“I asked you a question, Charles,” he spoke threateningly. “Is that your son?”
Charles nodded sheepishly.
“And what is his name?”
“Samuel,” he stuttered as the pieces started to fall into place at last in his head. “Samuel Westchester.”
“Told you,” Dev sneered from behind Gold-Tooth. “This is his house. It’s got to be.”
“Well, well, well,” Gold-Tooth stood up straight once again and grinned. “Isn’t this a funny little coincidence – we come looking for food and supplies and we’ve managed to stumble into the house of the man that made all of this possible. Where is the golden boy? Good old Samuel? You haven’t got him hiding away upstairs as well, have you?”
“I haven’t seen my son since the day of the collapse,” Charles replied, also straightening his posture and almost squaring up to the man in front of him. Things had gone on for long enough now and something inside of Charles was changing – these men had broken into his house, stolen his possessions, terrified his wife and now they were scapegoating his son for what had happened to the country. He couldn’t let it happen any longer. He needed to stand up for his family.
“Which, might I add,” Charles continued, “he had nothing to do with.”
“Pah!” Dev let out a loud laugh. “You expect us to believe that? We all saw him on TV. Why was he on the news if he didn’t know what was going on? I bet he was behind all of this – I bet he’s hidden away somewhere waiting for all of this to blow over and then he’s going to fly the pair of you out to him and his trillions of stolen dollars. You’re both in on this, aren’t you? Tell us where the jackpot is and let us have our share!”
“My son is not a thief.”
Addison’s words shocked everyone, including Charles who was still clutching her small, frail body next to his own. As Dev had let his tongue loose to condemn Samuel, she had reacted much like her husband and decided enough was enough. She squeezed her husband’s hand in her own and balanced her weight on her own two feet, looking Dev square in the eyes and speaking directly to him.
“My son did what he thought was right in the moment. He was trying to give the people of this city, this country – of the world – some peace and understanding in a dreadful, dreadful time. He was trying to help you and I will not let you speak ill of his name. I want you to get out of my house right now and never come back here. Never, ever!”
Squeezing his wife’s hand back, Charles felt his heart well up with pride. Addison was a well-mannered and proper lady, but he had fallen in love with her for the fire that burned inside. As she’d grown older, that fire had burned less and less, but Charles had always known it was still there. Now it flourished, roaring brightly in the dark night and threatening to burn anyone who came too close to it. He looked over at Gold-Tooth, Dev and the other man expecting their expressions to have changed and the situation to have evolved, but instead Charles only saw mocking expressions on their faces and ridiculing smiles. They weren’t afraid of the elderly couple and if anything, their anger only seemed to have grown.
“Nice speech,” Gold-Tooth scoffed. “I guess it runs in the family, huh?”
“Tell us where the money is,” Dev spoke up, walking towards Charles and Addison threateningly, the other two men also advancing to his left.
“We know you’ve got it.”
“There’s nothing here,” Charles replied sincerely. “You have to believe me.”
“Fat chance,” Dev shook his head. “Where is it?”
In a moment of desperation, Charles’ eyes darted to his study as he thought of the hunting rifles which were affixed to the wall just inside. The thought had passed through his mind so quickly, that he hadn’t even realized he looked in that direction – but the third man hadn’t missed it. He looked over at the closed door and smirked.
“No!” Addison cried out as the man made a beeline for the door. The downstairs study was hardly used by either her or Charles any more, the room taking on a new role as a house for their most precious possessions. The urns of Addison’s parents rested in there, along with her and Charles’ wedding photos, their children’s pre-school drawings, first teeth and locks of their baby hair. Despite the cold exterior Addison carried that her family were all used to, she had a soft center and her most prized possessions, the sentimental items which held the most value to her, were the things she most desperately wanted to protect. Not jewels, money or expensive trinkets – but the memories of her life and the happy moments she and her family had shared.
But when Gold-Tooth saw her lurch forward, he blocked Addison’s movement with his huge, strong body, causing the old woman to slip and crumple to the ground.
Charles watched it all happen as if it was in slow motion. Addison’s knees gave out beneath her and her body keeled over to one side, the hard, stone floor rushing up at her at alarming speed and meeting her with a loud cracking sound as Addison’s head slammed into it. Her eyes closed and a pool of red started to pour from her temple, flooding the kitchen floor and bringing the whole room to a sudden stop.
“Adi!”
Charles’ cry was traumatizing. It was the scream of a broken man. He fell to the ground next to his wife’s body, shaking her and desperately trying to get Addison to open her eyes. The room started spinning. There was so much blood on the floor. Charles could taste it in his mouth, the metallic tang wrapping itself around his taste buds and almost strangling him.
“Adi.” He held his wife’s shoulders and shook her body. “Adi, please. Wake up.”
The world around him faded in and out of focus as Charles held onto his wife. He completely forgot about the three men and what they had been doing, his sole focus on Addison as she lay lifeless on the stone floor in front of him.
