Guilt overwhelms her as she remembers the night the blackout struck. He’d gloated about how God was helping them and slunk out in the night and snuck back in with the breaking dawn. Exhausted, he’d fallen asleep in their bed stinking of petrol and smoke. After the first night, he’d shouted in his dreams and then screamed but the next night was the same and now he was back again stinking of petrol and sweat. She should have reported him when she had the chance. It had been her duty to stop him and she’d shirked it. She shudders as she thinks of how many people must have died already. Their blood was on her hands too.
Allysiah calls out from the bedroom breaking into Nareen’s thoughts and she hurries to pick her up. She’ll feed the baby whilst Hamed is upstairs then talk to him—make him see sense or try to—one last time.
She offers the child a spoon of mashed banana as Hamed returns to the kitchen. Dressed all in black he pushes his fingers through his hair and smiles across at his daughter.
“Is that good?” he croons and strokes the child’s cheek. She babbles in return and slams her spoon onto the plastic tray of the highchair. “Be good for mummy,” he continues and catches Nareen’s eye. She grabs his hand.
“Don’t go.”
He stares at her for a moment then his eyes shift and he pulls his hand away.
“Hamed, for the love of all that is good in this world ... for the love of your daughter, don’t go!” She stands as he turns away and walks to the door. “Stay with me. If you love me, stay with me.”
He stops and looks back and a flicker shifts across his eyes as she speaks. Walking to him she takes his hand and pulls it to her cheek. The smell of soap doesn’t disguise the stink of petrol.
“I know you love me, Hamed. Out there its chaos. There’s no food in the shops, there’s no electricity to cook with or heat the water. People are becoming dangerous and I’m frightened of what will happen, Hamed. Please ... stay here. You need to be here to help protect our daughter.”
He glances across her shoulder to Allysiah then back to Nareen. He’s wavering. She smiles and slips her arm around his waist and lays her head on his chest aware of the rhythmic beats of his heart. He’s silent although his hand slips behind her back. She’s winning!
A knock at the door. He tenses.
“Don’t answer it.”
“I have to.”
“No, you don’t,” she urges as he turns. “Please, Hamed. I need you. Allysiah needs you.”
Rap! Rap! Rap!
She holds him tight but he grips her arms and pushes her away, digging his fingers into her forearms. Arms dropped to her sides, a heavy weight plummets through to her belly as he reaches for the door handle. Without thought, but with full force, she slaps his face. He turns to her stunned. His eyes find hers and flicker with hate. He springs forward. Fingers wrap around her throat and she’s up against the wall. She splutters. Long fingers press hard against her windpipe.
“Bitch!” he spits.
She chokes at the pressure.
Allysiah lets out a low wail. Hamed’s scowl drops and the pressure on Nareen’s windpipe eases. She can breathe again. He grabs his coat from the hook, leaves the house and closes the door without a backward glance.
Nareen strokes at the burning skin of her throat as a bedroom door opens. “Is everything alright?” Hamed’s mother. She looks down from the top of the stairs. “I heard shouting!”
“Yes, Mummy,” she lies. “Everything is alright.” Nothing is right. She should have done something. It’s not too late. She pushes from the wall and smiles up to her mother-in-law. “I have to go out, Mummy. Can I leave Allysiah with you for an hour or so?” Berkeley Street. That must be where they were going to meet. She has to do something. She can’t let him murder more people.
“Of course,” her mother-in-law replies with a happy lilt though she gives Nareen a worried frown.
Back to the kitchen Nareen lifts her daughter from the high chair.
“I love my little poppet, don’t I,” her mother-in-law croons stroking the child’s hair. “Here, give her to me.” She holds out her arms to the child with a smile. “Go and get yourself ready. We’ll have a fun time playing this morning won’t we.”
Relieved at her kindness, and her sensitivity, she leans to the older woman and kisses her cheek. If she knew what Hamed was doing it would destroy her.
“Thank you. I’ll try not to be long,” Nareen smiles and hands the child over.
“Be careful out there, Nareen.”
Strokes of grey hair sparkle in the sunlight flooding through the kitchen window as hugs the baby to her chest. “There are so many evil people in the world these days.”
