Mina sat under the porch, watching the rain pour down in great sheets that spat up sporadically off the edge of the decking onto her cold feet. Her mind ran dully with exhaustion. It was hard to know what was going on in her own head. Memories of yesterday’s trip to the village broke through the haze intermittently. Her muscles ached and with the lack of food and sleep in twenty-eight hours she had to regularly stretch and move to stop her calves from cramping up. The sound of heavy raindrops bouncing off the roof above her was suddenly broken by a wild scream. It took Mina a few seconds to realise that it wasn’t an echo in her mind and got up quickly, but shakily from her seat.
She moved quickly through the kitchen picking up a glass of water as she went. As she walked into the living room, she flinched. She still wasn’t used to the site of her friend in such a mess. Grace lay on a wide and deep sofa, her head at the far end from the door lifted with a few pillows. She was pushing herself up on her elbows and a grimace clung unwaveringly to her face. Mina spotted the problem instantly as she looked back and by placing a hand under Grace’s calf and the other under her foot, she smoothly and swiftly lowered it onto a more stable part of the arm rest. Grace exhaled deeply and let herself back down against the pillows. She gasped as if she had just stopped running before whispering gratitude while taking the proffered glass of water roughly from Mina’s hands.
While Grace sipped awkwardly from the glass with her chin against her chest, Mina checked her friend’s leg. It was currently tied tightly by bandage in between two pieces of wood that extended past the end of Grace’s foot. It was not perfect, it allowed a little bit of movement – mainly in the limp foot – so it hurt to move it. Mina, restacked the pillows and cushions that lay underneath the angle between Grace’s hip and where the foot was placed on the armrest. She still hadn’t managed to arrange them in a way that would stop Grace’s leg from shifting little by little towards the end of the arm and after a few hours cause her to strain and try to move it to a more stable place, inevitably requiring Mina’s help to do so.
So far, Mina’s only continual level of care was to dose Grace up with as many painkillers and sleeping tablets of various types that she felt would be reasonable enough to not destroy her liver. Every time Grace was woken – usually because of her leg shifting uncomfortably – Mina would give her something, which worked out to around every two hours. She switched between two sets of three different types which seemed in her head, to complement each other suitably. She had tried a few times to see where the problem was and work out if she could do a better job of helping it heal. It was so swollen around the area and black and thick from bruising, she couldn’t tell for sure. Even when she had put ice on the wound, the skin never loosened enough to give an indication of how bad it was on the inside.
Mina shivered, she was so exhausted that she felt a wave of cold run through her. She lay down with her arm under a left-over pillow which she placed her head on. She stared at Grace adjusting her arms and torso uncomfortably as the tablets started to dissolve in her stomach. Another shiver came over just the moment before sleep caught her.
The weather front slowly pushed over their location, bringing with it unceasing torrential rain and thick clouds that barely let the day appear. The couple were both disappointed that Leighton could not use his freshly calibrated gun to catch some worthwhile food.
Shannon gently sloshed the small remains of water in the bottle they had through the air. “Looks like we will need to leave the tent at some point.” She took half a sip and passed the rest to Leighton.
He made a face as he drank the last of it. “Backwashed and all. I suppose complaining is not required here. Well neither you nor Zeke are going out, right?”
“No way,” Shannon replied. “You know rain will mess up my hair, it has shrunk enough as it is. Better sooner than later for you though, right?” She jabbed Leighton's ribs with her fingers. Leighton returned the gesture, but Shannon quickly defended herself. “No fighting, now. You'll hit Zeke.”
Leighton looked down to see Zeke sat on his bum, intently picking at his toes and sporadically making a lunge to try and see what they tasted like. “Alright then, I'll play nice. You look after him.”
“What else am I going to do? Can't exactly go to the shops or visit a cafe,” Shannon said.
“What I wouldn’t give for a coffee.” Leighton sighed loudly as he rolled back the tent flap that opened into the middle of the tent and tied them back. It was raining hard enough that droplets were bouncing and dispersing off the leaves and roof of the tent. Most of their camp site was surrounded by broad-leaved deciduous trees that stuck out in a clearing of tall evergreens foresting most of the hill that they were temporarily calling home. The presence of these trees to shelter their tent made sense after seeing how thick with pine needles the rest of the forest floor was.
“This is going to suck. Can't I just leave the bottle outside?” Leighton asked, wiping his wet hand down on the coat lying beside him.
“Oh, come on, it's not that far! Zeke is thirsty.” Shannon smiled to herself.
“He still breastfeeds! You can't use that on me.” Leighton sighed. “I could do with the exercise,” he said in an unenthused, monotone voice.
Mina startled as she woke up. Grace was somehow sat up on the sofa opposite, calling her name over and over. “Grace, what are you doing?” she asked.
“Oh my, I am so glad you are awake. You had me scared,” Grace replied.
Mina tried to expel her panic with a long-accentuated breath. “Are you OK? How did you get upright? Do you need anything? How long have I been asleep?” Mina saw that the pillows that once supported Grace’s leg were now strewn across the room in her direction. She must have slept deeply for once to have not been roused. Grace perched on the edge of the sofa, with locked arms taking most of her weight as if she had started to push herself up and then froze at that point.
