Sundays

I hate Sundays spoke the voice, loud and clear. He’d put it off as long as possible. It was pointless, though; he’d need to open the diary and make some plans, sooner rather than later.

The diary sat on his desk. It was a cumbersome thing, leather bound with a zip. Inside, there was a daft wee calculator that he’d only ever used once, and that was to type 5318008 in an immature moment. He turned up to the week to come. Its blank boxes mocked him, advertising his lack of foresight, his lack of enthusiasm, his lack of interest.

Blinds, I

Angela stood at the bedroom window, watching the driveway. She knew he would appear at any moment, with his bag in tow. Her tummy wrenched and dived and crunched over and over at every distraction that came from the street below.

An old man hobbled along the pavement, his old, lame dog trudging slowly behind. He tottered past the entrance to the driveway, then disappeared from view behind the large conifer that acted as a gatepost. She took another sip from her cold coffee as she watched, waiting. Finally, the old man hobbled out again from the other side of the tree.

She wasn’t sure exactly how long she had stood at the window. The sky was certainly a lot brighter than it had been – still grey and drizzly, but it was clear that the sun had risen behind that thick veil. She stood in her nighty, with her dressing down over it, tightly bound by the cord at the waist. Her eyes felt heavy, a gentle sting that told her she’d been there for a long time.

She heard, or rather felt, the front door slam downstairs. She quickly drew the blinds, and watched them swing in front of the glass.

Outside, part 1

Roger was sitting on a rocking chair out on the porch of the old house. He was an old man, and had lived their for many years.

He was staring at the trees that towered high over this end of the street, trunks mighty and knotted, gnarled branches reaching far out to soak in the light of the sun that burned overhead. The tops of the trees were lost to his sight, blending together so that a thick green ceiling sheltered the people below.

He had sat on this seat every single day since he’d hung up his pistol and his badge for the last time. Now he watched the people carry on with their lives.

No one else seemed to have noticed. Young Miss Cherry was pushing the pram, with her little baby girl in it, along the street in the direction of the town centre, a few streets away from here. As usual, she waved as she walked by. Roger smiled and waved back. Across the street, walking beside the mammoth trunks, marched the postman, bag empty, job done. He stalked past the two dog walkers, chatting as their dogs played.

Nobody noticed the leaves in the trees moving.

Fire, VII

He stirred awake, utterly disorientated. All around, enormous men stood, freakishly yellow in the orange heat of the fire. They had his kids, and were taking them to the window. Mark tried to speak, to cry out in fear and anger, but only a groan bubbled from his lips. He watched as, noiselessly, the yellow-suited men handed Suzie first, then Mickey, out of the window into the nothingness beyond.

He tried to stand, but he couldn’t. He wiped his hand across his brow, the sweat and soot stinging his singed flesh. The yellow suited men came for him next. They grabbed him under the armpits and hauled him up to his feet. Even with two yellow suited men, he barely had the strength to keep upright. He could tell they were talking to him, shouting at him even, but no sound penetrated.

They dragged him towards the window. He stared out into the abyss; a sinister, billowing nothingness that was underlit by the blazing fire. He was reminded of a movie, but couldn’t place it.

A third explosion. The building shook for a third time. The floor gave way.

And he was falling.

The two yellow-suited men fell with him.

Fire, VI

It was getting harder and harder to breathe, the restrictive pressure on Mark’s lungs was forcing him to breathe more heavily, but as the temperature kept rising, the searing pain of the air in his lungs and throat made it worse. He looked at his two kids. They sat huddled on the smoking carpet. He needed to get them out, to save them from the hellish blaze.

He struggled to the window, trying to see what was happening below. Through the smoke and flames that licked up higher and higher, a neon blue fought through. The fire brigade were here.

He tried to get their attention, but his throat was seared, and hardly a sound could be heard over the blazing fire. He looked for something to throw from the window, anything that would direct the attention of the fire brigade towards his window. He grabbed a side table, tossing it out of the window in a desperate fury. He looked back at his kids, Mickey still out of it, Suzie’s head lolling on her shoulders, spluttering weakly.

Mark fell to his knees a moment, weakened by the utter hopelessness of their situation. Higher and higher crept the flames.

Fire, V

He steeled himself again what was coming next. The stairwell shaft was filling will smoke. It wasn’t long before they caught back up with the others below. By the time they’d reached the fourth floor of the building, the sinister crackling of blazing fires was clearly distinguishable over the din of panic and chaos. Time was running out.

People were filing into the corridor of the fourth floor. Mark’s stomach lurched as he saw why. The stairs were gone. Thei ferocity of the blaze below was starting to destroy the very fabric of the building itself.

