Her bubbling anger threatened to spill over as her husband spoke. Useless. He was useless. Couldn’t keep his job. Couldn’t keep their son safe. “You could have locked the door and gone with him. You’re his father,” Chris said through clenched teeth.
Lester seemed to deflate at the venom in her tone. He suddenly looked old, his receding hairline greying at the edges. “I was worried about you. What if you’d come home, and we had both been gone? The phones aren’t working.”
“You could have left a note.” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “You’re useless, you know. Useless as a father, useless as a husband. Sometimes I wish you’d just—”
“What, Christine?” He crossed his arms in front of his chest. The expression on his face dared her to say something cruel, but his arms gave away that he was bracing himself because he fully expected her to do so. Because that’s who she was. The woman who said cruel things. “What is it you were going to say?”
“Sometimes I wish you’d just give up and end it all,” she whispered, regretting the words as soon as they’d left her mouth, even more so when his shoulders slumped in defeat. “I’m going to find Tom.”
She went back downstairs, pointing at the bags and suitcase. “I don’t think it’s just a power cut either. I’ve brought supplies. How about you put them away while I go back to the shop and look for Tom.”
“Shouldn’t I come with you?”
Her heart seized in her chest. After everything she’d just said to him, his first thought was still to stay with her and protect her. She didn’t deserve that. Didn’t deserve him.
“Just put the food away.” Tears stung her eyes as she grabbed her pepper spray. Lester had bought it for her, worried about her walking from her car to the hospital when she worked the night shift. It wasn’t legal to carry pepper spray in England, and she didn’t know (or didn’t care to know) how he’d bought it, but she always kept a can on her. She dropped it into her handbag before retrieving a steak knife from the cutlery drawer in the kitchen.
Lester stood in the hallway, jaw squared, upper body taut, but completely silent as she shuffled past him. She couldn’t bear to look at him and closed the front door behind her, the scent of his aftershave filling her with remorse.
She had to focus on Tom now. She had to find her son.
That was all that mattered.
This time, she walked along the main road. She cursed. Had she been at Anna’s when he’d reached Tesco?
Would she have come across him if she’d followed the main road?
Why hadn’t he come back home? What if something had happened to him?
What if he’d gone to the hospital? It was easy to mix up her shifts.
Instinctively, she reached into her bag, fumbling for her phone, then remembered that it no longer worked.
How parents brought up children without mobile phones had been baffling her ever since Tom had been old enough to leave the house without her. The thought of letting him go in the mornings and telling him to come back before supper without being able to check in on him transformed her stomach into a ball of anxiety.
Without the noise of the traffic, Harlow had been plunged into an eerie stillness. Twinkling stars lit up the sky, but without the streetlights, it was too dark for her to make out the pavement on the other side of the road.
Clutching her bag to herself, Chris strode down the middle of the road, turning her head from left to right and back again as if she were sitting centre court at Wimbledon.
Her back hurt. She’d been awake for almost twenty-four hours and had spent most of those hours on her feet.
Something on the pavement to her left caught her attention and she stopped, furrowing her brows. It looked like a pile of clothes. Narrowing her eyes, she realised it was a person.
About to rush over, Chris bit her lip. What if it was a trap?
She’d read about this on the Internet. People who stopped on empty country roads thinking there had been an accident and somebody needed their help, only to be tackled and robbed.
Sometimes killed.
But she was a nurse, and this person might need her help. She slid her hand into her bag and fumbled for her pepper spray. Holding it in her right hand, she crossed the road and knelt. The tarmac dug into her knees, shredding her tights.
It was an old man with neatly combed short, grey hair. She gingerly pushed on his shoulder and rolled him onto his back. Definitely not homeless, Chris thought, taking in his appearance. He was wearing smart trousers and a shirt. A walking stick was lying beside him. She noticed a deep gash on his forehead. The surrounding skin was caked with dried blood.
He must have fallen hours ago.
She reached for his neck and placed two fingers against the cold skin. “Sir? Can you hear me?” Moving her hand to his nose, she sighed.
He was dead.
She searched his pockets for a wallet when she noticed the wristband indicating that he wore a pacemaker.
She reached for her phone. This time she remembered it was dead before rummaging through her bag and slapped her forehead with her palm. “Damn.”
How many times would she do this before she remembered without even trying?
Electronics were dead. There was no power.
And no ambulances.
His skin appeared grey in the bright moonlight.
Had he died because of his pacemaker? Had the—she scratched her head. What had Anna called it? An EMP? Had that killed him?
She looked around. There was no one nearby.
It was after midnight, and, just like Anna had predicted, most people seemed to have gone to bed. What else was there to do?
That’s what Chris would have done if she hadn’t met Anna.
She closed the dead man’s eyes gently and murmured, “Where did you live?” She briefly considered knocking on doors, but she had to find Tom first.
If the man was still there after she’d found Tom, she’d figure something out, but hopefully he’d be someone else’s problem by then.
She ran the last mile to the shop. Sweat trickled down her temples and neck. She came to a stop in the carpark near the entrance. Panting, she bent over, leaning her hands on her legs and waited for her breathing to slow.
