“Who can you rely on?” asks Dad, leaning forwards towards the front row again, leaving a gap for everyone to contemplate their answer. He taps his temples. “The biggest hurdle, my friends, is up here. In your head. You have to really want to survive, want to be self-reliant, to pick up the challenges, to take the difficult decisions. Or do you just want to be ordinary, be ‘normal’ and wait for someone else to save you. Because I’ve got news for you – they ain’t comin’!”
“He’s good. He’s charismatic,” whispers Josh. “Even though I know I’m being manipulated, part of me wants to join in too.”
How did that happen? My mouth dries as Dad says, “Blood is thicker than water.” I worry that he’s looking right at me. I adjust my glasses and pull the scarf tighter. Why would he say that? His words are becoming jumbled in my head. Did he just say that about blood and water, or did I imagine it? I mustn’t let him into my head again.
He picks up an equipment pack and changes tack. He’s talking about practical preparations like an emergency plan for the family, having a Grab-and-Go Bag to get you through the first three days, making links with like-minded individuals, speaking to his colleagues at the end about signing up with prepping groups. He explains how he can generously help us all out with his packs of equipment for a special bargain price, today only, like a smarmy salesman on a shopping channel. He adds how he can help with the restructuring of society after the SHTF. He talks of how we’ll need a new way of living for the new reality but he doesn’t give the full picture. Doesn’t set out in full all his stupid Rules but focuses on the greener ones like Leave no trace and developing practical skills to grow food and recycle.
There’s standing room only behind us. People clustered in on all sides. My dad has groupies. As he speaks of needing new rules for the new beginnings, there are more cries of agreement. Even an ‘Amen’. If the crowd broke out in a gospel choir rendition of ‘Hallelujah’, I wouldn’t be surprised. The hall now has the reverent atmosphere of a church where a preacher is telling his flock the way to the kingdom of heaven.
And they are lapping it up.
The Rules were being codified. Dad’s new project was to put them in order in his tiny writing in the notebook he carried everywhere, then paint them on the walls of the farmhouse in each room, in case we forgot. Like he was Moses and these commandments were revealed to him to spread the Word to the world. He just made them up as he went along, mostly as some freakish power show of how he could force us to do anything he demanded. Rule: The ends justify the means. Which meant anything goes. Anything can be justified as a way of getting to the sunlit uplands after the SHTF.
In Dad’s world, when he talks about rebuilding afterwards, he wants to start again. Have another chance at this life he’s failed at so far. He’s a nobody now.
He thinks he’ll be a somebody afterwards.
He’s tired of being a nobody.
He wants to be a somebody at our expense.
Please
Don’t
Let
Him
Win.
Dad’s speech whirrs around my head all night. I’m glad when daylight finally creeps through the cheap curtains in the lounge and I give up pretending to sleep. I turn off the camping lantern and gather up the takeaway cartons. The beers Josh took from the fridge last night have meant he’s snuffled and snored and breathed balti curry fumes. I suppose I wouldn’t have slept much anywhere. I just need to get away from here.
There was a minor argument with Mo and Lola at midnight when Mo came into the room for a glass of water and knocked over Josh’s half-full can. The spilled beer soaked straight into the carpet like cat pee. Lola went nuts and threatened to chuck us out immediately. Seeing her flamingo scarf and glasses sticking out of my jacket pocket didn’t help the situation. I don’t like the chaos of Josh’s life. I get why he likes the boring isolation of The Haven.
I use the bathroom as quietly as I can, borrowing Lola’s expensive shower gel. I stand under the hot water letting the droplets run down my body as though they can wash away last night’s meeting and Dad. It feels like a dream, him on stage. Alive and kicking. The adoration he received, the respect. Why can’t people see him for what he is? People just hear what they want to hear. The shower runs cold and I step out, water pooling on the floor in the steamed-up room.
I smooth my skin with Lola’s body cream and spray on her deodorant. I sniff at the perfume bottles to make my selection. The strongest scent makes me cough, but I don’t care. I want to be cleansed of last night’s lies and the lingering memory of dank earth. I want to smell like a different person.
