by Sian Rosé
“Excuse me?”
The voice that addressed him hit him around the head like a sack of bricks, everything inside him freezing stiff as he stopped in his tracks and turned to see a short, plump woman in scrubs standing behind him. She had an eyebrow raised, piggy eyes looking him up and down, scrutinising him. She reeked of a person who’d been given a tiny titbit of authority and was now milking it for all it was worth.
“ID?” she asked, searching his uniform for a badge or card.
“Lost it,” Zach replied, his voice as cool and collected as ever, whilst his fingers twitched nervously as they gripped onto the handles of the wheelchair. Zach was a confident young man, but even he found it impossible to stay truly calm when there was so much at stake. If he was caught, it would look like an abduction. And he couldn’t very well explain that the reason he didn’t want to come forward as the child’s older brother was because he was, in fact, a hardened criminal who was perpetually on the run from the law along with the rest of his family.
“What’s your name?” the nurse asked, brow furrowing as she folded her arms.
“Fred Mathers.”
“How long have you worked here?”
“A few months,” said Zach slowly, “now, I’ve got somewhere to be, so…” he went to turn and continue pushing Flo back towards the double doors to the ward, but a pudgy hand was stuck out and collided with the bare skin of his elbow.
“Hold on. Who is that you are moving?” she demanded, nodding towards Flo’s slumped figure, her face still concealed by the fluffy orange hood of her outfit. “Nobody is scheduled to be moved today.”
Zach stifled a groan of irritation.
Just fuck off and let me go, you stupid bitch.
Just as he opened his mouth to say something else, the shrill shriek of the fire alarm blasted loudly into the air, silencing him and everybody else. At the same time, the sharp sting of smoke crept up into his nostrils.
“THERE’S A FIRE!” another nurse yelled from somewhere else, immediately causing total carnage to ensue as now panicked visitors, workers, and patients all headed for the double doors to the ward. The fierce gush of people practically carried Zach and the wheelchair with it as the mob flooded out into the corridor, and the suspicious nurse was soon just a long distant nightmare. Zach allowed himself a sigh of relief and a small smile as it occurred to him that it must have been Stella or his father saving his arse.
Despite the chaos, Zach abandoned the wheelchair and carried his little sister over his shoulder as though he were a doll. He ripped off the top half of his uniform so that he just looked like an average person in a normal t-shirt. He couldn’t have the nosy nurse calling security. As agreed, the young man sprinted through the hospital to the female toilets on ground 3, where Minnie waited, her hair twisted into an unfamiliar style and tinted glasses partially covering her face. Wordlessly, she took her daughter from Zach back into the bathroom to change her again into a different outfit and hastily chop her hair so that she would not be recognised.
A few minutes later, the Garnet family was regrouping and dashing out of the hospital alongside the clusters of other panicked residents responding to the deafening bleating of the fire alarm. Outside, there were already dozens of fire trucks and firefighters, as well as a dazzling collage of flashing blue and red lights lighting up the faces of the thousands of people who seemed to be standing outside.
“Shit, look at the road,” Stella hissed breathlessly as the family crossed the heaving car park, “Lloyd will be stuck. We need to get away quickly. We might have to keep walking.”
Zach shook his head, relief crossing his face as he stared down at the screen of his phone. “No. He’s just text to say he’s going around the back. Shit, Lloyd has actually used a brain cell for once.”
Chests on fire, the family mustered up their last few grains of strength as they jogged back across the car park, Ronnie with Flo hung over his shoulder. In an eerily perfect convoy, the five hurried together down a dark side road to the left of the hospital. Sure enough, after fifteen minutes, they came to the clinics at the back of the hospital, where the RV was waiting in a narrow, deserted road beyond the railings.
Tears of exhaustion trickled down their faces as they made the final sprint to the back door, piled into the back of the RV, then slammed it shut behind them again, collapsing in a heap on the floor.
“What’s up, motherfuckers?” trilled Lloyd obliviously as he started up the engine, thoroughly delighted that he was, just this once, allowed to drive the RV.
As the vehicle pulled away from the curb and the rest of the family held onto their chests, heaving and panting as they struggled to regain their breath, a small voice replied to Lloyd’s gleeful cry. It was frail and weak but unmistakably Flo’s, coming from the centre of the sweaty, shaking huddle of people.