Grace replied, “It took me around an hour to get from lying to seated, you were very deeply asleep. I tried throwing all the pillows at you, but to no avail. What I need is a hug, painkillers and to use your bathroom. Perhaps best in reverse order. I feel vibrant right now, at least from the knees up. I think I am all slept-out.”
Mina perched herself on Grace’s sofa and put her arm around her and Grace reciprocated firmly. “Ok,” Mina started, “Let us get you to the bathroom. Wait here just a moment.”
Mina wrestled an office chair from the upstairs study down the narrow staircase of the house. Grace seemed to be full of a strength that Mina wasn’t expecting and so managed to move herself from the sofa to the wheeled chair with ease. It took a few minutes to get Grace through the kitchen to the downstairs bathroom on the other side. While Grace rolled herself slowly forward with her good leg, Mina held the bad leg aloft with one hand grasped firmly underneath the wooden splint and the other left free to open doors and move objects out of their way. Mina could see the pain on Grace’s face as they went, but she didn’t let out any noise to match. She was a hardy woman in the moment. Mina supposed you didn’t see how strong someone is until they absolutely needed to be.
Once positioned onto the heavy porcelain, Mina placed her bad leg onto the office chair and left with the door slightly ajar. “Just shout if you need help. I may as well put on some food for us. Do you feel up for eating?”
“I know I should,” Grace replied. “Not sure if I can, though. I feel very sick.”
Mina started putting together something simple and varied, hoping to accommodate whatever taste her friend would have. Bread with optional jam, some potatoes onto boil and a mixed green salad from the basement store. She placed the bread and the salad on the table along with some salad dressings. She could have the potatoes if and when she felt up for it. The toilet flushed and Mina trotted to the door. Tapping the door lightly she called through, “Are you ready, honey?”
The reply came and Mina worked with Grace to return her to the office chair. The tight space made it difficult, but Grace
looked fresher and more limber than she had before. “Those painkillers do a number on you, right?” Grace said.
Mina laughed as she released the weight of her friend back to the chair. “So are you ready for breakfast. Or whatever meal we are supposed to eat now. I have no idea what the time is.”
“Most definitely,” replied Grace.
Chapter 27
By Leighton’s return, he was soaked through. The waterproof overcoat only held back so much and the water had seeped through to his t-shirt in places. “I'm not going out again. Not a chance.” He took his shoes off as he came through the front flap of the tent, leaving them neatly by the entrance. The rain jacket, jeans and the t-shirt were all laid out over the bags, spread as much as possible to dry.
Shannon watched and laughed to herself. “Look, Zeke, your daddy is grumpy. Watch out!” She let the compartment flaps off their ties and they closed together loosely.
“Oi! Not fair at all,” Leighton said. He pulled his socks off and threw them into the other compartment and pushing the flaps aside he pulled himself onto Shannon, nestling his wet hair into her neck and face. Shannon tried to fight him off and fell back away onto the sleeping bag.
“No touching. Prison rules apply here,” she called out, trying not to laugh and feebly attempting to push him back.
Zeke rolled backwards too in replication of his mum and laughed. “Don't side with him, I'm the one that tends to you twenty-four hours a day, all he does is carry you places,” Shannon joked.
Leighton finally resided and pulled himself onto his knees, still pinning Shannon's legs together. “Just think how I feel. I had to spend twenty minutes in this tropical storm.” Zeke crawled forward and pulled himself onto Shannon's chest. “Look at his smile. At least he finds me funny.”
“Someone has to,” Shannon said. Zeke made a timely short laugh and Leighton looked at him sceptically.
“You're training him to laugh at me, right?”
“Maybe,” Shannon said playfully.
“I'm going to get those cooking pots out and leave them to collect rainwater. I abstain from any more outings until this rain subsides. At least for as long as I can.”
Grace sat at the kitchen table with her leg up on the opposite chair. Mina sat to one side, splitting concerned looks between Grace and her friend’s plate. It wasn’t emptying as quickly as Mina had hoped.
“Okay, Mina. Do you know what actually happened, then?” Grace asked.
Mina chewed her mouthful, shaking her head. “No, not really. There isn’t any communication. The phone line and all the electricity is currently out. I wouldn’t have picked up much anyway given that I don’t own a TV nor anything that can connect to the internet, even if we did have any of that. The last thing I heard was on the radio before communications cut out. They mentioned a dirty bomb somewhere, perhaps Russia. There was an emergency conference of some kind with the Prime Minister, it sounded like it was one of ours, traced right back to the British.”
Grace interrupted, “I heard that part too. That was the day before the village-, the village became the way it is now. Do you know any more now?”
“Well, I suppose. If your village got hit the day after that, you may know more than me. I had a conversation with Drew later in the day.”
“Your Drew, why?” Grace asked.
“He wanted to express his love and sorrows to me,” Mina said. “That wasn’t really the crux of the call. He kept blabbering on about these planes he could see and the city burning to the south of him. At first, I thought he was high, I was about to hang up and call his doctor to go check on him. At one point, it sounded like he was about to commit suicide.”