When I creep back into the lounge, Josh has rolled up the sleeping bags and sits rubbing his eyes. “I’m guessing you didn’t sleep much after last night?” he says.
“Which is completely your fault.”
“Give me a minute to get my gear together. Feels like the middle of the night.”
“It’s ten past eight already,” I whisper, packing my bag.
“You’re always looking at your watch,” he says, stretching his arms above his head. “You should be more attuned to your body’s natural rhythms, not a slave to convention.”
“Thanks, Mr Anarchy. How does that square with your beloved bus timetables? And try to have a day when you don’t give me any of your advice. Because it’s always rubbish.”
“You might not feel better about your dad straight away but…”
“Just shut up, Josh. When you’ve sorted out your own life, maybe then come and tell other people what to do. I’m getting out of here ASAP. My dad could still be here, picking over the hotel buffet, killing time before his train to the next place. And I think it’s time I do this on my…”
The bathroom door slams shut. Followed by some extremely rude words at high volume before the lounge door is thrown open. Lola is shouting in my face before I can get out of the way. She just appeared like a ghost in a billowing nightie. I would never have pegged her as the full-length-nightie type.
“You’ve been using my toiletries. My expensive perfume. I can smell it on you.” She sniffs deeply. No need for her to get so close because I’m literally sweating out her chemical perfumed stuff. But then she grabs my wrist and reaches for my hair to smell that.
She’s easy to push against the wall, arms pinned above her head. Weaker than me and restricted by all that fabric, but mainly because she’s not expecting it. She’s screaming that I’ve broken her arm but that is plainly just her being a drama queen. If I’d wanted to break any limbs, she’d know about it. I need her to stop all the noise.
“What the hell?” Mo appears in a pair of boxer shorts and starts pulling at me but I’m able to kick him away.
Josh approaches me with his hands out like I’m a wild horse. “Easy, easy.”
“She grabbed at me and pulled at my hair,” I say.
Lola is still struggling while trying to bite me. Savage.
“Off you get,” says Josh, still in his horse-whisperer voice. He takes my hand and leads me towards the door while Mo holds back Lola.
“You’re an absolute lunatic,” Mo shouts at me.
“She started it. She was in my face about shower gel. Shower. Gel.” I want him to understand the unfairness of it all. That I wanted to hit back at her for treating us like something on the bottom of her shoe. That it wasn’t OK to sniff me.
“Let’s go,” says Josh, handing me my bag. He pulls on his trainers while opening the door.
“We were doing you a favour, Josh. All you had to do was follow the rules,” says Mo. “And not bloody assault anybody. Don’t come again.”
I start to say something, but Josh shakes his head at me. “Leave it.” He slams the main front door to the flats behind us and storms off down the street, swearing under his breath. At me? At them? At the world?
I catch him up on a damp park bench. “After last night and Dad and everything, I just flipped out.”
“You think! It’s not like I’m
inundated with offers for places to stay.”
“You deserve better friends.”
“Because I’m such a catch,” he says sarcastically. “Who wouldn’t want someone like me rocking up?”
“Just don’t end up crawling to people like Lola. We should never have come here.”
There’s a pause while I assume even Josh is working out I’m talking about seeing Dad last night, more than his sleeping arrangements.
He shrugs. “I guess it’s not just you. I wore out my welcome there a while ago. I certainly won’t be leaving a good review on Trip Advisor. They can forget that, Amber Warning.”
“I don’t like sofa surfing,” I say. “I don’t like owing someone, having to be on my best behaviour.”
“Is that why you went through foster homes like they were going out of fashion?”
“Maybe I like being on my own,” I say. But what was it about me that meant I couldn’t settle easily into someone else’s house and their IKEA back bedroom? I didn’t need to sit through all those sessions with Dr Meadows, tight-lipped. I didn’t need to give surly responses to Julie across a sticky café table, for her to add to her tea-stained notebook. The answer was obvious. We’re all shaped by what’s happened to us. However hard we try not to be. However hard we try to bury it. The answer to why I’m such an awkward cow lies in him. Dad. Mr Fitzpatrick the Prepper.
