Outside - a post-apocalyptic novel

by Shalini Boland

  He’s always been a workaholic, but this feels different. He’s harder, tougher. A brittle veneer covers his features and you wouldn’t want to break through it, for fear that what lies underneath wouldn’t survive the exposure and would simply evaporate.

  Ma, on the other hand, is disintegrating. She’s got no armour; her pain is on show for everyone to see. She blames herself for not keeping a closer eye on us girls and says it’s all her fault. Pa keeps getting cross with her and then he relents and comforts her. But mainly he just stays away from home.

  Late one night, as I lie in bed unable to sleep, I hear them arguing about the empty bottles. Ma has drunk the place desert-dry. Their bedroom is down the hall from mine and, after opening my bedroom door a fraction, I can hear snatches of their voices.

  ‘It’s impossible,’ Pa says. ‘No one could possibly have put that much alcohol away. You should be dead.’ He doesn’t sound angry, just incredulous.

  ‘I wish I was dead,’ she slurs. Then she laughs.

  ‘Stop it. You’re really worrying me. You need help.’

  I hear her say something else, but I can’t make out the words.

  ‘No!’ Pa shouts. ‘Absolutely not!’

  My heart speeds up and a hot flush sweeps across my scalp. Please God, I think, stop them arguing. Please let them be normal. But my prayers aren’t answered.

  ‘If you think I’m getting you anymore alcohol, you’re mad!’ Pa continues. ‘What? So you can drink yourself to death. What about Riley? Have you forgotten you’ve got another daughter?’

  I close my bedroom door in fright as a crashing noise rushes down the hall towards me. Ma must’ve thrown something. I can hear her angry screams. The bass notes of Pa’s voice soothe her shrill hysterics and gradually her screams subside.

  I stand with my back to my bedroom door, out of breath as though I’ve been running hard. I hear it all, listening with horrified fascination. Skye has gone, my father is an emotional void and my mother is a drunken mess. Another smash, another shriek, another shout. I have to get out of here.

  I don’t want to go out in just my t shirt, so I pull on a pair of denim cut offs, tiptoe into the hall and creep down the stairs. I unchain the front door, unlock it and stumble outside into the warm night air. The panic subsides a little and I breathe in deeply through my nose. My world has sunk into an abyss from which I can’t imagine ever escaping. Nothing is solid or sure anymore. Life has become a shifting swamp of monsters and nightmares and I want to wake up.

  I find myself in Luc’s driveway - I’ve wandered next door. Knowing his parents are still away, I ring the doorbell and wait. After a minute I see the hall light come on and the outline of a person. Normally I would never ring someone’s doorbell in the middle of the night - that was Skye’s territory. But there’s nothing normal about my life anymore.

  ‘Riley?’ Luc says through a yawn. ‘You okay?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘What is it?’

  I shake my head again, suddenly overcome with the urge to cry.

  ‘Come in,’ he says, concerned.

  I don’t explain or apologise, but follow him through to the lounge.

  ‘What’s up, Riley?’ he asks, sitting on a large armchair. ‘Did something happen?’

  ‘No,’ I squeak, trying desperately not to cry. I sink onto the sofa and chew my nails.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ He tries again.

  I shake my head and try to get rid of the lump in my throat.

  ‘I just want to do something normal,’ I whisper, knowing how ridiculous that sounds after coming here in the middle of the night.

  We sit there for a minute in silence. I try to compose myself, not wanting to break down in front of Luc. I hear the ticking of a clock. It sounds as though it’s getting louder, but I must be imagining it.

  ‘Wanna play Uno?’ Luc asks, standing up and going over to the sideboard. He opens a drawer and pulls out a pack of cards.

  ‘I love Uno,’ I say. ‘Me and Skye always used to play.’

  One hour later and I’ve managed to get the earlier events of the night down to a background hum in my head.

  ‘How come you always beat me?’ I throw my cards onto the floor in disgust.

  ‘Sheer skill,’ he replies.

  ‘Cheating I reckon.’

  ‘No, you’re just a bad loser,’ he smirks.

