STRAIGHT

TO YOU

DAVID MOODY

INFECTED BOOKS

www.infectedbooks.co.uk

STRAIGHT TO YOU

Published by INFECTED BOOKS

www.infectedbooks.co.uk This edition published 2005

Copyright David Moody 1996

All rights reserved This book is a work of fiction. The characters and situations in this story are imaginary. No resemblance is intended between these characters and any real persons, either living or dead.

Condition of Sale

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form or binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A catalogue record for the paperback edition of this book is available from the British Library Paperback ISBN 0-9550051-5-9

1-3-0505-1

Prologue

At a quarter past one on the morning of Tuesday, October the 2nd, our sun began to die. Like the inside of a body being slowly weakened and devoured by a cancer, and unseen by anyone and anything watching, the star began to writhe and to react within itself producing lethal levels of energy and radiation which it spewed out into the space surrounding. All around the rest of the universe, nothing seemed to have changed - the brilliant yellow mass continued to burn brightly and to warm the planets in orbit around it where life continued unabated and oblivious to the star’s inaudible dying screams.

Eventually, within fifty hours of the sun’s first internal reaction, a change worked its way steadily through the vacuum which was noticed and which was, surprisingly, welcomed by the population of the earth - it began to get warmer. As the people on the planet’s surface talked of mild winters and of Indian summers, the temperature of the air that they breathed rose steadily until, by Monday the 15th, most areas were a good five degrees warmer than their record books and experts said that they should be.

It was not the first time that such things had happened there and, for once, rather than complain, most people in England chose to relax and to make the most of their mini-heatwave. Steven Johnson. however, was far from impressed.

At only twenty-six years of age, he had done well to get to where he sat today. It had taken him eight years to work his way up through the ranks of the company which employed him from a mere clerk to the heady heights of an office manager. Now, as he sat alone and uncomfortable in the stilling heat of his oak-panelled office and rested in his expensive leather swivel chair, he wondered if it had been worth all the effort it had taken.

Steven looked out of the wide window next to his desk and down onto the busy high street below. With jealous eyes he watched people chatting, laughing, shopping and enjoying themselves and he cursed the concrete prison cell into which he locked himself for a minimum of seven hours every working day. Sometimes he wondered if he would have been better off without the burden of responsibility which had been hung on his shoulders at a relatively young age. Although not a lonely man by any stretch of the imagination, he would often listen to the laughter and jokes which drifted through the air from the main office and into his room, and curse the professional distance that his superiors insisted he maintain from the people who worked for him.

He also found it difficult to relax and to cast aside the stresses that his job involved, and the heat of the last two weeks had only made matters worse. As a single man, Steven went home each night to an empty house where the only listening ear belonged to the cat and, while the animal did its best and listened to his problems, it was useless when it came to offering support and encouragement. Although he never made any admissions to his friends or family, he was desperately in need of someone to share his time, his money, his problems and his life with.

Perhaps he was being naive, but he made no effort to go out and find such a person. He had been the victim of too many broken hearts and missed opportunities to spend his nights trudging around lonely bars and crowded clubs anymore. Brought up on a diet of other peoples sickly sweet love stories, Steven was sure that all he needed to do was wait patiently and then, one day, the girl of his dreams would come waltzing into his life.

Even with the large window open, the heat in the office was sticky and close. He loosened the tie around his neck and undid the top button on his formal, pressed white shirt. He glanced up at the clock on the wall in front of him and sighed heavily as its hands quickly worked their way around towards two o’clock. Two o’clock on the afternoon of Monday the 15th had been a time and a date that he had not been looking forward to. It had been decided by those in the higher echelons of power that one of the junior members of the office staff had not been performing to the fullest of his abilities and, unfortunately, this was the time and date when it had fallen to Steven to deliver the company’s ultimatum to their struggling employee. As the second hand on the clock ticked mercilessly past the hour, he took a deep breath and picked up the phone.

With the receiver held tightly in his hand, Steven swallowed hard and dialled out to his secretary at her desk. If he was honest, he didn’t believe that Ian Stanton (the member of staff that he was about to reprimand) had done anything to merit such action being taken but what troubled him more than being the hired mouthpiece of a man in a grey suit in an office on the other side of the country, was the fact that he was about to admonish one of the most popular members of staff. He felt sure that it would only serve to alienate him further from the rest of the people in the branch. Still, he thought, there was no avoiding it, it was what he was being paid to do.

The thought of money depressed Steven and, as the phone rang in the outside office without answer, he could not help but think and be saddened by how much he had become a willing slave to cash. He was about to do something that he did not believe in and the only reason that he did it was to keep those few extra pounds flowing into his pockets at the end of each month. To stop them soiling their own hands, his superiors paid him a little more than the staff beneath him and expected that to be sufficient.

The company that Steven worked for was part of the financial industry and he could see better than most just how the possession of money seemed to command more respect that it ever deserved. He would often spend the best part of a day running around on behalf of those people who either had cash or connections while the people who really needed his help had to wait in a poverty-stricken line at the bottom of a stinking heap. Even when he was able to assist such people, it was never without heavy cost to those least able to pay while the rich were never asked to put their hands in their pockets. It was a difficult fact to accept but it was an unavoidable part of his working life. It was also a huge bone of contention which lodged itself painfully in Steven’s neck. He knew that he had to find a new career before this one drove him to insanity.

Someone finally picked up the telephone.

‘Hello,’ a chirpy, high-pitched voice answered. It was Carol, the office secretary.

‘Would you ask Ian to come inside please?’ Steven said abruptly.

‘Will do,’ Carol replied before quickly replacing the receiver.

Steven put his phone down and took several deep, calming breaths. In the moments before Ian entered, he tried desperately to remember the standard lines from countless courses and numerous memos that his bosses had force-fed him with to deal with a situation such as this. He hoped that he would be able to keep up the act and deliver their ultimatum with the minimum of effort and resistance.

The silhouette of a man appeared in the frosted glass of the window in the door to Steven’s office. The shadow paused for a moment (Ian was obviously as nervous and unsure about the interview as his manager was) before knocking on the door and coming inside.

1

There was a loud confident knock at the door and I stood up to let Ian into the office. He walked quietly past me, keeping his eyes directed firmly away from mine, and stood in front of my desk.

‘Sit down, Ian,’ I said and he pulled a chair across the room to sit opposite my chair.

I watched him as he sat down and noticed that he looked considerably calmer and more composed than I felt. He had already been told the purpose of my calling him into the office today and I expected him to have prepared his responses to the company’s threats beforehand. A young man, only a couple of years my junior; he folded his arms, sat back on the hard, wooden chair and waited for me to sit down opposite him.

I cleared my throat. It was difficult for me to hide my dislike at the situation and, although I didn’t look directly into his face, I could feel Ian staring across the table at me. I was sure that he saw me almost as the enemy and definitely as someone who could not be trusted. Although I knew that what I was about to say were the words of other people, I felt that he would hold every last syllable against me personally.

‘How are things?’ I asked, struggling to find a way of ending the stagnant silence and getting down to the matter at hand.

‘Fine,’ Ian replied abruptly. It was obvious from the tone of his voice and from the brevity of his reply that he had no intention of making this an easy caution for me to administer.

‘Look,’ I began, ‘I don’t like having to do this, and I’m sure that you don’t want to be sat here listening to me…’

I stopped mid-sentence. I remembered my teachers trying much the same line on me at school and I could not believe that I had just used it. I looked up to see Ian still staring at me. He turned away and began to fidget nervously and chew his fingers. I took another deep breath.

‘I’ll come straight to the point, Ian. Your work has failed to meet the standards that the company expects from someone of your grade and experience. Unless you buck up your ideas and start pulling your weight, you could well find yourself out of a job.’

I felt myself relax and was sure that my relief was obvious to Ian. I had delivered the required ultimatum and he appeared to have taken it reasonably well. I had been worried that he might not be so calm and was surprised when the expression on his face slowly changed to one of genuine concern.

‘I understand what you’re saying,’ he said slowly, choosing his words carefully. ‘I really don’t want to lose my job.’

‘I’ve got to be honest, Ian,’ I said, quickly slipping back into company mode, ‘you’re not giving me that impression at the moment.’

He was quiet again for a second and I could see that there was something that he wanted to say. He shuffled in his seat and looked away from me and out through the window before beginning to speak slowly and with some trepidation.

‘It’s just that…’ he began before stopping mid-sentence with uncertainty.

‘Just what?’ I asked, keen to find out what was on his mind.

‘It’s just that I can’t see any point in doing any more than I need to.’ Ian struggled to find the right words to express how he felt without, I presumed, sounding anti-company (which most, if not all of the staff in the office were).

He fell silent again and I was about to speak when he interrupted.

‘You’ve told me before now that if I apply myself and work hard, then I could be sitting where you are and…’

‘…and?’

‘…and I’m not sure if I want to be.’

Ian relaxed when he had finished speaking and looked anxiously towards me for a response. He had caught me off guard and I struggled to find anything to say in reply.

‘As long as I get my money at the end of the month, I don’t care what happens,’ he added, emphasising his point.

It was my turn to fidget in my seat as I tried to force myself to act as a responsible company employee and to do the job that I had been paid to do. I could not help agreeing with and admiring Ian’s views but I had to make the company’s position known.

‘I’ve been told to give you a month - after that we’ll review the situation,’ I said, hiding my doubts idly behind the threats of others.

‘That’s fair enough,’ Ian replied, seemingly relieved that I had not taken his words badly. ‘Believe me,’ he continued, ‘I really don’t want to lose my job I just think that there’s a lot more to life than slogging your guts out all day and getting home in such a state that you’re too tired to do anything else.’

Once more he looked cautiously towards me for a reaction before adding,

‘You can see what I mean, can’t you?’

Unfortunately, I could see all too well what Ian meant. I nodded and stood to let him out of the room. It was difficult to stop myself from telling him just to what extent I had agreed with his comments and so, to prevent any embarrassment, I decided to finish the meeting and avoid any further conversation. I could not help feeling deflated and somewhat depressed - I had let down the company and, much more importantly, I had let my own morals and ideals slip.

‘Please, Ian. Please just try and make a little more effort,’ I said as I led him across the room. ‘I’m not asking for one hundred percent dedication, just a little co-operation.’

Ian managed a relieved smile and left the office. I shut the door behind him and leant against the wall, glad that our meeting had passed without any real incident.

Although I made no conscious attempt to eavesdrop on the conversations out in the main office, I stood quietly next to the door for a short while and could not help but listen to what the staff were saying to their reprimanded friend. Through the frosted glass I could see them gathering around Ian for shreds of gossip and information like gannets after the tiniest scraps of food. I hated being cast as the enemy and strained to try and hear what was being said above the noise of the office. Although most of the words were nothing more than garbled mumbles, I distinctly heard Ian’s voice telling the others that I had been a pushover.

I walked back from the door and sat down at my desk again. I swivelled the chair around so that I could look outside, leant back and stared lazily into the deep and clear blue sky. Ian had been right, of course, I had been a pushover. But how could I be possibly be expected to argue against something that I knew was right and to criticise others when I agreed with their morals and actions? I decided there and then (as I did nearly every day at the same time) that a change of career was the only sensible solution to my problems.

Five o’clock seemed to take an eternity to arrive. I spent three long hours alone in my office, ploughing through mundane paperwork and occasionally speaking to customers on the telephone. The heat made the time drag even more and I noticed from my records that it was on this date last year that we had fired up the boilers and switched on the office heating. Today I sat next to an open window with my tie hanging loosely around my neck and my shirtsleeves rolled up.

A knock at the door disturbed the quiet and Robert, my assistant manager, poked his bald, sweaty head into the room.

‘All right if we all shoot off?’ he asked. ‘Everything’s finished.’

I nodded.

‘I’m just about to pack up myself,’ I said and I was about to ask him a question when his head disappeared again. The heavy clunking of feet followed as the staff collected their bags, newspapers and redundant overcoats and climbed down the stairs to leave the building.

I gathered up my papers from the desk and shoved them into my briefcase, determined to catch up with more work at home later. As I leant across and closed the window, I looked down onto the busy street below and watched as people strolled through the early-evening gloom of October with their jackets hung casually over their shoulders and their shirt collars open.

I slammed the window down and locked it shut. Keen to leave the branch quickly and be on my way home, I picked up my jacket and case and went out into the main office. Robert had just let the last of the rest of the staff out of the building and I waited for him to return. It was company regulations that no-one was ever left on the premises on their own to lock up at night and a strict, almost regimental check of the building needed to be made before we could leave.

A discarded newspaper lay on a nearby desk and I picked it up. The paper was one of the national tabloids and, as I expected, carried little in the way of any real news. As is the norm for such papers, the first hint of unexpected sunshine meant full, front-page pictures of crowded beaches and of children in park paddling pools. The predictable headline yelled. ‘What a Scorcher!’ in inimitable Fleet Street style and another footnote at the bottom of the page continued the theme, saying, ‘…and there’s more to come!’ Try as I might, I could find nothing inside the paper to explain the heat or to even give the slightest idea of how long the conditions might last or how hot it could get.

Robert returned from the front door with his round face glowing red and covered with a layer of sticky sweat. ‘This is too much for me,’ he wheezed.

‘I know what you mean,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what we’ll do if it gets any warmer.’

As I spoke and tried to make polite conversation, Robert walked past me and collected his briefcase. Although I was sure that he was not trying to be deliberately rude or obstinate, I could tell that he had no interest in anything I had to say and that he just wanted to get away as quickly as possible. I hoped that it was the branch he was so eager to escape from and not me - the constant whispers and glances from my staff were beginning to make me paranoid.

I followed Robert as he made the required checks around the building and switched off the computers. As we left the building I breathed a cool and relaxing sigh of relief and looked forward to a quiet evening at home. With a little luck, I thought, I would wake up in the morning and find that the office had burnt down and that it was a typically grey, cold and miserable October day outside.

Somehow, I didn’t think that would be the case.

2

With the arrival of night, the autumn light had faded away as normal but there had been no noticeable respite in the suffocating heat. Although past their bright best, I was determined to take advantage of what remained of the conditions and so settled down on the patio in a deckchair to relax and to listen to the radio for a while. I had brought home plenty of work from the office which needed to be done but, as the pressures of the day had now reduced to an almost bearable level, I decided to leave it all locked safely away in my briefcase until morning. The company got more than enough out of me between nine and five o’clock each day - this was my time and my time alone.

The patio was dark and quiet with the gloom only broken by the soft yellow electric light which spilled out of the house from the kitchen window. Although not brilliant by any means, the light provided just enough illumination to help me locate the cans of beer on the ground at the side of the chair.

The metal frame and thin cloth covering of the deckchair proved to be deceptively comfortable and it did not take long for me to begin to slide away into a light sleep. The heat and drink combined to deadly effect to help me lose consciousness with the minimum of fuss. Occasionally a soft breeze drifted across the garden, but it was never strong enough to wake me for more than a couple of seconds.

At around nine-thirty, an unexpected crackle of static from the radio woke me with a start. It had been playing quiet, tinny music all evening without interruption but had now begun to scream and hiss with distortion. Still half asleep, I struggled in the gloom to find the set with one outstretched arm. With fingers flailing, I grabbed the wire aerial and swung it around to try and relocate the station’s elusive signal. When the music was replaced totally by static and white noise, I sat up and picked the radio angrily off the ground. As I toyed with the controls, a heavy and hot wind blew across my face. The wind was gentle and somehow directionless and it seemed to fall onto me rather than be blown. I looked up into the night sky to try and find the source of the breeze and was amazed when the whole panorama of darkness above me began to change colour.

At first deep black and punctuated only by the brilliance of individual, isolated stars, the sky changed initially to a ruddy brown before lightening and working its way from a deep red to a dull orange, almost as bright as the last glowing embers in a dying fire. I watched and rubbed my tired eyes, unsure if what I was seeing was really there or if it was just a trick of the night. Slowly, the colours reversed and the sky worked its way back to its original dull blackness. The radio in my hands crackled back into life and, as the warm wind subsided, the music began to blast out of the speakers once again.

I put the machine back on the ground and relaxed again in the deckchair. I looked up at the heavens above and wondered about what I had just seen. Half of my mind seemed intent on finding a link between the hot conditions and the light and wind I had just experienced whilst the other half of me wanted nothing more than to ignore it and go back to sleep. The latter part of my brain was starting to win its battle with the other until, just as I was beginning to lose consciousness again, the telephone rang inside the house. Angry, tired and irritated. I jumped up out of my chair and knocked a half-finished can of beer over onto the patio. For a moment I watched as the liquid fizzed and frothed away in the pale light, before going into the house to answer the call.

Still not quite awake, I picked up the telephone receiver and held it to my ear.

‘All right, Steve! Did you see that?’ asked an annoyingly cheerful voice at the other end of the line. I recognised its owner immediately as Mark Evans, an old close friend.

‘If you’ve just phoned me up to ask that, Mark, then our friendship could well be on its last legs,’ I said as I tried to stifle a tired yawn. He ignored my idle threats.

‘Did you see it?’ he asked again. ‘Wasn’t it incredible?’

‘Mark,’ I said abruptly, becoming more and more irritated with each passing moment, ‘yes, I did see the sky change and yes, to be honest, it was very unusual and very impressive. If you don’t mind though, I was just about to go to sleep.’

‘Boring bastard!’ he snapped. ‘Anyway, I didn’t just call to ask about that, I wanted to know if you’re still going out for a drink on Monday.’

At the mention of drinking and of going out, my tone changed and I actually managed to feign interest in the conversation.

‘Fine, mate. Shall I pick you up about eight?’

‘Okay,’ Mark replied. ‘But only if you’re in a better mood. You’ve got to lighten up if you’re going out with me.’

‘I will,’ I promised. ‘I’ve just had a bad day, that’s all.’ I was keen not to talk about work and swiftly switched the conversation to another topic. ‘Is Stuart still coming with us?’ I asked.

Stuart was another close friend of Mark’s and of mine. We had known each other since our school days together and our Monday-night outings to the pub had become something of a tradition.

‘He can’t come,’ Mark said. ‘Says he’s too busy at work, but I doubt if that’s the real reason.’

Stuart’s attendance at our evenings out had become more erratic and irregular recently. Although we never dared say anything to him, we both presumed that it had more to do with his wife than with pressure of work.

‘It’s Susan,’ I commented. ‘Our Stuart’s becoming a bit hen-pecked these days.’

Mark agreed. For a moment I pictured Stuart trapped at home and could not help but feel jealous of the fact that he at least had someone to be trapped at home with. All that I had was a fat old tabby cat who, almost on cue, bounded heavily down the stairs and ran past me.

‘How are things at work?’ Mark asked, disturbing my train of thought.

‘Shit,’ I replied, bluntly and honestly. I knew my friend well enough not to waste any time in beating around the bush with him.

‘No change there then,’ he offered. Mark had heard me complain about the office on many occasions in the past. In fact, he had probably listened to me moan about the place every time that we’d spoken since I had started there. ‘You need to get yourself a real job!’ he joked.

‘What, like the one you’ve got?’ I replied, sarcastically. Mark was a lecturer at the city’s university and my sarcasm was really nothing more than thinly veiled jealousy. As well as earning a much better salary than me, he lectured in sports science and seemed to spend most of his time playing games and generally enjoying himself.

‘I have to work for my money,’ I added with a semi-intended bitterness in my voice.

‘I know you do,’ he replied. ‘But who’s having the best time?’

‘All right, all right’ I wailed, admitting defeat. ‘How are things at your place, anyway?’

‘Not too bad. There’s quite a buzz around the campus about the weather at the moment. The meteorological department are having a field day.’

‘I bet they are. Has anybody got any idea what’s going on though?’ I asked.

‘Not really. They managed to predict that what happened tonight was going to happen. Some of them are saying that something similar will happen again before long.’

‘All well and good but what exactly was it?’

‘I don’t know All that I’ve heard is that it could have something to do with the sun.’ He paused for a moment. ‘And if you think about it that’s bloody obvious.’

I laughed.

‘It’s typical though,’ I said, ‘the rest of us are slogging our guts out to earn a living and you lot are just sitting around and talking about how hot it is outside.’

‘Steve, you really have got to lighten up a little You’re getting far too bitter in your old age.’ Mark knew that I was joking and ignored my jealous jibes. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘I bet that everything will be back to normal in a couple of days. You wait, we’ll go out next Monday and it’ll be wet, miserable and…’

‘…you’ll be complaining about how cold it is, I know you. Anyway, I’ll see you next week.’

‘Yes, I’ve got to go I’ve got a lot to get ready for tomorrow.’

‘I’m sure you have, mate,’ I said laughing. ‘Got to blow up your balls and clean your boots. Christ, it must be tough.’

Mark sighed loudly.

‘There’s just no point talking to you when you’re in this kind of mood. I’ll see you on Monday.’

‘Okay. Pick you up about eight. Have a good week.’

I listened as Mark put the phone down. I yawned, stretched and then replaced the receiver of my own set. The idea of heading back out onto the warm patio to the deckchair and to my remaining cans of beer was appealing and I walked towards the back door, tired and thirsty. No sooner than I had taken a couple of steps away from the phone, it began to ring again. Annoyed, I picked it up.

‘Hello,’ I snapped.

‘Steven, it’s your mother here.’

My heart sank as Mom began to speak. Although I enjoyed talking to her I knew that my beer would be flat by the time that she had finished gossiping.

‘How are you, Mom?’ I asked.

‘Oh, not too bad, love. I can’t get over this weather though.’

‘I know what you mean, it’s a bit much, isn’t it?’

‘Are you all right dear?’ she enquired in her gentle, high-pitched tone. ‘I tried calling a little earlier.’

‘I was probably asleep. I had a bad day today.’

Although we had only been speaking for a matter of minutes and had done little but exchange pleasantries, I could already sense that all was not well with Mom. She habitually telephoned me with an irritating regularity to make sure that I was all right (she seemed to find it difficult to comprehend the fact that I was twenty-six and perfectly able to look after myself) and her calls usually took a familiar pattern. Mom would ask how I was, I would tell her and then ask the same question back. Nine times out of ten, she would reply by telling me exactly where she had been recently, who she had seen and what they’d been doing when she’d seen them. This vital information could take Mom anything up to half an hour to impart and, on the rare occasion when it was not forthcoming, I knew that something was wrong and that she had called me for another reason.

‘Is everything all right. Mom?’

She paused for a moment before speaking again.

‘It’s your father, Steven. He’s not too well.’

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, concerned. Dad was a strong old man and was rarely ill. If he complained you knew that there was something seriously wrong with him.

‘I think it must be the heat,’ Mom replied. ‘He just can’t seem to settle.’

Although he was in his early sixties, it was difficult to accept that Dad was growing old. In the same way that they both thought of me as their little boy, my parents still seemed the same to me today as they had done when I was younger. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

‘I don’t know. Would you come over one night soon? We’d both love to see you.’

‘Of course I will. Mom. It’ll probably have to be next week, but I’ll definitely come across.’

My parents lived on the other side of town and it took a while for me to get over to see them. I knew that I would be busy for the rest of the coming week and for the weekend after that. I hoped that Mom wouldn’t mind if I left it that long to visit.

‘That’s fine, love. Your dad’ll be pleased to see you.’

Unusually, she did not seem in the mood to chat and I felt sure that she would have been happier had I made arrangements to visit them a little sooner. I apologised for not being able to and then said goodbye. I wished with all my heart that I could just abandon the office and go and see them first thing in the morning, but I knew that was impossible. Disappointed with myself and worried about my father, I walked away from the phone in the hall and into the living-room.

I flicked on the television set just in time to catch the beginning of a news bulletin. There was nothing of any real interest in the main headlines, but it was becoming noticeable that the weather conditions had begun to work their way gradually up the programme’s running order. A few days ago they had been little more than a tacked-on postscript but now that it looked as if the heat would last for a while longer yet, they were fast becoming headline news. I switched off the set again and walked out through the open French windows into the garden. The air had become perfectly still again and the heat was dry, close and heavy.

As the seconds ticked away towards ten-thirty, I drifted off and away into a sound, undisturbed sleep. Undisturbed, that was, until four o’clock the next morning when I woke in my deckchair and stumbled back into the house.

3

I was late getting into the office next morning. Once I had woken up on the patio and had gone back inside to bed I had found it difficult to get back to sleep. I had eventually managed to drift off again at around six and had then slept through my seven o’clock alarm. I could only have been ten or fifteen minutes later than usual but it did not matter - ten minutes or ten hours; once my daily routine had been disrupted it always seemed to take the best part of the whole working day to get it back into some semblance of order. Fortunately, the office was quiet all morning and it seemed that all of the people who were lucky enough to have the choice had stayed at home to make the most of the relatively tropical conditions outside.

There had been no overnight respite in the weather and by midday the brilliant sun stood high and proud in the deep blue sky, burning everything that it touched with its powerful and undiminished rays. I spent the morning trapped in my sweat-box of an office catching up with the paperwork which I had taken home last night with the intention of completing there. A telephone call from a friend was a welcome interruption from monotonous sheets covered in endless lists of repetitive figures.

‘Sorry to bother you, Steve,’ Carol said as she poked her head around the door and into my room. ‘I’ve got a Rebecca Marsh on the phone for you, she says it’s a personal call.’

‘Thanks, Carol,’ I said. ‘That’s fine. Could you shut the door on your way out please?’

My secretary obliged by slamming the door and almost pulling it from its hinges. I picked up the phone quickly to speak to Rebecca.

‘Hi Becky How are you?’

I had known Rebecca for the last four or five years I couldn’t remember how or where we had originally met, I just knew that she was the best friend I had ever - or would ever - have. One of the biggest regrets of my life was the fact that I had met her shortly after she had married. I knew that if she had still been single I would have found the perfect partner to share the rest of my time with.

‘I’m all right, Steve,’ she replied ‘How are things going with you today?’

I sighed.

‘They’re going, that’s all I can say.’

Rebecca laughed and I relaxed. It was good to hear her voice again as she had been out of town for a couple of weeks. One of the few advantages of the location of the branch which I managed was that it was only a couple of minutes’ walk from Rebecca’s office a little way down the high street.

‘Are you very busy?’ she asked.

‘Not particularly Do you fancy meeting for lunch?’

‘I was just about to suggest that. Shall I meet you here at about one?’

‘That’s fine,’ I replied, cheerfully. The thought of spending some time with Becky made the prospect of the rest of the day seem a little more palatable.

‘Great,’ she said ‘I’ve got to go now, I’ve got an appointment in a couple of minutes. I’ll see you later.’

‘Okay, I’ll see you in a while.’

I put the down the phone.

It was a source of continual amazement to me just how much better I always felt after speaking to Rebecca. I only needed to hear her voice for a moment and I was suddenly torn away from my depressing, humdrum career and thrust into a calmer, safer world.

I got up from my seat and walked across to the open window. Looking down, I saw that the street below was momentarily quiet and I watched as crowds of children suddenly spilled out of the gates of a nearby school, heading en masse towards the nearest shops. Dressed in shorts and T-shirts, the children ran out into the sunlight as they would on any other summer’s day. I had to remind myself that it was the middle of October.

The hour between Rebecca’s call and one o’clock dragged incredibly. A combination of the heat, the continual stream of work which arrived on my desk and the prospect of finally seeing my best friend again made the seconds feel like minutes and the minutes feel like hours. One o’clock eventually arrived and I quickly left the office.

I met Rebecca outside the building where she worked as we had planned, and we discussed where to go.

‘It’s too hot to go for a drink,’ she said, ‘and anyway, I can’t really afford it.’

I knew exactly what she meant. It always seemed to be the same at the middle of the month - pay-day was still a couple of weeks away and my bank account was already beginning to slip heavily into the red.

‘We could go to the park,’ I suggested, searching for cheap alternatives for something to do. Rebecca nodded.

‘Good idea. You can hear yourself talk there.’

‘And it’s free,’ I added quickly.

We crossed the main road and followed the twisting path of a narrow side street which led to the park. As we walked, we caught up on the fortnight’s worth of gossip and developments which we had missed while Becky had been away. I could not stop myself from staring at my beautiful best friend and thinking what an incredibly lucky man her husband was. Now that she was happily married, however, we had come to share a close, symbiotic relationship whereby we both relied on each other for help and support. Over the years we had grown to be as close as brother and sister and I valued her companionship more than she ever could have imagined. I always meant to tell her just how much she meant to me, but could never find the right moment.

When I had first suggested the park, visions of lush, cool grass and leafy trees had flooded into my mind. The reality, however came as something of a surprise to both of us. The park stood at the end of the little road which we followed and it usually offered an unexpected oasis of greenery contrasting sharply with the dense, cold grey of the city nearby. While it still provided a welcome escape from the plastic and concrete, we found it to be in a desperately sorry state. The grass was brittle and bleached of colour the soil hard cracked and dry. Although the temperature had only reached such extreme and unusual levels in the last few days, there had been little or no rain for the best part of a month and the lack of moisture was killing the park almost as we watched. Undeterred, we walked towards a huge, old oak tree to sit down in the little shade that it offered. It was only the layer of dead golden-brown leaves on the ground around the tree’s base and its savage, bare branches twisting into the sky above us which gave any indication of it being autumn at all.

Rebecca brushed away handfuls of crisp crackling leaves before sitting down on the hard ground. I did the same and sat next to her.

‘This weather’s incredible,’ I said, loosening my tie.

‘Oh, don’t, Steve,’ she sighed. I looked at her, confused.

‘Don’t what?’

‘Talk about the weather. Christ, it’s all I’ve heard this morning.’ She spread her legs out in front of her and leant back against the rough trunk of the tree. ‘Every single person that I’ve spoken to has mentioned it. “What a lovely day”, “Isn’t it hot for the time of year?” Honestly, there’s only so much that I can take.’

I could see how the continually inane conversations that Rebecca had been subjected to could soon wear a person down, but I could not help thinking that it would make a welcome change for me to actually become involved in a decent conversation at work rather than being ignored and locked away in my office in tiresome, continual isolation. It wouldn’t matter what the subject was, just to have a member of staff be pleasant and approachable for a while would be enough.

‘How’s Richard?’ I asked, changing the subject. Richard was Becky’s husband.

‘He’s fine,’ she replied as she began to search for something in her bag. We never talked much about him - if I was brutally honest, I didn’t really want to know anything and Becky seemed not to want to tell me much. As long as he was treating her well and was looking after her, I was happy.

She emerged from her bag clutching a small, cellophane-wrapped packet of sandwiches and a can of lemonade. She opened the sandwiches and took a large bite out of one of them. After chewing for a moment she stopped and a look of utter disgust spread across her face. She forced herself to swallow.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. Rebecca wiped her mouth and grimaced.

‘That’s disgusting,’ she said as she looked down at the half-eaten food in her hand. She slowly peeled one slice of bread away from the other and I turned my nose up at the slimy concoction which had been spread between them.

‘What the bloody hell is that?’ I asked, pointing at the revolting food.

‘Tuna fish and salad cream,’ she replied. ‘It doesn’t look too good, does it?’

I shook my head.

‘You’ve got strange tastes,’ I joked.

‘It’d be all right normally, it just got a little bit warm in my bag.’

‘I couldn’t even eat that cold,’ I said, ‘never mind toasted!’

Rebecca looked at me and wrinkled up her nose before gathering up what remained of the sandwiches, standing and throwing them into a nearby waste bin. She walked back towards me and wiped her greasy hands clean on her smart skirt.

We sat and talked for about half an hour. Thirty minutes of forgettable and yet enjoyable conversation which inevitably worked its way towards the subject of my marital status and what we were going to do about it. Rebecca seemed to enjoy making plans for me and usually took a while to be convinced that my attitude (all good things come to those who wait) would ever find me a partner. I said, jokingly at first but then with some seriousness, that there was little point in trying to find the perfect woman when she was sat next to me and already married to someone else. Becky smiled but she did not reply and I wondered what she was thinking.

‘I’ve got to get back,’ she said at almost a quarter to two.

‘It can’t be that time already,’ I whined, desperate not to have to go back inside.

‘It is. Anyway, I’ve got to go to the supermarket before I go back so I’ll have to go now. Are you coming or are you going to stop here for a while?’

The thought of fighting my way through a building packed with hot, sweaty and angry shoppers did not appeal to me.

‘I’ll stop here a little longer. I’ll call you later.’

Becky smiled, collected up her things and walked away from me towards the park gates. When she was about a hundred yards away, she turned and waved and I wondered how my life might have changed if things between us had been different.

As I watched my friend leave, I heard the sound of approaching footsteps crunching towards me through the layer of dead leaves on the ground. I turned to see who was coming and was blinded for a moment by the brilliant sunlight. I shielded my eyes and saw that a shuffling figure neared. Uninvited, the figure stopped next to me and I looked up to see a gasping, wheezing old man stood at my side. Before I was able to protest or move away, he sat down.

‘It’s too bloody hot!’ he coughed as he lowered himself to the ground.

I was about to get up when he grabbed my arm with one outstretched hand. Despite the heat, I saw that the man still wore full winter clothes - thick trousers, boots, a heavy overcoat and even a hat and scarf. I looked across into his aged face and watched as a heavy bead of sweat ran down the creased and wrinkled skin of his forehead before trickling down the bridge of his nose and hanging precariously between his nostrils. As I stared, unable to look at anything other than the overbalancing drop, he wiped it away with the dirty sleeve of his coat and sniffed.

‘It is warm,’ I said meekly, eventually remembering to reply to his comment.

‘Do your know what I think?’ he whispered as he took off his cloth cap and ran a trembling hand through the yellowing strands of silver hair which clung greasily to his sweaty scalp.

‘What?’ I asked politely, forcing myself to prolong a conversation with a character who I was becoming more and more wary about with each passing second. The man leant towards me.

‘I think it’s the end.’

‘The end of what?’

The old man paused for a moment and looked around to make sure that no-one else was listening. I tried to pull away from him as a dry smell, which seemed to be made up of equal parts of stale sweat and urine, wafted towards me.

‘The end of the world!’ he said in a hushed, secretive tone.

I fought hard to control myself and not laugh out loud but could not prevent a broad smile from spreading across my face. While I hoped that the man would not take too much offence, I hoped that he would be able to understand and accept my disbelief and leave me alone.

‘It’s all right, son,’ he continued, unabated, ‘I can see you’ve got your doubts and I can’t blame you for that.’

I sat in a stunned silence at the man’s side, trying to work out how I could escape from him and becoming quickly convinced that the brilliant sun had tanned his brain as well as his weathered skin.

‘What makes you so sure then?’ I asked. I instantly regretted speaking and I knew full well that I tempted fate with every second that I stayed sat next to the old man.

‘I’ve got a feeling in my gut,’ he replied slowly. ‘Call it intuition if you like, but when you get to my age you can tell when things are about to change.’

I too had a gut reaction about our conversation - I was sure that it was senility rather than intuition which was proving to be the deciding factor in the man’s ideas and thoughts. I turned away from him and looked over towards the park gates, wishing that I could be walking through them and back to the office. I felt the man staring at the back of my head and, out of distrust, I turned back to face him.

‘When you’ve seen as much as I have,’ he continued with his throat hoarse and dry, ‘you just get to know things.’ He paused to wipe his sweaty brow with a weak, shaking hand. ‘It’s getting hotter by the day, son, and I don’t think it’s going to stop.’

‘Don’t be stupid, it’s got to stop,’ I protested. The man looked at me with an expression which seemed to be asking me for evidence to support my comment. Obviously, I was unable to find any.

I’m not sure whether it was my wariness of the old man or the things which he said to me that suddenly made me jump to my feet and start back to the office. There was no denying the fact that it was getting warmer with each passing day and although that in itself was not substantial evidence to suggest that the world was about to end, it was enough to start the first alarm bells ringing in my mind. The more that I thought about it, the more I began to read truth into the man’s words. There was something about his voice which was honest and believable in a terrifying kind of way and, as I walked away, he shouted after me.

‘Don’t go, son. I haven’t finished.’

I didn’t want to hear any more.

‘I’ve got to get back to work,’ I yelled over my shoulder. ‘It’s been nice talking to you.’

‘Don’t waste your time there,’ he shouted with his voice ragged and tired. ‘There’s not long left, you should be enjoying yourself.’

As I walked away, I could not help but think how right the man was in one way. Even if the world wasn’t about to end and I was going to live for another seventy years, where was the logic in shutting myself away in the office each day and only managing to escape when I was too old to enjoy what was left? I thought back to yesterday and my conversation with Ian and realised how perceptive his comments had been.

I nervously looked over my shoulder to make sure that the man was not following me back to the office. The thought that I might one day become like him terrified me more than the prospect of the end of the world. Was that all I had to look forward to? Would I finally escape from my terminal career only to spend the rest of my days harassing people in the local park, or would I be destined to wait out my days in some damp, dingy flat?

I realised that the man was right. I should be out now, enjoying myself and living each day as it came along. And what about tomorrow? I’d only worry about that when it finally arrived.

When I returned to the office, the quiet of the morning had been replaced by frantic activity. The trays of work on my desk were full to overflowing with forms to complete and papers to sign and not one single member of staff seemed able to solve even the simplest of problems without first referring them to me.

I made a determined effort to clear my desk so that I could have an early night but throughout the afternoon I could not help dwelling on my lunchtime experience. The more I thought about the prison in which I worked, the more I came to realise that my cell was not the four walls within which I sat, but the whole system of civilisation which everyone was involuntarily and unavoidably trapped in. The more I thought about that, I became convinced that while the system could survive without me, I would find it difficult to survive without the system.

My efforts to leave early proved fruitless and, having worked myself into a deep, dark depression, I finally left the office at a little after eight o’clock that evening.

4

I arrived for work on Wednesday morning in no better mood than the one in which I had left the previous evening. A deadly combination of the heat and a distinct want not to go back to the office had led to me tossing and turning for hours in the stifling shadows of the night. As I lay awake, I noticed that once again the temperature had remained as high in the darkness as it had been in the daylight - the disappearance of the sun had again failed to have the cooling effect on the world that it normally would have done.

Once more the morning was strangely quiet. For a while I sat next to the open window and looked down onto the street below. As I rested on the windowsill and watched little figures meandering around below me, I wished that I was at home in my new-found favourite position - in my deckchair, on the patio with a cold can of beer in my hand. I thought that if I found myself with any spare cash to invest after pay-day then it would definitely be worth buying shares in one of the local breweries. They seemed to be doing double the business of anyone else in the heatwave.

There wasn’t really that much that needed to be done at the office and I would have gone home had it not been for the fact that a customer had telephoned and had decided that they desperately needed to see me. I could not help but think that anyone who would rather come into my cramped office when they could stay outside on such a glorious day, needed treatment. Nevertheless, I knew that I could not avoid the meeting and hoped that the appointment would not last for long.

Carol brought the customer’s file in to me at a little before eleven o’clock. The person who needed to see me so urgently was a Samantha Hill and, although I had met her once before, I could not remember very much about her. She was young, single and the niece of Mr Ronald Stanley, one of the wealthiest of the customers that I dealt with. Unlike most of the company’s richer clientele, Mr Stanley managed to be pleasant and obliging despite his riches and I hoped that Miss Hill would follow in her uncle’s footsteps. After the last couple of soul-destroying days, I wasn’t sure if I could cope with any awkward customers.

On the stroke of the hour, with admirable punctuality, Carol entered the office and told me that Miss Hill had arrived, I stood up, moved my chair back behind the desk and made sure that I looked presentable. It was far too hot to wear my jacket, but at least I made an effort by rolling down the sleeves of my shirt and checking that my tie was straight. With the office and myself ready to receive company, I walked across to the door to let Miss Hill in.

She was nothing like I had imagined her to be. She nervously entered the room and, as we shook hands, I could not stop myself staring into the most beautiful pair of deep blue eyes that I had ever seen. For a moment I was unable to look anywhere else and I became increasingly self conscious as I stared. My throat was dry and I had to clear it before I introduced myself.

‘Good morning,’ I said, feeling my face redden as I spoke. ‘I’m Steven Johnson, office manager.’

Miss Hill smiled warmly and I gestured towards the desk for her to sit down. I took her jacket from her and once more could not help myself staring as she moved across the room. She wore a short, pastel green skirt which clung tightly to her figure and a white, sleeveless blouse. Her long, straight blond hair was pulled gently away from her face and fell in a loose plait down the centre of her back. As I sat down opposite her she crossed her legs under the desk and folded her hands into her lap.

‘How are you?’ I asked politely.

‘I’m fine, thank you,’ she replied in a light, breathless voice.

‘And Mr Stanley?’

‘He’s fine too.’

‘He’s a good man. I get on well with him.’

Miss Hill nodded.

‘He speaks well of you too. He told me that if I ever needed any financial advice then you were the man to see.’

‘And do you?’ I asked.

‘Do I what?’ she replied, puzzled.

‘Need financial advice?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, laughing. She leant down and took a large folder from her bag at the side of her chair. ‘I’m going into business. It was going to be a partnership but I’ve fallen out with my partner. Unfortunately, things have gone too far for me to pull out now and I wondered if your company might be able to help.’

‘Would Mr Stanley be willing to…?’

She interrupted me.

‘Uncle Ronald’s already been far too kind to me. He helped me buy my property and has lent me some capital. I couldn’t possibly ask him for anything more.’

‘What would you need from us?’ I asked. ‘What kind of business are you going into?’

Miss Hill took various documents from her folder and spread them out on the desk in front of me. They were professionally produced and were of such detail that I could see the exact position of the business as at today’s date. She intended to open a little shop in a quiet suburb of the city which would sell freshly made sandwiches and snacks. All that she needed from me was help so that she could finish equipping the shop and buy the first few weeks’ stock.

The business plans and forecasts which Miss Hill showed me were impressive and showed that the venture had real promise. In addition, she held various relevant qualifications and I felt sure from talking to her that she would not enter into any commitment that she could not see her way to completely fulfilling. With the security of rich Uncle Ronald available to bail her out if it was ever required, it seemed that her proposition was a sound one.

After having examined all the details, I explained my position clearly to her.

‘In principle,’ I began, ‘I can’t see that the company would have any objection to us assisting you.’

