National Emergency

by Jobling, James

  As far as she knew, Ethan and Bryan were still outside. But she didn’t have a clue what was going on. And she didn’t think she wanted to know.

  What did the youth want? Where had he come from? Who was he with?

  The questions zoomed around her brain, pestering, burning rubber, convincing her that the stranger’s arrival was more than just coincidental – it was ominous! The moorlands (or Peak View as they were commonly known) weren’t just some magical speckle of fairy dust waiting to be slapped on a postcard and cooed over. Yes, it was beautiful. But it also had a brutal side which could hurt, maim, and kill on such an eccentric night. Some of the cliffs in the area plunged 300 feet down to a rocky bottom. And although bears and boars were not known to wander the English countryside, a deer darting in front of your headlights on a rainy night could be - and had been - lethal. You didn’t have to be crazy to be out on the moors on a night like tonight – you had to be fucking suicidal.

  “Mummy,” Lincoln sobbed.

  “Hey, honey-bear.”

  “I feel sick, Mummy.”

  “You do?”

  Lincoln nodded his head and rubbed his eyes.

  “Let’s go get you a glass of water.”

  She scooped her world up in her arms and was just about to leave the room when she heard a noise that made her breath catch in her throat, suffocating her. A muted crash followed by a somewhat faded whump and suddenly the drums in her ears were pinging as tentacles of bright light invaded the room.

  What the hell was that?

  She ambled across the cluttered bedroom, pulling the curtains apart and separating the blinds. Breathing rashly, she looked beyond her own ghostlike reflection… and what she saw made her want to disappear down the Yellow Brick Road and hide in the Emerald City forever.

  When she had been a teenager – fourteen, fifteen – this bitch of a school bully called Hayley Osborne had made her life a living hell. Karris had been plump as a child - not overweight, not exactly slim, either - but that hadn’t stopped this tramp from lifting Karris’s jumper and shouting things like, “Hey, she’s got a pillow up her top! Oh, no, wait, it’s just her fat belly!”

  Of course, kids being kids (nasty little shitty brats with more gob than consideration), it didn’t take long before she was constantly labelled fat and made fun of. The few close friends she had quickly became either embarrassed or afraid to hang out with her. And, eventually, she suffered as no child should with depression. The happy social butterfly bloomed into a loathsome tomboy loner who despised her own appearance and snapped at people easily; often losing her temper, crying for no reason one moment, becoming majorly overactive the next, and very rarely sleeping.

  Then self-harming had begun.

  Even though Hayley and her cronies had never physically harmed a hair on her head, Karris grew to hate school with a passion. The panic attacks rattled her. Everything else she could cope with - that constant current of nervousness churning inside her stomach, diarrhoea, shortness of breath, the choking sensation, chest pain, vomiting, heart palpitations - but those panic attacks had almost been too much. In fact, if her father hadn’t come home from work one afternoon with the world’s biggest migraine and found her in the cellar with his cut-throat razor, she shuddered to think what could have happened.

  That was why, when she looked out of the bedroom window and saw five terrible incarnations of Hayley circling Harold’s burning Ford, her bowels liquefied and her mouth became parched. She watched in a paralysed stupor as they cheered when the petrol bomb began to incinerate the Ford. They were all silhouetted against the bright crackling flames, but from the bedroom window, she could see that they were all wearing hoods with scarves or bandannas concealing their identities. Karris could feel a scream buzzing around inside of her lungs like a wasp caught in a jar. However, for the first time in seven years, that same blockage which had prevented her from telling her parents about Hayley had returned, and she could not form the words. She tried. She really tried. But the fear had already settled into the neighbourhood.

  One cocky youth swaggered too close to the burning car as something underneath exploded, flinging the yob onto the grass verge at the side of the house.

  Serves the little fucker right!

