M. Marshall - The End Is Nigh

My ears were thumping in time with my heart. I knew that I was on the verge of a panic attack and in the back of my mind something was telling me to stop what I was doing and take cover.

I hurried to leave the garage, locking the joining door and moved back into the house to deposit the torch in the pantry. My efforts now focused on getting us into that small space as quickly as possible. The air raid siren seemed to be getting louder and was only contributing to my rising panic.

I turned to run up the stairs and in my rush, caught my foot on Matt’s surfboard. I went sprawling forwards and fell like a sack of potatoes. I heard the crunch beneath me before I felt the pain. Shooting, agonising, red-hot pain through my left foot.

“Fucking idiot!” I’m not sure if I was saying it to myself for being such a clutz or if I was blaming Matt for leaving his board in such a stupid place. Upstairs Rosa was still screaming. I could hear her little arms and legs crashing against the bars of her cot.

“I need to move.” I tried my weight on the damaged ankle. “Jesus! AGH! I can’t do this. I can’t.” The feeling of dread I had been ignoring began to engulf me. I let out a sob as I recognised the surge of anxiety building, threatening to engulf me. I fought to hold off the attack, forcing myself to face the duty I had to the screaming child upstairs. I was better than this.

My anxiety made way for a new feeling of shame as I shook my head and worked hard to ignore the fact that I was in such pain.

“Yes, it’s ok. Come on. Up!” With a determination which felt totally unfamiliar, I ground my teeth and hauled myself up. Using the wooden bannister as support, I half limped, half hopped up the stairs and around the corner of the landing. Each step on the injured foot seemed more painful than the last. Muttering a string of profanities under my breath, I kept going until I reached her.

As soon as I limped into the nursery, the crying stopped. She heard me and I began soothing her. Humming a familiar nursery rhyme, singing it on repeat as I scrambled around getting her things together. I grabbed the changing bag and ripped Ewan the sheep off the cot railings, a dummy and Sophie her favourite stuffed toy rabbit and remembering we had bought multipacks of wipes. I shoved all of them in the bag which was now bulging, along with anything else I came across. All the while trying to keep the weight off my left foot and failing, miserably.

“Thank God!” I found another full pack of nappies and threw them onto the landing ready to chuck down the stairs. I could barely walk and was unsure of how I was going to get us downstairs. I was still consumed by this problem as I peered over the side of the cot. Rosa, who had stopped her crying now and oblivious to my problems stared up at me, and the most beautiful wide smile transformed her face.

How can all this be happening? I took a deep breath and pushed back the sob that I had been unable to hold in downstairs to smile back at her. Finding strength in that tiny face, I got the motivation I needed and knew that we must move quickly.

“Hello, angel. Let’s go.” I scooped her up. The added weight of carrying her sent a new jolt of agony through my ankle. I realised then that the only safe way back down the stairs would be on my bum. So with my leg in the air I clutched Rosa tightly to me with her arms and legs flailing out all over, we finally made it down to the pantry. Unceremoniously I plonked Rosa down onto a pile of blankets and pulled the door shut with a slam. We were plunged into darkness.

I found Rosa in the black and sat her on my knee. I pulled out my phone again and flicked on my BBC News app to check on the status of the attack. The screen flashed to life illuminating the small space in which we huddled together. I was looking for something to confirm to me that this attack was a genuine threat. Pushing aside the persistent worry that I had forgotten to grab something important I set to the task of calming myself down.

It was interesting that no government official had been seen to make a statement. So far the only government advice which had been filtered down to the general public was via the media. Which to me seemed odd. It was also a topic of conversation on the comments thread of one BBC article. It quickly became clear that the conspiracy fanatics had crawled out of the woodwork. Posting images of themselves outdoors playing football or standing in a field defying all warnings. They claimed that it was all an elaborate hoax by the ruling classes. I shook my head at their idiocy. There would be an announcement by the prime minister on the radio once he had been secured underground. That was the protocol.

Wait! I had forgotten to pick up the radio and the stuff I’d thrown to the bottom of the stairs. The radio was still on top of the fridge in the kitchen. How would I know what was going on without it? It’s just at the top of the steps, and on the other side of the door.

“You’ve got time.” I made my way back up the steps into the kitchen crawling on my hands and knees. We should have carpeted this bit of the house. It is ridiculous the things you think of in these situations. Seeing the number of people disbelieving of the warnings had lifted my anxiety a little. Opening the kitchen door, I went out into the hallway scurrying on all fours being mindful of my rapidly swelling foot.

A part of me was beginning to cling to the hope that this was some elaborate joke. Fantasising that Matt could have planned it. Maybe he’d signed me up on one of those prank shows on MTV or something. No, he wouldn’t do that, he knows that I would kill him. Not my idea of a fucking joke. Pretty elaborate though. Maybe it’s a government drill or something. My mind was wandering.

I wonder if other mothers were crawling around on their hands and knees at this moment across the nation? Perhaps it’s just me. I’m just an idiot, and everyone else is sat on the sofa knowing that it’s a load of crap, just a drill. Knowing the state of the world and the problems we face from my time working in government it wasn’t unthinkable that this was the real thing. I wonder if they were ready for this. I certainly was not. I couldn’t even move around my own house without almost killing myself. If this really is the end of the world and we’re on our own, I’ve had it.

I grabbed the extra bag of nappies and the overflowing changing bag throwing them carefully down the pantry steps, aiming away from where I had left Rosa nestled in her mountain of blankets. I could hear her chirping away to herself down there. This was so surreal.

I moved back to the kitchen and held on to the side of the worktop as I struggled to get to my feet. As soon as I put weight on my ankle pain seared through me. I pressed my lips together holding back a yelp. I stood tall and reached up on top of the refrigerator for the radio. My ankle’s was going to be the size of a football at this rate. No rest for me. The second my fingers closed around the radio everything went a horrifyingly bright white.

With the shock I stumbled, my arms shot up to cover my face, and I fell backwards, hitting my head on the edge of the kitchen table. My eyes were burning. I blinked and squeezed them shut, but it didn’t help. Everything remained white, rendering my eyelids useless. Before I could get my bearings on the kitchen floor, a huge wall of sound hit me and rocked the house. It felt like a clap of thunder had gone off right inside my head. Blind and now deaf as well. Brilliant. Keeping my eyes tightly shut I groped around struggling for breath, trying to find the doorway to the pantry. I cried out in frustration but heard nothing except a slight ringing.

By the time I realised the ground was moving I was on my hands and knees again, still searching for the bloody doorway. Lurching forward I found the wall and ran my hands along it until finally, I clawed at the door frame. I threw myself through it and spun onto my knees to reach up and find the handle to pull the door closed. I fell back against the door and the panic attack I had successfully managed to hold off earlier now took hold and racked through me. I couldn’t see, I could barely hear and now I was struggling to catch my breath. Convinced I was going to die, I crumpled in the doorway. Selfish to my own needs I didn’t even reach out to Rosa who was somewhere just feet in front of me. It may as well have been a mile. I was no good to anyone right now.