Miss Hill flashed me a relieved smile and nodded.

‘Of course, I’ll need to complete the regulatory forms with you and we’ll need to take up references.’

‘That shouldn’t be a problem,’ she said as she sorted through the papers on the desk to find the names and addresses of her referees for me. She handed them over.

‘Okay then, Miss Hill,’ I said before being interrupted.

‘Samantha, call me Samantha.’

‘All right.’ I said and smiled at her as I searched through the uncoordinated confusion of my untidy desk drawers for the required forms. I watched her as she collected up her papers and put them back into her folder. She was a good-looking and instantly likeable girl. Intelligent and easygoing, she would make the perfect wife for some incredibly lucky man somewhere, I thought. And those eyes…

I found the forms that I had been looking for.

‘Right,’ I said, ‘this shouldn’t take very long. We’ve just got these questions to complete.’

Samantha nodded and pulled her chair closer to the desk. As I opened up the form and took out my pen, she leant across and rested her elbows on the edge of the table. She sighed and looked up at me. Once more, I found myself unable to look away.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘It just looks like there’s a lot to get through.’

‘Not really,’ I said, shrugging my shoulders. ‘It looks complicated but there’s not that much to do. It’ll only take us a few minutes.’

‘You must be busy. Shall I take it away and do it at home?’

‘There’s no need,’ I said quickly. I was suddenly aware that I did not want her to go. ‘Honestly, it won’t take that long.’ I thought for a moment before asking, ‘Why, do you need to go?’

Samantha shook her head. ‘You must have much more important things to do than sit here and fill out forms with me.’

‘Not really. Besides, doing it now will mean that everything can be agreed that little bit quicker.’

As she watched, I filled in her name at the top of the form and asked her address. I looked up from the paper to see that she watched me intently and I felt myself redden involuntarily. She chewed her bottom lip and looked thoughtful for a moment.

‘This isn’t fair, you know,’ she said, smiling broadly.

I was puzzled.

‘What isn’t fair?’ I asked.

‘By the time we’ve finished this form, you’re going to know a lot more about me than I’ll know about you.’

‘You don’t want to know about me,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing much to tell and it’s not that interesting.’

‘It still isn’t fair,’ she insisted as she took a pair of round-framed, wire-rimmed spectacles from her bag and put them on. She turned the form around on the desk to look at the questions.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Whatever you tell me about you, I’ll tell you about me. Is that better?’

She laughed and turned the form back around so that it faced me again. The glasses which she wore complemented her already pretty face and she gently wiped her warm forehead. It was still hot in the office and, as I seemed to be getting even warmer with each passing minute, I checked the window to see if it was fully open. More relaxed, I loosened my tie and rolled up my sleeves again before sitting back in my chair and beginning our question and answer session.

‘You know my address; where do you live?’ Samantha asked and I told her. She seemed surprised. ‘That’s only a couple of minutes away from my house,’ she said.

‘I know. I drive past the end of your road on the way to work.’ I cleared my throat before asking my next question. ‘What about your marital status? Are you married?’

‘I’m single,’ she replied and I felt an unexpected wave of relief run through my body.

‘And what about the partner you’ve fallen out with?’ I asked. That was not a question on the form.

‘Julie. Oh, she was just a friend, not a partner in that sense of the word.’

I felt foolish and as if I had been prying but Samantha seemed not to mind. I told her that I was single too.

We compared ages (she was three years younger than me), educational backgrounds and qualifications and I found myself becoming increasingly more and more relaxed in her company.

Although I could never profess to being a good judge of character, and reading a purpose into other people’s signals and actions was something that I found annoyingly difficult, I felt sure that Samantha was as relaxed and as calm as I had become. I dared think for a moment that she could perhaps be the woman I had been dreaming about for all this time but I quickly tried to dispel such juvenile and unfounded ideas from my mind. I felt stupid and foolish at having entertained them for even a moment. Nevertheless, everything that I had told her had been the truth and I was sure that she had been just as honest with me.

We eventually reached the end of the form and I looked up at the clock on the wall. To my surprise, it showed the time to be gone midday. We had been sitting together in the office for over an hour but it seemed as if only a fraction of that time had passed. Samantha noticed the expression on my face and her eyes followed mine up towards the clock.

‘Oh my god,’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve taken up so much of your time. I’m so sorry’

Apologetically, she began to pack her documents and notes back into her bag.

‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘there’s nothing that can’t wait here.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘You’ve been absolutely great, but I really must go.’

My heart sank as she got to her feet and took her jacket down from the hook on the wall. I helped her put it on before opening the door to let her leave.

‘I’ll get the papers up to head office today. I can’t see that they’ll have any problems with anything and so long as your references check out we’ll be in business.’

Samantha smiled broadly and held out her hand. I shook it gently. Her palm was warm and her fingers soft and gentle.

‘Thanks again, you really have been brilliant,’ she said and she stared at me, hypnotising me with her gaze.

‘As soon as I hear anything, I’ll be in touch.’

She left the room. Before I closed the door, she stopped and turned around to face me.

‘If you’re passing, why don’t you call in on your way home one night?’ she said.

I tried to maintain my professional integrity and politely decline but it was impossible.

‘All right, I will,’ I replied, unable to look anywhere but straight into her beautiful face.

‘See you soon then,’ she said and I watched as she left the building, taking my heart with her.

For the rest of the day, it was impossible for me to even try and concentrate on any of my work. All that I could think about was the young girl who had breezed into my office and blown me away.

5

On Friday night I finally managed to get out of the office at a reasonable hour. By four o’clock I was at home and, once there, I wasted no time in setting up the usual deckchair and refreshments outside. I had been booked to attend a dinner on behalf of the company but, thankfully, I had received a letter that morning telling me that the meal had been cancelled. I should have gone over to Mom and Dad’s house but I didn’t have either the energy or the inclination to move. It was my time now, and I was determined to relax.

Preparations for a lazy evening were going well until I discovered that there was hardly anything left in the fridge - no food and, much more importantly, no beer. Begrudgingly, I decided to go out straight away and get in enough provisions to see me through the rest of the weekend.

Fortunately, I lived close to a little street-corner supermarket which was hidden away in a quiet side-road from the rest of the sprawling city’s hungry population. I found everything that I needed there and loaded it in carrier bags and boxes into the back of my car. I drove home quickly and it was only when I was half way down a certain road that I realised I was in the street in which Samantha Hill lived.

Since our meeting I had thought about her a lot. Had I been any younger, people might have thought that I had developed an adolescent crush on her but now, in my supposedly mature state, I managed to convince myself that I just admired Samantha for what she was doing and for the determined, persistent way in which she was going about it. In reality, however, I knew that I had found her incredibly attractive and I couldn’t wait to get her financial arrangements completed and agreed so that I had an honest excuse to see her again.

As I drove along the street, I slowed the car down to a speed which allowed me to make out the numbers on the fronts of the dark buildings. I passed her home - number forty-seven - and carried on towards my house. As I turned into another street, I spotted an unmistakable figure walking along the pavement in the opposite direction to the way that I drove. Despite being piled high with bags of shopping, I could tell immediately that it was Samantha who struggled to reach her home. In the fading light, I stopped the car and hoped that she would recognise me.

‘Hello,’ I said chirpily as I wound down the window. ‘Can I give you a lift?’

She looked puzzled and unsure for a moment. She walked a little closer to the car and then recognised me. Her expression changed and she smiled broadly.

‘Hello again,’ she said. She put down the heavy bags that she carried and I got out of the car to give her a hand. ‘Would you mind dropping me back? I didn’t intend to be carrying all of this, my dad was supposed to be picking me up an hour ago.’

‘Have you had far to come?’ I asked as I started to load the bags onto the back seat.

‘Only as far as the bus stop,’ she replied as I took the last bundle from her.

‘You took all of this on the bus?’ I said surprised.

‘I didn’t have much choice!’ she laughed as I walked around and opened the passenger door for her. I turned the car around in a nearby cul-de-sac and we drove back in the direction of her house. I asked how she’d been keeping and she told me that she was well.

‘Would you like to come in for a drink?’ she asked as we pulled up outside the house. I glanced at my watch.

‘I’d love to,’ I said and we got out of the car. Piled high with bags, we struggled towards the front door where Samantha’s mother appeared and helped us inside.

‘Mom, this is Steven Johnson,’ Samantha said, introducing me.

‘Nice to meet you,’ I said as I struggled to find a spare hand to stretch out from among the carrier bags.

‘Sam’s told me all about you. Honestly, she’s been working all the hours God sends on this shop.’

‘I know. I’m really impressed ’

Samantha disappeared into the kitchen to put away the bags of shopping before quickly reappearing again.

‘Mom where was Dad?’ she asked. ‘He was supposed to pick me up.’

‘You know what your father’s like. He tends to forget things now and then.’

‘You mean he forgets things when he wants to. He’s getting to be a real pain.’

Mrs Hill walked into the kitchen and left me alone with Samantha. Although I was glad to be with her, I felt slightly awkward with her mother in the house and I could think of little to say. There was a brief flash of headlights in the window and a car pulled onto the drive.

‘Dad’s home,’ she shouted to her mother and, within a couple of minutes, he was inside the house. He walked straight past me and kissed his daughter on the cheek.

‘Sorry I didn’t get to you. Got stuck with something important,’ he mumbled. He turned to face me ‘Who’s this?’ he asked. ‘New boyfriend? It’s about time you got yourself sorted out with a bloke.’

Samantha blushed.

‘This is Steven…’ she began. Her mother reappeared in the kitchen doorway.

‘You know, the one she was telling us about,’ she interrupted.

‘Taking a special interest in my Samantha’s case are you son?’ he asked and, before I could reply, Mrs Hill took his arm and dragged him into another room.

‘I think I’d better go,’ I said. ‘I’ll speak to you soon.’

Samantha seemed embarrassed by her parents.

‘Don’t worry about him,’ she said nodding her head in the direction in which they had just disappeared. ‘He’s harmless.’

I smiled and made my way towards the front door. She walked out with me to the car.

‘Thanks for the lift, anyway,’ she said, smiling. ‘Sorry about those two!’

‘That’s all right. I’ll be in touch as soon as I hear anything.’

I climbed into the car and drove away. I watched Samantha’s reflection in the rear view mirror until she disappeared out of sight and then I sped quickly home. I was disappointed that her parents had been allowed to spoil what could have been a very pleasant evening - I sensed that her father had taken an immediate dislike to me and hoped that it was nothing personal. I imagined that he would be the same with any man who showed an interest in his daughter and I could understand why entirely. Samantha was a very special girl - a fact that I was beginning to realise with every extra moment that I spent in her company.

It was ethically incorrect, I knew, but I made up my mind on the way home to ask Sam out the next time we were together. If I was taking advantage of my position in the company to get to her then that was just too bad - I knew exactly what they could do with their job.

I felt so relaxed and calm when Samantha was around that I could not stop myself from thinking about her and I was quietly confident that she felt the same. At least her father had done me a favour and confirmed that his daughter was single and unattached at present.

I knew that I had nothing to lose (except my job - and that was becoming less important with each passing day) and I made a silent promise to myself to take her out. Could it be that my days as a single man were finally going to end?

6

The weekend flew by. Although I did little with my time - as usual - the two days that I had away from the office seemed to disappear within the blinking of an eye. It seemed that one minute it was Friday evening and the next it was Monday morning.

The temperature had risen continually over the two days I had spent at home. I looked back in the morning papers and noticed that it had been increasing almost uniformly at the rate of one degree centigrade each day and on Monday it had climbed to a staggering twenty-six degrees. The only thing that kept me going through the first long day back at the office was the thought of going out for a cool, relaxing drink that night with Mark. Typically, however, things did not go according to plan and at half-past seven I was still rushing to get ready so that I could pick him up at eight.

My lateness would have normally put me in a bad mood but today, unusually, it did not seem to matter - everything else was going well. Earlier in the day I had telephoned head office. The best part of a week had passed since I had interviewed Samantha and had sent her application up to be processed and I was growing tired of waiting for a decision. Once I had managed to locate the person who was dealing with Samantha’s case (and after they had left me hanging on the telephone line for almost a quarter of an hour) they assured me that everything had been agreed and that the agreements which needed to be signed would be waiting on my desk first thing in the morning. I hoped that a couple of drinks tonight would give me enough confidence and the Dutch courage that I would need to be able to ask her out.

As I readied myself to leave, I could not help feeling like a lovesick adolescent about to ask his sweetheart to his first school dance. Since seeing Samantha the previous week, I had thought about her almost constantly and I was having difficulty in trying to keep my burgeoning feelings in perspective. Although I felt as if I knew her well, we had only spent a little time together and I knew that I had to try and stop my excited imagination from running away with itself.

I looked in the wardrobe for something decent to wear and eventually settled on a light T-shirt and a pair of old jeans. Although they were far from fashionable, they were the best clothes I could find which would be comfortable in the searing heat outside. Outside of working hours, I had spent the last week wearing little more than a pair of worn, threadbare shorts and the incredible conditions were starting to become a real worry. It was difficult to believe that it would be November in just over a week’s time and I dared not imagine how hot it might be then.

When I arrived at Mark’s house, he was sat in the shadows of a downstairs window, waiting impatiently for me. Although I was only fifteen minutes later than planned, he still took every available opportunity to criticise my lack of punctuality.

The drive to our usual pub took only a couple of minutes but, as we approached, we saw that there were many more people there than was normal for a Monday night. I pulled onto the carpark and the light from my headlamps illuminated crowds of drinkers slumped against the walls of the old building.

‘Christ,’ Mark said. ‘We’re never going to get served if we stop here.’

I looked around and could not see a single space in the crowded carpark.

‘What do you want to do?’ I asked.

‘We could try somewhere else. I would say we could go back to my place but I really need a drink tonight.’

I reversed the car back onto the road and pointed it back in the direction from which we had just come. I drove back towards my house.

‘Want to try the Cheshire Cat?’ I asked. It was not our favourite pub but it would do.

‘All right,’ Mark replied. ‘It would have been quicker for you to have walked there!’

He was right - I could see the pub from the back of my house. We were there in a couple of minutes as there was little traffic of any note on the usually busy roads. Thankfully, as I was tired and suddenly very thirsty, there were spaces in the carpark.

The pub’s beer garden (which was normally only used on the very hottest of summer days) was full of people. They sat huddled in groups on makeshift seats around improvised tables and basked in bright illumination from security lamps and from the dull electric light which spilled out through windows. I locked the car and we went inside. It was much quieter there and we were served quickly.

‘A pint of bitter and a pint of mild,’ I said to the barmaid as I dug deep into my pockets in search of money.

I watched as the large, elderly woman shuffled from one end of the bar to the other in a search for empty pint glasses. She put one glass under the bitter pump in front of me and pulled the heavy handle towards her. For a moment thick brown beer surged from the faucet and into the glass before being replaced with spitting, gassy foam. The barmaid looked to the heavens and rested the half-filled glass on the bar.

‘Barrel’s empty,’ she said apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, love. I’ll have to get it changed.’

She grabbed a passing member of staff by the arm and asked him to take care of the problem. She then moved along to her left and poured Mark’s mild from a second, working pump. As soon as his drink was ready and had settled, he took it from the bar and swallowed a large, thirsty gulp. He wiped his mouth dry and looked across at me.

‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Christ, I really needed that.’

‘Had a hard week?’ I asked.

‘No, not really,’ Mark replied ‘What about you? Anything interesting happened in the last few days?’

I shrugged my shoulders, racking my brain and trying desperately to think of anything that might be of even the slightest interest to my friend. It was an impossible task - the week had, on the whole, been an utter waste of time.

‘Nothing really. Just your average week.’

I suddenly remembered the one part of the last seven days which had been worth going to work for and could not help letting a broad smile spread across my face.

‘I met an incredible girl though.’

‘Oh yes,’ Mark said, his interest having quickly been aroused at the mention of the opposite sex.

‘She’s fantastic,’ I continued. ‘She’s about to go into business, came into the office after some help with her finances. Honestly, she’s amazing - young, single and really good looking.’

‘And is financial assistance all she’s going to get from you?’ Mark asked, prompting me for a sexist answer. Before I could reply, there was a tap on my shoulder and I turned quickly around to see Samantha stood in front of me. I panicked and prayed that she had not heard me talking about her.

‘Hi, Steve. How are you?’ she asked.

I picked up Mark’s pint and took a large gulp from it before I could answer.

‘I’m fine. You?’

‘Oh, I’m not too bad. Can I get you a drink?’

‘Let me get you one,’ I mumbled ‘I was in the middle of a round anyway.’

Samantha nodded and smiled.

‘Okay, I’ll have half a lager and lime please.’

I asked the barmaid for the extra drink and, as she was pouring it, a voice floated up from the bowels of the pub cellar which was unintelligible but which was obviously conveying the message that the barrel of bitter had been changed. My pint was finally poured.

Samantha left us for a moment and I watched her as she walked across the room towards a quiet little table, around which sat two men and a woman, all of a similar age to her. My heart sank as I assumed the obvious (that she was with one of the men) and Mark looked at me with an expression on his face which seemed to be trying to say, ‘better luck next time’.

Sam returned and took her drink from me.

‘Do you want to come and join us?’ she asked.

With the fear that my heart was about to be broken growing more and more intense with each passing moment, I tried to politely decline her invitation.

‘We wouldn’t want to intrude,’ I said, meekly.

‘Don’t worry, you won’t,’ she replied. ‘It’s just my cousin and a couple of his university mates.’

I felt myself relax and I was sure that my sudden relief must have been clearly visible.

‘To be honest,’ Samantha continued, ‘I’ll be glad of a little company. All I’ve heard all night is what a great time they’re having at college and how I’ve missed out by not going. It’s starting to get tedious.’

‘They’re right, you know. It is good,’ Mark said.

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I interrupted, remembering that I had not introduced him to Samantha. ‘This is Mark, he lectures at the university so he would say that!’

‘I’m pleased to meet you,’ he said, smiling broadly.

‘Mark, this is Samantha, the one I’ve…’

‘…the one you’ve been telling me about,’ he interrupted.

I took an embarrassed sip from my pint and we followed Sam as she walked over to the table where her friends waited. They looked up as we approached.

‘This is Mark and Steve.’ she said to her companions. She turned to me and introduced them. ‘This is Claire, Daniel and Tom.’

We sat down. Mark sat in the place where Samantha had been sitting before we had arrived and that meant that I was left sitting opposite her at the far end of the table. Mark immediately struck up a conversation with his fellow academics and, to my delight, that left me free and alone to talk to Sam

‘Have you heard if everything’s been agreed?’ she asked. ‘I don’t want you to think that I’m being pushy or anything, it’s just that I need to know so that I…’

‘Don’t worry,’ I interrupted. ‘Everything’s fine I spoke to head office this afternoon and they’ve assured me that all the forms will be waiting on my desk in the morning. Can you come up and sign them?’

‘I can’t,’ she replied with a look of real disappointment on her face. ‘I’ve got workmen in the shop all day tomorrow and I’d rather not leave them there on their own.’

‘That’s all right,’ I said, trying desperately to think of a solution to our problem. I had been counting on seeing Samantha again. I suddenly had an idea. ‘I could bring them over to you in my lunch hour, if that’s all right.’

‘Could you?’ she wondered excitedly. ‘God, that would be brilliant.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Isn’t it a bit out of your way though?’

It was, but I could not let her know that.

‘Not really,’ I lied.

‘I’ll make something to eat, shall I? We can celebrate.’

I smiled and nodded approval and, as I looked once more into Samantha’s deep and mesmerising eyes, she reached out across the table and gently squeezed my hand.

The evening progressed enjoyably. Mark was content to sit and talk to Samantha’s friends while I was more than happy to relax and talk to Sam herself. I was equally pleased that she seemed just as happy to spend her time with me.

The table which we were gathered around was next to a little window, the lead-lined panes of which were open wide but offered virtually no respite from the suffocating heat. Occasionally, a light breeze fluttered into the room but, other than that, the night was still and humid. From my position at the end of the table I could see little outside other than the tops of the roofs of the buildings across the street and the moon burning brightly in the cloudless evening sky.

We had talked for a good hour (which had seemed to have only taken a few minutes to pass) and both Samantha and I had learned a lot about each other. The questions had not needed to be asked directly, instead we had willingly volunteered information to each other. I felt as if I subconsciously wanted her to know everything about me. Sam had been telling me about her plans to get a mortgage and to buy a home of her own when we were interrupted.

‘…and then, once I’ve got the business really going,’ she said, ‘I’ll be looking to try and find a little…’ she stopped talking suddenly.

Through the open window, a hot and heavy wind started to blow indoors. The people gathered around tables and those sitting outside in the carpark quickly became quiet, and a deathly hush settled on the whole building as the jukebox stopped playing. The lights flickered and dimmed.

For a moment the air was choking and inescapably hot. I struggled to look through the tiny window and see what was happening outside but it was difficult from my awkward vantage point at the end of the table. I watched the sky above the pub and saw that it had slowly begun to change colour. As every pair of eyes in the crowded building strained to look skywards, we watched as the darkness of the sky melted away to become a muddy-red, an ember orange and then a yellow-white. Once the heavens had reached that colour, they worked their way back through the various shades until, moments later, they were back to their normal hue. The wind died, the lights brightened and then, after a second’s silence, the jukebox began to play its thumping music again. Apart from the music, no-one else dared make a sound.

Mark was the first to speak

‘Shit,’ he said, simply.

‘It was just like last week,’ Sam’s cousin Daniel said. ‘Scary.’

The conversation ended as quickly as it had begun while we all paused to gather our thoughts and try and comprehend what we had just witnessed. Although I could not speak for any of the others, the heat and light had shaken me to the core and I was glad of the couple of drinks that I had had earlier to calm my nerves. It was not so much fright, it was more a sense of bewilderment and the lack of any warnings or explanations which had combined to unnerve me.

‘Someone at work said that might happen,’ Mark commented quietly. ‘He said there could be more as well.’

‘What was it though?’ Daniel asked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘I don’t know. I don’t think anybody knows.’ He thought for a moment and ran his fingers nervously through his hair before speaking again. ‘There are a few people at the university who are starting to get worried about what’s been happening.’

I had been staring deep into the bottom of my glass and I looked up to see that all the faces around the table were fixed in Mark’s direction. He seemed uncomfortable and looked at each of us in turn as he continued to speak.

‘I’ve heard it said that things are going to get worse before they get any better.’

Mark swilled the dregs of his beer around in the bottom of his glass before drinking them down and wiping his mouth. I glanced anxiously across the table at Samantha and she returned my concerned expression. She shuffled to sit upright in her seat and, as she did, her foot rested against my leg. I was glad that she kept it there and did not move away - to feel her body next to mine was welcome and comforting.

A bell rang out and the landlord of the pub yelled for last orders in a deep, gruff voice. In an instant, the bemused quiet which had been so very evident in the building was replaced with sudden, frenzied activity as people rushed towards the bar to buy one final, nerve-settling drink. Mark nudged my arm.

‘We’d better make a move, mate,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve got a busy day tomorrow.’

I nodded and stood to move away from the table. Samantha also got up and walked over to me.

‘See you about half past one tomorrow?’ she asked.

‘Is that all right?’ I replied rhetorically.

‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

‘I’ll help take our minds off all of this,’ I said, gesturing outside.

Sam smiled and I moved towards her and out of the way so that Mark could get past. Had we been alone, I would have kissed her goodnight but the presence of our friends managed to diminish the self-confidence that the little alcohol which I had consumed had built up within me.

‘It was nice to have met you all,’ Mark said to those who remained seated around the table. ‘We’ll have to do it again sometime, when it gets a little warmer perhaps!’

I shook my head in disbelief at my companion’s bizarre sense of humour as he walked past Samantha and myself towards the exit. I said goodbye to Sam’s friends before turning back to say goodnight to her.

‘See you tomorrow then,’ I said, not really wanting to leave. Mark and I walked out towards the carpark but, before we had even reached the door to leave the building, I could not stop myself from turning around and looking at Sam once more.

I felt as if I was floating on air as we staggered back to the car. Ignorant of the muggy heat and of Mark’s tedious conversation, all that I could think of was the beautiful girl that I had just left.

7

As we had been forced to make an unexpected diversion earlier in the night, the drive back to Mark’s house took longer than usual. He was tired and although he tried to deny it, slightly drunk. With no cassettes in the car to listen to, I switched on the radio in a vain attempt to drown out the constant and uninteresting noise that he made.

The radio crackled and spat static and the reception was so poor that it was difficult to find a signal of any strength. I eventually gave up trying to find something to listen to amongst the high-pitched hiss of the VHF and so switched to another waveband. The noise that the radio made was deeper and flatter but was still devoid of any human sounds until I finally managed to tune into the faint conversation of a late-night discussion programme. It sounded dull and boring but, as I moved my hand towards the set to switch it off. Mark stopped me.

‘I want to hear this,’ he said, slurring his words. He brushed my hand away and turned up the volume. ‘This could be important - we should listen to it.’

I decided not to spoil my drunken friend’s enjoyment of what sounded like a tedious debate. A panel of invited ‘experts’ was sat in a studio discussing the present conditions and hypothecating about what might one day happen if things did not change. As with all debates, there were two opposing sides. The difference here was that neither of them seemed to know anything about the subject which they argued over. They all knew what had already happened, but could only speculate and theorise as to what the future might hold in store.

‘Professor Cunningham,’ the host of the programme said from somewhere in the midst of the crackle and hiss of the radio waves, ‘you’ve been quoted in the media recently as saying that the phenomena we are currently experiencing will inevitably prove to be temporary. Have you any solid proof to suggest that normality will soon be restored?’

The professor cleared his throat and started to answer.

‘I believe that these effects that we are seeing will not last for much longer. There’s no evidence to suggest …’

‘Professor, you’ve got no idea of what’s going to happen and neither have the rest of us,’ a third voice interrupted angrily.

The venom, uncertainty and desperation in the third voice shocked and startled me for a moment. If this was the voice of someone who appeared to have some knowledge of what was happening and he sounded scared, perhaps there really was something to be worried about.

‘Doctor Smith, if you would just let me finish . . .‘ the professor protested.

‘Why, what’s the point? All that you or anyone else can do is bullshit your way around the truth and that truth is that it’s getting hotter by the hour. That’s the one and only fact that we’re all sure of.’

The flustered host’s wavering tones echoed through the warm night air once more as he tried to keep control of proceedings.

‘Doctor Smith, please allow Professor Cunningham to finish.’

‘For Christ’s sake,’ Smith shouted. ‘He knows about as much as you do about what’s going on. You might as well go home and ask your mother about it rather than talk to him, me or anyone else. No-one knows what’s happening and whatever it is, there’s no way that any of us can stop it.’

Smith sounded hysterical and, although his was only a disjointed voice floating through interference-filled airwaves, I could tell that it was full of anger and intense frustration.

‘Things are getting worse,’ Smith continued, unabated, ‘and after tonight’s events I really can’t see what we’re going to achieve by sitting here and arguing about what might be about to happen. You must agree Cunningham.’

‘Getting yourself and anyone else who’s listening scared witless won’t do any good either,’ the professor replied. ‘Stop dramatising things and get a grip for God’s sake.’

‘Dramatising things!’ Smith yelled at the top of his hoarse and strained voice. ‘For fucking hell’s sake, we’re seeing phenomena here which could easily signal the death of the planet and you tell me to stop dramatising things!’

I leant across and switched off the radio. Until we had listened to that programme. I had never even stopped to consider what might happen if the temperature did continue to steadily increase.

‘What a load of crap,’ I snapped, nervously and instinctively.

‘Might not be,’ Mark mumbled. ‘Like the man said, no-one knows for sure.’

‘Yes,’ I protested, ‘but there’s no point in looking at the worst possible outcome. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. I don’t want to know anything about it when the end comes.’

I quickly stopped talking as the realisation dawned on me that we were discussing the end of the world. As I drove, I thought more about what I had heard and the fact that not a single person on the planet knew what was happening frightened me. In the past, there had always been someone available who could explain things which were out of the ordinary but today the only convincing arguments I had heard were from a paranoid man who seemed sure that our planet was dying. However, if the temperature did continue to increase at the same rate that it had been recently, in a few days’ time it would be reaching upwards of thirty degrees - the 1st of November would be the hottest day of the decade (until the 2nd of November). I thought about the countries where that level of heat was normal and tried to imagine what kind of conditions they might be enduring there. It suddenly seemed very plausible that the increasing heat and the pulses of light that we had seen in the night sky could be the beginning of something much more terrible than any of us had dared to imagine I forced myself to try and think of something else and, at once, calming memories of Samantha drifted gently back into my mind.

The roads were quiet and we reached Mark’s house in no time at all. The heat and the alcohol which he had consumed combined to great effect and, by the time we reached his home, he had drifted off to sleep I gently woke him and he stumbled out of the car and into the street.

I locked the car and watched as my friend staggered towards his front door and fought to get his key into the lock. The latch eventually clicked and he half walked, half fell into the house. I stood on the doorstep and waited for him to switch on the lights and to switch off the alarm.

All around the city surrounding the house, there seemed to be a strange atmosphere in the air which reeked of doubt and unease. While I was sure that very few people really had considered that the end of the world could be approaching, I was positive that I could not have been the only one who felt an uncomfortable sense of worry. No-one could be sure that they were safe and it was this uncertainty which had caused the friction and panic so evident in the amateurish radio broadcast that we had just listened to.

Mark yelled for me to come inside and shut the door and, as I waited on the doorstep, I listened to the muffled sounds of a fight taking place in the distance. As I waited I heard the far-off wail of a police-car siren and I could not help but wonder about what was going to happen.

Inside the house, Mark appeared to have sobered up somewhat and had managed to fill the kettle I shut the front door and went into the kitchen as he waited for the water to boil and spooned coffee granules into two empty mugs

‘Not a bad night,’ he said as he worked.

‘It was all right, wasn’t it?’ I answered. I thought for a moment before speaking again. ‘What did you think of Samantha?’

I waited nervously for Mark’s answer. As a close friend, his opinion was of great value to me but, at the same time, I knew that if he didn’t like her then I would discount his views immediately.

‘She’s great,’ he said and a broad grin spread quickly across his face. ‘She’s got it bad for you, mate!’

‘Do you really think so?’ I asked, desperate for confirmation despite the fact that I was sure I already knew the answer. Mark nodded his head and poured boiling water into the two mugs.

‘No question,’ he said through clouds of quickly rising steam. ‘I saw the way she was looking at you. Mind you,’ he added as he stirred our drinks, ‘I also saw the way that you were staring back.’

Embarrassed, I picked up one of the mugs, added a spoonful of sugar and took a large gulp from it. Although the drink was piping hot, it was still refreshing and it helped to quench a fierce thirst which had developed in my throat since we had left the pub.

‘Want anything to eat?’ Mark asked and I shook my head.

‘No thanks, it’s too hot.’

He went into the living-room and I followed. I sat down and Mark dug deep under a pile of discarded newspapers and magazines to find the remote control which operated the television set. He eventually found the little black box (under a cushion on the settee - nowhere near the pile of papers) and switched the set on.

It was almost midnight and the choice of viewing offered to us was far from appealing. One side showed a darts championship, the second horse jumping, the third a documentary and the fourth a dire, imported detective series which looked about twenty years old and which I had already seen countless times before. Before hurling the remote control onto a nearby seat. Mark flicked the set back to the third channel.

Once again, the theme of the programme was the extraordinary weather conditions and atmospheric effects which we had witnessed. The presenters, however, at least appeared to be a little calmer and more composed than their radio counterparts had been earlier. A doddering old gentleman, with a shock of brilliant-white hair, thick, horn rimmed glasses and an incredibly unfashionable suit, stood in front of a large diagram of the solar system. The sun was drawn at the far right of the picture and the nine planets which orbited around it were arranged in a line to its left. I settled down into my seat and listened as the presenter cleared his throat and began to talk.

‘The events of this evening, and of last week, can be illustrated with the help of this diagram,’ he began in a deep and gruff, well-educated voice. ‘What appears to have happened, is that a huge wave of energy has been issued from the sun and it was this wave spreading out across the solar system which caused the unusual atmospheric conditions which were so very evident earlier.’

As the presenter spoke, he moved his hand across the diagram from the sun and out towards cold Pluto to illustrate the direction which the energy waves had taken.

‘It is logical to assume, therefore,’ he continued, ‘that it is some undefined activity within the sun itself which has caused these events to happen. It would seem that this activity would also be the cause of the extraordinarily high temperatures which we have all endured over the last three weeks.’

I looked across at Mark who stared unblinkingly into the television screen. His drunkenness seemed to have worn completely away and he watched the old man with a genuine interest.

‘While we have seen events similar to this in the past,’ the presenter explained, ‘they have never been encountered with such force and magnitude before.’

‘It’s frightening, isn’t, it?’ I said to Mark and he turned to look at me. He shrugged his shoulders.

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I mean, he’s just said that this has happened before. All right, it was nowhere near as intense then, but it stopped, didn’t it? The world hasn’t ended yet, has it?’

‘I can’t argue with that,’ I said before returning my attention to the television screen. The old man still rambled on.

‘Our understanding of the sun’s internal mechanisms are still primitive and so we are unable to predict with any real accuracy what might happen in the immediate future. We hope, however, that as before, the activity will be short-lived and that normality will soon be restored.’

‘I hope so too,’ Mark said. ‘I’ll ask around at work tomorrow and see if anyone knows what’s really going on. I get the feeling that this bloke’s only being allowed to tell half the story.’

‘Do you really think so?’ I asked. He nodded.

‘No question. He wouldn’t be allowed to spread doom and gloom over the airwaves; he had to end on an optimistic note. You’d have everybody panicking, wouldn’t you?’

I finished my coffee, stood up and stretched as the television programme ended.

‘I’d better be off, I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.’

A familiar, wicked smile spread quickly across Mark’s face.

‘I know you have!’ he said, grinning. ‘It’s half past one you’re meeting her, isn’t it?’

‘To tell you the truth, I can’t bloody wait!’ I nodded.

‘I bet you can’t, I hope everything goes all right. It’s about time you got yourself sorted out.’

‘Everything’ll be fine,’ I replied. ‘Just as long as the world doesn’t end before I get there.’

‘That’d be just your luck,’ Mark joked. ‘You finally meet someone decent and you cop it before you can have any fun! Typical!’

We laughed together as we walked towards the front door. I did not dare say anything to my friend, but I had a nagging fear growing in the pit of my stomach which told me that all was not going to be well and it was becoming difficult to keep my feelings hidden. I was quietly sure, however, that I was not the only one who was worried.

‘I expect a phone call tomorrow night,’ Mark said. ‘As soon as you get back, I want every single juicy detail of your lunch. Leave nothing to the imagination.’

‘Mark,’ I replied with a tone of false disapproval in my voice, ‘you are a very sick young man.’

He pushed me out of the door.

‘And you’re a letch,’ I added as I stumbled out into the street. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow!’

I unlocked the door and got inside the car. As I drove away, I waved to Mark, who stood in the light of his doorway, and I hoped that if I did call him he would be able to give me some reassuring news from his friends at work. It had to be good news, I thought, my life looked like it was finally about to sort itself out and I was determined not to let anything get in my way now.

I drove quickly home in silence and I was, all things considered, quite relaxed and happy. Although there had been nothing but gloom and bad news on the radio and television all night, I cared little. All I needed to do was picture Samantha’s face in my mind and all of my fears and worries evaporated away into nothing. She filled me with a happiness that I had not felt for a very long time.

8

Once again the next morning at the office dragged unbearably. With still no respite from the incredible weather conditions, the city was again silent and stifling and the streets below were relatively empty. As I looked out of the office window, I wondered why I had bothered coming into work at all. Most people appeared to have simply chosen to stay at home and relax in the sunshine or, more probably, in the shade of their homes, watching the sun scorch and burn the world around them. Time seemed to run at a much slower rate than usual and I was sure that it had something to do with the way that I stared at the clock every five minutes, willing its hands to work their way quickly around to one o’clock.

With sunrise that morning, the heat had increased further still until it was now like a heavy, suffocating blanket which lay all around, smothering everything and everybody with its exhausting, relentless and inescapable power. Every newspaper and magazine carried concocted, charlatan explanations of events and mixed them with a generous and unhealthy number of stories about old-aged pensioners dying of dehydration in their homes and of the water in lakes and reservoirs falling to new record-low levels.

When one o’clock finally arrived, I gathered up the papers and forms that I needed Samantha to sign and, before leaving, called Robert into my room. He staggered in through the office door, looking flustered and exhausted. As he stood still and tried to compose himself, he wiped his fat, round and red face with an already damp handkerchief and leant against my desk. For a moment I stared at the picture of ill health that stood in front of me and I felt genuinely sorry for the man.

‘I’m going out to see Miss Hill now,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure when I’ll be back so could you look after things here for a while?’

Robert stood up straight and nodded. I noticed that his cotton shirt was drenched with sweat and that it clung tightly to his skin.

‘Will you be all right?’ I asked, worried about the exhausted condition that he was in.

‘I’ll be fine,’ he wheezed. ‘I’m just having a bit of trouble with this heat. It doesn’t agree with me.’

‘Are you going to be okay to look after the office?’

‘I said I’ll be all right!’ he snapped and he looked up at me with an angry expression on his flustered face.

‘I shouldn’t be too long,’ I said, attempting to reassure him and to disguise the fact that I intended to stay with Samantha for as long as I possibly could. ‘I’m not expecting any calls and I don’t think that there will anything that you can’t deal with. If you do need to contact me. Miss Hill’s number is in her file and that’s somewhere in my filing cabinet.’

Robert nodded and turned to walk out of the room. I felt sorry for him in some respects - he was much older than me and I was sure that he resented my seniority in the office. He was normally able to rise above such feelings but the extreme heat and its effects on his desperately unfit body did nothing to help ease the situation.

I shoved the paperwork into my briefcase and grabbed my jacket before following Robert out of the office. I draped the jacket over my shoulder as it was far too hot to even think about wearing it. It was, in fact, far too hot to be wearing anything.

I left the office as quickly as I could and with it I left a grumbling assistant manager complaining to the rest of the staff. Although I feigned deafness, I could hear him telling them all how he was the one that really ran the branch - I just picked up the manager’s salary at the end of every month. Regardless of his comments, I was in a good mood and was determined not to rise to the childish baiting of my staff. I walked ignorantly past them all and out of the building.

Before getting into my car, I stopped to pick up a bottle of wine. I walked past a little florist’s shop and thought for a moment about getting some flowers for Samantha. Next to the florist’s was a sweet shop and I wondered if chocolates might be better. An irrational paranoiac fear grew in my mind as I imagined foolishly that such presents might give Samantha the wrong impression of me. Although I wanted to get much closer to her, I thought that our relationship was far too fresh and new for me to start buying sentimental gifts. Instead, I settled on the bottle of wine - a neutral gift which I could palm off as just an accompaniment to our lunch rather than a romantic gesture. The wine was chilled and the bottle cold in my hands. I wondered how cold it would be by the time I reached Samantha’s.

The drive to the shop took only a little while. As I stopped the car and got out, I admired what I saw. Although it was only half-finished, the building’s frontage already looked professional and very inviting with an ornate sign being painted above the whitewashed windows. I could see movement through the partially obscured glass and I could not help but feel somewhat disappointed that I would not be on my own with Sam. Perhaps that was a good thing, I thought. I didn’t know if I would be able to control myself if we were left alone - she was so beautiful.

I took the wine and my briefcase out of the back of the car and, as I locked and closed the boot, the front door of the shop burst open and Samantha came running out to meet me. She looked wonderful in a long summer dress which clung lovingly to every curve of her perfect figure and the sunlight made her free, flowing hair glow with life and colour. As she approached, I felt an unexpected nervousness in my stomach, and my legs weakened. I prayed that I would be able to keep myself and my emotions in order despite the fact that I wanted desperately to pick her up in my arms, to take her somewhere quiet and romantic and make slow, passionate love to her. I tried to cool myself down by remembering that I was there on official company business.

‘Hi, Steve! How are you?’ Sam asked as she approached.

‘I’m fine,’ I replied. ‘You look fantastic.’

She took my arm and led me towards the shop.

‘This is for you,’ I said, holding out the bottle of wine. ‘I thought we could celebrate.’

Sam stopped. For one terrible and irrational moment I thought that my worst fears had been realised and that she had taken offence at my gift. I knew that it was a foolish and unfounded thing to imagine but, in the heat of the moment, I was fighting to keep control of a brain, a heart and a body that did not want to be restrained. My fears were washed away in a second as Sam stood up on tiptoes and kissed me lightly on the cheek.

‘You shouldn’t have,’ she said, looking straight at me with her gorgeous, almost hypnotic eyes. ‘You’re so sweet.’

I followed Samantha into the shop where, away from the relentless sunlight, it was slightly cooler and where I was able to think and to act sensibly once more. The main area of the shop was a hive of activity with workmen toiling in the heat to fix counters and shelves while others followed behind, decorating in their work mates’ footsteps.

‘You’ve done really well in here,’ I commented, looking around. ‘How long do you think it’ll be before you can open?’

‘Just a few weeks,’ she replied. ‘Now that you’ve come through with my finance I’ll be able to sort out the stock and the rest of the fittings that I need.’ She paused to think for a moment and looked around at her shop ‘The only trouble is,’ she continued, ‘I don’t know whether to buy more microwave ovens for the hot, winter food or extra fridges for the ice cream!’

Samantha took my hand and pulled me through a door behind the main serving area. The door opened out onto a little corridor and, from there, various storerooms and kitchens could be accessed. To our left was an empty, spare room and she reached inside to switch on the light. The dull yellow glow of one, unprotected sixty-watt bulb illuminated a little table in the middle of the room which was covered with an appetising spread of sandwiches, salads and cakes. I felt guilty of the fact that I had little appetite but I resolved to try and eat something. Two seats were sat close to each other next to the table and Sam gestured for me to go inside and to sit down.

‘I hope you don’t mind eating in here,’ she said. ‘It’s far too hot to go outside.’

