Snow! The Series [Books 1-4]

by Clifford, Ryan

  The snow was up to the top of the main church structure, but the two tall windows on the eastern side of the tower were fundamentally clear.

  They scaled the roof of the church on skis until they were standing at the base of the windows. They were narrow and the glass was still intact. Brady decided that it was no time for sentiment – so he pulled out his hammer and set about the glass and lead framework with determination inspired by the cold. The wind was getting up and Jane was shivering violently as she stood waiting for Brady to break in. It took some effort but after five minutes Brady had smashed a hole large enough for a person to squeeze through. He passed his rucksack and skis through the gap and to his dismay, they dropped about ten feet and landed with a loud crash on the stone steps below the window. The internal staircase, which ascended the tower, didn’t quite tie up with the bottom of the window and it appeared that they would have to drop about ten feet onto an uneven, concrete stepped surface.

  There was no alternative, so after letting Jane know the score, he dropped her rucksack and skis through the window, hoping that the two packs would provide a small, softer landing area. He told Jane that he would lower himself down, and hopefully, only have to fall four feet or so. Brady swung over the sill and manoeuvred himself so that he was hanging from the inside of the window frame by his fingertips, with his face against the stone wall. He then dropped the four feet and landed half on the rucksacks and half on the stone staircase. He fell to the ground and tumbled another five or six feet down the staircase, before he could grab a stone banister and arrest his descent. He lay still for a few seconds, making sure that he wasn’t injured. Standing up, he realised that he had bashed his knee on the stone, but apart from that, everything appeared to be working normally.

  Jane’s head was sticking through the window.

  ‘Are you alright? Brady, speak to me!’

  ‘I'm fine,’ he wheezed, ‘swing yourself over the side, drop, and I’ll catch you. Come on, hurry it up and get out of the wind – although it's bloody cold in here as well!’

  Jane did as she was bid, manoeuvred herself carefully over the sill and dropped into the church, after hanging from the ledge for a few tentative seconds. However, Brady wasn’t quite ready as she fell and he didn’t absorb the full impact. Her body crunched into his shoulder and she toppled onto the stone below.

  She shrieked in pain.

  Brady, who had also fallen over, hauled himself up and looked down at Jane who was clutching her leg.

  ‘Oh shit!’ he exclaimed, ‘are you alright? What's the damage? Can you stand?’

  Jane was deathly pale and before she could respond, fainted.

  Brady cursed inwardly and leant over Jane, cradling her head. He had to get her somewhere where he could examine her injuries – she might have concussed herself. He was forced to leave her for a few minutes to find somewhere less precarious than this staircase. Ensuring that she wouldn't roll over and down the stairs, he jogged to the landing below. There was a door leading off the stairs so he tried the handle – the door opened and revealed a small library – carpeted and perfect for sheltering.

  He ran back up the stairs and collected Jane, who was still unconscious. He lifted her carefully, carried her down to the library, and laid her on the carpet. He then returned for the rucksacks and skiing gear, threw them in a corner of the small room and closed the door.

  Jane had come round. She had tears in her eyes.

  ‘Oh God, Brady, I think my leg is broken! It hurts Andy.’

  Brady looked at Jane’s face. She was white as a sheet and had started shivering uncontrollably.

  ‘My leg’s wet,’ she whispered.

  Brady propped her head up with a cushion from an armchair in the corner of the room. He then unzipped her anorak, so that he could access her ski pants. He eased them down to her ankles and was horrified by what he saw. Jane’s long johns were soaked with blood, and Brady could clearly see bone protruding through the skin and pressing up against the cloth of the underwear. Blood was literally pumping out.

  He grabbed some string from his rucksack and quickly applied a tourniquet at the top end of Jane’s left thigh. He kept talking throughout to try to keep her conscious. However, it was to no avail. Jane had passed out again.

  The tourniquet wasn’t working, the blood continued to flow and as it pumped away, Jane died - within four short minutes, her head cradled in Brady’s arms.

  Brady sat holding his new friend for a full ten minutes, tears welling up in his eyes.

  ‘It had all happened so quickly,’ thought Brady, ‘one minute she was scrabbling through the window, the next she's lying here dead. How the hell could this happen?’

  It happened because as Jane fell whilst climbing through the window, her left thigh impacted the stone staircase at right angles and the femur snapped. The femoral artery ruptured and that was the beginning of the end for Jane. There was very little Brady or anyone could have done for her in the circumstances.

  Brady sat for a good thirty minutes with Jane in his arms, weeping quietly and seriously contemplating whether he could go on. He had grown genuinely fond of Jane, and was devastated by this heart-breaking loss. She didn’t deserve to die and certainly not like this.

  It just wasn’t fair!

  Brady laid her head down, stood up and walked over to the armchair, sat down and put his head in his hands. He had a massive decision to make. Did he continue with his plan, or just give up and return to Mike’s place in Swineshead?