“Yes, Mummy, there are.”
CHAPTER SIX
A sickening lump swirls in Jessie’s belly as she runs down the road putting as much distance between herself and the police station as she can manage. Grey light fills the streets as morning breaks across the city. A Starbucks sign catches her attention and she determines to run to that point before slowing down. As she jogs, the rucksack knocking rhythmically against her back, a couple step into the road ahead. The woman looks ridiculously tiny next to the man and Jessie can’t decide whether he is just extremely broad and tall or the woman unusually petite. Running closer, she realises that he’s huge, and that he’s carrying something. Over his shoulder the long and curling white-blonde hair of a child spreads across his back. The sight of a couple walking along the street with a child at this time in the morning is unusual and Jessie can’t help but stare at them as she passes.
The man is broad-shouldered with a shock of white-blond hair. His face is tanned, his nose straight, his eyes a piercing blue rimmed by dark lashes. The child appears to be his clone though her features are petite like her mother’s. The woman catches Jessie’s eye as she passes and smiles, her face has an unusual grey pallor, darker around her nose and top lip. The stench of smoke is strong. Looking back, she realises the woman’s face is covered by a fine layer of soot and the child is barefoot. They must have been in one of the fires. As the distance between them grows, Jessie wants to turn back and offer help but realistically what can she do? Nothing! And anyway, the man looked as though he knew what he was doing. He had that aura of confidence about him—he’d take care of them.
“Shall we stop for a minute,” Jessie suggests to Alex as they approach the coffee shop.
“Yep,” Alex returns. “But just a minute though, Jess. We’ve got a hell of a way to go today and I don’t want to worry you, but the police could be on our tails.”
“Ugh,” she groans as her belly clenches. “You reckon?”
“Well, they wanted to arrest you on the spot.”
“Yeah, but they’re undermanned. I should say I’m the least of their worries.”
Anger brews close beneath the surface as she remembers the scene at the Police Station—how could they be so blinkered—so hidebound by rules? The country was at the mercy of a terrorist militia and they wanted to shoot the messenger! A cold sweat washes over her and she stares out at the skyline to the plumes of black smoke rising into the sky. Whatever she’d done in that basement had been justified. There had been no other option than to put those men out of action—permanently. She had no qualms about killing them. They were intent on killing innocent people. How many lives had she saved by killing two deluded and dangerous criminals? Hundreds, perhaps thousands. “Well, they’ll have to wait,” she responds. There was no way she’d let them take her in. “They’ll have to catch me first. We’ve got a head start and unless they’ve got cars that are fitted with emp protection then they’re not going anywhere fast.”
“Neither are we,” Alex’s reply is dour. “How far is Bramwell?”
“More than two hundred miles.”
“No way I’m walking that far. We’ll have to find some wheels.”
“Agreed,” she says with hands on hips, digging her nails into the flesh of her side as her chest tightens.
“Come on.” Alex
catches his breath. “We’ve stopped long enough. That couple will be catching us up in a minute if we don’t get a move on.”
Jessie looks back at the family before turning once more to run; they could be refugees fleeing a warzone.
The road ahead is blocked by an overturned lorry smashed into the rows of cars parked either side and they take a right onto the next street. A scene of horror greets them. The air is thick with the acrid stench of smoke as it billows from the windows of a wide building with multiple storeys. The road is teeming with people. Something odd lays in the road and it takes Jessie a moment to realise that it is a tangle of bodies pooled with blood. A man sits moaning, his hands, raw with burns, rest on his knees.
On the far-side of the road a woman leans against the window of a shop, patches of red are visible through her hair, the skin is tinged black. A man, a bucket at his feet is squeezing out a cloth. She makes no effort to move as he places the cloth on her head. Small groups stare up at the building and a young woman, tightly curled black hair scraped back into a severe ponytail stands in pink leggings and a t-shirt proclaiming ‘Sweet dreams’. Two children, hair dishevelled, shivering in pyjamas, hug to her sides. Barefoot she clings to them, her eyes red with tears. As Jessie passes, the boy lets out a low wail and the woman kneels and pulls him to her.
