Quatermass Read Online Free PDF

gold.”
    The waggon thumped into gear.
    It would be bumpy, Kapp warned, on the back-lane route. But main roads too often turned out to have been used as recent battlegrounds, blocked by barricades and with their surfaces all torn up. The small streets were a better bet. It took longer but you usually got clear in the end.
    Quatermass held on tight. Bounced out of his seat as the van thudded over broken ground, flung sideways as they skidded in rubble and lurched round shattered corners, he saw suburban London in startling flashes. Painted slogans threatened from one wall after another: KILL H.M. THE KING ! PAY COPS ARE PIG CRAPS ! LONDON IS DEAD ! KILL BADDERS !
    Kill Badders? That one had been painted in bright blue streaks.
    “Blue Brigades,” said Kapp. “Haven’t you come across them? The Badders’ natural enemies.”
    “Vigilantes?”
    Kapp snorted. “They’re even worse. They shoot children to prove it.”
    Some streets were still lined with cars. But for the heavy coating of grime on them and the rust breaking through everywhere on their bodies, they might have been waiting for their owners to jump in and drive off.
    “They wouldn’t go now,” said Kapp, “even if you filled ’em up.”
    All that carefully fashioned metal . . . the bitter labour disputes that had been fought over the fashioning of it . . . in another age.
    “Remember the oil—”
    “What oil?” said Kapp.
    “The oil from under the North Sea that was going to make us rich and put everything right for us—”
    Kapp swung the heavy waggon round another corner. Strong wrists, Quatermass had noticed. You could take a chance on being an intellectual but you had to be toughened up.
    “Oil and water don’t mix,” said Kapp. “Who said that? They mix all right when you smash the pipelines. The gangs proved it.”
    “What’s that ahead?”
    Smoke or gas. A white cloud belching at the far end of the street. Quatermass instinctively covered his face. But as they got nearer he saw people moving about in it unperturbed.
    “Flour,” Kapp said. “They’re looters.”
    Men and women dragging sacks out through the smashed windows of a Food Dispensary and heaving them up on their shoulders. As the waggon passed them it was the target of instant abuse. The looters yelled and shook their fists.
    The dog growled fiercely. “Quiet, Pup,” said Kapp. “They think we’re cops. Anything with petrol in it. Watch out when we hit the barter market.”
    They drove right through it.
    It was like a scene from Central America or Africa, an up-country village market. Marshall had been right in his sneer about joining the Third World.
    Even at this early hour goods were being laid out. Sale or barter. Prized possessions brought in the hope of a swap for food, to keep alive. Frightened faces turned to them.
    Kapp slowed down, picking his way between the ground-carpets and the rickety stalls. Now they were among the pros. A cat-fur seller, clad in his wares, screaming his slogan: “Genuine catskin, put it on yer chest!” A medicine-man waving colourful bottles: “When yer kids’ll catch the cough, you’ll bless my name to ’ave this stuff!” A charm stall with its grisly exhibit, a mummified corpse in a leather jacket and a German helmet with a bullet-hole in it. The charm seller screeched: “Hell’s Angels they called ’em! This one was Gutsucker, killed in the battle of Catterick Camp—and ’is power ’as never left ’im! Every envelope carries the magic of Gutsucker! Never known to fail!”
    A huge stack of old books. “Guaranteed to burn! Keep warm this winter!” Quatermass jerked his head back as one of them thudded against the window mesh.
    Resentful howls were following them.
    Kapp put his foot down.
    “Now we steer clear of Hounslow. Very nasty. One of the biggest no-go areas of the lot.”
    In the distance Quatermass saw towers, round-topped towers that looked somehow familiar.
    “Yes, that’s Wembley Stadium. Once upon a time