As Mel wrapped herself around the impact, her mouth wide and fighting for breath, Chris let a gentle cough go. The toxic smoke and dust was now choking him more than ever. Michael looked at his dad, his dirty little face gripped with fear, but before Chris could signal for him to come back, he was looking out of the window again.
Dean then said, “That’s the problem with you rich cunts. You think you fucking deserve to be at the top of the food chain, and the people who aren’t in your position are just lazy. You haven’t got a fucking clue, love.” He then kicked her again, her skinny body falling limp under his foot.
Hawking up a spitball, he delivered it into her face.
With her eyes watering and unable to speak, Mel looked up at her attacker, and her mouth opened and closed like a fish on a riverbank.
Daisy and Sarah screamed, and Dean looked at them. “Shut the fuck up, you spoilt little cunts!” He then kicked their mother again. And again. And again.
Eventually, George had to pull Dean away and stand in front of him to stop him kicking her any more. “Fucking leave it, Dean!” he shouted.
Looking at George like he wanted to start on him too, Dean clearly thought better of it. He turned his back on the huge man and walked towards the house. It was further justification for Chris’ belief that George could potentially be their savior. He seemed to be losing patience with their weasel leader and looked like he may act on that.
Moving over to Mel, George checked for a pulse in her neck. After thirty seconds, his head dropped, and he looked at the floor. Tears glazed Chris’ vision, and the girls in the truck screamed. Pulling her eyelids down, he stared at Dean’s back, and although he didn’t say anything, the malice he projected at him clearly displayed his feelings towards their leader.
Michael finally returned to his father’s side, and he was shaking, crying, and a wet patch had formed around his groin. In spite of this, Chris still felt the need to say, “What the fuck were you doing? When I say stay where you are, I fucking mean it!”
Michael’s face buckled out of control, his mouth bending down at the edges and tears soaking his cheeks.
“This isn’t a game.” Chris pointed at the window. “That could be us out there. Do you understand?”
Michael looked at the floor.
Chris’ blue eyes shot wide, and his waxy face reddened. “Well? Do you fucking understand? Do you want to see my head caved in with a fucking hammer?”
Shaking his head, Michael looked at his feet as his tears fell to the ground.
Trying to move on but still burning with rage, Chris said, “Right. Good. Well, we need to get moving. If I breathe any more of this smoke, I’m going to have a coughing fit, and it’ll be game over. I need you to get a serrated knife from the kitchen.”
Looking up at his dad, the tracks of his tears having cut two clean lines down his cheeks, Michael tilted his head to one side and said, “Serrated?”
“You know, one with a jagged edge.”
Michael nodded, pulled his jumper up over his mouth and nose to combat the thick smoke, and just before he headed to the kitchen, Chris hissed, “And don’t let them see you whatever you do!” He then ran up the stairs, covering his mouth with his sleeve and coughing into it.
Sat on the cold floor on the cold landing, Chris’ headache restricted his vision. It turned his peripheral vision black. The heavy smoke was suffocating. When he pulled the retractable lead on the vacuum cleaner to full length, he saw that it came out by a good three meters. It was enough for his needs.
Joining him upstairs, Michael thrust the knife at his dad, blade first.
“You should always pass a knife handle first, Michael,” Chris said as he took it. When he looked at his son, who was currently biting his lip, he wondered if he should lay off the boy a little. He also wondered if the safety advice he was offering was important in the new world. Passing a knife blade first may actually keep him safe for longer now. Then he noticed that something wasn’t quite right. “What is it, Michael?” he asked.
“What’s what?” Michael said too quickly, his wide eyes unable to connect with his dad’s.
Chris’ heart raced and he felt sick. “You look like something’s happened. Come on, spit it out. What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
“Don’t be sorry; just tell me what’s happened. Whatever it is, it’s fine.” His tone didn’t suggest that it was fine.
“They saw me. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for them to see me, honestly.”
Chris felt every muscle in his body fall limp. He then took a deep breath, coughed twice, and had to wait for a moment before he could speak. Looking at the ashamed little boy, he said, “Fucking hell. What were you thinking of? What did I say? What was the one thing that I said to you before you ran off?”
Michael replied quietly to his shoes, “Don’t get seen.”
“And you fucking failed in that. Jesus, you need to get your fucking brain in gear. This is life and death, boy. Do you understand?”
When Michael looked up, his whole face was contorted and more tears were streaming down it.
Chris then swallowed to try and banish the taste of plastic. It did nothing. Calming down a little, he asked, “How many of them saw you?”
“Just one.”
“One?”
“Yeah. The big black man saw me.”
“The one that confronted Dean?” He hated that he knew some of their names.
Michael nodded.
The tension left his shoulders, and he said, “Well, if anyone was to see you, he’d be the best person. I don’t think he wants to hurt people like Dean does. Besides, I think he already knows we’re here.”
Michael didn’t reply and shook as he continued crying.
Folding the electric flex over, Chris then slipped the knife into the loop and started sawing up against it.
It was hard going with the steak knife Michael had brought him, and even in the cold house, sweat was dripping from Chris’ brow, but after a few minutes, he’d separated the flex from the vacuum cleaner and had cut it roughly in half. Staring at his crying son for a moment to assess his height and weight, he thought about how three weeks ago he was still hopeful of saving his kids through finding work, now he was gauging the weight of just one so he could tie a noose.
Sheep
Newspapers were free now because money had no worth. Groups of volunteers put the local publications together, and because all the energy supplies had been cut off about three weeks previously, they ran the presses off generators powered by a fast-dwindling fuel. Unlike all the fiction Chris had consumed about apocalyptical events, each one predicting their own kind of chaos, it seemed that very few people cared enough about petrol and oil to make war for it. The petrol stations ran out of fuel fast, faster than the supermarkets ran out of bread and milk, but once they were empty, people adapted quickly. It would seem that treating fuel like it was as important as oxygen was a capitalist disease.
Every Thursday, Chris walked to the local supermarket, holding his nose for the entire journey because of the gassy smell of decaying waste. The streets were lined with black bags, most of them split with their contents hanging out like entrails. Every bin was overflowing. People were now simply dumping rubbish wherever they needed to, turning every street into a playground for foxes and rats. Chris wondered how long it would be before some streets became impassable. He also wondered if he’d witness the return of the black plague.