‘Global warming, what a laugh, melted the ice didn’t it, pushed the Gulf Stream southwards and the northern hemisphere truly became the frozen north. It didn’t happen overnight. The winters gradually became longer and the weak sunshine in summer failed to melt the snow, which built layer on layer, until everything was buried beneath it. Thousands died and those that survived the arctic conditions joined the long trek to the south.
‘We – your Dad and me – were children, I was nine and your Dad ten; we came from the same part of the country, a place that was then called, South Tyneside, your Dad from a town called Felling and me from a place known as Jarrow… What’s that sweetheart?.. Don’t worry about it, you don’t need to know, towns and even countries don’t exist anymore. Now there’s only The Outside, where we live, and The Federation, beyond the Great Wall.
‘Where was I? Ah, yes, we joined a gang of other people to travel south; my Father, Grandpa Joe, said we had too, for protection against the other gangs… Yes, I know we’re in the Nissan Gang, dear, but back then, living in a gang for protection was new to us, we had always lived in a small family unit with our mum and dad… Yes of course darling, you live in a family unit too, and you’re a very lucky girl, because you’ve got another twenty mums and dads besides us.
‘Anyway, before we set off south we had go north to Newcastle and forage for supplies. Newcastle, unlike the Metro Centre hadn’t suffered much in the way of flooding. It was buried under snow, not ice, this meant that it was possible to enter the buildings at a higher level, make your way to the bottom and tunnel from there into Eldon Square and the other shops in the city centre.
‘The problem was that lots of others had the same idea as us and the city was like a war zone, gangs were fighting gangs for possession of the buildings and tunnels, while others were ambushing anyone who tried to leave the city with supplies.
‘Will told us all about it before we even reach the city… No, Sugarpie not Will Johnston, he wasn’t even born then; Grandpa Will, he was the leader of a gang from, Felling, then… Yes, good girl, that’s right, the gang Dad was in.
‘We had just reached Gateshead side of the river when we came under fire from a sniper on top of the Tyne Bridge and had take cover behind the tops of some buildings. The cover was already occupied by Will’s gang and after Grandpa Joe and he had talked, they decided that by combining the two gangs we would have enough manpower to protect a building and tunnel for supplies. But to get the supplies we had to get into the city, Grandpa Joe and two men went upriver to check out the other bridges, but they were all barricaded and manned by gunmen and we didn’t have enough guns to launch an attack.
‘Due to the river having flooded and then frozen, we hadn’t needed to cross via one of the bridges and had only made for the Tyne Bridge because it was the easiest route into the city. Now that we knew the bridges were guarded, the decision was made to cross on the ice, but it would have been dangerous to do so within rifle range the bridges and grandpa Will suggest we wait for dark.
‘We made our way down river, broke into the Baltic – we were the first and possibly the only ones to do so, after all, we had no need for any kind of art – and waited until it was dark to crossed over, further down river. We made our way into the city and managed to find an unoccupied building in Fenkle Street, Grandpa Joe had picked it out because he knew there was a small gun repair business in the basement, besides we could get the supplies we needed from the smaller shops in Clayton Street.
‘It took three days to get all the supplies we needed, then we left, as we came, in the dark and the next morning we began our long trek southwards… And there, my little sleepy head, we must leave the story, because it’s long past your bedtime… Yes I promise, I’ll tell you more tomorrow.’
Global Warming, Part Two.
The howling, shrieking wind drives the snowstorm through the canyons of the half buried city, piling the snow in drifts against the dead ruins of the once great metropolis, adding a new layer to the ice pack. Deep below in a heavily insulated room within the tribal nest, the children lay aside their work and gather in a seated circle around the small, white haired, old woman called Ruth who is the tribal rememberer.
In the harsh new world that they live in, food, heat and the survival of the tribe is the overwhelming necessity and all else has been abandoned. Not that there was a lot left to abandon in the paperless world the tribe had been forced to leave behind. When the power stations failed, their computerised, electronic world failed too. Thrown into a cold, harsh, new world where violence was born of the need to survive, they were force to form a group that was strong enough to fight off the attacks of other gangs. That initial group had grown and prospered – prosperity being gauged as being able to find enough food and shelter to live – and was now known as the Nissan tribe.