Further along the road a large crowd has gathered. Turned away from the building they’re listening to a broad-chested man with greying temples and a sandy-coloured beard that moves rhythmically as he speaks. His brow is furrowed in anger.
“They’re burning us in our beds!” he shouts across to the crowd. “This fire,” he says jabbing his fingers at the building, “is deliberate. All across the city, since the blackout, buildings have been torched.” A disgruntled rumbling sounds across the group.
“George said he saw them,” a woman calls out. Heads turn as she continues to speak. “He said he saw a gang of men running out of Overton Court the night before last. He didn’t recognise them. They were all in black and stank of petrol. He said they were laughing as they ran and then the building started to burn.”
“Did he report it?”
“Yeah, he did. He ran to the fire station ...”
The rest of her reply is lost to Jessie as the rumble of voices rises.
“Last night I watched the fires burn across the city. It’s no coincidence. The towns are burning too,” the man shouts out again. “It’s time to take a stand ...”
“... burnt to the ground ...”
“... can’t get hold of her mum ... at least fifty missing ...”
“... student flats—all burnt out ...”
“It’s time we did something about it,” the bearded man calls across the noise. “Where are the police? Where are the army? Where are the firefighters?”
“Not here!” a voice shouts in reply.
“Exactly! They’re spread too thin. The blackout has put them out of action.”
“Bloody government cutbacks!”
“Shame!”
“Maybe they’re in another part of the city?”
“They’re not here. There’s no one to protect us!”
“You’re right,” he says looking around at the group. “There is no one to protect us.” He pauses and stares out across the growing crowd. “And if they can’t protect us, we’ll have to protect ourselves.”
A murmur of agreement spreads through the people.
“It’s the government’s fault—letting all the immigrants in.”
“It’s foreign policy.”
“It doesn’t matter why it’s happening,” he shouts back. “The truth is they’re here and they’re trying to kill us.”
A rumble of voices.
“If the police aren’t going to stop them, then we’ll have to.”
“Exactly!”
A scream. The crowd turns in confusion.
“Up there!” a woman shouts and stabs up to the sky with her hand. The pink roses of her nightdress move with her jabbing hand as her dressing gown gapes.
Jessie follows the woman’s pointing finger.
“No!”
Silence falls over the crowd and people move backwards from the building. A figure leans out of a top floor window. A collective murmur erupts as the figure swings its legs over the sill.
“Stop!”
Jessie stares as bare feet dangle against the concrete façade then push against the building. Unable to watch, Jessie turns and closes her eyes. The sight of someone flailing through the air from a fifteenth-storey window is not something she can stomach. She waits.
Thud!
Gasps of horror fill her ears and she pushes down a surge of emotion. Stay calm. Stay in control.
Fingers lock around her elbow. “He’s right—the man with the beard,” Alex says as he tugs at her arm. “People need to protect themselves. They can only do that if they know what danger they’re in. We need to tell them what we know.”
The thud of the man’s body as it broke on the pavement still rings in Jessie’s ears as she nods in reply. Alex was right. They should tell them all about the terrorist’s plans, their ‘Days of Fire’.
As she steps towards the bearded man another shout rises from the crowd.
“Someone save her!”
IT HAS TAKEN AT LEAST thirty minutes of brisk walking to get a few streets from Berkeley Street. On the journey, Nareen has been horrified at the destruction the last nights have brought. Shop windows are smashed and their shelves empty. Cans, bottles, shopping baskets and paper litter the streets along with random items of clothing. As she passes yet another shop with a shattered window, she notices blood smeared along the door and pools of dark and drying blood along the pavement. In the distance thick columns of smoke rise into the sky.
There are not as many people on the streets as she’d expected, but then, if the shops are empty or closed, what would they be out for? She wouldn’t be out on the streets either, if she didn’t have to be here. As she turns the corner she stops. The road ahead is alive with noise and people shouting.
A man runs out of the entrance of a block of flats and then there are a dozen people in the street. They stand back and look up at the building. Nareen follows their gaze and notices the smoke. The building is on fire and at least two bodies lie broken on the ground, their arms and legs twisted at grotesque angles. A leg twitches and she gags.
