Tears of Blood Page 3

  “Darling,” he says eventually.

  “Yes?”

  “I need you to realise that this could be it for us.”

  “What do you mean?” I snap.

  “Don’t Iz, I know you understand what I mean.” He stares at me for a long time. “This is not normal flu. It is bad, very bad…” He pauses and takes a deep breath. “You need to prepare yourself for the worse.”

  I stare at the carpet and shake my head. “No.” I shake my head some more. “No, I can’t, this is too much.”

  “Have you watched the news or listened to the radio at all today?”

  I just stare at him. I nod almost imperceptibly, non-consciously. He knows I have.

  “Then you know.”

  “No, I don’t,” I shout, jumping up. “You can still get help you know, why are you giving up?”

  “Izzy,” he says, calmly.

  “No.” I shake my head. “I can’t hear this.”

  I storm out the bedroom and slam the door. I run downstairs where I furiously leap onto the sofa beside my brother. His little face is staring up at me. I feel like I am going insane. My body is seething with anger. How can they just give up? What the fuck is wrong with them? It isn’t that bad. It’s not. It’s bloody not. They can still do something.

  I can’t sit still. I am swaying forwards and backwards. I am freaking my brother out. He has a strange smirk on his face, a smirk which tells me to stop. I do. I try to calm down. For some reason, I jump up and rush into the kitchen, turn on the tap, and stare at the water flowing out and into the sink. It works. I am soothed, a little. I take my phone out of my pocket and go back to the living room. I call the doctor. Engaged. The anger is rising again. I try 999. Engaged. I’m heating up now. I call NHS direct. Engaged. I’m radiating rage now. My teeth are clenched, my whole body is tense, my heart is about to implode from the pressure. Breathe Izzy, breathe, in through the nose, exhale through the mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the nose, yes, that’s it, out through the mouth. I stare up at the ceiling, as if that can help. I try the numbers again, over and over and over and over. Engaged, engaged, engaged, en-fucking-gaged. I throw the phone across the room. It hits the wall and falls onto the carpet. My brother grabs a hold of my hand and looks deep into my eyes, into my soul. His pure innocence radiates into my heart. I suddenly feel better, like I know that somehow, despite everything, things are going to be OK. Olly knows it, so I know it. I pull him onto my lap and tickle his tummy. His laughter warms me. It makes me strong. It makes me brave.

  I make two cups of tea and slowly carry them upstairs, holding on to them carefully so as not to spill any of it on to the carpet, again. Outside the bedroom door, the chills rise inside me. I close my eyes. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In, out, in, out. The rhythm of life. The rhythm. Breathe. Calm. Tranquillity. A calm lake. A warm sunny day. Blue skies. A plane buzzing far up overhead. I disappear into nothing. I find peace. I find strength. I open my eyes. I use my elbow to push the door handle down. I use my foot to push it open. I hold my breath. I expel it. My Father smiles pathetically up at me. I can tell the drugs are really working now. He looks dozy, happier, free from pain. I am glad. My Mother cracks open her eyes as I set down the cup beside her. She can’t keep them open, she closes them again, slowly. I kiss her sweaty forehead. I sit next to my Father and hand him his tea. He blows it then takes a sip.

  “Mmmm, lovely,” he says, “you make the best tea darling.”

  I start to cry. The rage is gone, the darkness is back in the form of despair, it has infiltrated every aspect of my being, there is no light left to behold. He sets down the teacup and hugs me.

  “I think you’re going to be OK darling,” he says as if that is supposed to make me feel better. It doesn’t. I cry harder.

  “How do you know?” I ask, through the sobs.

  “Everything I’ve heard today. It is highly contagious, unlike anything they have ever seen, and the incubation period is so short. You would already be ill, as would your brother.”

  “How do you know for sure?”

  “I believe what the experts said on the news today. Besides I’ve seen the evidence with my own eyes. I mean, I started getting ill this morning. Your Mother started showing symptoms yesterday night. You two were with her for hours before I came home. They’re saying it’s most contagious in the early stages. You two were here at the worst possible time, and you’re both fine. Yes, if you were going to get ill, you would be ill already. You and Olly are going to be fine.” Cough, cough, cough. “You have to believe that you’re going to be fine, you hear me. I know it.”

