by Ian Woodhead
"Do you want another tissue, dear?" she asked. "I think that one is ready for its funeral." Denise dug into her purse, pulled out a paper tissue and stuffed it into Mandy 's hand. "I think that you had better drink your tea as well. There's nothing worse than cold tea."
“What is wrong with you, Denise?” she sniffed. “How can you stay so calm about this? For crying out loud, woman. Can't you see that we're going to die in here?”
Denise caught a glance of the three remaining café survivors all looking up from their own misery and directing their attention towards her friend's slightly hysterical but most annoying raised vocal concern. These were the ones who silently stood there and watched her clean off that gunk from that poor man's face. The natural rubberneckers. She wasn't going to allow them to use her and Mandy for entertainment!
Denise stood up, pushed her tea into the middle of the table then squeezed past her friend. She walked past the others, over to the collapsed ceiling and kneeled down, beside an exposed hand that belonged to the young man. Denise gave that one a quick appraisal when he walked in, with the unhappy blond wife and the little boy in tow. From the snippets of conversation she picked up, the woman and the boy wanted to go a burger joint. The man wasn't having any of that, oh no. He wanted to take them to the café where his mum used to take him when he was the same age as Trevor, and that was final. She heard the man's tone hardening and the woman's voice changing from annoyance to submissive in the time it took the man to find a table. Admittedly, it did peeve her to see the young woman give in so easily, she reminded her so much of Mandy. Denise put it to the back of her mind though, after all, it wasn't her life, shame really as Denise could have done so much with that man and his rather firm backside.
Looking at the still hand, covered in plaster dust, she kinda wished he had listened to his wife now. She managed to pick up a small piece of rubble, the size of a football and shifted it around, a little shocked that it weighed so much. Denise picked up a few more smaller pieces and moved them before glancing over her shoulder. As expected, the three onlookers were doing what they did best. “Are you seriously going to allow this frail old woman to dig us out all by herself? Have you no shame?” She glanced over at Mandy and caught her eye. “Unless, that is, you all really do want to die in here?”
They fell over themselves to come to her aid. The two teenagers, she suspected a couple of years younger than the dead man, dropped down at either side.
“Sorry, Mrs. I was going to help, I swear.”
The remaining onlooker, a woman with dark brown hair, wearing an over-coat that smelled like an old dog had pissed in both pockets, helped Denise up.
“You're right, dear. We can't have you breaking your back. Let's get you sat back down with your friend so you can finish your cup of tea.” The woman helped Denise back to the table and sat her back down next to Mandy before going back to helping the boys.
Mandy put her cup down and stared, open-mouthed at her. “One of these days, I'm going to work out how you do that.”
“One of these days? Wait on, a minute ago, you were convinced that there wouldn't be any more days after this one. Changed your mind already have you?”
“No, of course I haven't. Come on, be serious here, Denise. Look at them. Those three might move all the small pieces but some of those lumps of stone must weigh as much as a small car. No,” she announced. “We're not going to get out of here alive.”
“Oh, and now you can predict the future?” Denise shook her head. “That is just so much rubbish, and you know it. Nobody knows what path our future is set upon. Honestly, of all the people I know, I thought you would have realised this by now.” She arched her back, it might not have been a good idea to pick up that heavy lump. She might have just put her back out.
Gloria leaned over her shoulder, picked up the now empty cups and returned them to the counter. “The rescuers will dig us out soon, you mark my words. Would you two ladies like another cup of tea?”
Denise smiled back and shook her head. “I think we're both fine at the moment, dear. Thank you anyway.” She waited for the other woman to vanish back behind the counter before looking back at Mandy. “You remember what happened to your Albert. I don't remember you predicting that one.”
“Now that's not fair, Denise,” she hissed. “So below the belt. Ugh, then again, what else should I have expected from you?”
She gave the woman a generic grin, pleased that her cutting remark had brought out a bit of fire. Although she didn't agree with her friend's proclamation of oncoming inevitable death, Denise did understand that the next few hours would indeed get a little hairy and having Mandy shivering in a corner would not do her any good at all. Denise needed her friend to be on the ball and unfortunately, she knew from past experience that getting her mad was the only way to do it. Not just past experience but painful experience too.
Denise and Mandy had known each other since school. They weren't friends back then, more like bitter enemies. Denise was ashamed to admit that back in her early years, she did tend to be a bit of a wild-child and that included bullying the kids who she happened to take an instant dislike to.
Her favourite target was a girl whose family had moved up from London a few months earlier. Mandy Laker, a little big for her age, incredibly shy and as dumb as an ox. At least, she was in Denise's opinion. Taking money off the girl and threatening to flush her head down the toilet made her day complete. That all stopped when on one particular sunny day, the new girl actually retorted by calling her a 'nasty cow'. Of course, Denise was having none of that and decided to teach her a lesson by really pushing the girl's fat head down the toilet bowl. Only, the situation didn't quite go to plan, as Denise saw another side to Mandy once they were alone in the girl's toilets and the new girl knocked seven shades of shit out of her and, as an after-thought, pushed Denise's head down the toilet.