Ruth, who was only ten when the world failed them, was now the only one alive who had been there at the very beginning and before she began to recount the history of the tribe to this new group, her mind drifted back all those years to the time she had told the story to her own daughter. Back then, she had begun the tale the day before and now her daughter wanted to hear more.
***
‘Yes Myra, I know I promised to tell you more tonight, but it can wait until you’ve finished your chores… And put on an extra coat it’s freezing out in the corridors.’ While her small daughter went off to the communal kitchens to help with the washing up and cleaning of the surfaces and floors, Ruth settled down to her darning and patching. At that time they still had a reasonable store of clothing, but knowing that the time would come when they would be unable to find replacements it had been decided that all damaged clothing would be patched, repaired and reused until they literally fell to bits and could be reused no more. Even then the resultant rags were kept to be used as patches, cloths and stuffing’s to keep out the cold.
It must have been a couple of hours before Myra returned and began to badger her mother for more of the story.
‘Alright then, you get yourself settled while I finish sewing this patch.’
After putting in the last few stitches, Ruth tied them off with a knot and bit through the thread, ‘Ok, I’m ready,’ she said as she put the garment to one side, ‘Now where did I get up too? Yes that’s right we had just left Newcastle and were heading south.’
'We left in the dark, backpacks bulging with supplies, and since it was snowing heavily, we crossed over the frozen river to the Gateshead side without being noticed by any of the gunmen on the bridge. Luckily we had found a sports department in one of the stores in the city that hadn’t been riffled by any of the other gangs, so we were well equipped for our journey. All of us had ski suits, fleece lined parkers with hoods, ski masks and goggles, even us children. Most of the men had taken skis which were more of a hindrance than a help until they learned to use them, and then they were a Godsend. But the best find of all wasn’t in the department but in the storeroom behind. We had hoped to find a couple of toboggans to help carry our stores but instead found boxes of snowshoes which we considered to be infinitely more useful. You dad said we had to be the best equipped refugees in the north and so we were, though as time passed and equipment broke or simply wore out we never were again.
‘What’s that Sweetheart, the journey south? Don’t be so impatient I’m coming to that part soon.'
'Before leaving the city Your Grandpa Joe and Grandpa Will gathered us all together to discuss our route south. Some of the men wanted us to follow the old A1 road south because we would find shelter on the way, but grandpa Joe was against the idea, “Yes,’ he said, ‘we’d find shelter because the A1 runs through just about every town on the way, and the road will be barricaded at every town by local gangs determined to keep us out. So I for one vote that we find another route.”
'This started an argument that went on for a while with nothing being settled either way, until Grandpa Will spoke up, “Before this all happened I was a lorry driver delivering mainly foodstuffs all over the country…”
‘What’s a lorry?’
‘Sorry darling, I forgot that you have never seen a lorry. Well, how can I explain? I know; if you imagine a giant box on wheels, filled with food or other goods, with a cab at the front for the driver… What’s cab? Well a cab is attached to the big box and has an engine, seats, a steering wheel, a gear box and it’s where the driver sits so that he can drive the whole thing along the road… An engine? A gearbox? and a steering wheel? I’m sorry darling but I will have to explain that to you at another time or we will never get on with the story'
‘Now back to what grandpa Will was saying…' “And I think we should set off down the A1M then onto the M1 which will take us most of the way south…”
'Before he could finish a babble of voices broke out, most of them complaining that they would find no shelter on the motorway. Grandpa Will let them babble on for a little while, and then held up his hand for silence, when they were relatively quite, he continued again, “The Motorways bypass all the towns so there will be no roadblocks to stop us and despite what you think we will find plenty shelter on the way. Besides there being motorway services every so often, you will find just about every turn off leads to some kind of industrial estate or warehouse complex and since some of them are quite a way from the nearest towns, I’m betting that some won’t have been stripped and we’ll be able to replenish our supplies.”
