The Central University Library is ablaze. Everything we have learnt, all the hope that building personified, up in flames. A million burning pages flutter down. Between them fly the terrible, unknowable beasts that cause this horror. They are circling. They are listening for me. Even the tapping of these keys make me fear for my life.
Cornelia, Facebook, Friday, 18 November 2016
Huw cursed his laziness. If ever he wanted a radio in the car it was now. But the aerial had been lost over a year ago, either stolen or perhaps knocked off in a car wash, and he hadn’t bothered replacing it, though he’d always meant to. Just one more thing at the back of his mind that never got done.
He tried it anyway, scanning across channels in the hope that he’d find one clear enough even with only the aerial’s stub to catch the signal. There was nothing but white noise and occasional haunting, distorted voices.
Settling in for a quiet drive, he nursed his phone between his legs. He supposed he could have accessed a radio through the phone, but he wasn’t sure he’d get enough bandwidth on the move. His priority now was to get home. Once there with his family he could face the news again.
He’d called Kelly once more before leaving, told her that he was on his way home, and this time she hadn’t tried to dissuade him. Maybe she’d realised that once his mind was made up it was very difficult to change it. Or perhaps she actually wanted him home. The kids had gone to school, but the day no longer felt like a normal day. “At least it’s a long way away,” she’d said again, and he hadn’t even replied.
He remembered where he’d been on 9/11. It was several years before he’d started his own company, and sitting at his desk at work he’d been reading those shocking, unbelievable, almost surreal news reports on the Internet. The connection had been poor, but the breaking news had come through well enough. He’d kept glancing at the screen and then out of the office window, through which he could see the sprawl of the town sprouting generous amounts of green, no building above five storeys high, distant hills bathed in inviting sunlight. It had all felt so unreal. His boss had wandered by and watched for a while, then returned to his office, apparently unconcerned. Another colleague had viewed the image of the first plane striking the North Tower, repeated again and again, and had pronounced it a special effect. Everyone had had their own forms of disbelief that day.
Huw had felt the significance of the event. He’d called his mother, told her America was under attack. It had not felt like an exaggeration. His friends at the desks around him, already still, had fallen silent at his words. They’d carried weight, and everyone had felt them land.
Today was the same. Fifteen years later, once again the world was gathered around TVs or computers watching the news unfold. This was another world-changing event.
He didn’t understand how others could not perceive this. Upon leaving the hotel he’d bumped into the two men, preparing their bikes in the hotel’s front garden, laughing and joking, efficient and experienced. He’d expressed disbelief that they were still going on their ride, and they’d looked at him as if he was out of his mind. They didn’t even reply. Perhaps they didn’t know what he meant.
The A30 out of Cornwall was busier than usual, but then he rarely travelled on a Friday morning. Don’t travel anywhere in Britain on a Friday, his dad used to say, and for years Huw had been going against his father’s advice. He’d come to appreciate those words when long traffic jams held him up and delayed his arrival home until midnight, or even later. But when his company was working away, it was a choice between that and returning home on Saturday morning. And he relished his precious weekends.
This weekend they’d planned to go for a long walk. Kelly liked the Skirrid, a sharp ridge of a hill sticking out of their local Monmouthshire countryside like a giant’s spine. The kids loved it too, Jude running on ahead and exploring, Ally pausing now and then to take photos of the landscape and her family. Otis would go mad, pounding back and forth between them, herding his family and being just as daft as a big dog like him could be. A good couple of hours, and then they’d return home to the beef casserole left stewing all day in the slow cooker. After that they might watch a movie together. Their family life was chaotic—his work keeping him away from home, Kelly’s job stressing her more than it should, Ally’s monthly stopover at the school for the deaf, her netball, Jude’s rugby matches and swimming lessons—and it was the simplest times with his family that pleased him most.
He hoped they could still go. He didn’t see why not. After all, Moldova was a long way away.
He thought of those images he’d seen, and he could not shake the intense fear they’d inspired.
As he approached Exeter he considered stopping for a piss. It was still a little over two hours home from here, probably longer today with the heavier traffic. A coffee and comfort stop was probably a good idea.