She disappeared for a moment to fetch two wine glasses from the kitchen

‘You really shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble just for me,’ I said, shouting after her.

‘It’s no trouble,’ she replied as she came back into the room. ‘Besides, it gives me a chance to show you some of the types of things that I’ll be doing here.’

She sat down in the chair next to me which she had angled so that whilst we were not far apart, we were able to look straight into each other’s faces. My next words were spoken involuntarily - before I had even stopped to think, they were already floating through the air in Sam’s direction and I was unable to stop them.

‘The food’s a bonus,’ I said. ‘It’s enough for me just to see you.’

I was immediately embarrassed and looked away from Samantha and down to the floor. I slowly turned my head back to look in her direction to gauge her reaction and I felt incredible relief when I saw that she was smiling broadly. She reached out her hand, grabbed mine and squeezed it softly. I chanced upon the unopened bottle of wine sitting on the table and picked it up quickly - I needed a drink.

‘Have you got a corkscrew?’ I asked. Sam shook her head.

‘No,’ she laughed, ‘that’s one of the fittings that I still need to get.’

‘Never mind,’ I said and I jumped up from my seat. I went out into the main area of the shop and, seeing that all of the workmen were busy at the far end of the room, I took the liberty of borrowing a screwdriver which had been left lying on a nearby stool. Returning to Samantha, I forced the cork down the neck of the bottle with the tool and poured the wine out into our glasses.

‘I hope you don’t mind the taste of a little cork in your wine,’ I joked. ‘I find that it often adds to the flavour and brings out the body of a good white!’

‘Now you’re just talking crap!’ Sam said and she laughed as she took a sip from the glass that I passed to her.

‘I am,’ I replied. ‘You seem to have that effect on me.’

‘You have quite an effect on me,’ she whispered quietly and I almost choked on the sandwich that I had just bitten into. I had dared to think that Samantha found me attractive and that she enjoyed my company, but to have it confirmed in such a blunt, definite and undeniable manner was beyond my wildest dreams.

We ate for a few quiet minutes. Neither of us seemed to have very much of an appetite for our food but I made a concerted effort to avoid hurting Sam’s feelings. I cleared my plate and put it down on the table.

‘That was really good,’ I said, wiping my mouth with a serviette. ‘If that’s the kind of thing that you’re going to be selling here then I don’t think you’re going to have any problems.’

‘Thanks, Steve. I’m glad you liked it.’

‘What have you got left to do in here then?’ I asked, gesticulating at the rest of the building around us. She shrugged her shoulders.

‘Not that much,’ she said, quietly and simply.

‘Are you looking forward to opening up?’

‘I suppose,’

‘Do you want to talk about something else?’ I asked. Sam nodded and smiled. I had guessed from the brevity of her answers to my questions that she was not interested in talking business and I changed the subject. ‘What did you think of Mark?’ I asked, reminding her of our time together the previous evening.

‘He’s great,’ she said, suddenly springing back into life. ‘He’s got a brilliant sense of humour.’

‘It’s not that good,’ I replied defensively.

Before speaking again, I remembered the energy pulse that we had experienced last night. It had been the only negative aspect of an otherwise totally enjoyable evening and so I made a deliberate attempt to steer away from the topic of the weather and the relentless heat.

‘Why didn’t you go to university?’ I enquired, remembering our friends’ constant conversations last night. ‘You had the qualifications, you could have done anything.’

She thought for a moment before replying.

‘I know. I suppose I’d just had enough of learning by the time that it came to make the decision. I needed to start earning some money.’

Sam’s reasoning sounded vaguely familiar as it had been for much the same reason that I had gone straight into working for the company rather than continuing my education. It had been a move that my parents had not entirely approved of and it was good to have found someone else who agreed with my opinions and who thought along the same lines as I did.

‘Do you regret it?’ I asked.

Samantha shook her head.

‘I’m happy with the way things have turned out,’ she said, draining the last drops of wine from the glass which she had emptied in record time. ‘And things are getting better every day.’

As she spoke, Sam looked up into my face and I felt my heart melt. I knew then that the girl who sat next to me could really prove to be as special and important as I had dared think she might be at the time of our first meeting. Although I had then dismissed my initial feelings as juvenile and trite, they seemed to have more and more truth and substance with each extra moment that I spent in her company.

When I next looked at my watch, it was almost three o’clock I panicked and at once my mind was filled with thoughts of disaster and catastrophe at the office which I had left under the control of a deputy manager who seemed to be permanently on the point of collapse I knew full well that if anything happened in my absence, the blame would rest squarely at my feet

‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to go,’ I said as I stood up to leave. ‘I didn’t see the time.’

Sam looked at her own watch and seemed as surprised as me to find that we had been talking for almost an hour and a half.

‘Do you really have to?’ she asked and I nodded sadly.

‘I’m afraid so I wish I could stop.’

I tucked my shirt into my trousers and rolled down my sleeves. I moved towards the door of the little room but stopped when I was close to Sam. I turned to look into her face and then, with equal amounts of inevitability and spontaneity, I leant down and kissed her lightly on the lips. She put her arms around me and I held her tightly before we kissed again. Long and passionate, our second kiss seemed to last for a blissful eternity and I found it difficult to tear myself away.

‘I wish I could stay here with you,’ I whispered into her ear. ‘I don’t want to let you go.’

‘I never want you to let me go,’ she said quietly ‘Can you come back tonight?’

My heart sank as I remembered that tonight was the night that I had arranged to go across town and visit my parents. I would normally have telephoned them and cancelled using some weak and concocted excuse but today, as my father was ill, I felt duty-bound to go. I silently cursed myself for not having visited last Friday when my business dinner date had been cancelled.

‘I can’t. I wish I could but my dad’s ill and I’ve promised that I’ll go over and see him.’ I said. Samantha seemed to understand. ‘Can we go out tomorrow?’

It was Sam’s turn to bring bad news and she shook her head dejectedly.

‘I’ve got an appointment with my insurers tomorrow night. It’s too late to cancel now.’

‘The day after then?’ I asked, hopefully. Samantha nodded and smiled.

I painfully tore myself away from her. Despite the incredible heat all around and inside the building, my body felt cold where I had just held her and I longed to pull her close to me again. I walked towards the door of the shop, holding her hand tightly. She suddenly stopped walking and I turned back to see what was wrong.

‘I haven’t signed anything!’ she shouted, laughing. ‘You’ve forgotten what you came for!’

‘Can you see what you’re doing to me?’ I asked jokingly as I took the forms and papers from out of my case. Sam signed where I indicated and I threw the documents back into the bag. ‘I’m losing all control. You’re turning me into a nervous wreck!’

‘I’m sorry,’ she laughed with mock apology in her voice.

‘Don’t be,’ I whispered ‘I’m loving every second of it!’

Before leaving I held her tightly once more and we kissed again in full view of the assembled workmen. We received a sarcastic round of applause from the labourers and I left the shop feeling embarrassed but caring little. I promised that I would call Sam the next day and then climbed into the car. I drove back towards the office and watched her in the rear view mirror until I turned a corner and she disappeared from view.

I had not needed to panic - Robert had survived the afternoon without incident and, more importantly, so had the office. I apologised to him for being away for so long and made up some lame, implausible excuse about being detained and having to explain the forms to Miss Hill. I could tell that he didn’t believe me but I didn’t care.

Although less than two official working hours remained in the day, time still managed to run at a snail’s pace. I had often joked with friends about how time managed to slow down in the week and then double its speed at weekends or when I was enjoying myself. I decided that must have been the reason why the hour and a half I had spent with Samantha had felt like less than ten minutes.

Once again, with a complete disregard for company regulations, I was deserted and left alone in the office at five o’clock sharp and I felt (out of guilt rather than company loyalty) that I should stop for a while and try to catch up on some of the paperwork that I had avoided doing that afternoon. By the time I was reasonably up to date, it was close to half past six. I decided to leave, to go home and change and then make my way to my parents’ house as arranged.

Throughout the whole of the rest of the afternoon, I was unable to get Samantha out of my mind for even the briefest of moments.

9

As I had planned earlier, I arrived at my parents’ house washed, refreshed and feeling a little more relaxed than I had done earlier in the day. I parked the car and walked towards the little house which had been my home for many years. There were thousands of memories locked up in the tiny building and, as I approached, I prayed that the people close to me who still lived within its walls were safe and well. All the talk of energy waves and all of the confusion that I had witnessed over the last couple of days made me long to return to the security of the past and of my childhood. As I stood on the doorstep and opened the front door, a wave of tender sentimentality washed over me.

One of the most unusual and unexpected aspects of the heat and of the recent bizarre conditions was the distorting effect that they had on my body clock. Although it felt like summer, it was dark by five o’clock and it stayed that way until late in the morning. It was difficult sometimes to convince myself that it really was late October and, although the darkness made it feel as if it should be much later, by the time I went into the house it had only just turned seven-thirty.

Inside the building was dark and the living-room was illuminated only by the flickering blue light of the television set in the corner of the room and by a dull, yellow glow from the open kitchen doorway. When she heard the front door open. Mom came into the living-room and she smiled when she saw me.

‘Hello, love. How are you?’ she asked in her soothing, peaceful voice.

‘I’m fine, Mom,’ I replied as I walked across the room and followed her into the kitchen. ‘Tired, but fine.’

Finally hearing Mom speak again helped me to calm down and to forget the troubles of the day. She had a relaxing, gentle quality to her voice which immediately took me back to my childhood days. When we were younger, Mom’s incredible ability to remain restrained and rational had usually resulted in both my sister and myself ignoring her when she had needed to reprimand us (authority was always maintained by my father who, in such instances, always told us off with a well-aimed slap with the back of his hand). Today, however, Mom’s tone lifted me and managed to restore a little piece of normality to the increasingly crazy and hectic world that I found myself living in.

‘Where’s Dad?’ I asked as Mom filled the kettle from the tap.

‘He’s outside,’ she replied, nodding her head through the window and towards a barely discernible shape sitting out on the back lawn. ‘Poor thing,’ she continued. ‘This heat’s really knocked him for six.’

I walked quietly towards the back door and peered through the glass to look at my dad who sat bathed in the low yellow light which spilled out across the lawn from the kitchen window. When I had been living at home, my parents had never seemed to age. In my mind, they had looked the same on the day I left home as they had done in my earliest memories. It was only now that I was not seeing them on a daily basis that they seemed to be getting any older and today, sadly, Dad looked desperately frail, tired and ancient.

As I watched my father sleeping in an old deckchair, a light wind blew across the garden and he shuffled uncomfortably. The breeze ruffled the delicate strands of white hair which lay across his head and the light from the house combined with the sparse silver rays of the moon to cast ghastly haggard shadows across his face. Dad’s glasses were perched precariously on the end of his wrinkled nose and the only movement he made was as his chin slowly shifted up and down as it rested on his heaving chest.

‘He doesn’t look too bad,’ I said to Mom. I was quite worried by Dad’s appearance but I did my best to try and allay any of the fears that my mother might have had.

‘He might look all right,’ she said, ‘but he’s not himself. You know your father, he’s not one to make a fuss when he’s under the weather but I can tell. I’ve been with him for long enough.’

I looked into Mom’s face as she toiled over the hot pots and pans on top of the kitchen stove. She looked tired and worn out and I could see the strain and worry that Dad’s condition was obviously causing her to feel. Although there was the best part of a ten-year age gap between my parents and she didn’t look anywhere near as aged as Dad did, Mom still seemed to be growing old at an alarming rate.

‘Steven,’ Mom said (she was the only person who called me that and not Steve). ‘We’re going to go up and visit your Uncle George for a little while.’

I was relieved to hear that. Uncle George lived on the Scottish coast and, when I was younger, whenever we had visited there as a family, Dad had spent most of our time there complaining that the North was far too cold for him.

‘That’s good news,’ I told Mom. ‘That should really do Dad a lot of good. It’s about time you had a rest as well.’

Mom nodded and smiled. She seemed pleased that I approved of their plans.

‘What about Michelle?’ I asked, wondering what my younger sister was going to do.

‘She’s coming with us. The poor love’s been having a rough time at college recently. I think it’ll do her as much good to get away for a while as it will your father.’

‘When are you thinking of going?’

‘Tomorrow. We’re going up by train. We leave at half past nine.’

The immediacy of their leaving shocked me. Dad was notoriously slow at making plans and decisions and Mom could see that I was genuinely surprised.

‘It’ll be for the best,’ she said, reassuringly. ‘We’ll stay up there for a while and come home when things get back to normal.’

Michelle came bounding down the stairs and burst energetically into the kitchen.

‘I thought I could smell something!’ she joked, cheekily. ‘Stevie’s here!’

I laughed sarcastically and walked over to greet her. We hugged for a moment and, once more, I realised just how much my conceptions of my family had changed since I had moved out. Before I had left, there had been days when Michelle and I could hardly bear to be in the same room as each other and yet we now hugged one another as if we had been apart for years.

‘How’s things?’ she asked.

‘Not too bad,’ I replied, giving little away. ‘What about you? Are you all right?’

Strangely subdued, she nodded her head slowly and sat down at the table.

‘Can you go and get your father for me?’ Mom asked, looking in my direction. ‘I’m about to serve up dinner.’

I went outside to fetch Dad and was surprised by the brittle crunching of the moisture-starved grass beneath my feet. I stood at Dad’s side and gently shook his shoulder. He began to come around.

‘Hello, son,’ he said in a voice that sounded tired, feeble and weak. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m all right. Dad,’ I replied. ‘I’ve had enough of this heat though. It’s a bit hot, isn’t it?’

‘Too bloody hot,’ he snapped bluntly as he pushed his aching frame up and out of the chair. I held his arm to help him but he brushed my hand away. ‘I’m all right,’ he grumbled. ‘Just a bit stiff, that’s all.’

Dad moved away from the support of the deckchair, turned and shuffled towards the open back door. I watched him sadly as he moved. Dad had always been such a fit and active man that to see him like this was heartbreaking. I knew that Mom was right and, although she hadn’t said as much, I could see that the incredible conditions were killing him.

We sat around the kitchen table to eat our meal and, for a while, things were just like they had been before I had left home. Mom sat opposite Dad and I had the pleasure of sitting directly across the table from my little sister. Although Mom had struggled in the kitchen for a long time to prepare our meal, none of us seemed able to eat much. I toyed with the food on my plate while I thought of Samantha and I chewed a couple of hot, filling mouthfuls. I looked up to see that Michelle was staring at me and I was sure that she wanted to ask something. Her intuition seemed to have told her that I had begun seeing someone and then, with her usual disregard for tact and decorum, she began to pursue the issue with unavoidable and embarrassing questions.

‘So, Steve,’ she began, ‘am I imagining things or are you happier than usual tonight? Have you finally managed to find yourself a decent girlfriend?’

I almost choked on the mouthful of food that I was eating.

‘What makes you think that?’ I asked, keen not to give anything away without a struggle.

‘I know you too well,’ she replied. ‘You’re being nice to me and that’s a sure sign that something’s up.’ Michelle smiled sweetly, desperate for information and gossip.

‘That doesn’t mean that I’m going out with anyone, does it?’ I said with deliberate ambiguity. ‘Does anybody want another drink?’ I asked, trying unsuccessfully to change the subject. My love life was not something that I wanted to discuss in front of Mom and Dad.

‘I bet you are,’ she said, putting down her knife and fork.

‘Well, as a matter of fact, I am,’ I said, shoving more food into my mouth. That was all that I wanted to say but Michelle, typically, had other ideas.

‘I knew, I could tell!’ she shouted. ‘What’s her name? Where did you meet her? Come on, I want to know everything.’

‘Her name’s Samantha, and that’s all you’re going to get,’ I said with my mouth still half full of food.

‘Leave your brother alone,’ Mom interrupted. ‘He’s come over here for his tea, not to be questioned by you.’ She turned to face me. ‘I’m sure she’s a lovely girl and you’ll tell us all about her when you’re ready to.’

‘It’s too bloody hot in here,’ Dad suddenly shouted angrily.

The rest of the family around the table became silent as he threw down his knife and fork and stood up. After waiting for a couple of seconds to get his balance, Dad shuffled away from the table and disappeared into the dark living-room. Mom watched him go and I saw that her eyes had filled with tears.

Michelle became quiet, fearing guiltily that she had angered our father with her excited behaviour. I pushed my plate away from me, unable to eat any more and watched as Mom stood silently and went into another room.

Later that night, I sat in the living-room with Dad. The windows were all fully open and a gentle breeze fluttered into the room which gently lifted the lace nets and light curtains which hung around them. The only light came from a dull table lamp at Dad’s side and the only sound from Mom and Michelle talking in the kitchen.

‘How are you feeling now, Dad?’ I asked.

‘Oh, not too bad, son,’ he replied, calmly. ‘I’ll be glad when this heat finally eases off though.’

‘Mom was telling me that you don’t like it. It’ll be better when you get up to Uncle George’s though, won’t it?’

‘It won’t be the heat getting to me then, it’ll be that bloody wife of his,’ he snapped. ‘Still, your mother seems to think that it’ll do us all good to get away for a while.’

‘She’s right you know They say it’s going to get worse before it gets any better.’

‘And you’d know, would you?’ Dad snapped, uncharacteristically. He grumbled and took a large swig from a tumbler of whisky which he held in his tired hand. ‘It’d all be a lot simpler if they hadn’t been buggering around with the planet in the first place.’

‘But, Dad,’ I protested foolishly, trying to explain what was actually happening, ‘it’s the sun that’s causing all of this. It’s got nothing to do with pollution, the ozone layer or anything else.’

Dad hauled himself upright in his seat and leant towards me until his face was only inches from mine.

‘Son, you can tell me that it’s the sun doing this. You can even tell me that it’s men from Mars. The truth is that none of it would be happening if it wasn’t for those bloody idiots who are supposed to be in charge of this planet.’

There was no point in arguing with Dad. I was sure that it was the heat and stress which were causing him to become irrational and I couldn’t see that there was anything to be gained from prolonging the conversation any further. As I watched him, he picked up the remote control unit that operated the television, switched on the set and flicked through the channels. When he could find nothing that interested him (I didn’t even get asked if I wanted to watch anything) he pushed down the red button in the corner of the controller which made the set die again, plunging the room back into a gloomy semi-darkness. I got up and went to talk to Mom and Michelle in the kitchen.

‘It’s getting late,’ I said, looking up at the clock on the wall. ‘I’ll have to be going soon.’

Mom sat at the table and looked up at me sadly.

‘Can’t you stay for a little longer?’ she asked hopefully. ‘We might not see you again for a while.’

‘Of course you will.’ I said without thinking. ‘I’ll see if I can’t get a couple of days off work and I’ll come up to Uncle George’s and see you all.’ I held out little hope of managing to get time off, but the idea did at least seem to cheer Mom up for a moment.

‘I hope you can, love. That’d be wonderful,’ she said with a sad, distant look in her eyes. I put my hand on top of hers and smiled.

‘Everything’s going to be all right. Mom,’ I said. ‘You just take Dad up to the seaside and he’ll be fine. I promise you, in a week we’ll all be back to normal and you’ll be wishing that the sun had never gone in.’

Mom nodded her head, got up and went into the living-room to check on Dad. I was left alone with Michelle.

‘Look after them both, won’t you?’ I said. I expected my sister to retort with some half-baked and ill-considered witticism but she surprised me with her seriousness.

‘I will,’ she said quietly. ‘And you make sure that you’re all right.’

‘You know I will. Always looking after number one, that’s me.’

‘Good, keep it that way.’

I looked into Michelle’s eyes and saw the same doubt and fear which had been so painfully evident in Mom’s expression. Although I tried to disguise my own fears and worries, I could not help but wonder when I would see my family again. I didn’t want Michelle to see just how worried I was. but I told her that I wished that I could go with them to Scotland in the morning. All the talk of the possibility of impending doom and destruction had affected me more than I had originally thought and it was with a great reluctance that I accepted the fact it was time to go home.

‘I’ve got to go, Michelle,’ I said quietly. She got up from her seat and hugged me tightly. Inexplicably, tears began to well up in my eyes and I tried to brush them away as discreetly and nonchalantly as was possible.

‘I’ll call you when we get to Uncle George’s,’ she said. ‘And don’t worry about those two, they’ll be all right.’

I nodded and kissed my sister lightly on the forehead. We hugged again as Mom returned from the living-room.

‘Have you really got to go now, love?’ she asked.

‘I’m afraid so,’ I replied and I moved across the room to hold Mom tightly. ‘Don’t worry,’ I whispered, ‘everything’s going to be all right.’

Although I had no way of knowing if what I said was true, settling my family’s nerves seemed to compensate to an extent the guilt I felt from not travelling with them to Scotland.

I said goodbye to my father and, as usual, his reply took the form of a couple of grunts aimed in my direction from the armchair in which he remained firmly seated.

10

I awoke next morning to find that the heat seemed to have increased yet again through the dark hours of the night. Although I had neither the time or the inclination to try and prove such a theory, I felt sure that if I’d cracked an egg on the pavement it would have fried within moments. I was sorely tempted to stop at home but I knew that, as office manager, I should make the effort to go into work. If it got any warmer though, I thought, there would be no way that I’d even think about going into the office and shutting myself away indoors.

When I arrived at the building only Robert and Carol were there. Robert held a door key and Carol lived only five minutes’ walk away from the office so I had expected to see them both there. Three of the remaining staff, however, had already called in sick and two more were much later arriving than usual. Thankfully, the office was quiet again and I had an empty diary. Outside the streets were a little busier than they had been as people were forced to come out of the shade to take care of the jobs which they had put off over the last few days.

I sat alone in my room and listened to the muffled sounds of the office. The mechanical whirring of an electric fan was the only constant noise and the relative quiet was a marked contrast to the usual deafening melee which I normally had to endure. I opened the window as wide as possible and dragged the swivel chair over towards it. I rested my feet on the windowsill and, once settled, angled the fan so that it pointed my way and I could relax in the cool breeze.

For once, for the first time in months, my desk really was clear of work and I had no qualms about taking things easy. All that I could think about, however, was Mom, Dad and Michelle and I wondered if they had made it safely to Uncle George’s. I hoped that it would be a little cooler up there. Dad could be grumpy at the best of times but I had never seen him in quite the state which he had worked himself into last night. I tried not to think about what might happen to him if he was unable to find relief from the relentless conditions outside.

With my feet up on the window ledge and the cooling wind from the noisy fan blowing into my face, I began to drift off to sleep. Suddenly the phone rang and its unexpected clattering shattered the peaceful quiet. Fortunately it was not a customer calling, it was Rebecca.

‘Hi, Steve. How are you?’ she asked, sounding annoyingly vibrant and cheerful.

‘Hot!’ I replied. ‘What about you?’

‘Just the same. It couldn’t get any warmer if it tried, I’m sure of it.’

Rebecca sounded relaxed and well. I asked her where she was calling from.

‘I’m at home.’ she said. ‘I just couldn’t face the thought of going into work this morning.’

‘I know what you mean. I thought about stopping at home too but as I’m supposed to be in charge here …’

‘The responsibilities of office, eh?’ Becky joked. She was quiet for a moment before speaking again. ‘I saw Mark yesterday.’

‘I saw him on Monday,’ I said. ‘We went out for a drink.’

‘Yes I know, he told me all about it.’

A short, knowing silence followed and the purpose of Rebecca’s call revealed itself - she was sniffing out gossip.

‘Who’s this girl then?’ she asked.

I felt strangely awkward telling Rebecca about Sam. As a rule, we usually shared all our secrets, keeping nothing back from each other, and we had discussed my lack of romance on more than one occasion. Now that I had found someone though, things felt different. I hoped that it would not change our relationship and could see no reason why it should. Ruthlessly and relentlessly, Rebecca pushed me for more information.

‘She’s called Samantha,’ I began, ‘and she’s…’ I paused as I struggled to find the words that would effectively describe what she was beginning to mean to me. ‘Well, she’s just about the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time.’

Thankfully, Becky seemed pleased for me and was keen to meet Sam. Within a few minutes she was making plans for Samantha and me to visit her or to go out for a meal with her and Richard I skirted around the invitation with a subtle decorum - although it sounded like a good idea, I had not yet been out on my own with Sam and that was something that needed to be corrected before I started making plans for us to socialise with other people.

Rebecca stayed on the line for the best part of half an hour. I was glad of the interruption and I got the impression that she was pleased to be able to speak to someone else for a while. Richard only meant well for her, but it sounded as if he had almost confined her to their house until the conditions outside eased. I accepted that it was probably for the best, but could easily understand her frustration at having to constantly stare at the same four walls. She was going stir crazy.

There was a knock at the door and Carol’s face appeared, I cupped my hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone and looked up.

‘Sorry to interrupt you, Steve,’ she squeaked in her timid, mousy voice. ‘There’s a Miss Clewes here to see you.’

The name failed to ring any bells.

‘Miss who?’ I asked and Carol stepped into the room so that she could not be heard in the office outside.

‘Head Office,’ she whispered and my heart sank.

‘I’m sorry Becky,’ I said, taking my hand away from the phone. ‘I’ve got to go, something’s come up.’

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll speak to you soon.’

‘I’ll call you later,’ I said and I hung up. I quickly stood and tidied the office as best I could. I moved the chair back under the desk, hid the electric fan and straightened my tie. Miss Clewes suddenly appeared in the doorway.

‘Mr Johnson,’ she said, walking quickly towards me.

‘Good morning,’ I replied ‘This is an unexpected pleasure.’ I shook her outstretched hand and she almost crushed mine with a grip of immense vicelike force. Surprised, I offered her a seat and she sat down.

‘My visit is unexpected, Mr Johnson,’ she began in an official and oppressive tone, ‘but I do not expect that it will be a pleasure. I’m from the company audit department.’

My legs weakened and I fell heavily into my seat Miss Clewes stared directly at me with an unflinching expression fixed on her face.

‘As you know, the company employs my colleagues and me to make these random spot checks on our branches and to ensure that everything is in order. You will be required to offer me every assistance and to comply with my every request. The audit will take between three and four days to complete and my findings will remain confidential to myself and my superiors until I am sure that all of my investigations have been completed.’

It took a couple of seconds for me to fully comprehend and digest all that she had said (although it was, in all probability, a standard and well-prepared speech) and then I was only able to acknowledge her with a dumb nod.

Miss Clewes was a formidable character. Well-built and white-haired, she looked to be in her mid to late fifties. She was dressed in a smart business suit and her wispy hair was pulled strictly and severely away from her face into a tight bun. With no jewellery, perfume or make-up, she was an imposing sight and, in the sweltering heat gave off an imposing smell as she refused to take off her jacket. She brought the air of a harsh, old-fashioned school headmistress with her into my unprepared office.

‘Are you able to answer any questions?’ I asked. ‘Can I ask you anything about the audit?’

She thought for a moment, obviously searching through the standard replies to questions that the company had forced her to memorise during training.

‘As I said, Mr Johnson, I will be unable to discuss my findings until all my work here is finished. If you have any other questions, I will listen and will answer them if they merit my response.’

Throughout her reply and through all that she had already said to me, the tone of her voice did not alter in the slightest. Her words sounded false, rehearsed and lacking in spontaneity - she was the archetypal company employee. I decided to risk her wrath and ask another question.

‘Is my branch being inspected for any particular reason, or is this just a routine visit?’

It was a question that needed to be addressed. In the short time that Miss Clewes had been in my office, worries and doubts about my recent performance had flooded my mind and I needed to know whether it was me or the branch that was being scrutinised. Once again, she paused to find the correct answer before replying.

‘There are several branches being audited in this region. This is not the only one.’

Although her answer was, I presumed, deliberately ambiguous, it eased my mind a little. I had thought for one terrified moment that rumours had spread around the area that I was seeing one of my customers and that those same rumours had managed to find their way into the ever-listening ears of my superiors at head office.

‘As I’ve said,’ Miss Clewes continued, ‘the audit should last for only a few days. You will be involved little but I will need the full co-operation of both you and your staff to obtain for me all the documentation and data that I might require.’

She began to explain the actual areas of the office’s work which were to be examined but I was not really listening. My mind had begun to wander and I found myself staring out of the open window into the deep, clear blue sky and towards the huge, incandescent sun which continued to burn down relentlessly. As she rambled on, uninterrupted, I thought of my friend Mark outside playing games with his students and of Rebecca sitting at home in comfort. I thought of my family, miles away by the sea and then, finally, I thought of Samantha. I knew that I had to get myself out of this job. It was killing me.

Miss Clewes finished her briefing by explaining that she would need privacy to do her work and, as my room was the quietest part of the office, that she would be commandeering it for the duration of her visit. Depressed, annoyed and incredibly hot, I collected my belongings and took them out to a spare desk in the general office. I dumped them angrily down and, ignoring the stares which came from what remained of my staff, tried to find something to do. I knew that the next few days would be far from easy.

The rest of the day was agonisingly long and drawn out. In an unpredictable contrast with the rest of the week, the office suddenly became very busy. It had nothing to do with the customers (none of whom seemed to want anything to do with us at the moment) but had everything to do with the extremely demanding inspector who had graced us with her presence. Her constant requests for information and explanations took every spare second of mine, and of everybody else’s time.

The five members of staff who had eventually arrived for work. Miss Clewes and I finally left the office at just before five-thirty.

11

I arrived home in the rapidly fading light to find my two elderly next-door neighbours, Mr and Mrs Coombes, relaxing on their dry, parched front lawn in a pair of equally elderly deckchairs. I pulled slowly onto the drive, keen not to accelerate the car’s engine more than was necessary for fear of waking Mr Coombes from his slumber. I stopped the car, got out and closed the door with the minimum of force. I thought that I had succeeded in not disturbing Mr Coombes and tiptoed towards the house. Despite my considerable and determined efforts, I looked back over my shoulder to see his round, grinning face peering at me from over the hedge which ran between our properties.

‘Evening, Mr Coombes,’ I said, forcing myself to be polite and to sound cheerful and pleased to see the irritating little man. ‘Are you both well?’

As I spoke I slowly walked towards my front door, trying desperately not to get drawn and trapped in an inane conversation with my neighbour. He nodded and disappeared. For a moment I thought that I had escaped but my heart sank as he appeared at the end of the hedge and started to walk down the driveway towards me.

‘What about this weather then?’ he shouted in his annoyingly high-pitched voice. Although he always denied it, Mr Coombes was becoming slightly deaf and seemed to prefer yelling to talking these days.

‘I know. It’s incredible, isn’t it?’ I replied, cheerfully.

Mr Coombes cupped his hand to his ear and I repeated my words until he managed to decipher them. I supposed that, as he spent nearly all of his time at home with his wife, he hadn’t had much chance to discuss the weather with anyone else. The subject had by now long ceased to be an interesting topic of conversation with the people I was forced to mix with each day but, for his sake, I bravely pursued the theme to save hurting the old boy’s feelings.

‘It’s absolutely unbelievable, isn’t it?’ I shouted. ‘I mean, it’ll be November in a few days time!’

Mr Coombes nodded and then signalled that he hadn’t quite made out what I had said. Rather than repeat myself again, I asked a completely different question.

‘How are you two coping with the heat?’

‘I’m all right,’ he said, wiping away a bead of sweat which suddenly dribbled and trickled down his wrinkled forehead. ‘Mrs Coombes doesn’t like it though. It’s only now that the sun’s gone in that we’ve been able to come outside. We spend most of the days indoors - it’s a lot cooler in the house.’

I could not help feeling a little jealous of them having the option of being inside or out each day - my choice was made for me. Mr Coombes’ attitude was in stark contrast to the other old man that I had met in the park a little over a week ago. While he had decided to come out and pester innocent people with his dark tales and prophecies of gloom and destruction, my neighbour seemed content to do the decent thing and stay in his home, out of sight and out of mind. The man in the park had seemed convinced that the heat was the beginning of something serious and sinister while Mr Coombes and his wife were happy just to sit back and make the most of the scorching temperatures while they could. It was depressing to think that I might one day be like these people - I did not know which one I would least prefer to be.

Mr Coombes wiped his dry mouth with his hand and took a step towards the hedge to check on his sleeping wife. As he watched, she shuffled uncomfortably in her chair, opened her mouth wide, yawned and began to snore loudly. He laughed.

‘That’s my girl,’ he said, chuckling heartily to himself. ‘She could sleep through anything that one.’

As we appeared to have reached a lull in the stilted, staccato conversation, I made another vain and desperate attempt to get away. Mr Coombes was one step ahead of me and he seemed determined to prolong my agony.

‘Playing havoc with the garden, this weather,’ he shouted.

‘I can imagine,’ I said and I noticed the old man looking less than favourably at my little plot of land. ‘I don’t have much time to get out into the garden these days,’ I continued.

If the truth be known, I had no intention of working outside. The sum total of my outdoor activities last year had been mowing the lawn three times and sunbathing four and the reason that Mr Coombes looked at my garden so disapprovingly was that, in the last few weeks of the summer which had just passed, I had removed the turf and had the whole of my front lawn covered with a thick layer of tarmac. It had been a move that had not been welcomed next door.

He put his hands on his hips and stretched his back.

‘These are strange days,’ he said, unexpectedly and I, thinking that he was about to broach the increasingly popular topic of the end of the world, interrupted.

‘Do you think there’s long left?’ I asked simply.

‘Long left for what?’ Mr Coombes said and he looked at me with a bewildered expression plastered across his wrinkled face.

‘You know,’ I continued, wishing that I hadn’t said anything, ‘long left for the world.’

There was a dreadful moment’s silence before the old man’s face cracked into a long, wide grin and a loud, embarrassing laugh (which I felt sure could be heard from both ends of the street) floated out from his dark, toothless mouth. With tears rolling down his face, he staggered backwards, wheezing and pointing in my direction. To my great relief, the phone began to ring inside the house.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to go.’ I rushed towards the front door, feeling my face quickly reddening.

I fumbled with the key in the lock as I hurried to get inside and answer the call. I burst into the house, tripped over a recently delivered newspaper which lay just in front of the door and dived across the hallway to pick up the phone.

‘Hello,’ I said, breathlessly.

‘You took your time!’ replied a sarcastic and unmistakable voice. I kicked the door closed with an outstretched foot and sat down on the carpet to speak to Samantha. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

It was good to hear her voice again. Despite the effects of the horrendous day which I had just endured and my public humiliation outside the house seconds earlier, everything suddenly seemed all right.

‘I’m better now I’ve spoken to you,’ I replied. ‘How’s your day been?’

‘Not too bad.’ Sam sighed. ‘Not as good as yesterday though. I could really have done with having you around.’

‘I wish I could have been around,’ I replied. ‘Mind you, it was a good job that we had lunch yesterday. We were invaded by bloody company inspectors this afternoon.’

‘Shit, really?’ she said, sounding surprised. ‘Why? What’s brought that on?’

‘I’ve been told that it’s just a random visit, but I’m not really convinced that’s true.’

‘Have you done anything wrong?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘Well then,’ she laughed, ‘there’s no need to worry, is there?’

‘I suppose not,’ I mumbled, far from sure. Sam was quiet for a moment.

‘What if they find out about us?’ she asked. ‘It won’t look too good if your bosses find out that you’re seeing a customer, will it?’

‘I don’t really care,’ I replied without really stopping to consider my answer. ‘I must confess though, I had started to think along those lines when she first arrived but…’

‘…but what?’ she interrupted as I paused for thought.

‘…but I don’t care. There are things in life which are a lot more important than any stupid job.’

‘Like me?’ Sam asked.

‘Like you,’ I replied truthfully. ‘Are you still all right to go out tomorrow night?’

‘Of course I am,’ she said. ‘Christ, you don’t think I’d miss out on that, do you?’

‘Well no, I suppose not. Besides, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as good if you weren’t there.’

‘You’d just have to find someone else to take out, wouldn’t you?’ she joked.

‘I could look around for years, Sam, and I still wouldn’t find anyone I’d rather go out with.’

She was quiet for a moment and I had to check that she was still on the other end of the line.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked.

‘I’m okay,’ she replied quietly, her tone suddenly more serious and subdued. ‘It’s just that I’ve had some bad news today.’

My heart stopped beating for a moment and my legs weakened as I braced myself for Sam’s news. I had been beginning to think that things had been going rather too well for me recently and I had been waiting for something to go wrong. Perhaps this was it, I thought, perhaps she was about to unleash a horde of skeletons from inside a previously unmentioned closet.

‘My grandmother’s ill,’ she said, simply.

Although I tried not to appear callous or uncaring, I could not help but breath a loud sigh of relief that the news had not been worse. I hoped that Sam hadn’t heard me.

‘Mom and Dad have asked me to go with them and look after her for a while. We’re going up in the next couple of days.’

I had to summon the courage to ask my next questions.

‘Where does she live? Is it far from here?’

‘Miles away,’ she said, sadly. ‘She’s up on the north-west coast. It’s a little village called Colliwell. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it.’

I hadn’t and it might as well have been on another planet. All that I could think was that Sam was going to be taken away from me and my bad feelings were compounded by the guilt that I felt from caring more about our blossoming relationship than for her grandmother’s health.

‘Have you really got to go?’ I asked, trying hard not to sound as if I was pleading with her to stay.

‘I have. I don’t want to but I’ve got no choice. I owe it to Mom and Dad.’

‘I know,’ I said, accepting the inevitable. ‘I know what you mean. My folks have gone up to visit relatives in Scotland today.’

‘And are you going to go up to them?’

‘I said I might but it’s a hell of a distance.’ Sam was quiet for a moment. ‘Come up with us,’ she said.

My immediate instinct was to accept her invitation without question. I knew, however, that the decision was not as clear-cut as it first appeared to be.

‘Would your parents really want me hanging around?’ I asked.

‘That’s up to them,’ she replied with a tone of quiet defiance creeping into her voice. ‘I want you with me.’

I knew at that moment that I would have done anything to have been with Samantha. My head was filled with stupid romantic images and ideas of fighting my way through unknown, crowded streets and towns to be with the woman that I was rapidly falling in love with. I also knew at that same moment that I had responsibilities to my family and employers that I wanted to ignore but could not.

‘When are you going?’ I asked, praying that it would not be for a while yet.

‘I think Dad wants us to go up the day after tomorrow.’

‘That soon?’ I said. My heart sank heavily.

‘Gran’s pretty ill. She needs us there.’

‘Will you still be all right to go out tomorrow night?’ I asked and I regretted the words as soon as I had spoken them. I felt incredibly guilty at placing so much importance on a night out with Sam when her family needed her much more than I did. ‘Will you be all right to travel after a night out?’ I added quickly as an afterthought.

‘Of course I will,’ she said softly. ‘It’s only the thought of seeing you that’s keeping me going. Nothing’s going to stop us from having a good time tomorrow.’

‘All right,’ I said, feeling slightly happier. ‘I’ll pick you up at about seven and we’ll go and have the best night ever. It might be too hot, and it might not last for as long as we’d like, but I’m going to make sure that it’s fantastic.’ I paused for a moment. ‘Well, if you’re there it’ll be fantastic anyway.’

I could not help telling Samantha exactly how I felt and, to my delight, she seemed to feel the same way about me. I remembered that we had only been together for a short time but it seemed to make no difference. She meant so much to me. I could not believe that such a perfect, beautiful girl could fall for a man like me and I prayed that our time together would never end.

‘I’ve got to go,’ Sam said. ‘I’ll speak to you before tomorrow night, all right?’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’m counting the hours. See you.’

I put down the phone and, for a while, did nothing but sit still on the floor, slumped against the wall. All that I needed to do was picture Sam’s face in my mind for all the problems of work and the torments of the searing conditions outside to pale into insignificance. I felt sure that, if Sam was by my side, I could get through anything that the vicious world could throw at me.

I eventually finished dreaming by the phone, got up and went into the kitchen Although I wasn’t really hungry, as it was getting late I instinctively made myself something to eat. I piled a plate high with sandwiches made from cool meat and salad, fresh from the fridge, but I wasn’t able to take even one bite from the mountain of food. Guiltily, I threw the meal away and skulked into the living-room with only a crumpled newspaper and a cold can of beer for company.

I could not decide how I felt - half of me was still on a high after speaking to Samantha while the other half was filling rapidly with doubts and fears. Was I about to lose Sam as quickly as I had found her? Had my family arrived safely in Scotland yet? What was the real reason for the arrival of the inspector at the office today? When I opened the newspaper, the darker, depressive side of me began to take a firm hold.

My daily paper was a local rag whose reporting style seemed to fall uncomfortably between the trashy tabloids and the wordy broadsheets. Tonight it was full of reports which, despite the heat outside, made my blood freeze. The front page of the paper was usually plastered with attention-grabbing, sensationalist headlines and only occasionally would these make way for serious, factual information. Tonight’s edition was one of those rare occasions. For once, however, there were no reports of wars, of deaths or of disasters in the normal sense of the word. Instead, the lead story told a much grimmer tale. Scientists appeared to have confirmed that the planet’s situation had begun to deteriorate drastically and that it still showed no immediate signs of easing or improving. They claimed that if the temperature continued to increase at the same rate as it had done over the last few days and weeks, dangerous and then deadly levels of heat would be reached in the very near future. Already people had begun to die in the hotter climates of the world and all the evidence available appeared to suggest that this devastation would quickly spread around the rest of the globe.

With a strange mixture of terror and morbid fascination, I read and reread every word of the article many times and, even then, it was hard to believe and absorb all that it said. My immediate fears gradually subsided, however, only to be quickly overtaken by an uneasy sense of helplessness. I felt angry and frustrated about the fact that, if the temperature really was going to reach life-threatening levels soon, there was nothing I, or anyone else, could do to stop it from happening. Having what little control which remained over my own destiny ripped from my hands without the slightest warning was a sickening and gut-wrenching feeling.