  “So do I,” my Mother rasps.

  I am holding both of their hands now; I squeeze them. I realise that I do believe it, which is the strange thing. I know deep down that both Olly and I are both going to be okay. Like the inner-most part of me is shining out the knowledge, as if it is bracing me, preparing me for the struggle ahead. I give my Father some tissues from the box on the dresser.

  “Yes, darling, you two are going to be just fine,” my Mother adds.

  They are squeezing my hands now, weakly. Mother is worse.

  “Whatever happens, you and Olly must stick together,” he tells me.

  I am crying so much now. The tears are rolling down my face and dripping on to the bed. My Dad wipes my eyes with a fresh tissue.

  “He needs you, and you will need him. You must stick together, no matter how hard it seems. Promise me?” he says.

  “Yes, I promise,” I splutter, unsure of how to proceed. I am falling into my fate.

  He starts coughing. I pat his head with some tissues. They come away soaked. I throw them onto the floor. He lies back down and gets comfortable.

  “Yes, I truly believe you’re going to be OK,” he says, “as long as you two stick together.”

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” I say.

  “Come here,” he says, his arm extended for a hug.

  I lay beside him. The three of us lay in silence, each one of us listening to the sound of the other’s breathing, the sound of each other’s hearts beating. Absorbing the essence of each other. I am trying to ingrain them into myself so that they will be with me forever. I know they never will. I am silently sobbing.

  “You will need to leave the city,” he says after a few minutes.

  “What?” I say sitting back up, looking at him.

  “You will need to leave the city,” he says pushing himself up into a sitting position, leaning back against the bed rest. “You need to get to the countryside. Your Uncle James has a farm up North. His address is in the address book downstairs in the drawer beneath the phone. It’s up near the Lake District. You will have to go somewhere, so go there. OK.”

  “No, no. I think you’re going to be just fine. We’ll stay right here where we are thank you very much.”

  “Darling, you need to be realistic.” He starts coughing again.

  “Here have some more tea.” I hand him his cup.

  He lifts it to his lips. I hold it steady for him.

  “You know as well as I do this flu is taking the lives of everyone it infects.”

  “But…”

  “Listen, I don’t want to die, but I need you to be prepared if I do… if we do.”

  “Dad…”

  “Listen to your Father,” my Mother croaks. “Please Izzy.”

  “Oh, Mum.” I sit up and hold both their hands.

  They are both smiling sadly at me. Beneath the illness, I can see they are terrified. They are being strong for me. I gulp. I bite my tongue. I can’t take this.

  “It’s too late to leave the city now,” my Dad says. “You’ll have to wait. It is going to be chaos out there. Stay here; there’s enough food for the two of you for a couple of weeks or more. Eventually, the electricity will turn off, the gas will stop working, the water will stop running. Fill up every bottle and pot and pan the bath and sin
ks with water so you can survive for a couple of weeks in here, in case that happens.” Cough, cough, cough, cough, cough.

  My Mother turns over and kisses him.

  “You need to make sure that anybody walking by outside can’t see the two of you through the windows,” he continues. “That means no lights at night. You’re probably OK for the next couple of days, but you need to be vigilant. Stay in the attic. Cover the hatch with something heavy. These houses are joined up there so you can get from one end of the terrace to the other, you know if someone breaks in. Keep everything you’ll need when you’re out on the road up there with you. You’ll find candles in the basement. There’s my old camping gear, a gas stove, sleeping bags, tents, fishing gear, Swiss Army knife. You’ll need all that.”

  “Dad… I can’t.”

  “Izzy, you can. You have to.”

  “But…”

  “No Iz, be brave. You will be brave. You’ll have to be. We believe in you. Ever since you and your brother were born, we’ve believed in better things for you. Somehow we’ve always known you’d end up doing something different. You and Olly have always been so special, such a gift.”

  “You would say that.” I laugh through the tears.

  “That’s true,” he laughs too, “but we do believe it.”

  Mum nods, “we really do.”

  “You have to believe me, us. You’ll have to protect yourself and your brother. Our way of life is coming to an end, there will be hardly anyone left. The illness is airborne, it’s everywhere. They won’t be able to create a vaccine in time to save everyone.”

  “Promise you will do it,” my Mother says.