  ‘God, you’re annoying.’ I pick up some of my cards and bend them back in an arc, like Pa had taught me, so they flip across into his face.

  ‘Yeah, Riley, very mature.’

  I smile. But despite my new-found light-heartedness, I want to talk to Luc about something more serious, something that’s been bugging me for a while. We’ve gotten easy in each other’s company and I don’t want to spoil it. I also don’t want him to think I’ve lost the plot even more. But I decide to just say it.

  ‘Luc ...’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I want to find Chambers and make him pay for what he did to Skye.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘No you don’t. I really mean I actually want to leave our Perimeter and track him down. He killed my sister and he’s out there; somewhere.’

  Finding Chambers has now almost become an obsession with me. If I shoot him in the head, will it lessen my pain? If I torture him and extract a confession, will the sadness leave me?

  ‘I do know, Riley,’ he says again. ‘I want to make Chambers pay too. I can’t believe he escaped.’

  ‘So will you help me?’

  ‘It’s not that simple. How would we even find him? He’s probably fled the country by now.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ I reply. ‘And if he is in England I have to find him. I want to put a gun to his head and I want to pull the trigger. I don’t want … He can’t get away with what he’s done.’

  ‘Let me think about it, yeah?’ He reaches across and touches my arm. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  It’s a couple of days later and Luc and I have agreed to meet down by the stream at Coy Pond. Woolly trots by my side and I have to hurry him along as he keeps getting distracted by one glorious smell or another.

  Luc’s the only person I feel at all comfortable with now but he’s been barred from coming to the house. Ma’s got it into her head that he’s somehow to blame for Skye’s death. It’s crazy. She’s known him almost since he was born. So now I have to visit him in secret, which isn’t hard given Ma’s oblivious state.

  I see Luc every day. His folks aren’t due back for another few weeks and he hates being at his place on his own, where it happened. We’ve been going for walks or talking and playing cards. As far as I know, he doesn’t spend any time with his other friends.

  Luc’s already waiting when we arrive and Woolly bounds ahead to greet him, causing the ducks and moorhens on the bank to take flight or flap and waddle for cover. Luc slides off the high stone wall and almost runs towards me, his eyes shining. I’m always pleased to see him these days but I wonder what’s behind his excessive enthusiasm today. He’s normally more laid back and it makes me feel good that he’s so happy to see me.

  ‘There’s been a sighting of Chambers,’ he grins. ‘They spotted him two weeks ago heading north out of Warminster in your mum’s AV.’

  ‘Who? Who spotted him?’

  ‘Two soldiers stopped him for a routine check, but they let him go. Idiots.’

  ‘What! Why did they let him go?’

  ‘I s’pose they didn’t know who he was. But when they got back to their base they saw his picture and ID’d him as Skye’s killer. The army’s out there now searching the area.’

  ‘That’s great, Luc,’ I interrupt. ‘But that was two weeks ago. He could be anywhere by now.’

  ‘I haven’t finished,’ he says. ‘Yesterday, a guard in the West Country thought he saw him.’ Luc takes the rucksack from my hand and swings it on to his back. ‘Come on let’s walk. I thought you’d be pleased.’

  We follow the stream.
r />   ‘I am pleased, but there’s no way they’ll find him. A guard thought he saw him? It might not even be him. The army isn’t really interested. We’d have a much better chance of finding him ourselves. We’re involved. They’re not.’ I hear the negative tone in my voice and see Luc’s disappointed face. ‘But it’s better than nothing,’ I add. ‘Maybe they will catch him.’

  We walk in silence for a bit. I don’t know what to say. I must have annoyed Luc with my unenthusiastic response. He walks beside me with an unreadable expression on his face and I trawl my brain cells for something positive to say, something that would sound genuine. I’m a bad liar. After about five minutes of unwanted silence, Luc stops and puts his hand on my bare arm.