Later on the television, a news reporter did her best to calm a nation that sat on the edge of their collective seats, hanging on her every last word. Although she was as powerless as the rest of us to do anything, she seemed determined to try and convince her viewers that the conditions could just as easily improve as they could worsen. I thanked her mentally on behalf of the rest of the population for her assurances, but her hollow words held little comfort for me or, I presumed, for anyone else. She warned that further energy pulses were expected soon and that we should go indoors or get under cover when they struck. Her tone of factual concern was reminiscent of 1950s cold war propaganda films and, as in those same films, she gave advice on how to survive. Her words fell on deaf ears as I knew that, if things finally did reach such a desperate stage, no-one could have any idea of what we might find when we finally crawled out of our protective shelters.

Looking around my little home, I felt low and alone. I wished with all my heart that I could be with my family and I dreamed of seeing their faces again. I knew, however, that they were hundreds of miles away and the geographical gulf which lay between us compounded my pain. Although I wanted desperately to be with them, I also soon realised that I didn’t want to be anywhere without Samantha at my side.

In a surprisingly short length of time, I had managed to begin to accept the fact that the planet could be entering its final days and that there was nothing I could do to stop the destruction - it was inevitable. I knew that the pain I would feel at the end would be halved if Sam was with me. The thought of her made the fear seep away.

12

As I had expected, the next morning at the office was deathly quiet and seemed to take an eternity to pass. Despite the fact that only one customer walked through the office doors before midday, every moment of mine and my staff’s time was taken up with running around to satisfy the relentless requests and orders of Miss Clewes, the inspector. With a complete and utter disregard for our own important daily duties and routines, she constantly demanded that we take paperwork, files, computer disks and anything else she required into the office which had once been mine but which she had quickly made her own. Our troubles were compounded by the fact that less than half of my staff had bothered to turn up for work. As well as making more work for the rest of us, their absence said little for my management of the office.

When Robert and I had arrived to open up the building at half past eight. Miss Clewes had been waiting on the doorstep and, from the moment she had stepped into the building, she had worked constantly and without pausing for a moment until one o’clock when she stopped regimentally for a precise hour’s lunch. As soon as she left the office, the heavy, suffocating and authoritarian atmosphere which she carried with her followed and, as the staff relaxed, I crept back into my room to call Samantha.

I stood at the open window and looked down onto a much busier street scene than I had seen over the last few days. Snaking queues sneaked out from the covered doorways of supermarkets and grocers’ shops while other stores lay vacant and empty. Yesterday’s news appeared to have shocked a population who seemed now to be stocking up their larders and cupboards ready to stay in the shade and protection of their homes until things either improved or ended.

I hoped that my family were secure in the company of Uncle George and his wife. Mom had telephoned late the previous evening to let me know that they had arrived there safely and that they hoped I would soon be able to join them. As I looked out at the increasing confusion below I saw that hot, frightened and frustrated shoppers had begun to shuffle and scuffle in a supermarket queue. I knew that if things continued to develop as I feared that they might, then I would be making plans to leave the stifling city at the earliest opportunity.

I searched for the number of Samantha’s shop in my records and dialled. The phone rang constantly for about half a minute but there was no answer. I hung up and tried again but still could get no reply. The line connected and the phone rang out but there was no-one there to pick it up. I tried her home number and hoped that someone there would answer. I sat on the edge of my desk and nervously waited. A dark fear grew with each passing ring that Samantha might already have left for her grandmother’s house. I was relieved when the phone was finally picked up.

‘Hello,’ a quiet voice said.

‘Can I speak to Samantha please?’ I asked and I then heard the thump of the phone being put down while Sam’s mother (I presumed that was who had answered) went to find her daughter. In the background I heard a muffled conversation taking place before footsteps approached the phone and the receiver was picked up again.

‘Hello,’ Sam said.

‘Hi, it’s me. How are you doing?’

‘I’m okay,’ she said, relaxing. ‘What about you?’

‘I’m all right. It’s taken me ages to get through to you. I was starting to think that you might have gone to your gran’s early.’

‘There’s no way that I’d leave without letting you know first. I don’t want to go as it is.’ Sam’s voice trailed away into silence and I could tell that the thought of leaving was troubling her.

‘I tried the shop first,’ I said. ‘Should’ve realised that you’d stop at home today.’

‘It’s too hot to go out. Besides, I’ve got a lot to get ready here. Where are you calling from?’

‘I’ve had to go into work. With the inspector here I didn’t have a lot of choice but if things get any worse then I won’t be coming in tomorrow - it’s like an oven in here.’

‘Can we still go out tonight?’ she asked. I was surprised by her question but was pleased that she still wanted to see me.

‘Of course we can. Christ, it’s going to take a lot more than any heatwave to stop me having a good time. I don’t know what we’re going to do, but I’m really looking forward to it.’

‘We could go back to your house and sit around the fridge!’ Sam joked. I laughed and was pleased that she had still managed to keep her sense of humour despite the conditions outside.

‘Have you heard from your grandmother?’ I asked. I was almost too scared to ask but was desperate for information. ‘Are you still going up there?’

‘I’m afraid so. Dad’s dead set on going tomorrow.’

My heart sank.

‘We’d better make sure that we have a good time tonight then, hadn’t we?’ I asked cheerfully, trying hard to mask the bitter disappointment that I felt at having Sam taken away from me so soon. I had expected it to happen, but the confirmation of my fears made me feel ten times worse.

‘Come around at about seven,’ she said. ‘I really can’t wait to see you again.’

I knew just how she felt. Although it had been less than two days since we had last seen each other, and only a matter of hours since we had spoken, I was desperate to be by her side once more. As we chatted, I could not help but think about the relationship which I had become suddenly and hopelessly embroiled in. Weeks ago, I would have scoffed at the idea of falling in love with someone so quickly and so deeply but, today, I was forced to accept the fact that it had happened. Weeks ago, however, I would also have dismissed the possibility of the planet that I lived on burning up around me as well.

Miss Clewes surprised me at half-past three.

I knocked on the door of my office and went inside to find her packing her papers and folders away into her smart and practical leather briefcase. As I approached she snap-locked the case shut and laid it flat on the desk in front of her. Her face appeared tired and she looked ill.

‘Mr. Johnson,’ she said wearily. ‘I’m not well. I’m going to go home.’

For a moment I could think of nothing to say. From the second she had first appeared in my office, she had appeared to be almost inhuman and completely invulnerable to such trivial inconveniences as the stifling heat and illness. The Miss Clewes who stood in front of me now was different. She was a tired and worried woman.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I eventually said, remembering to reply to the best news that I had heard all day. ‘I hope it’s nothing serious.’

She shook her head slowly and gently touched her forehead with a trembling hand.

‘I’m sure it isn’t,’ she croaked before clearing her dry throat and speaking again. ‘I don’t think that I will be in tomorrow. In fact, I’ve spoken to my superiors and we have agreed that the rest of the audit will be postponed until the conditions improve. I’ll be in touch with you when I am ready to return.’

With that, Miss Clewes stood upright (she had been leaning uncharacteristically against the desk for support) and pulled her heavy, formal skirt straight. She picked up her case, draped her jacket over her arm and breezed past me out of the room and then out of the office altogether. Once I was sure that I had heard the sound of the front door being closed, I allowed myself to relax.

The phone on the desk began to ring and I picked it up quickly.

‘Steven Johnson,’ I said, automatically and officially.

‘Hello, Steven, it’s Keith Etheridge here.’ Keith was the manager of a nearby branch of the company and had been a colleague of mine for a number of years. ‘I’ve got some good news for you mate!’

I couldn’t cope with two lots of unexpected good news in an many minutes standing up and sat quickly down in my chair in my newly reclaimed office.

‘I’ve just had a communication from head office to be circulated around the branches. We’re shutting shop for the next few days until things improve.’

‘It’s about time,’ I said, relieved.

‘That’s what I thought. There’s no point in staying open. I mean, we’ve only had three members of staff come in today and that’s still two too many to serve the number of customers that have been in. This heat’s not doing anybody any good.’

I thanked Keith for delivering the company’s message and then spent at least ten minutes trying to get him off the telephone. Although he was a pleasant and amiable man, he liked to talk and all that I wanted to do was get out and go home. I eventually managed to get rid of him, claiming that I had to take another call. (Keith was, in fact, the only person to have telephoned the office all day.)

I walked out into the main office relaxed and, more importantly, glad to finally have some good news for the staff. Despite the fact that the situation must have been really grave for the company to have taken the drastic step of closing all of its branches, I was pleased that it had been left to me to tell the employees in my charge. I normally only seemed to talk to them to tell them off when something had gone wrong or to ask them to do a job for me and I was glad that, for once, I was to be the bearer of glad tidings.

My news was met with a typically disappointing and apathetic reaction from the four staff that were still in the building and, without stopping to even ask me any questions or query the company’s decision in the slightest, they trooped past me, out of the door and were quickly on their way home.

Once again, I was left to lock up the building with my ever-present and ever-complaining assistant Robert who stumbled around the office looking more and more exhausted with each minute that passed.

‘It’s about bloody time the company saw sense,’ he grumbled. Instead of pursuing the conversation, this time it was my turn to act dumb in an attempt to get out as quickly as possible.

We stepped out into the fading evening light and found that the streets were silent. The frenzied activity of earlier in the day had disappeared and nearly all of the shops were locked, bolted and had their metal shutters drawn for the night.

13

Seven o’clock soon arrived and I found myself pulling up in the car outside Sam’s house feeling unusually apprehensive and nervous. I walked up to the front door, took a deep breath and then rang the bell. Mrs Hill answered and invited me inside.

‘It’s Steven isn’t it?’ she asked as I wiped my feet on the mat and went indoors.

‘That’s right,’ I replied. ‘It’s nice to see you again. How are you?’

‘Oh, I’m very well thank you. I’ll be glad when this weather eases though.’

I tried hard to feign my interest in yet another conversation about the weather. Even when it behaved and acted according to tradition and record, the weather seemed to be the mainstay of any conversation between strangers and, now that it was doing something which actually merited the interest in it, the topic seemed to have worked its way into every conversation that I recently heard or had been a part of.

‘How’s Samantha’s grandmother?’ I asked. I was deliberately vague as I was not sure which one of her parent’s mothers was ill.

‘Mom’s not too bad. She’ll be better when we get up there to her. Sam tells me that your parents have gone away.’

‘Yes, they’ve gone up to Scotland . They’re staying with relatives of ours up there.’

‘I always think a family should stick together,’ Samantha’s mother said and her words struck a guilty chord within me. I knew that, as I would not be going into the office for a couple of days, I should really have made the effort to go straight up to my uncle’s house.

Through a doorway I spotted Samantha’s father sitting next to an open patio window and reading a newspaper which was being fluttered and blown by a gentle breeze which gusted into the house. My arrival had obviously not interested him and I thought it best that I did not disturb him. Mrs Hill continued to extol the virtues of family life and I was glad when I heard the sound of a door shutting upstairs and Samantha came bounding down the stairs towards me.

‘Hi, Steve,’ she said, cheerfully and I watched her as she approached. She wore a light cotton dress which swirled invitingly around her and her long blond hair cascaded down around her delicate, pretty face. She smiled as I looked at her and I felt myself melt in front of her. She breezed past me, pausing only to kiss her mother on the cheek, and went into the living-room towards where her father sat. I watched as she picked up her handbag from a table next to him and kissed him.

‘Night, Dad,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you later.’

‘Don’t be out late,’ he snapped gruffly, without lifting his head from the paper. ‘We’ve got a busy day tomorrow and you’ve got a lot of travelling ahead of you.’

Sam walked out of the room and looked first at her mother and then at me. She seemed slightly embarrassed by her ignorant father and I took his lack of communication with me as a sign that I was not welcome.

‘Are you ready?’ I asked, suddenly keen to leave. Sam nodded and we made our way to the car.

‘See you later, Mom,’ she said as her mother waited in the light of the doorway and watched us drive away.

‘Is your dad always like that?’ I asked, trying carefully not to offend her.

‘Yes!’ she replied, laughing. ‘I think he’s a bit like your old man - the heat’s getting to him but he’s too proud to say anything.’

I drove the car down the hot and quiet road and switched on the radio. Before I could hear what station was on, Sam slammed a cassette into the front of the machine.

‘I was about to do that,’ I said.

‘Sorry. I just couldn’t stand listening to the radio. All that I’ve heard recently is how bad things are getting. I want to try and forget all of that for a while tonight.’

‘I know. Where do you want to go?’ I asked, suddenly realising that I hadn’t a clue where we were heading.

‘I don’t know,’ Sam replied, shrugging her shoulders. ‘We could head into town for a little while, have a couple of drinks and then see what we feel like doing afterwards.’

‘Okay,’ I said and I took a turning which aimed the car towards the city centre.

For various reasons, I had hardly been out over the last few nights and the quiet of the suburbs came as something of a surprise. It was only when we drove deeper into town that we saw many other people at all. I cruised the back streets searching for somewhere to stop, but could find nowhere and so headed for the main shopping area.

As we drove down a dark, dimly lit road, the cassette finished playing in the stereo and Sam switched it off.

‘This feels strange,’ she said, suddenly. Although her comment had been unexpected, I knew exactly what she meant. There was an unusual, almost oppressive atmosphere in the town.

‘I know. I’m not sure what it is, it’s just that…’

My words were interrupted by the crashing noise which accompanied a huge road bollard being thrown with force through a shop window. I looked across the street to see the various members of a large gang scrambling through shards of broken, shattered glass and through the remains of a virtually demolished shop display. They ran back into the open and were distracted momentarily by the light and noise from my car. They turned and stared for a second before running away into the shadows of the night.

I looked across at Samantha and she returned my expression of surprise and disbelief.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

I could not tell her.

‘I don’t know,’ I replied, staring at the wreckage of the shop that the looters had left. ‘There’ll be police around here soon. We’d better go.’

I turned the car around in the middle of the road and drove back in the direction from which we had just come. I took another junction which led onto the main high street but stopped when I saw other cars being driven along at incredible speeds, trying to avoid missiles which were being hurled from gangs gathered on either side of the street. Although we saw only a small area of the city, and we were there for only a short time, I needed no other encouragement to drive quickly away and back towards the suburbs. I glanced over at Samantha and saw that her face was pressed hard against the window. She seemed to be having as much difficulty as I was in comprehending the sudden senseless and unexpected violence that we were seeing.

At the outskirts of the town we found relative peace again and I tried to make some sense of the anger that I had just witnessed. The news that we had heard last night had obviously frightened everyone and although most people were able to control their worries and fears, there remained some who could not. It appeared that all their frustrations had been too much to keep bottled up inside. I had expected people to react badly to the terrible news, but never to the extent that we had just seen.

For a while we sat silent in the car, both unable to think of anything to say to the other.

‘Just keep driving,’ Sam said eventually as we approached the area near to where she lived. ‘Just keep driving until you find somewhere where we can stop and talk.’

14

Fifteen minutes quickly passed and the plastic and concrete of the city soon gave way to the brittle, scorched greenery of the moisture-starved countryside. We drove down a narrow, rough country lane and, as we approached a lay-by, I pulled in and stopped the car. For a moment we sat quietly together, subdued by what we had seen and had left behind in the city.

‘What’s going on?’ Samantha asked. I felt sure that she knew I could not answer her. ‘I mean,’ she continued, ‘we only drove into a part of the city, imagine what it’s like…’

‘It’s not worth thinking about,’ I interrupted. ‘It’s just what we’re all feeling. We’re both worried but we’re able to control ourselves and not do anything…’

I shut up quickly as I realised that my meaningless words were helping no-one. Sam opened the car door and turned around on the seat so that her feet dangled outside. She breathed the warm night air in deeply and I watched her as she stood up and walked away. It was obvious that she was frightened and that she was trying to hide her fear from me. In reality I was equally scared and could offer frustratingly little comfort.

I climbed out of the car and followed Samantha as she walked towards the brittle, dying hedgerow which separated the road from the fields beyond. I put my arm gently around her and held her close to me. Despite the raging heat that suffocated everything around us, the warmth of her body next to mine was soothing and almost cooling. I turned her around so that she was looking towards me and looked deep into her troubled face. A single tear fell from her eye and trickled slowly down her perfect skin before she lifted her hand and wiped it away, ashamed at herself for having let her emotions show so readily.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Don’t cry. We’re going to be all right.’

My words sounded hollow and they echoed through the strange stillness of the silent countryside. Samantha forced herself to smile.

‘I’m okay,’ she said, sniffing back more tears. ‘It’s just that I know things are going to get worse before they get any better, and I don’t think I’ll be able to get through them without you.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I said, foolishly.

‘No, but I am. Christ, Steve, I’m scared to death.’

‘If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have lost control a long time ago,’ I whispered. ‘You’re the reason that I’ve managed to get through the last few days and if you think I’m ever going to let you go then you’ve got another think coming.’

‘Will you come with us tomorrow?’ she asked, hopefully. I knew that there was no way I could travel up to the coast with Sam and her family and, besides, there were things that I would need to sort out at home before I could leave.

‘I can’t,’ I said, sadly. ‘I won’t be able to leave in time in the morning.’

Perhaps I was just fooling myself. If I was brutally honest, there was nothing I needed to do at home or at the office which couldn’t wait. I desperately wanted to travel with Samantha, but I could not face the prospect of intruding on the privacy of her family at such an uncertain time. I knew that it was weak of me, and it was shallow, but there was nothing I could do that would change the way I felt.

‘As soon as you can then?’ she said and I nodded.

‘First chance I get and I’ll be coming straight to you.’

She smiled again, and I felt a little better.

‘Anyway,’ I continued, ‘let’s forget about tomorrow until it arrives. Let’s make the most of what we’ve got left tonight now that it’s here.’

I held Sam a little way away from me and looked deep into her mesmerising eyes, glinting with moisture in the low light of evening. Slowly, and with a strange trepidation, I moved my head towards hers and lightly kissed her soft lips.

Samantha took my hand and led me towards the hedge in front of us. We walked along the harsh and spiky border until we found a place where it thinned enough to allow us to clamber through into the field beyond. The parched grass was so dry that it crunched under my feet and the noise of our footsteps was the only sound that could be heard.

We walked a few yards into the field before Samantha stopped and turned around to face me once more. With a trembling hand she undid the top button of her dress before reaching out for me again. Again we kissed, more passionately than before and then, with excitement mounting, I began to undo the rest of her dress. Slowly at first, and then with desire accelerating us, we tore the clothes from each other’s bodies until we stood naked in the evening silence. I took her shoulders in my hands and pulled her gently to the ground. Samantha writhed with pleasure as I entered her and as the brittle, coarse grass tickled and played on her naked, exposed skin. Slowly, and with a passion the like of which neither of us had dared imagine before, we made love for what felt like hours. The world was silent save for our whispers and moans of pleasure which shattered the fragile peace. I could not begin to describe the pleasure that Samantha’s body brought to me in those moments.

After what had felt like a blissful eternity, I climbed from her and lay exhausted at her side. Holding each other tightly, we both floated away into a light, untroubled sleep.

I was woken with a sharp jolt to find Samantha frantically shaking my shoulder. She was fully dressed and, as I pulled myself up onto my elbows, I felt a familiar and immediately disturbing hot wind blowing into my face. I struggled to keep open my sleep-filled, tried eyes and squinted through the darkness to stare at a horizon which had begun to glow and, incredibly, to change colour.

Samantha knelt at my side and shook me continually until I was wide awake and sitting up. I fumbled on the ground beside me to find my trousers and shirt and pulled them on quickly. I held Sam close to me as we watched the entire sky change colour from dark purple to a bright orange which then melted into almost a brilliant vibrant yellow. The warm wind continued to blow and it made it difficult for me to watch with dry, stinging eyes. As the sky lightened further still, my skin began to prickle and it felt as if brilliant sunlight was scorching my face.

As it had done before, once the light had reached a brilliant crescendo of bright colour, it quickly began to mutate and dissolve back through the various shades and hues until its original tone was restored. The wind died down and I held Samantha tightly as we sat motionless, transfixed and confused. Although the last vestiges of sleep still slowed and dulled my tired brain, I knew at once that what we had just experienced was another energy pulse. I did not need to wait for scientific proof or official confirmation to tell me that this new wave had been stronger and had lasted far longer than any other that we had felt before.

My first and most immediate reaction was to try and find something strong and supportive to say to Samantha but, despite trying desperately to search for the words I needed in my head, nothing could overcome the feelings and fears which the energy pulse had given rise to. Instead we sat shaking in silence in the incredible heat.

‘Are you all right?’ I finally managed to ask, pulling Sam away so that I could get a clear look at her tear-streaked face. She nodded and I watched as more tears began to roll down from her stinging eyes. I began to cry too and held her tightly once more.

‘Come on,’ I whispered, my voice far from steady. ‘Let’s go home.’

‘I don’t want to go home,’ she sobbed. ‘If I go home then I’ll have to go away and I don’t want to go…’

‘I don’t want you to go,’ I said. I took a deep breath and, against my better judgement, told her that she had to go, that her family needed her to be with them. I stopped for a moment and, as I held Samantha’s shaking body close to mine, I could not help but think how hypocritical I sounded. My family needed me too, but I had stayed in the city rather than travel with them to Scotland . I wished that I could have gone with Sam in the morning and, if the truth be known, I probably could have. I felt awkward and uncomfortable attaching myself to her family when I had so selfishly abandoned my own and I was sure that her father would have had something to say about me hitching a ride with them all. To satisfy my feelings of guilt, I managed to convince myself that I needed to call into the office in the morning to check that everything was all right and I made a silent promise to travel up after Samantha later in the day before continuing north to be with my family again.

Sam pulled away from me, dried her eyes and stood up to leave the field. I pulled on my shoes and socks, finished dressing and watched her as she walked towards the gap in the fence to get back to the road. To see her in such a state was tearing me apart inside, but I did not know what I could do to ease her pain.

I walked back to the car, got inside and turned it around to drive her home. While it had not been quite the evening that either of us had expected or imagined, neither of us really minded. As we travelled along the dusty road in silence, my busy, racing brain helped me to come to two important realisations. Firstly, I admitted that I was in love with Samantha and that she meant more to me than any girl ever had before and, secondly, I realised with bitter sadness that the old man in the park last week had been right - the heat and the light really were the beginnings of something terrifying and unstoppable. The confusion seemed much clearer and easier to comprehend with Sam at my side and my heart sank at the thought of her leaving town.

I looked across at the beautiful girl next to me and wished that we could have met under different circumstances. Until she had walked into my office, I had scoffed at the idea of love at first sight but now, now that it had actually happened to me, I had been changed forever. I thought angrily about the time I had wasted alone when Sam had always been there and within easy reach and I knew at that moment that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, however long that proved to be. Inside I tried to laugh at the savage irony that my life had been subjected to but I could not - the pain I felt at the prospect of losing Samantha was tearing me apart.

As we neared her home Sam, who had been quiet and subdued for the whole of the journey, finally spoke.

‘Steve, are you sure that you can’t come with us tomorrow?’

I knew that I could but I felt sure that it would only cause unnecessary and unwanted trouble and friction. I also knew that I should be able to rise above such trivial things but, in the heat and confusion, I wasn’t so sure that they could easily be overcome.

‘Honestly, I can’t. Give me the morning to sort myself out and I’ll start out then. With a little luck I might be with you this time tomorrow.’

I wasn’t sure if that was true, but I knew that I would certainly do my best to try and reach her.

‘Have you got any paper?’ she asked and I leant across the car to search in the glove box for a scrap that she could use. I found an old pad and, taking the paper from me, Sam scribbled down her grandmother’s address and brief directions to find her house once I had managed to reach the village.

‘There you go,’ she said, beginning to smile again. ‘Now you’ve got no excuse!’

I was glad that she seemed a little happier.

‘I will come you know,’ I said, truthfully. I knew that there would be no way that I could sit alone in the city without knowing how Sam was.

‘Do you promise?’ she asked.

‘Cross my heart.’

I had made thousands of promises before but there had seldom been one that I intended to keep more than that. As I looked across at the girl sitting next to me and she smiled back, I vowed to do everything within my power to make sure that I was away from her for as short a time as possible.

‘You try and keep me away,’ I whispered.

I turned the car left off the main road and round onto the street where Samantha lived. Although neither of us said anything, I knew that we both wanted to keep driving and not to stop. Against my better judgement, however, I pulled the car up outside her house. It was a little after midnight and, in one of the windows on the top floor of the building, I could just make out the shadowy figure of Sam’s father waiting anxiously for his daughter’s return. Sam looked up and noticed him momentarily before turning back to face me and putting a reassuring hand on my arm.

‘He means well,’ she said, softly. ‘He’s just worried about me.’

‘I’m worried about you,’ I said, instinctively and honestly as my feelings rushed out like a dam that had suddenly burst its banks. ‘You’re on my mind all the time. Christ, whenever I’m away from you I can’t think about anything else.’

Sam shuffled towards me in her seat and held my arm tightly. She rested her head on my shoulder and, although I tried hard not to, for the second time that night I began to cry.

‘Shit,’ I said, trying desperately to hold back the tears and not upset Sam. ‘Our first real time together and I feel like I’ve spent most of the night grizzling.’

‘It shows you care,’ she whispered quietly.

‘I do. More than you could ever imagine.’

She kissed me softly and we held each other tightly. I knew, sadly, that it was time for us to part. Sam climbed out of the car and walked around to stand next to my open window.

‘I’ll call you as soon as we get to Gran’s,’ she said, sniffling back more tears. ‘It’ll be the first thing I do.’

‘It had better be,’ I said as I reached out and held her hand. ‘I’ll come up just as soon as I can.’

The front door of the house slowly opened and the pyjama-clad figure of Samantha’s father appeared on the driveway.

‘I’ve got to go,’ she said quietly and despondently. She leant into the car and we kissed again until her father suddenly appeared at her side to lead her indoors.

I sat in the car and watched as Sam walked towards the house and as she was quickly engulfed in the shadows and darkness of the building. Slowly and tearfully, I left her road and drove back towards my house.

I cared little about the collapsing city around me - all that I cared about at that moment was Samantha and until I was with her again I knew I would not rest.

15

Over the last few weeks I had been finding it difficult to get to sleep in the heat but that night, with the temperature having increased further still and the thought of losing Samantha in my mind almost constantly, it was proving impossible. I lay naked on my bed in the half-light, tossing and turning restlessly for what felt like hours. As the time approached three o’clock, I switched on the television set in the vain hope that the flickering light and noise from some inane late-night programme would help me to lose consciousness.

Of the four channels that I had access to on my set, three had closed down for the night. The one remaining station had nothing better to offer than a cheap, shabbily made discussion programme. Although the subject had originally been something else entirely, the members of the audience could not help themselves from continually referring to the incredible atmospheric conditions which I was trying unsuccessfully to forget. There seemed little point in watching the programme at first but I was steadily drawn in as I watched the audience fighting and squabbling amongst themselves. The host of the debate seemed intent on whipping the studio into an uncontrollable frenzy and he soon succeeded.

The theme of the programme seemed to have originally centred around changes to licensing hours and laws but, in the confusion, that had been quickly forgotten. Now two men stood face to face in the centre of a garish studio set, pointing accusing fingers and shouting incomprehensibly at each other. One of the men made a casual comment aimed at the other and his adversary quickly replied with a well-aimed right hook to the jaw. The first man lay stunned on the ground in front of a shocked audience for a moment before quickly jumping up and leaping onto his attacker. Within seconds, the easily provoked fighting had spread like an angry bushfire through a parched forest as grown men and women hurled flailing fists and spiteful words at each other. The terrified and the pacifists in the crowd followed the example of the show’s host as he dived off the set and ran for cover in the hidden depths of the television studio. Amazed, I watched for a few more seconds before reaching out and fumbling for the control to switch off the set.

I sat in the suddenly silent darkness and tried to comprehend what I had just seen. As the heat had dried out the unsuspecting world, so it also seemed to have drained all patience and understanding from a high percentage of the planet’s population. All it had taken was a single spark to set light to the whole of the television studio and I realised that it must have been similar emotions which had caused the violence we had seen in the city earlier.

The pointlessness of the violence made it a hundred times more frustrating - where was the sense in punching the man next to you when he had as little control over events as you yourself did? There was nothing that anybody could do and I saw little point in arguing over something which could not be proved or disproved until it was too late.

I lay back down on my warm and wet, sweat-soaked bed and pulled a single light sheet up over my body. My eyes slowly began to become accustomed to the low gloom again and I looked around my bedroom. Outside there was an almost constant soundtrack of muffled bangs, crashes and screams and, as I screwed my eyes tightly shut, I wondered if it would be worth waking up again in the morning.

I eventually managed to fall asleep for a while but even that brief respite was interrupted by a dream:

I was sitting at my kitchen table. It took a while for it to register that it was my kitchen as the room appeared to have changed so much. The walls were dirty, dusty and brown and empty cupboards and shelves hung wearily from the walls.

Dressed only in filthy cotton trousers and a pair of battered running shoes, I stood up and walked towards the sink. My throat was dry and I had an incredible thirst which I needed desperately to quench. The draining board was stacked high with soiled crockery and cutlery and was illuminated by a brilliant, almost incandescent light which flooded through the broken glass of the kitchen window.

I pushed a pile of plates to one side and managed to find a relatively clean glass. I held it up to the tap and turned the handle slowly. Stiff and resistant at first, the tap gradually began to turn and a hesitant trickle of brown water spilled out of the faucet. As quickly as it had begun, the water stopped flowing again and the plumbing of the house groaned loudly to let me know that it was as dry as the world outside.

Desperate to find something to drink, I walked towards the back door which creaked open as I approached, letting more brilliant light pour inside. I stepped outside and immediately had to shield my unprotected eyes from the blazing heat and light which flooded my senses. My exposed skin prickled and I could feel it quickly burn under the vicious rays of the raging sun.

The garden was as dead and dirty as the house from which I had just emerged and all that remained of my fish pond was a dry pit in the middle of the starved lawn. At the bottom of the pit, the rotting carcasses of my pet fish baked on the dried, cracked mud surface. The world was silent at first, but I slowly became aware of sounds of movement from the front of the building. I crept closer to the shadows of my home and stalked along its side to investigate the commotion.

The road in front of my house had become a single, uninterrupted queue of people. Shabbily dressed and slow moving, they stumbled in exhaustion together along the street like drops of water trickling down a drying stream. Occasionally, someone would fall to the ground but their plight would be ignored. The people behind them would step over their inconvenient bodies or, if they had enough energy, kick them to the side of the street like a piece of discarded rubbish. Save for the shuffling of hundreds of pairs of feet on the rough ground, the people were silent, suffering quietly as the sun’s evil rays burnt and charred their tender, exposed flesh.

Instinctively, and without realising what I was doing, I joined the queue. My arrival was unnoticed and unacknowledged and the pace of the walk was uncomfortable. The movements of the masses were slow and forced but no-one had the energy to move any faster. All around me, the people were as dishevelled, ragged and parched as me. They seemed to drag themselves along, shuffling their feet step by painful step, and most were unable even to lift their heads.

The line of people (which was between ten and fifteen bodies deep in places and which seemed neither to have a beginning or an end) stumbled towards the end of the road in which I lived. There, the queue joined a street which was unfamiliar and which I was sure I had never seen before. Relentlessly, I was swept onto the new road which seemed to be fed from all angles by queues similar to the one which I had become a part of. From every side poured thousands upon thousands of weary, slothful walkers who all headed in one mysterious direction. Despite the effort of the walk, I managed to lift my head for a moment and saw that the route I followed led directly into the dilapidated, burnt-out shell of a dead city.

About a mile ahead of me, huge, grey concrete towers stabbed the brilliant blue sky and I turned my head away once more as the radiant sun rose high above the tallest and most central of the skyscrapers. The sound of footsteps increased as hundreds of thousands of tired walkers converged on the ruined city. The noise reached a rumbling crescendo before being suddenly replaced by an empty silence.

The queue stopped moving. I did not notice the sudden change of pace until I had walked into the person in front of me and the person behind had collided with my back, but the lack of movement was definite and inexplicable. Slowly, and with a considerable amount of effort, I and millions of other people lifted our exhausted heads up to look towards the dusty, dead remains of the city.

My eyes burned with pain but it proved impossible to tear my attention away from the town and the sky above it. The buildings rose from the ground like the meat-stripped ribs of a rotting animal carcass. The crowd stood in stunned silence as, from its high commanding position, the sun began to burn brighter still, to glow with an unimaginable luminosity and then, finally, to light the whole sky with an agonising brilliance. A terrifying wind settled suddenly on the millions of people, blowing many off their feet and down onto the dry ground. Unmoved, I lifted my hand to shield my eyes from the brightness and screamed in agony as the world became white and the flesh was burnt away from my body.

It was five o’clock when I woke. The single sheet which I had pulled over my body in the night was soaked with sweat and the air in my poorly ventilated bedroom was close, warm and choking. Slowly in the darkness, I sat up and tried to settle myself after the shock of the nightmare dream which still burned clearly in my mind. After a few quiet, calming minutes had passed, I stood up and felt my way through the gloom to the bathroom. Once there I filled the sink with cool, clear water and held my face under the surface until I emerged free of sleep and having escaped completely from the confusion of the dream.

I dried my face with a soft towel and looked at myself in the mirror. In the harsh electric light I appeared almost unrecognisable and I had to rest against the bath for support. For the best part of an hour I stopped there, silent and shaking.

I eventually stumbled back to bed but there was little to be gained from staying there - the bed was wet and uncomfortable and I had virtually no chance of getting back to sleep again. Instead, I went downstairs and made a drink to ease the burning dryness of my throat. For a while I did little but wait for the morning sun to rise and watch it from the comfort of my armchair. I thought about switching on the television or the radio but I decided against it - I felt sure that I would only be subjected to more of the chaos I had already seen and heard or that I would be reminded of a normal world which was long gone but which I prayed would soon return.

At seven o’clock, I went back upstairs to wash and dress myself. I stood in front of the wardrobe and automatically reached for one of my work suits. I quickly replaced it and chose instead to put on a light pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I was tempted to collect a few things and head for Samantha’s house but I resisted the idea. Although I had used it as little more than a convenient excuse yesterday, there really were things at the office which I did need to collect. I decided to drive there quickly before getting ready to follow Sam later in the day.

Throughout the long, early hours of the morning, I was constantly haunted by the images from my dream. The most frightening aspect of the nightmare vision was the fact that, if the heat and energy pulses continued to increase as they had been doing, such a terrible fate might really await the world.

16

I set off for the city at around half past eight. Apart from the heat and the brilliant sunlight, everything seemed relatively normal as I got into the car and started the engine. The madness of last night seemed to have been confined to the city centre and the suburb in which I lived was peaceful and still. The first roads I travelled along were busy for the time of morning but not overly crowded. As I approached the nucleus of the town, however, the situation suddenly changed.

My normal route to the office was as quick and direct as I could possibly make it and it involved following quiet side streets until I reached a dual carriageway which led deep into the heart of the city. I had expected to find more vehicles on this main road but, when I finally reached it, the volume of traffic far exceeded even my wildest expectations. All four lanes (two running in either direction) were solid, unmoving lines of cars, vans and lorries. Horns blared and tempers frayed as the snaking queue of traffic baked in the unbearable early-morning heat.

By the time the full extent of the traffic jam had revealed itself to me, it was too late to avoid joining the back end of the queue. Reluctantly, I slowed down the car and pulled up a little way behind another. As the traffic appeared to have reached a complete standstill, I followed the example of other drivers around me and switched off my engine. There was little to do but sit and wait.

I looked across the road at the car parked next to me and its front seat passenger acknowledged me with a smile. After what I had seen last night in the city and on the television, I was suddenly wary of everyone else but the man seemed harmless enough. He looked over at me with a resigned expression on his face and shrugged his shoulders to show his frustration at the volume of traffic.

‘Don’t know what the world’s coming to, mate,’ he shouted across the gap between our cars. ‘Where are you heading?’

‘I’ve just got to collect some things from my office,’ I replied. I was not really in the right mood to make conversation but there was little that I could do to avoid speaking to the man. ‘I’m only going to be in there for a couple of minutes. If I’d known it was going to be this bad then I wouldn’t have bothered.’

‘Ain’t you listened to the news at all today?’ the man asked. I shook my head and looked puzzled. The man looked amazed. ‘Bloody hell, mate,’ he said, ‘you’re taking a hell of a chance.’

I looked back at him with a confused expression on my face. I had honestly expected the troubles we had seen last night to have faded away with the darkness. With hindsight, I knew that had been an incredibly naive view to have taken.

‘Put it this way, pal,’ the man continued, ‘you ain’t got no chance of getting to where you want to go unless you can swap your car.’

‘Swap it for what?’ I asked innocently. He looked across at his driver companion and they both laughed before he turned back around and faced me.

‘For a bloody tank I should think!’

‘Has there been more trouble then?’ I asked. The man laughed again.

‘Christ, just a bit! Jesus, didn’t you hear it all?’

I shook my head. Although my house was not located that far away from the centre of town, it was situated in an area which afforded it a considerable degree of protection from the inner city problems which had, apparently, been so rife. I had heard a lot of noise last night but with Samantha and my family on my mind constantly, I had paid them little attention. I certainly hadn’t heard anything to suggest the kind of trouble that the man’s tone implied had taken place.

‘Where are you heading for then?’ I asked, keen to find out where the immense queue of traffic was destined if it was not for the city itself.

‘We’re cutting through, trying to get to the country and then on north,’ the man replied.

One of the problems that I had found of living close to the city centre was that the quickest way to get past it was usually to drive straight through the middle of it. There were various ring roads and alternative routes but from my position they offered little relief and often meant driving an extra distance. Judging from the amount of traffic on the road ahead of me, it looked as if most of the population was taking my short cut to escape from the violent and claustrophobic metropolis. Of the people that I was closest to, most of them had decided to leave town and it was not completely implausible to presume that many other people had settled upon the same option. I could see little that the countryside might offer by way of escape from the overpowering weather conditions, but I supposed that the less populated areas of the country could be free of the violence and troubles which had been so very evident in the city the previous night.

‘There’s supposed to be army people about in there,’ the man at my side shouted as he pointed along the road in the direction of the city centre. ‘They should get things moving and keep the traffic going.’

By happy coincidence, as the man said the word moving, the queue of traffic suddenly sprung into life. From all around, the sound of engines starting and being revved into life, and the smell of carbon monoxide and other gases escaping from cold exhausts filled the hot air. I had not realised just how quiet it had become until the rumbling noise from hundreds of individual cars combined and filled the world with their deafening and raucous chorus. Movement was slow at first but progress was definitely being made. Within moments I had lost my companion in the next lane as he moved away.

The traffic chugged along at between five and ten miles per hour, stopping and starting, and I quickly began to accept that trying to get to the office had been a stupid and pointless idea. I realised that I was doing it out of a peculiar misguided loyalty to the company and to ease my guilt further at not having made the effort to overcome my doubts and travel north with Samantha and her family. I cursed myself as I imagined being at her side instead of sitting alone in the stifling traffic queue. I would have been there if I had only had the courage to swallow my foolish pride. When the first suitable opportunity arose, I turned off the main road and down a quieter side street which led back in the direction of home.

It had quickly become quiet again as I had lost the noise of the mass of other cars and I switched on the radio, suddenly keen to find out what had been happening around the rest of the country. Since the previous evening I had been preoccupied with thoughts of Samantha and of my family and I hoped that they were all right. I felt sure that Sam would be well on her way to her grandmother’s by now but, to be certain, I decided to drive past her house.

It was half past nine and I was surprised at how late it was already. Time had dragged while I had been waiting in the traffic queue and I guessed that I must have been sat there for a good half hour. As the quiet, tinny music faded away from the local radio station, it was replaced by the voice of a young announcer. He sounded nervous and unsure and I supposed that he might have been the only person available to make the broadcast. Most of the population seemed not to have gone into work that morning and it was not too far fetched to presume that those people working in the media had done the same.

‘These are the headlines at nine-thirty on Friday the 26th of October,’ the announcer began. ‘I’m Clive Esham.’

The broadcaster cleared his throat (most unprofessionally) and started to read out the news.

‘Outbreaks of violence and looting have been widespread throughout the country. All major cities have reported such incidents and the police have requested that the population remain calm and co-operative. People have been advised to stay in their homes and only to travel if absolutely necessary. Most main roads and motorways are extremely congested with little relief expected in the foreseeable future.’

I almost laughed out loud at the ridiculous pleas for assistance from the authorities. People were rarely calm and co-operative at the best of times and I could see little chance of them remaining responsible and collected while the very ground that they stood on began to burn under their feet. The bulletin continued.

‘The weather department has, in association with various other government institutions, recorded record temperatures in England for the tenth day running. A high of thirty-one degrees Celsius was recorded in mainland Britain yesterday, eclipsing the previous record set in 1865 by some seven degrees. Experts have predicted that the conditions look set to continue at least until the weekend.’

Once again, the authorities appeared to have little idea of what was going on or what was about to happen. As I had already seen over the past few days, all that could be confirmed were the facts that were already known and there was little point in that. It didn’t matter to me or to anyone else if it was twenty-eight or thirty-five degrees outside, every single person on the face of the planet knew that it was inexplicably wrong.

‘As yet,’ the announcer continued, unaffected by my silent criticisms, ‘government sources have still been unable to identify the cause of the heatwave but the minister for the environment today issued a statement advising that…’

I switched off the set. I had no intention of listening to the pointless pontification of some sad old man who, in all probability, had no more idea of what was going wrong with the world than the goldfish in the drying pond in my back garden. At least the fish seemed to be enjoying a relatively normal life and appeared to be content to bathe in the warm pond while the world baked around them.

All that I could do was go with the general flow - there was nothing that I could do to alter the course of almost certain destruction which the unprepared planet seemed doomed to follow. I had to admit, though, the temptation to visit the city centre and do a little looting and wanton vandalism myself was strong. I could easily have desecrated the walls of my office without even giving it a second thought.

As I drove away from the main road and the city centre, the roads again became quieter and there was considerably less traffic about. The talk of heat on the radio had reminded me of the energy pulse that we had experienced last night (its memory had, so far, been buried under the weight of my concerns for Samantha) and, as I thought about it further, it suddenly occurred to me just how much brighter and stronger it had been than the last one. Terrifyingly, I also noticed that as the intensity of the heat and light seemed to have quickly increased, so the gap between the waves seemed to have reduced.