  Another youth stepped in front of the window. This one had a baseball cap pulled down low, the collar of his T-shirt standing at attention. He didn’t have a bandanna around his face nor a scarf and, as he strolled past, he stopped and looked Karris dead in the eye. Flickering flames revealed an arrogant smile. A gloved hand slapped the window, startling her, making her leap from her skin quicker than any school tyrant ever could. Laughter bellowed into the room.

  Harold appeared at the front door, swaying unsteadily in the rectangle of light spilling from the open doorway. He saw the fiery wreck, which had once been his beloved Ford - crappy though it was - and started shouting at the teenagers, cursing, threatening. The teenagers backed away, laughing at this mad relic, but aware that he possessed something of a threat. Belinda, Ethan’s mother, was in the doorway, her mobile phone pressed to the side of her face, no doubt calling the police and fire brigade.

  Harold turned back to the bungalow, red-faced, breathing like he had just completed a marathon, and barked something about staying away from the fire to Belinda. He’d just made it back to the front door when one of the little villains ran forward and threw something black and square into the air, aiming at Harold. The makeshift mortar rotated once before cracking Harold on the back of the head. Harold dropped to the ground, losing consciousness immediately. Blood trickled at first, but then began pumping steadily from the jagged wound at the back of the man’s skull; pooling underneath, spreading out. Belinda stepped outside, screaming, the phone dropping to the floor. Karris’s eyes widened with horror when another youth ran down the driveway and kicked Harold in the head.

  “Oh, Jesus!” Belinda bellowed into the dark night. “Help me! Somebody help!”

  They had already knocked him out with a brick - maybe even killed him - but that didn’t stop the vicious mob from circling his body and kicking him in the ribs, booting him in the head, stomping on his groin, the whole time hurling a barrage of abuse at Harold. A silhouette stepped in front of Belinda, arms outstretched as though two invisible claimants were tugging in different directions. The wind blew the hood free.

  Oh, my God! It’s a girl!

  Karris, still rooted to the spot with fear, refused to believe what her eyes were seeing. How could they allow society to crumble to such a degrading depth? When she had been a little girl, such things as drug abuse, violence, teenage delinquency, family meltdowns, benefits, binge drinking, children that kill, teenage pregnancies, they were all completely unheard of. In fact, if either Karris or her sister had disrespected their parents and spoke to them the way that some kids spoke nowadays, she wouldn’t have lived long enough to have had a caesarean.

  Blood began to boil like water in a kettle. She watched this teenage monster – no older than fourteen – spit in Belinda’s face and call her a “useless bitch!”

  Thankfully, Lee barged from the house and began swinging his arms as though he was in a boxing ring with Mike Tyson; fists finding their mark, a conveyor belt of threats spewing from his mouth. He grabbed a handful of the girl’s coat and shoved her on her skinny backside. Then he pushed his mother back towards the house. One youth jumped forward, though, punching Lee in the jaw, seemingly stunning him, knocking him to the ground between the burning wreck and his defenceless mother. Another pushed through the crowd and kicked him in the spine.

  That’s it! You’ve seen enough! What are you going to do – just stand here and watch your family get murdered?

  Karris pushed herself away from the window and ran out of the room, sprinting like a greyhound chasing a mechanical rabbit down the corridor. Ethan and Bryan had just stepped back inside the kitchen, her husband blatantly pissed about something, and they both stepped back to avoid clashing.

  �
��Ethan! Thank God!”

  The builder closed the back door and locked it, bending to penetrate the wall with the deadbolt. Bryan turned towards Karris and raised his eyebrows. “What the hell was that noise? It sounded like an explosion.”

  “It was,” Karris panted. “They’re around the front of the house. They’ve attacked Harold and Lee.” She handed Lincoln over to his father.

  “What?” Ethan crossed to the front room, picking up his mobile phone from the sideboard.

  Battery’s bloody dead!

  Cursing, he snatched up the receiver of the house phone and dialled the police. There was a click of open air before a robotic voice spoke into his ear.

