by Terry Tyler
"Well, it's kind of an adventure, isn't it?"
We saw nothing and no one for miles, except for the odd abandoned car, but after about an hour, by which time Lottie had stopped smiling and was starting to complain about her sore, soaking feet, we heard a vehicle behind us, at last. An army truck. Two young lads who were supposed to be helping to keep the peace in King’s Lynn, they said, but they'd scarpered.
"It's all gone tits up down there," the one in the passenger seat told us. "There aren't enough of us to keep order. We got out of there while we could; we're going home. They'll have to catch us first, right?"
They took us all the way to Ryan's house, for which I am still grateful now. On the back seat we took off Lottie's soaked socks; she had blisters, so I dried them with a t-shirt, put on antiseptic cream and plasters, and found her some dry socks. Couldn't do anything about the sodden trainers, so we put them in a plastic bag and she wore her Uggs, the only other footwear she'd brought with her.
Ryan's car was still in his driveway. The road of 1930s style three-bed semis was silent. There were no smashed windows, no red crosses painted on the doors, just complete quiet, as if all the residents had evaporated. I wondered if there was anyone alive, or if they were all hiding inside, avoiding infection.
I'd never met Bethany but I'd seen pictures, so I recognised her pretty, hard little face as soon as she opened the door. She wore all white: jogging bottoms, a cropped top, and a sleeveless, hooded gilet, her jet black hair in a messy topknot. Gold hoops hung from her ears, and she'd actually applied full make-up. False eyelashes, the lot.
"The van took his body away," she said, then turned and walked back into the house, leaving us to follow her along the neat, beige carpeted hallway. In the living room, she flung herself down onto an armchair while we stood there, dripping.
"I'd ask if you want to get dry, but the radiators aren't working, are they?" She looked highly annoyed by this, as if it was a personal affront, and studied her pastel pink, glittery fingernails. "We've got towels."
I smiled and thanked her but she made no move to get them, so we took off the ponchos and Lottie went to find some.
"What are you going to do?" I asked. I didn't like to sit down at first because of getting the settee wet, but then I realised it didn't matter.
"Going to my mate's place," she said. "She's got this spa hotel, it's in a village called Long Shelton in Yorkshire. Before the phones went off, she told me to go there if I got stuck." Her bored expression never changed, and she didn't meet my eyes.
"What about your family?"
She studied her fingernails again. "Dead. My little sister and my mum." Pain flashed across her carefully painted face, and I leant forward.
"Bethany, I'm so sorry—"
"Don't." She held a hand up. "That tosser mum lived with got it first, and he gave it to them. I always hated him, and he gave it to them."
"I am sorry, anyway."
"Yeah."
"We don't know how it spreads, that's the problem. Well, one of them."
"Yeah." She stood up. "So what you doing here?"
"Oh, we hoped we could take Ryan's car. We had one, but—"
"Sorry, I need it."
"Ah—it's just that we need to drive up to near Newcastle. My boyfriend's up there waiting for us."
"Yeah, well, I need it."
"All right," I said, slowly. "Perhaps you could take us up there, then drive back to Yorkshire. We really do have to get there."
The way she looked at me made me wonder if I'd accidentally requested the donation of a kidney, instead of a lift.
"Er, no way. I can take you as far as Long Shelton. That's on the way, right? Well, it's north." She shrugged, as if to say that she couldn't give a toss if it wasn't. "I've been at Mum's, I just came here to get some stuff. And the car. Some arsehole siphoned the petrol out of mine. I like Ryan's better, anyway, so I'm having it."
"Tell you what, why don't we give you a lift, drop you off, then we can drive on up north?" said Lottie, towelling her hair dry as she came into the room.
Bethany looked at her as if she'd asked for the other kidney. "You're having a laugh. You're not leaving me without a car."
They glared at each other. "He's my dad," Lottie said. "He'd want us to take it."
Zomchav stood up and stuck her thumbs in the waistband of her jogging bottoms, head on one side. "You reckon? Well, the way I see it, I'm his girlfriend, so it's mine."