“Daddy, what are we going to do?” Suzie’s voice crept into Marks ear.

He squeezed her closer, and said, “It’s ok, baby, we’ll follow these people. We’re getting out of here.”

The crush of bodies in the corridor was unbearable. The sound of hacking, choking, shuddering coughs, the torturous heat, the horrifying scenes beyond the windows – for the first time, Mark didn’t know what to do. He continued to push his way through, making for the open door of one of the flats.

Inside, the living room wallpaper was curling off the walls, smoke belching out from underneath. The carpet was littered with glass.

Fire, IV

“MICKEY!” His panicked screams were punctuated by flailing fists and hands grabbing at him from all sides. He wrenched people away, his sweaty, clammy hands slipping as he searched frantically for his son, lost in the mass of bodies, crushed in the panic.

The heat from the fire was building every second, and the people in the stairwell felt themselves being cooked alive. The fear of crushing those fallen seemed to have stayed the tide that had been building; like a dam controls the river, so too the crowd on the stairs below had moved on. Those behind were getting worse.

Mark spotted his son’s little arm poking up through the pile of people to his left. “Mickey! I’m coming, Mickey!” No response. No movement.

He managed to get a couple of people out of the way, and dragged his son to him. He was unconscious, it was impossible to tell if he was breathing. His left arm was clearly broken, bent away at a sickening angle. He grabbed his son close, taking he daughter back into his arms, and started stepping on bodies, desperate to get passed and away to safety. Below, the stairwell cast a terrifying, orange glow.

Fire, III

Immediately, he started shouting, yelling to be heard over the chaos on the stairs. “I’ve got kids here! Two children! Let us through!”

All around, similar cries from panicking parents all churning together, slowly inching down the stairs. More and more people were forcing their way in, crushing tighter together. Suzie began to cry into his shoulder – short, breathless sobs. The light was fading from the stairwell, smoke swirling around the underside of the staircases up and up.

Another massive explosion shook the very core of the building. Mark’s ears were ringing for a second or two, before the screams ramped up. People were beginning to fall apart.

An old man stumbled into Mark, grabbing hold of Mickey’s arm before collapsing to the floor. Mark felt Mickey tumble from his grip with a scream, and disappear into the pile of bodies that fell down the stairs. Suzie screamed. Mark watched the writhing mass of limbs as he pushed his way through, desperate to grab his son. Random hands clambered at his arms as he started punching, smacking people out of the way, all the time shouting his sons name. Others started doing the same, trying hopelessly to pull bodies free.

Fire, II

Mark smacked hard onto the ground, dropping Suzie against the unit in the hallway.  Screams from the outside hallway mingled in Mark’s ears with the crying of his children inside. He scrambled up, picking Suzie up and grabbing Mickey’s hand. “We’ve got to get out of here.” He dragged them to the door, tears streaming down their faces with silent sobs of fear. “Wait here,” he said, opening the door and looking out into the hallway.

Immediately, the thick black smoke choked him. Breathing through his shirt sleave, he lunged into the hallway towards central stairwell. He opened the door, banging into crowds of people pouring from floors above. He turned back to the flat, and could make out the muffled panicked cries from within the flat: “Daddy, come back!”

“I’m here, it’s ok.” He had to keep calm for the kids.  He picked them both up, and carried them out of the flat into the thickening cloud of smoke. “Keep your faces into my shoulder; keep breathing, big deep breaths…keep breathing.”

He battered through the door. An instant crash of panic pierced his ears.  Hundreds of people from the floors above were all crushed into the tightest space.

Fire, I

It was the heat. That’s what woke him up. Then, before Mark opened his eyes, he heard a loud crackling. Then, finally, his stomach lurched as he picked out human screams.

He threw off the bed covers, stumbling to the door. His hands slipped on the handle, the sweat making it hard to grip. He burst into the hallway.  A fiery orange glow flooded in from the window at the far end. The shadows on the wall danced frantically as he ran the few steps to the kids’ room. He threw open the door.

Both were still asleep. “Kids! Suzie, Mickey! We need to go! Quickly.” He tried not scream at them, but he was panicking. He peeked behind the curtains as the kids stirred, and could see smoke billowing up from the floors below.

“Daddy, what is it?” Suzie’s voice was cracked, a dry throat from the heat.

“Come on, we’ve got to go,” said Mark, scooping Suzie out of the bed.

“What’s that noise?” Mickey’s voice came from the direction of the window.

“Mickey, come here! Stay away from there just now.” He took his hand, pulling him into the hallway.

An enormous, shuddering bang shook the floor.