Free Surviving the Fall: How England Died by Stephen Cross

radio?” asked Ellie.
    Angie nodded. “Yes, but it’s downstairs. Maybe we can try it when Mac gets back.”
    “How long do you think he will be?”
    “He shouldn’t be too long. The Marshall’s is just down the road. They’re good friends of ours, I’m sure they’ll be able to help in some way. Even if it’s just to have some friends around. Things are so strange, it will be nice to have some familiarity.”
    “If they’re ok,” said Ellie, staring out the window to the farmland beyond the pub.
    Angie didn’t reply. They sat in silence for a few minutes.
    “What happened to you and Ed, how did you end up here?”
    Ellie shook her head. “I told him we should have stayed in the car. But he is…” she paused, “ was, so pig headed.” She wiped away a quickly forming tear.
    “What happened, did you break down?”
    Ellie shook her head. “No, we were on our way to Bristol from London. We had left before the military closed it. We got out just in time.”
    “What was London like?”
    Ellie looked at Angie with tired red eyes. “It was awful. It was like a war zone. People were running around on the streets, fighting, stealing stuff, trying to get in people’s cars. And then there were the others, the ones with the virus. Police were useless, army were just shooting anyone that moved really.”
    Angie shuddered to think how terrified Ellie and her boyfriend must have been.
    “Ed wanted to leave earlier, I should have listened to him. Maybe he’d be alive… In the end it was obvious there was no choice, we had to go. Things were just crazy.”
    Ellie sat back and took a few deep breaths. She blinked hard a few times, as if trying to wipe away the memories.
    Angie gave her the time she needed.
    “I have family in Bristol, you see, so that’s were we headed. We spoke to them on the phone when we left, didn’t manage to get in touch after that. The phones went, internet went. But we kept going. Traffic was a nightmare, worst ever. We tried turning off onto smaller and smaller roads, and it seemed to help a bit, we eventually got onto some little road and made good time, until we found ourselves stuck on an A-road, by Frome. That’s the town near here isn’t it?”
    Angie nodded.
    “So we got stuck. Just didn’t move. It got dark, and people started fighting, horns blowing, everyone getting mad. Ed told us we had to ditch the car and get somewhere for the night, anywhere, away from all the people. I think he was scared that things were going to get real bad. I wanted to stay in the car. I told him that I shouldn’t be going anywhere with the baby and that.”
    Ellie paused again and shook her head angrily. “I should have listened. It was obvious things were out of control. What did I think was going to happen.”
    “When did you get out of the car?”
    “It was past eleven. Some car up the road just blew up.  At least I think it did. Big bang, and then flames and smoke. Loads of people left their cars then. Loads stayed. God knows happened to them.
    “We got out, took our backpacks and set out on the fields.” Ellie’s voice took a faraway quality. “We stayed away from other people, Ed said it was dangerous. We tramped through fields for hours. Had to stop often as I can’t walk very fast, get tired, what do you expect? He did the best he could, even tried carrying me at one point, but it were no good. Eventually we saw some lights, and headed towards them.”
    She stopped speaking. Her head went down into her hands and she sobbed quietly.
    Angie waited, herself staring out the window. It was such a beautiful day. She couldn’t remember seeing a sky so clear and so blue, and then she realised why - there were no vapour trails, no fading streaks of white cloud left behind by the many jets that usually flew over on their way to London.
    Ellie started speaking again, her head still down. “That was when it came, it was so dark, the man, the thing, the virus thing, it came through a hole in