“Run!” Callum shouted grabbing Jem’s hand. Without thought, Anna followed him across the road, veering to the left and away from the trajectory of the plane which seemed to be headed directly for the mall.
Callum pulled Jem between the stalled cars, scrambling over bonnets, until they reached the railings beside an old canal. Forcing Jem over with a quick push, Callum vaulted the railings. Anna followed and all three ran down the short embankment to a bridge. Just as they stepped beneath the stone arch, the plane hit its target. The air filled with a deafening boom and the ground shook. Immense heat blasted the air. Jem screamed close to Anna’s ear, the noise piercing through the deafening rumble, joining in with the intense screech of metal scraping along concrete.
Debris, blown high into the air by the impact, landed on the grassy bank, spraying frost in fine particles. With her back against the stone blocks of the bridge’s wall, Anna gasped for breath and turned to check on Jem. Terrified, the girl buried her head in Anna’s chest, her entire body trembling. Callum leant against the wall, blood trickling from his temple, the improvised dressing lost in the desperate run across the road. His chest heaved as he caught his breath.
“You’re hurt, Callum. I think you need a doctor.”
“I’ll be alright,” he said touching a tentative finger to his head. “Gregor will sort me out.”
“Gregor?”
“Yeah ...” He made no effort at further explanation, and instead peered around the wall. Stepping out from beneath the bridge he began to climb the grassy slope to the road. “Come on!” he called, gesticulating for them to follow with a sweep of his arm.
The disarray that had filled the road was now a burning wreckage of hellish carnage. The plane lay broken and upturned, its undercarriage facing the sky, its back broken and body ripped open. Sprayed with fuel, the area around it burned. A broken wing pointed to the sky, the other was sheared off and burning in the road. Debris, rubble, shards, and huge slabs of concrete from the shopping centre’s wall, covered the stalled cars. The rear of the bus was in flames. A woman screamed, patting at her head as fire leapt along her back. The stench of burning aviation fuel filled the air, and a man writhed in an agony of burning beside his flaming car. The roof of the black BMW was flattened, and the driver’s arm dangled from the truncated window.
Black smoke billowed from the plane as the flames intensified. Mesmerised by the carnage, waves of heat reached Anna. None of it seemed real, a scene from a disaster movie. Flames leapt from the window where she and Jem had stepped out from only minutes before. Smoke billowed from the upper storeys of the shopping centre.
A figure ran as a blur past her like a matchstick suddenly come to life, its tip ablaze, running on wooden legs. It took a second for Anna to realise that the burning figure was a man. Turning her head from the horror, she clasped Jem, covering her eyes. Everywhere people ran, or staggered, some away from the wreckage, some towards it, but the numbers were nothing close to what there had been. A woman barged against Anna’s shoulder, oblivious to everything, determined to escape the fire.
A deafening boom rocked the air, the vibrations felt through every cell of flesh and bone. Burning debris from the plane shot into the sky. Cringing, but mesmerised, Anna watched it arc overhead and crash through the roof of a recently converted warehouse. Callum swayed beside her.
Another shard hit the tarmac only feet away, and Anna was forced into action. Grasping for Jem’s hand, she tugged at Callum’s sleeve and together they ran from the horror of burning vehicles and people. Far enough away from the commotion to be safe they slowed. On the edge of hysteria, Jem called for help, turning to the houses either side in a confused circle.
“Calm down, Jem!” Anna grasped her sister, offering comforting arms. “Shh! It’s alright,” she soothed. Callum rested against a wall, blood seeping from the wound on his scalp.
Realising that Callum was on the verge of collapse, Anna slipped an arm beneath his shoulder.
“I’m alright,” Callum insisted but made no effort to move.
Anna helping him to stand. “Where’s home, Callum?”
“Twelve Lovett,” he replied. “Off the main road to Cleethorpes, near ....” He stalled as though trying to remember. “Just down from Tesco’s.”
Anna knew the street. It was one of the multiple rows of terraced housing branching off the main road that hugged the coast and fed the converged towns of Grimsby and Cleethorpes. It was at least two miles away. “Can you walk?”
“Yeah, Suki, I think so.”
“Suki?” Jem asks. “Has he lost his memory? He thinks you’re called Suki.”
“You know my name’s not Suki! Are you sure you’re alright to walk?” she asked with concern, wondering if he had suffered a concussion.
He managed a grimace “Just pulling your leg, but I kind of like Suki.” He took a step with the girls at his side. “So, what is it?”
Ignoring his question, Anna said, “We should get you to a doctor.”
“Nah, just get me back to the house.” Callum stopped abruptly, his entire body tensing.
“You ok?”
“The car! We left it in the carpark.”
“Car?”
“Yeah, Gregor’s car. We left it in the carpark.” He turned with effort to look back along the road at the mall with its tiers of covered parking.
The ruined shopping centre was obscured by a haze of flames and black and billowing smoke. “That carpark?”
Eyes wide Callum’s jaw dropped open as he stared at the vision of carnage. “Jesus! The car! Gregor will ...” He tailed off, averting his gaze from the mall.
Anna recognised the flicker of fear in his eyes. “Who is Gregor?”