Lottie laughed. "You're kidding. You've only known him five minutes. I'm his daughter."
"Yeah, well, that's tough shit. He's not here to say, is he, in case you haven't noticed."
I thought of all the times Lottie had come home from Ryan's saying how much she hated Zomchav, how jealous the older girl was of her place in Ryan's life; Bethany was only eight years Lottie's senior.
"I'm taking it," Lottie said.
Bethany took the keys from her pocket and jangled them in the air. "Don't think so, hon."
"It's okay, Lottie." I picked up the other towel. "We'll manage."
"No, Mum, it's not okay! Why should she have Dad's car? We'll be stuck in bloody Yorkshire, and it'll be getting on for tea time by then; we could be hitching in the dark and the rain!"
"Well, we could all stay here and set off early tomorrow."
Bethany shook her head. "No way. Well, you can stay if you want, but I'm gone."
"Okay." I tried again. "D'you think your friend could put us up for the night?"
"No, Mum!" Lottie actually stamped her foot. "I'm not asking her friend for charity, like we're homeless, or something!"
"She'll be full up, anyway." Bethany looked equally horrified by the thought of sharing the same roof as us. "She's said to all her mates that they can go there, 'cause she's got light and hot water, and some sort of special eco sewage system so you can still use the loo, I dunno."
I had a brainwave. "It's a spa, you said? So they'll have those couches, for treatments. We can sleep on them."
"They're all taken, too." She said it so quickly that I didn't believe her. Shame. The thought of a hot shower made me almost whimper with longing.
"She might still let us stay. On the floor, even." I wanted to say, perhaps she isn't quite as uncharitable as you, you little cow, but then again, if she was Bethany's friend—
"I said no." She folded her arms. "Look, I've got the keys, and I'm going. Balls to it, I can't be bothered with getting the rest of my stuff, it's mostly summer gear anyway. I just want to get on my way. I'll take you as far as I go, and that's that. Okay?"
We drove in silence. As we got near Long Shelton, I suggested that she drop us near the dual carriageway, but she didn't reply, and it was only when we got to a drive leading up to what looked like a country mansion that I realised she'd completely ignored my request.
"You could have dropped us off before we got here, you skanky chav," said Lottie, as she heaved her backpack out.
Zomchav just sat there, looking ahead, drumming her sparkly nails on the steering wheel.
"Lottie, don't," I murmured.
"Why not? Who gives a shit?" Lottie opened the driving seat door. "You're a bitch and I always hated you, I hope we never have to see your ugly face ever again!" She slammed the door and screamed, "I hope you get the virus and die!" at the car as Bethany drove off, screeching through a puddle and soaking us again.
We leant against an old drystone wall and laughed. At least the rain had stopped; the sun was coming out.
"I suppose that's what it's going to be like, now," she said. "People just out for themselves."
"People like her always were," I said. I thought, again, of Dex and his prediction about the speed with which a civilised society fell apart once you took away the basic utilities. "We'll probably find out who we really are, all of us, in the days and weeks to come."
"OMG, that's deep," said Lottie, giving me a 'look'. "Right. What do you say we nick a car?"
"I say we do no such thing. We're not th
ieves."
"So how do we get to Tyne and Wear, then?"
"Hitch. Walk and hitch."
"No way. There'll be loads of cars in this village, and I'll bet most of the owners will have snuffed it." She put her head on one side. "Sad but true, Mumsie."
The front doors in this village bore Ds and Os, and Ds with crosses through them; we saw no one. Nicking a car meant actually entering the houses and looking around for keys. Lots of the doors were open, but we had to rummage around a bit. We found some on our sixth try. In the fifth house, we had to run straight out because the smell was too bad.
But we got our car.
I was now a criminal.
The petrol ran out near Durham.
"I've just realised what the rubber tubing's for," Lottie said. "It's for siphoning petrol."
But neither of us knew how to do it. We'd both seen it on television, people sucking it up through the tube, but neither of us dared try.
