This epic work is the product of a week off work sick!

 Lampeter City (the Necropolis) and its denizens are the product of my own fevered imagination.  Please R&R, but be gentle, I’m ill!

Welcome to the Necropolis.

A dark reflection of everything seedy and wrong with human society. 

Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it?  Oh yes, I mean, it has another name, but Lampeter City doesn’t quite strike up the right tone, and besides, why bother with the topping when you can get straight down to the maggot infested meat?  What, don’t like the metaphor?  I’m sure you’ll find it most appropriate once you’ve been here for five minutes or so.

You might even think of some of your own.

Sitting in a twisted reflection of the thing we know to be reality, the Necropolis exists as a city of extremes.  The rich are very rich, the poor are very poor, the shadows are very dark and the middle classes are as happily oblivious to it all as they are anywhere else.

No-one cares when the city began, there is no statue of a founding father or quaint medieval settlement that spread out its roots to create the now dead stump that is our proud and bustling metropolis.  They may be there, somewhere in the annals of history.  Someone in the public records office or the town hall may even know a little about whence this poisoned fountain sprung… But frankly no-one gives a damn. 

They’re too busy running their own lives and surviving crossing the street to worry about trifles such as where they came from or why they are here.  The Necropolitains are not natural philosophers or indeed thinkers.  It’s been bred into them you see, by the things that really rule the city.  The ones who keep the shadows dark and the people where they belong.  Like a carcass, there is much more life to Necropolis than first meets the eye.

Let’s have a closer look shall we?

It was dark and stiflingly warm in the back of the van and, Anita Baxley had cramp.  She had been sharing the space with four of her colleagues for about five hours now and, quite frankly, the smell was beginning to get to her.  She tried to shift her foot to disperse the pain that was currently shooting through it and ended up resting it smartly in the groin of Ade, one of her fellow transportees.   Anita visibly sank, and, like a seesaw, the grin rose on Ade’s face. 

“’Nita, I never knew you cared”

“Sod off Ade”

“I would but I can’t move you see….such a pity”

The big lunk shifted to improve the pressure on Anita’s now immobile foot.  Anita grimaced.

“Y’know Ade” Anita smiled sweetly “It really would be best that you didn’t piss me off right now.  You know I’m always edgy before a job.”

The Stonehenge grin faded on the dented face and the wall that was Ade shifted slightly back, allowing Anita to move her cramped limb. ‘Or’…thought Anita, ‘now it’s been ‘there’ I could just cut it off…’  She quickly dismissed the idea as impractical due to the mess and bent her leg to try and massage the pain away.  Ade was, predictably, staring at her foot.  Tom and Baz were staring at different points of the van, not looking, not seeing anything except what was going on behind their eyes.   Steph, the fourth sardine was looking somewhere else entirely.  Her head was cradled in her hands and her breathing was laboured, but then, for Steph, who could see things that most could not, this was normal.  Rayne and Ben who could be glimpsed through the grille separating the back of the van from the front were poring soundlessly over some surveillance equipment and had been for some time.

Ben took off the headphones and lowered the small parabolic dish that he has been holding towards the building that they were parked next to.  His ear length floppy black hair sprung back over his face.  He didn’t think to sweep it back, his mind was on other things.

“We’ve got movement.” Ben said quietly

“How many?”  Said Rayne, her tones military.

“Four…probably all lackeys although we can’t say for certain if we’ve got a live one…”

“Look Ben, you know we’ve got one…we followed it here, right?  We’ve been following it here for days.  Besides, you know that they don’t show up so well on electronic stuff.”

“Yeah…but if we could… ”

Rayne turned around to look through the grille

“Any movement from Steph yet?”

Four people shook their heads and turned to look at the woman.

“Dammit!” Rayne punched the grille.

“We just have to wait Rayne”  Ben’s infuriatingly calm tone crooned from the driver’s seat.  “She’s never failed us before.”

Rayne slammed her hand on the dashboard in anger and, as if Rayne had flicked a switch Steph’s head snapped back with her eyes wide open. 

“There’s…one.  Not too old.  Asleep on the first floor…”

“Right…so that’s…five altogether….one and four pets…Nothing we can’t cope with!”   Ben’s easy idiot grin was deceptive.  If you looked…I mean…really looked, you could see beads of sweat forming on his forehead, making the shaggy hair stick slightly.  “Ok you lot…over to you…I’ll open up”  With that, he slid out of the drivers door.

About 10 seconds later, the back of the van was flooded with light.  The five prisoners blinked in the light, shading their eyes with their hands.

“Usual tactics….Anita, you in first, then Ade, flanked by Baz and Tom.  Grab what you need and go, time is precious and we’ll maintain contact.”

The van spewed its contents into the narrow alley.  Black painted fire escapes climbed the buildings on both sides and tiny piggy- eyed windows looked intermittently out towards the picturesque other brick wall.  Anita blinked in the daylight as Tom, Baz and Ade started to get kitted up.  The sound of clips being pushed into guns and silencers being screwed on made Anita prickle with anticipation and, yes, she wasn’t ashamed to admit it, fear.  She dreaded to think what the others were feeling right now.  They were a lot more fragile than she was.  They broke a lot easier.  It was Tom’s first time back after healing three broken ribs, and Ade had been turned to chunky salsa more times than she cared to think about.  She had to look after them, but sometimes she failed.

These guys, were her family. 

The others were putting ear pieces in ramming torches and spare clips in every orifice they could find and adjusting their Kevlar.  Anyone might mistake them for a band of professionals.  Anyone at a distance that is…anyone close up would have seen Tom’s faded ‘Cat in the Hat’ T shirt showing beneath the vest, the curry stains on Ade (as much a part of Ade as his cauliflower ears or his multi-broken nose) and Baz’s prized Van’s which were, it had been unanimously decided, grafted to his feet.

“Let’s go!”

The four or them ran to the door.  Baz nodded at Anita and the three armed men stood back whilst the five foot three woman stood in front of the door and steeled herself.

She turned to the van and Ben nodded.  She walked up to the black, peeling door like a diver on a board, paused for a second and kicked the logical point on the door where the lock would be.  The sound of splintering wood and metal rang like a gunshot for a moment and the door flew open and bounced off the hall wall. 

Daylight illuminated dust that had long lain undisturbed.  ‘Pretty’ Thought Anita as the three men ran into the dark, brown wallpapered corridor.  She looked at her shoes for a moment and walked in after them.