James and Jake's faces were void of joy, drained of any hope or confidence. Despair took root, and gripped their hearts. Hussain sat in the jeep, speechless, not that anything could be heard over the crackling of the great flame and the shouts of the beleaguered firemen. Mason held his head in his hands, and Maddison cried with tears falling down her face. My mother was here, my mother was here and I did not know if she was safe. Was she dead? Were they all gone? Jake and James' parents, Thomas’s mom as well?
“That’s my Mom! Where's my Mom!?” I shouted to the dark.
Thomas! Where was Thomas? I couldn't find him, our corporal, our leader. He was gone, but when my eyes found him again, I could not recognise him. He was kneeling at the runway before the burning control tower. He held a toy in his hands, a teddy bear, scorched and blackened, like the many corpses that dotted the marked runway.
It had fallen from the plane luggage. He looked into its dead lifeless eyes, then glanced up. That's when I saw fighter jets circling the sky above. What could they see? What hell were they witnessing? As they flew overhead, the power to the airport shut down, slowly, creepily, all power fading out just like our hope. This was the end, the end of everything, there was an apocalyptic feeling, as if it was all over. This was it.
The lights on the runway blew out like a candle and a storm followed, the traffic lights on the motorway ceased in an orderly pattern northward, until all that remained was the blazing inferno ahead of us, and the silhouette of Thomas, falling into madness.
Maddness - Day 10 - Jess
I woke in the dead of night needing the toilet, I didn't know where I was in this enormous decaying house. There were probably two or three knowing Susie and her extravagant personality. I rose up out of the guest bed, Lily and our dad beside us. It felt weird sleeping beside them, instead of Gareth, who slept with that boy in the other room.
I must hand it to Susie and her father, these sheets we nestled in were gorgeous. This night was the first night I had slept well in days. I’d already gotten a full six hours already, and it was still pitch-black outside.
In the dark corridors outside my room I could barely see five inches ahead. The ancient grandfather clock ticked loudly, louder than I ever heard a clock before. I found the bathroom and tip toed to the light string, pulling it, the bathroom was in decay. I did my business quickly, nervously.
All of a sudden the ground shook violently, it was for half a second, but it was accompanied by an almighty boom. The light bulb failed next and I was left in pitch black again, or I would have been, if not for an orange light simmering above on the ceiling. The light was coming from the window, a strange glow shone from behind the curtain and onto my face.
I stood and gazed out the window, and found a great fire. Blazing and roaring in the far distance.
“Jess!” Called my dad in fear, fear of losing me again.
“I’m here,” I said, letting him know I was fine.
The door locked as he tried to enter.
“Open the door, something happened outside,” he said. The floorboards then creaked as he walked away.
“Mr. Lively! What the hell was that sound!” Demanded to know our host, Susie's father as he stepped down the stairs from the top floor.
My eyes had been fixed on the glow on the dark horizon. I managed to pull them away from their viewing, only to be transfixed at the prospect of seeing it from outside for a better view.
No one was in the corridors when I unlocked the door, they’d all gone down to see it. No Lily, no Gareth. But there was a girl, a blonde girl, at the window on the stairs to the top floor above, she was gazing out to the fire. Then she gazed at me and I was showered with chills. She looked strange, scary even. I walked down the stairs to the bottom floor and found them all in the garden, watching the event in shock.
“Jess,” Gareth hugged me. Then Susie did.
“What the hell is it?” I asked, glancing to the orange tinge ahead. Gareth shook his head in anger.
“It must have been a plane,” said my dad.
“The airports in that direction,” said Susie's father, nodding his head to the impact and holding his walking stick firmly.
“Why has this happened?” Susie questioned in shock.
“Grow a pair darling,” said Mr. Davies after a long sigh, shockingly. He turned and began to walk away. “It's the end of the world, end of everything,” he snapped to her.
“Davies!” My dad groaned to him. “We should go and find survivors… to help?”
“No, I don't think so,” he replied in a cavalier manner before entering his house.
It irked me the way he didn't care, how he could be so heartless. Susie was nothing like him, and in that way it was strange. Very strange.
“Dad, I-”
He brushed past me and stepped down the garden path.
“Stay here with Lily,” he said. I was left with a large frown and a scowl that could scare a lion. I didn't want to be left with the kid. I mean I loved her, but didnt everyone else? Blake, dad, mom, none of them seemed to care. Now dad had gone off into the dark, his figure slowly shrinking into the field in the distance, just like everyone else in this family.
I saw the girl in the window above us. She had a blank expressionless face, void of colour. It was as if the life had drained out of her.
“I didn't know you had a sister?” I said to Susie.
“I don't,” she squealed in a content voice.
“Then who’s-”
I looked up to point at the girl, but found not a soul in the window. What? She was just there?
“There was a girl up there looking out the window?” I said, but Susie and Gareth looked confused. As if I was mad.
“There’s no one-“ Susie went to say. But I shut her down.
“She was at the porch when we arrived?” I said in bemusement. “Then she disappeared. I haven't seen her since this morning.”
“There's no one else here,” Susie commented frustratedly.