Samantha’s house was empty. I stopped the car outside and walked despondently towards the front door. It came as no great surprise that there was no answer when I knocked and I peered through the frosted glass windows in the garage door to see that the family car had gone.

I walked back to the front of the house and peered through the net curtains to see inside. The living-room was bare, stripped of all personal possessions and the furniture sat under heavy, white dust sheets. The house had an overpowering atmosphere of lifelessness and it was difficult to believe that it was the same place from which I had picked up Samantha just over twelve hours ago.

The house felt dead and devoid of all personality and it was then that I realised just to what extent I was missing Samantha already. I knew that I had to get to her quickly and my final, nagging doubts were quickly blown away by the emptiness which I felt. I hoped that by the time I was ready to make my way north to reach her, most other people would have reached or would be nearing their journey’s end.

I knew that there was nothing to be gained from waiting by the empty house any longer. I quickly drove home (it only took a few minutes to reach my house) and I soon managed to formulate a rough plan of campaign for the next few days in my troubled mind. I would pack a few things and then set out, with my first priority being to get to Samantha. Once I had found her, I decided, I would continue the journey north to where my family waited in Scotland . I prayed that Sam would want to come with me - if she wanted to stay with her family then I knew that I would have an unbearable decision to have to make.

I parked the car and went indoors. In the short time that I had been out of the house I had developed a raging thirst and I headed straight to the kitchen to quench it with cool, clear water from the tap. As I drank, the phone began to ring and I rushed across the house to answer it, hoping that it would be Samantha calling to let me know that she had arrived safely at her destination. It wasn’t - it was Rebecca.

‘It’s only me,’ she said, chirpily. ‘I just phoned to make sure that you hadn’t gone into the office.’

‘I did try to,’ I admitted as I tried not to offend my best friend and hide my disappointment at not speaking to Sam. ‘I got halfway and then turned back,’ I explained. ‘It’s crazy out there.’

‘I know. I think it’s the same everywhere.’

‘How are you doing?’ I asked.

Becky sighed. ‘Oh, I’m all right. I’ll be glad when things finally get back to normal though.’

‘If they ever do,’ I said, unable to offer a more positive response to Becky’s comment.

‘They will, Steve, I’m sure they will.’

Rebecca was always an optimist and she usually managed to convince me to think along the same lines as she did. Today, however, I could not be swayed.

‘What are you going to do with yourself then?’ she asked.

‘I’m going to try and head out of the city later. Samantha’s gone north and the rest of my family have gone up to visit relatives in Scotland .’

‘They’ve all gone and left you,’ Rebecca said with a tone of real sympathy in her voice. I was glad that she cared - it helped me to combat the feelings of unbearable and absolute loneliness which had been quickly growing throughout the difficult morning.

‘I know,’ I said, half-jokingly, trying to hide my despondency. ‘It’s tragic really.’

The tone in Rebecca’s voice changed and became gentle and more serious.

‘You could always come and stop here with us if you wanted to.’

‘Thanks, Becky. I really appreciate the offer but I need to try and get to my family. I mean, none of us know what’s going to happen from one day to the next and I really should try and get to them in case…’

I let my words trail away, not wanting to end my sentence on such a desperate note.

I felt once more like a complete and utter hypocrite. I had not even got the courage to tell Rebecca that I was going to try and reach Samantha instead of making the journey to my family. I did not know how she would react to the idea of me running around the country to be with a girl I had only known for a couple of weeks while the people who really needed me waited hundreds of miles away.

‘If you change your mind,’ she said, ‘you know where we are.’

‘Thanks, Becky. I’m going to miss you.’

As I said goodbye and hung up the telephone, the last words that I had spoken to her rang around inside my head. I had not meant them to sound so final, but the longer I dwelt on them, the more realistic the possibility that I might never see Rebecca again seemed. At difficult times it made all the difference knowing that I had real friends like Becky behind me and I wished that before I had hung up the phone I had been able to tell her just how much her friendship was worth to me.

The prospect of a long, slow journey in the heat was not something that I relished but I knew that it was what I had to do. To keep me sane and on the right track, I had only to picture the face of the girl who would be waiting for me at my journey’s end.

17

The remainder of a lonely, worrying Friday was spent making hurried preparations to leave home and attempt the difficult journey to Samantha and then, ultimately, to my family. I had thought that there would not be much I would need to take with me but, as is usually the way, once I had collected together all that I might possibly have needed, a huge pile of possessions lay waiting on the living-room floor to be packed tightly into my unsuspecting car.

The kitchen cupboards were empty and, as midday approached, I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to leave the house to make an inconvenient trip to the local general store. I had been loath to leave home until Samantha had called to let me know she was safe but this was an emergency. With the prospect of many scorching and dehydrating hours at the wheel of my car ahead of me, I knew that I needed to make sure that I had enough provisions to see me through. I ran to the little shop (it was only a few hundred yards down the road) and returned quickly without having bought anything. The shelves of the shop had already been stripped bare and the little food that remained on sale was so highly priced that I decided to wait and make do with what little provisions I could gather together for the journey.

In the unbearable heat, and with the safety of the ones I loved at the front of my mind, the day passed slowly and it was not until four o’clock, when the scorching sunlight had finally started to steadily fade away to darkness, that the telephone finally rang. I was loading my bags and belongings into the car when the shrill ring of the phone pierced the evening air and sent me scurrying into the house to answer it.

‘Steve?’ Sam’s unmistakable voice asked, ‘Steve, it’s me, Sam. Are you all right?’

‘I am now,’ I replied as calmly as I could although I was breathing deeply and my heart was racing at an incredible rate. ‘I’m fine now that I’ve heard from you.’

The relief I felt at having heard her voice was almost impossible to disguise and, for a brief moment, I was lost for words. In my mind I had rehearsed and prepared for the phone call throughout the day but, now that I was finally speaking to the girl I cared for so much, all of the questions I had prepared disappeared from my mind. After a lengthy, awkward silence, I was able to speak again.

‘How are you?’ I asked. ‘Did you manage to get to your gran’s place okay?’

‘Eventually,’ Sam replied. ‘The traffic has been horrendous today, I’ve never known anything like it. Everyone who owns a car must have been out on the roads.’

‘Everybody except me.’

‘Haven’t you been to work?’

‘I did try to get there but it was a waste of time. I turned back before I got to the city and went over to your house but you’d already left. There was a lot more trouble in town after what we saw last night.’

‘Tell me about it,’ she said, her voice sounding strained and tired. ‘We had to drive straight through. Christ, the Army’s working flat out in there just trying to stop people from killing each other. It’s been crazy in every city that we’ve been close to, and you make sure that you take care when you go through.’ She laughed quietly. ‘I want you to be in one piece when you get yourself up here.’

It was amazing just how much more relaxed I suddenly felt now that I had heard Samantha’s voice. Now that I was sure she was safe and that she and her family had reached their destination, the journey ahead did not seem like such an impossible undertaking and the violence around me seemed trivial and inconsequential.

‘I’m just packing the car now,’ I told her. ‘I’m going to set out in a couple of hours. If I leave it until dark then the bulk of the traffic will hopefully have got through and I should have an easy trip up.’

‘Like I said, take care,’ Sam said thoughtfully.

‘It’s going to take a lot more than anything the city can throw at me to stop me from getting to you,’ I said with truthful, if exaggerated, honesty and confidence. I thought for a moment before speaking again. ‘If that’s what you want,’ I added.

She replied without hesitation.

‘Of course it is. Christ, I can’t wait to have you here. I’m missing you more than I ever imagined I would.’

‘I know what you mean. We’ve only really known each other for a couple of weeks, Sam, but I can’t even begin to tell you how much you’ve come to mean to me already.’

Had I not been speaking on the telephone to Samantha, had we been talking face to face, then I might not have had the courage to be so forward and honest about my emotions and feelings towards her. Regardless, the things I told her were the truth and, in the short time we had known each other, I had come to love her. While we talked on the telephone, hundreds of miles apart, I felt as if a huge part of me was already up there with her.

Sam was quiet for a few seconds and, as I listened closely, I heard her crying.

‘Hey, come on,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m trying to cheer you up, not upset you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she sobbed. ‘It’s just that I want you here so much that it hurts.’

‘And I want to be with you more than anything else. Give me a couple of hours and I’ll be on my way.’

‘Promise?’ she said as she sniffed back her tears.

‘I swear. I’ve got a few more things to get together and then I’m coming to get you. I’ll be as quick as I can.’

‘You’d better be,’ she joked as her voice became calmer and slightly more composed.

‘I love you,’ I said simply and honestly and, before I had managed to say goodbye and hang up the receiver, I too was sobbing uncontrollably. As Sam said goodbye and put down her telephone, the metallic, impersonal click of disconnection and the steady drone of an unconnected line echoed around the emptiness of my home. Hearing those sounds served to emphasise the distance between us and I wished with all my heart that I could have been next to Samantha at that moment instead of hundreds of miles away and alone.

The feelings I felt inside were confusing. At the same time I felt both incredible, undeniable joy and heartbreaking, almost nauseating desperation. I knew that I had a difficult journey ahead of me - a huge undertaking in itself - but what was even more worrying was the ominous cloud of confusion which hung heavily over the heads of everyone. I had just about managed to come to terms with the fact that there was a chance the world would soon end but what I could not accept was the possibility that I might not be with Samantha when it happened. As I stood alone and sniffed away bitter tears of frustration in the quiet of my empty home, I felt like the loneliest person on the red-hot face of the planet.

By seven o’clock I was finally ready to leave. It was dark outside and I was surprised that it had taken me so long to prepare for the journey ahead. As I walked out to the car and locked the door of the house behind me, I felt as if I was leaving for good, that I would never return home again. At that moment, with the prospect of driving hundreds of miles along hot, dangerous roads ahead of me, I considered unloading the car and staying where I was safe (or safe as could be expected). I quickly cast such thoughts from my mind when I pictured Samantha’s face once more. I knew that I had no choice but to leave.

18

Unlike my aborted trip to the office earlier in the day, I did not hit heavy traffic that night until I had virtually reached the city centre. Just when I had started to think that the madness and confusion of the daylight hours had finally ended and that some sanity had been restored, I pulled onto a motorway access road and was greeted by the sight of the lights of a line of thousands upon thousands of cars, bikes and vans stretching out along the curve of the road for as far as I could see into the distance. I knew that the road ahead was the most direct and reliable route to the part of the country where Samantha was waiting and I reluctantly joined the end of the apparently endless queue. Resigned to sitting and waiting in the traffic, I slowed the car down to begin the tedious crawl through the cluttered city centre.

In the time that I had spent preparing for the arduous journey ahead, I had tried to strengthen myself mentally for what I might see in the city. The reality, however, far surpassed anything that I had dared to imagine. Throughout its entire length as it stretched and snaked through the metropolis, the steady stream of vehicles was marshalled by a ragged and very much depleted armed forces guard. The soldiers that I passed looked tired, agitated and exhausted and their numbers were decreasing by the minute. At one point, when the traffic had stopped moving momentarily and I waited anxiously next to a makeshift roadblock, I watched four of the seven guards on duty there simply walk away and desert their colleagues and officers. It seemed that even the most dedicated and reliable members of society were becoming increasingly resigned to the apparent hopelessness of the world’s desperate situation.

Thankfully, the traffic weaved a relatively safe path through the town, although some degree of trouble and friction seemed to be in view virtually all of the time. At the sides of the roads, in dark sidestreets and floodlit shopping precincts, rampaging gangs fought with each other and with what remained of the emergency services. Their conflicts were pointless - there was nothing to fight for and neither side could possibly be victorious - but they battled on regardless. The violence seemed to be almost therapeutic and appeared to be helping those who were unable to accept the inexplicable cloud of doubt and destruction which hung heavily over the heads of every individual. Almost every shop window was shattered and the contents of their displays and storerooms lay strewn haphazardly across the cluttered streets.

As the traffic wound its weary path along the main road and towards the far side of town, the violence (which bordered on hysteria) was relentless. In the gloom and the shadows, it was difficult to make out details, to see exactly what was going on, but when I saw the first body lying in a crumpled heap in the gutter, I knew instantly what it was. About my age, the corpse belonged to a police officer and he lay stripped half-naked on the hard ground. His neck was twisted painfully around and his face pointed in my direction. He stared with cold, moistureless and unblinking eyes and I found it difficult to look away from a face which was full of so much pain and surprise. He looked so startled and astonished that I was sure his death must have come as the result of some unexpected, unprovoked attack.

More disturbing than the crumpled body itself was the way in which the people around failed to react to it. The battered and bloodied corpse was ignored and kicked to one side as if it was nothing more than a piece of discarded litter. No respect or consideration came from the hordes of looters, rioters and thieves who trooped past the scene, their arms well-loaded and piled high with stolen goods. I could not help but notice how the conditions had seemed somehow to change and warp the priorities of even the most hardened criminals. As I drove slowly past one row of desecrated shops, it seemed as though some had been looted and ransacked more than others. A store selling expensive designer clothes and another with windows full of top-of-the-range stereos, televisions and videos had both hardly been touched. A neighbouring off-licence and tobacconists had, however, been stripped bare and virtually razed to the ground.

Before all of this had happened, when my days had some kind of order and sense to them, my friends and I had often discussed time and the way in which it seemed to be stacked against us. No matter how hard we tried, we found it impossible to reason how the five working days in a week managed to drag on so painfully slowly while the two days of the weekend seemed to disappear in the blinking of an eye. Alone in my car, with nothing to do but sit and wait nervously as the traffic crawled along painfully at a snail’s pace, time managed to play another of its twisted games with me. The three hours before I finally reached the outskirts of the city (a journey of less than five miles which usually took no more than twenty minutes to complete) seemed to last for more than ten. Eventually, the harsh office blocks, towering buildings and box-like houses disappeared and were replaced by dry, starving trees and fields. The road ahead stretched far into the distance and its twisting, winding route through the parched countryside was marked out by the brilliant electric lights of tens of thousands of crawling cars.

Although it was not much later than ten o’clock, the effects of the relentless heat had combined with the concentrated effort of driving those few miles through the city to leave me, and countless other drivers, drained and exhausted. While I knew that I had to reach Samantha and that I wanted to get there as quickly as possible, I also knew that I needed to rest for a while. To continue along the road in such a condition would have been dangerous and rash. Despite the fact that we were now free from the troubles of the city, the traffic appeared to have slowed again and the volume of vehicles surrounding me seemed not to have reduced in the slightest. Ahead of my car, I could see that a number of drivers had begun to pull their cars off the road and onto the dusty grass verge at its side to rest. A quick look at my dashboard showed that the engine’s temperature was rapidly rising and I guessed that a break would do the car as much good as it would me. I realised that it would keep me from Samantha and my family for a little longer but I knew that seeing them for a while was infinitely preferable to not seeing them at all. I decided to stop.

Once the car in front had chugged forward a couple of yards away from the bonnet of mine, I revved the engine hard and forced my hot and tired vehicle up over the high kerb and onto the side reservation. The ground was as rough and uneven as solid rock and the car bumped along until I found a suitable place to stop and rest. I switched off the engine and, although the volume of noise was lessened for a moment, the deafening roar from the running motors of hundreds of other cars still filled the hot, dry air. The heat had not been reduced by even the slightest fraction of a degree since sunset and I was forced to open the windows for ventilation. In doing so, I let in the foul-smelling, dirty air from outside which was charged with the rancid, belching fumes from passing transport but there was little that I could do about it. The choice was a bleak one - I could leave the windows closed and asphyxiate, or open them and allow the heavy clouds of carbon monoxide gas to creep inside. I hoped that what little wind there was would be enough to disturb and diffuse the deadly gases and I felt sure that the number of cars passing would gradually reduce throughout the night.

The noise outside was enough to keep me from falling asleep on its own but it combined with my feelings of unease at what I had seen in the city to keep me wide awake and alert. I felt slightly safer out of the town, however, and I hoped that the people who had made an effort to escape with me would have better, more important things on their minds than looting and stealing from the cars of those who rested at the side of the road. There would be plenty of rich pickings for such thieves, I thought, as my car was piled high inside with virtually all that I had of any value and I was sure that the boots of most other cars would be filled with similar cargo. After dwelling on the idea for a ridiculous length of time, I decided that no-one with any intelligence would risk a robbery, after all, there would be no way that they could escape from the scene of the crime in a getaway car. In the heavy traffic I had joined, my car’s speed had seldom risen to a level that could not be matched by a person walking.

I wondered if I should lie on the floor in the back of the car. I had scrambled over the front seats to stretch out in the back and I wondered if I should climb down onto the ground to escape the heat and light should we be subjected to another energy wave in the night. I thought back to the field where I had sat with Samantha when the last pulse had struck and I remembered how the heat and light had made my skin itch and prickle. If the power of the pulses was increasing, the next one could do real damage to any exposed flesh. To be safe, I slowly eased myself into the narrow, awkward recess between the two sets of seats and there I drifted into a painful and uneasy sleep.

When I first woke, I struggled in the darkness with blurred eyes to make out the figures on the digital dashboard clock. I rubbed my tired eyes and was eventually able to see that the time was just coming up to three o’clock. With difficulty, I pulled myself up out of my little hole and sat upright on the back seat. I looked outside and saw that, although the cars were travelling a little more quickly than they had been, there was still a solid, unending line of traffic on the road which stretched out into the far distance. My example had been followed by a number of other drivers and I saw that a line of parked cars was spread out in front of mine on the grass verge, parallel to the moving traffic at their side. In the back of the car I carried the little stereo which had kept me company on those long, hot nights outside resting on the patio at home. Although it felt as if they had happened years ago, they were, in reality, only a few days past. As I toyed with the set and tried to find a strong enough signal to listen to, I could not help but wish that I was back at home and asleep in my own comfortable bed.

I was only able to find one radio station which was still broadcasting and, when I found it, it was hardly worth listening to. Programmed music played almost continually which was only occasionally interrupted by a young and inexperienced announcer. As he stuttered and stumbled through introductions and announcements that I paid little attention to, I could not help but think that anyone who had reported to work on a day like today was either extremely dedicated or incredibly stupid. The mumbling, unsure broadcaster seemed to fit into the latter category. In the last few hours, I had seen soldiers deserting the army while I had watched them and policemen showing as little regard for the laws of the land as the criminals that they had once chased - why this person felt compelled to continue to fill the airwaves with his amateurish ramblings was beyond me. People had to face facts, I thought, until some semblance of normality was restored to the planet then society, civilisation and order would continue to be abandoned and ignored. Whether they would ever return was a question which no-one seemed able to answer or could not even be bothered to consider. As a piece of nondescript music faded away into an awkward silence, the young man’s nervous voice returned with something that resembled a hastily cobbled-together news bulletin.

The headlines were unsurprising - there had been more trouble and violence in all cities again and most of the major roads which led from them were still blocked and clogged solid with traffic. I began to drift back to sleep as the man droned on and on but, when his voice was replaced with a recorded announcement from the minister of the environment, my attention, and the attention of every other person on or around the crowded road, became focused on the broadcast.

Slowly, and in sombre, resigned tones, the politician confirmed the worst fears of everyone. He stated that the heat was still increasing and that it seemed certain to continue climbing at its alarming level. At its present rate, it would only be a matter of days before even the coldest parts of the planet would become inhospitable. There was no escaping the fact that the world was dying.

For a single, peculiar moment, there was silence. Outside, the cars sat still in their queue as their passengers tried to accept and believe what they had just heard. Then one car moved, then another and another until the red-hot air was again filled with the confused sounds of horns blaring, engines roaring and tempers fraying. All around me there was sudden panic-induced motion and mayhem as every car on the road tried desperately to force its way ahead of the others - their terrified, obstinate drivers ignoring everybody else to make sure that they were safe and on their way towards their destinations. I knew that it would be foolish to try and make a move in the midst of such madness.

It was with an incredible and inexplicable calmness that I slowly slipped back down between the seats of my car with the minimum of fuss. I covered my ears and, somehow, managed to fall asleep once more.

19

When I next woke up it was, incredibly, almost seven o’clock. I struggled to climb up out of the little gap in which I had slept and was surprised and alarmed to find how long I had eventually managed to sleep for. To my considerable relief, the volume of traffic outside had finally been reduced to little more than a steady trickle and the majority of the tens of thousands of angry cars that I had shared the crowded road with last night were nowhere to be seen.

In the bright, deep-blue sky, the sun had begun its unstoppable ascent to the position where it would hang for most of the day and from where it would scorch and burn the helpless world below. Even in the shade of the back of the car, the heat was relentless and overpowering and I struggled to let myself out. I fumbled with the hot door latch and stumbled out onto the road to stretch my stiff, aching body.

I half tripped and half fell out of the car and onto a carriageway strewn with the discarded junk and refuse from the hundreds of cars which had relentlessly pounded along it in the dark hours of last night and the early hours of this morning. As I stood and yawned by the side of my car, a white saloon appeared from nowhere and roared along the road next to me. I watched it as it sped away into the distance, climbing and twisting its way along the hot, dusty road. I turned around to fetch a drink from the back of my vehicle and was stunned by the appearance of the devastated city behind me.

Like a brittle, skeletal shadow of its former self, the dry, dirty towers and buildings of the city stood high and harsh against the brilliant morning sky. Palls of thick, opaque black smoke twisted up from the ground and, even from a considerable distance away, the sounds of confused fighting could still clearly be heard.

I took a warm can of drink from the back of the car and drained it dry in a couple of quick, thirsty gulps. Despite the amount of rubbish strewn on the ground around me, I still carefully packed my litter away before closing the boot of the car and making my way back around to the front. A book of maps lay on the passenger seat and I opened it to confirm my route for the morning’s drive.

The dry road stretched out ahead of me for a depressingly long and uninviting distance and I knew that the journey I was about to undertake would be exhausting. I only needed to turn around and look over my shoulder at the ruined city to know that it was a trip that I was now committed to try and make. The crash barrier on the central reservation of the wide, four-lane road had been torn away in places so that cars could travel freely in either direction along either side of the road and it seemed that everyone had reached the same difficult decision to go on as I had.

I got back into the car and, although I deliberately tried not to think about it, I could not help but wonder if the politicians and scientists were right and, if they were, just how long did the planet have left to live? The more I did consider it, however, the more I realised that it mattered little to me how long was left, provided I managed to reach Samantha before the end. My heart was heavy though, and I felt suddenly guilty of the fact that every passing moment I spent sitting and waiting reduced the already slender chance I had of progressing on to reach my family.

I took a deep breath and turned the ignition key. For one, heart-stopping moment, the car’s engine failed to start and I worried that I might not even reach Samantha, let alone Mom, Dad and Michelle. I turned the key again and, to my immense relief, the car spluttered and sprung into life. It bumped and groaned as I drove along the rough, hard ground and over the high kerb down onto the sticky tarmac. Once there, it began to move smoothly along.

The traffic around me seemed to have reduced further still in the short time since I had woken. I was now virtually alone on the road and I pushed the accelerator pedal down until the car was moving at a steady ninety miles an hour. As the ruined city gradually disappeared from sight in the rear view mirror, my heart was lifted and my subconscious fooled me into thinking that I was making good, steady progress. In reality, the miles that I covered in those first few minutes were only a fraction of the distance I had to travel but the fact that I was making progress at all was enough to keep me in relatively high spirits.

Once again, while I knew that the enormous journey ahead would be tough and demanding, I only needed to picture Samantha’s face in my mind to know that it would all be worthwhile. I remembered our times together and the night in the field and, as I recalled the gentle touch and the delicate scent of her perfect body, I pushed down harder on the accelerator, willing the car to move faster and faster towards my destination. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, another car appeared and quickly overtook me and disappeared in a cloud of dry dust. Following the example of the car’s driver, I forced the accelerator pedal down hard to the floor, determined to squeeze every last available ounce of performance from my tired vehicle.

The road was straight and uninteresting and my determination soon gave way to boredom, frustration and impatience.

20

After almost five hours of steady driving. I had managed to make a sizable inroad into the distance between Samantha and myself. The journey was hot and hard, but the thought of reaching the girl I loved made me sure that I could get there. With Sam waiting at the end of the trip, I felt as though I could travel ten times the distance to be with her. Unfortunately, my car did not share my optimism. The conditions were increasingly tough and the stress and heat quickly began to take their toll on the exhausted vehicle.

I had nothing to do but sit and drive, and nothing to think about but the huge distance ahead of me. Unsurprisingly, it was not long before I too began to tire and I knew that I would have to stop soon.

The traffic around was fairly quiet. I had been caught in an unavoidable bottleneck near to the city but now, as the roads had become more accessible and people’s courses had altered, the volume of cars had become much more diffuse. I estimated that if I could maintain the speed that I had been travelling at, it would take me only another two or three hours to reach my destination and I hoped that I would arrive at the village where Samantha’s grandmother lived sometime in the early evening. My estimations and calculations were based on little more than basic guesswork and rough reckoning, but it helped a lot just to have a target to aim for.

For the majority of the miles that I had already covered that day, I had been able to drive along quiet, minor roads which were relatively free of rubbish and cumbersome blockages. I took care, however, to follow a carefully planned and considered route which would be almost the most direct and yet which would, hopefully, avoid all major centres of population. The odds against me reaching Samantha were stacked high enough as it was, and I could see no point in taking any further, unnecessary chances. The quickest routes to travel along were often main roads and I took care to balance the extra distance I needed to drive with the safety that each road might offer.

Although I tried to keep the car travelling at a constant and sensible speed, I could not help accelerating occasionally and, in the heat, the extra speed affected the performance of the car’s engine dramatically. As a result, when the time had just ticked past twelve midday, the indicator on the fuel gauge on the dashboard began to drop perilously close to the red end of the dial. To my considerable relief, a dusty blue hoarding at the side of the motorway informed me that there would be services and a petrol station within the next five miles and I hoped that the fumes in the near-empty fuel tank would be enough to get me there.

I sped nervously along the quiet carriageway and breathed a heavy sigh of relief when the red-brick buildings of the service station loomed into view on the horizon. With the needle on the display showing there to be literally just drops of fuel left in the tank, I limped onto the deserted forecourt and stopped the engine.

As I stepped out into the raging heat of noon, I noticed with some disappointment (although it had been what I had expected to find) that there was no-one else around. The sales booth and surrounding area were deserted and I decided that, as there was no-one there to accept my money, I would not bother to pay for the fuel. I opened the petrol tank and took the pump out from its greasy metal holster. Eager to get back onto the road and complete my journey, I depressed the handle. The display on the pump went blank for a moment and the machinery whirred loudly before it quickly became silent again. I took the head of the pump out of my tank and looked carefully down its neck, searching for any obvious blockages. I soon realised that the machine was empty and hung the pump up again.

I felt like a complete and utter idiot and my only saving grace was the fact that no-one else was around to share in my embarrassment. Hundreds of thousands of cars must have passed along the busy route in the last day and it seemed obvious (with hindsight) that the limited coffers of the service station had long since been drained of their very last drops of precious fuel. Dejectedly, I walked across the forecourt to try another pump but again it was useless - not a single millilitre of fuel remained there.

As I stood and leant against the warm metal bonnet of my car, another depressing and ominous thought wormed its way into my already tired and confused mind. If I couldn’t fill the car’s tank with petrol, how could I get to Samantha? If I was unable to find an alternative method of transport (and that seemed like an impossible task in itself) then I would have to finish the journey on foot. I knew that if that was the case, the time it would take me to reach her would double at the very least and, in all probability, it would treble.

I tried desperately to convince myself that it was worth going on and that I could still make it to Samantha as I walked across the dusty, windswept forecourt and over towards the little red-brick building which housed the sales area, the car wash and the toilets. Despite the fact that I had had little to drink over the last few hours, I desperately needed to stop there.

The door to the toilet creaked open noisily and, as I stepped inside, my footsteps echoed on the terracotta floor tiles. I stood at the urinal and, as I undid my trousers, I looked down into a dry, yellow-stained gutter at my feet. The smell which came up from the dirty trough was obnoxious and I tried to breath it in as little as possible. I made a decided effort to think of other things and to dream of pleasant, distant places but, when I was half way through using the toilet and at my most exposed and vulnerable, an unexpected noise rang out from behind me, Still trying hard to keep my aim and my calm intact, I struggled to turn slowly around and look into the darkness to find the source of the sound. In the half-light and shadows of one of the cubicles, I made out the shifting shape of a tired figure trying to climb up from the dirty floor.

‘All right, mate?’ the figure asked in a tired, hoarse voice.

I shook myself dry and did up my trousers. Turning around fully, I walked cautiously towards the cubicle and gingerly pushed the wooden door open fully. As bright light flooded into the shadowy space, a rough and bedraggled character hauled himself upright using the lavatory pan for support. The man looked ancient and worn at first sight but I supposed that it could have been the intense conditions outside which had contributed to his aged appearance. With considerable effort, he lifted his aching frame up for a moment before dropping back down to sit on top of the closed lid of the toilet bowl. Out of politeness, I acknowledged him.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked. The man coughed and spat against the dirty wall opposite to the one that he leant against.

‘Nasty business, all this,’ he said as he slumped forwards on his throne to get a better look at me. He lifted a shaking hand to his eyes to shield them from the bright light outside.

‘It doesn’t look too good, does it?’ I commented, struggling to find anything else constructive to say. I felt uncomfortable - not only was I talking to a man who appeared to live in a toilet, but in my confusion and haste I had also managed to piss down my leg. Discreetly, I shuffled back towards a little sink next to the exit. I was keen to find a way to escape as my distrust of the toilet dweller was growing with each second that I spent in his odorous company. I put my hands into the sink and turned the tap but nothing came out.

‘Waste of time, that,’ the man croaked. ‘They’ve been dry for the best part of a day.’ I walked back towards the man even though all my instincts told me to keep moving in the other direction. ‘The only place to get a drink around here,’ he continued, ‘is from one of these.’

The man tapped the sides of the toilet bowl upon which he sat and I grimaced. He immediately sensed my disgust and offered an explanation of sorts.

‘It’s all right, mate, don’t worry,’ he croaked. ‘This water’s clean - they put bleach in it!’

At that moment my worst fears were confirmed - as well as tanning his skin, the fierce sunlight had scrambled the man’s brain. Not one hundred yards from where he sat was a shop and I was sure that there must have been something better and more healthy for him to drink there rather than water soiled with various chemicals and people’s sewage. Taking care not to upset the ragged man, I made my excuses and tried to leave.

‘It’s been good talking to you,’ I said, taking care not to show my true feelings. ‘I’ve got to get going though, I’ve got a long way to go.’

‘Stay here,’ the man protested. ‘We’ll get on all right, you an’ me.’

‘You look after yourself,’ I said, determined to leave the toilet as quickly as I possibly could. ‘I’ll come back and see you one day.’

‘You do that,’ he coughed, ‘you’re a good bloke.’

The man’s crazy, deep-set eyes stared unblinking in my direction and I turned and walked quickly out of the building, hoping that he would not follow. As I walked into the light outside, I heard him shout after me.

‘Take care, mate. If you need anything, you know where I am.’

The incredible heat and brilliance outside made me wonder if, perhaps, the tramp was better off in some ways than I was. He was obviously long past the stage of being able to make rational decisions and to think logically and I tried to imagine how good it would feel to be free of the cares and worries which weighed me down so heavily. Being insane could only be an advantage in helping anyone get through the time that remained.

I walked back onto the deserted, dusty forecourt and tried another couple of useless petrol pumps. Once more, there was no fuel left in either of them and I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to finish my journey on foot. I would use the minute amount of petrol left in my car to get as far as possible but after that I would have no alternative but to walk the distance that remained.

Before returning to the car and moving on, I went into the little sales booth at the side of the concrete area which housed the petrol pumps. The metal door was locked and chained closed but that had not deterred the people who had visited there before me from getting inside. The large glass windows had all been shattered and I climbed through an empty pane with my feet crunching and grinding tiny diamonds of glass into the hard, marbled floor.

The shelves and displays of the shop had already been ransacked by countless visitors earlier in the day. The floor was littered with paper, wrappings, empty cardboard boxes and broken glass and I tiptoed my way carefully towards the till and counter area. The drawer of the electronic till had been forced open but, surprisingly, much of the cash that had been stored there remained untouched.

Behind the counter, a little door led to a storeroom which was in as much of a mess as the rest of the shop. It was dark and gloomy in the room and I switched on the light but it had no effect - either the power was off or the bulb had blown. In the darkness I stumbled around, feeling the warm air in front of me with outstretched hands, hoping to find something solid to hold onto. As I felt my way along a storage rack, I could find little other than more rubbish and there was nothing worth taking with me. I stuffed a couple of quickly melting chocolate bars into my pockets and turned around to stumble out of the little room.

I walked back towards the light and stubbed my foot on a heavy cardboard box which was hidden on the ground in the shadows. I bit my lip, trying hard not to scream out for fear of attracting the unwanted attentions of my friend in the toilets. Instead I leant against a nearby display stand until the throbbing pain had faded away. I knelt down to see what was in the box and, to my surprise and delight, found it to be full of bottled water. It was overpriced, sparkling and vitamin rich mineral water but it was water nonetheless. I struggled to pick up the box (which held a dozen plastic bottles) and carried it outside.

Before doing anything else, I took the top off one of the containers and drank from it thirstily. The water was fizzy and it made me belch loudly but it was still refreshing and revitalising. I managed to locate some scraps of food and a detailed map of the local area before stepping back out into the heat and loading up the car.

As I threw the things that I had collected into the back of the tired car, I cursed my own short-sightedness. I had envisaged being at Samantha’s grandmother’s house by now and had made little provision for any unexpected delays. It was a stupid, rash and foolish way to go about things and I could not believe that I had overlooked the possibility of trouble when it had been so obvious that this was the perfect climate in which things could go wrong.

Putting the food away, I realised, to my surprise, that I had not eaten for the best part of a day. As I climbed back into the car, I reached into the back and grabbed a melted chocolate bar which I virtually drank from its wrapper. The heat inside the car was unbearable and I waited for a moment before shutting the door. Despite the fact that the vehicle had been mostly hidden in the shade of the service station, the dashboard had remained unprotected from the brilliant light. The plastic covering of the steering wheel was soft and pliable and I had to drape a spare T-shirt over it before being able to hold it tightly enough to drive. For a moment I thought about smashing the windscreen as it seemed to be having the effect of a giant magnifying glass, increasing the heat inside the car ten-fold. As I only had a little distance to travel in the car, I decided to leave it.

I fumbled at the side of the steering column to put the keys into the ignition and turn them. Before I was able to start the car, a strong, unexpected wind began to blow. For a moment I could only hear the sound of the wind blowing through the brittle trees at the side of the road but then it suddenly increased in strength dramatically, blowing dust and rubbish up into the air and buffeting the sides of the car so violently that I thought for a second it might turn over. I anticipated what was about to happen and, as I screwed my eyes tightly closed and ducked my head down towards the handbrake and gearstick for shelter, a light of unbelievable strength filled the sky, turning everything a brilliant white. It was inescapable and made my skin itch and burn, leaving me feeling as if my face was being pressed close to a raging fire. It seemed to last for minute after painful minute but then, after only twenty seconds had passed, the light faded and the wind died back to its normal level.

Slowly, feeling the strong heat on the back of my neck lessening, I lifted my head and looked outside. For one terrifying moment I thought that despite having had them tightly shut, the light had damaged my eyes but they gradually became accustomed to the conditions once more and I was able to make out fuzzy, blurred shapes. Trying hard to keep calm and to control the rising fear that I felt, I reached down to the ignition key and tried to start the engine. There was nothing - not even the slightest hint of movement or spark of power came from the car.

I fumbled with the doorlatch and stumbled out onto the concrete forecourt. Even through the strong soles of my shoes I could feel the heat of the exposed ground and I quickly made my way towards the grass verge which ran along the side of the once busy road. The verge was yellow and lifeless and it was difficult to find the point where the dying grass ended and the cracked, dry ground began. I stood still for a moment and tried to compose myself. Looking around, however, I was staggered to see just how much the scorched landscape had changed. In all the time that I had been driving, I had seen little other than the tarmac of the road ahead and there had been nothing to see in the darkness of last night except for the headlights of thousands of other cars. Now that I had a good chance to look around, I saw that the world around me had come to resemble the surface of some starved and parched alien planet.

On the other side of the road to the service station, huge hills rose up from the ground and into the bright sky. The sides of the massive mounds were covered in brittle, blanched trees whose roots lay buried in the sick, dry soil. From a distance, the hills looked more like sand-dunes than anything else. The energy wave which had just washed over the country seemed to have drained the last drops of colour and life from the ground and it seemed that the whole place was in danger of becoming one huge, lifeless dust-bowl. My skin was sore and pink where the light from the pulse had burned my exposed body and I took off my worn T-shirt as I walked slowly back towards the car.

I tried to start my car again but there was no life in the dead engine. Fortunately, running out of petrol had prepared me for the loss of transportation and I had already decided on the action which I would need to take. From the back of the car I took a little rucksack which I had brought from home and I filled it with all the food and drink that I had just stolen from the ransacked shop, In the little space that remained in the bag, I crammed in clothes and other essentials and, before moving off, I paused to change out of the dirty clothes that I had been wearing for the last few hours. Despite the fact that I had seen no-one except the man in the toilet for the best part of two hours, I still hid myself away self-consciously in the stifling heat of the car as I undressed.

I eventually stood next to my useless vehicle, ready to leave. Still keen not to take any unnecessary chances and, bearing in mind the fact that just about everything I owned was stashed in the back of the car, I locked it and shoved the keys into a pocket in my rucksack. Although I had everything that I needed with me, I paused before moving. The distance that I still had to cover to reach Samantha was immense and daunting and I wondered if I would be able to get to her in time. I knew that I had to try and reach her but the temptation to stop in the service station toilets with my crazy friend grew with each moment that I nervously stalled. Determined, I took a deep, dry breath and started out along the road.

After studying it for a moment, I folded up the map that I had taken from the shop and shoved it into the back pocket of my trousers. I had found the village of Colliwell marked on the page and it was of some comfort to me that my position and my eventual destination were on the same sheet. Although the scale of the map was somewhat misleading, I was glad that only eight inches separated me from my love. I walked past the front of the decimated shop and, as I did, I took a large umbrella out from what remained of a garden-furniture display. A cross between a gaudy golf umbrella and a garden parasol, the wide circle of cloth at least offered me some shelter and respite from the relentless light. My ridiculous appearance was completed with the addition of a wide-brimmed, floppy felt hat which had been an unwanted birthday gift from a friend three years ago. Today it was far from useless and I was glad of the extra protection that it offered me.

With the straps of the well-stuffed rucksack digging into the tender skin of my shoulders, I finally left the shade and relative comfort of the covered service station and walked out onto the open road. I fumbled in my shirt pocket and pulled out a pair of sunglasses which did not completely subdue the brilliance of the sun-scorched world, but which did at least dull the light so that I was able to look around without too much discomfort.

The hot and dusty track stretched out ahead of me and I walked on with the scuffing of my shoes on the dry ground the only noise that disturbed an otherwise eerie and overpowering silence.

21

By five o’clock I had made reasonable progress towards reaching Samantha. With only a few days of the month of October remaining, the light had almost entirely faded by that time and the disappearance of the sun offered some respite from the conditions. While the heat seemed not to have reduced by even the slightest fraction of a degree, the advent of darkness brought welcome relief to my tired eyes. I wondered if the brightness might be doing some serious damage to my sight but then I realised that it mattered little - if the world continued along its path to destruction, the chances were that I would be dead before I went blind. I tried not to think like that, but could not help admiring the irony of it all.

While I walked, there was little else to do but think as I had seen no-one to speak to since leaving the tramp in the toilets earlier that afternoon. Although I tried hard to stop them, it was difficult to prevent frightening, gnawing questions from materialising in my tired imagination and, while I did my best to try and ignore them, it was almost impossible to stop myself from searching for answers. Nagging doubts began to form in my mind as I wondered if Samantha really wanted me with her or if she would prefer to be alone with her family. The more I thought about her, the more I managed to irrationally convince myself that Sam didn’t need me as much as I needed her and that, perhaps, I had been nothing more than a convenient shoulder to lean on and to cry on in the city. However, I remembered our time together with fondness and my memories of making love with her in the hot night air helped restore some of my faith in our relationship.

As well as feeling pathetically miserable and alone, I also felt an incredible and inescapable guilt at not having made the effort to go straight to my family. Although I tried to convince myself that I would carry on to them once I had reached Samantha, I knew in heart that there would not be enough time. And if Samantha didn’t want to be with me when I got to her; what would I do then? I knew that there was little point in worrying - according to the voices I had heard on the radio last night there was not much time left. At least if I was to be alone, I would not be lonely for very long.

I had consciously followed a sensible route all afternoon which led along country lanes and roads and which only left the beaten track on the rare occasions when there was no real alternative but to trample across a dry and dusty field or over a barren, exposed hillside. The route was virtually a direct line to Samantha and I only needed to make a couple of minor alterations to miss dangerous and avoidable obstructions such as small towns and villages. The traffic levels had fallen throughout the morning and since the energy pulse had struck I had seen no cars moving at all. There had been, however, plenty sat still, frozen and abandoned at the sides of silent roads. It was now safe to walk along the middle of what had been even the busiest roads and, at half past five, I found myself trundling down a steep slip road which led onto a motorway strewn with the dead shells of cars but devoid of people and movement.

The concrete and tarmac of the carriageway was still warm and occasionally sticky under the soles of my rapidly wearing trainers. By that point I had made the painfully obvious connection with the striking of the energy pulse and the death of all the cars and I presumed that the power of the wave had been such that it had irreparably damaged all electrical circuits. It was worrying to try and imagine what the effects of the next pulse might be if it increased in strength and power again as the last one had. The only benefit I could see in the sudden lack of transport was that there was now a good chance that Samantha would stay at her grandmother’s house and wait for me there. I dared not think about how I would feel if I struggled all the way to Colliwell only to find that Sam had turned around and gone back towards the city to look for me.

