by Casey, Ryan
“What?”
Noah gritted his teeth. “Forget it.”
He walked towards the kitchen. What did the landlord want? His rent payment this month was slightly behind. But he’d been lenient in the past. One of the advantages of this landlord. He was a nice guy. And while the rest of the city ploughed its rent levels up to eye-watering levels, Mr Hussein kindly kept Noah and Eddie’s rent at a “perfectly reasonable level,” as he always so keenly pointed out.
He stepped into the kitchen. Stack of pots filled the sink, unwashed. A couple of flies buzzed around. A slight sourness to the air, like off milk.
He picked up the letter from the kitchen table and opened it.
Dear Noah,
Although we have had a perfectly reasonable level of rent for the last few years and you have been a great tenant, it is time for me to raise the rent in line with the rest of the city.
Your monthly rent will now be £850 per month. This is a perfectly reasonable increase of £250 per month.
I’m sure you will find this perfectly reasonable.
If you have any problems, please contact me, and we can discuss moving you on immediately.
Have a lovely day,
Your Friend,
Mr Hussein
Noah stared at the letter. His hand shook. £250 extra a month? He could barely make it as it was. And Eddie wasn’t gonna magic half of it from nowhere. This was serious. It wasn’t just Eddie who was going to lose out today. It was him, too.
“Shit, Noah,” Eddie called. “You seen this virus shit?”
Noah walked slowly through to the hallway, letter in hand. He walked into the lounge. Eddie sat at the edge of his seat. Some news on the television about a suspected virus outbreak in Berlin. An unknown number of people infected. But symptoms ranging from nausea and vomiting to full-blown psychosis. Some people catching in an instant. Others turning seemingly randomly.
Other reported cases around the world.
But people being urged to stay calm. To avoid panicking.
Because everything was under control.
Noah ignored the news. He’d seen plenty of false alarms about outbreaks in the past. It was all just noise, especially in a world where it was hard to believe anything at all the mainstream media reported.
He sat down on the sofa. Letter in hand.
“You okay, buddy? You look like you’ve just seen that Candice chick from work naked. Minus the boner.”
Noah swallowed a lump in his throat and stared at the television screen in front of him. Masks. Armed police. And the UK government insisting this wasn’t a problem. Scientists adamant that everything was being monitored, and it appeared under control. Pharmaceutical companies plugging their latest products. Experts selling agendas, one after the next.
“Noah? Seriously, what’s up? Is it the pots in the sink? ’Cause I’m gonna wash ’em as soon as I’ve watched Arrested Development. That cool?”
Noah looked across the room at his friend, and he wanted to tell him just how fucked they were.
But instead, he folded the letter in his hand and stuffed it into his pocket.
“Fine,” he said. “We’re gonna be fine.”
He looked back at that screen.
The breaking news about this virus was replaced by news about a member of the royal family stubbing their toe and ending up in hospital.
And then a story about the nutritional benefits of Manuka Honey.
The rolling news so unstoppable that Noah soon forgot about the virus.
Everyone did.
For now.
Chapter Ten
It was three days after that weird incident at the gym that Lara started to suspect something was wrong.
Dance music blared from the nightclub speakers. Lights flashed all around her as the bass thumped in her chest. Her heels were sticky against the nightclub floor, the residue of flavoured vodka holding her in place. All around her, the smell of sweat, and alcohol, and weed, and even vomit.
She tried to keep moving. Tried to keep dancing.
And tried to keep telling herself she actually wanted to be here, when in fact, she’d rather be anywhere else.
Amy danced in the middle of the floor. She looked so at ease in places like these. Danced so naturally like she was just born with the ability to look graceful. She wore a tight black dress that showed off all her curves, something Lara was nowhere near confident or comfortable enough with herself. Amy had always been the confident twin. Right from when they were growing up. And Lara tried. She tried to copy her sister. She tried to act like her. She tried to be her as much as she could.
But people always saw through it. It’s like they could tell how hard she was trying. How desperate she was to be appreciated. How eager she was to fit in.
And it backfired, every single damned time.
She looked around at Amy’s friends as she tried to dance as gracefully as she could in the midst of this hellhole. To be fair, the track playing was alright. The Vengabus. Always took her back to her childhood.
But there was something sad about looking around and seeing a bunch of late thirties dancing away to it like they were eighteen again. Like they were hiding from reality. Hiding from the fact they were getting older. From the fact that men didn’t look at them the same way anymore. Or at least not the men they were interested in. Older, richer men looked to younger women. And the younger men looked at women their own age. They were in this kind of limbo, where the interest they had to settle for was from men way below their league.
Not that it bothered Lara even slightly. She preferred women anyway.
She saw the way Amy’s friends looked at her. The side glances. The muttering to one another. The laughing. And she felt like she was back in high school again. Hanging around with Amy’s friends. Tagging along with them. Seeing their smiles when Amy arrived at their door only for their faces to drop when they saw their less cool, needy sister along with them.