How they became friends, a few years after leaving school was a mystery to Denise but that's how it happened. Not just passing acquaintances either but best friends. Mandy even wanted Denise to go on their honeymoon but her then new husband, wasn't all that keen on the idea.
Albert Price attempted to drive a wedge between their friendship. Denise hadn't minded, not in the beginning anyway. All she wanted was for her friend to be happy and her new man did indeed make the woman very happy but not all fairytale weddings had a happy ever after ending. The cracks started to show just a month later when Mandy confided to Denise that Albert used to hit her. Denise, being the subtle person that she was, told the silly mare to hit him back. Heck, Mandy was three times the size of that scrawny man. One punch would knock him into next Wednesday. After that, the dirty weasel would soon see the error of his ways. Alas, it was not to be. Denise could only watch from the sidelines as her husband turned that happy and contented woman into the shell of the same person. He too, like the man sitting at the front of the café, suffered a heart attack but unlike the customer over there, Denise would have left that food on his face to rot.
It took Denise another decade to put right the damage that little fiend had caused to her best friend. “Okay, so that last remark about your husband was a bit uncalled for but I am right. Nobody had a clue that he was going to just keel over like that, especially not you.”
“What has that got to do with anything, Denise?”
“I'm just saying, that's all. Nobody knows what’s just around the corner. Heck, for all you know, a bunch of hunky rescuers could be, right now, on the other side of that rubble. Digging away, removing stones bit by bit, inching closer to us.”
“Good grief, lady, do you never stop thinking about sex?”
Denise giggled. “You make it sound like that's a bad thing.” She leaned across the table. “And don't you give me that face either, Mandy Price. I saw you staring at the young man in the market earlier on. You know, the one who was messing about on that children's ride.”
“I don't know what you're talking about, all I was doing was telling him
to stop acting like a child.”
Her friend's red face told Denise a completely different story. “All you were doing was wondering how good he was in bed.” She leaned back. “I know I was.”
“You are unbelievable, Denise. At your age too. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“Well, guess what? I'm not. You shouldn't be either. Okay, so the man in the market was a bit too young, and I'm sure those hunky rescuers might be out of our league too but there are plenty of other desirable catches in our social circle. Men with a kind heart, who know how to look after us women of a certain age. You are rolling your eyes again, Mandy. I'm serious here.” Denise looked over at the three other customers. Mandy was right about them, they really were getting nowhere. “You know what I'm going to do?”
Her friend shook her head. “I'm almost too scared to ask but I'm going to anyway. Go on, tell me what you are going to do.”
Denise grinned. “When we get out of here, I am going to get us two hooked up. You know, just like we used to before you and Albert got wed.”
“You cannot be serious. We're both sixty-eight, not twenty-two anymore! I probably wouldn't even know what to do with a man anymore.” Mandy looked across at the three diggers. “There are times when I seriously wonder about you, Denise.”
There were times when she seriously wondered about herself too. She watched the two teen boys attempt to pull on a stone twice the size of her head; it wasn't budging, despite their efforts. Denise then noticed that one of the boys had covered up that hand with a red plastic table cloth. She refused to believe that their time had come, that within the next few hours when the air started to run out, that she'd be on the floor, wheezing and slowly suffocating and thinking that the young family really had been the lucky ones after all. Well, the man anyway. It took his wife a long time to die.
The irony of it all was, just like that young family, if she had not been such a stubborn old bag, and listened to her friend and grabbed a cup of tea at one of those cheaper ethnic places in the market instead of dragging Mandy up to this old café, then they wouldn't be in this dreadful situation either.
Mandy suddenly jumped up, her chair tipped backwards. The woman tapped the table twice then clasped her hands together. “Can you hear that, Denise?” She hurried over to the collapsed section, realised that her friend wasn't with her and ran back, physically pulled Denise out of the chair and pulled her over. “What about now?”
The three other customers had all stopped what they were doing and the only sound that Denise could now hear did indeed come from the other side of that rubble and it did sound like a bunch of hunky workmen attempting to dig them out!
“Oh, Lord, Denise, I'm so sorry for doubting you!” Her friend took Denise back to the chair and sat her down. “You just rest here, honey. We'll be out in a jiffy, I know we will. Oh, this is so exciting!”
She could not share her friend's enthusiasm. There was something so strange about the noises coming from the other side. For a start, Denise couldn't hear a single voice. No shouting, no asking if anyone was in there, not even the generic guy stood at the back, shouting that everything was going to be alright. Whoever it was were not using anything mechanical either. The sound was all wrong for that. If anything, it sounded more like claws scrabbling against rock. Could the rescuers be using dogs? Denise heard something else too. It was faint but it was there. It sounded like clicking.
The sound of a sudden rockfall reached her ears. The other three on the edge of the collapsed wall all gasped as one but then cheered. Denise saw why, a tiny hole had appeared just above the woman's head, letting in a bright spear of natural light. Denise thought that it had to be one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen.
Gloria rushed past their table, holding a tray laden with biscuits, pastries and chocolate. She placed that on the nearest table then joined the other three in helping to shift some more of the rubble. By now, two more small holes had appeared.