There was a faint light in the distance and I squinted into the darkness ahead to try and see where it was coming from. As I approached the source of the light, I saw that its dull, yellow glow came from underneath the bonnet of a family-sized saloon car which had stopped in the fast lane of the opposite carriageway of the motorway. As I neared and made my way across the central reservation, I saw that the light came from a little gas-powered camping lantern and that someone was working on the engine of the car in a desperate attempt to try and get the vehicle restarted. The sound of my shuffling footsteps on the dry ground disturbed the body under the bonnet and a chubby, middle-aged man lifted himself up to face me. He wiped his sweat-covered forehead and squinted into the darkness with his deep-set, piggy eyes.

‘Don’t suppose you know anything about cars, do you?’ he asked as he dried his wet hands on the back of his grease-stained, cotton trousers. I walked over to the car and looked down at the idle engine.

‘Not really,’ I said, truthfully. I had not spoken for hours and my voice sounded dry, hoarse and tired. I cleared my throat before speaking again. ‘I know how to put petrol in and how to change a tyre if I’m really pushed, but other than that…’

My voice trailed away into silence as I realised that the man was staring at me. The look on his face was identical to the expression of disgust that I had shown to the tramp in the toilets at the service station and I looked down at myself in the dull glow of the little lamp. The afternoon had taken its toll on my appearance and I had stripped down until I wore only a soggy, sweat-soaked T-shirt and loose, baggy trousers. On my feet, my trainers were battered and worn and the big toe of my left foot had started to poke out where the sole had begun to separate from the rest of the shoe. For some reason, almost instinctively, I apologised.

‘I’m sorry I look like this,’ I said. ‘I’ve been walking all afternoon.’

The man turned away from me and returned his full attention to the car once more. It was obvious from his manner that, if I could not help him, then he did not want to be bothered with me. I took a couple of steps back away from the car and leant on my umbrella for support. Since sunset I had been using it as a makeshift walking stick which had taken some of the strain off my weary feet.

‘Bloody thing’s dead,’ he snapped and he threw a greasy, oil-covered rag down to the ground in anger and frustration. ‘I’ve got to get this lot to her sister’s before tomorrow lunchtime and we’ve been stuck here since half-twelve.’

The man nodded his head towards the interior of the car and I peered around the open bonnet to see a pretty young woman sat in the passenger seat. She smiled at me politely but I could tell from her expression that she too was unsure of my ragged appearance. From the back of the car came constant sounds of moaning and fighting and I was just able to make out a little boy and girl squabbling over an exhausted Yorkshire terrier dog who panted in the suffocating heat as his fur was pulled in all directions. The occupants of the back seat did not even notice me watching and I returned my attention to the man under the bonnet. I decided to risk my theory concerning the pulse’s effects on him.

‘I don’t think you’re going to get it started,’ I said, taking care to lower my voice so that I did not alarm the passengers in the car. ‘I think that the heat and light earlier must have done something to knock all the circuits out. My car died on me as well.’

The man shook his head. He seemed ignorant and uninterested but I was sure that he too must have noticed that all of the cars had suddenly stopped. I looked quickly around and it became obvious that, from where we stood, no other cars could be seen.

‘You’re talking rubbish, lad. That light was bloody hours ago. Besides, how could that have done any harm?’

I shrugged my shoulders as I was unable to offer any scientific proof or explanation to support my theory. He was right - it could easily have just been coincidence.

‘No’ he continued, ‘it’s got to be something simple, something obvious. It’s bound to be staring me in the face.’

The only thing that was obvious to me was the fact that the man I was speaking to was a fool. Against my better judgment, and for no other reason than the fact that I had been alone all day, I tried once more to convince him of my theory.

‘I’ve heard about something similar to this happening after nuclear explosions. I think it’s called an EMP effect. Electromagnetic something or other.’

The man laughed.

‘I think you’re talking crap, son,’ he said, chuckling to himself. ‘The only thing the heat and light’s done is scramble your brain!’

‘Think about it,’ I protested, ignorant to the pointlessness of my efforts. ‘Have you seen any other cars moving since the energy pulse?’

The man shook his head with mirth and continued to tinker with the engine of his car. He laughed and muttered to himself as he worked. I was quickly becoming annoyed.

‘Fuck you then,’ I said bluntly and I walked quickly away, crossing back over what remained of the central reservation. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that the man was watching and laughing at me. Perhaps he would listen when his family started to weaken and die, I thought, but by then it would be too late.

As I walked away, I wondered if the man would ever get the car going and, if he did, would it have been worth all of the effort? Where would he take his family to? Nowhere would be safe if the end did come as predicted and it wouldn’t matter if he was driving along at ninety miles an hour or walking along the side of the road - when it finally arrived there would be no escape from the heat and light.

By my rough calculations, at my present slow speed, Samantha was still the best part of half a day’s travel away from me. I tried to visualise the distance that I had travelled so far and imagined how long it would take me to get home if I decided to give up and turn around. No matter how hard I tried, I could not think of a situation when I would even consider doing that. I took the battered and crumpled map out from my trouser pocket and, as I took a long drink from one of the remaining bottles of water, I verified the distance that remained ahead of me.

It would be ironic, I thought, if things did return to some kind of normality. I knew that the world would now never get completely back to normal and I dared not even imagine what kind of madness would be waiting for me should I ever be forced to return to the office.

As I walked, I thought about some of the friends that I had left behind when I had escaped from the city. I wondered how Rebecca was and if she was safe at home. I imagined Mark with his university friends drinking themselves senseless to avoid the coming storm and I hoped that neither of them were wasting precious moments thinking about me. In the little time that was left, I wanted them to be concentrating on their own lives and on making themselves as comfortable as possible in the time which remained until the end arrived.

Thinking about my friends depressed me further still. Everybody else that I knew would be close to the ones that they loved and held dear to their hearts. I imagined that I was the only person on the face of the scorched planet who felt so alone.

Time dragged slowly on and, even at midnight, the temperature was such that it was difficult to keep walking. I hoped that the planet would be able to survive long enough to allow me to reach Samantha as I could not bear the thought of dying alone without her. I had quickly got used to the fact that I might not live for much longer and had accepted my painful and inevitable destiny. What I couldn’t bare to face was dying alone.

I wished that I could have met Sam at another time. If we’d met before all of this had happened then we could have forged an incredible life together. I knew that if I had known her for longer then I would not have been here alone, tramping across the starved, empty countryside in the middle of the night.

22

Although I wanted to reach Samantha in the shortest time possible, after walking on for another two and a half dry, dull and dragging hours I knew that I would have to stop and rest. As I had already admitted to myself on a number of occasions since starting the mammoth walk, spending a little time with Sam was infinitely preferable to spending no time with her at all and I knew that if I didn’t stop for a while then I would be burnt out before the morning sun appeared.

The boredom of my march combined with the overpowering heat and a lack of distraction to devastating effect to leave me feeling numb and exhausted. In all the time that I had been out on the roads, I could only have seen four or five people in the darkness and they had been little more than shadowy figures in the distance, not one of them had been close enough to speak to. The countryside through which I walked was quiet at the best of times and I could not recall having passed even a single building in the last hour.

Although I had not deviated from the route which I had planned to follow, as I stumbled along my mind began to play dangerous tricks on me. I had concentrated such effort on getting to Samantha and keeping the prescribed path that I suddenly began, quite irrationally, to convince myself that I was on the wrong road. The fear inside - which grew steadily with each passing mile - was not so much that I might be following the wrong road, it was more that the monotonous, gloomy and repetitive landscape offered nothing in the way of confirmation that I was on course. I began to think that if I had made a mistake with my clumsy map reading, then the chances were that it would be far too late to be able to do anything about it now. I knew that I was working against a clock that was quickly counting down time against me and I also realised that an error now might mean that I would never reach Samantha before the end. Eventually, in a desperate attempt to rest my body, clear my mind and satisfy myself that I was heading in the right direction, I stopped for a while.

I stood at the roadside and looked around for somewhere to rest. I soon realised that, as there were no cars to worry about anymore, it didn’t matter where I stopped, and so I dumped myself in an unceremonious heap on the hard kerb stones which lined the sides of the sticky tarmac road. Feeling the tiredness flowing out of my weary body, I let myself fall back onto the dry grass verge and I lay there in an exhausted silence, staring up into the dark sky above me. I heard the sudden, crunching sound of footsteps on brittle grass in a nearby field and, rather than get up and investigate, I simply chose to lie still and wait until the noise had passed me by. I screwed my eyes tightly closed, hoping that I would be left alone to relax in peace.

‘Evening, mate,’ a gruff voice said, startling me and shattering the silence. I cautiously opened one eye and saw that a face peered down at me from over the top of a hedge which separated the road from the fields beyond. The face belonged to a man who appeared to be around the same age as my father. A bushy, white beard gave him the appearance of a harmless and unseasonal Santa Claus and I sat up, suddenly glad of a little company. I collected my belongings together and acknowledged the amiable man.

‘All right?’ I asked. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Oh, I’m not too bad,’ he said in a deep, dry and throaty voice. He seemed unable to control the volume of his voice and, although I was only a couple of feet away from him, I felt sure that I would have been able to hear his every word if I had been a mile further up the road.

‘I don’t want to seem like I’m beggin’ or nothin’,’ the man continued, ‘but you wouldn’t ‘appen to have something to drink in your bag would you?’

The man’s lack of diction and his rustic accent were strangely endearing and I agreed to share a little of the bottled water which remained in my rucksack with him. I hoped that I would be with Samantha soon after daybreak and I felt sure that I wouldn’t need all that I carried in the bag. My new companion walked away from the roadside and back into the field and I followed him.

The man dropped to the ground, sat on the grass for a moment and then lay back and looked into the star-filled sky above us. I stepped over the tow hedgerow and walked towards him across the brittle grass. The feeling of the dry, hard ground under my aching feet reminded me of the time I had spent with Samantha in the field and it was hard to believe that it had only been two nights ago. So much had happened in the meantime that it felt as if we had been apart for months. As I walked towards the man I made a silent vow to myself that in a further two days’ time I would be holding Sam close to me once more.

I sat down on the rough ground and pulled the rucksack from my aching shoulders. I undid the straps and fastenings, took out what little food remained and drank from one of the last remaining bottles of water. I passed the half-drained vessel over to the man who raised himself up onto his elbows and emptied the plastic bottle in two gulps.

‘That’s better,’ he said as he wiped his mouth dry with a dirty hand. ‘I appreciate that, mate.’

‘It’s all right,’ I said quietly.

After a couple of silent minutes had passed, the man spoke again.

‘Where you headed?’ he asked.

‘To the coast,’ I replied. ‘I’m trying to reach my girlfriend.’

‘Better hurry then,’ he said and he started to laugh. ‘I don’t think you got that long left!’

‘I know.’

I looked over at the man who lay on his back with a wide, lazy smile plastered across his face. Even if his conversation was less than stimulating, the company was a welcome interruption to the dark monotony of the stifling night.

‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘Where are you going?’

The man shrugged his shoulders and, for no immediately apparent reason, began to laugh again.

‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘I’m just walking around.’

‘Isn’t there anyone that you want to be with?’ I asked, cautiously.

‘Nah’ he grunted. ‘I’ve just walked out on her.’

The man turned his tired head and, seeing the puzzled look on my face, began to explain.

‘I’ve been married to a real cow for nigh on thirty years. I never had the bottle to get up and get out until tonight when I just decided to go. I figured that the end of the world was as good a reason as any to leave and that was it - I just got up and went.’

He lay back down on the grass, chuckled and then began to laugh uncontrollably once more.

‘You should’a seen it!’ he roared. ‘Right in the middle of dinner it was. I just got up and pissed off!’

I smiled and then began to laugh. Soon, and for no real reason that I could think of, I was laughing as loudly as the man at my side.

‘Should’ve seen ‘er face!’ he screamed, the tears rolling down his dirty cheeks.

‘The world might not end,’ I said, trying to be more serious. ‘Things might get back to normal. What are you going to do then?’

He wiped his eyes and, for a fraction of a second, a look of intense and obviously false concern spread across his face.

‘It bloody better end,’ he said, trying not to laugh again, ‘If it don’t then I’m really in the shit!’

I took off my T-shirt and wiped my sweat-covered face on it before throwing it over my shoulder and into the hedge. I lay back down on the hard, moistureless ground and stared up into the stars. It was a beautiful, clear night (now that I thought about it, I realised that I had not seen a cloud for days) and I could not help but notice how normal everything looked. The man at my side was quiet for a moment.

‘It’s definitely going to end,’ he said, suddenly.

I turned my head to the side to look at him. He remained flat on his back with his eyes closed and his hands behind his head.

‘There ain’t no question about it,’ he continued. ‘Things don’t get this bad and then get better again. This really is it.’

I knew that he was right and returned my attention to the skies above us. I thought back to the energy pulse earlier in the day and it was only then that I realised the extreme danger that we were both exposed to. Should another one of the deadly waves strike now, there would be no escape from the heat, light and wind. Should the wave be as strong or, as seemed to be more likely, stronger than the last, then neither of us could expect to escape with anything less than extensive and dangerous burns. I still carried my wide umbrella but the protection that would afford me was negligible. If the next pulse was stronger, I thought, then perhaps even shelter and shade would not be enough to prevent severe injury and damage. Walking along open roads to reach Samantha was a calculated risk that I had to take but lying here, exposed and vulnerable in the empty field, was little short of foolish and stupid.

As I lay still, I thought more about the pulses and their timing. The first and second waves had been separated by a week, there had been three or four days between the second and third, and under two days between the third pulse and the one which had struck yesterday. If the gaps between the pulses continued to reduce (and I had no reason to think that they would not) then there was a real chance of at least one more wave striking later today. As the realisation began to dawn on me, it gave me a new impetus to reach Sam quickly.

I got to my feet and shook the dust from my damp, ragged clothes. The man at my side began to snore and I wondered if I should wake him rather than leave him exposed and at the mercy of the heat and light. Although I tried to think about other things, as I readied myself to leave I could not help but wonder when the pulse would strike the planet that would have the power to burn and kill. I knew that I could waste no more time.

I gently kicked the man’s side and he fidgeted on the ground at my feet. Mumbling and groaning at having been disturbed, he looked up at me through tired eyes.

‘I think you’d better get yourself under some cover,’ I said, genuinely concerned for my companion. ‘There might be another one of those energy waves before long.’

He stared at me for a moment before closing his eyes again and smiling to himself.

‘That’s all right, pal,’ he said as he stifled a yawn. ‘If we’ve got to go, we’ve got to go.’

Although I could not help but admire the man’s attitude, I almost wanted to grab his arm and pull him under cover. I had to accept, however, that staying there was his choice and his choice alone to make. Looking back, I was perhaps a little jealous of how the man was able to relax and to almost enjoy the end of the world while I seemed destined to spend the rest of my time dragging myself along endless roads.

‘Well I’m going,’ I said, annoyed with the man and with myself. ‘If you want to stay here then you can. Hope you enjoy it.’

The man began to snore again and I left the field. I clambered over the low, prickly hedgerow and back onto the quiet road. Before hauling it onto my aching shoulders, I checked the contents of the little bag that I carried and I found that only a few scraps of food and one more bottle of water remained. There was one clean T-shirt in a side pocket and a pair of running shorts. I changed into them and dumped my soiled clothes carefully at the side of the road before moving off.

I had made reasonable progress throughout the day and I looked at the map as I walked along the road. The light from the moon was just bright enough to enable me to make out the majority of the details on the map and I saw that I had covered roughly half of the distance between where I had left the car and Samantha’s grandmother’s house. I tore the map in half, keeping only the relevant part, and screwed the rest up, throwing it down to the ground. I folded up what remained of the map and shoved it down the back of my shorts.

Once I was sure that I was heading in the right direction (leaving the field had proved strangely disorientating) I walked on through the night. The only sounds came from my tired feet dragging on the ground and from the metallic tip of my umbrella-walking stick hitting the dry road.

23

The next few hours seemed to take an eternity to pass. The batteries in my watch had begun to die and I did not know whether it was due to their obsolescence or to the energy pulses. I couldn’t remember the last time I had looked at the watch and I had taken to keeping it in my rucksack to help me forget how slowly time seemed to be passing. The world was deathly silent and I saw no-one after leaving my friend in the field. It was funny, I thought; all of the people that I had seen in the city had seemed hell-bent on beating, fighting and destroying each other, but two of the three people I had met on my travels through the starved countryside had been friendly and accommodating. Again, perhaps it had more to do with the effects of the heat and light than any genuine concern for a fellow human being.

I guessed that the rest of the journey would take another five or six hours to complete if I was able to maintain the pace which I had managed to keep to so far. With each passing mile, however, that seemed to be becoming a more and more unrealistic proposition as the relentless heat and strain took their deadly toll on my already fatigued body. My throat was painfully dry and it took all the will power that I could muster not to open the last bottle of mineral water which rattled around in the half-empty rucksack on my back. Swallowing had become a painful ordeal and I hoped that I would soon find somewhere where I could find further refreshment and provisions.

I looked again at the scrap of map which I carried so very unceremoniously down the back of my shorts and I wondered again if I really was doing the right thing. I knew that it was far too late to change anything even if I wanted to, but I could not help thinking that I should have made more of an effort to reach my family. Had I fully realised the true seriousness of the planet’s situation earlier, then I could have made the decision to abandon the office when the idea had first entered my mind. I fought to hold back sudden, painful tears as I thought about Mom, Dad and Michelle up in Scotland and the worry which I must have caused them. I had been unforgivably selfish in trying to get to Samantha first and had not even made the effort to call them and explain my plans.

As I dragged myself along the hot, dusty and silent road, I felt utterly and devastatingly alone. There was no-one at my side to tell me that I was doing the right thing or even to let me know that I was heading in the right direction. There was no-one to ask for advice and no-one with whom I could share the frustrating search for answers to the myriad of questions which constantly flooded into my troubled brain. At one point, I even began to think that I was going insane such was the number and velocity of the pointless, unanswerable questions and ideas which spilled into my mind from countless, unidentifiable sources. Again, there was no-one with me who could reassure me that my sanity was still intact.

The thoughts and questions which troubled me most concerned Samantha. The fear that if and when I finally reached her she would reject me managed to manifest itself with every second thought that I had and it took all of my will power and concentration not to dwell on the idea. I knew that if it did prove to be the case, the pain that I would suffer would be unbearable and the agony of rejection would make the effects of the burning rays of the dying sun pale into insignificance. I prayed that, if it happened, the world would end quickly afterwards - I knew that there would be no point in carrying on without Samantha.

The feelings which grew inside me for Sam were stronger than any I had ever felt for anyone else before. Despite the annoying, nagging doubts I had, I knew really (but refused to accept fully) that she would be there for me, that she would be waiting. To keep me going, I forced myself to try and remember once more the times we had spent together and the things she had said to me. They made it a little easier to carry on.

I pulled the useless watch out of my rucksack again and struggled to see if there was enough power left in the almost dead battery to let me read one final time. I thought that it must be close to three o’clock and I knew that I would have to rest again soon. Although it had only been a few hours since I had stopped in the field, I knew that it was important for me to make regular, short stops for rests. If I carried on walking without a break then I wasn’t sure if I would be able to reach Samantha at all.

The road which I followed was wide and reasonably straight. I had walked along it for the best part of an hour without seeing anything in the way of buildings or houses but, according to the scrap of map, I was due shortly to arrive at a small village and, just before that, a little farm. I decided to wait until I reached the farm and hoped that there would be somewhere there where I could stop and catch my breath.

The gradient of the road steepened as it climbed up over the brow of a high, dusty and barren hill. The sides of the tarmac track were dry and sandy and occasionally littered with the bodies of wandering sheep who had been unable to find enough grass to graze upon or enough water to drink. As I clambered over the hill’s peak, I was glad to see that the road stretched smoothly out into the distance. At the side of the road, no more than half a mile away, stood an odd collection of ramshackle, battered wooden buildings and I could only presume that I had found the farm.

With a new-found energy and vigour, I stumbled down the hillside. I was suddenly elated - not only was I going to rest for a while, finding the farm was also confirmation that I was still heading in the right direction - that I was still on the right route.

As I approached the grey and shadowy timber buildings, I noticed that the whole site appeared abandoned and devoid of any life. The farmhouse and storage barns were little more than dilapidated shells and the yard around which they were built was untidy and uncared for. I thought that the state of the place probably had more to do with the harsh conditions than anything else - half of the buildings that I had left behind in the city had begun to look just as tired and derelict.

I decided not to take any chances with the local population - the farmhouse may have looked deserted but there could have been any number of frightened people inside. I remembered having stumbled onto a farmer’s land when I was a child and being chased away by a rifle-wielding old man and five of his Neanderthal hired hands. In the weary state that I found myself in I thought it best not to tempt fate and so dragged myself along a dusty, gravel-covered track towards a huge barn. I pushed open the heavy doors and stumbled inside.

The barn was almost empty. Towards the back of the building was a stack of freshly harvested straw which I found surprising as it was, quite unbelievably, almost November. I was no farmer, but I knew that it was long past the season for gathering such crops. It was only then that I stopped to consider the effects of the wild heat on the people here. My own world had been turned upside down by the incredible conditions but my own personal suffering had been limited in comparison to that of the owners of the farm. They relied on the land for their livelihoods and the repercussions of the heat for them were far more serious. I then realised that it hardly mattered anymore - it didn’t look as if anyone had a future left to be ruined.

I pulled the doors shut behind me and crept into the dark shadows of the barn. Taking care not to make any noise, I sneaked through the building towards the vast store of straw and sat down. I drank half of the final bottle of water before lying down to relax for a moment. With all the will and strong intention in the world, it was impossible to stop myself from drifting off to sleep and I quickly lost consciousness. I woke quickly for a couple of seconds and tried to sit up and stay awake but it was useless. Even though I knew that I was risking losing the precious time with Samantha which I craved, I could do nothing to prevent myself from falling into a deep and much needed sleep.

24

My sleep was deep and sound and yet was interrupted by unwanted dreams.

I walked along a dusty dirt track towards the parched remains of a little village. The sky was a clear, unblemished blue and the sun burnt down with a vicious heat. I had not thought it possible that the power of the dying star could have increased any more but the incredible force and light which poured down from the brilliant yellow orb scorched my face and made my flesh tighten and burn.

There was no escape from the cruel sun - there were no trees to hide underneath and the homes in the village were still a little way ahead. I had no real alternative but to keep walking towards the motley collection of tired, dry buildings. My head dropped with exhaustion and I looked down to the ground. My feet were bare and, as they dragged along the ground, they pulled up clouds of loose dust behind them. The gravel and grit scratched and cut the skin on my soles but the pain faded into insignificance alongside the burning of the sun and my overpowering fatigue.

Each step that I took along the rough ground added more and more to the agony which I felt. It was all that I could do to keep lifting up each foot in turn and I was beginning to rely on gravity rather than any other conscious force to pull them back down and keep me moving along. My mouth was as dry as coarse sandpaper and the pain in my throat made it almost impossible to swallow. Nevertheless, I forced myself on towards the collection of battered buildings and I felt, for some strange and unsure reason, as if something there was calling me. For some inexplicable reason, I was sure that Samantha was waiting for me in the village and it was that feeling alone which gave me the strength to carry on. I knew that it would not be long before I was in her arms again and that when I had found her I would be able to rest.

I stumbled on past the first dry buildings of the village. The little settlement was nothing more than a collection of wooden houses and shops which were separated and split in two by the road which ran through the village’s centre. Footpaths led away through dead, parched gardens to the front steps of hot houses. Most doors and windows were propped open and, even from a fair distance away, I was able to see the occupants of each of the buildings I passed sitting in their homes in great discomfort. The only part of their suffocating bodies which moved were their tired eyes as they stared outside and followed my unsteady progress into the village. The people seemed to be as exhausted and as desperate as I was, able only to sit still and to do their best to survive the heat.

Two rows of similar houses stretched out on each side of me and, in between them, the dirt track reached out. It might once have been a busy road but today it was nothing more than a yellow and orange strip of dust and gravel, barely discernible from the remains of the dead grass verges which lined it either side. The rows of buildings ran on for about a hundred yards before the road ended suddenly, its progress halted inexplicably by a large wooden house which straddled the pathway and cut off the village from the rest of the dehydrated world beyond.

It was like an old western film - the dusty ground, the rows of tall buildings and the blinding, relentless sunlight. I stopped walking for a moment and took in a couple of deep, calming breaths of the scorched, moistureless air. I turned around and saw that another building had somehow appeared behind me, trapping me in the middle of a village square. Through the gaps between the buildings I could see all of the way out to the horizon where vast plains of sand stretched out endlessly - there were no hills, dunes or other interruptions to the eternal sea of yellow.

I took another step forward and tripped over a rock which lay at my feet. For several startled moments I lay like a turtle stranded on its back, unable to move and with my exposed stomach baking in agony. The sun scorched my skin and the dirt and gravel on the ground tore into my tender flesh as I writhed in frightened surprise, trying desperately to stand up again. I scrambled to my feet and brushed away the dust from my sticky, burning skin.

I was disorientated and looked up at the large building ahead which straddled the road. I was not sure if it was the same building that I had been walking towards or the one that I was walking away from. I stared as the door began to slowly open. An unexpected sixth sense told me that it was Samantha and I broke into a painful sprint to try and reach her. When I was no more than fifty metres away from the house, she stepped out of the shadows and, when she saw who it was that ran towards her, she left the protection of the shadowy home to meet me in the exposed village square. We sprinted towards each other as quickly as our tired legs would allow but no matter how hard I tried or how quickly I ran, Samantha did not seem to be getting any closer.

With the absolute final reserves of energy that I could summon from my tired body, I struggled to breach the gap between us and to make contact with my love. She was, eventually, only two or three metres away and I stretched out my tired arms to hold her. Just as our fingertips were about to touch, a wind of extraordinary power and unbelievable force suddenly blew from nowhere, knocking me down to the ground. The phenomenal heat and the strength of the gale far surpassed anything that I had ever felt before and I fought to lift my head to see Samantha screaming out in fear. Her words were inaudible and she reached out for me as she struggled to stay stood upright against the monumental force of the wind. I pulled myself across the rough ground and, shielding my eyes from the dust which swirled through the twisting air, I managed to stand up.

As I reached out to hold the girl I loved, a light of terrifying strength shone and I felt my skin beginning to burn and to peel from my body. Despite the brilliance, I could not close my eyes and I watched everything with abject horror-I saw the ground, the buildings, the air and then Samantha burst into flames.

I woke up with a terrified start and sat bolt upright on the pile of straw, drenched with an uncomfortable and strangely cooling sweat. It took a couple of moments for the fact that I had been dreaming to sink in and, when I realised that the world still had a little time left, I felt an incredible sense of relief. That was short lived, however, as I lifted my head towards the wooden doors of the barn and saw, through the gap between them, that brilliant sunlight was flooding in from outside.

Within moments I had collected up the few belongings that I still carried and was running away from the barn along the dusty track which led back towards the road. I passed a farmer who had just left the farmhouse and he looked at me with a mixture of surprise and bewilderment on his face as I staggered past him, already breathless.

I was furious with myself for having slept so soundly for so long and I struggled to find my watch in the pockets of my rucksack. It gave the time as twenty to four and I cursed it for having finally given up for good when I had most needed it.

I hoped that there was still enough time to reach Samantha. Although the sun was already high in the clear sky, I felt sure that it was still early in the morning. It would serve me right if it was too late but I knew that I had to keep going - I couldn’t stop or take any more unnecessary risks. This was the last chance I would have to see Samantha before we died.

25

I made my way along the hot and dusty road, my progress weighed down by the heavy heart which I carried with me. Although my body was exhausted and movement of any kind took an incredible amount of effort, my mind seemed set on forcing me to move faster to make up for the time I had wasted sleeping in the barn. It was little short of a triumph of self-control that stopped me from trying to speed up or even run along the road. I knew that if I was to have any chance of reaching Samantha at all then I needed to pace myself - a burst of energy in the wrong place could have serious repercussions. I tried to think of it as a tactical run like a marathon and, although I had never run such a race myself, I soon began to appreciate the mental anguish suffered by the athletes who pushed their bodies constantly until they completed the gruelling twenty-six mile course. In reality, there was a much shorter distance left between me and the village where I hoped Samantha would be waiting.

It was still early in the morning, I was sure of it. Despite the fact that my watch had died completely and I had thrown it angrily onto a rock at the side of the road a few minutes earlier, I managed to make a rough estimation of the time from the position of the sun which had already risen high into the morning sky and which was burning with an undiminished ferocity. I had no shelter from the piercing, searing rays of light as I had foolishly abandoned the cumbersome umbrella that I had carried, in my haste to leave the barn. I had considered going back to fetch it but I knew that there was not enough time. The felt hat which I still wore provided some respite from the sun’s brutal light.

The air was moistureless and unbearably hot and I could not help but wonder if this would prove to be the last day of the planet’s life. I felt sure that if the temperature increased any more, then it would be near impossible to continue walking and I did my level best to try and ignore the agony and discomfort. In the hours since leaving the car yesterday I had already discovered that walking left me with little else to do but constantly think about the planet’s dire situation and, today, there was nothing other than the overpowering conditions to occupy my mind and nothing to watch but the world burning up around me.

I needed a drink. It had been a good two hours since I had drained the last drops from the final bottle of water (I had finished that shortly after leaving the barn) and I knew that while I needed refreshment, I could ill-afford to spend precious time searching around for something to quench my thirst. I pulled the sweat-soaked map from the back of my damp shorts and, to my delight, saw that the road I followed crossed the path of a well-established river within the next two miles. The light blue line on the map filled my mind with visions of raging torrents of cool, rushing fresh water but, when I arrived, my expectations were cruelly dashed.

The once proud river was nothing more than a muddy ditch. Over the years the course of the water had carved a deep furrow through the landscape but today it was little more than a dry and wide channel in the dust with the slightest trickle of dirty, stagnant water at its lowest point. The curved sides of the river-bed were rock-hard walls of baked mud, riddled with cracks like crazy paving through weeks of constant heat and dehydration. Shattered and disconsolate, I stood at the side of the road for a moment before making my way down to the lowest part of the river.

The muddy trickle of water struggled to move downstream (a technically correct but highly inappropriate term) and I followed its difficult progress for about a hundred metres. At my feet lay a shallow pool where the thick, muddy emulsion gathered in a deep enough trough to enable me to drink from it. Dropping to my knees, I scooped up the dirty liquid in cupped hands and raised it to my dry, chapped lips.

The water was foul to taste and yet was wet enough to at least give the impression of being refreshing. I had already swallowed two large and unpleasant mouthfuls of the thick liquid before its repellent flavour actually registered on my scorched and numbed taste buds, forcing me to spit it out onto the ground at my side. I watched as the drops of water splashed down onto the dry, baked mud and the colour faded quickly as the sun evaporated the moisture away in seconds. Unfortunately, I knew that I needed to drink to survive and so forced myself to take a few more difficult gulps before getting up and clambering out from the dead river-bed. I did consider the possibility that there might be diseases breeding in the dirty water but that did not worry me unduly. I felt sure that by the time any illness had managed to gestate inside me, the world would have already been burned and destroyed.

I stood at the side of the road trying to get my bearings as the quick climb out from the depths of the river-bed had combined with a lack of any food or nourishment to leave me feeling weak and light-headed. I took the map out of my pocket again for further reassurance. At least finding the remains of the river as I had expected to had been welcome confirmation that I was still following the right route and, although there was still a fair distance to travel, I felt sure that I could memorise the rest of the way. The journey to the village was along a virtually straight road now and there were a sufficient number of landmarks along the way from which I could keep a log of my progress and keep track of roughly how far I had left to go. I also carried with me the handwritten directions to Sam’s grandmother’s house which she had scribbled out for me and I checked with the map once more to reassure myself that I was heading towards the right village.

To keep the baggage that I carried to an absolute minimum, I screwed up the remains of the map and hurled it into a brittle bush at the side of the road. Despite the fact that I had seen no-one since leaving the barn earlier, I still looked around to make sure that nobody had seen my careless act of wanton pollution. Quickly realising what a fool I was being, I took the now redundant rucksack from my back and hurled it into what remained of the dry river. I wished that there had been cool, flowing water there to wash it quickly away.

I walked on along the road with my tired head hanging heavily down. I looked at my weary body and at my sore skin. Overnight it had turned from being lobster pink to a deep, dark brown and I could not help smiling at the fact that, only a couple of weeks ago, people would have paid thousands of pounds to fly across the world to get a tan as good as the one that I had now. People would have killed for the chance to colour their bodies as I had but now it seemed more likely that they would be killed by the sun that they previously would have travelled hundreds of miles to find.

Before leaving home, I had filled my car with almost all of my possessions. My clothes, my books, my record collection, almost everything of value that I owned had been crammed into the overloaded vehicle and it all stood waiting for me to collect it on the dusty forecourt of an abandoned petrol station. Now I stood alone on a silent road, wearing only dirty shorts and a pair of worn-out trainers. It suddenly occurred to me that I had risked everything to be with Samantha. I prayed that the sacrifice would be worthwhile and that she would want to be with me when I finally reached her.

Although it was only a couple of hours later, when I came across the beaten wreck of an old car at the side of the road it felt as if the best part of a day had passed. Each single step that I took seemed to take ten times longer and require ten times more effort than it normally would have done.

As I neared the car, it became apparent that it was not as old as it had first appeared. I guessed that its engine must have failed at the same time as my car’s had and its exposed position on the roadside had left it in full view and completely at the mercy of the savage and unpredictable conditions. From a distance it had looked as if the vehicle had been involved in some horrendous crash or act of ferocious vandalism but, as I approached, it became increasingly obvious that the outside of the car had been worn and beaten by hours of scorching heat, brilliant sunlight and strong, hot winds.

I tried to wipe away some of the layer of thick, sandy dust which had collected on the driver’s door window but quickly recoiled as the hot glass and metal burnt my fingers. I shielded my eyes from the bright light and struggled to look inside the dark car, hoping that I would find something there that would help quench the angry, persistent thirst which I felt in my throat and which I had, so far, been unable to appease. The dirt on the window’s surface rendered it almost opaque and the blinding sunlight simply reflected back into my tired eyes. I looked around on the ground and found a rock of a decent enough size and weight to smash the glass. I lifted the stone with some effort and hurled it at the side of the car. With a dull, dramatic thud, it struck the metal of the door and fell to the ground, leaving a large dent where it had hit. Clean, silver metal showed through the scratched paint and shone in the sunlight,

I was tired and had no intention of spending much more of my precious time trying to break into other people’s cars. I picked the rock up once more. determined not to be beaten. My lack of energy made it difficult to lift the heavy boulder and I stumbled closer to the car before trying again to smash the window. With a loud grunt, I hoisted the rock into the air and half threw, half pressed the awkward mass against the window. Surprisingly, there was a loud crack and the weakened glass began to give way. As the stone dropped to the ground, I saw that it had made a small hole and that from that hole, a hundred tiny hairline cracks now ran. With a new-found enthusiasm, I picked the rock up for the third time and crashed it against the fragile window. It shattered completely and a cloud of hot, musty and foul-smelling air rushed out of the car and hit me full in the face, sending me reeling away. I tripped and fell to the rough ground, cutting my knee on the spiteful gravel.

I slowly clambered back up to my feet and brushed the loose dust and gravel away from my tender, sunburnt skin. I stepped up to the side of the car and looked inside. It took a couple of seconds for my eyes to become accustomed to the dull shadows that I could see through the remains of the dusty window and I struggled to make out the identity of a large, bulky form which lay slumped across the passenger seat. As I gradually became used to the dark, the cumbersome shape became recognisable as the withered and dehydrated body of the car’s asphyxiated driver. Although I had no desire to make a detailed inspection of the twisted body, I could tell from the unnatural colour of his skin and from the repugnant smell which came from him that he had been dead for some time.

I could see nothing of any immediate interest inside the car and I did not relish the thought of making a search of the cluttered area around the lifeless body. Instead, fighting to control my unease and with my eyes tightly screwed shut in disgust, I leant inside the vehicle and took out the keys which still hung uselessly in the ignition.

I walked around to the back of the car and unlocked the boot. It swung gently open, helped up by a hissing hydraulic mechanism and I saw that the man had been planning a similar trip to the one upon which I had embarked. The boot was piled high with clothes and possessions which I carelessly turfed out onto the baking road. With a complete lack of respect for the dead man, I hurled luggage and carrier bags out of the car in a desperate attempt to find food and drink but it seemed that they were the only things that he had neglected to pack.

Five breathless minutes later, with the entire contents of the vehicle strewn haphazardly across the dry, dusty road, I managed to find what I had looked for so frantically. Unfortunately, all that I managed to collect was two dehydrated and withered apples and a bottle of whisky which was empty save for half an inch of thick, sticky liquid at the bottom. Ignoring the bland and sweaty flavour of the dried apples, I ate them both within a minute before draining the last drops of the warm whisky from the bottle. The liquor brought a sudden comforting, pleasant glow to my raw throat and, for a moment at least, made me feel light-headed and helped me to forget the suffocating strain that I was under. I threw the empty bottle over my shoulder and, as the glass shattered and danced on the hard floor, I walked away from the car.

I paused as I passed the broken window and, although I knew that the dead man could not hear me, I apologised to him for having made such a mess and thanked him for allowing me to finish off his bottle of spirits. I assured him that the drink had been most welcome and wished him a good day as I carried on walking along the road.

26

According to the route which I had planned and memorised earlier, I would near the outskirts of another little settlement some ten miles away from the village where I hoped that I would find Samantha and her family. As the road I followed wound its weary way down and around a steep hillside, it came as a great relief to see the first village eventually coming into view. It was initially difficult to make out the dusty buildings in the midst of the parched and famished countryside and I was glad when I had reached the point on the road where I could see its entire length and could follow the twisting track along its full distance to the little village.

From the position of the sun, proud in the clear sky above me, I guessed that it must have been close to midday and my heart was lifted by the progress that I had managed to make against all the odds. The village was the last of the landmarks that I had forced myself to memorise to help me with the route to Samantha and I knew now that I was almost on the home strait. The possibility of actually reaching my journey’s end seemed more realistic now than it had done at any other time in the last two days.

In between the village and myself, like a dark grey stain on the otherwise almost exclusively yellow and orange landscape, a huge industrial estate suddenly appeared. Unexpected, and totally out of place and character with the rest of the once picturesque landscape, the motley collection of dark and dirty buildings offered a convenient short-cut and I thought that I might be able to find some refreshment there without the need for any time-consuming and possibly dangerous detours. Although the end of my trip was almost at hand, I knew that I still had some way to go and that I had already subjected my body to an incredible ordeal.

The estate was home to a number of recently abandoned factories and to a large supermarket which seemed big enough to be able to serve the needs of all of the villages for miles around. I decided to stop there for a while to search for the food and drink that would revitalise my tired body and help ensure that I completed the remaining distance to Colliwell. Also, the isolation of the estate meant that I could rest without the need to go deeper into the village and therefore eliminate the risks that were involved in spending time with what remained of the desperate and frightened population.

The road followed a gentle arc down the hillside and towards the village and I needed only to clamber through a stretch of starved and brittle forest and down a short, twisting track to reach the estate. I half fell, half rolled down the dusty hillside, dragging up plumes of scorched dirt behind me as I tumbled. After thirty seconds of uncontrolled descent, I eventually ran breathlessly into the wire mesh fence which surrounded the estate and was able to scramble underneath it thanks to a large and convenient hole which had been left by looters who had visited there before me. I took a few hesitant steps onto the hard concrete ground of the estate and, once I was sure that there was no-one around, I walked towards the supermarket which was the building furthest from where I had entered the complex.

The place seemed to be deserted but as I walked slowly along the warm ground, I felt sure that I was being watched. I looked deep into the shadows between buildings and saw that there were people crammed into the gaps between the huge, oily structures. They watched me with a mixture of disinterest and bewilderment and, although they were silent, I felt sure that they longed to talk to each other and to laugh together at the fool who risked his life in the dangerous sunshine. Having completed the longest stretch of my arduous journey, I had started to feel like a victorious warrior back from a crusade or from another vicious war but the people who watched me couldn’t tell if I had walked a thousand miles to get to the estate or if I had just stepped out of my front door. More to the point, they didn’t care. They seemed content (or as content as they could be in the relentless conditions) to sit silently in the shadows and wait for whatever fate held in store for them. I secretly wondered if they had been more sensible than me but I walked on through the estate regardless and scrambled over piles of ruined, wrecked machinery which lay strewn about the various carparks and yards,

The large, brightly painted supermarket (or hypermarket as the sign on its side proudly proclaimed) was the furthest building from the entrance I had used to the estate and it seemed strangely at odds with the other factories and warehouses which were assembled on the vast site. Its lime green and white corrugated metal walls were dulled and dirtied by layers of dust and I noticed with disappointment that the entrance doors were covered with steel shutters and secured by heavy padlocks. I walked slowly along the side of the hanger-like structure and rounded the corner. In front of me was a wall of huge glass windows, all of which had been shattered and smashed open.

Taking great care, I picked my way through the nearest window, trying not to step on any of the sharp daggers of glass which lay all around. Small transparent crystals ground under the weight of my feet and I hoped that my worn trainers would provide strong enough protection from the spiteful shards. I could just about survive the rest of the day without food and drink but I knew that I could go no further with injured feet. After having walked almost continually for a day they were in a bad enough state already. It took a few slow minutes for me to weave my way through the remains of the windows and their decimated displays but I was eventually able to step out into the main area of the supermarket and walk about freely.

The once pristine aisles and shelves that had been proudly tended by the shop’s staff were now looking very much the worse for wear. Days of looting, stealing and wanton vandalism had taken their toll on the supermarket to such an extent that there remained hardly a square metre of ground that had not been covered in wasted food or other, equally unpleasant rubbish. From my vantage point at one end of the huge store, it appeared that every last morsel had been taken from the building’s vast stores and torn from its shelves but, as I looked closer, I saw that some unopened packages still remained under layers of garbage. I stumbled anxiously through the refuse and down a cluttered aisle to where I had spotted something to drink. At the far end of the shop, a bright sign hung from the roof which advertised cheap cans of soft drinks for sale and that was exactly what I needed. I virtually ran through the junk on the ground, churning it up into the air and to the side like a bizarre version of a snow plough.