It’s not that Lara could help it. She was a kind kid, or at least she’d always tried to be. She gave people the benefit of the doubt, even when they acted like bitches towards her.
But you couldn’t control how people perceived you. That was a lesson she’d learned in life. The more you tried, the more likely you’d appear to be a try-hard.
Better to just do your own thing and fuck ’em if they didn’t like you.
She looked across this dance-floor, lost in the moves, head spinning a little with the drink. Amy told her to come along to celebrate their birthday. She knew what this was really—Amy’s birthday night out, not hers. But it gave her an excuse to let off some steam, whatever Amy meant by that.
She’d rather be back at home, sitting in front of the television, PlayStation controller in hand, losing herself in the world of The Witcher.
She caught a glance of someone across the floor.
Dark hair. Little tattoo on her neck. One on her left temple, too. Lots of piercings. And these gorgeous green eyes.
She caught her smiling at her. Holding eye contact, just for a little while. Then turning away again.
A slight buzz in Lara’s chest. She hadn’t been with anyone for ages. God, she couldn’t even remember the last time she had. Hell, she’d even forgotten how to flirt.
But she felt that natural urge taking over. That desire. Maybe it was the drink. Maybe it was the lights. She didn’t know.
But fuck it.
She was going over there.
She was chatting to her.
She was...
Commotion.
Some kind of commotion over her shoulder.
Moving around. Jostling.
She turned around and saw something that made her blood turn cold.
Her sister crouched over her friend, Maisie.
Blood rolled down her mouth, out of her ears, out of her eyes.
And she was bashing Maisie’s head against the sticky nightclub floor, again and again and again.
People tried to dr
ag her away, tried to throw her to one side. Even the bouncers rushed over and tried to manhandle her away.
But Amy kept clinging on.
Spewing blood.
And tightly holding on to Maisie’s dark hair, hands white with pressure.
She was shouting something, too. Something Lara couldn’t make out in the noise. Not at first.
But the closer she got, she heard it.
“You killed her! You killed my little girl! My little girl!”
Lara’s skin went cold.
Because six years ago, Amy lost a baby in childbirth. Her life collapsed. She slipped into depression and almost never climbed out of it.
And the pain she shouted with now.
That pain reminded Lara of that dark time.
The bouncers yanked Amy away.
Amy pulled a clump of hair out of Maisie’s scalp.
Maisie lay screaming, crying, and bleeding on the nightclub floor.
People gathered round. Phones raised. Pointed at the scene. Laughing. Not helping. Getting ready to upload this “catfight” to their friends.
And as Amy writhed around, tried to lash out and bite at the bouncers, Lara knew something was wrong.
Desperately wrong.
The news.
She’d seen something on the news. Something about random acts of violence. Cory, a friend of hers, who was interested in conspiracy theories and all that nonsense, said there were people in high places convinced it was a virus, but they were keeping it on the low.
She thought he was bullshitting. But looking at her sister now, looking at how rapidly she’d deteriorated, she started to wonder whether Cory was right.
She watched the medics rush in for Maisie. Watched the police drag Amy away.
And all she could do was stand there in a daze, in a stupor, and think about that man in the gym three days ago.
The personal trainer.
The way his nose kept on bleeding.
The way he kept on struggling. Sweating.
How damned ill he looked.
She watched the commotion drift out of the nightclub, and she tasted something metallic at the back of her throat.
And then she felt something warm trickle down her face.
When she wiped her nose, she noticed a speck of blood.
Chapter Eleven
Jasmine walked towards work and felt like shit.
It was a boiling day for one. She didn’t mind the sun, but she hated waking up in the morning in a flat that was far too stuffy for comfort. Something was up with her air conditioning unit, her landlord still yet to fix it. She needed to move out of that place. She loved it, loved its location and everything about it, but she could afford a mortgage now. A little house for herself. No more worrying about Barney tearing the place up. Just her, her dog, and her own personal space.
Cars filled the streets. The air was rich with the smell of exhaust fumes. Preston was getting worse by the day. Roadworks echoed in the distance. Horns honked against one another. A woman in a little newspaper stand called out, “Evening Post!”, desperate for someone to buy a copy.
She just wanted to get into work and crack on with her day. She’d not contacted Kelly in the end. Figured she’d give her time and space. She was hopeful Kelly would come round. She had a habit of acting rash only to see things from a bigger perspective in due course.
Jasmine hoped she would. She couldn’t stand the thought of Kelly never contacting her again. She was her best friend. She needed her.
She walked past that woman selling papers and saw a headline smeared on the side of the little blue hut she sat inside. DEADLY ATTACK IN PRESTON NIGHTCLUB.
Jasmine tutted. These attacks were getting more and more widespread. The world was going mad, and Preston was at the centre of it all.
She saw a group of people gathered up ahead, smoking weed, laughing and cringing at a video.
She wouldn’t usually stop. Wouldn’t usually gawk. But something made her crane her neck. Something made her look at that video.