She heard a cry and spotted movement close to where she’d parked her car.
Tom!
Two figures were struggling with each other. She recognised her son’s t-shirt. Tom stood with his back pressed against the side of her Volvo, kicking his attacker who had one hand pressed over Tom’s mouth. Tom’s sweat-stained shirt smeared the window as he stumbled.
“Tom?”
Tom kicked again, then bit down on the hand still on his face. Chris took a step forward and smacked the back of the man’s head with her handbag. He spun around and she raised her pepper spray.
It was Mike.
“Mike! What are you doing?”
“Oh. Look who’s back.” He sneered, rubbing the back of his head where she’d hit him. With his taser still aimed at Tom, he spat at her feet. “This is what happens to the son of a thief.”
Despite the darkness, Chris saw the fear on her son’s face. She mouthed, “It’ll be okay,” her eyes never leaving the taser.
“Have you come back to rob us again?” Mike asked. “Your son didn’t believe me when I said you’d been fired because you were caught stealing. He said I was a dirty liar. Didn’t you, Tom?” Mike snarled like a wild animal, the veins along his throat bulging with anger.
Chris’ pulse pounded loudly in her ears, and she had to strain to understand Mike’s words. “You’re threatening my son with an illegal taser, Mike. He’s thirteen.” She struggled to speak, her voice shaking with anger. “Do you remember that lawsuit I promised you? It’s just got a lot worse.”
“I don’t think there’ll be any lawsuit,” Mike replied. “I think it’s everyone for themselves. You’re a thief. And he’s a thief’s son.”
“And you’re the new sheriff in town?” Chris swung
her handbag a second time, but Mike ducked and turned. “Let him go you dirty—”
She stopped, staring at the taser now aimed at her, then emptied her pepper spray into his eyes.
Blinded, Mike screamed, clutching at his face with one hand. The other held onto the taser, and he pulled the trigger.
Chris squeezed her eyes shut, preparing for the painful shock.
Nothing happened.
She blinked, opened one eye.
He’d aimed it straight at her.
It should have knocked her to the ground. Reduced her to a whimpering heap.
Tears streamed down his face, and rage twisted his mouth into an ugly grimace as he staggered towards her, hands outstretched, trying to tackle her.
She threw the empty can at him and pulled out her knife. Her hand had stopped trembling and she felt calm, focused. She moved forward, buried the knife into Mike’s stomach. It slid into his soft plump flesh like a hot knife through butter.
Fascinated, she watched the blade disappear to the hilt and swallowed.
She’d crossed the line.
Red bloomed around the knife’s hilt and a softness replaced the fury in Mike’s brown eyes. A look she’d seen many times as a nurse.
The look of a man who knew he was dying.
She could pay for the food she’d taken; she couldn’t undo this.
Self-defence or not. She had wilfully taken a life.
He clutched the knife with both hands as though wanting to pull it out, but instead he dropped to his knees with a gentle gasp. Cold sweat dotted his hairline as the life drained from him the way it drained from most people: quietly.
“Mum?”
Chris flinched. She’d forgotten about Tom. Her son stared at her with wide eyes, and she took his hand, squeezed it. “We need to go home, sweetie.”
“But your car—”
“It’s not working, Tom. I thought you’d figured that out.”
His eyes were glued to the dying man writhing on the ground. His jaw hung open as though he wanted to scream.
In only a few hours, the world had changed.
And her son, who had only just learned to live in the old world, would have to learn a whole new way of life.
It would be hard, but she would guide him.
Anna had been right. There was no time to hesitate. No time to think.
She had to act.
Chris bent over Mike and grabbed her knife. As she stood over his lifeless body, hatred bubbled up in her gut, and she felt strangely powerful. She twisted the knife before pulling it out. Wiping the blade on Mike’s shirt, she looked up at Tom. “Are you ready?”
She concealed the knife in her bag. Tossed the taser into the bin.
Tom stared and didn’t blink. Just stood next to her Volvo as if paralysed.
“Tom?”
“Shouldn’t we…don’t we have to call the police?”
“How?”
He blinked, his eyes slowly focusing on her as though seeing her for the first time. “I don’t know. What’s going on?”
Chris patted his shoulder and gave him a grim smile. Soon, he’d be taller than her. Even taller than Lester. “I don’t know, sweetie, but something bad has happened and the world has changed. We need to adapt fast.”
She stepped over Mike’s body without giving it another look and pulled on Tom’s elbow. “Come on. Your dad is waiting for us at home.”
Yes. The world had changed, and they needed to adapt. I hope you’re wrong, she’d said to Anna only a few hours ago, but now everything was different.
If the world hadn’t changed, she’d be in a lot of trouble come morning.
And just like that, Chris was hoping for the worst.
5
Anna set down a bowl of kibble, and Oreo gobbled it up with the enthusiasm of a dog who didn’t know the world had changed and that one day soon they would run out of kibble.
Her gaze drifted to the batteries lying on the dining room table and she frowned. She had no idea how quickly the radio would drain them, or how long she would need them for, but she remembered reading in an article once that removing the batteries after every use would make them last longer.