I stood unsure, doubting myself. "What? You think I saw a ghost?"
“I don't care what you saw, you're freaking me out,” she replied, before brushing me aside and rushing into her house.
I died inside, knowing what I saw, I was in shock. I knew I didn't want to step foot inside that house again, not if it was a ghost.
Gareth grabbed me by the arm. “I remember seeing her too.”
I shook my head to the side. “Good to know I'm not insane.”
He widened his eyes. “I don't know…”
“You think it's a ghost?” I questioned knowingly; as I knew there was no such thing as ghosts, there couldn't be, it defied all laws of science, to have spirits alive, moving and interacting without bodies, but so did the dead.
“Could be,” he whispered, casting me in doubt, before laughing in my face. “It's obviously not a ghost, it's just someone they don't want us to know about.”
I nodded and agreed, then silence took over. It was awkward, and strange. It had been like this after he told me of how he killed his parents. He told me they were infected, and that he took drastic measures to ensure he was safe. It was tragic, well, it sounded tragic.
“Gareth,” I spoke carefully. “You can talk to me about your parents? You know?”
I immediately regretted my decision to confront him about it. His face turned dark and contorted with anger and grief. What he'd said about his parents was odd enough already, me confounding the issue was worse.
He stepped away from me. “I'm going to search the house for the girl.”
“What?” I shouted, as if I hadn't just brought up his dead parents.
“Don't try and stop me. Keep Susie occupied,” he said.
I looked back to the dark blue sky, and the orange glow below it on the horizon, the sight of the explosion.
Should I go and find father and talk to him about it, or head inside and find Susie. I had a decision to make, and I made it.
I headed inside. Susie was in the ki
tchen sitting on the table with her legs on the chair in a forward position, her hands together, thinking hard in focus, until I walked in. Her eyes darted to me. I struggled to believe this was in the aftermath of a great explosion.
“Who is that girl Susie?” I asked her as I stood by the doorway.
“No one,” she answered quickly.
I stepped forward. “I've seen her walking around.”
“Only me and my dad live here,” she said.
“So what is she a ghost?” I said, out of frustration more than anything else.
She nodded fearfully.
I put on a frown and felt funny. I questioned everything I knew about her. We’d been friends for years. Why would she act this way, to lie to my face, unless she was telling the truth? I would get nothing more out of her, she looked shut off, detached from the world. I went to find Gareth on the third floor.
“Gareth?” I called his name from the ground floor.
“It's the girl, she's here,” his voice came back. Albeit shaken slightly. Something was wrong here, Susie was lying to us, the girl was real!
“What are you doing boy?” I then heard Susie's father say. His shadow I saw from below, meandering towards Gareth dangerously.
“Get out!” He shouted. “I warned you.”
“Jess!?” My dad called from the kitchen. I stepped back to find him stumbling into the kitchen.
“Dad?” I spoke lightly. He was carrying a wounded soldier, blood dripping to the floor off his camouflage trousers. He had been struck, on his head, slashes lined his arms and legs. They reminded me of my self-harm scars.
“Help me get him on the table!” Shouted Rich. I ran over to help, scanning the room for cloth I could use to help him with. Susie was nowhere to be found; she’d ran like a coward at hearing Gareth’s confrontation with her father.
“You got a broken leg,” he said to the injured man, then he looked to me. “Honey patch up his head.”
He gestured for me to grab some ice from the freezer. I first took a spare t-shirt of Susie’s from the laundry and took the ice out to wrap. I'm sure she wouldn't mind. I looked up as I heard a bang from upstairs.
“He's unconscious,” said my father.
“Dad, Gareth is upstairs,” I told him with a concerned look, then I heard a gunshot go off from above.
His eyes widened in shock, then he walked away from the injured man and toward the stairs.
“Don't go, he's with Mr. Davies,” I tried to convince him not to go. I was scared, more scared than I’d ever been in my life, more scared than when I saw that dead dear, more scared than when I saw that ghastly mutilated body near the rail line. More scared than when my life hung by a thread in hospital, when I’d hurt myself too much, I was scared my parents would hate me forever for trying to leave them, now I was scared of the last one of them leaving me forever.
“Stay with him,” Dad said.
“But-”
“Stay here!” He ordered, shouting this time as he moved away from me.
I wanted to help, but I couldn't, I was petrified.
“Lily!” He called as he walked up the stairs. I took the soldier's hand and prayed silently. I never prayed, never, what the hell was wrong with me?
“Don't hurt him!” I heard my father say after a moment.
“She's mine! Enough,” Mr. Davies said. The soldiers’ eyes fluttered open. Susie was crying, I heard her weep from the bedrooms.
“Susie come here. Stay away from my family. Go!”
A great charge of shoes then came thundering down the ancient staircase.
Into the kitchen came my father, Lily, Mike, and finally Gareth, who put his hood on his head and went straight out the garden door after a wayward look to the dying soldier on the table. All of them appeared to be unharmed.
“We are leaving tomorrow,” said Dad. “How is he?”