So we nicked another car. It felt easier in the dark.
I was a thirty-four-year-old mother from Norfolk. I'd never broken the law, give or take smoking the odd spliff and watching TV without a licence. This time last year I'd been at home in my dear little house, curled up with the love of my life, with Lottie safely tucked up in her own room, tapping away on FaceTime or Skype or whatever. Still a child. She'd grown up ten years in the last month. I was still trying to adjust. But I felt happier as we shut the door of the terraced cottage where we'd found the car keys on a hook in the kitchen. We were nearly there. We had less than twenty miles to go, to this address in the next county, where my Dex would (I hoped) be waiting for me.
As we drove along, Lottie singing to a CD, I allowed myself to imagine our arrival. I pictured the door being opened by Naomi or Kara (who I had to imagine as I'd never met them), who would shout, "Dex. She's here!" And Dex would run out, unable to believe that I'd finally arrived, and, although I'd still be a bit cross at him for leaving me, we'd forget all about it in our joy at being together again.
He'd tear himself away from me only to introduce me to the rest of the smiling group (minus Gia), and we'd all sit around the fire in the warm glow of candlelight, talking and making plans, and Dex would whisper to me that he would never let me go, ever again.
The trouble with fantasies is that they so rarely mirror reality.
Chapter Fourteen
Travis and Aria
August ~ September 2024
Six days after Tas Day, Verlander's Hollywood smile had still not reappeared on the screen in the lounge area.
They took a vote, and the result was in favour: it was time to press the alarm.
"We'll all take responsibility," said Doyle. "They can't sack us all."
Shaw did the honours.
Nothing happened.
The screen remained blank.
They tried again, an hour later. And again, and again, and again, once an hour for a whole day, until Kitson piped up that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.
"I think our situation's gone beyond gaining inspiration from Private Life's motto of the day, don't you?" Shaw snapped, and all those who'd giggled along with Kitson promptly shut up. "If you've got any sensible ideas, speak now."
Seven days after that, during which the alarm continued to be pressed on a regular basis, the pro-escape contingent had expanded from just Travis, Shaw and Doyle to about ten of them. Alas, the front door proved impossible to open.
"It's an old building; aren't there supposed to be networks of tunnels underneath big cities?" Shaw said. "There must be another exit somewhere, if only an emergency way out for whoever's used it in the past."
It was Doyle who found the door behind the shelf of cleaning materials at the back of the kitchen.
"We'll keep it quiet until we've investigated," he said.
Four of them slipped out: Travis, Shaw, Doyle and another guy who Travis thought was called Johnson.
The door led to a tunnel, dark, echoing, which forked once, twice, three times. A maze of secret walkways.
"Told you," said Shaw.
Travis was glad of the dark in the tunnel; the others would not be able to see the trepidation on his face, his greatest fear being that they would get lost; he took out a permanent marker and made marks on the walls as they went.
He didn't feel so bad about being scared once Doyle said he was 'fucking crapping himself', and Shaw asked, in a shaky voice, if there would be rats.
Doyle went first, Travis followed, then Shaw, with the chap who was probably called Johnson bringing up the rear.
"Do you think they date back to World War Two?" Travis hissed, as they crept along, torches in hand. "Or before?"
"I couldn't give a flying fuck," Shaw hissed. "Look it up when we're back above ground. Can we just concentrate on getting out?"
Some passages ended abruptly, with doors that wouldn't open.
A scuffling noise at their feet stopped them in their tracks.
"Oh, fucking hell." Shaw clutched Travis's arm. "I just heard them. Shit and fucking hell, I have nightmares about them. Oh, shit. Oh, no." Her nails dug into his flesh. "Doyle, stop. I can't, not rats." She screamed. "Oh, my God! I just felt one run over my foot! Fucking hell, I can't do this!"
They stopped; as she clutched on to Travis he felt the tension in her arms.
The scuffling stopped.
"I think they've gone," Doyle hissed from the front. "They're scared of people; they won't want to come near us."