“My boss ... it was his car.”
Worrying about the car when they were being bombed and aeroplanes were falling from the sky seemed ridiculous. “Don’t worry about the car! I’m sure he’ll understand.”
Callum’s mouth snapped shut. “Sure ... Yes ... He’ll understand.” He seemed to be trying to convince himself of that truth.
With renewed effort, Callum stood a little straighter and the pressure released from Anna’s shoulders. He took a determined step forward. “Come on, let’s go to the house.”
Half an hour into their walk, Jem asked, “When we’ve been to his house, are we going to catch the ferry?”
“Ferry?”
“We’re going to my Aunty Liccia’s,” Jem explained before Anna had a chance to quieten her.
“Jem! We’ll talk about it later,” Anna said, attempting to shut down Jem’s efforts at explanation before she gave too much away. “I’m sure Callum doesn’t want to hear about it.”
“Where you catching the ferry from?”
“We’re catching a train to the port, aren’t we Anna.” Ignoring Anna’s warning glare, Jem continued. “We’re going to live with her, in France.”
“Not just a holiday then?”
“No, we’re on the run.”
“Jem!”
“On the run? From what?”
“Jem! Don’t-”
“A horrible cow who wants to take me away from Anna.”
Callum cast a questioning gaze at Anna. “Oh?”
Anna sighed. She would have to explain everything to this stranger now. “Our mum died,” she said after several quiet moments as Callum watched her with interest. “They wanted to put Jem in foster care.”
Callum’s lips pursed. “Right. I’m sorry to hear about your mum.”
Anna’s words had obviously had an impact, but whether he approved of her keeping her sister from the Social Services or not, she couldn’t tell.
“It’s cold,” he said after a moment’s pause. “Let’s get to the house. We can figure stuff out there.”
Relieved that he wasn’t going to question her further, Anna simply nodded and continued to give him support as they made their way towards 12 Lovett Street.
After ten minutes he said, “You know there won’t be any
trains tonight. Probably no ferries either.”
“Well, there’s always tomorrow,” Anna replied unwilling to continue a conversation that involved her talking about her mother and kidnapping Jem from Social Services.
“After what just happened, I’m not sure.”
“Well, they always manage to fix power cuts.”
“Explosions, the lights go out with a bang, cars crash simultaneously, and minutes later an aeroplane uses the street as a runway, and you think that the trains will still be running?”
“I hadn’t ... it’s all happened so fast ... I ...” She looked around, taking in the silence, the unusual lack of buzz and thrum from car engines. “I have no idea what just happened ... but what has the power going off got to do with cars and planes crashing?”
“It wasn’t a car crashing, Suki-”
“Anna, my name’s Anna.”
“Okay, Anna. It wasn’t one car crashing. It was a pile up and it coincided with the power going down inside the shopping centre.”
“Sure,” Anna replied, “So, I guess that the grid went down, and the traffic lights failed and the drivers weren’t vigilant-”
“And then a plane just coincidentally dropped from the sky?”
“It’s possible ... I guess.”
“And war has just been declared, but it’s all just a coincidence?”
“So? There’s always a war somewhere. What’s that got to do with us?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No. We’ve been at war with loads of countries in the past few years ... So ...” Anna looked back. Smoke still rose in an enormous black plume from the shopping centre. “So ... this is like the Manchester bombing, and 9/11, and London Bridge? Terrorist attacks?”
“Terrorists are attacking us?” The anxiety in Jem’s voice was mixed with an unseemly excitement. “Wow!”
“If we’re at war-”
“So, they shot the plane out of the sky? Or ... terrorists were on board and forced them to crash land like on 9/11?” Jem asked in excited tones.
“I don’t know,” Callum replied. “But it’s too much of a coincidence for the power to cut out and then a plane to land on our heads. It’s more likely the plane lost power and crashed—just like the cars.”
“Maybe there were terrorists on board?”
“Do you know what,” he said with sudden clarity clearing his frown. “I reckon this is an EMP attack.”
“EMP?”
“Yeah! Electromagnetic pulse. Iran have been threating to use one against the US for years.”
“But we’re not the US!”
“No ... we can talk about that later, but an EMP attack is where they detonate a nuclear bomb and it sends out a burst of electromagnetic radiation-”
“A nuclear bomb! You’re kidding. If there’s radiation ... oh, my God!” Anna exclaimed glancing upwards.
“If it is an EMP attack then most of the radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere.” He pointed to the sky. “So, I don’t think we need to worry about that. If it is an attack ... they’re trying to shut our power and communications down.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I watch stuff ... on the telly.” He said it with slight embarrassment as though being caught out as a secret nerd. “The power could be out for a long time.”
“It usually goes back on in a few minutes, hours at most.”
“It could be out for days or even weeks ... maybe longer.”
“Weeks!” It all sounded so far-fetched. Anna’s head throbbed. The thought of the power being out for weeks as winter set in was bad enough, but more terrifying was the thought that tiny particles of invisible poison were sprinkling on them right now. She flinched as she looked at the sky. Opaque with snow, it sat dumb and implacable, hiding the truth about the attack. Anna had always seen it as beautiful, no matter what the weather, now the blanket of white high above them seemed menacing.
