The Fog - James Herbert [137]
He had told them of all that had happened: of the journey through the city; the death of Mason; the sealing off of the Blackwall Tunnel; the final destruction of the mycoplasma with the destruction of the gas plant. They had fired questions rapidly at him and he did his weary best to answer them all. Finally, they had congratulated him, praised him, but he had told them it was Professor Ryker and Captain Peters who deserved the thanks; it had been their combined efforts that had finally destroyed the disease.
Janet Halstead had examined him quickly, but not before she had smothered his grimy face with kisses of relief. She had found nothing seriously wrong, although many of his cuts and the burns on his hands would need special attention, and the enormous bruise on the side of his face, caused when he had been thrown from the overturned vehicle, would give him a lot of pain in the days to follow. She had urged him to rest, insisting he was in a state of near collapse, but he had refused, telling her there was one more thing he had to do before they began spraying the town with sleeping gas: he had to reach Casey.
He had begged her for a shot of something that would keep his fatigued body going and seeing that he was determined to leave anyway, she agreed, warning him she did not know how long the effects of the drug would last in his exhausted condition. He had assured her they would last long enough for him to get to Casey and that he would then gladly lie down and sleep while the city was sprayed with gas. His resolve had been strengthened and his anxiety aroused when they had tried to reach his flat on their internal switchboard, but power throughout London had finally gone dead and their only communication with the waiting outside world was through their transmitters. They had promised him the spraying operation would begin in the southwest and the northeast areas, the aircraft working their way in sections across London, leaving the area in which he lived till last. To help him, they had given him the use of a military vehicle, a stocky, solid army scout car, but obviously, and to their regret, they could not risk sending anybody with him; the fog might still contain enough of the disease to penetrate the protective suits. As it was, they would need volunteers to collect the container, but that was a justifiable risk.
Finally, after Janet Halstead had quickly cleaned his face and hands up and he had borrowed a leather jacket from someone to cover the gun and shoulder holster he still wore, he had driven from the underground shelter, feeling the drug already beginning to revitalize his exhausted system.
He climbed the stairs and, by the fourth flight, he could feel the weariness creeping back through his limbs; the drug was wearing off already. It must have been the drive back that had begun to drain him again, for the horror was still going on. Somehow he had half expected it to be all over with the destruction of the nucleus, but he soon realized the trail of misery it had left in its wake. There were still many of the individually gruesome and macabre incidents, but now the majority of the people had formed themselves into large marching crowds. Marching towards the river! It seemed that there would be a recurrence of the Bournemouth tragedy unless the gas reached them first. He had used the car’s transmitter to inform the base of what was happening and they reported back they would now concentrate the dropping of the gas along the river’s edge, on both sides, before dealing with the rest of London. Where he could, he had skirted the main groups of people, but several times he had had to drive carefully through them. Fortunately they ignored him, their minds filled now with only one thought. Self-destruction.
Even as he climbed the stairs, he could hear the low-flying aircraft in the distance, swooping down, spewing out their lifesaving and