‘Yes dear, I’m coming to that part now.'
'After crossing the river we turned west and followed the railway line until it turned away, and then we continued on towards the Western-by-Pass that led to the A1M. It had stopped snowing shortly after leaving the river but the ice cold wind blowing directly into our faces made all our joints ache and as we plodded on over the deserted snow drifted road, our pace was so slow that it took three hours to cover a distance that in the past would have been no more than half-an-hours walk. When we reached the bypass we were no sooner on it, than Grandpa Will led us off at the next slip road and we followed him downhill past a burnt out public house into a complex of factories and warehouses. After passing several large factories Grandpa Will led us at a stoop through the half drifted up, open door of a small warehouse, the place was totally empty and from the amount snow that blown in and drifted across the floor and the lack of footprints it had obviously been stripped some time ago.
'It was wonderful to get inside out of the howling wind and some of us began to take off our packs but stopped when Grandpa Will switched on a torch…'A torch? That’s just another thing we don’t have any more, not that kind anyway…' And he motioned for us to follow him to the front of building and led us through a door in the corner. Through the door, a corridor to the left led to the toilets, so the sign on the wall said, which were neither use nor ornament, since all water pipes were frozen, but to the right led to a concrete set of stairs, which we climbed and found ourselves in a large open plan office complete with desks, chairs, filing cabinets, computers and even had the blinds intact at the windows. The desks and chairs etc; had all been move against one wall and left there – who needs metal office chairs and desks in a world such as the one we now found ourselves in? In addition to the main office the end wall contained four doorways, two led into smaller offices, one to what had obviously a small kitchen, all stripped bare and the fourth to a storage area containing a few empty shelves.
'Whatever had covered the floor however had been taken, possibly for fuel or insulation, leaving only a bare dusty concrete surface behind, which suited us well for what we need now, was a fire for heat. We had several small camping stoves the kind that ran on solid fuel blocks and a good supplied of the fuel blocks themselves – all courtesy of the sports department – so we could melt snow to make hot drinks and cook some food. But our next task was where to find wood for the fire, which turned out not to be as hard as we first thought.
'Whoever had stripped the place had taken all the doors, bar the one downstairs which was metal, however they hadn’t taken the doorframes or the skirting boards. Maybe they had planned on come back for them later, but had found a better source of fuel elsewhere, or maybe they had simply run into a larger gang and been killed, or had to flee. Whatever the reason, their loss was our gain. Altogether between the offices and the toilets downstairs we had eleven doorframes, a load of skirting boards and a few shelves from the storage cupboard, more than enough to build and keep a fire going for six hours. Six hours was the time allotted for food and rest by Grandpa Will, he said we needed to move on then, if we were to reach our next destination, Washington Services, and set up camp before dark the next day.
'Reluctantly I was shaken awake after what seemed like five minutes that was in reality five hours of exhaustion induce sleep, only to find the others were already up and preparing pans full of gloop. Ugh, I hated gloop but was told in no uncertain terms that porridge was good for me and since it was the only thing on offer I ate it with reluctance.
'After everyone had eaten their gloop, we donned our winter gear and prepared to move out, but before we could move there were a couple of flat cracks, two of the office windows imploded, throwing shards of glass in all directions and we hit the floor. Someone was shooting at us but who and from where we had no idea. Grandpa Will motioned for everyone to stay down, while he, Grandpa Joe and two of the other men picked up their rifles and ran at a crouch down the stairs. There was silence for a while and then the shots came again and two more windows imploded showering us with glass. Instantly there was a flurry of shots in return and then silence once more. Suddenly there were footsteps pounding up the stairs and Grandpa Joe appeared urging us to move out quickly.
