Crash (9 page)

Moving over to Mel, George checked for a pulse in her neck. After thirty seconds, his head dropped, and he looked at the floor. Tears glazed Chris' vision, and the girls in the truck screamed. Pulling her eyelids down, he stared at Dean's back, and although he didn't say anything, the malice he projected at him clearly displayed his feelings towards their leader.

Michael finally returned to his father's side, and he was shaking, crying, and a wet patch had formed around his groin. In spite of this, Chris still felt the need to say, "What the fuck were you doing? When I say stay where you are, I fucking mean it!"

Michael's face buckled out of control, his mouth bending down at the edges and tears soaking his cheeks.

"This isn't a game." Chris pointed at the window. "That could be us out there. Do you understand?"

Michael looked at the floor.

Chris' blue eyes shot wide, and his waxy face reddened. "Well? Do you fucking understand? Do you want to see my head caved in with a fucking hammer?"

Shaking his head, Michael looked at his feet as his tears fell to the ground.

Trying to move on but still burning with rage, Chris said, "Right. Good. Well, we need to get moving. If I breathe any more of this smoke, I'm going to have a coughing fit, and it'll be game over. I need you to get a serrated knife from the kitchen."

Looking up at his dad, the tracks of his tears having cut two clean lines down his cheeks, Michael tilted his head to one side and said, "Serrated?"

"You know, one with a jagged edge."

Michael nodded, pulled his jumper up over his mouth and nose to combat the thick smoke, and just before he headed to the kitchen, Chris hissed, "And don't let them see you whatever you do!" He then ran up the stairs, covering his mouth with his sleeve and coughing into it.

Sat on the cold floor on the cold landing, Chris' headache restricted his vision. It turned his peripheral vision black. The heavy smoke was suffocating. When he pulled the retractable lead on the vacuum cleaner to full length, he saw that it came out by a good three meters. It was enough for his needs.

Joining him upstairs, Michael thrust the knife at his dad, blade first.

"You should always pass a knife handle first, Michael," Chris said as he took it. When he looked at his son, who was currently biting his lip, he wondered if he should lay off the boy a little. He also wondered if the safety advice he was offering was important in the new world. Passing a knife blade first may actually keep him safe for longer now. Then he noticed that something wasn't quite right. "What is it, Michael?" he asked.

"What's what?" Michael said too quickly, his wide eyes unable to connect with his dad's.

Chris' heart raced and he felt sick. "You look like something's happened. Come on, spit it out. What's going on?"

"I'm sorry, Dad."

"Don't be sorry; just tell me what's happened. Whatever it is, it's fine." His tone didn't suggest that it was fine.

"They saw me. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for them to see me, honestly."

Chris felt every muscle in his body fall limp. He then took a deep breath, coughed twice, and had to wait for a moment before he could speak. Looking at the ashamed little boy, he said, "Fucking hell. What were you thinking of? What did I say? What was the one thing that I said to you before you ran off?"

Michael replied quietly to his shoes, "Don't get seen."

"And you fucking failed in that. Jesus, you need to get your fucking brain in gear. This is life and death, boy. Do you understand?"

When Michael looked up, his whole face was contorted and more tears were streaming down it.

Chris then swallowed to try and banish the taste of plastic. It did nothing. Calming down a little, he asked, "How many of them saw you?"

"Just one."

"One?"

"Yeah. The big black man saw me."

"The one that confronted Dean?" He hated that he knew some of their names.

Michael nodded.

The tension left his shoulders, and he said, "Well, if anyone was to see you, he'd be the best person. I don't think he wants to hurt people like Dean does. Besides, I think he already knows we're here."

Michael didn't reply and shook as he continued crying.

Folding the electric flex over, Chris then slipped the knife into the loop and started sawing up against it.

It was hard going with the steak knife Michael had brought him, and even in the cold house, sweat was dripping from Chris' brow, but after a few minutes, he'd separated the flex from the vacuum cleaner and had cut it roughly in half. Staring at his crying son for a moment to assess his height and weight, he thought about how three weeks ago he was still hopeful of saving his kids through finding work, now he was gauging the weight of just one so he could tie a noose.