It was blurry footage from a nightclub. Hard to make out what was happening at first. But when it became clear, Jasmine felt ill.
One girl crouched over another. Bashing her head against the nightclub floor.
The title at the top, “JEALOUS BITCH GOES CRAZY ON FRIEND!!!”
Jasmine looked away. She had no time to waste watching shit like this. People were idiots. They were desensitised to the absolutely awful. Standing around, watching stuff like this. What the hell was going wrong with society? What had we come to as a species?
She walked further down the street. Past more cars stacked up against one another. And she realised there was something weird about this. The cars, they weren’t usually tailed back this far. Maybe there’d been an accident up ahead. Maybe something had gone down. Whatever. She had to get to work. She had to get to her office. Whack on the air con and chill for a while before cracking on with work.
She saw a couple of people run past her. Heard them muttering about something they’d seen.
And then a few more people ran by, and Jasmine knew something was very wrong.
The first thing that struck her was this was some kind of terrorist attack. Or some kind of knifing. Knife crimes were on the up right across the country. Made her roll her eyes when fellow Brits banged on about gun crimes across the pond when they couldn’t even sort shit in their own back yard.
She kept on walking, though. There was a strange feel to all of this. And she had to get to work on time. She didn’t want to risk upsetting her chances of promotion, especially not when she was so close.
She saw an old couple walking past. A child between them. The old man squinting at a smartphone.
“What’s going on up there?” Jasmine asked.
The old man looked up at her. “Over there? Oh, some idiot or other holding up the traffic. It’s the news you want to have a look at.”
Jasmine frowned. “The news?”
“Take a look. You’ll see.”
Jasmine pulled her phone from her pocket. Opened up BBC News, walked further down the street. She waited for it to refresh, biting her lip, no idea why exactly she was so nervous, just that there was something to be nervous about.
And then she felt someone slam into her and almost tumbled to her feet.
A short guy, muscular. “Watch where you’re going!”
Jasmine glared at him. Then she glanced back down at her phone.
When she saw the news had finished refreshing, she stopped in her tracks.
BREAKING: PRIME MINISTER & WIFE FOUND DEAD
Sickness crashed against Jasmine. She hated that prick Watson. Saw right through his bullshit. But she didn’t wish this on anyone. An attack? That’s what it sounded like. His wife seemed such a nice woman, too. What a shame.
She stuffed her phone into her pocket, barely noticing the headline about a suspected virus picking up steam; about two-hundred cases in China; about a spate of suspicious deaths and attacks in Moscow. About emergency containment measures. Flight cancellations. Halts on imports and exports.
And she heard a shout up the road.
She rushed ahead. Pushed past people, who were gathered around, blocking the way. Because she realised something. This commotion. It was coming from right in front of her work’s building.
She pushed to the front of the building, and she saw something that stopped her in her tracks.
There was a man lying in the road. His head was half caved-in. One of his eyes dangled down his face. Blood oozed out from his lips.
It was Jim Henderson, her boss.
She saw the way he stretched out his fingers. Tried to reach out for something. Tried to clutch onto something. Life itself.
And then she saw his head hit the road and more blood creep from his nose and lips.
She stood there, stunned, cold, sick. Because this looked like a suicide. It looked like he’d jumped.
But Jim? This wasn’t like him. He was such a happy
guy. He loved life. He had a family. He had friends. He had retirement on the horizon. He had everything.
And then she noticed something else.
A woman had walked out of her office.
Blood streamed down her face. Out of her mouth. Out of her ears.
And she looked right at Jasmine. Right into her eyes.
The cleaner. Lyra.
And then something else. Banging at a car window beside her. Screaming.
A man losing his shit in there.
Punching at the glass.
Blood spurting from his orifices.
The window smashing and his bloody vomit falling against the side of the car, hitting the road.
Jasmine stood in this scene as people ran past screaming. As people stumbled along, bleeding, grabbing people, dragging them to the floor.
As people lost their minds. As they went insane.
She stood there, and all she could do was watch.
Because something was happening.
And she was right in the middle of it.
Chapter Twelve
Noah sat in the waiting room at the job centre and wished he could get this over with.
It was scorching. Humid. So stuffy he was covered in sweat. He’d taken a long shower this morning. Made sure he washed every inch of himself. He’d had a shave, done his hair, made himself look as well presented as possible.
And sure, he hadn’t had a great night’s sleep. He couldn’t get that letter out of his mind. The letter from the landlord, and his “perfectly reasonable” offer.
And he’d found himself with a choice as he lay there in bed, staring up at the cracked ceiling, listening to the footsteps stomping around in the flat above.
Either he could lie back and mope and wait for the problem to go away.
Or he could step the hell up to the plate and do something about his rent hike.
So he’d made an appointment at the job centre, eight a.m. sharp.
And he’d made damned sure he’d set a bunch of alarms, too.
Didn’t want to go sleeping through another important damned meeting.