by Ryan Casey
Harold walked over to the glass on the floor, over to the brick. Beside him, Rex growled and barked. “Bloody little shits. I’ll have ’em for this.”
“Harold,” Moira said. “You’ll do no such thing.”
“What am I supposed to do? Just stand here? Just let these little shits wreck our house because there’s no police around to round ’em up anymore? No. Not a chance.” He reached under his sofa. Pulled out a long hunting rifle. Tikka T3, by the looks of things, pretty much the most common stalking rifle in the UK.
Moira’s face dropped. “Don’t be stupid, Harold. You’ll go getting us all into trouble.”
“They need a lesson teaching.”
“Dad,” Nathan said, rubbing his hands through his greasy black hair. “It’s a bunch of kids. They don’t look like the kind of shits to be messing with. Rough types.”
“I don’t care whether it’s a bunch of kids or the bloody army,” Harold said. “They vandalise my property; they get what’s coming to ’em.”
He walked over to the front door. Opened it.
A gust of wind blew inside.
Max turned and looked outside, shivering.
“Oi!” Harold shouted.
Max saw the kids turn around. There were about five of them. All hooded. All pale. All looked like the kind of kids Max always found a nightmare when he was with the police or when he was working in town. Usually from broken homes. Fault of the parents. But that didn’t excuse jack shit.
They looked at one another. Walked over to the house.
“Dad,” Nathan said, comforting Moira, who seemed to be growing progressively more anxious about the whole situation. “Seriously, just leave it out.”
But Harold looked focused. And he looked determined. “Come back here, right this second,” he said, gripping his rifle. “Think you can smash my windows and get away with it?”
He saw them all standing there in a group. All talking amongst themselves. Like they were figuring out what to do.
And then they all turned.
Walked over towards the house.
Towards Harold, who stood there with that rifle.
“That’s right,” Harold said. “You get the hell here, right now.”
“What’s up, old man?”
Harold lifted the rifle. “You want teaching some manners.”
“Harold!” Moira shouted.
But he looked focused. Held that rifle with his shaking hands, totally focused on what was ahead. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at, you little shits?”
One of them—a tall, lanky guy, pale face and freckles, couldn’t be out of his teens—stood there with this smug smirk on his face. Hands stuffed into his pockets. He shrugged. “Thought it’d be funny.”
“You thought it’d be funny?” Harold spat. “My mother’s mother owned this house. And you think you can just come up here from that cesspit you live in and vandalise it?”
“What you tryin’ to say about where we come from? You think yer better than us or somethin’?”
“Yeah,” Harold said. “Yeah, I do. And this proves it. I don’t go around vandalising houses. I don’t go around causing problems. You do. So that says it all about you. It tells me all I need to know about what you are.”
The kids standing behind the ringleader didn’t say much, but they looked at Harold and those in the house with dirty glances. Clearly, they were nothing without their ringleader.
But the ringleader stood his ground.
Stared Harold right in the eye.
“You’ve had it all for too long. That’s what my dad always says. You lot’ve had it all for too long. And now the power’s gone, it’s time we got a bit of what you’ve had. ’Cause it ain’t yours anymore. There’s no rules anymore. So we can do whatever the fuck we want. And we can take whatever the fuck we want. And even if we go now… we’ll be back. We won’t forget.”
“Dad,” Nathan said.
He walked to his dad’s side. Max just lay there, staring on. He wished he could stand up. Wished he could intervene. Wished he could step in.
Because he had a bad feeling about this.
Tensions felt high.
And they felt like they were just going to keep on rising and rising.
“Back away,” Harold said. “Get the hell away from my house. And get back to your whores of mothers. Because you’re worthless. All of you are worthless. And if you take another step here… believe me, you’ll regret it.”
The kid stared at Harold.
Harold stared at the kid. Rifle raised.
“Cody,” one of the kids—pasty, ginger—said. “Let’s leave it.”
But Cody stood his ground.
“Dad,” Nathan said. Hand on the rifle. “Come on. Leave them be. They’re just kids. And they won’t come here again.”
Harold looked at the kids.
Then at Nathan.
And with a sigh and a grumble, he lowered his rifle. “Then you better had get the hell away, right now.”
He went to turn around and close the door.
It all happened so fast.
Cody pulled a blade out of his pocket.
He lifted it, came at Harold.
Nathan grabbed his dad, tried to drag him out of the way.
Harold swung around.
Lifted the rifle.
“Harold!” Moira shouted.
A blast.
Everything stood still.
Blood on the ground outside the house.
Ringing in Max’s ears.
He stared at the scene.
Stared on, as the kids stood there.
As Cody stood there.
Wide-eyed.
Knife in his hands.
As Harold stood there.
As Moira cried.
He looked ahead as the kids all ran away—as even Cody ran away into the woods.
And all he could look at, as Rex barked away, was that kid.
The one who tried to stop Cody.
The pasty ginger one.
Lying there on his back.
Blood trickling out of his head.