"It's okay now." Travis reached out for her, shining his torch down to their feet then up to his right so she could see him, without it blinding her.
"Did you know that if you live in New York you're never more than twenty feet away from a rat?" Doyle's voice floated back from the front.
"Shut the fuck up, Doyle," Shaw hissed. "Can we just move?"
"Wonder what it's going to be like outside," Travis said.
"Can't be worse than what's back there," said Johnson. "Whatever happens, just think of that. It'll take your mind off the rats."
"He's right," Travis said, reaching back to touch Shaw's arm. She was still shaking. "We're out. That's the main thing."
Travis was to give much thought, afterwards, to how quickly the camaraderie amongst the colleagues deteriorated, once the food situation became what Goodman, the leader of the staying-put faction, described as 'challenging'.
When rationing first began there was still some booze left, and chocolate and crisps in the recreation room, so Shaw and Doyle's decision was accepted without argument. But when those ran out, hunger was all anyone talked about. Divisions began. One group, led by a loudmouth called Bateman, decided that some were less worthy of rations than others. Smaller people didn't need so many calories, he said.
Smaller people were also easier to intimidate, especially when faced with burly Bateman and his gang.
Kitson was a big lad, a follower rather than a leader; when approached, he joined up.
"I'd rather be on the winning side, that's all," he said, when Travis took him to task over his allegiances.
The intimidation worked. Some of the quieter members of the group gave up rations to Bully Bateman, leaving them only one meal on some days.
Travis was shocked by the behaviour of someone he'd considered a friend, even though they had little in common but the job. More shocking, though, was the way Kitson justified his behaviour.
"Survival of the fittest," he said. "Law of the jungle." And he turned back to his pile of car magazines, stuffing his face with a pilfered risotto.
An emergency meeting was held.
"It's interesting how we've divided into leaders and followers, bullies and victims," Travis said, idly, as he watched Goodman holding court.
"Yes, well, the first person to mention Lord of the Flies is going to get kneed in the nuts by me, never mind Bateman," Doyle said. "We'll do the observations about human nature later—it's time we got out
of here."
"Those stupid bastards still believe Verlander will come through," Shaw said, gesturing with her head over to Goodman's crew.
Doyle shrugged. "They can stay where they are, then."
Goodman called for attention. "We're employed by a British government agency, they're not just going to leave us here!" she declared. "Imagine the legal ramifications; it's ludicrous to even consider it. It must be something to do with the Bat Fever virus. Administrative difficulties, like Verlander said." Encouraged by the nodding heads and quiet applause, Goodman warmed to her subject. "And I don't know about you, but my family's waiting to be emailed photos from Tasmania! If we leave, our career with BDC is over, and I for one have worked too hard just to chicken out when the going gets tough!"
More applause and chuntering agreement.
"I reckon that those of us who've had the courage to wait it out will get a brownie point or two when they do come for us!"
Thus the emergence of a new theory: that they were being tested, and those who didn't go crazy or try to break out would get some sort of promotion. Of all the theories doing the rounds, this one proved particularly popular.
"They're probably watching us right now!" Goodman declared, and for this suggestion she was rewarded with her biggest round of applause yet.
"It's unbelievable, isn't it?" Shaw said. "One person offers this up as an idea, and they all start repeating it as if it's a fact. Look at them! Well, fuck that, I say."
Travis smiled to himself. "Mm. You say that a lot, don't you?"
"Well, they're such a bunch of sheep." She cast her eyes to the floor, kicked a stray bottle top at her feet. "I'm not much good at this team player thing."
"I've noticed."
"Ah, well, I fooled 'em good and proper on my psych assessment. I was never meant to be a company man." She folded her slim, caramel coloured arms, and Travis noticed how well the khaki colour of her t-shirt suited her; it brought out green flecks in her angry brown eyes. Damn, she was pretty. Kitson was right.
"I wouldn't call you an anything man." He felt his cheeks colour up; had he really said something that cheesy? "It's, er—Aria, isn't it?"