“We listen for a few minutes, so keep it quiet,” instructed Bill.
They nodded their understanding.
Opposite left was the burnt-out Debenhams store and even further left Primark. To the right: a branch of the Britannia Building Society, a Pizza Hut and other small but now useless shops.
Bill planned on taking the group left, down the centre of the plaza, and keeping left, moving amongst the burnt trunks of what were once green and healthy trees that lined the mall. “Keep in amongst the trees, guys, and keep it quiet. We’re in bandit country now.”
To a man, they gripped their shotguns and makeshift weapons tightly, now very alert, knowing that their lives were at stake here. Bill took point again, leading them amongst the trees, which although blackened and without foliage, provided them with some cover. The alternative was to stick close to the shop fronts, but the plaza was littered with broken glass that would, if stood on, crackle loudly, advertising both their presence and location. They trudged through a layer of ash, the damp of the early morning keeping the dust down. As they came to the end of the line of trees, Bill found the shop he was looking for: an optician’s. An abandoned car outside was pressed up against the shop front.
“Curtis, Vincent and Terry, you three keep watch out here. The rest of us will take a look inside.”
“What do you want us to go for?” asked Jake.
“Any complete specs, or even just frames. And any lenses, but they have to have been made up. It’s no good us going for any of their fresh stock. We could never cut or grind them down to size or shape. Right, let’s go.”
Bill led the way again, passing the front desk, flicking on a torch as they moved deeper into the darker interior. They stepped carefully, the crackle of broken glass and debris setting their nerves on edge. The three men searched the shop from top to bottom, even the offices in the back. The second floor didn’t exist, having collapsed inside as a consequence of the fire, making it difficult for them to move around. They rifled through the remnants of the shattered and burnt display cases, their initial bout of ferreting disappointing. After about thirty minutes, Bill called a halt. Although not as successful as he had hoped, they had found six pairs of glasses still in their toughened cases, prescriptions waiting for customers who were never able to collect them. The cases were brittle, but the spectacles inside seemed intact. Dependent on the prescription, who would benefit from them would only be known on their return to their home, their Tower Block, the Threepenny-Bit.
“Not too bad, eh, lads? Next port of call, yeah?”
“The Pony and Trap next?” asked Jake as he stored the spectacle cases in the rucksack on his back.
“Yes, I don’t think all of the pubs will have been picked bone clean yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Let’s just hope whoever paid it a visit missed something. Come on.”
They headed back outside, picked up their three companions, and continued south, crossing over to where another line of bared tree trunks would provide them with some cover. The line of trees eventually ran out, and the group were forced to move in closer to the walls as they passed Primark, disturbing a pack of dogs rooting around a half-dozen bodies interspersed amongst the remains. The dogs ran off at the sight of Bill and his men. Bill didn’t bother with the burnt-out clothes store, fairly certain that the fire would have destroyed most of the garments and anything left would have been picked up by numerous survivors. At the end of the street, a wide crossroads, the junction of Church Street, High Street and North End Mall, was silent and unoccupied.
He called the group to him. “Me and Jake will cross first, check out the other side of the road, and if it’s clear, we’ll wave you over. Understood?”
They all acknowledged the order.
“Stay back in a shop doorway and keep your bloody eyes peeled.”
Bill and Jake crossed over. Finding the other side clear, they quickly gave the rest of the group the all-clear, and they crossed the road to join them.
Bang!
“Move it, move it,” yelled Bill to the rest of the group as they ambled across the road in a staggered line.
Bang… bang.
“Come on,” he screamed at them this time, pulling them into cover, shoving them roughly into doorways. “Get down!”
“Was that gunfire?” Vincent asked nervously.
Before Bill could respond, a van careered around the corner from Frith Road, racing down Church Street. A jet of black smoke ejected from the exhaust as it backfired again. It sped past them. The driver and front passenger, wearing what looked like paint spray masks, were focused on the road ahead, clearly off somewhere in a hurry. A red flame shot out from the pipe again, surrounded by a black cloud of smoke as the engine struggled to cope with the dirty fuel being used, the last supplies the scavengers had dug up from an underground diesel tank at a petrol station on the outskirts of the city.
“Christ, that made me jump.”
“Me too,” responded Bill to Terry, the second man carrying a shotgun. “We need to be bloody careful. Let’s get the hell out of here. Come on, you lot, we need to get this done quickly.”
Leaving the shop doorways, they quickly found their way through the gaps in the buildings, across Surrey Street, the home of the Saturday market but now an ash-covered street lined with burnt-out buildings. Again, Bill thanked their lucky stars that the railway line to the west of his tower block had acted as a firebreak, and the fires had burnt themselves out to the east, the Threepenny-Bit surviving almost intact apart from blast damage to most of the windows.
The six men scoured the Pony and Trap from top to bottom, finding four large catering packs of beans tucked away in the corner of the collapsed beer cellar. Although the pub had been practically stripped bare, the main target had been alcohol. And, of that, there wasn’t a drop to be found. Bill slumped on a chair. Although blackened, there was still enough integrity in the wood to hold his weight. He cursed. They needed to find some more alcohol soon. Not just for recreational reasons, but also for use as a sedative should someone urgently need dental treatment or to be treated medically. It was about the nearest they were going to get to having an anaesthetic. Once their foraging was completed, the four large tins of beans were allocated to individuals to be carried, and they pressed on with their search of the precinct. An optician’s around the corner yielded two bent frames, but no lenses. They crossed Church Street again, passing the gutted Holiday Inn Express, and Bill led them down Frith Road, the direction the van had come from, so he warned everyone to be on the alert. They soon came across the iconic House of Fraser building, the high-value products it used to sell now nothing more that melted metal and plastic, its ornate windows blasted out, and the roof collapsed inwards, crashing through all five floors. They passed an Argos store, completely destroyed, and a local supermarket, burnt out but probably stripped of food before even the bombs struck. But Bill did stop when they came across a chemist shop.
“Won’t get anything from here, Bill,” offered Jake. “Well and truly gutted, there’ll be nothing in there.”
Bill was not so sure, and issued instructions for three, including Terry with the shotgun, to remain outside on guard while he and the remaining two, Vincent and Curtis, scouted around inside. Jake was right: the place was a mess. The fire had done significant damage. Part of the back wall and the rear of the roof had collapsed, and all the shelving, cabinets and serving counters were smashed or covered in a grey mash of debris and ash.