'Apparently there had been only two men firing from the roof of a nearby factory, after storming the roof the men had been killed, but the shots had alerted the rest of their gang and there were too many of them for us to fight. Luckily they were coming from their camp half a mile away and if we could get back to the Bypass before they could arrive Grandpa Will reckoned they would happy enough to have run us off what they considered there territory and wouldn't attempt to follow. Grandpa Will was right, apart from a few derisory shots from the edge of the Industrial estate, which were returned by our men with rifles, they let us go.
'Shortly afterwards the grey burgeoning clouds grew darker still and we plodded on into the freezing wind blown snow, over an undulating snowfield that lay fifteen feet or so deep above the road surface below. Gradually the snow became heavier and everyone roped up, one to the other, with us children in the middle of the line, so that none of us would become lost. We were halfway to our destination when the blizzard hit and suddenly we were in a whiteout, a place so white that there was no up, nor down, no left, nor right, but still we stumbled on blindly following the rope that bound us to the one in front.
'We were out in the open and needed to find shelter soon or we would freeze to death long before we reached our destination. Numbed by the cold I walked on, one foot following the other and only came out of the daze I was in, when I walked into the back of Ted the boy who became your father. 'What's happening? Why have we stopped?' I asked.
'I've no idea; word just came down the line to wait.'
'We huddled in the snow for what felt like ages and then suddenly we were moving again and in a few minutes I found myself being lowered, after your dad, down through a hole in the snow and into the back of a forty foot lorry. One by one the others followed, torches were lit, stoves too, and hot drinks were made to warm us up. Your Grandpa Will who was in the lead had found us this haven from the blizzard, the fact that he found it by accident when the fibreglass roof cracked beneath his feet, made no never mind, because whichever way it was found, it saved us from freezing to death.
The blizzard lasted the rest of the day and on through the night, so we heated food from our packs, huddled together for warmth and slept. In the morning we awoke, had another breakfast of gloop and climbed from our shelter into white windless day under a pale grey sky. Behind us as we walked on, the aeroplane winged Angel of the North stood sentinel over a buried road that no longer carried thousand of people to and from their destinations.
'Travelling at the speed of the slowest member of our group, we reached Washington Services three hours later, only to find that the roofs of both the services and the lodge next door had collapsed under the weight of the snow. But strangely enough the upper floors of the Holiday Inn behind were still intact for some reason, maybe because being higher the north winds had scoured away enough snow to keep the weight down.
'The men entered by a second floor window to have a look around, only to return a while later to report that the place was empty and had been stripped. Still it was shelter from the wind that had started to pick up again, so we all climbed inside and settled down while the stoves were lit and hot drinks brewed. After the break, Grandpa Joe, Grandpa Will and the adults held a meeting and was decided that we would stay here for the rest of the day and set off for Durham in the morning. Meanwhile while it was still light the men split into two parties and set out to search the trading estate behind the motorway to see if they could find anything of use.
'With the men gone, me and your dad, along with Jenny Smith and Billy Johnston, decided to do a little exploring of our own inside the hotel. Slipping out of the room we followed the corridor until we reached the stairs and after switching a torch descended into the darkness beneath the snow. At the bottom we turned into corridor and followed the signs to the reception and restaurant. Where there was a restaurant there had to be a kitchen and if there was a kitchen, maybe we would find some food. The corridor was dark and strangely not that cold due to the insulating properties of the snow and we could see light at the end. As we move towards the light however the air grew colder and when we reached the light we found out why. The reception, the restaurant and presumably the kitchen beyond that were single story, had collapsed under the weight of the snow. The whole area was open to the sky and filled with tangle of broken crisscrossed roof beams all smothered in snow.
So much for our hunt for food, 'Come on,' I said, 'let's go.'
But Ted grabbed my arm as I turned to walk away, 'Hold on Ruth,' he said, 'I think I can get through there.'
I looked at the small gap where four beams crossed and said, 'Don't be daft that gap's too small, besides it could all come down and bury you.'
'No, it won't,' he replied and he went over and began kicking at the beams, 'See they're all frozen in place.'