A bullet hole between his eyes.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Frank Holburn stood at the top of his yard and wondered where Sam was.
He always worried about Sam being out with the kids from the estate. Sam wasn’t really like them. Didn’t have a lot in common with them, not really.
But since Frank split up with Gloria when Sam was just three, and since Gloria decided she didn’t really want anything to do with her boy, he’d been forced to move into social housing in a less than desirable area. Gloria was the earner, after all. Well. That’s the image she liked to put across, anyway. Truth be told, it was her dad who earned the bulk of the money and funded his little princess’ lifestyle.
But when they split up, Frank wasn’t exactly in the best place. He was a big drinker. Did a few drugs. Loved gambling, too. He wasn’t the best father in the world. Definitely not the best role model.
But from the moment Gloria left, Frank tried. He fully committed to Sam. To making sure he got the best upbringing possible.
And even though he’d struggled to get a solid job for a while, jumping between construction jobs, he’d finally enrolled in an electrician course at college and had hopes of going full time.
Getting the hell out of this estate. Saving Sam from it. And being able to give him a better life.
He looked up towards the hills nearby. Beacon Fell. A nicer place up there. Detached houses in the middle of nowhere, overlooking everything down here. One day, he wanted to move up there with Sam. Give him a better life. A life away from the trash in the streets down here.
Sam had been out for a while now. He looked down the street at the abandoned cars with the smashed windows. The buildings with the graffiti sprayed across them. Terraced houses, some of them with boarded-up windows. And he remarked on how since the power went out as New Year’s Eve segued into New Year’s Day, nothing had real
ly changed around here. It was always chaotic. The sort of place the police never enjoyed visiting. Always a bit of a shithole. The only difference now was that things were getting even more tense. Even more lawless.
And he was starting to worry about Sam.
He was gone when he’d got up first thing this morning. Wanted him to get a good breakfast. Had a shitload of cereal stocked up and some fruit that needed using up before it went off. Everything was worthwhile, at the end of the day. Nothing could be wasted.
But he’d got up and found Sam’s bedroom empty. And he knew right away he’d gone off with Cody and the other kids.
Frank didn’t like Cody. He didn’t like his dad, James. Local tough nut. Dealt drugs, had the whole community under his grip. The sooner he got locked up, the better.
And he felt a bit sorry for Cody, growing up in that environment, with parents like that. But at the end of the day, Cody wasn’t a good influence on his Sam. Didn’t matter that he had the background he had. That was a shame. Unfortunate.
But it didn’t change the fact he was a thug, and Frank didn’t want him anywhere near his boy. Especially now the power was out.
He looked down the street, down past the end of the road. He knew he was going to have to venture out again soon. Gather some supplies. The military was already sniffing around, apparently. Setting up checkpoints, delivering rations. But he felt like he’d been forgotten. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to put all his faith in a military who he wasn’t even sure had a clue what was going on themselves.
Rather just make it on his own. Him and Sam. They didn’t need anyone else. Just each other.
He went to turn around when he saw movement at the end of the street.
There were four of them. Boys. All running down the road.
And as much as he hated the sight of these kids, Frank breathed a sigh of relief. Because it was Sam. He was okay. The little shits had gone out causing trouble, and now they were back.
But as he went to turn, he noticed something.
Cody was there. The Jackson kid was there. The lad they called Frenchie and Big Ben.
But no Sam.
He looked around. Frowned. Saw them all running down the street.
And it was like living in a weird kind of movie because he could see they were looking right at him.
And he could see the terror in the pale faces of the boys.
All except Cody, who looked weirdly like he was in his element, somehow.
“Sam’s dad!” Cody shouted. Never addressed him by his first name. No kids ever did address parents by their first name. Always seemed a bit like crossing a boundary.
Frank stared at them as they got closer. “What’s up?”
“Summat’s happened,” Cody said. It was commotion. He couldn’t get any sense out of them.
“Just slow down,” Frank said. “What’s going on? Where’s Sam?”
“That’s the thing,” Cody said. Staring right into Frank’s eyes. A weird smirk to his face. Like he was angry but faking his anger. “Something’s happened. Something’s happened to Sam.”
He said those words, and Frank’s world fell out beneath him.
“I think—I think he’s dead,” Cody said.
The world might have changed two days ago.
But it was at that moment that Frank’s world well and truly transformed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Is he…”
“Yes.”
“But shouldn’t we—”
“He’s gone.”
“But he’s just a kid. He’s just a…”
“He’s gone.”
Aoife watched the scene before her like it was a movie on a screen. It didn’t seem real. The kid lying there on the ground, bullet hole in his head. The ringing in her ears from the firing of the rifle. Harold, Moira, and Nathan all standing around the boy, staring down at him, all of them different degrees of speechless.
Moira crying.
Nathan looking wide-eyed and shocked. Rubbing his hands through his dark locks, time and time again.
And Harold trying to keep his composure as he stood there with his rifle in hand. Shaking. Frown on his face.
But clearly shaken by what’d just happened.
