“I suppose that for now, the degrees are useless, the savings are probably lost. You're unemployed. Again!” Shannon taunted. “Technically I am still on maternity leave. You've not been to work in four- is it five days now? Anyway, you would have been fired by now, gross misconduct. That makes me the main breadwinner, right?”
“No, I'm in charge. I convinced you to pack these bags, I picked the campsite and I carry the baby!”
Shannon looked at him incredulously. “You carried him for a day or so. Try nine months, you cheeky bastard.” Leighton nodded down at Zeke. “No judging, he doesn't understand. Do you Zeke?”
“Oaba,” replied Zeke.
Shannon and Leighton looked at each other for a moment.
“No,” Shannon said. “I am marking down a coincidence, not a reply.” Zeke continued to babble to himself. His parents listened and watched.
Tariq had pulled up the corrugated metal shutters to two of the three windows in the shop part of the garage. It would have let in much more light if it hadn’t been for the thick dark clouds that filled the entire sky. He had wanted light so he could go through the tools that the garage had and replace his now useless bike-tool. He had found a key to the cabinet they were in on the bunch of keys that he had found on his first day at the garage and picked through all of them. The fake Swiss Army knives looked sturdy enough for a while and he took two with slightly different arrays of parts attached. He then went through the more standard tools and decided that a stubby screwdriver with a variety of heads in the handle could also come in useful at some point.
Tariq stared out through the window. Rain poured down in thick sheets of water, distorting the dark grey image of outside. He resided that today was not going to be the day to start enacting his plan. He figured he wouldn’t be trapped this way for too long, but his plan would be far too damaged by sleeping in sodden clothes for the first night. If he was to walk out west and find some survivors he would need to travel as fast and as light as he could and being bogged down in waterproofs or heavy, wet clothes simply wouldn’t do. If he had to deal with a downpour later, he would rather do it many miles down the road and would likely take shelter in somewhere like this again then too. Presently, he had a choice. he seemed safe enough right now and the day stuck inside and a day behind his schedule was payment enough to avoid a cold night with wet skin and no shelter should it come to that. The breather had at least offered him a chance to make a thorough plan, an opportunity which may not have been taken if the conditions had been favourable to leave that morning. Tariq thought to himself that it was perhaps an omen that he should give suitable attention to something that he expected to get him across the country.
Leant back against a freezer full of melted ice cream, Tariq allowed the sight of the grey, rain-soaked landscape to fill his vision. He had prepared his bag already and now all he had to do was wait. Wait for the rain to pass and the summer skies to return light and heat to his onward journey towards the sunset. His first thought about food had been to pack his bag full of chocolate. It seemed like the best ratio of calories to space. After a few moments of joy, the idea of a hot body and hot sun on the bag would very quickly turn the entire contents into plastic wrapped fondue. He had cursed himself shortly after that when he stumbled across an aisle of nuts and dried fruit and decided that it would be equally good on the calories while also providing a more sustainable diet, devoid of regular sugar crashes. He tried to fit in enough of a mix that he wouldn’t get too bored, but every time he put in some lighter dried mango slices, the urge for longevity of his food stores overtook him and in replacement went in another bag of peanuts. His small cycling bag held a hefty weight. At one point, he considered allowing a little air out of each packet to gain more space, but after lifting the bag with one arm he realised that he would be best off managing on what he already had. He was still going to have to carry a milk bottle of water in each of his hands too.
It was still raining and the skies were darkened enough to feel like dusk, though it was likely too early. Tariq decided he was best off with as long a rest as he could manage. Hoping for a dreamless sleep, he sluggishly dragged himself up and into the encapsulating darkness of the back room.
With the rain relentlessly crashing down on the tent roof, Zeke received the most amount of attention as he had at any point since they had left home. He clearly enjoyed it and interacted with beaming smiles and squeals of joy at his dad's tickling hands.