Sheep

Newspapers were free now because money had no worth. Groups of volunteers put the local publications together, and because all the energy supplies had been cut off about three weeks previously, they ran the presses off generators powered by a fast-dwindling fuel. Unlike all the fiction Chris had consumed about apocalyptical events, each one predicting their own kind of chaos, it seemed that very few people cared enough about petrol and oil to make war for it. The petrol stations ran out of fuel fast, faster than the supermarkets ran out of bread and milk, but once they were empty, people adapted quickly. It would seem that treating fuel like it was as important as oxygen was a capitalist disease.

Every Thursday, Chris walked to the local supermarket, holding his nose for the entire journey because of the gassy smell of decaying waste. The streets were lined with black bags, most of them split with their contents hanging out like entrails. Every bin was overflowing. People were now simply dumping rubbish wherever they needed to, turning every street into a playground for foxes and rats. Chris wondered how long it would be before some streets became impassable. He also wondered if he'd witness the return of the black plague.

The local supermarket, like all of the other shops on the high street, was no more than an empty building now. The memory of consumerism haunted the barren isles, the voices of forgotten customers carried on the winds that swam through the corporate shell. The huge windows that had once afforded a view to the world of the happy shoppers inside had been smashed, rubbish bins and rocks lying amongst a sparkling mosaic of broken glass. The tills hung open like the mouths of corpses, their tongues lolling to reveal trays full of cash that had less value now than plain paper.

The huge stack of newspapers sat in their usual position by the tills, dumped on the floor with very little care. Chris took one and opened it, the crunching of its pages calling out into the silence, signaling his exact location to anyone who was interested in the whereabouts of another human being. He stood in the middle of the empty shop, reading the paper, anxious for news of an idea that would turn things around. As he stood there, the cold wind being funneled through the smashed windows found the gaps in his clothing and bit into his bare skin. Whilst shivering, he quickly surveyed his environment in case he was being watched. Although he didn't see anything, it didn't remove the feeling that he wasn't alone.

The 'Situations Vacant' section mostly featured articles about home farming, or speculation on when society would start to rebuild and how. It had an optimistic feel, which contradicted the fast-decaying environment. Chris knew the idea that there would be a job in there, after months of it being empty and with money having no meaning, was absurd, but he looked all the same.

When he glanced up from his paper, he jumped like he'd been jabbed with a cattle prod and let out a shriek upon seeing an old lady standing before him. She was wearing brown corduroy trousers and a white floral shirt. Stood in the freezing space in his thick jacket, a cold chill of empathy ran through him to see this inappropriately dressed woman. However, she didn't seem at all bothered by the freezing environment. Her hair was unkempt, standing out in every possible direction and seemingly with a mind of its own, her eyebrows were drawn on wonky, and she had a wispy beard. It felt like he was staring at a ghost. Holding the paper out to her, he said, "Umm, do you want this, love?"

She had the gentle wobble of Parkinson's running through her as she watched him, stunned like a fearful sheep. Her grey eyes searched for the meaning of his words as if they were something she was trying to locate in thick fog. She then grabbed his arm, which made him jump. She didn't let go, and her grip was surprisingly strong, causing him pain even through his padded sleeve. Staring for a moment longer without speaking, Chris started to wonder what he'd have to do to remove her and considered a rabbit punch to her large, wrinkly nose.

Her eyes refocused, and she finally answered his question, "Oh no, dear, I'm waiting for the shop to re-open." She smiled and let go of his arm, but the memory of her bony fingers remained.

His eyes narrowed, searching for the irony in her statement. There was none. "But it's empty. There hasn't been food in here for weeks."

"I know, dear, but I'm sure things will change."

She seemed pleasant enough, but she was thin, like a prisoner of war, and he had to wonder if a lack of food and water had driven her mind away. "You do realize that the supermarket won't re-open, don't you?"

