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

nauseating soundtrack and gritting their teeth through the pants and the puffs, each acting out their own eighties training montage from a film all about themselves. Entire, windowless rooms crammed full of sweaty, unashamed, lycra-clad peacockery.
    Once more: I hated runners. I hated running.
    Besides, I didn’t have the time. I was a dad, I had responsibilities. I had more than enough on my plate.
    It’s my right as a tired parent.
    My body didn’t enjoy having these excesses taken away from it. After just one pathetic week of living on the only fuel it actually needed, it began to strain against the change like a toddler in a supermarket. I knew that Beth had to eat more than me to keep her milk up. But still, every chunk of stale bread smothered in baked bean sauce that I passed to her almost ended up in my mouth.
    When there was nothing else in the tin, I placed it on top of the other two in the waste pile we had made next to the toilet. Alice had swallowed down the last of her bread pieces and was accepting a sip of water from a bottle Beth was holding carefully to her mouth.  
    “Here you go, sweetheart, that’s a good girl.”
    She kept her eyes pointed away from Beth as she drank.
    Then I had an idea. I took two of the empty bean tins from the pile and then the bent screwdriver and string from the shelf. It was starting to get dark, so I prepared the last candle and took a match from the box so it was as easy to light as possible later on. Then I took the cans, string and screwdriver back to my place by the wall.
    “What are you doing?” said Beth.
    “Not sure yet,” I said.
    I upended the first can and held it between my feet. Then I started working the head of the screwdriver into the centre of its base. The metal scraped loudly on the floor and I glanced up to see if Alice had become interested. Her eyes were lost in the light that was creeping up the wall from the ventilation shaft, the last faint rays of sunlight leaving the cellar for the day. Eventually the screwdriver burst through the can with a loud pop. I yanked it out and began work on the second, watching Alice gaze silently at the wall. When I had finished I cut a long piece of string and threaded it through the two holes, knotting it inside both cans. Beth, realising what I was trying to do, took one of the cans from me and walked it over to Alice.  
    “Here, Alice,” said Beth. “Hold this up to your ear.”
    Alice ignored her.
    “Here you go, darling. Take it.”
    Alice breathed a long, tired sigh, still lost on the dying light that was seeping from the wall.
    Beth pulled the string tight and crouched down next to Alice. She held the tin up to her ear.
    “Boo,” I whispered into my can.
    Alice’s eyes flickered and she flinched from the can as if it were a fly buzzing at her head. She glanced at it, then at me, then her eyes fell back to the light on the wall.
    “Hello Alice,” I tried.
    This time there was no reaction at all. Instead she pulled one of the blankets over her and closed her eyes, resting her head against the wall.
    Beth placed the can next to her. Then she came over and placed a long, soft kiss on my head before taking a blanket herself and lying down next to Arthur. I sat turning my can in my hands. That was the first night that sleep became something different for me; something less than what it used to be; a thin, diluted, watery version of itself. I don’t know whether it was a feeling of giving up, or a feeling that some part of me was no longer of any use, or whether the sight of my three-year-old daughter resigning herself to something like an old woman to a disease was too much to bear, but I was never fully unconscious for a long time after that evening.

    Things began to deteriorate quickly. Arthur got sick and Beth followed quickly after. Both had a fever and spent the days and nights huddled in the corner, Beth shivering and Arthur crying. We used up all the painkillers within the first 24 hours. I spent