Shannon thoroughly enjoyed seeing her two boys reconnect. The amount of time that Leighton worked to support them both into the future meant that she had her worries as to how much Zeke would understand his father. She valued his days off.
“This is nice,” She said almost dreamily. “-But you struggle to stay still. You enjoy it though, I can tell. When there are no distractions, mobile phones or laptops, you and him are so cute together. I didn't quite think it would take for this-”, she gestured her arm around the tent, “-for you to just sit down and spend a day with us playing.”
“I know. I am seeing what I was missing out on. I guess I still get caught up in my own world sometimes.”
“If things ever return to normal, we are going to have this at least once a week. No excuses!”
“Deal,” Leighton agreed. He reached his hand out and Shannon shook it, “I am starting to get the feeling that normal, like we knew it, may never come around again.”
“Let's call it 'stable' then. Is that okay?”
“Yes, stable is more suitable. I love you both, you know that,” Leighton said.
“We know. You know, Zeke?”
Zeke didn't respond, being as he was too fascinated by his own feet.
Chapter 29 - Day 6
Wet leaves glistened and continued to drop rain to the ground. The skies were clearing, with the thick clouds just draping their foreboding shadow over the horizon. At least for now it had passed and the trees could continue to feast on the leftovers seeping deep into the ground.
To Leighton's bare feet, the ground was cold, but the new sun hit his chest with warmth, making up for its time spent hidden. After leaving Shannon and Zeke with the necessary containers of water, he walked out, axe and air rifle only. He headed deeper into the woods parallel to the main road some miles over to try and test his newly adjusted weapon. He crept with soft feet, the rifle pulled in close to his shoulder so he could quickly aim and shoot at anything he saw that could constitute being a meal for his family.
He saw a grey squirrel at the base of a tree and pulled the sight to his eye, but even with only minimal magnification, the narrowed line of sight removed the creature from his vision. When he lifted the sight from his eye, the squirrel had already scarpered high into the branches above. He looked around the canopy, but the relative weight of the gun aimed at the sky meant he gave up quickly.
Continuing onwards, he saw another. This time he stopped dead in his tracks a little further away, at the edge of his perceived range. Standing, he tracked the crosshair from the ground to the creature, which had started moving in its unpredictable, bounding way. Leighton managed to track it through the sight, moving diagonally away from him. It bounced in and out of the crosshairs. Leighton pulled the trigger. The squirrel continued its run with a little more pace, the hit of the pellet into the ground was indeterminable. He sighed, not even knowing if he was close or not.
He carried on regardless, firing the odd shot at a bird or squirrel, occasionally stopping to check the calibration against a tree. It was always true when he checked, but any pellet fired towards a living creature was going massively wide or high. He doubted himself and was starting to think that he didn't want to be able to hit anything, perhaps it was his own mind pulling his hand away on each shot.
He tried to conjure a killer instinct, picturing himself carrying the spoils of meat back to Shannon and the passion it would re-instil in his wife. He lined up a target and imagined that bird's fall to the ground after his pellet went through its head. He convin
ced himself it wasn’t his imagination. He was the bird and the pellet, the gun and his hand, but before he could take the shot the bird leapt into flight. He had wasted too much time.
The sound of his stomach and a waiver of his hands from hunger caused him to return to the tent. A disenchanted conversation with Shannon ensued and after a morning of walking stealthily through the woods, his parched throat's requirement for hydration quickly broke it.
The afternoon, after having ditched the optic sight for the iron sights, proved equally as futile, not only finding less creatures to attempt to kill, but still not having an indication of getting any closer with his pellets. Before the sun had even started to wane, he returned to sit in grim silence with his wife and child, the unavoidable disappointment emanating outwardly from her. She couldn’t help the way she felt about it and Leighton could empathise with her for that.
