Some of the women balked at his comment, but most of them didn’t seem to hear it through the chaos of their own distress. Some of them looked like you could put an active grenade in their hand and they wouldn’t notice.
Looking at the suited lunatic’s face, his matted beard and blood-covered cheeks, Chris saw dead eyes loaded with a sociopathic detachment. This man was beyond reason and could not be appealed to. Seeing George, who was the only other man still outside, and the way he was looking at Dean, the mistrust emanating from him reinforced Chris’ hope that this man’s empathy would provide their salvation. That was if Chris couldn’t get them away before they needed to rely on assistance.
The curtain shimmered again from Michael’s movement, and Chris was about to tell him off until he realized he was doing it to get closer to him. The pressure of his boy leaning into his legs nearly threw him off balance, and he was now shivering more than before. Michael then said, “What will he do?”
With a rapidly drying throat, Chris looked at the hammer in Dean’s hand, which was sticky with blood, and said, “I really don’t know.” He then added, “But you should look away.”
Dropping to the floor, Michael leant against the cold radiator and pulled his knees into his chest as Chris watched.
Waving the hammer at the women didn’t seem to get much of a reaction, and the only one showing any sign of lucidity was Marie, who was sobbing heavily.
When Dean ran the hammer along the cage, throwing an angry rattle around the quiet cul-de-sac, some of the women recoiled, but their blank stares didn’t register where the noise was coming from. The smile fell from Dean’s face because he clearly wasn’t getting the reaction he desired. “Come on!” he shouted and smashed his hammer against the cage, denting some of the sturdy bars. “Wake up for fuck’s sake!”
Taking it further, Dean poked the handle through the bars, jabbing some of the women with it. He used enough force to break ribs if the connection was right, which on a couple of pokes it looked like it was. Each one jumped, but only one or two of them made a sound, as most of them were beyond that. It was like they shared one broken mind.
Feeling a tug on his trouser leg, Chris looked down again to see his son’s wide blue eyes staring up at him, and his little voice asked, “What are we going to do? I don’t want to die.”
Dropping away from the window, Chris slid down next to his son and hugged him. He wanted to tell him that he wouldn’t die. He wanted to tell him that everything would be okay. He wanted to… A plan then came to mind and he asked, “Where does Mummy keep rope?”
“Rope?”
“Yep.”
“Why do we need rope?”
“I have a plan. It will stop them doing anything horrible to either of us.”
Looking from one of his dad’s eyes to the other, searching for the meaning of his unspoken plan, Michael raised an eyebrow and offered, “Maybe under the stairs?”
“Right, let’s go.” Standing up, Chris took his son’s hand and led him out of the room. On the way out, one of the duvets on the floor wrapped around Michael’s feet and he fell over. Lifting him up again, Chris said, “Let’s go, mate, we haven’t got much time.”
It was so cold in the rest of the house that they could see their own breath. When Chris turned to check that his son had put the jumper on, he nearly tripped over the discarded vacuum cleaner directly outside the room. To Chris and Michael, this was the clearest sign of chaos.
Michael stared at it for a moment, and when he looked up, his cheeks were damp with tears. “Why did she try and hoover yesterday? We haven’t had electricity for months.”
Diane had spent all of the previous day pushing the vacuum cleaner up and down the house while sobbing. She even tried to replicate the sound it made. It had scared the children, especially when they found her outside the bedroom covering the same square foot of carpet for over an hour.
“I don’t know. Sometimes stress does strange things to people.”
“Is that why she’s gone away?”
The lump in his throat was painful and choked him, so Chris simply nodded.
Putting his arm around the shoulders of his little boy, who was staring at the floor and shivering, Chris said, “Come on, mate, we need to keep going.”
Stopping at the window halfway down the stairs, Michael, who was too short to see out of it, asked, “What’s happening now?”
“It looks like they’ve taken everything they want from the house; they’re now siphoning fuel from the cars into jerry cans.”
“Jerry cans?”
Chris was losing patience with the questions. “They’re big metal cans for fuel. Come on, Michael, we’ve got to get moving; we’re running out of time.” With that, Chris descended the stairs two at a time, flying down the huge staircase that had family portraits lined down one wall. The pictures marked the stages of the children’s lives, each showing the same pose one year on from the previous. Diane always stood on one side with Matilda next to her. Michael was in the middle and Chris was on the opposite end to his wife and daughter. It was clear to see that Michael, who was doing his best to keep up with his dad’s long strides, was the tenuous link holding the family together. He was the only common ground.
Avoiding the last stair with the huge red stain on the white carpet, Chris opened the cupboard that was built into the staircase and was hit with the combined smell of several different and noxious cleaning products. The thick chemical pungency both choked him and made his eyes water. He’d never questioned where these products were kept in the house because he never used them, but now he’d made this discovery, he could see it was a sensible place for them.
Upon seeing a box on a shelf at the back, curiosity got the better of him and he pulled it down. It was wooden, heavier than he expected, and about the size of a shoebox.
Having just caught up with him, Michael watched his dad open it.
When he lifted the lid, Chris simply stared at the contents with his mouth hung loose and his unfit heart beating like it would burst. Frowning, he tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.
“We had a party planned for you every year,” Michael said. “Mum always had banners and presents, and we all waited for you to get home. But you always worked late, or had an important meeting.” His small features creased as he said, “You didn’t even come home when your birthday was on a weekend.”
With trembling hands, Chris picked one of the cards at random and opened it. It was for his thirty-fifth birthday, seven years ago, and his wife’s beautiful writing said, ‘This will be our year, honey. I love you, and I know we will find our way.’
Opening another one, this one was for his fortieth. He read the inscription, ‘I love you. I really appreciate how hard you work for us all. We are so so grateful.’
He shivered as he opened his next card, this one from eight years ago. ‘We’re so lucky to have two beautiful children. We have such a wonderful life ahead. Let’s make it happen this year.’
Feeling a small and cold hand on his back, Chris couldn’t stop shaking as his view of the world turned blurry again. It seemed that now he was staring death in the eyes, he was discovering the heart that he should have found years ago. Opening the card from his birthday this year, it said, ‘I know things are tough, but I’ll be here whenever you need me, and I’ll do whatever I need to do.’
This one broke him. Falling to his knees and not even registering the pain of them smashing into the cold stone floor, Chris started to sob as he thought back to his birthday just a few months before.
Celebrate
“What the fuck are you doing?” Chris asked his wife as he glared at her with narrowed eyes. His waxy face glowed red as his fury writhed beneath his skin like crawling bugs.