A window slams up and a woman leans out. Smoke billows behind her. “Help!” she screams and swings her legs out and sits on the window’s ledge.
Nareen stands in horrified silence as she watches the woman begin to hitch herself further over the edge.
“Someone save her!” she calls into the crowd. The woman twists and dangles from the ledge. The drop is too far! She’ll never survive, or worse, be grotesquely broken like the bodies lying on the street. “Help her!” Nareen calls again. A weight of dread presses at her as she looks frantically at the people in the street. Some are oblivious, some nurse their own damaged flesh and others stand and stare in quiet horror.
A tug at Nareen’s sleeve. “Come with me,” The woman’s accent is thick. “We get that,” she says pointing to the awning above the shop at the base of the apartment blocks. “We pull it out and she can fall.”
The woman’s legs dangle directly above the awning. Nareen runs forward with the blonde and jumps up to grab the folded canopy. Her fingertips clip the edge of the fabric. She’s not tall enough. Again! She jumps and her fingertips pull at the awning then slip. As she jumps again a strong arm grips around her knees and she’s lifted. Grabbing the metal frame of the awning, she pulls and the fabric unfolds. A small group has gathered and they each reach up to hold the awning in place.
“Get ready!”
“Jump!” the blonde calls up.
“Sheila!” another woman shouts. “Jump! We’ll catch you.”
Smoke billows behind the woman. She releases her grip and falls. Nareen tightens her grip and waits for the impact.
&nbs
p; Bang!
The woman lands with a thud, the awning breaks under the impact, and the frame is yanked from Nareen’s hands.
Men grunt as the woman rolls into them, sliding over the broken awning. The fallen woman groans as one of the men heaves her to him then lays her on the ground. The awning hangs at an angle from its mooring, its metal frame bent, its fabric ripped.
“Sheila! Sheila are you alive?” her friend sobs as she crouches over her. “Are you broken? Are you hurt?”
Nareen turns to leave and catches sight of the woman whose quick thinking had saved Sheila. She reaches down to pick up a child. White-blonde hair splays across the woman’s shoulders and Nareen thinks back to her own child. How lucky she was to know that Alyssiah was safe at home. How different it could be for her. The petite woman smiles as their eyes meet until a man, huge and broad-shouldered with hair that matches the child’s, stands next to her. She watches the family as they embrace then walks away from the horror with renewed determination. She wasn’t willing to give up on Alyssiah’s father yet.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Making her way through the chaos Nareen reaches Berkeley Street. She stands at the corner and peers down the long road. It is empty apart from a lone man who turns left and disappears. Perhaps she misheard or they’ve already gone? As she scours the road, movement catches her eye and a figure, dressed entirely in black, moves at the crossroads. Although they’re too far away to see her, she pulls back and catches her breath. Her mouth is suddenly dry and her heart races. She presses close to the wall and looks again down the road. This time there are more figures. All are dressed in black, some with bandanas covering the lower half of their faces. As she watches, they assemble themselves in the middle of the road. Metal glints in the brightening sun. They’re armed!
Unsurprised, though shocked to see the spectacle of men wielding axes and machetes, she peers into the group looking for Hamed and is disappointed when she can’t discern him—they all look the same from this far away. A figure at the front punches his arm into the air. A rectangle of black rises at the back of the group. A flag. She recognises it immediately. To Nareen it shouts of death and violence, of hatred and barbarity. She shudders. It’s the same flag she’s seen on the news reports of extremists walking through London calling for the beheading of anyone who disparages them, for Sharia law to be the law of Britain, and as the backdrop to videos from the Middle East showing the beheading of hostages. She remembers vividly the disturbing video filmed in London last month that Hamed had shown her of a man claiming that he would marry his nine-year-old daughter off if she was menstruating and ready for sex. She’d clung to Alyssiah then and thought of divorce for the first time. These were the men that her husband, the father of her child, had chosen above her. He was one of them. Sickened, her heart thuds heavily. Sickened, she knows they can never be a family again. Sickened she knows she has to stop him.
Blackout & Burn: A Complete EMP Thriller Series Page 23
