Free As the Light Dies by M.D. Woodham Page B

weeks. Laughing Dean patted Sam and pushed his way inside.
    “ Morning ,” said Gavin through a mouthful of toast as Dean shed his hat and jacket.
    “ Yo u’ re pretty late eh, it hard going ?” his brother asked as he pulled off the rest of his gear while making a fuss of Sam .“ I t’ s only hard if you make it hard . ”
    “ Yo u’ re just making excuses for being a slowcoach ,” Gavin quipped.
    “ Nah Brian was late in. I ca n’ t leave without handing over, yo u kno w that . ”
    “ Yea, yea whatever . ”
    “ Yea , and I nearly fell in to the damn canal ,” said Dean moving to the kitchen to burn some toast of his own.
    “ Really? ” asked Gavin . “How? What happened?”
    “ Yea, I slid stepping over a fallen branch. The wind knocked me off balance so be careful along the towpath ok ? ”
    “ Yea, damn right I will be ,” said Gavin nodding. Dean could hear the TV on in the lounge and to his surprise it sounded like Gavin had the news on . Wonders will never cease , he thought.
    Gavin was a bit of a black sheep of the family, constantly having to be retold, re-shown or reminded about things constantly, even things that he already knew.
    He had n’ t held a job for more than two years, not that h e’ d been sacked or anything and he was n’ t a slacker, he just got bored or found anothe r nex t big thing to hanker after and moved on, then ended up getting laid off when the work dried up, then h e’ d struggle for weeks, sometimes even months before finding another job. Currently he was training to be a bus driver having just left a job at the leisure centre on the night shift cleaning crew that Dean managed and helped him in to.
    Gavin had only been there five months before moving on to go and drive buses two weeks ago. Before any of that h e’ d tried his hand working down south labouring on various building sites until the market fell through and he found himself at a loose end unable to find a job and unable to pay the high rent. Big brother Dean had come to the rescue, putting in a good word for him at work and giving him the spare room for a while.
    Dean was just about to ask Gavin if h e’ d seen the ash cloud when Gavin called through from the lounge . “Hey Dean. You hear this?”
    Dean wandered through to the lounge where Gavin was sat on the old brown leather sofa with a pile of badly hand written route notes and directions spread out on the floor in front of him watching the newly wall mounted TV that had been bought mostly to shut Gavin up with his constant complaining about the old TV being too small.
    A blonde curly haired woman filled the left side of the screen, the bar along the bottom of the screen said her name was Shelly Connor. To Shell y’ s right, behind her were a group of men in orange boiler suits busy moving big steel tables about the place and setting them down in some kind of order. They all seemed to be inside a giant corrugated shed of some kind.
    “ Hello I’ m coming to you live from a disused air hangar in St Tarves on the east coast of Scotland ,” she said ,“ where as you can see behind me scientists are currently setting up a research lab in preparation to start researching fallout from the Norwegian ash cloud tha t’ s entered our air space. The ash cloud has continued to grow in size as the eruption site continues to spew thousands of tonnes of ash and debris in to the atmosphere since the sudden unexpected eruption three days ago. The ash has caused absolute pandemonium across much of Europe causing mass power outages and sadly many fatalities. The loss of power has all but stopped the crucial aid programme put in place to set up rescue centres and help with the evacuation process, and of course supply the desperately needed food, water and medical supplies. The break down in aid and the rising fatality rate is known to be causing widespread panic resulting in mass looting and in cases extreme violence. The cause of the power outages is still as