She’d waited an entire day before trying to turn on the radio, afraid that it had been damaged beyond repair along with all the other electronic devices. Afraid that she’d be truly alone, cut off from the world. But mostly, she’d been afraid to hear that the world had changed. That she had been right after all.
Anna preferred avoiding problems and pretending they weren’t there. She would always hope they’d disappear if she ignored them for long enough.
The morning after the power cut, she’d heard shouting outside. Opening the window, she’d glimpsed police officers with megaphones telling people the shops were closed for the time being and to stay inside.
The first time Anna had put the batteries in the radio, she’d taken them straight out again and placed the radio back into its box. The second time, she’d reached for her phone to google the BBC’s broadcast frequency, only to remember that her phone was dead.
The third time, she’d scanned for stations, finding nothing but static. Sitting at her table, she’d buried her face in her hands.
What now?
She’d decided to scan for stations twice a day—once in the morning and once in the evening to preserve the batteries.
Then, to keep busy and to feel more in control, she’d proceeded to portion her food into daily rations of a thousand calories each.
Thankfully, she wasn’t particularly tall, and a thousand calories daily would sustain her for a while. If she lost too much weight, she’d add peanut butter and olive oil to her meals.
She couldn’t starve herself, couldn’t allow herself to grow weak and tired. She needed to be strong to survive the coming months.
Humans could survive three weeks without food, but once they began to starve, they’d become desperate. Dangerous.
Feral.
She had to hide and wait it out.
Anna stuffed her rations into freezer bags, making small, orderly packets which she hid behind her clothes in her wardrobe—just in case looters broke into her flat.
Once finished, she counted the packets. She had enough food for at least three months. Rice and baked beans weren’t an exciting diet, but they would allow her to stay put if nothing else. If she adhered to the thousand calories a day rule, she might even last four months without having to try and find more food.
What worried her more was water. She’d filled every glass, every bottle and every jug in the house until the tap began spluttering and spitting brown sludge into her sink. Together with the bottles she’d taken from Tesco, she had sixty litres of fresh water.
This was England. Hopefully, there’d be some rain. She’d collect it in her recycling bin and boil it over an open flame.
But where?
Once the rioting and looting began, she’d have to avoid the balcony for fear of someone spotting the flat being occupied.
“Or do we want them to know that we’re at home? As a deterrent?” she asked Oreo, rubbing the nape of her neck. Both an empty flat and a flat occupied by a single woman sounded like an open invitation to her ears.
She sighed and glanced outside. The sky was a pale blue. Not a cloud in sight. Perhaps she’d be lucky, and it would rain in the next few days.
Oreo sat on his bed, grooming his paws, and Anna sat down on the tiled floor next to him. She buried her hand in his fur, her fingers disappearing in his thick, long coat. “You and me against the world, eh? Who would have thought?”
One day everything had been normal, and the next…
“I miss the Internet.” Oreo continued to lick his paws, ears pricked in her direction. “And the library.”
Oreo grumbled, then yawned.
“I’m glad you’re a bit lazy,” she mumbled, tickling the paw he’d stretched out towards her. His leg twitched and he pulled it away. “Sometimes I think your dad must hav
e been a cat. Your last walk was two days ago. Most Border Collies would be eating my sofa by now.”
Oreo enjoyed accompanying her on runs and tolerated walks, but he loved chasing after a tennis ball. As long as he had his yellow ball, he was a happy dog.
But he also liked to nap.
When it rained especially, he would nap all day long.
Anna heard muffled shouting outside.
“What the—” She stood, walked over to her kitchen window and peered outside. Oreo growled with his black ears pricked.
Two soldiers were talking to a police officer in the middle of the road. They were wearing helmets and had assault rifles strapped to their chests. The police officer was gesticulating with both hands.
Anna opened the window, but a strong breeze swallowed their words.
She reached for the radio and inserted the batteries with trembling hands. Sitting down, she searched for the BBC, tapping her foot against the chair.
What if—
No. She wouldn’t allow the voice in her mind to come to the forefront. Wouldn’t allow it to scare her. She’d left it behind when she moved out. Left it back in her childhood home. Left it with her father where it belonged.
She wouldn’t listen to it.
She had to focus.
Her heart fluttered when the static turned into a real voice. A man who spoke in concerned tones. She immediately pictured a middle-aged professor with small, round glasses and a neatly trimmed beard. They’d chosen their speaker well.
He spoke slowly, enunciating every word as though his life depended on it.
She narrowed her eyes, focusing on what he was saying.
“…are working as quickly as we can. The government and the army are asking for your trust and your patience, and most importantly, they are asking for your cooperation. Every UK citizen will receive their fair share of food, water and medicine. No one will be left behind. For now, in order to make sure that our streets stay safe, everyone has to remain inside.”
“I don’t think we’ll be allowed outside anytime soon,” she said to Oreo. Her pulse thundered in her ears as anxiety crept from her stomach into her throat.
She’d thought of riots and looting. She’d thought of fighting in the streets and in the supermarkets. She’d been waiting for the government to step in, but she hadn’t considered the army patrolling the streets.
Darkness Ahead of Us | Book 1 | Darkness Within Page 4