And there was Max.
Huw had already heard his phone pinging as missed calls came in, and then texts. He’d glanced at the screen and seen Max’s name, and although he’d sent an email, he knew that he owed his client an explanation. He did not relish the thought of that call. But at the same time it felt so insignificant that he begrudged the time it would take.
He swung off the motorway into the large Exeter services car park.
Not every missed call was from Max. Kelly had tried him at 9.20, 9.40, and 10.33. There were no texts or emails from her, and he thought if it had been urgent she’d have texted him, demanding that he call as soon as possible. Yet something had made her try him three times. A need to talk, even without urgency.
He called her back. She snatched up the phone after one ring.
“Have you seen?” she asked.
“What?”
“Bucharest.” Her voice broke, tinged with fear.
“What about Bucharest?” he asked, and his stomach dropped; his heart seemed to thump harder as if keen to escape.
“It’s horrible, Huw,” she said, and now he could hear the tears in her voice. “There are thousands dead, they’re saying maybe tens of thousands. The city’s burning. And those things… those things from the cave, that thing last night, there are so many of them. They’re calling them viespi—that means wasps, but they’re not, they’re… They’re killing everything.”
They talked a little more, and then Huw ran into the service station to use the toilet. A group of young men stood laughing just outside the main doors, eating Cornish pasties and drinking coffee. Inside, a family at a table in the food court squabbled, young girls poking their tongues out while their parents turned from each other and fought wordlessly. People bustled, the shops were busy, and the only signs that anything was wrong were those in corners, the quiet people looking down at their phones, either alone or in small family groups. Some of them whispered. Most watched in stricken silence. Huw was witnessing the beginning of a changing world.
He could see those who knew the change was here, and others as yet blissfully unaware. He was jealous of the latter, but glad that he was one of those who knew.
Perhaps that gave him and his family a head start.
He hadn’t said anything like that to Kelly, but he knew she wasn’t stupid. She’d be thinking the same as him—What happens if they come here?
It was unlikely that something that lived in a cave in Moldova could threaten him in a motorway service station surrounded by truckers and stag parties, holidaymakers and business people, delivery men and coach parties of grey-haired folks moving around like flocks of sheep. It was preposterous.
Crazy.
All thoughts of calling Max now forgotten, Huw went back to his car and left for home.
* * *
Maybe it was him. He thought he was driving safely, concentrating on the road and cars around him, but perhaps he was more distracted than he thought. He had to brake more heavily than usual several times. Cars seemed clumped closer together than was safe, travelling faster than normal. There was an air of anxiety on the road, and the more he analysed it, the more Huw began to think it originated in his own car. He was dwelling on things, doomsdaying, and several times he snorted an empty laugh when he imagined Kelly telling him that.
But she was panicking, he thought. She tried to call me three times. It’s not just me.
He looked around at other drivers. He travelled a lot, and knew that the insides of cars were strange places, like islands in the midst of an ocean. So many drivers thought that their metal and glass box was impervious to outside events. There were those who excavated their noses while driving in dense traffic, texted or updated Facebook on their phones, consulted papers or maps. And in his travels he’d seen much worse than that. The woman applying eye make-up, looking at herself in her rear-view mirror while travelling at ninety along the M5. The man leaning across the front seats to search for something in his glovebox, slouched so low down that it looked like no one was driving. He’d once seen a woman sitting astride a guy driving an old Capri, trying to hunch down so that he could see over her shoulder. He’d been so amazed at the sight that he’d put on some speed to follow the classic car, just to make sure he’d really seen what he’d imagined. The woman had grinned at him through the rear window.
Now, everyone seemed to be on their phones. Some were propped on dashboards, others clamped to ears. He glanced down at his own phone, tempted. But his one aim now was to get home.
And if anything drastic happened, anything more terrible than what was already happening in Bucharest and probably elsewhere, Kelly would phone him again.