“Fuck off, Lloyd.”
Chapter Sixty
Christmas, 2019
“So, Granny, what was Mum like as a kid?” Flo asked Julie conversationally whilst chewing lazily on a shred of cold turkey.
“You’d be surprised,” laughed Minnie at that, taking another sip of the dark crimson liquid in her wine glass. She liked the bitterness of it and the fact it stained her lips. Zero fucks were given that it was the expensive vintage that her father had been hoarding for some ridiculous amount of years. “I was a little angel. Really bright as well.”
The family sat around the polished wooden dining table, empty plates covering its middle, stupid paper hates balanced clumsily on heads.
“How things have changed,” nodded Ronnie, winking across the table at his wife before lifting his beer bottle up to his lips for another sip. “Though your mother could never resist a bit of rough. Your father was quite the lovable rogue back in the day.”
Lloyd gulped down what must have been his millionth roast potato of the day and spoke with his mouth full, so crumbs tumbled from his fat face. “Mad how things change. Look how much shit happened this year.”
“Yeah, shame you’re still a fat virgin,” Zach teased, flicking a pea at his younger brother, which Thumper greedily pounced on and gobbled up from his spot on the floor.
“No, but seriously,” Lloyd protested, far too used to his siblings’ playful insults. “We had nowhere to live. Now we got two places. Here, and the RV.”
“And we got to meet more family!” chimed in Flo, gesturing towards her grandparents, who both sat with them around the table. “Never thought we’d do that.”
Minnie sighed as she thought of Ross. There was no way she could visit him. It’d be far too risky. And besides, she doubted that he would want to see her. It was sad, but it was a necessary precaution to keep her distance.
He’d been sentenced to life in prison, with no chance whatsoever of being let out at any point. Minnie felt bad for him, as though out of all of their victims, it was him who’d really gotten the rough deal. The faces of Jared, Sienna, and all of the gypsies, as well as all the other random people who’d stood in their way, flashed up inside her mind. They were dead, and some people might consider this a worse fate than life imprisonment.
Personally, Minnie would rather be dead than be permanently shackled. That would be a real hell.
Suddenly, she cleared her throat and lifted her glass. “I know we’re not in America, and this isn’t Thanksgiving,” he said, “but I just wanted to say that I am bloody thankful we never got caught.”
“The fact we haven’t kind of proves we’re good,” Stella commented, scratching Thumper fondly behind the ears.
“It does,” agreed Ronnie was a nod, “but we can’t ever get complacent.”
“It’s like the universe is allowing us this. Like, it’s what we’re meant to be doing,” Minnie smiled, swirling the wine around in her glass in a short of intensifying stare at the dark red liquid.
Her children and husband stared at one another blankly for a moment at her sudden moment of spirituality; then, all promptly fell about in laughter. Even
Minnie sniggered at her own silliness before taking another generous gulp of wine.
“Oh, Mum,” Flo exhaled with a fond smile as she watched her mother, “we love you.”
“I love all of you,” Minnie said, her heart feeling warm and full. She couldn’t tell if it was the wine or just the other people sitting around at the table. “Even you, Mum, Dad,” she acknowledged each one, tipping her glass to them.
Flo snaked a small arm up to her grandfather’s face, squeezed his chin, and manoeuvred the flesh up and down. It was stiff and still cold from being in the freezer for so long. The child put on a low, gruff voice.
“Why, thank you, Minerva! Our favourite daughter!” she mimicked.
Zach copied with Julie, making it seem like her cold, dead lips were actually moving as he put on a high-pitched squeak.
“I’m DEAD happy to hear that, Minerva!”
Once again, the family of six began to laugh again, each of them the most content and the closest that they had ever been.
And, in her tipsy state, Minnie privately thought about how, if someone had told her twenty years ago she’d be sharing the family dinner table with the dead corpses of her parents for Christmas, she’d cry at such a horrific thought.
And now, it felt like she was living the dream.
Lloyd was dead right.
Mad how things change.
Thank you!
Thank you so much for reading. I whole-heartedly hope that you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
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