  At this point, he just didn’t know.

  However, what he did know was that he was cold. Very cold. The shock of Jane’s accident had numbed his senses, but the icy chill of the small room was now seeping into his bones. Automatic pilot took over.

  He shook himself into action and decided that he needed to get some warmth into the room. After lighting a GAZ heater, he looked down at Jane and realised that he must do something with her frail and lifeless body. He walked out of the small library and scrutinised the corridor, where he saw another door. He walked across and discovered a sort of store cupboard. He returned to Jane, re-dressed her, wrapped her in the rug she was laying on and carried her across the corridor. He laid her on the floor, said a short prayer, lingered a moment and then turned and left Jane to her icy tomb.

  ‘At least she’s resting in a church,’ he thought. It was scant solace in the circumstances. He began to weep again and it was at this point that he almost gave up. How much more of this could he take?

  Nonetheless, Brady returned to the library and set about preparing something to eat. He wasn’t really hungry, but realised he needed something to stoke his inner core. He was colder now and if he didn’t get a grip of the situation, he'd soon be in trouble himself. Brady was now functioning on instinct. He quickly assembled and lit the GAZ cooker, melted some snow from the ill-fated staircase and made two brews of Cup-a Soup. Twenty minutes later he felt much better and was able to unzip his anorak, as the heater took effect in the small room. The loss of Jane was demoralising in the extreme. He just could not believe that she was gone – and so bloody quickly! He blamed himself entirely, but realised that self-recrimination would help not a jot. He had to shake himself out of this dark place in his mind and concentrate on survival. In a roundabout way, he had made his decision. He would continue the journey – if only for Jane’s sake and maybe her death wouldn't be completely in vain.

  Nevertheless, Brady felt terribly alone. The church was as silent as the grave – an unfortunate analogy in the circumstances – so he decided to make a recce of St Botolphs. He wasn’t really sure if he was, in fact, alone in the church. Brady jumped up and started a thorough search of the building. Firstly, he climbed the tower and checked all of the small rooms which adjoined the staircase. There was no one to be found, so he took the opportunity to survey the area around the church from the upper floor window. The view of the adjacent countryside did not fill him with confidence. Just about every building within sight was eit
her buried or had a roof which had collapsed inwards. There were no people on the surface he could see at all. Not a soul.

  He peered through the snow towards the docks but saw nothing except snow covered ground. The only discernible feature was the ‘drain’ leading out to sea. It clearly led out to the coast. The occasional building still jutted out of the snow, but nothing he could see looked to be habitable. It also dawned on Brady that he was not going to find a boat. Every boat in the town was buried deep in the snow and anyway, there was nothing to sail on – the water was frozen and was thirty feet below the surface! His plan to sail across to France was in tatters. He would have to think again, but could see no way forward other than Shanks’s pony!

  Brady gloomily descended the stairs and made his way into the main part of the church. He thought he'd seen just about everything on this voyage through hell, but the scene which greeted him was almost beyond belief.

  Around the altar, there must have been more than one hundred prostrate and frozen bodies. It was a chilling and unnerving sight. These poor souls must have taken shelter here and they had frozen whilst searching for salvation. There were no signs of panic – each body lay peacefully alongside its neighbour – some holding hands, some actually frozen on their knees.

  Three men wearing the trappings of the church lay at the base of the large golden cross that adorned the altar. Brady stood in silence for several minutes, taking in the spooky atmosphere, then shook himself out of his stupor and returned to the room in the tower. He was close to the end of his tether. He considered himself to be strong and resilient – even tough and thick-skinned, but today’s events had taken their full toll and he was perilously close to the edge of reason. He was now completely alone and death’s icy hand encircled him, following his every step. He wasn’t sure that he had the inner fortitude to carry on. He slumped into the easy chair in the library and tried to reconcile the events of the past ten days.

  However, within five minutes, he had fallen into a deep, but extremely troubled sleep.

  Day 12 - General Situation Report – 10:00pm

  There were no post-Christmas celebrations going on anywhere in the United Kingdom or Eire – or any part of Europe bordering the North Sea or English Channel.

  Even the Royal Family, the majority of which were trapped at Sandringham, held a much-muted Christmas lunch. There were no presents and for the first time in living memory, no Queens Speech. There was no media to broadcast it.

  The United Kingdom was on its knees.

  The Government was essentially non-existent and could only monitor events via their self-sustaining high-tech landlines and radio contacts abroad. The Prime Minister and his small team of survivors were in as much danger as the general populace. It was only the emergency equipment stored in the bowels of Downing Street that enabled them to survive this long.

  The Armed Forces, Police and Fire Services were high and not so dry! As would be expected, the rescue services had responded in the early hours of the crisis and as a result were trapped amongst the people they were meant to be rescuing. They eventually all suffered a similar fate. The elderly and those living alone were some of the first to succumb to the cold. Many were physically unable to care for themselves and as their carers couldn’t get through to them – they froze to death in their thousands.