“Ouch, that’s bad,” Grace interrupted.
Mina continued on in rhythm, “It sounded like it, but kept on adamantly about these planes coming in, he even made me go look outside. My house faces west so I just saw the overcast sky.” Mina puffed her cheeks out. “When I got back, the line was dead. It wouldn’t even get a dial tone. After that I passed out with shock. In my mind, then, he died, either by his own hand or his apparitions were real.” She paused for a moment. “I then just tried to carry on like normal as much as possible. Ignore the thoughts. I guess it took a little while to realise how disconnected I was. I just couldn’t build myself up to go into town, scared of what I might find. Though I am glad I eventually did, to find you.”
“Aw, I literally owe you my life, you are a legend!” Grace said.
Mina averted her eyes coyly. “I wish I could have made it down sooner, how long had you been there like that?”
“I can’t say for sure,” Grace started. “It was very hazy. It happened at night, it must have been near the morning as I had gotten up for a glass of water. I think I remember seeing two more nights after I was trapped, but I was in and out of consciousness for most of the time.”
“After all the phone lines went out, did you have a day before the attack on the village?” Mina asked.
“Yes, there was one I think. I shut the shop mid-morning because the delivery never happened and no-one had internet or phone lines. There was a point where a load of us met on the green, probably just before lunch when everyone had gone to try to work out if it was just them affected and we talked about how we could get help. While we were there a few people had heard on the news that something had happened in London and the south-east. They spoke of an attack on British soil, but we had no evidence to support what we had heard until that night when we heard the planes coming nearby and then later some people from the south came through in their cars. Maybe about twenty cars or so in all. One stopped and spoke with Jaq who had walked outside to greet the commotion, saying that everyone should leave and head north as quickly as possible.” Mina nodded her head, intent on every word.
Grace continued, “Most of the people laughed it off as if a prank the next day. I didn’t open the shop and a lot of us went to the pub in the day and joked about putting up the black-out curtains. It was early enough when I got back home, but I was drunk and so ate some toast and took myself to bed.”
“-And that was the night you got up for water?” Mina asked.
“Yes. As I walked back through with the water, the floor just rocked violently with enough noise to deafen me. I fell and shortly after saw the back of my house just cave in behind me and a piece of debris knocked me out.” Mina took a sharp breath in as if feeling every word. “I awoke as you found me, but I couldn’t get out. I passed out regularly, but every time I would wake up again, I would still be trapped.”
“I tried to come down the day before I did, I could have found you sooner.” Mina screwed her eyes up and then breathed out heavily. “If only I had not been such a loser about it.”
Grace placed a hand on Mina’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about the ‘when’, the fact is you got me out of there.”
Mina looked up. “Fine. You need to finish your breakfast then. For me.”
Grace agreed and picked up the piece of bread and took a bite. Mina sighed with frustration, though couldn’t work out what difference it would have made by a day. She was more worried about what would have happened if she had stalled for another day after. She shook off the thought and took her plate into the kitchen.
“I get the impression that we are probably not even meant to be alive. We are certainly not meant to know anything.”
“That’s dark. We are alive. What are we going to do? Where do you think we can go?”
Mina thought deeply for a moment, giving Grace a chance to take another bite of food. “I need to get to Leeds. Somehow. I need to find out what has happened to Rebecca.” Grace’s face dropped and she shied her head away from meeting Mina’s eyes. “It would be nice if you would come. But first, you need to heal. We won’t get anywhere with you scooting around on an office chair.”
“Oh, Mina. You need to go.”
“I have not seen her in over seven months already, Grace. I see you every day and you have carried me through some to
ugh times. I can see you through yours. I want to see you well. Rebecca is with family who love her almost as much as I do. She will be safe. If I leave you, you won’t have anyone. I am dragging you across the country for as long as I can. I don’t want to hear any more of it until you can walk straight.”
“Then let me promise to heal as quickly as I can, and cover my pain as well as I can to get on the road sooner,” Grace said.
Mina scowled at her. “I will allow that, but only because if you can cover it, it can’t hurt that much. I still get to control your pain killers. Deal?”
“You could be very cruel, but I trust you.”
Chapter 28
Shannon and Leighton kept themselves inside the tent, laid out on the bed. Zeke seemed to love having both his parents giving him attention and he crawled around and babbled to himself, filling the inside of the tent with joy. Leighton lay him on his own chest, faces together and blew exciting new sounds to his son. Zeke tried to replicate the mouthing but ended up just repeating the same syllable with more and more intensity each time.
As they subsided – laughing – Leighton pulled Zeke in close for a hug and rolled over to plant the young boy back onto the sleeping bag in between them. Shannon spoke, “Just my two favourite men, lazing about in bed. When I kept asking you to take days off from everything, I had this in mind. Well, not exactly this of course, but this feeling. In the bed, this way. You get it?”
“Yea, I definitely get it. I suppose our current situation brings us perspective. Shows us what is really important,” Leighton replied.
Ousted: A thrilling debut novel of survival and humanity Page 14