Mina had to perform a long list of motions for Grace as they tried to get her upstairs. The stairs were narrow and walled on either side and Grace appeared to have suffered serious wastage of her muscles and was left unable to lift her injured leg, hanging as a dead weight to her. They had to move Grace’s leg onto the step underneath her before Mina pulled Grace from under the shoulders, lifting her just one step at a time. It involved Mina starting off on the lower side and then climbing around using the bannisters to above Grace on the stairs as they performed the elaborate process.
Eventually they got to the top of the stairs, where Grace waited patiently for Mina’s bath to fill. Grace heard the tap being turned off and started trying to shuffle herself backwards towards the bathroom along the hall. After a few slides, Mina came back to her and helped by supporting her injured leg, stopping it from dragging along the floor. They reached the bath and Mina lifted from underneath Grace’s armpits while Grace herself used the side of the bath and the heavy sink basin to pick herself up to standing.
Lowering herself into the bath, Grace had to do alone. Mina placed a small wooden board in front of the bath’s faucets and guided the wrapped-up leg towards it as Grace slowly slid herself into the water, tight muscled arms gripping firmly to the edges of the bath as she did so. With Grace mostly submerged and settled, Mina placed her friends injured leg on the board to keep it dry for the time being. Mina sweated from the heat of the bath and the exertion of getting Grace into it and settled herself on the lowered toilet seat to get a quick rest while the other woman soaked. She looked concerned at Grace’s chin hovering just above the water level and tried to judge her friend’s weight distribution to determine the chance of her slipping under. After a few moments of stillness, she rested her mind on the matter.
The room was dim. With only a small frosted window to the outside and no electricity to use the lights, it provided a comforting and safe atmosphere. The pair enjoyed the silence, the heavy breathing left in both sets of lungs by the ordeal gradually faded away and the most was made of the relaxing environment. Both women sat silently, deep in thought.
Grace was the first to fill the silence. “What do you reckon it is going to be like? We’ve all seen the refugees and migrating people in Syria, Iran and Iraq. Is that now us? I mean – like – the news in other countries is going to look at this as a humanitarian crisis. Well.” She paused. “I mean if there are enough of us left to be deemed a crisis. How many other survivors do you think there actually are?”
Mina shrugged her shoulders, as much to hold back a sudden surge of tears than to display her incomprehension. “I think there must be a fair few. Some will be loners. Some in groups. Maybe there will be whole towns or cities that will be left untouched. I for one certainly hope it is the case further north.”
“Oh, I know. I’m sorry.” Grace glanced over at Mina who continued to sit on the toilet lid with her head down and elbows firmly planted on her thighs. “Your girl is smart, though. I think she has an instinct that will keep her out of trouble.”
“Yea,” Mina resided. “She’s alright. She is currently with someone who doesn’t have common sense. It’s that I am probably more worried about. My sister is an idiot.”
“She’s probably not the only one there. If they have survived, the chances are that others around them have too. There will be a little society building up that will look to source food, get power on, get those without, sheltered-”
“She’s a dick,” Mina muttered over the top of Grace’s words.
“Anyway,” Grace said with a childish giggle. “You’re right with that. She is. You should just remember, Mina, that just because you haven’t seen many of them, it doesn’t mean there aren’t kind and caring people in the world. Of course, there’s me for one.” She looked over at the top of Mina’s head with a grin, but without response. “You and me, mate. We will get your daughter, ditch the ones you don’t like and build our own society.
“Think about this, what if all of the arseholes have been wiped out and all that are left in Britain are the cultured, the sophisticated and the delightfully spiritual kind. We all realise that we are together with a fresh start. We rebuild society from the ground up to be loving and kind and forgiving. Our buildings are even better than before, built with statues telling the story of our glorious future. People write poems that are spray painted into murals and shrines to those that had to pass to give the rest of us a clear future. It will be a dreamlike place devoid of delinquents, defilers and – erm – the dastardly. What a world that would be to raise Rebecca in. You never know, but Leeds could be intact and become the centre of a new transcended breed of human that rises from the ashes of destruction and despair. What do you reckon? You want in? You’ll have to be nice to me though, for I will be the one-legged queen of the north.”
