Book 2 · Chapter 6

I stood there, totally unsteady, not even thinking about my safety. I’d been stuck in that awful place, and all I’d thought about was getting us safe. I hadn’t realized what was happening to the world, hadn’t expected to see such a crazy, unfamiliar landscape.

I thought Sheen would be in ruins - instead, I found myself in a weird, glowing place, like another planet. For a moment, I felt something beyond anything most people ever feel, but something the animals we control know all too well.

It was like a rabbit coming back to its burrow and suddenly seeing a bunch of construction workers digging the foundation for a house.

I started to get a feeling that grew stronger over the next few days, a feeling of being knocked off my throne, of realizing I wasn’t in charge anymore - just an animal among animals, under the Martians’ control. It would be like it was for them: lurking and watching, running and hiding.

Humanity’s fear and power had vanished. But as soon as I realized how strange things were, that feeling faded, and all I could think about was how hungry I was after that long, awful fast. I saw a patch of garden ground beyond a red-covered wall, and that gave me an idea.

I waded through the red weed, sometimes up to my neck. The thick weed made me feel hidden. The wall was about six feet high, and I couldn’t lift my feet to climb over it.

So I walked along the side of it, came to a corner and some rocks, and managed to get to the top, tumbling into the garden I wanted. There, I found some young onions, a couple of gladiolus bulbs, and a bunch of immature carrots - all of which I grabbed.

Then, scrambling over a ruined wall, I headed through scarlet and crimson trees towards Kew - it felt like walking through an avenue of giant blood drops - driven by two things: finding more food and limping, as far as my strength allowed, out of this awful, unearthly pit.

A bit farther on, in a grassy spot, I found a bunch of mushrooms, which I gobbled down, and then I came to a brown sheet of shallow, flowing water where meadows used to be. That little bit of food just made me even hungrier.

At first, I was shocked to see flooding during a hot, dry summer, but then I realized it was all because of the crazy red weed. As soon as that stuff hit water, it exploded into gigantic, unbelievably fertile growth.

Its seeds were just dumped into the Wey and Thames rivers, and its fast-growing, massive water fronds quickly choked both of those rivers.

At Putney, as I later saw, the bridge was almost lost in a tangle of this weed, and at Richmond, the Thames water flowed across the meadows of Hampton and Twickenham in a broad, shallow stream.

As the water spread, the weed followed, and for a while, the ruined villas of the Thames valley were lost in this red swamp, which I explored. A lot of the destruction the Martians had caused was hidden. Eventually, the red weed died out almost as quickly as it had spread.

A kind of disease, probably caused by bacteria, hit it hard. Because plants on Earth have evolved to resist these kinds of diseases, they always fight back - but the red weed rotted like something already dead. The fronds turned pale, then shriveled and became brittle.

They broke off at the slightest touch, and the water that had helped them grow carried their last pieces out to sea.

I was parched when I got to the water, so I drank a ton. Then, on a whim, I started munching on some red weed, but it tasted watery and kind of metallic. I could wade through the water without a problem, even though the red weed tripped me up a bit.

But I could tell the water got deeper closer to the river, so I turned around and headed back towards Mortlake. I used the occasional ruins of villas, fences, and lamps to find my way, and eventually got out of that flood and made it up the hill towards Roehampton, ending up on Putney Common.

The scenery totally changed - it went from weird and unfamiliar to just the wreckage of what I knew.

Some spots were completely destroyed like a cyclone hit, but then you'd come across other places that were untouched, houses with blinds neatly drawn and doors closed, like the owners had just stepped out for a day or were sleeping inside.

The red weed wasn't as bad here; the tall trees along the lane were clear of it. I looked for food among the trees, but didn't find anything, and I also checked out a couple of quiet houses, but someone had already broken into them and looted everything.

I rested in a shrubbery for the rest of the daylight, because I was too exhausted to keep going. The whole time, I didn’t see a single person, or any sign of the Martians. I did run into a couple of hungry-looking dogs, but they both bolted away when I tried to approach them.

Near Roehampton, I found two human skeletons - just bones, completely cleaned out - and in the woods, I found crushed and scattered bones of cats and rabbits, and a sheep’s skull. I even put some of it in my mouth, but there was nothing to gain from it.

After sunset, I struggled on along the road towards Putney, where I figured the Heat-Ray must have been used for some reason. And in a garden beyond Roehampton, I managed to find a bunch of unripe potatoes, enough to take the edge off my hunger.

From that garden, you could see down on Putney and the river. The whole place looked incredibly desolate in the dusk: blackened trees, ruined buildings, and down the hill, the sheets of the flooded river, stained red with the weed. And everywhere - silence.

It was terrifying to think how quickly everything had changed. For a while, I thought humanity had vanished, and I was the last person on Earth. Near the top of Putney Hill, I found another skeleton, with its arms dislocated and lying several yards away from the rest of the body.

As I kept going, I became more and more convinced that, except for stragglers like me, humanity had already been wiped out in this area. I figured the Martians had moved on, leaving the country devastated, looking for food somewhere else.

Maybe they were destroying Berlin or Paris right now, or maybe they'd gone north.