  “You have reached the emergency services. Due to widespread rioting, we have dispatched all officers and no further units are currently available. If your call is in connection with a life or death situation, then please hold the line and an attempt to answer your call will be made.”

  “Shit,” Ethan cursed through a wall of clenched teeth. He slammed the receiver down, kissed his son on his hot cheek, and then handed him back to his mother. Bryan pushed past and ran out of the front door.

  “Are the police on their way?” Karris asked. She sounded hopeful despite already knowing the answer. He hadn’t even spoke to anyone.

  “No,” Ethan said. “The police aren’t available. They’re trying to control the rioting in town. See, Mr. Harrison, this is what happens when you cut back on police officers!”

  “Ethan, wait,” Karris said, grabbing her husband by the elbow and pulling him back. “There’s something you need to know.”

  “What is it, Karris?”

  “They’ve hurt Harold.”

  “Little bastards.”

  “No, you don’t understand. They’ve really hurt him. They hit him on the head with something. I think it was a brick.”

  Ethan inhaled hard.

  “I think he may be dead.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be okay. I’ll check on him. Are they still out there?”

  “They were.”

  “There was one in the garden, too.”

  “What did he want?”

  “To try and intimidate me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. He’s gone now. Stay here with Lincoln and keep trying to get through to the bloody police.”

  Karris rushed obediently across the lounge and snatched the house phone from the cradle. Before she could even dial the number, though, another explosion - this one much more powerful than its predecessor - shook the very foundations of the bungalow. A plume of black smoke washed into the house. Lincoln intensified his caterwauling.

  “Stay here!” Ethan commanded, spiralling around the L-shaped sofa. “I’ll be right back.”

  *

  Ethan ran out of the house and barged his way into the smoky night, taking stock of the horrendous sight that exposed itself to him. Karris was right – Harold was down and out, blood spilling from his head. His mother was fighting with a girl much younger than her. The teenage bitch was slap-slap-slapping his mother’s head and scratching false nails down the sides of her face, trying to drag her to the ground. His mother - admittedly no battle-axe - was holding her own, though. She tore handfuls of hair from the girl’s Croydon facelift, and her emaciated skeleton was no match for his mother’s stout body.

  Two of the vicious bastards were laying into Lee, but somehow his older brother was managing to fend for himself. He’d pulled a length of timber from the back of Ethan’s Pickup and that Tabasco-temper of his was beginning to spice things up. He was swinging the baton of wood as though he was Joaquin Phoenix on a baseball field.

  Ethan stepped forward, feeling as though he was taking his first ginger steps on another planet but, before he had a chance to confront the nearest youth, the petrol tank underneath Lee’s Honda exploded. The massive fireball caught Ethan off-guard and sent him plummeting forwards, the ground rushing up to smack him in the face.

  PART 2

  CHAPTER 8

  His brain began to stir and slowly his eyes quivered open. Something resembling a confused groan spilled from between cracked lips and, when he finally managed to lift his head from the driveway, the world swung as though his head was bouncing on a bungee cord. Strangely, the left side of his face was both numb and painful; raw, tight, like that time he’d fallen asleep on a lounger in Santorini and the sun had charbroiled one side of his face. He had looked a right twat for the next three days of that holiday! The other side of his face felt bizarrely bloated, the top of his neck and under his jaw tender, as though he had shaved with a ten-year-old razor.

  He was flat on his back, knees arched, arms stretched out like a snow-angel that had just been mistaken for a clay pigeon. His ears were ringing. His eyes were watering. Ethan rolled onto his side, wincing as tiny nuggets of gravel embedded themselves into his arms and hands, frowning as he looked at the burning cacophony that his driveway had become.

  Tongues of orange, yellow, and red flame licked dangerously close to him, aberrant tentacles of blistering flare and heat reaching for him and dancing manically in the pitch-black night. Plumes of petrol-reeking smoke roiled everywhere. Ethan retched, the vile stench making him want to cough up his scorched lungs. Unsteadily, he climbed to his knees and held one charred arm up against the heat, the only pitiful defence he had. It felt as though somebody had locked him inside an incinerator and turned it on.