Jem began to tremble. “Is that why it’s so cold?”
“I don’t think so,” Callum said.
“You think it’s a nuclear bomb set off in the upper atmosphere? It sounds crazy!”
“Sure, I know.”
Silence fell between them and they continued walking for several more minutes before reaching the main road. They emerged to a wide road blocked with stationary traffic.
The scene was like the one outside the shopping centre before the plane turned it into a blazing fire complete with human matchsticks. A bus sat skewed across the road, its front bumper only inches from a red Audi that had rear-ended a green Ford that in turn had slammed into a parked car to the right. The micro-scene was repeated along the length of the street in both directions. Here though, there were no passengers weaving between the freshly battered cars and only a few people were walking along the streets. The shops that lined either side of the wide street sat in darkness. As they continued walking a door opened and a shopkeeper stepped out. Pulling metal shutters down over plate glass windows he locked them into place before securing them again with a chain and padlock.
“It’s like everything just stopped,” Anna said. “There’s not a single light in any of the shops.”
“Or the houses.”
“It’s the middle of the day.”
“Sure, but there would be lights on in the shops.”
“And do you hear that?” Callum asked.
“No.”
“Exactly, it’s almost silent.”
“It’s weird,” Jem said looking around at the quiet space. “Like my hearing is muffled.”
“Me too,” Anna agreed, “but I think that was from the blasts.” Black smoke still billowed in the distance.
“Do you know what else is weird?”
“What?”
“No sirens,” Callum said.
“Oh my God, you’re right.” Anna listened as though searching for the wail. The hairs on her arm prickled. “Does that mean no one has gone to help those people?” Her memory filled with the burnt and burning people outside the mall. Her gut roiled.
Jem echoed her thoughts. “We should have stayed to help them!”
Anna swallowed, pushing the images of the burning man from her thoughts, her imagination taking her to a close-up of his melting flesh, mouth opened in a wide and tortured scream. Sickness swirled in her belly. “There was nothing we could do,” she placated. “I didn’t know what to do ... how to help them.”
“But they were hurt! Someone should help them.” Jem pulled away from Callum’s arm. He clasped her shoulder.
“Your sister’s right, Jem,” he soothed. “There was nothing we could have done and I’m sure the police will send help.”
“They have to!” Jem’s voice was tight with anxiety, her face a picture of horrified realisation. Like Anna, she knew the injured were suffering, and found it difficult to stomach.
“Someone will go to help,” Anna said, desperate to soothe her own conscience and the gnawing guilt in her innards. “They’ll send ambulances. The hospital is only just down the road.” Jem continued to stare at her with a questioning frown. “And we did help the injured. Callum wouldn’t be walking home right now if it wasn’t for us.” The crease between Jem’s brow flattened. She seemed relieved. The coil that had tightened across Anna’s chest loosened a fraction and she turned her attention back to the road.
“Ten more minutes and we’ll be there.” Callum offered a weak smile.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
As the group turned into the street where the trap house sat at the centre of Lovett Street’s mean terrace, Gregor stepped out of number twelve and Callum’s stomach flipped. He took another painful step closer, recognising the buckling frown and downward mouth that meant Gregor was royally pissed off. Shirtless and barefooted despite the cold, battle scars across his belly and shoulder sat raised, twisted, and dimpled against white flesh. Glancing from the space where his car should have been parked then back to Callum, the questioning glare indicated that the rage permanentl
y simmering beneath Gregor’s calm exterior was beginning to bubble. Cold sweat beaded at Callum’s hairline. The man was notoriously anal about his gleaming BMW, constantly checking through the curtains of whichever house they were visiting. If anyone walked past, he would scowl until they had passed, physically flinching if they got too close, ready to bound out of the house to confront them. He scoured the car’s bodywork daily, searching for the slightest scratch, instantly aggressive if he found one.
Callum took painful steps forward, his head filled with ways of explaining that the prized car had been destroyed, probably burned in the fiery hell the mall had become, then squashed as the final explosion caused its tiered car park to flatten. Each step was an effort, but Callum ignored the pain and focused on the phrases churning in his mind, only vaguely aware that worrying about the car when he had only just missed being blasted from existence, was ridiculous.
Gregor’s eyes narrowed to slits and the tinge of colour in his pasty skin disappeared. His eyes flickered with an emotion that confused Callum; it wasn’t rage.
“Gregor, I-”
A hand shot out, gesturing for silence.
He had to explain. “The car-”
“No!”
The command was abrupt, and a puzzled frown had fallen and set like stone across Gregor’s face. With sudden understanding, Callum realised that the hard man was staring at Anna, and a smile was beginning to curl onto his lips! Callum relaxed; Gregor was obviously pleased with the pretty redhead he had brought back for him. Perhaps he would forget about the car, or at least not beat him quite as badly as he had last spring over the scraped back bumper.
“Juno!” Gregor’s voice was barely above a whisper, his eyes locked onto the woman with an intensity Callum had only seen during his vilest rages.
Callum paused, startled by the hardman’s reaction. “No, her name’s-”
Dark Winter Series (Book 1): Dark Winter Page 8