'I still didn't think much of the idea, but your dad got down on his belly and wriggled his way into the opening. Not to be outdone Billy followed him in. I looked at Jenny who shrugged her shoulders as if to say why not? So I followed and she came behind. Since Ted had taken the torch I expected to be crawling in the dark following Billy's heels, but the light that filtered through the snow made it more like a twilight zone as we twisted and turned through a forest of broken ice covered beams. We must have crawling for no more than ten or fifteen minutes when we came to relatively clear area in front of a wall in the centre of which was a pair of swing doors. That the wall was still standing was a surprise but a pair of doors that obviously led into a kitchen was amazing.
'Ted reached out and touched the ice covered left hand door and then put his shoulder against it and pushed, it didn't move. I grabbed his arm and pulled him away before he could move to the other door, he tried to protest but I put my finger to my lips and led him to the edge of the cleared area; and the others followed.
'What's going on; why did you pull me away?' he asked, keeping his voice low.
'Because,' I said in a whisper, 'you were going to go barging in through the other door.'
'So?'
'So, look at the doors again.'
'We all turned and looked at the doors; Ted stared, his brow furrowed in concentration and just when I thought he wasn't seeing what I saw, the frown vanished and he smiled, 'The left hand door is iced up, the right isn't, so that means one is cold and the other's warm.'
'So, what does that mean?' I said, he shrugged so I said, 'it means that there is some kind of heat behind there and I think we should just leave it shut.'
Instead of answering he walked over to the door and placed his hand on the surface, 'It's barely warm, just enough to keep the ice off.'
'All the more reason to keep out,' I said.
'But he was stubborn, and I could see that he was determined to open the door. Waving us to one side he knelt and pushed the door open only to be greeted the most unholy scream of rage and a meat cleaver that flew over his head and buried itself in one of the beams behind him. 'Hey,' Ted shouted, 'there's no need for that we are friends.'
'No you're not, you've come to steal my food,' the voice screamed, ' go away I don't want you here. This is my place, mine I tell you, all mine.'
'Honestly we haven't come to steal anything; we were only looking for the kitchen.'
'We, who's we? Step into the doorway so I can see who you are.'
'I shook my head, but Ted stepped forward and we of course had no choice but to follow; well we couldn't let him do it on his own, could we? From the doorway we peered into the kitchen, well, half of the kitchen; the other half must have collapsed like the restaurant; not that we could see into it because it was walled off by a double layer of mattresses stood on end that we assumed must have been pillaged from the hotel bedrooms. Two of the other walls were also insulated, this time by floor to ceiling cartons containing, according to the labels, a variety of food stuffs from canned meats to tins of beans. The half kitchen was illuminated by candles stuck in bottles and kept warm by a fire that had been built in the centre of what had been, in the days of unlimited power, a large grill plate, with an equally large vent above. To one side of the grill was a stack of salvaged firewood and next to that two doors, one of them the insulated door to a cold store and the other just a normal door that led to who knows where.
'My eyes however were drawn to the far end of the table that stood in the centre of room, where a scruffy looking bearded man, wearing a chef's hat, stood with an array of cleavers, knives and meat forks on the table in front of him. He looked huge in the flickering light but on closer inspection I could see that his face and hands were skinny and his body was bulked up by layers of clothing. He was also a bit touched in the head, probably from being all alone and he proved it when he muttered, 'Dwarf's; horrible little dwarfs.'
'Don't be silly;' said Ted, 'we're just a bunch of kids searching to see what we can find.'
'No,' the man cried, waving a knife about, 'you're dwarfs from the northlands come to steal my food. Well you can't have it, it's mine.'
'Like I said the man was touched but he did have a lot of food and while we already had enough provisions to carry, it would be nice if we could persuade him to give us some so that we could have really good meal before we continued our journey south.
'Excuse me Mr,' I said, 'but take a good look, do we really look like dwarfs? Besides, there are no such things as dwarfs.'
'The man looked at us, his eyes flicking from to the other for a long time and then as if someone had clicked off a switch the madness went from his eyes and he slumped down into a chair behind him.
'For a time he stared vacantly in space and then shook himself and said with a sigh, 'Sorry kids, I think I have gone a little daft with being here on my own. Come in.'