“Harold,” Moira said, crying. “You didn’t have to do this. You didn’t have to do any of this.”
“The kid tried to bloody stab me!”
“But you didn’t have to shoot him! He’s just a boy. He’s just a boy, Harold. What will we do? What will we do?”
She walked back into the house, past Aoife, past Rex, past Max, who lay there on the sofa watching everything unfold. He hadn’t said anything about what was happening yet. He kept quiet, clearly sick.
But Aoife could tell he was thinking about things. Mulling over everything that was happening.
And she had a greater sense than ever before about the danger they were in.
“What’re we going to do with him?” Moira asked.
Harold shrugged. “Not my problem.”
“You shot him, Harold. You shot the boy. You can’t just wash your hands of him while he’s on our doorstep.”
“He tried to kill me, Moira! The little shit tried to kill me. He got what was coming. We’ll… we’ll get him away from the house, and we’ll put him in the woods.”
“But his parents. His family. And the police. Someone… someone should know.”
“The police?” Harold said. “There are no police anymore. And you really want to go down into the estate where these youths creep up from and tell his parents? Really? You really think they’re the kind not to descend into mob violence?”
Moira cried, shook her head. She looked at the end of her tether. “I just know we need to do something.”
Nathan stood there looking pale and shocked. Aoife went up to him. Stood by his side.
“What do you think?” she asked. Still in shock. Still not quite able to process everything that had happened.
“What?”
“What do you think we should do?”
He blinked a few times like he was returning to reality, getting back into the present moment. “We… Dad’s right. We need… we need to get him away from the front of the house. One way or another.”
Aoife nodded. She felt mixed emotions. On the one hand, it felt wrong not reporting this somehow to any authorities. It felt like they were crossing into very murky waters.
But then she’d killed someone yesterday. Her own brother. And she hadn’t been enthusiastic about “reporting” that, whatever it meant in this new world.
“I think Harold’s right,” Aoife said, speaking up.
“Finally,” Harold said. “Someone who speaks sense.”
“I know… I know it’s not easy. And it doesn’t feel right. But we need to get the kid away from here. We need… We need to bury him.”
“Ain’t no time to bury him,” Harold said.
Moira shook her head, crying. “The boy has parents. He has a family. He deserves a funeral.”
And Aoife felt it. She really did. This felt wrong. So wrong. They should take the boy down to the estate. They should own up to what they’d done. Come clean.
But Harold was right. She’d heard about the estate. She’d seen what sort of kids they were. Cody, the leader. That sinister look in his eyes.
She knew the best thing to do would be to bury the boy, to treat him with some kind of respect. And just deal with the ramifications of their choices down the line.
“Come on,” she said. “Moira, you stay here with Max and Rex. We… we’ll take the boy.”
She looked at Harold when she said it. Half-expected him to protest. Had that look in his eyes like he was going to resist.
But then he just sighed. Nodded.
And then Aoife looked down at the boy’s body.
His pale face.
Those big freckles.
His pale skin.
His ginger hair.
The bullet hole in his skull, leaki
ng blood.
She reached down for him, still not quite able to believe this was real. That this was the life she was living now. This was reality now.
She picked him up. Nathan and Harold lifting him, too. She smelled faeces in the air and piss and tried not to think about the fact it was from the boy.
And as the three of them walked this hellish walk, blood still dripping from the boy’s skull, she couldn’t get over how heavy and how unhuman-like he felt. Like, upon the life leaving his body, he was nothing more than a bundle of meat now. A doll full of weights.
Even his cooling skin didn’t feel real anymore. It felt artificial. Like plastic.
They walked far away from Harold and Moira’s house until they stopped in an area filled with trees.
“Leave him here,” Harold said.
Aoife shook her head. “We go back, and we get a shovel, and we bury him.”
“You can bury him. I’m not wasting my time here.”
“What the hell is your problem?”
“Aoife,” Nathan said, intervening.
“No,” she said. “No, I won’t be interrupted. You killed this boy, Harold. You shot him—”
“I know damned well what I did, okay?”
For the first time, Aoife detected sadness in his voice. She sensed his trauma, his pain. And she knew he was guilty. That this had shaken him up really badly. And that he was just fighting it. Suppressing it.
“Harold,” Aoife said. “I know it’s not easy. And you can go back to the house if you want. But this boy deserves a burial. He’s a child. He’s a child, and he doesn’t deserve to be left for the animals. Nobody does. So we’re going to go back. We’re going to get a shovel. And then we’re going to bury him.”
Harold opened his mouth.
Then he closed it.
Nodded.
“I’ll wait here. I’m not walking back and forth like a yoyo. You two go get what you need. But don’t be too long.”
Aoife opened her mouth, sighed.
And then she looked at Nathan, and she nodded.
“You sure you’ll be alright here?” she asked.
Harold nodded back. “Right as rain.”
She wanted to argue. Wanted to protest.
But then she just nodded back and turned towards the cabin, Nathan by her side.
