by Terry Tyler
"So the dead wagons know to take them away?" said my daughter.
"That's right. When they're gone, they spray on the X, showing that the house is empty, rid of all perishables and ready to be fumigated. Don't want a plague of rats, you see. They put poison down once the house is empty, or burn or demolish it if there's rotten food and waste, human and otherwise, that sort of thing."
"Ugh! Big Ew!" Lottie shuddered.
"And the green O?" I asked.
"That means the house is empty, with no dead or dying. People who've fled to be with family, or tried to get to what they think is a place of safety; lots of people left as soon as it started to get bad. Then another lot go in and collect any non-perishable food for the refugee camps. Problem is, everyone's sussed out what the green O means, so the scavengers move in, too. It's chaos, everywhere."
"Have they gone now? The army, I mean?"
"No, no. There's a military presence in most areas now, and they're still going house to house, making sure there aren't any bodies. People have been burying them in their gardens. I can't imagine what it must be like in the big towns; it's bad enough here, though some have been evacuated." He closed his eyes, and shuddered. "A mass grave was dug near the hospital, but when they began to pile up they started to burn them. Now there are pyres all over. It's better that way. Smell was getting bad, you know?"
I thought about Claire and her family. "No funerals, then." I thought about my mum and dad, and my eyes filled with tears.
Then Lottie chimed in, telling Mal about the evacuations in Shipden. "So you might want to get out while you still can," she said.
He stood up, and took our empty plates over to the sink. "I'll give it another day. Jeremiah might still get here."
"Do you think they're bad?" I asked. "The refugee camps, I mean."
"I imagine so. I met this guy the other day who'd escaped from one near Yarmouth. Yes, and I mean escaped; had to knock a guard out. The disease got in and everyone was dying. He said there was one just outside Colchester where folk started rioting over the rations. Couple of men knifed some soldiers, and those they didn't kill ended up shooting everyone; the only survivors were the ones who fled." He shrugged. "News travels. Everyone's got a story to tell from someone they've met who's just escaped from somewhere else, but you don't know what's true and what's been embroidered."
I couldn't speak. What was going on in Shipden was nothing compared with all this.
Lottie glanced at me. "In Shipden, they shoot you if you won't go."
"Well, that won't happen to me." He grinned. "You can take the boy out of Brixton, my love! I might not want to get into trading ammo with Jim at The Drum, but I know how to protect myself."
We left at around half past seven. I felt as if I'd been up for a whole day, already.
"I believe there are still petrol stations and cafés functioning as normal along your route; last thing I heard, anyway," Mal told us, as we set off. "You might need money! And don't forget to keep your wristbands showing at all times; I hear they're taking no prisoners, if you know what I mean."
As we drove off, I pondered on his last warning. Only three weeks back I'd been so shocked when I saw those kids gunned down. Now, I accepted Mal's advice as calmly as if he'd told me to make sure I kept my seat belt on. Like Jeff's blog post had implied, it's amazing how quickly the appalling can become the norm.
We'd only got as far as the border of Norfolk and Lincolnshire when Lottie said she wanted sweets, if we saw anywhere.
"I need to go to the loo, too." She shifted about in her seat and muttered, "I mean, properly go to the loo, not the nip-behind-a-hedge sort."
We spotted a petrol station, shop and café coming up on the far left of the A17, with cars outside and a few people on the forecourt. For a moment I lost myself in a memory; as a child, Lottie loved petrol stations when we were on journeys, and pleaded for comics, Slush Puppies and any other rubbish I'd be too soft not to buy her.
I pulled in. We didn't need petrol. "You go to the loo and I'll get the sweets." In the shop, no electronic bell announced my entrance, but lights were on. Two armed soldiers waved me through.
There wasn't much on the shelves. A young Indian boy stood behind the counter, looking as on edge as I felt. Surely he couldn't want to be there? Was he still getting paid? If so, by whom?
There were a few other people in the shop. Two youngish men in hoodies buying cigarettes, on their way out as I walked in. A father with a little boy, trying to get him to choose sweets.
