Free The End of the World Running Club by Adrian J. Walker

hand and looking over at Alice berating her doll for some heinous misdemeanour. “I just think we need a plan.”
    “OK,” I said. “The plan is to ration food and water. That’s all we can do.”
    The next night was the same as the first apart from Arthur waking for his normal feeds. Even they didn’t seem so difficult now that we were all in the same bed. Beth hardly woke, just rolled out whatever breast was ‘on’ for Arthur when he mumbled himself awake and let him suck on it until he fell asleep again. We began to think that we might be alright.
    But the third night was different. We had barely fallen asleep when Alice sat bolt upright in bed and began to scream. This was not her normal cry, not even her normal tantrum-powered shriek; this was something we had not heard before. It was pure, unfettered, three-year-old terror, an ear-splitting whistle that she somehow managed to hold without breathing. Beth sprang up and I fumbled to turn on the Maglite. I shone it towards Alice’s face. Her pupils dilated in the sudden light; both eyes were wide open and staring madly at the hatch. At first I thought that someone might have come in; I jumped up to check, but it was still jammed shut. There was nobody there. Alice was screaming into thin air. Her arms were stretched out in front of her, each tiny fist throttling the neck of a stringy, grey stuffed rabbit.
    “Alice, Alice! It’s OK, Mummy’s here, Mummy’s here.”
    Beth’s soothing voice was drowned in the scream. She wrapped her arms around her chest and tried to bring her into her neck, but Alice remained rigid. Meanwhile Arthur had rolled out from the crook of Beth’s arm and was now flailing in the blankets and crying in dismay. I dropped the torch and pulled him up in one hand. As Beth tried to coax Alice from her terror I hurried over to the shelf to find a new candle. We had been alternating between the torch and darkness. Alice didn’t last too long in the darkness during the day, so there were only two left now. Two candles and the wick-less pile of wax next to them.
    I wrestled with the matches with one hand wrapped around Arthur, who was now screaming and wriggling against me, pushing his hand into my eye socket. I broke one match and the second caught and went out. I managed to the light the third and held it as carefully as I could to the fresh wick while trying to restrain Arthur, wondering at the perpetual struggle with other objects that existence sometimes seems to be.
    Eventually the flame lit and I turned my attention to soothing Arthur. It took about an hour for Alice to calm down, then another hour to settle Arthur before we got back to sleep. Beth and I shared a last look in the murky candlelight before we closed our eyes. It was one we had shared before. Who were we kidding?
    Life became a cycle of triggers, tasks and responsibilities. If Alice began screaming, I took Arthur whilst Beth calmed her down. If it was time for the candle to be put out, Beth tried to distract Alice from the darkness while I walked around the room with Arthur, swinging him around to try and make him laugh. If it was time to eat something, Beth would settle down with Alice and I would eat alone.  
    Every event developed a protocol that generally led to another, and another after that, each one designed to keep Alice away from her own terror. Beth and I spent the days and nights waltzing endlessly around each other. We walked a hairline between control and panic, and at any moment the quiet darkness might suddenly fill with Alice’s piercing screams.
    The most dangerous times were during Arthur’s feeds, when I would try my best to occupy Alice. She still didn’t trust me. In fact it was as if she had removed me from her view of reality altogether. I had been her world before. Now the world had become cold, frightening and claustrophobic. Everything was down to me.
    I knew Beth was secretly and guiltily enjoying her renewed companionship with Alice. This