“Don’t leave me,” he whispered as tears streamed down his face and landed on her chest. “Please don’t leave me like this.”
Chapter 4
“You can’t blame yourself, Samuel. It wasn’t your fault.”
Despite his father’s words, Samuel was unable to see the situation otherwise. His mother was dead because of him. As Charles had recounted the horrible story, Samuel had seen how difficult it was for his father to relive the evening. His eyes drifted from the spot on the kitchen floor where Addison had died, now noticing how the gray stone was a slightly different color to all the rest. No matter how hard his father had scrubbed, Charles still couldn’t remove the evidence of what had happened there.
Samuel felt ashamed and guilty. He knew he had made mistakes throughout the collapse, but on his way back to his parents’ house just a few days ago he had truly felt like he’d turned a corner in his life. He knew what he wanted to achieve and he felt proud of the things he’d done. Now to learn that his mother had died because of a trio of thugs who blamed him for the collapse was soul destroying.
“Your mother loved you so much,” Charles continued to try and console his broken son. “She wouldn’t have wanted you to react like this.”
Yet no matter how hard Charles tried to improve his son’s spirits, Samuel remained frozen in place, barely hearing the words his father spoke to him. It came as little reprise to hear what his mother’s final words had been, that she died trying to protect the memory of him and his sister, Jessie. Samuel had always known he was loved whether it was shown in the conventional sense or not, he didn’t need a memory to tell him that. What he did need was his mother standing by his side and telling him to pull himself together and that was the only thing he couldn’t have.
A mixture of sadness and rage consumed him. Samuel was so angry over the circumstances of his mother’s death, utterly infuriated that these people could do such a thing and get away with it. He wanted to hunt the men down one by one and make them pay for what they had done – previously he had always believed everyone deserved a second chance, but he couldn’t stand by that now. Some people were just pure evil, no matter which way you threw the dice and these murderers fell straight
into that category.
“Please, Sam,” Charles sagged in his chair opposite his son, letting out a loud sigh and resting his head in his right hand. “I need you right now. You can’t let this break you.”
Finally, Samuel lifted his eyes and rested his gaze on his father. The old man seemed so much paler and thinner in the light of day – when Samuel had arrived the night before, he had been so preoccupied with getting to his parents’ house that he hadn’t noticed the smashed windows along one side of the house that Charles hadn’t been able to clean up or the broken cupboard doors in the kitchen. Now that he looked at the house and his father with a fresh set of eyes, he knew they needed to do something. Staying there was too painful – both in the physical and emotional sense – he and his father had to do something, but what? In a city that was already running terrifyingly low on options, what choice did he have left?
“I’m sorry, dad,” Samuel spoke softly. “I wish I had been here.”
“I don’t,” Charles replied immediately with a shake of his head. “And I bet your mother would be glad you weren’t too.” Samuel opened his mouth to interject and apologize again, but Charles cut him short, raising a hand to silence his son.
“I don’t want to hear what you’re about to say. I know it’s hard, but you can’t shoulder the blame for this or anything else that has happened. From what you’ve told me about where you’ve been these last few weeks, I couldn’t be prouder of you. Your mother would feel the same way and she would want you to continue on that path, not wallow in sadness over her death. She would’ve told us she was the lucky one now,” Charles added with a smile. “At least her suffering is over.”
Samuel listened to his father and tried to change how he felt. He might not be able to get rid of the sadness and rage inside of him, but at least outwardly he could adapt. He heard his father’s words and recognized that the old man needed him now more than ever – the two of them had to survive and to do that, he had to act.
“I love you, dad,” Samuel spoke as he climbed out of his chair and walked over to his father. They weren’t words often said within their family, but starting now Samuel was going to change that. “We’re going to be fine; you’ll see. We’ll figure something out, I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere.”
“I love you too, son. Very, very much.”
Samuel and his father spent the rest of the morning going through all the rooms in the large Long Island house and collecting everything that could be useful to them. Neither knew how long things were going to continue in the same manner, but after everything Samuel had seen, he knew it would be months before things started to change and head in a more positive direction, possibly even longer. He wasn’t just preparing for a bad winter; he was preparing for a bad few years.
However, despite the size of the house and the number of rooms that were largely untouched by the three intruders, Samuel and Charles didn’t manage to find very much that would help them. There were fireplaces in half of the rooms of the house and a storage closet stacked to the brim with kindling that would keep them warm all through the winter when it arrived in a couple months and long after. In fact, heat and comfort were of little problem, the overpowering absence came from the pantry.
Without a constant supply of food and water, Samuel estimated he and his father could only survive on what they had for another week at most. What he’d brought with him in his backpack helped a little, but even with that and serious rationing, Samuel didn’t like their chances. They needed to find more food from somewhere and with his father growing out of breath just walking around the house, Samuel knew that responsibility sat with him and him alone.
“I don’t like leaving you here on your own.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Samuel,” Charles chastised him. “I was here on my own just fine before you turned up. Besides, it’s the middle of the day, nothing’s going to happen to me.”
