have a detailed map here, we have a supply of flashlights, and I am prepared to assign two armed guards to each group to get you as far as possible. But they may not be able to take you all of the way. After a while you're going to be on your own. That's a decision you have to make. What I will say is this — it's going to take us a full day to get to our objective and back. I plan to be at this exact location twenty-four hours from now. If you decide to return to the Titanic for whatever reason, I would suggest that you do your best to make it here for this time tomorrow and then we can escort you to the ship. But we're not going to hang around. Now, any questions?'

As with any large group of diverse people, there were loads of questions, some stupid, some bright. Jeffers answered them all as well as he could, but he was honest enough to answer, 'I don't know,' to many of them. There was a crushing lack of information about what the rest of the city was like — this cannibalism might well be confined to one small section, or there might be thousands of them. Yes, the railway tunnels could also be teaming with cannibals.

Eventually Jeffers called a halt to the discussion and gathered the passengers around a map of the station which showed the platforms and tunnels and routes, and then split them into groups according to their destinations and assigned guards to each. There were six groups in all — the smallest with four passengers, requiring only one guard: the largest with ten, which included Jeffers himself, Jonas Jones, Dr Hill, Claire, Ty, a husband and wife, the Robinsons, an elderly man on a walking stick called Morgan, the man with the Hawaiian shirt, whose name was Rodriguez — and the Rev. Calvin Cleaver. The three remaining crewmen, including Mr Benson and the wounded man, joined this group.

When they were all ready to set off, Jeffers addressed them all. 'On behalf of Captain Smith and myself,' he said, 'I want to wish you the best of luck with your journey. I hope you find what you're looking for, be it family or friends, or perhaps just a little bit of closure. Remember, you have twenty-four hours to make your minds up about returning to the Titanic.'

The groups began to move out. As they passed each other, they shook hands solemnly. Only Cleaver failed to partake. He sat by himself, waiting.

Ty nudged Claire. 'Looks like he's with us.'

'In a dark tunnel,' said Claire, shuddering.

'I'll watch your back,' said Ty, 'you watch mine.'

'I think I'd rather be caught by the cannibals than be stuck with him,' said Claire.

'Don't say that,' said Ty.

Jeffers came up to her. 'Claire — I don't want you wandering off to take photographs, OK?'

'I know,' said Claire, rolling her eyes.

Jeffers smiled, and was just about to move on when he suddenly remembered something. 'Oh, and Claire — when I was on the line with Captain Smith, I also spoke to your newspaper office . . .'

Claire immediately looked towards Cleaver. 'Have they found Brian?'

'Brian? No, it wasn't about that. As you know, the communications centre monitors radio traffic, and it seems they picked up some Morse code they thought might be of interest to you.'

Her brow furrowed. 'Morse . . . ? Why would—'

'Just two words — Babe lives, with an exclamation mark. Mean anything to you?'