3.
Two days earlier
Stay indoors. Avoid contact with infected individuals. Await further instructions from the military.
That was what the emergency broadcast playing on Emma’s TV said.
The information circulating the internet and the news was discombobulated; there were some theories about a nerve agent released by terrorists, others about a mutated virus. There were even pockets of people speculating about mind-control devices being used by the government. The kind of talk that would normally be dismissed by the public as the ravings of paranoid, weed-smoking tin-hat-wearers.
Only, they didn’t seem so crazy now. Because something inexplicable was going on and the emergency broadcast had explained little. And far-fetched answers were better than none.
“Attention all British citizens,” the voice on TV began for the hundredth time. “For your own safety, and the safety of those around—”
Emma switched it off. She’d received the message loud and clear, and it wasn’t helping her state of mind. It was starting to freak her out.
She wanted to know more. She wanted to know exactly what was happening, how bad it was (pretty bad, she guessed, considering the emergency notice). Because at least then she would know what she was dealing with.
The worst part: Emma could feel the compulsions coming on, the burrowing urges that toyed with her day-to-day and sometimes consumed her, spitting her out in a puddle of crippling anxiety. The compulsions had never completely gone away and Emma knew they never would. But recently – with regular therapy sessions and a calm, quiet space to herself – she had made a lot of progress, developed ways to redirect her anxiety and stop herself from spiralling.
However, Emma had learned that her OCD tended to ramp up whenever she found herself in a position that made her feel helpless, and therapy had taught her that this was because her compulsions gave her a false sense of control. Or maybe control was the wrong word for the illogical but certain feeling that, as long as she carried out her compulsions, the disasters she imagined everywhere would not happen. If I touch every lamppost I walk past on the street, my best friend will not die.
Shit. She would go crazy sitting alone on her sofa, twiddling her thumbs and wondering what the hell was going on out there.
Emma needed someone to talk to.
She rang her mum, knee bouncing while her phone dialled… No answer. That was unusual. Her mother was constantly nagging Emma to call more often, tell her what was going on in her life, keep her updated; she worried about her youngest daughter.
Emma tried her sister, Leena’s, number next…
Leena picked up.
“Hello, Em?” There was a note of urgency in her sister’s voice.
“Leena. What are you doing? Are you at work?”
“No, Dave made me come home. Have you seen what’s happening?”
“Yeah. I don’t understand it though,” Emma said. “People are getting sick and it’s making them violent, and the government are telling everyone to stay indoors and wait for the military. That’s all I know. Did you get the emergency notice on your TV, too?”
“Yes.” A pause, as though her sister was struggling to come to terms with it. “Dave’s packing our bags and saying we need to leave with the kids and go to his uncle’s place. He says it won’t be safe here for much longer… Emma, have you seen them? Like, actually seen them up close?”
She knew Leena was talking about the infected people. Emma shuddered as she thought about the man who had taken a bite out of a woman’s hand outside the therapist’s office. And the other guy with the bleeding neck staggering down her street. She understood now that they’d been infected with this virus or whatever the hell it was.
“Yeah, I’ve seen them,” Emma said. “Not up close, though.” She hesitated, then asked, “Are they really zombies?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what they are, but I know they’re dangerous.” Emma could hear Dave, her sister’s husband, yelling at their children in the background. Then Leena saying something to him.
After a few seconds, she came back to the phone. “Em, listen – you should get out of town as soon as you can. I know the broadcast says to stay in your home, but I’m worried about you. You live alone.”
“But what about the military? We’re supposed to wait for orders from the army or something.”
“I know, I know, but it already seems out of control in some towns, people being killed in the streets. And we don’t know when the army are coming. It just scares me.” Leena sighed. “Just… just stay safe. I have to go, but I’ll call you back soon.”
“Okay,” Emma said. “Love you.”
“Love you too.”
In the silence after they had hung up, Emma could hear her heart drumming in her ears. She stood and began pacing around the living room, wondering what the best course of action was. Leena’s words had unsettled her. It already seems out of control in some towns. Was she safe here in Colchester? People being killed in the streets. Was it safe to travel?
Emma wished Leena would call her back already. As the little sister, she had always looked up to Leena when they were growing up in the way that younger siblings naturally do. And Leena had always been there for her, always helping her cope with a world that was too much for her.
The idea of being alone with her thoughts at that moment must have been more distressing than Emma realised; her knee still bobbing up and down like a pneumatic drill, she opened the contacts list on her phone and scrolled to his name.
Kingsley. Her thumb hovered over the green dial button.
She stayed like that for a full minute, her eyes slipping in and out of focus, before the rational side of her mind caught up and she put the phone face-down on the coffee table.
Get a grip, Emma chided herself. She stood and began