I looked back to the soldier, his eyes were open and glazed and staring into nothing. Father sighed, then held my hand. There was silence in the house thereafter. Gareth was AWOL. It took time, time as my father threw the body outside, time as we all huddled together and I calmed the children. There was absolute silence from upstairs. Soon enough, we left and waited in the barn outside, and father came and explained to me what had happened upstairs.
When he arrived to the second floor, Gareth was on his knees, Susie's father held a gun to him, an old musket rifle. One shot, and he was dead. But then it had to be reloaded, dad mused that the only reason he didn't shoot him was because he was there, and he couldn't fire twice.
The girl was there, the blonde, and Susie crying. He spoke to me now of the soldier. He said he found him in the dark, by the side of the road in a field. It was evening now, and night was descending fast.
“He told me that command was dead, he kept repeating no hope, over and over, he said that was the prime minister's plane that crashed. I have no idea how he ended up in the field. It was close to the motorway.”
“Perhaps he was a deserter?” I spoke.
“Could be.”
I looked around the barn, for Lily and Mike, and Gareth, but he was still gone. Out there somewhere, I doubted he would return.
“Gareth is still gone, we should go and look for him,” I said, but my father's eyes looked weary, bloodshot and ill.
“No, he is not worth risking our lives for, he is bad news,” he said. I slightly agreed. If him going off meant he was out of our hair for good maybe it was not a bad thing after all. I liked him, but I never truly loved him. He was a danger, especially after what he confessed about his parents. My father sat up.
“I must go now and speak now with Davies.”
I immediately disagreed.
“Shouldn't we leave? He doesn't want us here,” I said.
“Honey,” he took my hands in his. “All he wants is peace and a future for his daughters. Same as me.”
It took me a moment to confide my confidence in him, but I did. He eventually went off, to speak with Davies. I was left alone, as night fell all around us. There was no electricity here, so we burnt a single candle and placed it on the kitchen table. Me, Lily and Mike sat around, in silence, waiting for father to return.
I turned to Lily, she was adorable. She shared my hair, my eyes, she was a total mini me.
“Shall we play a game?” I asked them both, but then I noticed something peculiar. Their eyes lingered behind me, tracing a figure, hidden in the dark. I gave them a mischievous look, then turned around, thinking nothing of it.
It was Gareth! With great swathes of sweat dripping from his forehead.
“Gareth what are you-”
He grabbed me and wrapped his hand around my mouth.
“Quiet,” he whispered, then he put his other hand to his mouth and shushed the startled children. He had a devilish look in his eyes, as if he was mad.
“Whm amph,” I muffled through his hand. I tried to walk away and resist but he held me firm.
“Now, we are going to do things my way,” he said, forcing me to sit. I looked up, thinking of my father, then glanced to Lily. She was holding Mike’s hand, but Gareth told them to stop, to go and fetch the DIY chest. What the hell did he think he was doing?
Fight - Day 10 - Rich
I let myself in and creaked up the crooked stairs one step at a time. Mr Davies was here somewhere, the damn madman! I had to speak to him about what had happened. He had been enraged that the boy Gareth had been in his office on the top floor. That's where the confrontation happened, where I found the boy on the floor, a gun to his chest. It was a musket, very old, much like this farmhouse.
I was sad, not only because I’d just had to throw the body of that young man out into the wet field, not that I didn't have enough time or energy left to bury him, not that now had no electricity or warm water for me to wash. No, I was sad because I was dying. I was dying and I hadn't told a soul of it. That I probably would never see my wife, or my son ever again. That my daughters would be alone in this shit decay
ing world.
“Mr Davies,” I spoke aloud cautiously to the attic door. This was where he and his daughters had fled to earlier. I say daughters, I doubted the other girl was his daughter now. Why would she be so secretive?
“What?” Came a sour reply from beyond the locked door.
“May I come in? I wish to apologise in person, that should not have happened earlier.”
“No,” he answered. “I want you to leave come morning. I have one shot; I will use it.”
I let a moment pass, to calm tensions, but if he continued to threaten me and my loved ones, I would have to kill him.
“Please let me come in, I wish to make amends,” I said convincingly.
“I said, no…”
I stared at the now silent red door for about a minute. They could hear me breathing and sighing. I was so loud, every second I was out of breath, I felt like my brain was dying as my vision grew blurry. The door suddenly bolted and unlocked. He was standing there, a second bolt on the door was held by a chain, allowing him to look into the stairs coming up. He stared at me, his red bloody eyes meeting mine. Seeing no one else in the immediate vicinity, he turned the lock, and allowed me in.
Straight away he leapt for his gun on the table, old that he was, he was still agile. I saw Susie and the other mysterious girl sitting like hostages on the floor, legs together, scrunched up to their chests of items and food. The other girl wore a dirty summer dress as her only piece of clothing, while Susie wore normal clothes for the weather outside, jeans and a jumper, the standard stuff. I wondered why she would wear such a freezing outfit? Why was she so out of place here?
There was an old large bed at the centre of the room, king size at least.
“Mr Davies, I-”
“Quiet, I’m thinking…” He said holding the musket to me.
I gave Susie a glance as she looked at me, she was scared, she had been crying it seemed.
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