“I know, but still,” Samuel faltered. He was ready to head out and check the neighboring houses for food and supplies in every sense but one; the thought of leaving his father behind after learning what had happened in the house terrified him to the core. “I know!” An idea popped into Samuel’s head and he wandered down out of the drawing room where his father sat and upstairs into one of the spare bedrooms. The house was vast and during their search for useful objects, they had found a number of items Samuel didn’t even know existed – one of which he picked up and lugged back down the stairs for his father.
“What on earth have you brought that down here for?” Charles exclaimed as Samuel planted down a large, bronze gong next to his father.
“For emergencies,” he replied, wiping a layer of sweat from his brow. “I’ll leave the window in here open and if anything happens, if you need me or anything, you can hit it and I’ll hear the sound.”
Charles looked at his son skeptically but eventually nodded, aware that Samuel was never going to leave him on his own again unless he felt sure nothing untoward could happen. Charles appreciated it and knew Samuel was only acting out of love and concern, but he didn’t want to hinder his son or slow him down. He might be old, but Charles also understood how serious their situation was and he knew he needed to pull his weight.
“Alright,” the old man replied, “thanks.”
“I’ll be as quick as possible,” Samuel added as he was about to leave. “I’ll start at the end of the street and work my way back here on one side, drop off what I’ve got and then continue if need be. Okay?”
“Okay,” Charles smiled, “see you soon.”
Samuel lingered by the front door another couple of seconds, his eyes glued to his father as he struggled to leave the old man behind. Eventually he did what he needed to do, closing the door behind him and stepping back out into the world with the goal of survival fresh in his head.
When he reached the first house, Samuel paused on the doorstep. He could tell that no one was home, the street quiet and most of houses with windows smashed in just like his parents’. This one was no different and yet Samuel was still wary about just walking inside. The window just to the right of the front door was smashed, clearly the entrance for whomever had raided the place – Samuel wondered whether it had been the same three men who were responsible for his mother’s death and his blood boiled. The things he would do if he ever laid eyes on them.
Reaching forward, Samuel pushed on the front door and allowed it to swing inwards, revealing the dimly lit corridor inside. The door was unlocked from the inside[MP4], the previous intruders obviously exiting that way rather than through the broken window.
As soon as he stepped inside, Samuel felt his heart sink. The hallway was a mess, furniture knocked over with soil from a potted plant trodden all over the carpet. The dead fern lay at the bottom of the stairs, a broken plant pot next to it in pieces. Samuel followed the hallway to the back of the house, which opened out in a similar way to his parents’ with the kitchen right at the back overlooking the garden. All of the houses on the street had been built at the same time and so were all fairly similar in appearance, a few of them having modern extensions added in the last few years but on the whole presenting a very united front as they lined the road.
To Samuel’s disappointment – but not as much of a surprise – the kitchen was just like his parents as well. Not so much in design, but in the wrecked and empty state of it. Cupboard doors were torn off or left hanging off their hinges, the shelves inside stripped entirely bare by whoever had got there before him.
Samuel walked around the room and inspected a few of the cupboards which weren’t already wide open, but there was nothing left inside for him to find. Disgruntled, he left the kitchen and slowly walked through the rest of the house, searching for anything he and his father could use. He hadn’t known the people who lived here, but could tell the house was owned by a family. Children’s toys collected in crates under the dining room table and the room which was likely originally designed as a study had been convert
ed into a play room.
It was a strange feeling to be picking through a child’s toys and it made Samuel feel extremely uncomfortable. He just wanted to get out of the house and onto the next, wondering about what had happened to the children who lived here. So many families had been torn apart by the collapse, there were any number of awful things that could’ve happened to this one and Samuel was painfully aware of that fact.
Passing by one of the children’s bedrooms, Samuel glanced in and saw a teddy bear propped up on the bed. Seeing it there all alone made Samuel sad, wondering if the little boy who owned it was longing for his bear. His mind drifted back to the time Samuel had spent with Mason and Noah, then later with Bowie and he questioned how all of them were doing without him. He hoped Mason and Noah were safe in Poughkeepsie, the city teetering on the edge of madness with surely not long left before something cracked and broke.
Bowie was at least in safe hands. Samuel hadn’t thought about Austin much since being back with his father, but now that he paused and remembered the time they had spent together, he realized how much he missed his friend. He hoped that Austin and his family were faring better in the city than he was on the outskirts – the four of them had planned to hole up in Queens in their apartment, but Samuel feared that Austin might have found the place in a very similar state. It was hard to say if there was anywhere safe left in the city, the collapse changing their world more than any of them could’ve imagined.
It was strange to think that everything that had happened was the result of one company going bankrupt. It may have been one of the largest global financial superpowers, but when Samuel thought it – or even said it out loud – it was possible for the event to sound insignificant. And yet it was so far from that.
Wipeout | Book 5 | Foul Play Page 3