  “I promise, I promise.”

  “I love you, Izzy,” My Father says.

  “Yes, darling. We love you very much,” my Mother says. “We are very proud of the woman you are becoming.”

  “I love you too.”

  We sit in silence for a few minutes. My Mother weakly grips my hand.

  “I’m so tired now my darling, please, go downstairs and get your brother,” she says. “He should be here.”

  I run down the stairs and grab him. Together we brave it back into the bedroom. We all sit on the bed, all of us knowing what will happen. Olly is calm beyond his years. He looks at me with an intensity I do not recognise, but one that reassures. My parents kiss my brother, they tell him they love him, I cry, they cry, Olly cries. We all lay on the bed together. My Mother plays with my hair until she stops. I cry silently until I fall asleep between them.

  four

  I can’t believe this is happening. I simply can’t believe it. My face falls into my hands as a hollow emptiness takes root inside me. Everything stands still. I am deaf. I am stunned. I am no longer me. I am far away from myself floating in space, lost, suspended. I can’t think. I can’t see. I can’t breathe. The emptiness is absorbing all my being. I am imploding into myself. I want to collapse on to the floor and sob uncontrollably. I want to scream why? Why? Why? I want to thump the carpet with all my might. I don’t, I can’t. I bite my tongue and force strength down into my body to stop the fizzing, to stop the dread, to stop the despair. I don’t collapse. In through the nose, out through the mouth, in through the nose, out through the mouth. I look up defiantly. This is not going to destroy me.

  I pick up the still sleeping Olly and carry him into his bedroom. He doesn’t stir as I wrap the cartoon character duvet around him. I watch him sleep for a moment. Be at peace little guy, for when you wake up our world is dead and gone, and a new darker one has arrived. What am I going to tell him? How are we going to survive? Tears start to form in my eyes. In through the nose, out through the mouth. I must be strong. He must not hear me. I tiptoe silently out of his bedroom and back into the chamber of death. I stand at the foot of my parent’s bed.

  This is the worst morning ever. They have died with us laying right there between them. It was the encroaching cold that woke me. The encroaching grey. I look at them. I know they are at peace now. I gaze at their hands, they are still joined in unison, married forever. I look at their faces. They both appear to be sleeping, as if they are dreaming tranquil dreams. Except for a single line, where a tear of blood fell from their eyes. Their pain is gone. The suffering of this life is a distant thing for them, non-existent, gone. I lie back down on the bed between them. I wish for them to wake from their long slumber, I know they never will. The darkness is cascading through me in waves now. I start to cry, slowly at first, almost as if the truth is penetrating me gradually, not all at once. I don’t think my mind can take it all in one go. I remember something. I think I actually stirred the moment they died, sometime deep in the darkness of the night. I think I felt their passing go straight through me, like a wave, like a moment of transference, of bliss, ephemeral. They said goodbye, they told me they loved me forever. I told them I loved them too and that I would miss them. They promised to see me again. Maybe I was dreaming, maybe I am making it all up, maybe it is nothing more than a coping mechanism, a sense of closure, and I do feel lighter because of it, because I had that moment, because I believe I felt it. But still, despite this knowing, I have woken on this new day, into a new dark world, and I am cold. They are cold, and I am shivering, and crying, and broken. I am being swallowed by the darkness. I force myself to stand up, to be strong. I kiss their dead, cold, lifeless bodies on the forehead, tears streaming out of my eyes. I cover them up with the duvet, what else can I do? I open the window, because I have to, because I am doing as I was told, because of what I know will come. We are going to be stuck in here for a couple of weeks, maybe more.

  As I pull back the curtains to open the window I am struck by the horrifying scenes on the street and pavement below. There are bodies everywhere. In the cars, there are bodies, in front gardens, there are bodies, on the tarmac, on the pavement, everywhere, there are bodies. I just stand and stare frozen in place, unable to breathe, unable to move. This is what Hell looks like. Tears are building up inside me, helpless rage is burning away. I am powerless to change any of this. I am powerless to do anything, and I am supposed to be looking after my little baby brother. How can I? I have never felt such utter desolation in all my life before. I am empty inside, worthless, dead. Beasts exist within the cavern of my body and they are scratching away at my ribcage trying to escape. I am about to be annihilated. My knees go weak, I sway, I fall. I sit on the carpet and cry. I cannot cry enough for all the tears, they cannot come all at once. They become me. No. I blink and wipe away the tears, I force myself to move and leave the room forever. What else can I do? I shrink when I think of the smell that I know is coming. I shrink into myself just a little bit more. My throat is so tight I can barely breathe. I need to rein it in. I bite my tongue. I squeeze my hands into fists. I need to check on Olly, to see if he is OK.