Snorting air from her nose, her shock-white hair wobbled as she shook her head and laughed. "Of course it will. Waitrose never let their customers down."

Looking at the empty shelves one last time, Chris shrugged and said, "I hope they come back soon, love."

She smiled and stared into the middle distance. "Oh, they will."

Once home, Chris removed his jacket and could see a red mark where the woman had grabbed him. Rubbing it, more to banish the memory than the blemish, he sat at the kitchen table and opened the newspaper. The latest article in 'Situations Vacant' was about farming on common land and the legal rights that every citizen had. It was a well-written and informative piece that clearly laid out all of the laws and how it was possible for anyone to use the land. The only downside was the footnote. As Chris read the overly detailed article that explained what looters did to the young family who were growing their own food, he felt his blood drain as if the plug had been pulled on his body. Regardless of the law, the paper advised against anyone wasting their time cultivating something that would be stolen from them. These kind of violent stories were cropping up with ever-increasing regularity, and it added to the mild anxiety that sat in Chris' stomach like butterflies. Shaking his head, he muttered, "Things are getting worse."

Diane then walked into the room, the clip of her tall heels bouncing off the flagstone floor in the hallway. Seeing that he was reading the paper, she asked, "Any jobs?"

Chris sighed, finding the interruption irritating. He then said, "No. Is there ever?"

Her skinny lips wrinkled. "There's no need to take that tone with me."

Grinding his jaw, suppressing the urge to hit her, Chris said, "Well, it was a bit of a fucking stupid question, Diane. There's an old woman outside Waitrose waiting for it to re-open. Maybe you should go and join her as you wait for the tide to turn."

Sliding both her engagement ring and wedding band from her finger, Diane placed them on the large wooden table.

Picking them up, surprised that they were still warm, or even warm in the first place on her reptilian hands, Chris said, "What's this?"

"My engagement ring and wedding band." She lifted one eyebrow and added, "Obviously."

His face fell, and his eyes glazed. "I can see that, but why are you giving them to me?"

"It's jewelry, and that's the new currency. You may be able to get a loaf of bread for them. It's more than they're worth anyway."

"What do you mean? I paid thousands for these rings."

"Their previous value is irrelevant--you know that. Their sentimental value isn't important either." She stared at him for a moment, and he returned her glare. She then added, "We may as well make some use of them."

Without giving him a chance to respond, she spun on her heel and left the room. The perfume she'd taken to bathing in due to the absence of running water, choked him like chlorine. The clip of her heels on the white floor smashed into his temples like a pickaxe.

When Diane screamed, he didn't rush. Instead, he walked into the hallway at a leisurely pace. He expected to see a spider or beetle on the floor, but when he saw his little girl, he felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. Her eyes were swollen to the point of closure like she'd been attacked by a colony of wasps. Her long blonde hair was matted with blood and mud. Her school uniform was ripped and hanging off her in shreds. She was a grotesque caricature of herself and looked like a rape victim. She was crying in heavy sobs.

"What happened, sweetie?" Diane asked as she held her shoulders.

Taking several stuttered breaths that flicked snot and tears away from her face, Matilda said, "They... th... t... they beat m... me up at school. They said I was posh a... and that it was Dad's fault that we're i... in this state."

Placing her hands on her hips, Diane said, "Well, what did the teachers do?"

"T... they agreed with them. They said that b... b... bankers have made everything this way." Throwing Chris a scornful look, she added, "Is that true, Daddy?"

The words stabbed into his chest, and the butterflies in his stomach became agitated. Avoiding the question, Chris knelt down and held his daughter's small hand. She was shaking. He gritted his teeth as he said, "I'm going to go into the school tomorrow and speak to the head. This is unacceptable."

"The school has closed down now. The teacher's don't want to work without pay. Besides, the headmaster got beaten up by the children today."

Looking at his broken daughter for a moment longer, and then sharing a lingering futile look with his wife, Chris called out, "Michael!"

Within a minute, Michael appeared. "What's up, Da--" He stopped and looked at his sister, his jaw hanging loose. "Matilda, what's happened?"