To my disappointment (although I had expected to find as much) the soft drinks display had been decimated by the local population. The shelves had been stripped bare and crushed cans lay at my feet, adding bitter insult to injury. Undeterred, I began to turf my way through the debris and had soon managed to find a half-finished bottle of lemonade which had, miraculously, managed to stay upright in the confusion, I thirstily drained the flat, warm liquid from the bottle and then rested against a nearby shelf, partially refreshed. I walked away from the display and towards the area of the shop which had once been the bakery and, as I did, an unopened bottle of cola rolled out along the ground to greet me. I picked it up, drank it dry in seconds and carried on moving, walking quickly and belching loudly.

Now that the irritation and pain in my throat had been silenced for a few precious seconds, I set about finding some suitable food to try and boost my flagging energy levels. I was conscious of spending too long looking around the shop and so resigned myself to eating anything I could find, no matter how inappropriate or out of date it was. A strong, heavy smell of decaying and defrosting food tainted the musty air and it worsened noticeably as I rounded the corner at the end of an aisle and walked towards what had been the fresh milk and dairy products display. I moved quickly past the bottles and cartons of rapidly curdling yoghurts and drinks and on towards a shelf I had spotted that was loaded high with cakes and other sweets.

The once fresh cream in the cakes had deteriorated as rapidly as the other dairy products had but, among the debris, I managed to find a hard, brick-shaped Madeira cake which still looked and smelled reasonably edible. Hungrily, I tore the cellophane wrapper and paper trimmings from the yellow cake and bit deep into it. It was hard and stale and it took considerable effort to chew the tasteless mouthful of food and swallow it. It was dry, and it left my mouth feeling as parched as it had been before I had found anything to eat or drink. I tried to convince myself that eating the stale cake was better than not eating at all and I nibbled one corner while I walked around the shop in search of something with a little more flavour to keep me going.

I kicked away the remains of a polythene bag which had become tangled around my foot and, as I did so, I disturbed a tall pile of cardboard boxes that were stacked nearby. The empty packages tumbled to the ground near to me and I looked down to see that a leg had been uncovered among the rubbish on the hard marble floor. Instinctively (there could have been no other reason for my actions) I moved more and more of the refuse until a body lay on the ground in front of me, exposed to the hot air. The corpse was that of a woman in her late twenties and she lay twisted uncomfortably on her back. Her skin was taut and discoloured, pulled tightly across her once pretty face, and it gave her an unnerving, skull-like appearance. From a vicious hole in her head, just above her right temple, thick red blood had seeped down onto the white floor and had coagulated in a sticky pool around her, staining the sleeve of her white and green checkout-girl’s uniform. There were no obvious signs as to what had caused the fatal injury (nothing was really obvious in the confusion of the shop) and I stepped over the corpse as if it was just another discarded piece of litter. Within seconds, I had forgotten about the girl as I had managed to find an undamaged tin of baked beans. I set about searching desperately for something to use as a can-opener.

Fortunately, the supermarket had been well equipped and I eventually found a rack loaded with kitchen utensils. I opened the can and drank from it hungrily. To my considerable surprise and delight, the heat inside the vast building had been such that the contents of the can were virtually cooked and the slimy meal was not as distasteful as it might have been. As I wiped thick dribbles of tomato sauce from the corners of my mouth, I forced myself to admit that I had quite enjoyed the first cooked food that I had eaten in days. Suitably refreshed, I turned back around to face the smashed windows ready to leave the shop and get out onto the road.

There was a sudden crashing noise behind me. I froze for a moment, praying that nothing was going to happen that would prevent me from reaching Samantha. I looked around anxiously but could not see the source of the sound. It seemed to have come from the storage area at the back of the shop and, without really considering the pointless risk that I was taking, I began walking back into the shop to investigate.

I stood at the entrance to the storeroom and struggled to look inside through a small rectangular window which was glazed with wire-strengthened safety glass. In the gloom and the shadows it was difficult to make out very much but I was sure that I could see movement. I craned my neck and pressed my face hard against the tiny window to see what was happening. The door suddenly flew open, sending me sprawling and tumbling into a heap on the rubbish-strewn floor. Dazed for a moment, I shook my head and looked back towards the doors which were pulling themselves gently closed. In front of me stood a young boy who stared back in my direction for a moment with glazed eyes before swaying on his unsteady feet and collapsing heavily on the ground. I quickly scrambled through the layers of garbage to get to him and, as I leant over his tiny body to see what was wrong, the stench of strong, undiluted alcohol made me recoil involuntarily. The boy turned his head heavily to one side and vomited. He began to slowly pull himself upright again using a display for support but, before I was able to offer any assistance, I was distracted as the storeroom doors opened again.

A near hysterical scream rang out from the darkness, shattering the fragile silence of the supermarket. From out of nowhere, a woman appeared and ran towards me, her arms flailing out in front of her and her fingers scratching through the air like sharp talons. I instinctively moved away. frightened and surprised. Like the child who, I could only presume, was her son, the woman smelled of stale alcohol and other, even more repulsive odours. Fortunately for me, she stumbled in the waste on the floor and fell to the ground close to where the young boy had been sick. Part of me wanted to stop and help the family but I knew that there was little I could do for them and that reaching Samantha was much more important. I watched with disbelief as a third person, a little girl, emerged from the storeroom with a half-empty bottle of brandy held in her clammy hand.

While it was difficult to see the people in front of me in such a sad, pitiful and pathetic state, I could understand completely why the mother had let her children and herself slide into such a dire condition. Judging from the temperature already, there would be little chance of any of them living long enough to suffer with hangovers and so the drinking would have only beneficial effects. The incredible heat meant that the frightened children needed to drink almost constantly and the alcohol that they consumed would act as a crude anaesthetic which would isolate them all from the chaos and confusion of the burning world around them. I watched the children’s mother as she writhed on the ground, laughing at first and then beginning to cry, half aware of what was going on around her. She struggled to pick herself up onto her unsteady feet and then, moving much more slowly than she had been, she walked helplessly towards me with her arms outstretched. Her once pretty face was fixed in an expression which seemed to beg for help and explanations. I could offer neither.

It was not easy for me to walk away, but I knew that I had to leave - I felt cruel and heartless and I could hear the young mother crying behind me as I left. I walked back towards the broken windows to get outside and the searing heat seemed to increase with every step I took. Once I was back out in the scorching brightness, I paused for a second to gather my thoughts before moving on.

The temperature was now at such an extreme level that for a moment, I actually considered going back into the store and drinking myself into oblivion with the other people there. I knew, however, that I could not and I only needed to picture Samantha’s face in my mind to instantly dispel all such thoughts. I quickly made my way back to the road, desperate not to waste a single moment more of the little time which remained.

The miles that still lay ahead of me seemed trivial and inconsequential when I compared them with the huge distance that I had already managed to cover. I knew that reaching Samantha was now a real possibility and, although the fear that I would not be able to complete the required distance had all but disappeared from my mind, it had been quickly replaced with a new, even more disturbing thought. A dark, heavy cloud hung over my head and I knew that the planet did not have long left. I hoped that I would be able to reach Samantha before the world finally died.

27

With confused and conflicting emotions running through my tired mind constantly, walking along the dusty road became more and more difficult with each passing step. Without a watch I had no way of accurately telling the time but I was sure that it was racing along at a dangerous and unstoppable rate. Although I realised that the distance between Samantha and myself reduced with every metre that I walked, I knew that the planet came moments closer to destruction also. While I had wandered around the supermarket I had managed to convince myself subconsciously that my journey was almost over and, in terms of the distance that I had covered and the distance that remained, it was. It was becoming increasingly difficult to believe, however, as, after every corner that I turned and after every hill that I climbed, the road ahead stretched on for as far as I could see. I knew that I had to increase my speed but, with each second that passed, it became harder for me to do so.

The world around me was silent again. Since leaving the supermarket I had not seen a single person, an animal or even a solitary bird in the clear blue sky. A nauseous, sickening feeling accompanied my every step and, with every breeze which disturbed the still air, I froze and waited for the arrival of the devastating heat and light which would soon descend and destroy the planet. As I stumbled along, unable to remove such terrified and hysterical thoughts from my mind, there came a sudden noise and a rush of wind from behind me and I dropped to my knees, ready to die.

Nothing happened. There was no wind, no light and no further increase in the temperature. I slowly opened my eyes and nervously looked up to see that the disturbance had been nothing more than a man on a bicycle riding past me. I had been in such isolation for so many lonely miles that the unexpected sound had surprised me and had shattered the silence so dramatically that I had immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion. With my legs weak with relief, I clambered back to my feet and watched as the man pedalled away at a speed which had only the slightest of advantages on my own walking pace. He looked old, withered and tired and, as I stared at him, it suddenly occurred to me that the bike would be the perfect means of transport for getting me quickly to Samantha.

‘Hey!’ I shouted after him. ‘Stop!’

The man glanced anxiously over his shoulder before turning back to face the road ahead and pedalling away. I shouted again.

‘Stop! Please!’

In response to my second call the man slowed and turned the bike around on the road in a loose, gentle arc. As I approached, he looked me up and down with an expression of distaste and distrust on his face which I was, unfortunately, becoming quickly used to. He stopped and put one foot down on the ground for support, leaving the other in the stirrup of the pedal, obviously ready to move in the event that he needed to make a quick getaway from the ragged man who had called after him. I tried to ignore the apprehension of the man and avoided looking straight into his aged, wrinkled face in a vain attempt to gain his confidence - I knew that there was no way I could risk running after him should he panic and cycle away. It was difficult to try and think of the right words to say to him and I decided that it would be best if I was honest and asked him outright for the use of his bike. I cleared my dry throat.

‘I’ve been walking for miles,’ I said, trying to mask the desperation in my voice, ‘can I use your bike?’

The man stared at me for a moment before licking his chapped lips and running an unsteady hand through his thin silver hair.

‘I’m sorry, son. I’ve got to get home, I really would like to help you but I’ve got to get back. My missus isn’t well and I need to get these things to her.’

He tapped a little tartan bag which was strapped to the back of the bike and started to edge nervously away. I had to have the bicycle and knew that I would have to beg for the man’s help. He moved off and I stumbled up the track until I was alongside him again.

‘Please,’ I whined pathetically, ‘I left home days ago and I’ve been on my feet since yesterday. I really need the bike.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, puffing and blowing as he started to pedal quickly away. ‘I understand but I’ve got to get back. The wife’ll start worrying and then…’

The man never finished his sentence. Instead he concentrated all of his effort on getting away from me. I wished I had something to offer or to trade with him but I had nothing - all that I had was what I stood in, a pair of battered trainers, dirty shorts and a sweat-soaked felt hat. In desperation, and against my better judgment, I forced myself to speed up once more and, as I caught up with the bike, I reached out a tired arm and grabbed the back wheel. With little other option, the man stopped and turned to face me with cold, angry eyes.

’Please,’ I begged.

With some force, the man pulled away from me again and the bike was torn from my tired grip. The little saddle-bag was torn open and I saw that the items that the man’s wife needed so urgently were merely cans of drink and cigarettes.

‘Bastard’ I shouted and the man looked back over his shoulder before disappearing over the brow of a low hill and riding away. My already heavy heart sank further.

I angrily kicked the dusty road and walked on. Although I had completed well over three-quarters of the distance to Samantha, the remaining fraction suddenly seemed like an impossible gulf to have to cross. At that moment I felt as if I had been damned to walk eternally along this endless road and, while I knew that was a crazy thing to believe, I could not totally discount the possibility of it being true - after all, if I’d been told a fortnight ago that the world would be burning up around me, I would have thought that impossible too. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep my slender hold on reality intact.

By my rough and highly inaccurate timekeeping, I calculated that it had been just over a day since the last energy wave had struck and I felt sure that another would arrive soon. I knew that I really needed to look for cover at all times and I prayed that the pulse would not strike until I had reached Sam. Although I knew that little of my life remained, at that point I would have gladly given it all away to have been safe and secure in the cool comfort of Samantha’s arms. I tried hard to block out the part of my mind that wished for the blinding light and fierce heat to burn me up and end the agony of the endless day.

Despite my depression, there was nothing to do but stagger on along the road, I really had no alternative - there was nothing to be gained from stopping and waiting where I was and there was no way that I could turn around and go home. At least if I kept walking I would have a chance, albeit a slight one, of reaching Samantha.

The road was hard and hot and the scenery constant and unchanging. The relentless heat had increased further still and it had gradually drained all of the colour, life and moisture from the countryside that I travelled through. Once lush greens and autumnal browns had been steadily replaced by brittle, savage yellow and orange. All the individual features of the land - trees, hedges, buildings and fields - appeared to have merged into one vast and endless, desert-like space. I felt lost and alone in the enormity of the dry and alien world.

I cursed myself once more for having been short-sighted, blinkered and naive as to the difficulty of my journey. In the same way that I had left my home unprepared for disaster and delay, today I had walked from a supermarket without taking any supplies. It had only been a short time since I had left the cluttered building and cruel pangs of hunger and a relentless thirst had already returned to haunt me. The industrial estate and the nearby village had been the last landmarks on my memorised route before reaching Samantha and I realised that I would have to endure the considerable discomfort unless I could find some other source of refreshment along the way. In a couple of hours, though, I had seen nothing but the already ransacked remains of countless cars and the dry shells of still-occupied houses and other buildings. It was at one of those buildings, however, that my luck changed.

The house which I approached was little more than a dusty cottage. The walls had once been pristine white but were now a dirty yellow and a twisting driveway led from the roadside to a front door which had been battered by the relentless conditions and virtually stripped bare of paint. From my position on the road, it was impossible to see if anyone was at home and I took a few hesitant steps towards the building to get a better view. Propped against the side of the house was a bicycle and, when I caught sight of the distinctive saddle-bag strapped to the back of the frame, I recognised it as the bike that the old man had passed me on not more than an hour earlier.

I could understand why the man had ignored my pleas to use his bike and, if our positions had been reversed, then I might have done the same. What I objected to was the fact that from where we had met, it would have taken him less than an hour to reach his home while I still had a fair way to travel. It seemed that the milk of human kindness had been completely evaporated in the stifling heat. Luckily for me, the man had not chained or secured his bike and it was a simple matter for me to take it.

With the probability of reaching Samantha increasing by the second, I crept up to the side of the house and carefully wheeled the ancient bike back out into the blistering heat. As I shuffled quietly down the driveway, trying desperately not to disturb the man and to avoid any unnecessary confrontations, I tried to justify my actions to myself - it was survival of the fittest in these last few hours and I was determined to be the one who survived. The tarmac driveway was littered with rubbish and I cringed as I inadvertently kicked an empty metal paint tin which rattled along the hard floor until it came to rest in a brittle hedgerow, I sprinted back towards the road as quickly as I could, waiting nervously for the old man to appear.

The door of the little house was thrown open and a figure emerged from the shadows. I looked up for an instant and saw the man rush out into the sunlight. Once he realised who I was and what I was doing, he began to race towards me, carrying what looked like a heavy stick in his suntanned arms.

‘Come back here, you little shit!’ he yelled. I ignored him and sat down painfully on the bike’s hard seat. For a couple of anxious seconds I struggled to force my swollen feet into the stirrups while the cursing man approached. It was only when there was a loud bang and the sound of a bullet thudding into a nearby gatepost that I realised that the stick the man carried was a rifle. I pushed off on the bike and pedalled as quickly as my tired legs would allow me to.

‘Bring it back, you bloody thief!’ he shouted breathlessly. ‘I’ll fucking kill you!’

I glanced back over my shoulder and watched him struggling desperately to chase after me and reload his ancient rifle at the same time. Although the weapon didn’t look that formidable, I wasn’t about to take any chances. A second shot rang out and the bullet ricocheted off the ground no more than three feet from the back wheel of the bike. I span out of control and ended up in a flustered heap in the middle of the baking road and then, when I turned and saw the man reload for a second time, I quickly climbed to my feet and pedalled away. By the time the third shot rang out I was well out of range and, as I rode towards the village where Sam waited, I laughed with delight at having got my own back on the old man who wanted to keep me from Samantha.

My frame of mind was much improved. I guessed that it must have been getting late in the afternoon and that there could not be far left to travel to reach the village. Once I was there it was simply a question of finding Samantha’s grandmother’s house and then praying that Sam would still want me there. Despite my battered appearance, I felt sure that she would. After all. I thought, I had just crossed half the country and had survived being shot at to be with her.

With the final ounces of energy, determination and resolve that I could summon from my tired body, I pushed the bike and myself on and on along the seemingly endless road.

28

In spite of the fact that the stolen bicycle looked ancient and tired, it turned out to be a surprisingly strong and remarkably reliable machine. Its chipped and outdated blue paintwork belied its capabilities and a set of good, strong tyres helped me to make good progress along my way. The slopes of the road were kind and I travelled towards the village with a welcome burst of speed.

I was sure that there was not far left to travel now. Passing the industrial estate earlier in the afternoon had confirmed again that I was still following the correct route - all that I needed now was to see something that would reassure me that there was only a short distance left to cover.

As I cycled through the desolate countryside in the scorching heat of late afternoon, I looked back on the journey that I had just made with a mixture of emotions. If I had given the amount of thought and consideration to the trip that it had really merited, perhaps I wouldn’t even have attempted it in the first place. As I looked back over the events of the last day, I found it hard to believe that I had even made it this far. By working my way back through each day of the last week, I was able to say with certainty that today’s date was Sunday the twenty-eighth of October. It was almost impossible to try and comprehend the fact that, if the world did manage to survive into next week, it would be November the first on Thursday.

My mind wandered back to two weeks ago. What had been considered unseasonably and unbearably hot then was relatively cool compared to the suffocating heat of today. The city, the office, my friends and even my home and cat (who I had left under the watchful eye of Mr Coombes in the house next door) all seemed to be a million miles away - it was almost as if they belonged to another world and I knew that it was a world which I had little chance of ever returning to again, a fact which I managed to accept with a mixture of bitter sadness and relief. Although I was ninety-nine percent sure that the end was quickly coming, I still thought that there was a slight chance that things might eventually return to some semblance of normality.

A battered signpost appeared at the side of the rough road. I stopped the bike next to it and rubbed its dust-covered face to try and read what was written underneath. I was elated when I managed to uncover enough of the thick black letters to be able to make out the message - ‘Colliwell - four miles’. It seemed unbelievable that I was finally only a short distance away from the place that I had struggled for so long to reach. The undeniable confirmation that my journey was almost over was what I had dreamed of finding and I knew that Samantha would be waiting for me at my very next stop. As I rode on past the sign and towards the village, however, my initial feelings of elation gave way to gnawing questions of nervousness and doubt which wormed and writhed their way uninvited into my tired, weary and defenceless mind.

The most prevalent and worrying of the countless questions concerned Samantha herself. Throughout the whole of the journey so far, there had been nagging, persistent doubts in the back of my mind warning me that, when I finally reached her, she might reject me in favour of spending the last moments of her life with her family. Until that moment, I had been able to counteract and dispel such thoughts by remembering fondly the few times that we had spent together and, in particular, the night when we had made love in the field outside the city. Now even those precious memories were not enough to convince me that Sam felt for me as strongly as I did for her.

The obvious realisation that I had no alternative but to go on only served to compound and compact the doubts that were already in my fatigued mind. I had gone much too far to be able to turn around and go home and, even worse than that, at least another two hundred miles separated me from the rest of my family. Even if I could find a car that worked, could catch a train that ran or found a plane that could fly, there would still be no way that I could reach my relatives in time. When I thought of Mom, Dad and Michelle and the worry that I must have caused them, I felt guilty, selfish and cruel. It was difficult for me to try and accept the fact that I would, in all probability, never see any of them again.

If Sam didn’t want me then I would be utterly and unavoidably alone. I wondered painfully if I had been anything more than a convenient source of comfort to her in the confusion of the city or if she really loved me.

The difficult and unwanted thoughts which flooded into my mind made the last few miles of cycling pass with an unexpected rapidity, the likes of which had been unknown at any time before in the previous two days. The area through which I passed was, like the rest of the country, parched and dry and the land was undulating with countless steep hills and deep troughs to overcome. The sun had begun to set and the world was bathed in an almost luminous orange light which brought back a little of the colour that had been drained from the countryside. As I reached the peak of yet another high hill, the village of Colliwell came into view. It was difficult to believe that the end of my journey could finally be so close.

I rested my feet lazily on the bike’s pedals and free-wheeled gently down the hill’s long, steady slope. In a rapidly approaching field, I saw that a motley collection of ragged people were gathered under the shade of a heavy, white canvas. They sat at wooden tables under what appeared to have once been the roof of a large marquee, the walls of which had been removed and dumped in a heap at one edge of the field. As I cycled towards them, one of the crowd’s number appeared to notice me and drew my approach to the attention of her companions. A small, haunched figure at the head of one of the tables climbed slowly to his feet and, leaving the shade and protection of the tent, walked towards a rusty gate in the hedge which separated the field from the road. With him walked two much larger men and they appeared to support him as he made his way wearily across the dusty ground.

My heart sank - the last thing I needed or wanted now was to be delayed unnecessarily but, at the same time, I didn’t want to cause any trouble. As the peculiar trio shuffled into the middle of the road, I slowed the bike down and I stopped completely when the man in the middle of the group held up his hand. The two larger men carried dark parasols and, as they stopped in the road to wait for me, they opened them out and held them over their frail companion’s head, shielding him from the setting sun’s brutal rays. As I approached, I saw that the man in the middle wore the black tunic and dog collar of a vicar.

I had never had much time for religion even before all the confusion of the past weeks and now, when so little time remained, I immediately wanted nothing to do with the diminutive clergyman. He cleared his dry throat and wiped away sweat from his ancient, weathered brow before starting to speak to me.

‘Good afternoon, my friend,’ he croaked in a ragged and yet surprisingly young-sounding voice. Judging from the little of him that I was able to see under the heavy parasols, I guessed that he must have been about eighty years of age but I supposed that the relentless heat and sunlight could have added to the illusion. His companions seemed to be closer to my age and were ominously silent and protective of their little charge. I was keen not to upset the people but all that I wanted to do was cycle past them and on to the village in the near distance which I could see glinting invitingly in the evening sunlight. It was difficult to think of anything to say when I wanted so badly to leave.

‘I’d like to invite you to come and join us,’ the little man said before I was able to speak. ‘We’ve gathered here to sit out the storm as the Good Lord has told us to.’

I shook my head in amazement and looked at the little man in disbelief. He returned my gaze with a look of bitter disapproval.

‘This heat isn’t going to go away,’ I said. ‘If anything, it’s going to get worse.’

The man held out a shaking hand and laid it on top of my own fist which rested on the handlebar of the bike. I pulled away quickly from his unexpected touch and I looked up again to see that his expression had changed to one which seemed to suggest patronising pity and false, disapproving sadness.

‘My son,’ he continued, ‘I can see how you’ve been confused, it could have happened to anyone. These are difficult times but if you put your faith in Jesus, you will be rewarded in time.’

I found it difficult to stifle the laughter of disbelief that was welling up inside me.

‘Do you remember the Bible, my child?’ he asked. I nodded cautiously. ‘The Lord told Noah to build an ark and set sail while the world was cleansed of sinners and heathens. Can’t you see? History has repeated itself - this is the same thing.’

The man looked up at me with an expression of frightening honesty on his face. He actually appeared to believe in what he was saying.

‘I have been shown what to do. In one day’s time, the planet will be a cleaner and better place for the righteous to live.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said without thinking, ‘but that’s bollocks!’

The old man took a step back and spat venomously in my direction before feigning a collapse and allowing his guards to take the weight of his frail body in their powerful arms.

‘You pagan bastard!’ he hissed breathlessly. ‘It’s your fault that this is happening. Your fault that there are innocent people suffering.’

I felt somewhat honoured at having the blame for the destruction of the planet levelled squarely on my shoulders and was about to tell him as much when he suddenly spoke again.

‘If it wasn’t for you then we’d all be safe.’

‘I thought you were going to be safe anyway,’ I said and I nervously pushed the bike back a couple of feet in readiness to make a quick getaway. My flippancy seemed to annoy the man and, within seconds, he had turned from a wizened old crone into a raging heretic.

‘You’ll soon be dead,’ he yelled. ‘All like you will be burned in flames and the world will be free of sickness and evil once more.’

‘You can say what you like,’ I replied, keen not to let the sick little man’s taunts go unanswered. ‘Nothing is going to change the fact that we’re all going to die. It doesn’t matter how good you’ve been or how bad; when the energy waves strike we’re all going to be burning up together!’

The old man shook his head sadly and, as I stared at him and his helpers, I could not help wondering for an instant if they were right. I’d never really been a believer but there had always been nagging doubts in my mind because, although the existence of a god had never been proved to me, it had never been disproved either. Regardless, it was far too late to worry now. Even if what the man said was true, there would be very few people in the world who had not committed sins of an equal magnitude to my own. If he did survive with his army of believers, they’d have plenty of space in which to spread the word. Unfortunately, there would not be many people left to spread the word to.

‘Do you really expect me to believe what you’re saying?’ I continued. ‘You’re feeling the heat as much as I am. If I die, you die too - there’s nothing you can do about it.’

‘There is - you can repent my child!’ he yelled angrily. ‘Offer your words of regret to the Lord and he will listen. It’s not too late. Leave the road and join us here while we wait for release. Our Lord will forgive you, no matter what you may have done in the past.’

As he spoke, a solitary, theatrical tear trickled down his tanned and wrinkled face and it was that single, undeniably false action that urged me to leave. I pushed the cycle off along the road and, fearing that the religious fanatics might become violent, I pedalled quickly away from the field and towards the village. For the briefest of moments, I paused to look back over my shoulder and watched as the man was helped back through the field to return to the rest of his followers. Good luck to them, I thought, if they’re right then they deserve to live. I had a gut feeling though, that when the time came, the people in the field would be burning and screaming along with everybody else.

The road to the village was straight and uninteresting. With a new-found energy and determination, I pushed myself to reach the little collection of quaint, rustic buildings as quickly as I could. Ahead of me, the sun had begun its rapid descent through the evening sky and was quickly disappearing towards the horizon.

The brilliant orange globe hanging in the sky was an inspiring sight. Below it, the world was bathed in a deep orange glow and the sky around was turned a variety of shades of purples, reds and yellows. As the powerful, incandescent disc began to slip below the skyline and out of sight, I could not help wondering if I would ever see it rise again.

It was difficult for me to try and comprehend the fact that it was the sun, our single most important source of energy and power, that was proving to be our planet’s ultimate downfall. Everything that we needed to survive came initially from the sun and it was hard to accept that the star which had been so vital and important for millions of years could betray us so readily, so bitterly and so unexpectedly.

I pedalled on towards the village and, beyond the tightly packed collection of buildings, I could see all the way to the coast which was a mile or so further along the road. The water looked deceptively still and, as the sun appeared to sink into the calm ocean, I hoped that its disappearance would bring some relief to the world and dissipate some of its power. I suddenly thought back to my childhood days spent on the beach with my family and I wished with all my heart that I could be back there again, that I could once again be innocent, secure and blissfully unaware of the planet’s devastation and anguish.

I didn’t want to die.

29

I cycled nervously into the village, my heart beating quickly through a combination of the overpowering heat, the effort of the final stage of the journey and my excitement at the prospect of finally being with Samantha again. Finding the village had been nowhere near as difficult as I had originally expected it to have been - now I just hoped that the directions Sam had given me to her grandmother’s house were clear enough to get me there without any further delay.

The road which I had followed for such a long distance stretched out ahead of me and cut a straight line through the centre of the village, dividing it into two roughly equal halves. I pedalled quickly into the village and felt a considerable amount of relief when there were finally little brick buildings on either side of me again instead of parched trees, dry hills and barren fields. Thankfully, unlike the city which I had left behind, the streets were quiet although they were still littered with rubbish, refuse and other remnants of the confusion and uncertainty which appeared to have spread across the nation like a bushfire.

A little way ahead of me stood a picturesque grey stone church and I remembered Samantha’s instructions having told me that the road where her grandmother lived (Beechwood Avenue ) was not far from that landmark. When I had memorised the route to the village earlier in the day, I had taken the opportunity to remember the directions to Beechwood Avenue and, providing that I had managed to enter the village from the right direction, I felt sure that I would have no trouble in finding the right house. I needn’t have worried anyway - the village was so small that it would only take a short while to walk all the way around it.

In front of the church lay a wide village green which had quickly come to resemble more of a dust-bowl than a place on which cricket matches had once been played and cream teas served only a few weeks earlier. I rode onto the brittle grass and climbed off the bike, pleased to be able to walk for a while and to take some of the strain off my backside which was aching from miles of constant riding on the hard seat. Just past the church I could see the centre of the village proper which consisted of a collection of shops, banks and offices and from which ran little roads which were lined with dusty homes.

My satisfaction at having completed the journey to the village was tempered by the overpowering feelings of exhaustion and tiredness that had plagued and dogged me throughout the dragging day and I was keen to finish the rest of the trip as quickly as I could. Pausing at the church to orientate myself and collect my thoughts, I wiped dry my sweat covered brow and turned around to survey the darkening village. To my incredible delight and relief, I found myself standing directly opposite Beechwood Avenue . Still breathing heavily, I stumbled towards the junction of the roads, leaving the now redundant bike lying on the grass for someone else to use. I gazed hopefully down the little street and could almost sense Samantha’s presence there. Her grandmother lived at number seventeen and, while I struggled to work out which way the houses were numbered, I was reassured by the fact that the road was so short that, if I needed to, I could knock on every door and ask for Sam until I found the right building.

I walked along the middle of the road, relaxed and yet becoming increasingly nervous at the thought of finally being with Samantha again. I squinted through the gloom towards one of the little cottages but could not make out any numbers on the walls or door. Tired and hot, I stood on the dotted white line in the centre of the road and looked about. Imagine the irony. I thought, if I’d managed to struggle through literally hundreds of miles of unfamiliar countryside only to be unable to find a single house in a little street. The light had faded quickly and I looked about for signs of life, for someone who I could ask for help.

For reassurance, I glanced back over my shoulder, just to make sure that the road I was standing in really was Beechwood Avenue . When I was younger I had heard stories of the heat in the desert causing unsuspecting travellers to see mirages and apparitions and today there had been little difference between the countryside that I had travelled through and the Sahara or Gobi. I was on the right road, however and, as I turned back to walk further along the dusty street, something happened that chilled me to the core and froze me to the spot where I stood.

The wind began suddenly to blow wildly. Slow and light for the first fraction of a second, the breeze gusted around me and I wondered if it might be the beginning of the energy wave that would end my life. I held my breath as the mild draught was quickly transformed into an uncontrolled, raging gale which knocked me off my feet and which left me sprawled helplessly on the hard ground. With a sickening fear and desperation rising in my stomach, I struggled to pick myself up in the ferocious wind and find shelter before the light struck.

Rubbish and refuse blew all around me and the gale was so powerful that I felt as if I had become trapped in a laboratory wind-tunnel. I shielded my eyes from the dust and debris but glanced up briefly to see that slates and tiles were being torn from the roofs of houses and that chimney stacks and lampposts were being thrashed about, threatening to tear themselves from their previously secure moorings. In almost a blind panic, I stumbled on towards number seventeen but, before I could take more than a couple of steps forward against the wind, its direction was reversed and I was thrown to the ground once more. Lying flat on my stomach, I held my head tightly and covered my eyes as the world around me turned a brilliant white. Before the heat, light and wind had died down, I blacked out.

In the last fraction of a second before losing consciousness, I had wondered if the heat and light that had suddenly descended had heralded the arrival of the final energy wave that would destroy me and, for those first few agonising seconds after I had come around, I almost wished that it had. My bare back had borne the brunt of the force of the energy pulse and it stung viciously. Although I suspected that it felt worse than it really was, my body burned and stung as if it had been stripped of skin and the wounds filled with salt or some other foreign substance. I could feel my back blistering and the pain made me writhe in agony.

I fought to get back up to my feet in the suddenly still air and, although I could not yet focus my tired and confused eyes, I was sure that I could see movement in the street ahead of me. Snatches of muffled conversations told me that an unidentifiable number of people approached and I struggled to call out to them. Having managed to pull myself up onto my knees, I fell back down again and lay squirming in agony as the unprotected wounds on my tender skin made contact with the hot, rough and dirty ground.

In the gloom and semi-darkness and with my eyes still struggling to readjust after the brilliance of the energy wave, it was difficult to see just what effect the pulse had had on the defenceless world around me. All that I was able to see with any real clarity as I lay on my back were the brightest few stars glistening in the sky above which was struggling to change from the purple of sunset to the deep black of night. Slowly and cautiously, shapes began to cloud my view and I fought to focus on the faces of the people that stood over me. At first blurred and indistinct, the figures waited and spoke amongst themselves before crouching down to help me.

A gentle hand touched my shoulder reassuringly and I winced at the first, stinging touch on my naked, tender skin. The silence and confusion that had rung around my head slowly cleared until the muffled noises I heard became clear as distinct, chattering voices. Although I could not yet make out what was being said, one of the voices was immediately and reassuringly familiar. All the fear, the tiredness, the exhaustion and the effort drained from my body in seconds as I realised that it was Samantha standing next to me.

In spite of my pain and of the fact that I did not know the full extent of my injuries, I was suddenly concerned with one overwhelming and irrational fear - I was worried that Samantha wouldn’t recognise me. It was not such a ridiculous thing to think, after all, I lay unannounced in the middle of a dirty street, virtually naked with my skin blistered, tanned and peeling. My face felt haggard and tired and I had not been able to shave or wash for days. I knew that the effort of the journey which I had just completed had cost me dearly and I guessed that I had lost the best part of a couple of stone in weight. My face felt tight, taut and stretched by the sun’s constant rays and I struggled to clear my throat and try and speak to the girl I loved. With effort, I lifted myself up onto my elbows. My shoulders were held gently and I was pushed back to the ground.

Soft fingers began to run through my damp, sweat-soaked hair and I knew at that moment that my journey had been worth every single difficult moment that it had taken - I had not wasted the last days of my life. I turned to face Sam who looked down at me and my eyes began slowly to focus on her beautiful face. She smiled, and all of the tensions and apprehensions that I had felt quickly disappeared.

‘Did you come all of this way just to see me?’ she whispered in my ear. The sensation of her breath tickling the side of my face was incredibly relaxing and I smiled and nodded as best I could. ‘You’re a bit late!’ she added, jokingly and I laughed softly as she leant down and kissed my dry, chapped lips.

Sam stood up and went across the street to speak to some of the other people who were gathered around. They were only a few metres away but it was impossible to hear what was being said. I recognised one of the people as her father and another as her mother. Mr Hill looked down at me with a disapproving look on his face. The other shadowy figures were all unfamiliar.

Samantha seemed to be pleading with her father and I presumed and hoped that she was asking him for help to get me inside. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he did not seem that forthcoming and I wished that I had the strength to get up, to take Sam in my arms and to run away from her family. Moments later, Mr Hill relented and I heard him tell Samantha and her mother to go inside - he would make sure that I was safe. I watched them as they slowly walked back towards the house.

Once they had gone and were out of sight, a rough pair of hands grabbed mine and another took my feet. I was unable to protest at my treatment and had to be content with being half-lifted and half-dragged across the hard street. I wanted to release myself from the tight, vicious grip of my helpers but had neither the energy or the strength. My hearing was improving, however, and I could hear Samantha’s father grunt, groan and complain as he struggled in the relentless heat to carry my useless bulk into the house.

Slowly, and with a great deal of effort on the part of my carriers, I was hauled towards the building which I presumed to be Samantha’s grandmother’s house. I could hardly believe how close it was to where I had collapsed in the street and I thought that had I woken a few minutes earlier in the barn that morning or had I spent a little less time searching for food in the supermarket, then I would have reached the house well before the energy wave had struck. I would have been able to present myself to Samantha in a tired and yet much less pitiful condition than the one in which she had just found me.

We were soon at the front of the house and I was taken inside. It was almost impossible to tell which way I was being carried but it was only a matter of seconds before I found myself being hauled into a cool and dark room. For a few long moments I could do little but breath in deeply the air which was ten times more refreshing than that outside. I was unceremoniously dumped onto a hard, warm concrete floor and I spread myself out on the ground as Samantha’s father and his assistant left the room and slammed the door behind them. The room was suddenly silent and the quiet echoed around my exhausted and confused mind.

I looked around in the gloom for a moment and noticed that the room that I had been left in was a garage that was obviously used more for storage than anything else. The ground was cluttered and littered with junk and odds and ends and I had little space in which to move. I knew that I could not complain - at least it was somewhere safe to relax. Although I wanted nothing more than to be with Samantha and despite the fact that she was only the thickness of a wall away from me, I could do nothing to stop myself from quickly falling into a deep and soothing sleep.

30

I woke up in a garden. It was morning and the sun shone brightly although its brilliance, strength and power seemed to have reduced somewhat from yesterday’s unprecedented levels. For a few confused moments, I struggled to remember where I was and what I had been doing before I had fallen asleep. Slowly, memories of my exhausting journey began to creep back into my mind and I recalled being dragged through the darkness into Samantha’s grandmother’s house. The ground that I had fallen asleep on last night had been hard, hot and uneven and was a bitter contrast to the soft, luxurious sun-lounger upon which I now relaxed in the middle of a parched lawn.

I slowly pulled myself upright and rubbed my tired, tender eyes. I felt much calmer than I had done at any time over the last few days and weeks and I could only presume that I had just woken up from an extremely long and uninterrupted sleep. I yawned, stretched and looked around the garden. Behind me stood the little house in front of which I had collapsed last night and, from a dark doorway, Samantha suddenly emerged carrying a tray of cool drinks. She walked quickly over to me, put the tray down on the grass and sat down next to me on the sun-lounger.

‘Good morning,’ she whispered. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Better now,’ I said, unable to hide the happiness I felt from finally being with Samantha. She smiled and leant across to kiss me.

‘You had a good sleep,’ she continued. ‘I was starting to get worried. I was beginning to think that you weren’t going to wake up,’

I laughed and took a sip from a glass of cool, zest-filled fruit juice.

‘Typical, eh?’ I joked. ‘It takes me ages to get to you and then when I finally arrive I fall straight asleep.’

Sam gently ran her fingers through my hair and kissed me again. I pulled her close and held her tightly to me.

‘It’s cooler,’ I whispered to her. ‘Do you think it’s over?’

‘It must be,’ she replied.

I could feel the relief surging through my body, refreshing and revitalising me more with each passing second. I gazed deep into Sam’s wonderful blue eyes and, as I did, a shadow fell across the garden. We looked up together to see that a heavy black cloud had silently drifted in front of the sun. It was the first cloud that I had seen in weeks.

‘About time too,’ she said softly.

The shade that the cloud cast over the garden was dark and cool. For an instant I thought that I was imagining things when a single drop of icy water landed on my face but then, as if to prove that it really had happened, the drop was followed by another and then another. The raindrops became bigger and harder and fell more and more quickly. Less than a minute later we were sat together in the middle of a heavy shower and the pure, cold water which poured over us seemed to wash away the nightmare of the last few days.

I looked around the garden to see the colour returning to the dying plants and to the tired yellow grass. As the drops of rain fell, the cloud cover above us increased further still until the sky was completely overcast and the sun had disappeared from view. I held Sam tightly again.

‘I love you,’ she whispered in my ear, her voice barely audible over the driving rain.

There was suddenly so much that I wanted to say to Sam but which I could not even begin to find the words to express. Instead, I kissed her once more and lay back on the sun-lounger; the happiest and wettest man on the face of the planet.

I woke up on the hard concrete floor of the garage, The stifling heat and the unexpected darkness quickly brought me crashing back into reality and my heart sank like a stone.

31

The shock of waking from the vivid and unexpected dream brought me quickly back to full consciousness. Although I had no idea how long it was that I had been sleeping for, it felt as if it should be between nine and ten o’clock. Despite the frustration I felt at having been plunged back into the chaos of the dying planet, it came as something of a relief to wake up and actually find the world still alive around me. I quickly sat up, keen not to miss another second of what little time remained. It was pitch black outside but it was still stifling and sickeningly hot and an instinctive feeling in my gut told me that it would not be long before we would be hit by another devastating energy pulse.

Sitting upright, I was able to get my first real look around the cluttered room in which I had been ungraciously dumped earlier. It seemed to be a workshop or garage and the rectangular shaped floor was covered from end to end with tools, boxes, books and other assorted piles of junk and rubbish. The area in which I had been lying was, as far as I could see, the only available space. At the far end of the room was a small connecting door which, I presumed, led to the rest of the house and at the other end, close to where I sat, was a pair of heavy wooden doors with small square windows made of frosted glass. Through them I could see the dark evening sky punctuated by brilliant stars.

As I waited in the silence for something to happen, I could not help but wonder why I had been left in the garage rather than taken into the house. I knew that I had little to complain about - it was enough that I had found somewhere that would offer me protection from the next deadly energy pulse.

The silence was broken by sounds of movement from inside the house. I shuffled in the little space where I sat and craned my neck to try and get a clear view of the door through which anybody would have to come to get into the garage. The handle moved downwards and the door was pulled open with some force. After having opened only a couple of inches, it stuck (it may not have been used regularly for some time - the garage certainly looked as if it had been unattended and uncleaned for a long while) before another hefty tug at the handle opened it fully. Someone in the shadows grunted with effort and I knew before I was able to see her clearly that it was Samantha. I watched as she carefully and quietly closed the door behind her and struggled to pick her way through the rubbish scattered on the floor to make her way over towards me. She sat down at my side and we held each other tightly.

