Three Bullets by Melvin Burgess

Author:Melvin Burgess [Burgess, Melvin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Andersen Press Ltd
Published: 2020-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

16

Nottingham was still under FNA control, but things were moving fast and they were expecting an attack soon. The whole place was buzzing: barricades going up, roadblocks, trucks with fighters and military hardware driving about from one place to the other. And refugees. Everywhere you went, there were refugees these days. Not just Blacks and Asians. People had heard the stories of what life was like under the Bloods, the rules you had to follow, the executions and so on. If you weren’t joining up, you were running away. It was like that everywhere.

Tariq and the other guys in the Land Rover who drove us were full of it – pointing out sniper posts on the rooftops, talking about mines and artillery and tactics. It looked impressive, all the effort they were putting into defending the place, but the Bloods were funded by the USA and the FNA just didn’t have the right kind of weapons. You can’t fight tanks, planes and helicopter gunships with popguns. All the heavy stuff had gone south for the civil war a few years ago and very little of it ever came back. Nottingham was going down, everyone knew it, but they were fighting anyway. People are so stupid. As if losing was somehow better than just turning round and getting the hell out of there.

‘We’re hoping the EU will come in and bail us out,’ the guy told us, and I thought, Yeah, you and everyone else. I remember when the first EU fighter jets appeared in the skies over Manc, everyone was cheering and yelling, like the police had turned up to arrest the bad guys. But all it meant was more bombs. They were supposed to be taking out the far right groups, but plenty of civilians got flattened anyway. There were news items from time to time about EU troops, but what can I say? I never saw any.

So the EU – all gas as usual. The Bloods, though, they were coming, they were on their way right now. In fact, in some ways, they were already there. They always had been there. Before the war you’d never have known how many people were sitting at home hoping and praying for the Muslims to be pushed into the sea, all the Black people turned into slaves – but they poured out of the swamp quick enough once they thought they had a little fire power behind them. As we drove through the ’burbs, the graffiti was up on the walls to welcome the Bloods.

PREPARE FOR JUDGMENT DAY, one said.

WELCOME HOME JESUS, was another one.

And, THE SECOND COMING IS NIE.

‘Can’t even bloody spell,’ said Tariq.

‘What’s that about the second coming, then?’ asked Maude.

Tariq rolled his eyes. ‘Virgin birth, mark two. They already found the new Mary. No crucifixion this time, though. This time it’s Judgment Day.’

‘Does that mean we get two Christmases from now on?’ I asked. No one laughed.

‘We actually think we know who the new Mary is,’ added Tariq. ‘Some poor girl in Birmingham they kidnapped.

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