'We moved inside, gathered around the table and Billy…'Yes he told us his name dear,' who wasn't a chef, despite the hat, told us his story. "There were twelve of us left in the hotel, all staff members who lived too far away to get home. Apart from worrying about relatives that we had no means of contacting; we were pretty well off, there were beds in the hotel and we had enough food to last at least a year or more. The chef had long gone and since I had worked in the kitchen I was elected to cook the food, and that was what I was doing when the roofs collapsed trapping me in here.
"I shouted and shouted but no one came, I guess they couldn't hear me. I tried the outside door next to the cold store, luckily it open inward, but that side of the building was completely buried, so I waited to see if they would find me and when no one came I set too and dug myself out. It took me two days and by then they had gone; I suppose they though I had died in the cave-in and with no access to the food there was no point in them staying around. I did think of leaving myself but where would I go? Besides with the others gone I had enough food to last me for years. Having made my decision to stay I began to strip the hotel of mattresses to insulate this half of the kitchen and when that job was complete I broke up furniture and built up my store of firewood.
"It was while I was going through the hotel to see if I could find anything else of use that I saw the gang, there were twelve of them, all armed, three of them had guns, the rest of them clubs of one kind or the other, and they coming towards the hotel. They looked pretty dodgy to me, so I hid and kept an eye on them. After they climbed in through one of the windows, I heard them searching through the rooms. God knows there was little to get, only mattresses and a few sticks of furniture, and that was what they took mattresses, carried them down, pushed them out of the window and began to carry them away. That was when the second gang appeared; shots were fired, men fell and then they went at it with the clubs and at the end of the battle the victors made off with the spoils. Behind them they left twelve men dead in the snow. What has the world come too? When there are people out there that will kill for the sake of a few mattresses and what chance would I have if another gang came and caught me on my own?
"With this in mind I set about securing my position. The main thing that needed to be sorted was the vent for the fire, even keeping the fire small still produced smoke and smoke is a dead giveaway. How those first gangs had missed it I'll never know? So I set to work to try and do something about the smoke; what I did was to put out the fire, dig up to the outlet pipe on the outside wall, disconnect and refit it in a horizontal position and then I dug a second tunnel from the end of the pipe out into the middle of where the tops of a clump of trees stood above the snow in the grounds. It was hard work, took ages and not perfect, but it seemed work well enough. Did you notice the smoke when reached the hotel?"
'No.'
"Well, there you are then… after that I stocked myself up with more firewood and hid myself down here."
'But aren't you lonely?' I asked.
"Yes a little, but it's safe down here."
'If you're lonely why not come with our group we're not like those other gangs, we're just heading south to escape the snows.'
"A group or a gang, they're all the same. No, don't say it,' he said as I opened my mouth to speak, 'you were about to say that your group doesn't kill anyone unless they attack you, but don't you see? In the world as it now is, your group will eventually be forced to kill more and more, just to survive. No, I think I'll take my chances here. But I will give what you came looking for, provided that you promise not to tell your group that I am here."
'I tried once more to persuade him to come with us, but he still refused, so we promised not disclose his whereabouts and after giving us two cases of food and a can opener, he led us out through his tunnel and sent us on our way. It was snowing and when we reached the hotel I looked back, but Billy had gone back to his refuge and the snow had obliterated all signs of our passing.
'The men had come back empty handed so when we produced the food they naturally asked where we found it, so we told them that we had found the two cases in a cupboard and there was no more. It was of course a lie, but only a small one, after all we had no means of carrying more food with us, and so we hadn't deprived the group of anything. Mind you, I often think of Billy and wonder how long he lived down there all alone in his kitchen before his food ran out.
'That night we had our feast and the next morning we continued our journey.'
Ruth paused and looked at her daughter who's eyes were drooping, 'That's enough for tonight. Come on sleepy head let's get you to bed.'
Myra yawned and mumbled, 'Promise to tell me more next time mum,' and then promptly fell asleep where she sat.
