He was lucky that the street address read 72, Main Road, a continuation of the road he was already travelling. He slowed gradually, peering over fences and around trees to catch sight of any numbers on the doors he passed. Eventually the number came into sight. white paint plastered roughly onto the green bin outside. A short and mostly overgrown path led up to a burnt orange coloured door, chipped of paint in several places.
Tariq pushed his bike over to the pavement and had to heave slightly to pull it up with him. His knock at the door immediately caused a stirring within and he could hear the sliding of curtains on rails above him before it finally opened. Tariq almost sagged with relief to see AH stood there, whose face lit up with a broad and welcoming smile.
“Well, I guess seeing as though privacy has now been granted to us in an excessive amount, I may as well introduce us properly. I am Anton and this is my girlfriend Jennifer’s house.”
“Nice to meet you, Anton. You know I’m Tariq.” He reached out his hand and Anton took it. Tariq looked away for a moment. “Did-,” he stuttered, coughing. “Is Jennifer here?”
Anton gave him a look as though he understood the tentativeness with which he had asked the question, then smiled. “Yes, she is upstairs. She isn’t ready to meet anyone new yet. Being here has- let’s say it has been hard on us all.”
“Agreed, Anton. There will be no pressure from me, if she needs time,” Tariq said timidly. “What do you have left by way of amenities? Any power, water?”
“We have pretty much nothing except for cold running water. The electricity ran until yesterday morning, but unfortunately that has gone. If you want a wash and a drink, you can use the downstairs bathroom to freshen up. I will get you a glass of water. You look beaten up, mate.”
“I feel it. I haven’t been so well since I left the city.” Tariq hacked a thick mucus filled cough into his hand and grimaced as he swallowed its output out of politeness.
“As bad as you look, I am happy to see you. We honestly didn’t think you would join us. I thought you would be too cynical to take heed and actually choose as difficult a path as you did. Well done, Tariq.” Tariq could feel his legs quivering and nearly lost his balance. “Take a seat, dude. One water coming up.”
Tariq followed Anton’s proffered direction into the sitting room, dropping his bag in the hall as he went, and quickly sunk into the deep leather sofa. The room spun in his vision in a way reminding him of the extreme drunkenness during his first year in London. His stomach raged in a similarly reminiscent way. Anton returned with a glass of water and Tariq reached out a shaking hand to collect it. He sipped the water slowly, Anton standing over him with a concerned look contorting his face.
“So, tell me,” Anton started with an almost childlike excitement touching his voice. “What did you see? Did you see the bomb?” It was obvious which bomb he meant.
It took Tariq a moment to collect together the separating scraps of his memory. “I saw the bomb. I was close enough that I am sure I would have been blinded if I had not been facing the other way when it went off. How did you know that had happened?”
Anton took a seat opposite. “We saw. The whole country could have seen that flash and with that looming cloud it was immediately distinguishable to anyone who has ever watched a disaster movie,” Anton said, grinning.
Tariq felt his stomach clench hard and he fought back the urge to vomit. He went to ask where that bathroom was, but as he opened his mouth, sick the colour of pond water ejected itself onto the wooden floor. Anton darted up. “Let’s get you to a bathroom, come on,” Anton said. He put his arms under Tariq’s shoulders and lifted him easily to his feet.
The perfume smell in the washroom was overpowering and even before Anton could let Tariq drop to his knees in front of the bowl, he vomited again, this time carefully enough to avoid getting any more on the floor.
Tariq was slowly sliding his back down the sofa. He had become more stable over the last few hours, but it only lasted for as long as his stillness did. From upstairs he could hear conversation that rose and fell in volume. After some time of it, the rhythmical thump of feet descending stairs reached his ears.
Anton sat on the opposite sofa again, purposefully close to the armrest furthest from Tariq. He looked concernedly at him, though Tariq only moved his eyes to meet his glance. “Tariq, how are you doing?”
Tariq grunted and managed a weak thumbs-up. “It will pass. This is just the worst bit.”
“I hope that is the case,” Anton replied. “Relax there, I’ve put some water for you on the side table.”
“How is the town- the people in it, I mean?” Tariq murmured.
“Ah, yes. I should probably fill you in. Well, most people that live here commute into London, or up to Cambridge, so probably about half the town was out when it hit yesterday. So far, the only person to enter the town is you, and by what Jennifer was telling me, I think it has given people some hope that you are here. -But anyway, before you arrived there was a mass exodus, other than the one at eight A.M. of course. Yesterday, I suppose. I think half to two-thirds of those remaining filled their cars and left. The garage down the road had prices as high as two pounds a litre. Talk about capitalising on fear, though I have no idea what he thought that money would achieve in the long run. We heard more planes during the night and I think it is a matter of time until this town is hit.
“I am digressing. The people left throughout the course of the day, a surge at about twelve. By my calculations, that left most people with an hour of crying, an hour of panic, and an hour to pack all the bags they had and load the cars. Most of the people drove north, some east and a handful of men that drove south-west towards the smoke. They must have had wives in the city, or else had no will to survive any longer here, because anyone who has not been living in a cave – which might have been the case for those few – knows that radiation can kill in horrific ways. I reckon the sensible ones are those heading north.” Anton nodded his head fervently as he spoke. “I think if you could get as far as Sheffield, you might just be out of range of anything coming in the future.
