Max came running back into the kitchen with a tennis ball in his mouth and dropped it at my feet. I wasn’t going outside to play fetch in the garden. It was bloody freezing out there. I made him go back to his bed, locked the back door and went into the living room. I didn’t have the strength to walk up the stairs.
I curled up on the sofa, pulled the blanket around me and tried to get comfortable. Whatever was in that medicine seemed to be working as there was no gurgling sound coming from my stomach. I wasn’t shaking as much either.
I was shattered. I looked at the clock – 02:15. I’d never been up this late before in my life. I was just nodding off when Max came in and licked my face. He lay down in front of me on the floor. He could tell I was ill and was looking after me, bless him. He was snoring in seconds. I wish I could fall asleep so quickly.
04:50
Max started licking my hand and barking. I briefly opened my eyes but, as it was still dark, I nudged Max away and pulled the blanket over my head. If he wanted to go out again he’d have to wait. I was finally warm and comfortable.
Another bark. This time he was nuzzling my hand and trying to pull the blanket off me with his teeth. He may be a cute dog and able to get away with a lot of things, but there was no way I was getting up for him now.
‘Max,’ I whispered loudly. ‘You’ll wake everyone up. Go to sleep. Now!’
I waited. I heard him groan, walk around in a circle a few times then drop to the floor. Thank God for that.
05:05
It seemed like only minutes later that he started fussing me again. He was yapping, barking, tugging at the blanket, and licking my face. I threw the blanket off me and stood up to turn on the living room light. I can’t remember what I was saying to Max but as soon as the room lit up I saw exactly why he’d been behaving so oddly.
There was a leak coming through the light fitting in the middle of the room. It didn’t make sense. The bathroom was above the kitchen, not the living room. My eyes adjusted. Shit! It wasn’t water pooling on the coffee table. It wasn’t water dripping and splashing all over the cream carpet. It was blood. I looked up at the light; the surrounding ceiling was a mass of blood. It was dripping down, splattering against the glass, bouncing off and soaking the carpet. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. I was having a nightmare caused by my fever, surely.
Max barked. I looked down at him and he was speckled with blood. His paws were covered in it. Oh my God. This wasn’t happening. Surely, I was running a fever from all the vomiting and having a nightmare.
I ran out of the living room and up the stairs, two at a time. ‘Mum, Dad, wake up,’ I called out. It was pitch-black and still early so my voice echoed around the house. I didn’t care if I woke up the whole street.
I knocked on their door but didn’t wait for a reply. I grabbed the handle and pushed. I flicked the light switch on.
‘Mum … ’
That was the moment everything stopped. My life ended right at that second as I looked into my parents’ bedroom and saw a scene of horror. All I could see was red. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, everything was covered in red. Huge sprays of blood covered every surface.
I could feel my heart pounding hard in my chest as if it was about to erupt. No. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be real.
I walked further into the room and looked at the bed, trying to make sense of what my eyes were seeing, but my brain hadn’t caught up yet. The bed was a tangled mess of limbs and everything was dripping. It was like a scene from a torture porn film. I didn’t know if anybody was on the bed or not. Then I saw it. Dad had given Mum a really expensive watch for Christmas, just a week or so earlier. She’d loved it and spent most of Christmas Day staring at her wrist. She was still wearing it but the face was smashed. Her arm was covered in blood, but it wasn’t attached to her body. I swallowed hard to keep the bile from rising in my throat. I saw Dad’s leg with the Manchester City football shield tattoo. Like Mum’s arm it was splattered with blood. And there, in the middle of the bed, I saw the worst horror of all: the blood-stained white face of Hello Kitty winking at me.
ONE
Norwich. Sunday, 2 October 2016
According to the satnav it would take three hours and nineteen minutes to drive from Norwich to Sheffield. Add on traffic jams, roadworks, and fuel stops, and they would easily make the Steel City in four hours.
The seven-seater people carrier was waiting outside the back entrance. It was parked as close as possible to the door. The windows in the Citroën were tinted; the locks from the back doors had been removed, and there was a security grill between the front and back seats.
In the front passenger seat was Craig Jefferson, his extra-large uniform straining at the seams. He checked the glove box for provisions: boiled sweets, three cans of Red Bull, and a Sudoku puzzle book. Behind the wheel sat Patrick Norris. This was Patrick’s first run. He knew the route; he had been studying the A-Z all afternoon, but the worried expression on his face was for his charge, not his driving ability.
Time ticked slowly by. They should
