They were at it again, taking turns posing with the bridge in the background and grinning from ear to ear. John tuned them out and turned on the radio. He’d kept it off during the trip so far—tourists, especially big spending ones, didn’t need scaring off by reports of death and destruction.
Things hadn’t gotten any better since the earlier reports. They were now calling it a “National Emergency” but if it was truly national, there was no sign of it having any effect here in the capital city. The bridge was as busy with traffic as ever and tourists from many countries were out in force. Just from where John sat he could see three coaches waiting for their loads to take pictures and a small fleet of taxi cabs continued to dart to and fro across the famous bridge, depositing more camera-laden groups along the footpaths on either side.
He’d missed a bit on the radio and turned it up to hear properly.
“As yet, unconfirmed reports are coming in of sporadic attacks in the Medway towns and along the North Kent coast. A child has gone missing in Ramsgate and a family reported seeing a seething mass just offshore in Greenwich. If these reports are indeed true, it is feared that London itself may be next. Troops are being called in and…”
He’d heard enough. He leaned out of the window and shouted.
“Time to go,” he called out. His fare paid no attention and kept snapping pictures. He leaned on his horn until they got the message. They got into the back, glaring at him all the way. He’d probably lost all chance of a tip, but the news report had him spooked and all he wanted to do now was get away from the river.
Maybe they’d like to see Regent’s Park Zoo?
That was his last coherent thought, for just as he put the cab in gear to pull away, he felt the wheels lurch beneath him. He pushed hard on the accelerator, but the wheels just spun uselessly underneath.
“What the fu…”
He opened the cab door and slammed it shut straight away. The road below the cab had become a seething mass of green and brown fronds. The tourists had already turned in their seats and were excitedly photographing the phenomenon, but John’s attention was taken by the view to the front. A line of tourists had been making their way towards a coach. They were never going to make it. The creeping kelp poured over the passenger rails like water and seethed among ankles and heels. At first, the tourists seemed to think it was something put on for their benefit; part of the tour. They giggled nervously, danced gingerly among the weed and started to take pictures. It was only when first one, then two more, found that they were unable to walk due to the kelp taking hold of them, that panic started to spread. By then, it was too late.
John watched, open mouthed, as the kelp smothered the screaming, writhing bodies. It was only when the mass of weed rose and started to advance down the bridge that he thought to try to escape.
He hit the accelerator, but the wheels just squealed and spun. Reverse was no better, bringing only a sudden lurch and a stop that threw his passengers around in the back.
I’ve definitely blown that tip.
The tourists started shouting at him, but even if he could have understood a word of it, there was nothing he could do. The cab was stuck firm and there was no way he was opening the door to have a look, not after seeing what had happened –was still happening—outside. The kelp was spreading all across the bridge and crawling, with increasing speed, up the twin towers that defined the landmark.
John turned and spoke softly, hoping to calm his passengers. He had no idea whether they understood him, but just the act of it was something familiar, something to hold on to while things went to shit and worse outside.
“We’re okay in here,” he said. “This cab is built to handle anything. Good British engineering, none of that Japanese rubb…” He stopped short as the kelp crept over the bonnet. The passengers started to scream—John felt like joining them as the windshield view filled with green fronds. The kelp looked moist, slightly oily. It slapped wetly against the glass. When a slit appeared and a white eye looked in on them, John’s screams joined those of the tourists.
He was only vaguely aware that the cab seemed to be floating among the kelp, carried in a flow that was taking vehicles up and over the guard way to the river below. The last thing he saw as they tumbled over the edge was a mass of kelp that spread across the whole of the river Thames and was even now spreading westwards towards the city centre.
July 23rd - The Thames
There was no warning. A wave of green vegetation flowed up river with the tide and engulfed everything in its path. Several curious people stood on London Bridge looking down at the river. Tendrils whipped and lashed and the people were taken, only a faint scream from far below to tell they had even been there.
All along the lower lying streets on either side of the river the kelp flowed and fed. People tried to flee, piling up into panicked groups at dead ends and getting trapped by cars in rapidly forming jams. All this achieved was to give the kelp a purpose-built feeding ground, one it fell on in a frenzy of fronds and stingers.
Some people, thinking themselves safe once they had ran a good distance away from the river, turned to watch the carnage. But the kelp wasn’t about to let a potential meal go to waste. Dark buds formed all along the surface of the carpet of vegetation and with an audible, almost explosive pop, were fired in small parabolic arcs to land on the roads, bounce, and roll like soft, almost squidgy, cannonballs. Whenever they rolled up against something, be it lamppost, vehicle, or leg, they opened out, bat-wings clinging like a limpet and small tendrils lashing like whips.
Even above the sound of screaming and wailing, the predominant noise was cracking and ripping as everything made of plastic, Perspex or rubber was torn away and transported—first to the river, then, like a rock-star crowd surfing, away across the top of the fronds to be carried out towards the open sea.
July 23rd - Vauxhall Bridge Road
Noble and Suzie walked briskly in thin drizzle.
“When is the train?” Suzie asked.
“An hour and a bit. We should make it okay.”
They’d have been in plenty of time if they hadn’t been kicked off the Tube train at Victoria Station when the whole network shut down due to “a major incident in the London Bridge area.”
Noble was starting to fear that he knew the nature of the incident.
But he couldn’t spare the time to worry. His main concern now was to get Suzie back to Weymouth as quickly as possible, before her obvious frustration boiled over into incoherent rage. He didn’t want to be in the firing line if that happened. It was lucky that he knew his way around London, for their quest for a taxi-cab was doomed to failure as several thousand people left Victoria Station at the same time and with the same purpose in mind.
“Let’s head down Vauxhall Bridge Road,” he said. “Maybe we’ll have more luck there.”
Twenty minutes later he was starting to regret that decision. His leg ached and complained bitterly at this new indignity forced on his recent wounds and there wasn’t a single cab to be had. In fact, traffic seemed remarkably light for a weekday morning in Central London.