“Ah, we shall see, won’t we?” Anton said to himself. “We are still looking to move north. We are holding out for one more night. I hope only one more.” Anton glanced at the stairs through the open living room door frame and lowered his voice. “Jennifer still hasn’t gathered herself enough to achieve anything.” He took another glance. “Her parents both worked near Canary Wharf. I can’t give her any hope. I saw the mushroom cloud. I’ve read up on Hiroshima. I just need to give her a bit of time before I clamp down on what we need to do.”
Tariq sat almost motionless, nodding slowly and as infrequently as possible while Anton rambled on.
“You asked about the people here to start with. I would say there is about ten percent of our population remaining. It is mostly families with young children or individuals that work from home most days. From when I took a walk through, I spoke to about five people and everyone is fear stricken. There is a lot of praying and crying that can be heard if you step outside at night. I am just working on Jennifer’s wellbeing so we can follow up on our plan. I am trying to remain as pragmatic as possible so we can both be safe.”
Jennifer called from upstairs and Anton slowly got up to leave. “Rest well, my friend and let us see what tomorrow brings us.”
All Tariq’s weak voice could do was murmur appreciatively. As Anton left, Tariq pulled his legs onto the sofa and closed his eyes.
Chapter 20 - Day 2
Mina still felt sluggish as she dragged her feet down the stairs and into the kitchen. She flicked the kettle on as she pulled down a mug from the cupboard just above and filled it with instant coffee and milk. She stood there, leaning against the counter and barely able to focus on the world around her.
After a few minutes, she looked at the kettle which had clicked itself off while she wasn’t paying attention. She poured the water into the mug and started to stir, but she noticed that it
wasn’t mixing well and looked pale. It was then that she realised that the water was not steaming. It hadn’t boiled. She clicked the kettle on again and realised this time that the light didn’t switch on. She checked the plug, which looked fine, and then walked over to try the light switch. She rocked it back and forth to no effect. She thought to herself that it must be a fuse and so went over to the basement door.
Opening the door and instinctively pulling the light cord, reminded her again that the electricity was off and she would need something to see down there. The first thing in the kitchen she could find to use was a lighter and a scented candle, so she made do with carrying it carefully to the far corner of the basement where the fuse box was mounted on the wall. None of the tiny levers were in the down position and so nothing had blown in the night. She turned them all off and then on again expecting the basement light to fire up when she did so. Nothing happened. She went back upstairs to check the kitchen light and the kettle, but neither worked so she blew the candle out and tried the gas hobs on her oven. Luckily, the match lit it on her first attempt and she was relieved to find at least one form of power remaining. She tipped the remnants of water from the kettle into the pot and sat down at one of her kitchen chairs while she waited for it to boil.
Once Mina had a hot coffee in her hands she looked over at the radio. It was potentially her only connection with the world from here and the last two days had been such a write-off that the thought of turning it on had never crossed her mind. She reached for the volume switch to turn it on and a pang of anxiety washed over her. She didn’t know if she was yet ready to hear about what – if anything – had happened. She closed her eyes and took a breath before rotating the dial clockwise.
She was met with nothing. She reminded herself about the electricity again and fished through one of the kitchen drawers for a fresh pack of batteries. Once two of them were loaded into the back of the radio, she took it and sat outside on the porch, extending the aerial as far as it would go and placing it on the edge of the table. She needed to gear herself up again so rolled and took the first drag of a cigarette before turning the volume dial on again.
She listened to the expected static for a few moments, taking another drag of her cigarette and sip of her coffee. Slowly and methodically she went through the frequency range of the FM radio. She rolled the scanner back and forth a couple of times when a deeper static roared out, thinking she might be in range. It was only some interference. She went through the range again and then again in medium wave and found nothing. Mina noticed that she was relieved and resided to finishing her routine as if nothing else was happening in the world. The same way she did every other morning.
Tariq had had a broken night of sleep, but at a total of twelve hours of it, he had done the best he could. The time he had slept had been full of stress dreams leaving him feeling emotionally drained. The view of the bomb replayed many times, some with him looking out from its base and almost every waking was induced by the wash of heat from the blast. His stomach was already feeling more stable than it had been over the last twenty-four hours. A thought that he was over the worst of whatever he was suffering from – he assumed it was exhaustion – came to him and he clung to it. The remnant of the illness was a headache, which he mentally accounted for as dehydration from throwing up for the better part of the previous day’s afternoon and evening. He was helped with that quickly as Anton came to deliver a caffeinated sports drink and pain killers. He told Tariq that he looked a little bit less shit, before he carried a tray of supplies out the room and up the stairs.