Grace looked over to see a smile touching Mina’s mouth, the rest of her face covered with her wild hair hanging down. Grace grinned as she continued. “You can be my prince if you’d like.”
“Alright,” Mina said, raising her head with a deeper smile that touched her eyes. “Though, I want the title of princess. I am not the kind of girl to be wearing baggy pantaloons. It will help with the spread of tolerance if the queen looks like a lesbian, right?”
“Right!”
“Rebecca will be our heir, too. We will need someone to continue the society on in the right direction.”
“Absolutely! Now your queen could really do with her back scrubbed.”
“Oh, my word, Grace,” Mina yelled up the stairs. Grace lay in clean sheets on the bed, revelling in the feeling of comfort and cleanliness that had evaded her for the past week. She heard the rapid thuds of Mina sprinting up the stairs. “Check this out.”
“Oh, no,” Grace said. “Not the death book.”
“Oh, no ‘oh-no’. It tells us in here how to make a proper cast for your leg. It’ll be equal to the ones they put on at the hospital!” Mina jumped onto the bed excitedly, rocking Grace who had to clutch at the structure currently enveloping her broken leg. Mina leant the book over in front of her and pointed a rigid forefinger at a set of bullet points within a grey box in the margin. “I have all the shit we need right in this house. Well, apart from the plaster, but that’s only as far away as the shed down there.” Mina gesticulated towards the window that overlooked the garden.
Grace looked quizzically at Mina and then down at the book to read the text. When she finished, she looked back up at Mina. “You think you will be able to make that?”
“Yea, sure. Why not?”
“You?”
“Yes.” Mina mocked a slap towards Grace’s cheek, slammed the book shut and bounced up to face Grace with her feet tucked underneath her. “Let me tell you. First, we take off that weird contraption that I put on your leg. It turns out that it sucks. Then, we get a long sports sock that will go up to your knee. Happy so far?”
Grace nodded, maintaining her original puzzled look.
“Good. So, then we take some soft bandage – which I have – and wrap it around your leg, from foot to about halfway up your calf muscle. Okay?
Then the key bit is we do a light mix of plaster, dip more bandage into it for a few seconds and then wrap it around the leg so it is over the top of the rest. We keep doing that a while ‘til its thick and set hard. Hey presto, you will have yourself a fine leg cast.” Mina puffed out a long breath. “-And I could have thought of that before building some bizarre frame around your leg.”
“Okay,” Grace said tentatively. “I will let you try, you better magic up some proper crutches while you’re at it too. Are you ready to become Doctor Mina?”
Mina nodded excitedly.
“You want to do it now, don’t you?”
“I will go get it all together.”
“No, wait. Get it together, but I would rather do it in the morning. I’m shattered.”
“Alright then. Do you want me to bring you a book?”
“What’d you recommend, nothing gory though, obviously.” Grace nodded down at her leg.
Mina thought for a moment. “Carrie’s Waffle House.”
Grace looked quizzically at Mina.
“It’s like sex, drugs and revolutionaries.”
“Alright then. Sounds strange. I guess that’s why you own it.”
Mina rushed off to get everything she needed, firstly, dropping the book off with Grace so she could read and sleep. Mina laid out everything on the kitchen table which was swept clear. She proceeded to read the small entry in the medical book, visualising every part of the process until she had it memorised and clear in her head. The she went through reading all the packaging on the plaster mix until that was also memorised and adjusted mentally for the slightly thinner mix that she would need. When she was confident she could do it without the instructions, Mina took herself up to her bed. The light was still on, but Grace had fallen asleep on page three. She slipped under the covers next to her, placed the pillow lightly over her own eyes and dreamt heavily of loneliness and failure throughout the night.
Ousted: A thrilling debut novel of survival and humanity Page 15