  Harold’s crappy Ford and Lee’s Honda were both burning. Flames and toxic fumes spewed from ruptured fuel tanks, climbing illicitly into the black sky. Ethan narrowed his eyes as he observed the two scalding metal skeletons through a wave of nausea. Even the bloody tyres were on fire.

  One of the vehicles must have been set alight by the youths, and the heat of the fiery aftermath must have ignited the neighbouring car. For some reason, he glanced over at the Pickup and released a sigh of relief when he saw the beast was still okay, parked on the opposite side of the driveway.

  Suddenly, Bryan was in front of him.

  Grabbing Ethan by the elbow, Bryan pointed at the two burning wrecks, jabbering ecstatically about something. Ethan couldn’t hear what, though. The ringing in his ears had made him a deaf man and the horrendous sight in the driveway had rendered him speechless. Ethan reached out and grabbed his friend with trembling fingers, propping himself up against him. Bryan’s nose was bleeding and he had a nasty gash on his lower lip.

  “What… what… the…” Ethan couldn’t finish the sentence. An elevator of bile was rising in his throat. Instead, he clutched at his heart and threw up in the gutter.

  “We need to get back inside!” Bryan screamed, grabbing Ethan by the waist, swinging him around. “We need to get back inside right now!”

  Even though bellowing filled Ethan’s ears, the raucous screech of creaking, twisted metal dwarfed it. Glazed eyes peered into his best friend’s face.

  “Karris and Lincoln are safe! They are inside the house!” Bryan shouted, pointlessly. He rubbed the back of his hand over his sweaty forehead. “We need to get your mum, though!”

  Ethan was still staring into the flickering bonfire, strands of puke dangling from his chin. Bryan stepped in front of him, perhaps sensing that his hearing had been battered. He pointed a trembling finger towards the front door of the bungalow.

  Lucifer’s cold hand gripped Ethan Hardcastle’s heart and squeezed it.

  His mother was kneeling in the driveway, sobbing uncontrollably and cradling Harold’s head in her lap, stroking his blood-spattered hair with her glistening fingers and promising the corpse that everything was going to be okay. Behind her, Lee was breaking his heart into his sleeve, the length of timber still in his white-knuckled grip.

  Ethan lurched forward, almost tumbling into the fiery melee, the disgusting stench of boiled petrol drifting through the air like incense. “Mum!” Ethan howled, staggering drunkenly on legs that no longer felt capable of supporting him. He slipped once, refused to go down, and allowed
gravity to determine his descent. He landed with a numb thud on the ground before his mother. “Are you okay, Mum?” Ethan shouted, scrambling on hands and knees, wrapping his mother up in his thick arms.

  She was still clutching Harold’s dead body, howling, wailing, blood-caked fingers stroking blood-smeared hair. Now that Ethan was crouching beside the corpse; he could see that they caved the back of the Harry’s head in like a rotten watermelon. His stomach began to contract.

  “We need to get back inside the house, Mum!”

  “How could they do this? How could they hurt my poor Harold?”

  Ethan breathed in sharply. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Look, Mum, we need to get inside the house. They could come back at any moment.”

  “I know… I keep… trying… to wake Harold… but…”

  Bryan charged between mother and son, stepping beside Lee and standing back to back, looking like two medieval sentinels protecting their burning kingdom. After all, Lee was brandishing the length of wood like it was a samurai sword. At least he had stopped crying now, though. For that, Ethan was grateful. He didn’t have time to console his mother, never mind his brother, too. Getting everybody inside the bungalow was his only priority.

  “Mum, listen to—”

  “Harold? Harold, darling, it’s time to wake up. It’s not safe out here.”

  “He can’t hear you, Mum.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Karris stepped into the doorway, a screaming and wriggling Lincoln clutched to her chest. She poked her head outside and searched frantically for her husband.