MJ Marshall
THE END IS NIGH
For Steve.
1
I LOOKED UP from the blue shirt on the ironing board to stare at the radio in disbelief as Radio 2 was interrupted by an emergency broadcast. Dumbstruck, I stood there waiting with my mouth open. A shiver slid down my back.
“Attention! This is an emergency broadcast. We have received information warning of an attack against the United Kingdom.” My skin turned cold. The stern voice of an unfamiliar newsreader resonated around my kitchen, bouncing off the walls as it bounced around my head. What on earth was going on?
“Take shelter indoors immediately. Gather what supplies you are able to and stay inside until further notice. Emergency personnel currently within a thirty-minute radius of their nearest facility must report for duty immediately.” I attempted to make sense of the newsreader’s bulletin but failed. The room began to sway before me as I became incapable of doing anything but continuing to listen. “Citizens currently further than thirty minutes from home do not attempt the journey. Stay where you are and find immediate shelter. First strike expected within the hour. Further information to follow.”
Stupidly I turned around to check the calendar on the back of the kitchen door. It’s not April 1st… it’s June. This is real. What did I just hear? Leaving the ironing where it was, I ran into the lounge, picked up the remote and turned on the television. Sky News flashed up on the screen. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“Shit.”
I flicked up through the channels, CNN, BBC. It was all over them. Emergency bulletins were broadcasting on every channel. Everything around me seemed to hold still in time, including myself. In slow motion I sank to the floor. My eyes glued to the screen in front of me. My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. I was trying to follow what the Sky News presenter was telling me in between reminding myself to breathe, but when I did, the sound of it rattled around my ears. I needed to calm myself, or I was going to have a panic attack.
“Breaking News. A missile attack has been launched on the United Kingdom. At this time it is believed that the UK is among several countries under attack. The source of the attack is currently unknown. The warheads have entered our atmosphere from what we believe to be a launch station in our orbit. It is unclear how destructive this attack may be, but we have been told to prepare for the possibility of nuclear war.”
I dropped the remote to the floor, my hands shaking. I shook them out in an attempt to regain control, but the shaking persisted. I reached behind me into the back pocket of my Levis and pulled out my phone to call Matt, but the call wouldn’t go through. Everyone would be freaking out and making telephone calls. Does that even stop calls going through? Call traffic? Hold on. I forced myself to focus.
Bollocks, what the fuck do I do now? Don’t panic, that would be a start. It was hard to think straight. Both the television in the lounge and the radio in the kitchen were spitting out warnings at a rate I was struggling to keep up with. I was trying to collect myself when I caught something that the brightly dressed, red-faced presenter was saying. It was the official government advice coming from the TV.
“If you are watching in a secure building, you need to make your way to a safe room at the centre of the structure, one without windows and preferably underground. Take as many provisions as you can, it is likely that emergency services will be severely stretched. You may need to survive for several days on your own without going outside.”
This triggered something in my memory. A school history lesson popped into my head. History had always been my favourite subject, so thankfully I had paid particular attention. I remembered a class project once where we were shown a safety instruction film used during the Cold War between America and Russia. ‘How to survive a nuclear attack.’ or something similar. If we were stuck in a situation on which our survival had depended upon something I had learned in maths class I would have just lain down where I was and waited for death to claim me. But now, thanks to all things historical, I felt like I had a bit of a head start.
Without really knowing why I was doing it I ran around the house filling all of the sinks, buckets and bathtubs with water. I remembered something about being low to the ground and to keep away from windows, or was it barricade the windows?
I was sweating. Beads of it trickled down my spine and soaked into the inside of my t-shirt. I wrestled with the king-sized mattress trying to pin it up against the bedroom window. I startled when I heard the piercing cry which came from the next room. On autopilot I moved to the door ready to run in, then I realised what I was doing and ran back to my task. She’ll have to cry. This is more important.
For the next thirty minutes, I was a crazy whirling mess. I locked up and sealed as much of the house as possible, covering windows with sheets, blankets and duck tape. The house was beginning to resemble a child’s fort, each time I glimpsed a blanket dropping from the window because the duck tape wouldn’t hold it the sinking feeling in my chest grew heavier. There was a good chance we were going to die.
Closing the interior doors as I left each room I somehow managed to get the single mattress from the spare room on the third floor down to the bottom of the house. I swept up blankets and spare clothes as I went, all of which were kicked down the steps and into the kitchen pantry. There are no windows down there and enough tins and water - not to mention wine - to last at least a month. I figured that this is as close as I would be able to get to a shelter at short notice. Plus it had the benefit of being built under the central stairway of the house. I recalled hearing somewhere that in an earthquake that it was the safest place to be as it’s the strongest part of a building.
Well, I mean not that we’d ever had an earthquake in Lewes. Typically we’re known for being popular with old age pensioners and coach trips as they pass through to Eastbourne. Apart from the town going mad with pyromaniacs every 5th of November, it’s an uneventful place. Until now.
I grabbed my phone up from the floor in the lounge shoving it back into my jeans pocket and headed out to the garage. A red Land Rover Discovery took up most of the garage space, which meant Matt had taken his motorbike this morning. At least he would find it easier to make his way through the traffic to get home to us. He needed to get himself away from the city as quickly as possible. But Matt would know that. He wasn’t an idiot.
I took my time as I scanned the cold space for the large torch I knew was somewhere in here. The sight of our tent bag under the workbench jogged my memory, and I remembered our camping trip earlier in the spring. Matt had packed the torch, which meant it was probably still in his kit bag. He wasn’t one for unpacking anything. I ran over to the far corner of the garage and seized his bag, pulled it open and started rifling through it. I found the torch at the bottom along with a can of his favourite instant coffee, his fishing knives and a flare gun. He does like to be prepared for anything. The thought of him made me try his mobile again.
“Shit!” Still no service. I need to speak to him. Placating myself, I knew that if he was riding now, as I hoped he was, he wouldn’t be able to pick up his phone anyway.
“Just worry about yourself.” I still had work to do.
On the way out of the garage, I rummaged around in the cupboard where we kept the spare batteries and took as many as I could find. It wasn’t as many as I’d have liked. It was at that moment I heard the siren. Instantly recognisable as something from one of Dad’s old war movies. It was an air raid siren. “Shit, shit, shit! That’s not good.”