Tariq finally felt clear enough to take stock of the room he was in. The two deep leather sofas lined up to a television in the corner by the window. A blocked-up fireplace to the right still held a mantle displaying a few photographs and cheap statuettes, but very little else decorated the room. The pastel green had a recollection of a hospital hallway and added to the sparse and clinical set up of the room. Anton returned to find Tariq pressing the sides of his head with his palms. Tariq quickly set his hands down and turned to face him. Anton seemed to be running on habit as he sat down, picking the remote from the groove in the seat most central to the television screen and aiming it futilely at the screen. At the lack of response from the machine, he threw the remote hard, leaving the screen wobbling from the hit. Tariq watched him silently from the corner of his eye while he waited for his friend to cool down from his moment of rage.
Tariq tried to break the coldness emanating from the man opposite him. “So, what does 6015 stand for, Anton?” he asked.
“It means nothing. It’s important for it to mean nothing. The things I talk about on my blog are dangerous to the ‘system’ and if the men of the system found out who I was then I would be silenced. I am sure of it.” Anton replied.
“What about the ‘A.H.’ then, not your initials?”
“Not mine. I haven’t been exactly honest about my name, even now. The initials are based on Anton Haus, a fleet admiral for the Austro-Hungarian empire during World War One. He was a hero and a shrewd strategist. Above all that, though, I kind of liked the name Anton and picked him as my handle pretty much arbitrarily.”
Tariq coughed into his hand and an intense feeling of compression in his skull occurred concurrently, causing him to wince. “What’s your real name then?” he asked.
“Now is not the right time for that. When you are either taking your last breath – which I hope isn’t coming too soon – or when you fully have my trust – which isn’t yet – I will tell you.” Tariq involuntarily drew his eyebrows at Anton and released the look as soon as he noticed himself do it. Tariq heard gentle footsteps down the stairs and Anton responded visibly. “Right, me and Jennifer need to see someone down the street, so we will be back later. Continue to rest and you’ll soon be at your best.” Tariq thought he saw an anguished look on Anton’s face, but couldn’t be sure. He had resumed his horizontal position on the couch by the time the front door closed and slept again soon after.
The water eventually came somewhere near boiling, still only a few bubbles at the bottom of the pan and fewer still that took the journey to the surface. Shannon bounced Zeke on her lap while she watched the calm water hovering in a pan held by Leighton over a small fire.
“I don’t think that it’s going to get any hotter. It’s been like this for ages. I reckon we just stick the tea bags in it now. It’ll brew,” Leighton said after a while.
“You are just overthinking tea. Just stick it in a cup,” Shannon urged.
“You’re forgetting that we only have 10 teabags, we have to enjoy them before they run out. There will be nothing worse after all this effort than to have a crap tea.”
“-But at your rate we must add more cold water before that all evaporates. Long before it actually boils.”
“All right, all right. Let’s do it!” Leighton lift a hand up in concession. He threw in two teabags and watched while the sinuous dark tendrils reached out and faded into the darkening colour of the water. Shannon also watched, mesmerised at something so simple as tea brewing.
Leighton poured it out into a flask that Shannon held out. They sat facing each other, Shannon sitting with Zeke perched on one of her legs and Leighton holding the flask in front of his crossed legs. The tea tasted good to Shannon as she drunk it while Leighton still found it burning hot on his tongue. The wind picked up and blew the fire’s flames past Shannon’s arm that lay closest to the fire and furthest from Zeke. Leighton calmly watched it, feeling the coolness of the sheltered air around him.
They all felt the calmness of it all. The stresses of their old life seemed to lift from both of their shoulders as they passed the tea back and forth. A relaxing feeling washed over them. For now, it was just one fight that lay out in front of them. None of the possibilities for the future and none of the anxieties seemed to exist in that moment. Their foresight now existed at the point their bag of supplies would run out. Complex lives lived plugged into computers, following t
he stresses of eight billion lives through world-wide news and world-wide wars were all resolved into a single problem. Their lives had gone from being a game of almost endless permutations to that of betting on a flip of a coin. Live or die.
Chapter 21
The house still sounded empty when Tariq awoke. The pains in his body had shifted further from his stomach and further into his head. He felt stronger, but tremendously thirsty and was able to pick himself up in search of a drink. The kitchen was small and battered with wear on the cheap counters and floor. Tariq ran the tap to find that the last amenity had failed, but the fridge still hosted bottled water, cool from its containment, but not as cold as it should have been on his parched throat. He found a local newspaper on one side and he flicked though it quickly, finding no headlines that warranted reading further and as he flipped it shut, he realised that it was written just over a week ago. He thought to himself that this was probably now an archaic publication. The last run of a print that’s name would be forever forgotten.
The sound of rattling keys caught Tariq’s attention and he looked up from his seat at the kitchen table, through the hallway to the front door. The orange of the door seemed darker, compared to the yellow light that came through the small rectangle of frosted glass. It opened to a group of unfamiliar faces and bodies, wrapped up with bandanas, hoods and gloves covering most of the bare skin with the eyes of some covered by workman’s goggles. Tariq’s heart dropped as he raised his hands slowly from the table. He couldn’t make out Anton’s body in the crowd of people around the door.
Ousted: A thrilling debut novel of survival and humanity Page 11