Jonathan Barnes - The Domino Men

As we pushed our way past, it felt like I was one of the first to have any idea what was happening, the first to understand the gravity of the situation, like the man who runs to the top deck of the Titanic the moment the lower levels begin to flood only to find the band bickering amongst themselves about what to play next.

When we reached the exit, Mum didn’t want to come. She seemed to want to stay with the patients, and I had to use some considerable force to rip her out of the door, into the dark and the snow. Behind us, the situation grew worse. I didn’t turn back but I heard scuffling and brawling and wild laughter — the forest-fire spread of insanity.

The roads were packed, almost completely gridlocked as the population struggled to escape the city. There were horns, raised voices and shaken fists, quarrels and arguments lip-read from behind glass — anger feigned to hide the fizzing surge of panic. For a while, we walked, me half-dragging my mother, as she seemed to luxuriate in the snowfall and shuffled only very reluctantly onward until, miraculously, I saw a taxi drive by, its light still switched on. Warily, the driver stopped for us, but it was only when I brandished a wad of notes that he seemed to even entertain the idea of letting us inside. I gave him everything I had and told him to take us to the flat in Tooting Bec. Mum was still bleating and muttering darkly but I strapped her in and told her, politely and with a lot of love, to shut up and behave herself.

We had just escaped from Camberwell Green when my mobile phone shuddered in my pocket, as though in sympathy with the distress which surrounded us.

The line whirred and crackled, like the soundtrack to an old newsreel, and it took me a minute to recognize the voice.

“Henry? It’s me.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Jasper. Though I think you ought to know now. My name… my real name… It’s Richard Price.”

I thought for a moment. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“No. I just thought… I thought you ought to know my real name.”

“Thanks.” I really couldn’t think of what else to say. “How are you?”

“Fading fast.”

I asked him, not without a certain measure of impatience, what on earth he was talking about.

“I’m in a hotel room,” he said. “Somewhere expensive. Somewhere clean. So very important, I think, to die somewhere clean.”

“What are you doing there? Can’t you lot help? This stuff — this snow — it’s doing something to people.”

Jasper chuckled indulgently, like a mother to her little boy who won’t stop jabbering about his first day at school. “I’ve swallowed some pills, Henry. Swallowed a lot of pills.”

“For God’s sake, why?”

“Because I touched her.”

“Touched who?”

“Only once. I want to make that absolutely clear. I only touched her once. But I had to. You understand? What man wouldn’t?”

“Who? Who did you touch?”

“The goddess, Henry. The new Estella. She was so perfect. She was smooth between the legs.” He wheezed in exhilaration. “Do you forgive me? Henry? I absolutely need you to forgive me.”

“I don’t suppose it matters now,” I said, watching fistfuls of black flakes throw themselves in kamikaze assault against the windows.

“It’s all over. The great serpent is coming.” Mr. Jasper (“Richard Price”) coughed, a thin rasp which turned, horribly, into something gushing and wet. “You’ve seen the snow?”

“Of course.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“I’m… I’m not sure.”

“It’s ampersand, Henry. Ampersand pouring from the sky.”

Another rattling breath, the line went dead and the snow fell more densely and more heavily than before, ceaselessly, without mercy, pouring onto the city like tears.

Three days was all it took for London to run into the arms of chaos. The city embraced it willingly, all too eager to swap her staid old suitors of simmering calm and disgruntled order for this fresh admirer, this master swordsman of panic, anarchy and fear.

We arrived back at the flat late that afternoon. Several times during the journey the driver had come close to turfing us out his cab. He was going to make a break for it, he said, get the hell out of the city before catastrophe struck. It was only by stopping at another ATM and clearing out all that was left in my account that I was able to persuade him to take us home at all.

On the long drive Mum had got much worse, alternately enraged over old mistakes and infidelities, and weeping over what was hiding in the snow. By the time I got her to the flat, she’d grown almost delirious and Abbey, who, I noted with a warm glow of affection, was working hard to batten down her own panic and disquiet, had to help me put her into my bed, swinging Mum’s legs indecorously onto the mattress, stripping off most of her clothes, settling her down and doing our best to make her comfortable.

I’m sure it was wrong of me to think about such things at a time like that, but I realized, with a tingly thrill, that this unexpected houseguest would mean I’d have no choice but to share Abbey’s bed that night.

I brought Mum a glass of water, persuaded her to drink and, as she seemed finally to swim back to lucidity, introduced her to Abbey.

“You two an item?” she asked, as I wiped a strand of spittle from her lips. “I always thought you were gay.” She gurgled, spumes of spittle dripping from the corners of her mouth. “Never saw you with a woman. Assumed you were a woofter.”

“What’s happening?” Abbey asked when I came back into the sitting room and, frightened, we held one another just a little too tightly on the sofa. “Henry, what’s happening?”

“The worst thing you can imagine,” I said. “That’s what’s happening. The absolute worst thing you can imagine.”

“No,” she snapped. “I’m fed up with all these secrets. I want to know exactly what’s going on. I want you to tell me the truth.”

So I took her in my arms and, as gently as I could, I told her everything — from what had happened on the day that Granddad collapsed, to my history with the Prefects, to all that I knew about the snow. When I’d finished, she just nodded, thanked me for my honesty and reached for the TV remote.

On the tiny screen of Abbey’s portable television (rescued from the attic after Miss Morning had smashed up its predecessor) we watched the news as the terror began. The hoofbeats of disaster were there in every story — an epidemic of suicide; the churches, synagogues and mosques filled beyond capacity; neighbor turning upon neighbor; violence on the streets, widespread, indiscriminate and hysterical. Bewilderment led to confusion, confusion to fear, fear to panic — panic, ineluctably, to death.

At six P.M., the prime minister called an emergency session of Parliament. One hour later, the government was advising everyone to stay in their homes, exhorting us not to venture outside. At eight P.M., we heard that the hospitals were overloaded, filled with manically gibbering patients (many of them former members of staff). At nine P.M., the telephone rang in our lounge.

I was checking on Mum when it happened. She seemed to be sinking into some kind of delirium, muttering about something coming out of space to swallow London whole. The strange thing was that when she spoke about it, it was with a pronounced lilt in her voice, an intonation of delight, as though she was actually looking forward to the death of the city.

When I got into the sitting room, Abbey was staring at the phone, gazing at it warily, like it was about to jump up and bite her. I asked her why she hadn’t answered.

She bit her lip. “I’m scared.”