  Patients in hospital and care homes fared not much better. As power failed, the frail didn’t have the strength to cope and staff were unable to meet the demands with their limited resources. In fact, many hospital staff had tried, unsuccessfully in most cases, to return home to their loved ones. Many prisoners succumbed to the cold locked in their cells – warders just didn’t get round to releasing them.

  Schools were suddenly the guardians of thousands of children. Parents were mostly unable to pick them up and teachers became responsible for keeping their unwelcome wards safe and warm.

  The working population fell essentially into three groups.

  Firstly, those who didn’t make it in to work on the Monday morning and found themselves trapped in traffic, on a train, at the airport or just walking in the snow. Many of those just froze where they had stopped – or in the act of trying to get home on foot.

  Secondly, those who arrived at work but couldn’t get home. Most of them tried to walk home and suffered the same fate as the first group - stranded in the open in totally inappropriate clothing. Those who stayed at work merely put off the inevitable. Once the electricity failed, so did their chances of survival.

  Finally was the group who never left home. These were the luckiest. At least they were warm and dry until the electricity and gas ran out. Inevitably, only the most resourceful endured the intense cold for more than a few days.

  Those in transit were worst off. Many of these just froze to death in their vehicles or when they attempted to walk to safety in unsuitable garb. Commuters in the Underground systems throughout Great Britain were no better off. They eventually needed food and water, so were forced to climb up into the ‘blizzard from hell.’ They joined the doomed on the surface.

  Farming communities fared better than most. They generally had stocks of fuel – wood and gas – and a source of food if they farmed sheep or cattle. However, unless they organised themselves efficiently in the first day or two, the advantage was lost. Eventually, the less well-disciplined also fell by the wayside. Couples like Josie and Josh Driver, Mike Scaiffe and his family and the Hynes in Tamworth got their acts together very quickly and as a result were surviving – but their ultimate fates all depended on how much longer the snow continued to fall.

  The over-riding issue and complication was that most people have families. Wives worried about husbands. Parents worried about children. Grandparents worried about everybody. This caused the population to take extraordinary, hazardous and often suicidal risks to reach their loved ones. Many perished in the attempt – but one couldn't condemn them for trying – although the weather did!

  There was no assistance from the recognised authorities. Consequently people had to make their own decisions based on their own situation.

  It soon truly became ‘every man for himself’. The vast majority of the great British public had absolutely no idea how to subsist in these conditions. They were ill-equipped, disoriented, freezing cold and often, alone.

  They didn’t stand a chance.

  And, not unnaturally, this bred another group. Those who realised that survival depended on looking after number one! Some of these caught on very quickly, armed themselves and took over strategic positions. They attacked and occupied large supermarkets. The law of the jungle rapidly took over. They, and their cronies, usurped the management, often casting them out into the snow and ruled the conquered territory with an iron grip. Brady had experienced this at ASDA in Grantham and to a certain extent at ‘Downtown’ in Boston – as did the campers in Brighton. The more benign leaders survived quite well, developing small communities – but the less democratic often ended up much like the victims in the Boston store.

  There were many people like Brady, who attempted to make a break for it. Some started too late, were ill prepared or just ignorant of the risks. Most failed in the attempt, but some, like Brady, were making progress.

  The entire British Isles, Eire and the continental European coast, including Norway, was under varying amounts of snow. Generally, after nearly two weeks, depths varied between twenty-five and forty feet. That is enough snow to bury completely a three-storey house. In many places it was much worse. The roofs of many buildings had long ago collapsed. Trees, electricity pylons and masts had all suffered as if a violent hurricane had swept the country. There was widespread and catastrophic damage to all infrastructure. Hardly anybody ventured outside and the dead lay frozen where they fell.

  Try to imagine a landscape under that much snow.

  It was far, far worse than a nuclear holocaust – but as with the aftermath of a nuclear surface explosion, the worst was yet to come.

  Day 13
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  Friday 27 December

  Boston Harbour – 10:00am

  Brady slept through until almost 6am. He woke with a start and for a few seconds couldn’t work out where he was. Then it all came flooding back and he closed his eyes again, trying to block out the memories of the previous day. Of course, he couldn’t - and was instantly overtaken by deep feelings of remorse and guilt regarding Jane’s death.

  He sat still for a minute or two and then, employing tremendous willpower, stood up and screamed at the top of his voice. A piercing, violent scream which all at once cleared his head and expelled his anger, frustration, sorrow and regret.

  ‘I WILL GET TO FRANCE!’ he bellowed.

  The devils temporarily expunged, Brady then prepared his breakfast and made his plans for the day. He knew that getting a boat was all but impossible, so his last hope was to reach the coast and pray that the sea wasn’t frozen. If that was the case, there might just be something he could use to get across the water. He would use a seaside pedalo if he had to!