Take Back The City - Part One of the 'Life in London Town' series

10 - A Distressing Discovery at Cambridge Circus

The junction of High Holborn and Kingsway resembled a ghost town. The all too familiar thunderous roar of taxis and double-decker buses viciously parting the air as they rumbled on towards the Strand had been replaced by an eerie bellow created by the wind as it whistled through the vast, open channel created by the buildings, all of a certain shade of grey or white which became conspicuously monotonous owing to the lack of lively distractions, unhindered until it slammed up against the statues and stones of Bush House. It had become difficult for me to ever picture any signs of life here; the concrete slabs and tarmac which covered the pavements lining the streets showed no shoeprints and the lights in every single building were, without exception, extinguished, and every single window was covered in a filthy film of dust. With the exception of the tiny, underpowered torches that Victor and I were using to find our way through the streets, the only lights to be seen were the pearly stars in the night sky and the full moon but, owing to the ominous clouds gathering in the direction of Hyde Park, they would all soon disappear from sight.

   “Which path should we take?” I asked as we approached the long-derelict hulk of Commonwealth House, half-whispering, half-yelling.  Without even bothering to respond orally, he subconsciously pushed the button at a pelican crossing then, after realising that there was neither electricity being fed to the lights for them to show the green man nor traffic for the red light to stop, he led me over the barren, lifeless river of wind and tar that was High Holborn and onto New Oxford Street, a street surrounded by a muddle of concrete which some architect had projectile vomited into place after the Second World War. Even before Central London fell to the Faceless, New Oxford Street was not a place one would wish to step at dead of night; it had a history of being home to the depraved outcasts of London’s social fabric, having been a part of one of London’s most infamous slums in a past life. Victor and I had only been on the road for about three minutes, yet my excitement had already begun to turn to fear.

  My fear was not unfounded, for the menacing spirit of St Giles' Slum had re-emerged to side with the Faceless. Dead bodies would poke into view in the small, perfectly circular spots of lemon-yellow light coming from one of our torches, draped by the side of the road or, even more scarily, hung from the sides of half-demolished, derelict office blocks as if they were traitors on pikes hanging over the old London Bridge. As New Oxford Street progressed ever further westwards, a river of anonymous blood would flow along the gutters and towards the blackened drain covers into which it would disappear like a waterfall to Hell. As much as I tried to forget about the battles and the bloodshed, the agonising emotion kept creeping and crawling back into my head and forcing tears from my eyes even if the body I’d found, or remembered seeing dead, was that of an enemy. The only voices that ever told me to keep my wits about me were those of Victor, who thankfully was here, and Patrick, who was still missing judging from what I had heard. “Stay strong, Nox. Stay strong.” Victor seemed to have to say that an awful lot over the course of this walk; it was his passive way of comforting me, yet it was hardly calming my nerves at all. If anything, my nerves were even more on edge as a result.

     We approached the Shaftesbury Theatre, which had long shut its heavy metal rolling shutters  and fortified itself with various bric-a-brac from the shops around it. In front of the theatre were gardens plagued with death - death hanging from the black, sharpened spikes on the railings, death piled onto the grass, death mangled around the branches of the trees - marooned on a traffic island between three streets – one of which was, predictably considering the name of the theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue – my nerves cracked. I could take no more of the psychological battering the distressing parade of the damned of New Oxford Street was exposing me to. I couldn’t. I physically couldn’t.

    “Victor,” I panted. “Please. Can we take Shaftesbury Avenue?”  

   Victor stopped mid-step, his right leg hovering in the air as if he had a foot atop a soap-box. His face told me that the suggestion had scared him stiff; his mouth was stuck fast, one of his eyes was fixed on New Oxford Street, the other wedged open, staring at me. “N-“ he began, but he could not form words from his sealed mouth.