None of them had wristbands on.
"I want Haribo!" the lad whined. "These are all horrible ones!"
"There's no Haribo left," the dad said, more patiently than I would have. "Look, drumstick chews. You like them, don't you?" He caught my eye and gave me a nervous smile. "I did when I was a kid!"
"They're horrible and they stick in my teeth!"
I smiled back at the harassed father and picked up a few miscellaneous bags, cans of Dr Pepper for Lottie and Diet Coke for me, even though Dex nagged me about it containing aspartame which caused every illness known to man, apparently. Not Bat Fever, though.
And Dex wasn't there to complain.
I might see him soon, though. I didn't dare think about it.
Outside, the initial burst of morning sunlight was fading behind grey clouds. There was a strange light in the sky, pinky orange in places, dull. You know, like the world was about to end, or something. And I was standing in a half empty garage somewhere in Lincolnshire with gun-toting soldiers behind me.
I paid for the things I wanted; the boy flashed me a smile and gave me change out of a tin.
"Till not working anymore, then," I said, pointlessly.
"Nothing is working anymore, Madam!" he said, too brightly. The door opened and another group walked in. Loud, yobby blokes wanting cans of lager, and they didn't intend paying for them. I hurried out.
At first the scene by our car didn't register.
In the split second before Lottie said, "Do what he says, Mum. Give him the car keys. He's got a knife," I thought the man with his arm around my daughter's neck must be someone we knew, mucking about.
My body turned to jelly.
Her captor growled, "You make a noise, and it goes in 'er back."
The two in the hoodies who were leaving the shop as I came out.
Everything felt unreal, far away.
"Mum!"
Lottie's terrified face. My daughter's terrified face.
I jerked my head round in the direction of the shop. The soldiers were pointing their guns at the blokes who wanted the free beer.
"Oi!" The voice of the man with the knife snapped me back into the moment. "Don't even think about it!"
"Gis the keys, Mum," said the other one. "Now!"
I froze.
"Mum!" Lottie, screeching. "Give them to him!"
I scrabbled in the pocket of my jacket, frantic. My fingers were useless, numb; I couldn't feel anything. They weren't there. I couldn't find them. Fuck, no, they weren't fucking there. I could feel their weight. I just couldn't find them.
"Hang on!" Oh God, they'd fallen down a hole, through to the lining. "Hang on!"
"Stop fucking about, Mum," said the one holding her. The bigger one. With a knife at my daughter's back.
"I'm not, I'm trying to find them!" Oh yes, oh yes, I felt them.
"Give them to 'im." Knife Guy nodded at his mate.
I threw; he caught.
"Please—just let her go—"
"Get in," Knife said to his mate. "Start the car."
Still he didn't release my daughter.
"You can take the car, but please, just let my daughter go!"
"I know we can take the car, love, and I'll let her go when I'm good and ready." He relaxed his hold on her. "I ain't going to hurt you, not if you do as you're told."
"Please—please can we have our bags? There's nothing in them that you'd want, just our clothes, toiletries—"
"Shut the fuck up. Lee,
chuck their bags out." He grinned. "Don't want you to 'ave t'wear dirty kecks, do we?"
Lee frowned. "Here, I just thought. If we drive off now, they'll go straight in't shop and tell 'em, and they'll be after us like a shot."
Knife pondered on this, tightening his hold around my little girl's neck. "Fuck. Yeah. Y'right. Okay, girls. In the car. And don't try nothing."
That was when I remembered. There were knives in our backpacks. But how could I get mine out without them knowing? And I didn't know how to use it; they'd just laugh if I threatened them with it.
I glanced back at the shop.
"Mum, don't," squealed Lottie.
Knife shoved her in the back seat and got in after her. "Go on, Mum, in the front."
I got in. Lottie was silent; I looked round.
"Keep facing the front," snarled Knife.
They drove.
I dared myself to look at Lee. He didn't look scary, not like his chum. Just nervous, shaky. He smelt a bit, too. I don't know why, but at that moment I stopped being so scared of them. They were just hungry, dirty and desperate.