  ‘Look, Riley, I completely understand you want to go and find Chambers yourself. Skye was your sister and she was my friend and it's completely crap he escaped justice, but we don’t know where he is and, even if we did, how would we get out of the Perimeter? We’ve got no transport. What would we do even if we did find him?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘He’s obviously dangerous and he’s not going to come back with us willingly. Not to mention what it’s actually like out there. I mean, Riley. It’s bad. There’s no law. It’s nothing like it is in here, in our cosy little Perimeter.’

  I listen to all his reasonable objections as we walk, and I scuff my flip flops along the broken path that runs by the side of the stream, knowing in my heart that everything he says makes sense. But I feel disappointed and flat. The finality of Skye’s death hits me again, like a full stop when there’s still so much more to say. So Luc’s next words come as a shock, interrupting my resignation:

  ‘Oh, d’you know what? Sod it. Let’s give it a go.’ He stops walking and looks at me.

  ‘What? Really? You mean ...’

  ‘Yeah, let’s try to find him, if that’s what you really want. We can only try can’t we? Then if we don’t find him, at least we can say …’

  But I don’t let him finish his sentence.

  ‘Do you really mean it? You’ll help me?’ Maybe he’s just humouring me. Does he think we can actually do this? But when I look into his eyes, I realise he’s one hundred percent serious.

  *

  How does it change? How does a person go from being someone, to being the one? All I know is that yesterday we were talking to each other like relatively normal human beings and today my mind keeps coming up empty and stupid as I try to think of interesting things to say. Every word that comes out of my mouth sounds inane. I couldn’t be more boring if I tried.

  Electricity emanates from him making my pulse sing and my head swim. Beneath his cotton shirt, the contours of his back curve like a smooth sculpture that I’m itching to touch. And his soft deep voice makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I have to consciously make myself listen to what he says because I’m so wrapped up in the essence of him that I can’t make sense of his words.

  Today, we’re supposed to be planning for our trip to hunt down Chambers, but I can’t concentrate. I’m sure Luc must be able to pick up on my feelings because to me they’re so obvious. At the very least he should notice my breathlessness, my wide eyes and the thump of my unsubtle heart. But he’s acting normally. It’s me who’s the idiot.

  It would be so easy to lean across and kiss him, but the thought that I might actually do this, terrifies me to death. This is Luc, my little sister’s crush. How did it get so out of control? I’m never the one who feels like this, it’s usually the other way around.

  My hands seem to be these useless lumps of flesh that I don’t know what to do with. Should I rest them on my lap or should I fold them? Aware of my body slouching, I straighten up and force my shoulders back, but this feels rigid and contrived so I try to relax.

  ‘Riley, are you listening? You look miles away. You’re twitching. Are you okay?’

  ‘Sorry, Luc.’ I stand up and try to breathe normally. ‘What did you say?’ As he talks, I look at his mouth and the way his blue eyes soften when he laughs. His arms are lean and muscled and I want to touch them, but I daren’t. I don’t know what’s happening to me.

  We spend the next five days in a frenzy of activity. It’s August, just over a month since we lost Skye and finally I can do something positive. I feel hopeful that we may find her killer. I try in vain to push distracting thoughts of Luc from my mind, but because I spend almost every waking minute with him, it’s pretty impossible.

  My luxury at the end of each day is to imagine the different scenarios of how we might finally get it together and, I’m ashamed to say, I spend as much time thinking of Luc as I do of planning for our trip to avenge Skye. Pa must know I spend all my time with Luc, but if he does know he doesn’t say anything.

  Ma is still half mad with grief and I’ve tuned her out of my day-to-day existence in order to cope with it. When I’m away from her, I don’t let myself think about her and what it means for my family’s long-term relationship. If I give it more than a few seconds thought, I start to panic and feel sick, so I focus on Luc and on our secret plan. We’ve arranged to leave the Perimeter on September 7th - exactly two months after Skye’s death.

  Chapter Six

  Eleanor

  *

  When we were sixteen and studying for our mock ‘A’ Levels, my school’s Sixth Form organised one of those American-style prom nights as an end of year bash. Abi and I loved to laugh at the cheesiness of it all, but at the same time we were excited by its possibilities.