The scrabbling noise became more urgent. It certainly didn't sound like hunky rescuers valiantly trying to save them now. Even the four right at the front had moved back a couple of paces. Mandy grabbed Denise's hand. That clicking noise overwhelmed just about every other noise! That is, until their rescuers made an appearance.
The return of the relentless screaming blasted from the two boys as something thick, long and brown pushed through one of the ever widening holes. It unfurled to reveal several pale cream serrated hooks. The closest boy attempted to jump away as the arm moved towards him, but as soon as he moved, the top part, containing those hooks flipped out on a flexible hinge. Three of the hooks sunk into the boy's torso and pulled the shrieking individual closer to the hole.
The other boys ran forward, grabbed the screaming boy's left arm and tried to pull him back to safety. He too ended up in the same predicament when the holes joined up and two more of those long pole-like objects pushed through, each one unfurled, revealing their deadly cargo. The hooks from both poles slammed into the sides of the second boy's head. His movements immediately stilled. The screaming intensified as both Gloria and Mandy joined in with the chorus when the owners of those long brown poles finally made an appearance.
It looked like some kind of praying mantis, but this one was the size of a car! It wasn't alone either, as two more giant creatures were attempting to burrow through the remaining rubble, obviously eager to dine on the trapped humans. They looked just like beetles but as with the other monster, these things were enormous.
Denise briefly wondered if she had gone insane or if Gloria had put something weird in her tea. She also couldn't understand why she felt so fucking calm about the situation. The woman in question, the owner of the café, attempted to rescue the remaining woman when one of the beetles snagged her foot, only for the other beetle to reach through one of the wider holes. Its jaws closed around the woman's ankle and neatly snipped off her foot.
Her friend had sensibly run back to where Denise sat. The look on the poor woman's face told her that Mandy obviously wanted her to do something. Like there really was anything they could do, except to await their demise. The praying mantis had finished with the boys, eating everything, including their bones. All that remained were a few shreds of clothing and a single trainer.
Denise leaned forward, expecting it to pull the now dead Gloria through the gap but, no. It turned on its two companions. It obviously felt that having a pair of ravenous, armour-plated insectile killing machines eating what it probably thought was its food felt too much like competition. Although the beetles easily made short work of the remaining woman, neither giant insect stood a chance against the mantis. Those hooked claw cracked their shells in several places to reveal their soft, gooey, vulnerable insides to the other monster's jaws.
It then turned its attention to Mandy and Denise. The mantis pushed its head through the widest hole and continued to push. Even from where she sat, Denise saw cracks appearing around the edges of the hole.
“What are we going to do now? cried her best friend.
“There were two in the bed, and the little one said...”
CHAPTER SIX
Making a Withdrawal
He was aware that the world had turned upside down. He heard shouting, a panicked cry, as well as the sound of a sharp slap. The landscape beyond the confines of their now fucked up car had, thankfully, righted itself by the time that Andrew Davis had re-joined the land of the living.
That last tremor really had knocked him for six.
“I think we might have to make a few alterations to our plans, boss. Have you seen this?”
Andrew opened his eyes, brushed broken glass off his lap, then gingerly stretched his arms and rotated his neck. It didn't feel like anything was broken, apart from the car, that is. He turned his neck and peered out of the smashed back window, trying to work out what had caused the car to spin like that. It was only when he leaned to the side that the reason became clear. “Bloody hell!” he gasped. “That is jus
t unreal.”
“Tell me about it,” replied Nelson. “It took me by surprise as well. I had to fight this twatting steering wheel for control of the car. To be honest, we were lucky to escape unharmed.” He glared at his passenger. “Do you not have anything to say, Tony?” Nelson raised his hand, making the younger man flinch.
“Sorry, Guv.”
“For?”
“For panicking and trying to grab the wheel off Nelson.”
“Are we done?” Andrew turned his attention back to the gaping chasm running down the middle of the main street. It would take more than a few bollards and wooden-tops to sort out this mess. The emergency services would be up to their necks in work due to this, that's for sure, as Andrew doubted that they were the only accident to happen thanks to this. Andrew popped the seat belt, grabbed his bag of tricks and attempted to open the side door. The damn thing was stuck but a couple of vicious kicks soon sorted that. He climbed out of the car, stretched again then took a more detailed inspection of the damage.
The shops on the other side didn't look too badly damaged, apart from a few broken windows and some missing roof tiles. He turned around and spotted the same on the shops in front of him. There were a couple of hairline fractures around the windows and doors which might pose a problem. He stopped. Christ on a bike, he was turning into his old man here. David Davis, the best builder in Bradfield. At least, that's what Andrew's mum used to say.
He shook away the random memory and put his thoughts back where they belonged. The last thing he needed right now was to start going off at a tangent. Andrew leaned on the side of the car and watched an old woman burst out of a greengrocers on the other side of the road. She raced up the street then ran into a newsagents on the corner. The old bag had been going at a fair rate too, almost as if somebody was chasing her.