"W-Where are you taking us?"
"Not taking you nowhere. Just getting you away from there."
"Please, I don't mind if you take the car, but please don't hurt us."
He bit his lip. "We just want y'car."
They pulled off onto a country road; we must have gone another five miles or so when Knife nudged Lee on the shoulder and told him to stop.
"Oh come on," I said, as they opened the doors. "Don't leave us out here in the middle of nowhere, please."
"Can't you drop us somewhere we might be able to get a lift?" Lottie said. Her voice sounded so young, like a child's. I gulped back tears. Knife laughed.
"I reckon they think this is a taxi service, don't you, Lee?"
Lee looked round at me. "Sorry," he mumbled. "You can get out here."
"Please—"
His expression hardened. "He told you. Get out."
So that was us, dumped on the side of the road with our backpacks, watching our tent, our sleeping bags, our camping stove and all our spare food and water driving off into the distance.
My legs were still shaking.
"What a bitch," said Lottie. She turned to me. "Stop looking after it, Mum. It's gone. We'd best start walking."
"You okay?"
"I'm fine. I mean, yeah, I was scared shitless, but—"
She bit her lip, and I could see her chin trembling. My brave girl. She wouldn't give in to the tears.
I put my arm around her. "Ready for a walk, then?"
We both looked down at her lime green trainers, more fashion items than walking shoes.
The first few drops of rain splattered onto the road.
"Oh, great."
"Mum, we've got waterproofs in our packs."
So we had. Dex had got it right, again.
"I tell you what," she said, as we struggled into our khaki green, hooded ponchos, "when we get to that safe house, I'm going to give Dexy a big, huge, smacking kiss and start calling him Daddy!"
And Lottie saying that made me dare to hope. Dex would be at the safe house. He had to be; where else was there? We would be together again, no matter what was ahead.
I put my hood up, looked up at the rain falling from the sky, and closed my eyes.
I was on my way to see Dex.
Soon, we would be together again.
Chapter Twelve
Lachlan and Wedge
Late August, 2024
In a cell in a medium security prison somewhere in the Midlands, Alan Wedgebrow, commonly known as Wedge, pulled the shiv out of his cellmate's chest and wiped it clean on the dead man's clothing.
"Fucking arse bandit deserves it." He looked up at the screw standing in the doorway. "Get us a proper knife and I'll sort them others." He clicked his fingers. "No; rope. Don't wanna walk out of here with their blood all over us."
Lachlan frowned. "Dunno if we've got any."
Wedge stood up. "Well, use your imagination. How many still alive?"
"Dunno. Four, maybe."
"Aye, well, mebbies you oughta go an' check. Don't want to leave any walking and talking."
Lachlan sniffed. "Don't know that'll matter now. It's all gone to hell in a hand cart."
Wedge gestured with the shiv. "Do it."
"Oi, oi, oi!" Lachlan swung the keys on his belt. "Who's in charge here?"
"No one, you daft cunt." Wedge flexed his huge biceps, and Lachlan winced. He was a scary bastard at the best of times, with that smooth, shaven head, thick, tattooed neck and long, thin, black beard. Scary enough when he was behind a locked door, freakin' terrifying now there was nothing holding him back. Lachlan gave himself a mental pat on the back for having the smarts to turn a blind eye to the prisoner's narcotics trade over the past six months; such savvy had kept him alive. When you had the opportunity to keep in the good books of a psycho who'd raped two women and cut the throat of his own brother, you took it. You didn't get on the wrong side of evil sods like Wedge. They ran the prisons, not the warders.
He scuttled off to check on those still breathing and seek out the instrument of their death, then waited in the visitors' reception area for Wedge to get done what he had to do. Twenty minutes later, the shaven-headed demon emerged with a backpack, filled with goods he'd taken from the cells of the dead.
"Got the weapons?"
Lachlan held up a holdall.
"Gis 'ere, then. They loaded?"
"No, course not—"
"Ammo?"
"Boxes in there."
"Keys?"
