Cope Books

THE CALM AFTER THE STORM

“Well, I’m not going outside, you go!”

Jack’s voice boomed across the living room as he stormed away from the window. It was bright outside, picturesque white clouds floated across the tapestry of the clear blue sky and sunshine streamed into the room; it was a perfect day.

But it was quiet.

Unusually quiet.

For a Saturday in England, sunshine and weekends meant kids screaming and laughing, and laughing while screaming, and noise. Lots of noise. Joyful, chaotic noise. But today, there was nothing. No sound at all.

No people, no dogs, no cats, no birds; not even the gentle hum of electricity from power lines, nor even the groan of a car engine going by, trying to stay under 20mph. Jack is 11 years old, almost 12. He’s thin, with short, spikey, mouse-brown hair, and the black-track-suited look of most of the boys his age.

He turns back to look out of the window again and semi-shouts/semi-whispers, “It’s super creepy out there, isn’t it?! No-one around, no cars or anything. Nothing… I’m not doing it.” He folds his arms forcefully to punctuate his sentence.

Jack’s Dad, John, laughs falsely, clearly trying to raise Jack’s spirits. He’s old, about 50, and bald. His batman t-shirt and ripped jeans belie a man desperate to cling to his youth and save money, but even if money and fashion were important before (and they weren’t), they are the last things on his mind now.

“I was just kidding, bud,” his dad reassures him, “I’ll go out myself in a minute. Go get your mum and Danny from upstairs, and we’ll have a chat about it.”

The night before had been LOUD. VERY LOUD. Bright flashes of light had ripped through the sky, each one followed by thunderous bangs and crashes. The family could hear people screaming and running blindly, shouting and stumbling. Cars screeched, crashed and scraped their way at speed down the narrow, tree-lined suburban streets, desperate to escape whatever had caused the chaos.

Then … nothing.

Silence.

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Jack’s family had been watching it from the windows upstairs, huddled together in varying degrees of awe and fear. Staring out into the night in horror, they could see the mushroom clouds billowing in the distance and felt the earth trembling with the aftershocks. They saw objects and debris hurled miles into the air by bright-orange flashes and then come crashing back down to earth with an indescribable cacophony of groans, screams and shattering glass.

Jack’s mum, Caroline, her thin face pale with worry, dragged Jack away from the window after a short while, desperate to get him entertained in some other venture, to distract him from the madness. She moved him back into his own little room, which was dark now, as a wave of something they couldn’t explain had cut the power and abruptly plunged the whole house into darkness. Caroline lit a few candles around the house, candles she’d received as gifts that women over 40 always get, and as she was 54, she had plenty to go round. Jack remembered he had a light source of his own, and switched on his battery-powered plasma ball. That didn’t really help the atmosphere in the house though, as the strange flickering pink and blue light from the dancing electricity in the globe cast juddering shadows across his room, like maniacal demons looking for mischief. It didn’t put anyone at ease.

“They finally went and did it. Those idiots!” Jack heard his dad mutter to his older brother, Danny.

Danny was stood right next to his dad, slightly taller and a lot thinner, with a mop of jet-black hair almost covering his eyes. He brushed his hair away and looked hopefully at his dad, longing for good news.

“Done what, Dad?” he asked, genuinely.

Being 19, Danny hadn’t seen or heard much of war in his childhood. Just the odd movie, or Xbox game. He’d never been interested in the politics of the rich, out to gain absolute power by flattening whichever little country got in their way. His world had always been one of hearing his parents’ complain about the government continually stripping away the services to the general public and feeding their rich friends, but Danny had never really taken any notice. He was young, he lived in the now. He was going to be successful and rich, anyway. He just had to work out how. But now he was thinking that his dreams might be scuppered and his parents may have been right. It was the politicians that had allowed it to happen. Maybe. Whatever it was, his dad had said war was always going to be about gaining power, it always was.

“Someone’s probably pressed the button. Nuclear war, bud. No one ever thought it would happen, because the big superpower countries had some ridiculous idea that if all of them had nuclear weapons it would be a stalemate and no one would dare to launch them because they knew that it would … well …” he trails off, unwilling to finish the sentence and frighten his son.

“What?” Danny asked, “What would happen?”

“Well,” John puts his hands on his son’s shoulder and strokes it gently, “it would wipe out the major cities in the world, and the radiation would contaminate the planet. So, anything that wasn’t blown apart…” he pauses to try and find the right words, “well, the contamination would cause radiation sickness and would eventually affect everyone within range.”

“Are we within range, Dad?” Danny asks, nervously, but trying not to show it.

“I’m not sure, bud. Maybe not.”

John’s eyes show his dismay as he looks out at the fading mushroom cloud in the distance. He knows the radiation would pollute everything eventually. Water, air, soil. Did anyone stand a chance? He needed a plan, and he needed it quick, just in case his family did get sick. He stood up and gently bustled the family out of Jack’s bedroom and into the larger, main bedroom.

“Let’s get the blow-up bed and stick it in here. You can have that, Danny. Jack, you jump in with me and Mum for now.”