“I’m done with staying with people. I’m going to get some camp food and head towards Centurion House. My dad said last night he was headed down south for a few days of talks so I’ve got a clear window to check it out. I know he won’t be with any preppers up here.”
Josh gives me twenty pounds. “You get the food and I’ll go to the tourist office, get some maps and see if they can help me find it.”
“It’s not a tourist attraction. It won’t have a big neon sign on it saying: ‘Centurion House – covert bug-out spot’.”
“No – but your dad mentioned the observatory so it’ll be in the dark-skies area and he said it had a massive source of clean water nearby. That’s enough to start narrowing down the search zone. Let me try – I want to make up for springing the talk on you yesterday.”
“There was a Costa café we passed before we got to Mo’s,” I say. “Near the massive church. I’ll meet you outside there in half an hour and then we’re going.” I hurry away without looking back. It’s easier to tell a lie if you don’t look people in the face.
“We could pop in Costa for breakfast. Share an egg roll,” he calls behind me.
I need to think through last night with a clear head. Without Josh. Horrible as it was to see Dad, I survived, like Josh said I would. I didn’t self-combust. And I do know more about what he’s up to. Information is always good if it helps you prep for the worst.
Last night has left me with something more: I don’t want to let Dad win. He was obviously in with the local preppers. So maybe, just maybe, Dad could be using their place to store his stuff from Eden Farm, which gives me another reason for wanting to visit. I saw from the online search that he’s been in the States until recently. He must have passed on all the resources from Eden to someone, all his stuff from when we were there. Why not the group he had a link with up here? He had no other family, no friends. He burned all his bridges long ago with the preppers he knew in Wales. If I can get his record of the stress test, I’ll be able to have some control.
I get the food I want as quickly as possible – with Josh’s money – and pack it away. I won’t be comfortable until I’m out of here. It feels like eyes are on me. A girl with a massive rucksack when everyone else is Christmas shopping.
And I won’t be meeting up with Josh. I can find my own way to Centurion House. He’ll soon get over me not turning up. What planet is he on if he thinks I’m going to sip tea when my dad could still be around?
As I turn the corner, Josh is already waiting outside the Costa, leaning in the doorway of a boarded-up shop, fiddling with his bag. He’s not meant to be there for another fifteen minutes. I duck back out of sight. I’ll have to find a different way to get to the market square and the buses. I take another look, figuring out the possible routes, but this time I notice that Josh has got company. Two lads are hanging around him, kicking at his bag.
The shorter one spits at him, catching him on the cheek. Josh calmly wipes it off with the back of his sleeve. “Well, I must say that’s jolly well not crick—”
Before he can get the words out, the first shove lands on his chest. His normal posh-boy act isn’t going to work with these two.
I sigh but I can’t just leave him to it. He’s like an injured puppy.
The taller one, in ripped jeans and a thin T-shirt despite it being only about five degrees, is unzipping Josh’s bag.
“Hey! Leave him alone!” I shout. I stand legs apart, my weight centred, my arms ready to strike.
They look up. The one who spat at Josh breaks into a huge smirk. “Seriously? What are you – thirteen? Your boyfriend is just helping us out with a little question we had.”
“Yeah, who the hell does he think he is?” sniggers the other one.
I bet that at least one of them carries a knife as routinely as a mobile phone. And I’ve already had one fight today. I weigh up what to do. I can’t take both of them on. If they lay a finger on me, that’s different. But I don’t want an ‘incident’ where the police will come.
The taller one is throwing Josh’s stuff out of the bag, laughing at his clothes. He rips a loose cotton target badge off the sleeve of his parka. His books and photos are scattered on to the wet pavement.
“Stop it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” I say. I can’t bear seeing Josh’s belongings chucked around like this. I edge next to him. He’s stock-still, like a rabbit in the headlights.