"You can take the governor's car," Lachlan said. "'Spect you'd like that, wouldn't you?"
Wedge didn't answer; he was searching through the bag of handguns and rifles, a few confiscated from inmates, most from the prison's armoury.
"Well, I might as well be off too, then." Lachlan shrugged on his jacket. "Get back and see if the old girl's made it through another night!" He laughed. "Where you going?"
"Home," said Wedge.
"What, the Toon?"
Wedge loaded a couple of Glocks and stuck one in his belt. He didn't answer.
"What you going t' do? Check on your family?"
Wedge's face was blank, but his eyes looked even blacker than usual. "Want to know a lot, don't you?"
"No, no, sorry, just making conversation." Lachlan held his hands up. "You go where you want, mate, I'm not saying nothing to no one."
"Keep it that way. And I’m not your mate."
"What, after all I've done for you?" He saw the look on the former prisoner's face and grinned to show he was joking. "Well, I'd best be off then. Good luck to you, then; catch up in the next life. And if I see you walking down the street, I'll just walk on by."
He sung the last three words as per the Dionne Warwick song, but Wedge didn't react, so Lachlan shrugged his shoulders and turned to go. Moron. Glad to see the back of him. He might be the most frightening bastard he'd ever met, but he was still a fucking moron. Lachlan was glad to see the back of all of them. He'd go home, pick up his missus (who would have packed the car ready to go by now) and chug on up to her mum's in the Peak District. Hunker down, sit this thing out. And when it was all over, when everything got back to normal, he'd go and get a job in a garden centre or a nice coffee shop. Something that would make him feel good, instead of babysitting the scum of humanity, day in day out.
He was just opening the main door out into the car park when he felt Wedge thump him on the back. Hard. So hard it carried on hurting afterwards. Then the lousy bastard did it again. When Lachlan turned round to ask him what the hell he was doing, though, the only thing that came out of his mouth was blood. His knees buckled under him, and he fell to the floor.
The last thing he saw before the life drained out of him was the sole of Wedge's big, black Doc Marten, bearing down on his face.
Chapter Thirteen
Zomchav
"Oh, it's you. You know he's
gone, don't you?"
Zombie Chav, aka Ryan's girlfriend, Bethany, looked neither surprised to see us nor distressed that her boyfriend was dead. Her expression betrayed only boredom and mild irritation.
It was Lottie's idea to go to Lyndford; after we watched our little car disappear over the horizon, she pointed out that we couldn't be far away.
"We can go to Dad's," she said. "We've got maps, haven't we?"
I shut my eyes for a moment. "Sweetheart, you know—well, that he's—"
"Dead? Yes, of course I do. I'm not stupid. Zomchav was with him last time I talked to him. She'll have dealt with it, won't she? What I meant was, we could use his car."
"I hope she has dealt with it. She's not very bright, is she?"
"No, she's brain-dead, but she won't want a dead body lying around the house. Come on. Let's get onto the main road and get a lift. Someone's got to take pity on us, if only for having to wear these crappy ponchos."
When we'd walked a few yards she took my hand, something she hadn't done for seven or eight years. Gave me a lump in my throat. That was how we walked along, hand in hand, in silence, down that country road on that wet, late August morning. It was so quiet out there. You get so used to the distant hum of traffic, even in the country, but now there was none.
"Bugger it, my trainers are leaking" said Lottie, when we got to the main road. Her face was wet under her hood. "You'd think God could've spared us the rain, wouldn't you?"
"Stick your thumb out if we hear a car. They're more likely to stop for a girl your age."
"Yes, but you're blonde; show some hair, Mum! How far is it to Lyndford?"
"Dunno. 'Bout fifteen miles, I think."
"So we can walk it if we have to."
"Probably will; there's no traffic, is there?"
We walked and we walked, in the pouring rain, and every so often I looked at Lottie to make sure she was bearing up okay. When I did, she was smiling. We faced a future so uncertain that I couldn't get my head around it, and she was smiling.
"What?" she said, when she caught me looking at her for the tenth time.
"Nothing. You look happy, that's all."