  He is still fast asleep in his bed. I feel his forehead, it is a normal temperature. I listen to his breathing, all sounds normal to me. I look at him, he seems fine. One less thing to worry about. I close the door to his bedroom silently and disappear into my own room. I collapse down on to the edge of my bed. Shock is biting. I place my hands over my face and cry and cry. I can’t believe it. It has happened so fast. I can’t believe my Mum and Dad are both dead, leaving my brother and me all alone. They are gone, gone, gone, forever. I never actually thought this day would come, and it has come far too soon. What am I going to do now? I am alone. So alone. Two days ago everything was normal, just another boring crappy day of college. Now everything has gone to Hell. Death is all around me. How can I explain this to the little guy sleeping soundly under the cover of his childish blanket? I know I need to be strong for him, but right now I am being crushed in a vice. I was so bloody stupid. Life is so precious and all I ever did was moan and wish for something else. Something better. I was bored. I was stupid. I didn’t know how good I had it. I am utterly lost now. Unsure of how to proceed. Unsure of what to do next. Unsure of what it actually means to be a human, to be alive. Everything, I thought
I knew about life has been ripped down, taken away, completely destroyed. Do I even want to go on now, if it wasn’t for Olly, well maybe I would want to die too? I shake the thought away. I have to block out these dark ideas or else they will become me, they will lead me into anguish and I will never escape their grasp. I have to be strong. I have to be a better version of me. In through the nose, out through the mouth, one, two, three, four, five. But my parents. I can’t hold back the despair. I turn and fall face first into my bed. I scream and cry into the pillow, I am hot, I am about to explode. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? I punch the pillow, I scream into the pillow. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to go on without them? The powerlessness, the hollowness, the whole world has actually stopped with their deaths, all except for me and Olly. For a moment I believe that we are the ones who have died. Not them. This is all too surreal. I am sobbing now, sobbing, sobbing, deep, desolate, sobbing. Yet, there is light in the darkness. I have Olly. I have to be strong for him. I sit up and lean back against the wall. It is cold against my skin, my clothes are wet from rage. I am beginning to shiver. I have to sort myself out. Olly will be awake soon. I slap my face. I slap it harder. I slap it once more until the stinging is all I am aware of. Be brave, be strong.

  I have a shower. I dress. I spray my body spray. I try to look normal, but my face is red and swollen from tears. I switch on my bedroom television. I need a distraction. I need something to make me forget, if only for a moment. A moment of sweet forgetfulness, a moment of nothing, a moment to begin rebuilding. Perhaps it’s not that bad after all, perhaps the worst is over. It’s not. On the 24 hour News channel the feed from the helicopters is showing scenes of wild looting. There are bodies everywhere. There are explosions and fires, whole houses have been burned to the core. It looks like a war-zone, like a nuclear bomb has gone off in some places of the inner cities. The commentator is saying that half the country has died overnight, the other half are dying. I switch over the channel. Nothing else is being transmitted. They’re all saying no signal. I turn it off. Is this really happening? I sit and stare out of my bedroom window, out into the garden. The snow is getting thicker and thicker. Soon the misery will be covered. Soon ice and silence will fill the land. Thank God the heating is still working for now. I go downstairs and close all the curtains. I turn the heating up. I can hear my brother stirring. Shall I tell him or not? What to do? What to do? What to do? I open his door. He is sitting on the floor playing with his toys. He looks up at me. He knows something is wrong. I sit on his bed. He comes towards me. I pick him up and bounce him on my knee. I can’t say anything, I start to cry. He starts to cry. I feel the Earth begin to rumble beneath my feet. I whip my head around to the window, the curtain blocks my view. What’s happening? I think it is the Military. I think the tanks are already rolling in. It stops. All is calm. I look down at him and smile.