The lads laugh. “Or what? Lover boy will start talking at us again? Hit us with his library book?”
“No. I will first break your nose, then squeeze your tiny little balls so hard that you won’t be able to play with yourself for weeks. Make sure that…”
Someone official-looking comes out of Costa, waving a mobile phone. “I don’t want any trouble here! If you lot don’t clear off, I’m calling the police. That means all of you.”
The tall one pats Josh hard twice on each cheek and they run off, laughing.
The man with the mobile tuts. “Clean this mess up,” he says to me and goes back inside.
Josh scrambles to pick up the photos and dries them on his front before placing them and his books back in the bag.
“What the hell? Why did you let them do that?” I say. “Two of us, two of them. You were so passive they were always going to take advantage.”
“I wasn’t doing anything and they laid into me.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing much. Honest. They just felt like kicking the shit out of someone. It’s why I don’t sleep in doorways. Sometimes I think I’m a stonking great trouble magnet.”
“Next time, hit them back.”
“I’m not going to be that person.” His eyes are filling with tears. “I’m not going to be like my stepdad, Amber. Ever.”
“This is turning out to be a pretty bad day and we’ve not even been up long. I thought yesterday was bad.” I pick up Josh’s clothes from the pavement, fold them as best I can and place them in his bag. I don’t want to feel sorry for him. It makes it harder to leave him and go it alone.
“Let’s do bus roulette,” says Josh, sniffing. “The bus that’s next to leave the square we get on, wherever it’s going. No sneaky looks at a map or the front of the bus. Agreed? Pick a number higher than ten.”
“I’m not playing your stupid game.”
“All right, I’ll pick one. Twenty-one. We get off at the twenty-first stop. That’s where we stay tonight. See where it takes us. Leave ourselves in the hands of fate today. What do you think?”
“Is this all a game to you? Me, my dad, those lads who were going to hit you? Look, Josh, I think�
�”
“Uh-oh. They’re back.” Josh grabs his bag and pulls me with him towards the street corner. I peep round. The two lads from earlier are back with some mates and a swagger that says there’s safety in numbers.
“Shit. They’re actually looking for us,” I whisper. We run down a warren of narrow back alleys. I’m fitter than Josh though it’s tough running with a full rucksack and I don’t know my way around this town.
Josh soon has a stitch in his side. “Stop, wait up. Should we go back to Mo’s place? If I can work out where it is from here.”
“No. Keep going.”
But the alley we’re on soon runs out by some wheelie bins and a metal fence.
Josh crouches behind the bins, wheezing. He spits out some phlegm.
“It’s better to split. They’re looking for us together. Get back to the market square. It’ll be busy, full of shoppers,” I say. “We’ll splash out on a taxi. I’ll meet you at the taxi rank.” I heave his bag over the fence and give him a leg up.
“But Amber, what if…”
“I’ll be fine. They all smoke way too many cigarettes to run fast enough to catch me,” I say. “I’ll go another way. Go.” I push him over and wait to make sure he’s OK and running off. I retrace my steps down the alley.
“Well, look who it is!” Two of the lads are coming straight towards me. One of them puts his fingers in his mouth to whistle loudly.
“The girl’s over here,” the other one shouts.
I have no choice but to head back to the dead end. I drag a wheelie bin towards the fence. They slow down and smile when they see what I’m trying to do. I lift the lid and pull out a broken bike wheel. One moves closer and I hurl the wheel like a Frisbee. It catches him on the side of the head and draws blood.
“Bitch! Get her!” he shouts at the others coming up behind him.
I climb on to the bin and reach up to the top of the fence, pushing the bin over behind me with a final kick, scattering a foul mess of rubbish. I heave myself over and land on my rucksack like a turtle on a bunch of weeds and tarmac. I’m in a car park for an old industrial unit. I get up and run like I’ve trained for, and as I reach the edge of the building, I see that the first lad has only just made it over. He’s not stuck with a heavy rucksack like me but he’s not in shape.
The Rules Page 9