Jack didn’t need to be told twice; the flickering shadow demons bouncing around his room, along with giant mushroom clouds and devastation outside, was all he needed to be convinced to not sleep in any room on his own that night.

“I might be nearly 12,” he thought to himself, “but I’m not an idiot…”

The two boys jumped onto the bed, as their parents finished off pumping up the blow-up bed on the floor next to them. The idea was to all settle down to sleep, recharge their batteries, and face the new world tomorrow with vim and vigour.

But no-one slept.

Their minds raced from one thought to another, all night. Their adrenaline and anxiety levels were on high alert with different, terrifying scenarios. John and Caroline spent their evening tossing and turning, anxiously considering how to feed and protect their family. Danny spent his night wondering and worrying about how he was going to become rich and successful now that money didn’t matter anymore.

And Jack, Jack spent the first part of his evening wondering what was happening in the world, until his 11 year old’s ADHD kicked in, then the rest of his evening wondering if his school football match would be cancelled on Saturday and if not, then if he’d finally be allowed to play in midfield instead of defence.

When morning broke, Jack and his dad went to the living room downstairs. They’d left the curtains open the night before, and now the sunlight streamed into the room like a seemingly normal, beautiful Saturday morning. They spent an hour or two peaking just behind the curtains watching for movement outside, while Danny and his mum were packing bags and rucksacks upstairs.

“One of us has to go outside and see what’s going on, bud.” Jack’s dad said, smiling mischievously, “and I vote you.”

Jack exploded, “Well, I’m not going outside, you go!”

That was what had caused Jack’s huge reaction at the window, and his firmly folded arms. His Dad laughs, falsely again, but more convincingly this time, and gives him a gentle hug.

“Okay, just wait here a sec. I’m going to go and look. Go get your Mum and Danny, like I said, and when I get back, we’ll have a little chat.”

Jack nods, and suddenly jumps forward and hugs his dad much more tightly round the waist. He squeezes again, unwilling to let go. John hugs his youngest boy back. He needs reassuring. Kids are resilient, but only if they have hope.

“It’ll be okay, bud. I’ll just be two ticks.”

He hugs him again and walks into the hallway. He secretly takes a deep breath and with a noticeably shaking hand, opens the door and steps outside, leaving the door slightly ajar.
Outside, the sky is blue, the sun is shining, the air is cold-ish, but not enough to need a jumper. It’s his perfect type of day, he thinks, apart from, you know, the end-of-the-world thing. He walks down the short drive to the centre of the cul-de-sac they live in. It’s made up of ten houses, all in a horse-shoe shape, with their little, pleasant gardens all facing inwards to the road. The houses around him look empty. The doors are thrown wide open, and there are belongings scattered across the paths and the road, as if everyone left in such a rush there was no time to stop and pick anything up that they had dropped.

Just in front of him, John spots something on the road and stoops down onto one knee to pick it up. It’s a furry, knitted, brown toy, shaped like a dog. It was Dee’s, the little girl from two doors away. John instantly looks concerned. Dee went everywhere with it; she’d never leave it behind if she could help it. A sadness crosses his face as he dusts the toy down and wipes the dirt off its big, brown, plastic eyes. He imagines how distraught the little girl would be without it, how it would have brought her some comfort amidst all this confusion. He squeezes it gently, and carefully puts it into his back pocket. Lifting his head slowly, he stares ahead and begins to move cautiously towards the end of the street and the main road. The main road past the entrance to their cul-de-sac is about fifteen metres away, a path he’s taken many times before, but this time, it feels unknown.

At the end of the road, he sees the same picture everywhere. Broken glass and belongings are strewn across the road. He can see where cars have crunched and bundled into each other, and the occupants had simply carried on going.

“To where?” he wondered. “Where would they go? Had there been some warnings? Some instructions somewhere that he wasn’t aware of?“

He’d repeatedly tried his phone all night, and the internet, and the TV.

All cut off.

He knew that the first move in war was to destroy communications, to create panic. It was a clear and textbook move from a military enemy. This can’t be an accident. But what enemy? He didn’t see any soldiers, no more sounds of fighting, and (thankfully) no bodies in the street, no people at all.

“Where would everyone go, though?” he whispers to himself again, trying to stay focused.

He grimaces as he tries to think where any safe refuge could be, given the fallout, then shakes his head as if to get rid of the thought. Turning abruptly, he strides quickly back to the large, grey Nissan on his drive. He jumps inside and switches on the dashboard.

“3/4 of a tank,” he says to himself, “that’s a few hundred miles.”

In the living room, Caroline and Danny have joined Jack. They’re discussing what they should have for lunch when John comes back into the house.

“How is it?” Caroline asks, as John enters the room, looking at him with a face that clearly, without any need at all for words, says, “BE POSITIVE!”

John gets the message, “Yeah, it’s just quiet. Everyone’s probably gone off to see their family and stuff. Should be okay. I’m sure they’ll stick the power back on in a while.”

Caroline nods, she knows none of that was true. She pulls her wavy, dark brown hair back away from her face and ties it in a knot behind her head.

“Okay,“ she turns to the family, “we need a plan.”