Seventeen miles out of Exeter services Huw saw the first accident. A car had slewed from the road and bounced off a bridge strut, leaving its wing and bumper behind. A man and woman were stood by the side of the road, arms wrapped around themselves as they waited for help.
Seven miles on, a more serious crash. A lorry had crossed the breakdown lane and plunged over the embankment, slamming into the deep ditch and spilling its load of beer bottles and cans across a field. Several cars had stopped, and people were milling around the stricken vehicle. Huw slowed along with the rest of the traffic, but did not stop. There were enough people there to call for help.
He drove on. Sirens blared on the opposite carriageway and police cars, an ambulance, and three fire engines powered down the fast lane.
Thirty miles later, he actually saw the result of the next accident in his rear-view mirror. A flash caught his attention, and when he looked he saw a blooming fireball rising a few hundred metres back, rolling in on itself, scorching the air and leaving a column of billowing black smoke behind.
“Jesus Christ!” he shouted. It held his attention for just too long, and when he glanced forward again he saw cars drifting across lanes. Holding the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles cracked, he swerved around a campervan and drifted across the slow lane. His wheels struck the breakdown lane line, rattling and vibrating up through the car. Horns blared. Huw put his foot down and powered into the clear space ahead, and when he looked in his mirror again he saw several vehicles jockeying for position, settling eventually into a steady direction again. Way behind them the smoke continued to billow.
If he’d been behind that accident, he might never have been able to get home.
He considered calling the emergency services. Not my problem, he thought, shocking himself, because on any other day he would have made it his problem. But today was not any other day.
Huw felt a moment of pure anger at those careless drivers. He needed to reach his family! He had to get home, and how dare they—
But then he realised that someone might well be dead or dying on the road behind him.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered. People were so wrapped up with their phones; they were throwing caution to the wind. An air of desperation had settled over everything, and it was not just him, it was not only inside his car.
Everyone was doomsdaying today.
* * *
It took him two hours longer than normal to reach home. He was pleased at that, happy that he’d avoided any major hold-ups or accidents. Approaching the Severn Bridge, he’d passed a terrible crash on the opposite carriageway. A coach was involved, and several cars, and a petrol tanker, and people were rushing back and forth trying to help, driven back by the voracious flames. He’d tried not to look too closely. He’d told himself that the squirming shapes had only been flickers in the fire, nothing more.
Numbed, shattered, emotionally drained, and feeling as though during the drive he’d passed through some veil separating his reality from something not quite level and true, Huw pulled into his driveway and turned off the engine.
The front door opened and Kelly dashed out. He was glad it was still only three o’clock; they’d have an hour together at least before the kids arrived home from school. He could get up to date on the news, and they could talk about what to do. There would be the official word, of course—helplines for those worried about relatives and friends, government statements, soothing press releases designed to keep the population calm in the belief that everything was under control—but he and Kelly could put that to one side and consider the facts for themselves. Twitter and Facebook would be alight with events, and somewhere in that universe of comment and chaos would be kernels of truth.
But then his children appeared behind Kelly, standing in the open doorway. Jude looked edgy and excited. Ally looked afraid.
He opened the door and got out of the car.
“Oh, Huw,” Kelly said. There was such hopelessness in her voice that his heart lurched and his stomach sank.
“How bad is it?” he asked. Kelly did not reply, and Jude’s excitement gave way to a look the likes of which should never be seen on his young boy’s face. His family’s expressions gave the only answer he required.
* * *
He sat on the sofa on his own. Kelly and the kids were in the kitchen, and his mother-in-law was upstairs in her room. He heard the kettle boiling, a spoon dropped into a cup, and Kelly’s soft voice. Her words were interspersed with those quiet moments that were an integral part of his family’s mode of communication, as she signed to her daughter. Jude wasn’t interrupting like he sometimes did.
They were giving him time to stare.
I should have checked my phone, Huw thought. But he remembered the accidents he had seen on the way home, all of them likely caused by people doing just that. No, he’d made the right choice.
It had given him a few more hours of uncertainty, at least. He’d known that things were changing, but had held out hope that the next day would bring them all back to normality.
He could not believe that any more.