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Grin and Bear It : The Apocalypse

The following excerpt is taken from the first chapter, after the Copes had watched explosions and the chaos from their bedroom windows during the night.
John, the father, Caroline, the mother, Danny, the eldest (18), and Jack, the youngest (11), all try to sleep afterwards ...

...

But no-one slept.

Their minds raced from one thought to another, all night. Their adrenaline and anxiety levels were on high alert with different, terrifying scenarios. John and Caroline spent their evening tossing and turning, anxiously considering how to feed and protect their family. Danny spent his night wondering and worrying about how he was going to become rich and successful now that money didn’t matter anymore. And Jack, Jack spent the first part of his evening wondering what was happening in the world, until his 11 year old’s ADHD kicked in, then the rest of his evening wondering if his school football match would be cancelled on Saturday and if not, then if he’d finally be allowed to play CAM instead of defence.

When morning broke, Jack and his dad went to the living room downstairs. They’d left the curtains open the night before, and now the sunlight streamed into the room like a seemingly normal, beautiful Saturday morning. They spent an hour or two peaking just behind the curtains watching for movement outside, while Danny and his mum were packing bags and rucksacks upstairs.

“One of us has to go outside and see what’s going on, bud.” Jack’s dad said, smiling mischievously, “and I vote you.”

Jack exploded, “I’m not going outside, you go!”

His voice boomed across the living room, as he stormed away from the window. It was bright outside; picturesque, fluffy white clouds dotted across the tapestry of the clear blue sky. Sunshine streamed into the room; it was a perfect day.

But it was quiet.

Unusually quiet.

For a Saturday in England, sunshine and weekends meant kids screaming and laughing, and laughing while screaming, and noise. Lots of noise. Joyful, chaotic noise. But today, there was nothing. No sound at all. No people, no dogs, no cats, no birds; not even the gentle hum of electricity from power lines, nor even the groan of a car engine going by, trying to stay under 20mph.

His Dad laughs, falsely again, but more convincingly this time, and gives him a gentle hug. 

“Okay, just wait here a sec. I’m going to go and look. Go get your Mum and Danny, like I said, and when I get back, we’ll have a little chat.” 

Jack nods, and suddenly jumps forward and hugs his dad much more tightly round the waist. He squeezes again, unwilling to let go. John hugs his youngest boy back.
He needs reassuring.
Kids are resilient, but only if they have hope.

“It’ll be okay, bud. I’ll just be two ticks.”

He hugs him again and walks into the hallway. He secretly takes a deep breath and with a noticeably shaking hand, opens the door and steps outside, leaving the door slightly ajar. 

The sky is blue, the sun is shining, the air is cold-ish, but not enough to need a jumper. It’s his perfect type of day, he thinks, apart from, you know, the end-of-the-world thing. He walks down the short drive to the centre of the cul-de-sac they live in. It’s made up of ten houses, all in a horse-shoe shape, with their little, pleasant gardens all facing inwards to the road. 

The houses around him look empty. The doors are thrown wide open, and there are belongings scattered across the paths and the road, as if everyone left in such a rush there was no time to stop and pick anything up that they had dropped.

Just in front of him, John spots something on the road and stoops down onto one knee to pick it up. It’s a furry, knitted, brown toy, shaped like a dog. It was Dee’s, the little girl from two doors away. John instantly looks concerned. Dee went everywhere with it; she’d never leave it behind if she could help it. A sadness crosses his face as he dusts the toy down and wipes the dirt off its big, brown, plastic eyes. He imagines how distraught the little girl would be without it, how it would have brought her some comfort amidst all this confusion. He squeezes it gently, and carefully puts it into his back pocket. 

Lifting his head slowly, he stares ahead and begins to move cautiously towards the end of the street and the main road. The main road past the entrance to their cul-de-sac is about fifteen metres away, a path he’s taken many times before, but this time, it feels unknown. 

At the end of the road, he looks left and right, and sees the same picture everywhere. Broken glass and belongings are strewn across the road. He can see where cars have crunched and bundled into each other, and the occupants had simply carried on going.

“To where?” he wondered. “Where would they go? Had there been some warnings? Some instructions somewhere that he wasn’t aware of?“ 

He’d repeatedly tried his phone all night, and the internet, and the TV. All cut off. He'd read somewhere, at some time, that the first move in war was to destroy communications, to create panic. It was a clear and textbook move from a military enemy. This can’t be an accident. But what enemy? He didn’t see any soldiers, no more sounds of fighting, and (thankfully) no bodies in the street, no people at all. 

“Where would everyone go, though?” he whispers to himself again, trying to stay focused. 

His face grimaces as he tries to think where any safe refuge could be, given the fallout, then shakes his head as if to get rid of the thought. Turning abruptly, he strides quickly back to the large, grey Nissan on his drive. He jumps inside and switches on the dashboard. 

“3/4 of a tank,” he smiles, “that’s a few hundred miles.”

In the living room, Caroline and Danny have joined Jack. They’re discussing what they should have for lunch when John comes back into the house. 

“How is it?” Caroline asks, as John enters the room, looking at him with a face that clearly, without any need at all for words, says, “BE POSITIVE!”

John gets the message, “Yeah, it’s just quiet. Everyone’s probably gone off to see their family and stuff. Should be okay. I’m sure they’ll stick the power back on in a while.”

Caroline nods, she knows none of that was true. She pulls her wavy, dark brown hair back away from her face and ties it in a knot behind her head. “Okay,“ she turns to the family, “we need a plan.”

...

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