  It was to be held in three weeks’ time, at the end of June. The theme was Sixties Psychedelia and we’d already notched up several hours experimenting with hair straighteners, false eyelashes and powdery pale pink lipstick.

  I didn’t have my eye on anybody special to go with, but Abi was besotted with a boy called Samuel who lived in the village. We’d first met him and his best friend, Johnny, in a local pub garden.

  Nobody made a big deal of the fact we were all under-age. We weren’t getting drunk, just hanging out with our friends, drinking half pints of lager and eating salt and vinegar crisps. Taking time out from tedious end-of-year exam revision, we’d taken over two long trestle tables and were planning our forthcoming prom night and our far-off summer holidays.

  On the next table sat two eye-catching blokes, one of whom I recognised as the blond tousled-haired, good-looking-but-knew-it, Samuel Bletchley. My parents vaguely knew his family, but I didn’t know him to talk to. His friend was less obviously handsome, but had a cool self-assurance, with broad shoulders and dark cropped hair.

  I kept catching his eye and looking away. They were smiling and laughing together and I knew they were discussing me and my friends. Abi sat opposite me and I told her about the nice view over to my right.

  ‘Don’t look over,’ I hissed. Of course she leaned right back in her seat and stared directly across at them. I shouldn’t have been surprised as this was typical Abi behaviour. I was mortified and pleased all at once.

  Samuel got up and walked over to Abi. He cast his eyes over her and asked if she would mind if he and his friend joined us. Abi smiled and gave him the cliché that it’s a free country. So they lifted up their table and joined it onto the end of ours, spilling their pints in the process.

  *

  ‘So, you have to say yes, when Johnny asks you to the prom,’ Abi said, tossing the magazine down onto my bedroom floor. She lay on her stomach on the bed, with her feet on my pillow.

  ‘Ask me to the prom? He’s not going to ask me to the prom.’

  ‘Course he is. Sam’s going to ask me, so his best mate will ask my best mate.’ She gave me one of her cyanide smiles.

  Samuel was a player and I guessed it would take more than sixteen-year-old Abigail Robbins to tame him, but she was determined to give it a go. Johnny came from the south coast but was living with Samuel while he studied at university in Bath. Their families went way back, apparently.

  ‘So don’t let me down, Ellie. It’ll be a laugh an
yway,’ Abi said.

  ‘I suppose so,’ I replied. ‘It’s not like there’s anyone else I really like at the moment.’

  ‘Cool. So that’s sorted then.’

  Things being what they were, two weeks before the event, Johnny and Samuel asked us if we would like to accompany them to the Prom. Abi was ecstatic. I’d never seen her so completely smitten and it was the first time she’d been flustered by anything or anyone.

  My parents were far from happy with Johnny’s interest in me. If I’m truthful, neither was I. He was five years older than me and I thought he would expect more than I wanted to give. He was very rich, very intelligent and had just finished his third year at Uni, studying Chemical Engineering. He was handsome, but not in a heart-stopping way, and he seemed nice, but something harder glinted behind his smile.

  The only reason my parents didn’t forbid me from seeing him, was because he came round to see them, to charm them and reassure them I would be safe in his company. Also, my wise mother knew that if she imposed a ban, it would only make him more attractive to me.

  Samuel worked for his father, who owned Bletchley’s, a long-established Prestige Car Showroom on the A38. Consequently, Abi and Samuel arrived at the Prom in style, with Samuel behind the wheel of a jaw-droppingly cool Maybach Exelero. Johnny’s ride was far from shabby. He called round to my house in his own Aston Martin - a silver V8 Vantage. Despite my indifference to cars in general, I couldn’t help but be seduced by this low-slung beauty.

  The evening exuded glamour and sophistication. We’d persuaded the teacher in charge that holding it in the school sports hall would be just too sad, and so they’d hired out a local nightclub for the event.

  The four of us sat upstairs on the balcony above the heaving dance floor. Abi and I wore psychedelic mini dresses and zip up boots. And we had poker-straight sixties-style hair. We knew we looked good, but that still didn’t help me to relax, as most of the time I felt completely out of my depth conversation-wise.