Sam had brought with her a pint glass full of clear, cool water and she held it up to my thirsty lips. I drained it dry in a matter of a few seconds and then we sat together in a peculiar silence. After having become so close in the city and then being torn apart so quickly and cruelly, we both had so much to say to each other and yet were unable to find the words to express how we felt. Just to be with Samantha was enough for me - I needed no further confirmation of her feelings - but the way that she looked into my face and the gentle, soothing touch of her body said more than a thousand words ever could have. Despite the raging heat of the night, the warmth of her body next to mine refreshed and restored me and I felt my worries and pains melting away into insignificance. The doubts I had entertained on the journey - that I either wouldn’t reach Samantha in time or that she would reject me when I did arrive - now seemed foolish and unnecessary. As she held me tightly to her, I knew that I had not needed to worry and the relief I felt was like having a heavy, cumbersome weight lifted gently from me.

‘I can’t believe that you came all of this way just to see me,’ Sam said quietly, disturbing the gentle silence. Her hushed tones echoed loudly around the cluttered room.

‘Of course I did,’ I answered. ‘I told you I would.’

I squeezed her hand gently in mine before lifting it up to my lips and kissing it softly.

‘How far have you walked?’ she asked. I shrugged my shoulders - it was difficult to try and estimate the distance.

‘I lost the car at about midday yesterday,’ I replied. It seemed more like weeks had passed since I had stopped at the service station and it was strange to think that it had only been just over a day ago.

‘Which way did you come?’

I shrugged my shoulders again and hoped that the brevity of my responses would let Sam know that I did not want to talk about the subject any longer. The journey was over and I had managed to reach her - that was all that mattered now.

‘Let’s change the subject,’ I said. ‘It’s done now.’

‘I know. I’m proud of you.’

‘It was worth every step,’ I whispered. ‘I’d do it again, and more after that if I had to.’

I thought about my last words for a moment. Although they were true and I honestly would have done anything for the girl at my side, the chances were that I would now never have the opportunity to.

‘I love you,’ she said softly and her words made my heart glow with a pride and a tender warmth that made the temperature outside seem cool by comparison. I slid back down to the floor, rested my head in her lap and looked up into her face.

‘You don’t know how much it means to hear you say that,’ I whispered. ‘I’ve been so worried that…’

Sam gently put her hand over my mouth, stopping me mid-sentence.

‘There’s no need to worry anymore. I’ve wanted to be with you since the minute I first walked into your office and I never want to let you go again. What you’ve done has only made me more sure.’

I shuffled about uncomfortably for a moment. The scars on my back were still spitefully sore even though their tenderness had been tempered by a couple of hours of much-needed sleep.

‘I’d ask you to marry me if we had time,’ I said, truthfully. Sam quickly put her hand over my mouth again.

‘And if we had time then I’d say yes,’ she replied.

The room suddenly fell quiet again. It was not that either of us wanted to stop talking to the other, it was just the fact that it hurt too much to talk about what might have been. We both knew that if we’d still had futures to look forward to, then we could have looked forward to sharing them with each other. The realisation that that would never be the case was a bitter pill to have to try and swallow.

‘I’m just so glad that I managed to get here,’ I said. Sam did not reply. I found myself wondering whether if I’d known what an ordeal the trip would turn out to be, would I have had the courage to undertake it at all? I could tell just by looking up into Sam’s perfect face that I would have had to try - it would have been impossible to have waited miles away and alone in the city without knowing if the girl I loved was safe. I forced myself to abandon that line of thought - the journey was over now and I had to concentrate on making the most of the short time that Samantha and I had left together.

‘I’m sorry I look such a mess,’ I said, laughing and coughing with the dryness of my throat. Sam smiled. ‘I couldn’t find anywhere to wash and shave this morning!’

Her expression quickly changed to one of obviously false disappointment. She shook her tired head and scowled fiercely.

‘I wouldn’t normally even let you in the house looking like that,’ she joked. ‘But today I’ll let you off.’

‘But you haven’t let me into the house,’ I croaked sarcastically. ‘I’m only good enough for the garage.’

Sam’s expression changed again, as did the tone of her voice.

‘I know, I’m sorry. It’s just that my dad…’

‘…doesn’t want me around,’ I said, interrupting and finishing her sentence for her. She nodded sadly.

‘It’s just that he doesn’t want you to…’

I pulled myself upright and held her close to me. I softly kissed her forehead before looking long and deep into her eyes.

‘It’s all right,’ I whispered reassuringly. ‘I’ve had plenty of time to think over the last few days. I had started to think that your dad might not be too keen on having me around - I think I’d be the same if I was in his position. He’s worried that having me here will mean that you spend less time with your family and let’s face it, time seems to be the one thing that we’re all short of right now.’

Sam stood up and, picking her way through the random piles of junk which were spread around the cluttered floor, made her way over to the double doors which separated us from the burning world outside. Once there, she stood on tiptoes and peered through the dirty glass in one of the little windows.

She was quiet for a moment before speaking again.

‘I love all of them,’ she said before pausing for a second. ‘But it’s you that I want to be with.’

I dragged myself up onto my unsteady feet and walked over to where she stood.

‘It’s your choice,’ I said. ‘I want you with me, you know I do, but if you feel that you have to be with your family then it’s your decision and I’ll have to accept it. It works both ways though; if you’re stopping with me then they’re going to have to try and live with it.’

Although I did my best to sound fair and diplomatic, while I spoke, I knew that if Sam did decide to spend her last moments with her family then it would be impossible for me to stand back and let it happen. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stand having her so close and yet be unable to be with her.

All the talk of families and of the choice that Sam had to make made me remember my relations, hundreds of miles away. It seemed unfair that she was able to walk through a single door to reach her parents while I knew that I would never see or hear from mine again. Although it was hard to accept, having Samantha by my side cushioned the blow and made it easier to come to terms with the inevitable.

There came a sudden sound from the door at the other end of the room which led back into the house and it juddered open once more. A figure appeared from the darkness of the house carrying a candle and, even though the low orange light flickered and danced around, I knew that it was Samantha’s father who had come to collect her. My heart sank like a stone as I moved closer to Sam and held her tightly in defiance. I wanted to remind her that I was there and, at the same time, let Mr Hill know that I had no intention of letting his daughter go. My emotions and instincts were suddenly at odds with what I had told Sam only moments earlier.

In the dull yellow light, Mr Hill’s face looked haggard and worn and his voice sounded tired and low.

‘Samantha, will you come back inside please?’ he asked.

She looked at me before turning back to face her father. Although she had already told me that she intended to spend the rest of her life with me, the appearance of the old man filled me with a new uncertainty which made my legs weaken and my heartbeat quicken. She started to walk over to her father while I remained by the wooden doors, leaning heavily against them for support.

‘I want to stay here Dad,’ Sam said as she approached her father. ‘I want to be with Steven.’

Mr Hill had obviously anticipated his daughter’s intentions and his answer to her sounded false and prepared.

‘I know you do. It’ll hurt having to leave him here but you belong in the house with us. You started your life with your family and we all want you with us when…’ His voice faltered and trailed away as he fought to talk about what was surely about to happen.

Sam stopped when she was halfway across the room and stood defiantly still.

‘I’m not going anywhere without Steven,’ she said. I could do nothing but watch from the other end of the room and wait for her father to react. I felt proud and yet unexpectedly embarrassed and ashamed at being the cause of a deep family rift at such an important time.

‘Please, just come inside,’ Mr Hill begged. He stepped into the garage and walked slowly towards his daughter who remained stationary in the centre of the room. ‘Your mother wants to see you. Gran wants you there and so do I. It’ll make it so much easier for us all to have you with us.’

The old man’s blundering attempt at emotional blackmail angered me and I struggled to stay calm and quiet. I knew that the argument could only be resolved by Samantha and that any ill-considered intrusion from me would only make matters worse. From our very first meeting I had felt that Mr Hill had taken an intense dislike to me and the occasional, venomous glances which he aimed in my direction confirmed the fact that the strength of his feelings had not diminished.

Now only a couple of feet away from Samantha, he took his daughter’s hand in his own and held it tightly. She made no attempt to resist. Looking deep into her father’s face, she began to cry.

‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ she said gently, struggling to hold back her tears. ‘I can’t leave him. He’s travelled halfway across the country just to be with me today.’

‘What about us?’ Hill snapped, his grip on his daughter’s wrist visibly tightening. ‘We’ve always been there for you.’

‘I know,’ Sam cried. ‘It’s just that I…’

‘You what?’

‘I love him, Dad. I don’t want to leave him.’

‘I don’t want to hear any more,’ he interrupted in a loud and unnervingly calm voice. ‘You’re coming inside now!’

Mr Hill started to walk back towards the door, dragging Samantha along behind him. She fought to get a grip on some of the nearby rubbish and to pull him back into the garage but she could not hold on. With the inspired power of a man on the brink of losing all control, he savagely yanked and dragged his precious daughter away from me and into the house.

For the briefest of moments I could only watch and look on in utter disbelief. The conditions had pushed everybody’s control and composure to the absolute limit and it seemed that Samantha’s refusal to comply with her father’s pleas and demands had pushed him over the edge. I ran from the far end of the room and dived towards the door to try and reach Sam but, before I could reach her, I tripped in the gloomy confusion and stumbled to the cluttered ground. I quickly staggered to my feet and fought to stop the two figures from disappearing into the house but, before I could reach the door, it was slammed shut and my Samantha was trapped.

With my anger and disbelief mounting by the second, I smashed my weary fists into the thick door and struggled in the half-light to push down the handle and get inside. As I pounded against the door I heard sounds of confusion and anger coming from the other side and I listened as Samantha cried and protested with her father as he blocked the entrance to the garage by dragging heavy furniture in front of it. Moments later, the other side of the doorway became silent again and the house was quiet save for my relentless bangs and crashes and the pitiful tears of frustration which I began to cry.

I slumped to the ground at the foot of the door and, devastated, held my head in my hands. The insane actions of Samantha’s father had taken me completely by surprise and I cursed myself for ever having let her go. I lay on the ground and, in between my own sobs and moans, I could hear Sam crying and pleading with her family in the house. Although she was only a few feet away from me, she may as well have been in another country.

32

I wasted precious moments alone in the dark of the garage before I was able to even think about moving. Having Samantha taken away from me and having it done in such a cruel and unexpected way had left me feeling numb and, for a short while, resigned to spending alone my last hours alive. It took all of the willpower and strength that I could muster from my exhausted, beaten body to get up and do something about it. I remembered just what I had been through to get this far and I knew then that I could not sit back and let all that effort have been for nothing.

Slowly and painfully, with my hands still sore from banging them against the impassable door, I climbed to my feet and looked around the cluttered garage for inspiration. To be completely sure, I tried the handle of the door once more and gave it a hefty shove with my shoulder but it would not move. Taking care not to trip and fall again, I picked my way through the maze of awkward shapes and obstacles on the floor until I reached the other end of the garage. Once there, I pushed and pulled at the heavy doors to see if they would open and let me out of my prison cell - they refused to move and I craned my neck to look out through the little windows of frosted glass and out onto the dry driveway in front of the house. I saw that the family car had been moved and that it was now parked with its nose pressed hard against the doors, keeping them firmly shut. The doors were also bolted and barred.

Desperate, and growing surer by the second that I would be permanently incarcerated in the junk-filled room, I looked around for something that I could use to try and smash my way out through the wooden barricade. In the low light it was difficult to be sure what half of the objects that I could see were and I eventually found a heavy lump hammer by tripping over it. I picked the long handled hammer off the ground and began swinging it at the strong locks, ignorant and oblivious to the futility of my actions. Even if I managed to smash the locks away, the doors would still be blocked by the car outside. Fuelled by anger and frustration, I hurled the hammer through one of the windows and heard it crash heavily to the ground outside, accompanied by the sound of shattered glass landing all around it.

I glanced around for something else to use to smash more of the windows. In a nearby wooden tea chest I found a stack of lumber but none of it was strong enough to make even the slightest impression on the thin and yet deceptively tough frames. The windows were arranged in two sets of four, one set in each of the double doors, with the individual frames of glass forming the four quarters of one larger window. Although the one pane that I had shattered was far too small for me to be able to escape through, I was sure that if I broke more I would then be able to splinter the frames between them and climb out that way.

I rummaged through more piles of garbage and odds and ends until I found something suitable. Although it was more adept to felling trees, the heavy axe that I had discovered proved to be an excellent demolition tool. My first move was to shatter the glass in the three remaining windows and then, once they were clear, I set about removing the bars of wood which separated them from each other and which were preventing me from getting out. Each joist took a number of heavy blows before splintering and shattering but it was not long before the frame had been totally destroyed and there was room for me to crawl through. I threw the axe out onto the drive ahead of me - I thought that it might still be of use as I presumed that Samantha’s father would make it as difficult as he possibly could for me to reach his daughter. Once I was sure that it was safe, I climbed up and scrambled through the gap. Ironically, the car which had been left there to try and prevent me from escaping proved to be of use as it made my climb down from the window to the baking driveway much easier and considerably safer.

I stumbled out onto the dark drive and was immediately struck by the difference in temperature. Inside, the wails and doors had acted as shields from the heat but now, with no protection available, it was sickeningly hot and suffocatingly close. Despite the late hour, it was surprisingly light outside as the moon hung over the scene and bathed it in its subtle silver luminosity.

The earlier silence in the village had been replaced by new noises which brought back terrible, previously forgotten memories of those difficult last few nights in the city. The hot, dry air rang out with shrill, piercing screams and painful cries which almost formed a constant, eerie soundtrack to the end of the world. It was how I imagined purgatory might sound and I tried to shut it from my mind as best I could. The confusion and fear of the people in the village were all too apparent and, although no-one could prove for sure that time was running out, the majority of the population seemed convinced that the end was near. I wasn’t sure what the time was, but the overpowering atmosphere of imminent destruction made me sure that another energy pulse would not be long coming. It seemed that the gap between the waves had been virtually halving each time and I guessed that unless I had slept through one (highly unlikely considering the strength of the last one I had survived) the next pulse could be due at any moment.

With no more time to waste, I knew that I had to get Samantha out of the house. The front door was locked and, despite the axe I carried, I knew that it would take time to get through it. I needed an alternative entrance and the wide, inviting bay windows at the front of the house seemed to be the perfect solution. Holding the axe out in front of me as if it was a rapier, I thrust it towards the window and it smashed straight through, leaving a hole where it had entered. Although cracks immediately began to spread out from the hole, the window refused to shatter and I presumed that it must have been strengthened for safety. Turning the axe over in my hands, I repeatedly smashed its metal head into the glass until it had all fallen out of the frame and onto the ground. In spite of the terrific noise the crashing glass caused all around me, I distinctly heard the sound of a door slamming inside the building.

I clambered through the empty window and into the house. The shards of glass ground under my feet and I took care not to put my hands down anywhere for fear of cutting them on the deadly debris which had showered the room. Once through the window, I quickly made my way to the hall to try and find the room in which Samantha was being held. There were two doors ahead of me, both of which were shut, and I ran into the first to try and open it. It flew open with little resistance and revealed nothing more than an empty kitchen behind it. I tried the second door and found that it was being held shut from the inside.

I went back to the room with the broken window and carefully picked up the axe which I had left on the glass-covered window-ledge as I had entered the house. Rather than simply smash my way through the connecting door and risk injuring people behind it, I thought it more sensible to attack the exposed hinges and try to loosen the blockage as best I could. I returned to the closed door and swung the heavy feller towards it. The first few blows made little impact on the top hinge but, eventually, the surrounding wood began to splinter and split. Encouraged, I rained down more blows on the door until the hinge was useless and smashed. The lower fastening was easier to shatter as it had the whole weight of the heavy door hung upon it for a few stressful moments. A couple of hard, precise blows were all that was required for the heavy wooden door to drop from its frame and fall to the carpet.

I ran into the room and stood victorious on top of the deposed door. Samantha stood against the far wall and, as I entered the room, she ran across to stand next to me. On a settee nearby, Mrs Hill sat next to her aged, trembling mother and did her best to keep her calm. I held Sam close to me and she hugged me with such force that I thought I might stop breathing.

The faces around the room bore expressions of confusion and bewilderment and I felt suddenly ashamed and embarrassed at having disturbed and destroyed the family in its home at such a delicate, important time. I looked down at Samantha’s grandmother who returned my gaze with a vacant toothless look of wonder and disbelief.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, awkwardly and apologetically, trying hard to find the words that would express how I felt.

Sam squeezed me tightly, as if to remind me that she was the reason I stood there and to convince me that I had her full support for my actions.

‘Let’s go,’ she whispered. She left my side and walked back into the room to say goodbye to her family.

I turned to leave and, before I was able to take any more than a couple of steps away, there came an agonised, pained scream from the room behind me. I turned back around just in time to see Mr Hill lunging at me but it was far too late for me to prevent his bulk from crashing heavily into me. The force of his body hitting mine sent me reeling across the hallway and my head thumped against the hard wooden bannister. I was dazed for an instant and could do nothing to protect myself as Hill jumped on top of me and gripped my neck tightly with his hard, bony hands. Although much older then me, Samantha’s father had the power of a man possessed and I could not prise his twisted fingers away as they tightened around my unprotected throat.

‘You can’t take her,’ he hissed with terrifying venom and spite in his crazed voice. ‘She’s my fucking daughter and she’s staying here with me.’

I struggled to speak and Sam rushed over to try and pull her father off me. He was too strong for either of us and, as I struggled to push him away, he spat in my face. I winced and squirmed in disgust as the foul, sticky spittle ran into my eyes.

‘It’s up to her,’ I croaked, barely able to breathe. ‘Let her make the choice.’

Mr Hill took one of his hands away from my throat and lifted it high above his head, ready to bring his fist crashing down into my face. Before he was able to strike me, his wife caught hold of his arm and Samantha grabbed his shoulders. His grip on me slowly relaxed and he stood up, allowing me to roll out of the way. I coughed and spluttered as I fought to take in deep breaths of the stale and dry night air. I clambered to my feet and watched as Mr Hill turned to face his daughter and, with tears running from his eyes, he held her close.

I felt embarrassed again and wondered if I should be watching at all. I already felt guilty at having torn the family apart but to ease my troubled consciousness, I had only to remember that it was Samantha’s decision. Whether she decided to stay with her family or come with me, it was a choice that only she could make. It was almost impossible for me to hide the relief I felt from knowing that she had chosen me and I tried not to imagine how I would have felt had she decided otherwise.

Samantha painfully tore herself away from her father’s tight hold and turned to face her mother. She hugged her and, once more, tears of sadness ran freely down both of their faces. For a second I looked towards her father but I turned quickly away again when he stared back at me with violent intent. The hate in his face was difficult to stand. For the benefit of the daughter that he obviously loved so much, he managed to contain his feelings. I knew that had things been different then our leaving would have been a much more difficult affair.

Sam walked over to the old woman who sat shaking on the settee and kissed her lightly on the cheek. Her grandmother looked up and smiled. I could tell that she did not have the slightest idea of who I was or of what was happening and, in a way, I could not help but envy her apathy. Sam turned to me and smiled and I knew then that it was time for us to leave. Had I arrived earlier then perhaps there may have been a chance that we could all have spent the last few hours together but I knew that it was impossible now. It was better that Sam said goodbye and left her family.

I cleared my throat and tried to speak to Sam’s parents, Before the first words had even come out I gave up as I knew that it was pointless and that anything I had to say would seem conceited and would only anger her already furious father still further. I wished that I could have expressed my sorrow at the way things had turned out but I accepted that I could not. Sam stood next to me and I held her hand in mine. I lifted it to my dry lips and kissed it softly, hoping that the people in the room would appreciate just how much I loved Samantha and that they would understand what I had already done and what I would do to stay with her. I wanted to tell them how I would make her last hours as painless and easy as possible but again the words would not come. Instead we turned and left.

As I unlocked the front door to get outside, Sam tore herself from me and ran back to where her parents waited. The three of them held each other tightly and cried like they never had before. Having already intruded more than enough, I opened the door and quietly went outside.

I stood alone in the hot darkness of the night and waited for Samantha to return to my side. Although little more than a minute could have passed, each second without her felt like a painful eternity and I wondered for one terrible, heart-stopping moment if she had changed her mind and had decided to stay with her family. Before I could take any action to find out, she appeared at my side again, smiling despite the tears that still ran freely from her eyes. We walked to the end of the drive and looked out along the road towards the village.

For a few relaxing moments we held each other tightly in the darkness and kissed. I wiped the tears from her face and smiled.

‘Are you sure you want to come with me?’ I asked although the last thing I wanted to do was dissuade her from leaving.

‘Of course I do,’ she replied. ‘I love my family but I want to spend the rest of the night with you.’

I ran my hand through her long, blond hair and looked deep into her pretty, moist eyes. In spite of the pressures of the moment, she appeared calm and her face looked untroubled by any of the turmoil and confusion. I leant down and kissed her soft lips. She pulled me tightly to her and I buried my face in her chest, never wanting to move again. When she next lifted her head I saw that she was smiling broadly and that signal managed to blow away the last few of the nagging doubts and worries that had troubled me since I had arrived in the village.

‘Where are we going to go?’ she asked.

I shrugged my shoulders - I hadn’t the faintest idea what we were going to do or where we were going to do it.

‘I don’t really care,’ I said honestly. ‘It doesn’t matter to me where we go as long as you’re there with me.’

Still holding each other close, we walked towards the village, ignorant to the plethora of dangers that we might face there. It was clichéd but it was true; having Sam next to me made me feel invincible. For a moment, she stopped walking and turned back to take one last look at the little house and at the family that she was leaving behind. I thought for a second that I could see her parents watching from the shadows but I was quickly distracted as Sam carried on walking towards the village.

33

We walked quickly in the moonlight along Beechwood Avenue and back towards the centre of the little village. Although neither of us knew why we headed in that direction or what we would do once we got there, it seemed not to make the slightest difference. As long as we stayed together, nothing else mattered. Finally having Samantha at my side had alleviated some of the fears and doubt I had felt but, at the same time, the removal of one set of worries had left me exposed to attack from other, more serious troubles. After having achieved what I had originally set out to do - to reach Samantha - the next event which loomed ominously on the horizon would ultimately be the end of the planet. Having had something to think about other than the destruction of the world had deflected and absorbed some of the seriousness of the situation but now, with nothing to do but wait for it to happen, the fear hung heavy over my head like a black, rain-filled storm cloud.

As we approached the centre of the village, screams of confusion, panic and terror sliced through the hot air and compounded the feelings of unease and worry which were already running wild through my mind. With little thought for the safety of either of us, we kept our course towards the middle of the village, unsure and, surprisingly, unworried about what might greet us there.

It had seemed a quiet, empty and peaceful place when I had first arrived there earlier in the day but now the village square was alive with a mêlée of uncontrolled, frenzied activity. The size of the place could have been misleading - the rampaging hordes that ran riot through the village seemed to have hundreds in their number but, when we came closer, I saw that there were much fewer than that. In reality, only thirty or forty people were there. With no authorities remaining to stop them and impose any sort of order, the people were running amok - fighting, battling and destroying what was left of the little seaside village.

Regardless, and ignorant to the dangers of the night, Samantha and I walked on - there was nothing else that we could have done. I watched the people as we passed them and I could not help but marvel at just how significantly the actions, attitudes and behaviour of almost everyone had changed. It was strange and unnerving to think that there were now no services to rely on - the police, fire brigade, armed forces, hospital staff - every last one of them had torn off their uniforms and now stood side to side in the midst of the mayhem waiting for almost certain destruction. It was frightening to see just how quickly once civilised people had resorted to violence and threats to help them come to terms with their own fears. Once the last threads of control over their own destinies and futures had been severed, the people had become insular, isolated individuals who were cut off from everyone and everything else. It seemed to me that the only way that people had found to combat the growing fears of impending death and unavoidable destruction was to fight with the people around them and to show their superiority through their strength. The age old adage of mind over matter had been turned on its head in the space of a few short days.

As if to confirm my theories and thoughts, as we walked through the village it seemed that it was the lower members of society who were having the easier time of things. As we passed through the shadows at the side of one row of shops, I noticed that a crowd of low-lifes had gathered around one man. He was tall, leather clad and had long, greasy black hair and rough, unshaven skin. His audience clapped, cheered and jeered noisily as he kicked and punched his way through a window into a little electrical store. Once inside, he began to throw televisions, videos, computers and stereos onto the hard pavement outside. As each item crashed down onto the hard ground and shattered into hundreds of smashed pieces, the onlookers cheered and yelled for more. The noise from the crowd seemed to affect the man in the shop like a drug - the louder they cheered, the higher he became. He eventually found a length of heavy metal piping and set about destroying the inside of the dark store.

Watching the pathetic sight as we crept by, I could not help but notice how the man acted. For once he was the centre of attention and, after having been overlooked and downtrodden for all of his life so far, he had finally been given the chance to receive some of the adulation and appreciation that he felt he deserved. He played to his audience and, for the first and probably last time, he was king.

All around the village there was evidence that the people had come to the same conclusions as the man in the shop and that they had found new powers and had lost long-held inhibitions in the scorching sunset of their lives. I stumbled over a dark, heavy lump on the ground and I fell. I lay still for a moment and looked straight into the cold, unblinking eyes of a corpse. The body belonged to a young girl who was about Sam’s age and who had been pretty and attractive until someone had carved their frustrations into her face with a blunt razor blade. The blade lay next to her cold head, stuck to the ground in a pool of thick, tacky red blood. For a few long seconds I found it impossible to look anywhere other than into the girl’s lifeless eyes but then Samantha tugged my arm and hauled me back into reality.

I scrambled back onto my feet, taking care not to touch the disfigured body in front of me. I pulled Sam close and held her tightly. I gave silent thanks that it was someone else’s girlfriend who had been slashed and not mine. The girl who I held in my arms was more precious to me than anything else and, although I had little left to offer, I would gladly have given up what remained of my life to prevent her from coming to any harm.

‘We can’t stay here,’ Sam said quietly, her voice almost drowned in the chorus of confusion that rang out around us. As I held her, I watched the man we had seen moments earlier as he lit the damp rag-fuse of a crude petrol bomb and hurled it into the window of the shop that he had already destroyed. As a thick cloud of fire and smoke belched out from the remains of the building’s shattered window, I pulled Sam close again in a conscious effort to protect her from the violence.

‘Where should we go?’ I asked. She thought for a moment.

‘To the beach,’ she decided. ‘It can’t be any worse than this place, can it?’

My feelings remained unchanged and I was just so glad that she still wanted to spend her last moments with me that I didn’t care what we did or where we went. I was filled with a real pride and, at the same time, with a numbing, bitter sadness.

‘It’s this way,’ she said, pulling me through the darkness towards where a narrow road disappeared into the shadows.

Holding her hand tightly, I ran with Samantha away from the village and out towards the coast.

34

As we ran along the open road in the direction of the beach, the sounds of the village in turmoil behind us soon faded away and were replaced by the noises of the sea crashing against the shore. The road was empty but for the two of us running along and, as we made a speedy descent of a steep hill, I could see that hundreds of desperate people were gathered on the crowded beach below, each one searching for relief from the tortuous conditions.

The road began as a straight and hard tarmac track which then twisted and turned down the hillside, becoming more and more dusty and sandy with each passing metre. It was eventually reduced to little more than a narrow path which wound its way between high sand dunes and onto the golden beach. As the ocean came into full view, I noticed that a thin, ghostly mist hung over the whole scene. Lighter than a fog or a seasonal sea-mist, it took a few moments before I realised that the haze was, incredibly, a film of steam which rose steadily from the surface of the salt water as it evaporated in the relentless heat. The muffled sounds of the waves crashing onto the dry shore that we had heard as we had approached the beach began to change and as we neared the tide line, the noises became clearer and more distinct. It was not long before they became recognisable as the sounds of the hissing, spitting water beginning to churn and of hundreds of terrified people murmuring with fear.

For as far as I could see in either direction along the beach, people’s tired heads bobbed up and down in the frothing surf. Other figures sat motionless in the damp sand and let the seething water wash over them in a vain attempt to keep the relentless heat from burning and scorching their already tender flesh. I did not know what relief the water would offer but I looked towards Samantha to see if that was how she wanted us to spend the time which remained.

‘This way,’ she said as we ran onto the golden sand. She pulled my hand and led me along the beach towards what looked, in the darkness, to be a virtual cliff-face in the distance. The evening gloom and the sea’s haze may have made it look steeper and more imposing than it actually was and I had little choice but to trust Sam’s instincts and follow her.

‘There’s somewhere that we can shelter up there,’ she said breathlessly as we stumbled and tripped through the light sand. ‘It might be better than this.’

Without questioning her judgment I followed her but I did not know why we ran. I could not think of anywhere that would be strong or safe enough to protect us from the violent energy pulse which I was sure would strike soon. Although I would have liked to have been alone with Samantha, I thought that the beach was as good a place as any to stop. The people there seemed more tolerant and at ease with each other than those in the village and to have actually found somewhere where the people weren’t fighting or arguing made an important difference in the hours of the dying night.

‘Can’t we just stop here?’ I asked. ‘Is there really any point in going on?’

I was still tired from my journey and, although I did my best to hide my fatigue from Sam, I knew that I could not keep running for much longer. She stopped, turned around to face me and held me tightly.

‘Let’s just go a little further. It might be better up there.’

I was sure that Sam knew as well as I did that we were in a hopeless situation but her optimism (which I guessed was just for my benefit) deserved reward. I went along with her and with her wishes.

We stumbled quickly on through the fine sand which was so dry that we churned up plumes of yellow dust behind us as we ran. The tiny grains quickly filled my trainers, rubbing against my skin and getting into my open blisters and wounds, increasing the discomfort that I already felt. We dodged past bewildered onlookers who lay slumped in the sand, studying us with bemused ignorance as we blundered past them. Samantha caught her foot on a piece of petrified driftwood and she tripped, landing on all fours on the hot ground. She laughed, stood up and brushed the sand from her clothes.

‘Silly sod,’ she said. ‘And with all these people watching…’

Sam was cut off in mid-sentence as the first warm wisps of a strong wind began to blow across the beach. She looked at me, concerned, and I returned her frightened gaze. As the wind’s strength began to quickly increase, I felt my legs weaken and my bladder loosen.

Frightened, I looked around frantically for somewhere to shelter. The wind began to gust with real force and started to lift the loose sand from the beach until the air was filled and we had to cover our eyes to protect them. Sam pointed in the direction of a nearby beach hut and I grabbed her hand and pulled her towards it. The people around us were as scared and confused as we were and they stumbled back in the direction of the sand-dunes at the edge of the beach. Literally hundreds of figures crawled out of the sea and sprinted away in a vain attempt to find some safety. They all knew as well as I did what was to follow.

I looked out towards the horizon and, through the clouds of swirling sand, saw that the colour of the sky had begun to change. Like ink on blotting paper, bright yellow and white light spread quickly through the blackness from the area of the sky into which the sun had disappeared hours earlier, and reached out towards the beach with sharp, savage, white-hot talons of heat and luminosity. I watched and my fear and disbelief made it impossible to turn away as the light devoured the darkness and swept quickly in the direction of the shore.

Sam tugged at my arm and dragged me away from the sea towards the little hut. We fought our way through the screaming, terrified crowds and made our way to the little building which was, thankfully. being ignored by the startled hordes. With my hands reaching out in the darkness, I stumbled on, praying that I would feel the dry wooden door of the hut before the heat and light arrived. The cruel, driving wind was behind us and it seemed to push us towards the building. The sandstorm was blinding and I almost collapsed with relief when my hands finally reached the wooden door.

With one hand held high to protect my face and with Samantha holding tightly onto my waist, I fumbled in the dark confusion to find a latch or a handle to let us inside. As the world around us began to brighten, and the heat behind me started to make the skin on my back prickle uncomfortably, I located a metal latch and. with shaking hands, quickly opened the door. We stumbled inside and I slammed the door shut behind us, having to fight against the gale to keep it closed.

The building was comfortingly dark inside but the walls shook with the force of the hot wind which tore along the beach. In the sudden gloom I could just make out the shape of a little boat in front of me and I grabbed Samantha and pulled her down to the ground underneath the vessel’s rounded hull. For the briefest of moments, we sat huddled together, listening to the deafening noise of the wind, waiting for the inevitable and wondering if this would be the last pulse, the one which would burn up the planet around us.

The wind seemed to die for a fraction of a second before the light struck. The walls and roof of the ramshackle hut were paper thin and full of holes and cracks through which brilliant white light suddenly poured, criss-crossing in the darkness and burning our naked skin wherever it touched our bodies. The building shook in the maelstrom and it threatened to be torn from its weak foundations and smashed to pieces. Thankfully and miraculously, it stayed erect. I buried my face next to Samantha’s and tried to be strong for her. With the fear and confusion all around us, it was impossible to keep my composure intact and I cursed myself for sobbing and for allowing her to hear me. She had chosen to spend this precious time with me and I felt that I had a duty to protect and reassure her despite the fact that I needed as much help as she did. I held my breath and closed my eyes, sure that the end was imminent. The force and ferocity of the incredible wind which battered us and the brilliant light that filled the room and scorched our flesh left me convinced that I had only moments left to live. I was surprised and yet still terrified when the effects of the pulse began to subside and some semblance of normality was restored.

For a few unsure moments we sat still, holding each other tightly and breathing in huge gulps of the dry, burning air. I gradually opened my eyes and saw that, although the light had faded, there was still an unusual, unexpected glow coming from outside. I stood up and pulled Samantha to her feet so that she stood next to me. I wiped her hair from her face and held onto her tightly as I leant against the little boat for support.

‘Up there,’ Sam cried and she pointed to the corner of the hut where the sloping roof met the thin, battered wooden wall. I followed her gaze and saw that the dry wood had begun to smoulder and burn. With a startling rapidity that took us both by surprise, the entire roof of the building caught light in seconds. The flames flickered and I noticed that the walls were alight too. I grabbed Sam’s hand and pulled her quickly through the door and out onto the beach.

We stood together on the red-hot sand and could do little but stare in disbelief at the sight that greeted us. Those people who had been unable to escape the power of the energy pulse, those who had been caught in the full might of its incredible light and heat, lay dead or dying around us. Those that had stayed in the sea emerged staggering from the bubbling, spitting salt water with the skin on their bodies scalded and blistered. The air was thick with the smell of meat roasting and I quickly realised that it was the pungent odour of hundreds of bodies burning around us. The sounds of the crashing waves and of the water evaporating were drowned out by the pitiful cries of people screaming in agony.

Sam pulled me in the direction of the cliff-face that we had originally headed towards. I looked back over my shoulder to see that the hut we had sheltered in moments earlier was now well ablaze, as were all the other little buildings dotted along the length of the beach. As I watched, the roof of the hut collapsed and the building crumbled to the ground, sending a thousand red hot embers flickering and dancing into the suddenly still air.

We ran through the sand which burnt us where it touched our bare skin. Scattered all around the beach lay the bodies of the dead, scorched and charred where they had been unable to escape the energy wave and, next to them, lay those who had survived the pulse but who screamed out for help. I ignored their cries - there was nothing that could have been done for any of them and, even if I had been able to help, there would not have been much point. I knew that none of us would suffer for long.

Both Sam and I were crying. I had not noticed when the tears had first began to run down my face and I could not stop them, no matter how hard I tried or how brave I pretended to be. I prayed that we would be able to soon find somewhere where we could hide from whatever was going to come next but I knew that even the strongest of shelters would offer little protection from what I expected would soon strike the planet. Every little wind that blew, the slightest breeze which came off the churning sea or the faintest whisper of movement in the night air sent us into a blind panic, fearing that the deadly light and heat were about to return and that the end was at hand.

We eventually reached the end of the beach and stood at the foot of the cliff. Thankfully, it was nowhere near as steep and impassable as it had at first appeared and Samantha quickly began to climb up its jagged face. A narrow path wound and twisted its way through the sharp, sandy rocks and dry, burnt vegetation towards the highest point.

With no thought of the possible consequences and with little consideration for our safety, we clambered up the steep hillside, hoping desperately that we would reach the summit before another deadly energy pulse struck.

35

For a few short minutes which felt like long, slow hours of effort, Samantha and I clambered up the steep hillside with desperation and fear driving us ever forward. The ground around our feet was littered with the remains of brittle, coarse vegetation and the dehydrated plants flickered with dancing orange flames, burning fiercely and lighting our way along the precarious route.

The pathway traversed its way across the face of the hill rather than driving its way straight up the steep face. Although this would have been a welcome benefit to the climbing tourists who normally walked along the beach and scaled the cliff, tonight it was nothing more than just another hindrance put there to further complicate what remained of our already complex lives. It was too dangerous to leave the path in the low light and so we had no alternative but to follow the winding route. It took twice as long as it need have but we eventually stumbled breathlessly onto the top of the hill and could look down onto the burning world around us.

I stood on the flat top of the cliff, sucking in deep breaths of the hot, dry night air and holding Samantha close to me. Below us the sea appeared deceptively normal save for the hot, hissing mist which hung over its writhing surface, and the colour of the horizon had returned to its normal dark purple hue. The sky was clear and still and millions of stars looked down on us. It was strangely ironic to see them looking so peaceful and unaffected in the dark sky and it was difficult to believe that it was our own star which was killing our planet. I wondered if the earth looked any different tonight from a million miles away.

I turned my head to look inland and, for as far as I could see, the surface of the planet seemed to be alight. Thick smoke palled into the dirty sky above towns and villages and the heavens were turned a deep, ruddy brown colour as the light from thousands of uncontrolled fires flickered and danced. Fields of starved grass and dried crops had been turned into raging, unchecked infernos and the cities were lit not by electric light, but by the dying flames of the crumbling buildings within them.

Samantha looked at me and I stared back into her clear, deep blue eyes. Her skin was blackened with smoke and dirt and the tears which rolled down her pretty face carved clean lines down her cheeks. I was exhausted and found it difficult to think of anything to say.

‘That might have been it,’ she whispered hopefully.

I smiled and held her close. I knew that there would be more to come and I felt sure that Sam also knew that our ordeal was far from over. Despite the fact that there was little time remaining, I could not stop my mind from wandering and I still could not help but be amazed at my luck at finding someone like Samantha. With possibly only minutes of our lives remaining, she was still making the effort to try and comfort me and to cushion the inevitable blow that would soon strike. Although I should not have wasted those precious seconds dreaming, I found myself once more trying to imagine how things might have been had I met Sam earlier and in different circumstances. As I pulled her body tightly to mine and revelled in the warmth of her tender touch, I realised that the woman I held was the woman that I had always been destined to love. It left a bitter taste in my mouth when I thought that my quest to find someone like Samantha was going to end so bitterly and cruelly. I tried to cling to the hope of survival that she had tried to convince me of moments before. Perhaps that really had been it - perhaps there would be no more of the terrible heat and light - perhaps we would not die.

In those fleeting moments when we stood together on what felt like the roof of the world, there was so much that I wanted to say to Samantha. No matter how hard I tried though, I couldn’t bring myself to shatter the fragile silence and, instead, I just held her tightly, never wanting to let go. The bitterness and anger which I felt could hardly be expressed - it was not so much that we were going to be parted, or even the fact that I was going to die - the one thing that hurt the most, that I could not even bear to consider, was the fact that Samantha was about to die and that there was nothing I could do to prevent it happening. For a moment I thought about my family, hundreds of miles away. I hoped that Mom, Dad and Michelle were as safe and secure as they could be and, although I was sorry that I could not be with them, I knew that I belonged with Samantha now.

On the top of the hill, only a few yards from where we had stopped, stood the remains of a little stone cottage. It had no roof and only three walls and yet, in our dazed and confused condition, it seemed that it might offer us some protection from the inferno which we both feared would eventually strike. Slowly at first, and keeping Samantha right by my side, I walked towards it.

As we tripped and stumbled over the hot ground, I wished again that things could return to how they had been. Even the office which I had grown to detest and hate with all my heart seemed a pleasant alternative to the painful death which stared us both in the face at that moment. Again, I looked at the girl at my side and, as I watched her wipe tears from her beautiful eyes, I too began to sob uncontrollably.

We stopped walking and I held Sam in front of me. She took a gentle hand and wiped away the salt-water trails which ran freely down my tired face before kissing me. Our lips were dry and cracked but the feelings expressed with just that one, single kiss filled me with love and sadness. I cleared my painful, sore throat and told her, simply and softly, that I loved her. Samantha held me tighter than she ever had before and I pulled her so close that I thought I might have hurt her. I screwed my eyes shut and listened to the silence around us, the quiet only being disturbed by the noises we made as we cried in each other’s arms.

A sudden wind began to blow. I opened my eyes, afraid of what I might see. The strength of the breeze increased and it was only seconds before it had reached gale force and was threatening to blow our legs from underneath us. Defiantly, I stood firm as the scorching wind whistled and howled all around us. I buried Sam’s face in my chest and held her head tightly as I looked out to sea and watched the horizon again begin to change colour.

A yellow light appeared in the furthest distance and it quickly began to sweep towards the shore, burning through the air like liquid fire and reaching out for us with an incredible speed and ferocity. Shaking, and yet still holding onto each other for all our worth, we sank to our feet and huddled close together on the baking ground. I fought to shield Sam as best I could from the wind and light and still protect myself but there was nothing that either of us could do to escape.

The light struck, and it was as if the air around us had suddenly become fire. For a moment, the pain was unbearable but then it was quickly numbed. I could see nothing but the brilliant light and could feel nothing except Samantha holding onto me tightly. I felt the clothes, skin and hair on my body being burned and scorched away and I fought to keep hold of Sam in the ferocious wind.

I waited for the heat and light to die.

Epilogue

Steven slowly opened his eyes. It was like something out of a dream and he wondered for a moment if he really was awake - he could feel nothing. With considerable effort, he lifted his tired, burnt head from where it had rested next to Samantha’s. Despite his confusion and fear, he knew that she lay dead in his arms. He would not look down at her charred body, preferring instead to picture her in his mind, untouched, unscarred and beautiful.

The brilliant light that had been so fierce moments ago had quickly faded away and, although he was unable to focus his damaged eyes properly, Steven was sure that raging fires burned all around him. His face was badly burned but he was still able to make out a powerful and sickening smell - the stench of the world dying.

Every movement he made drew heavily from the last reserves of energy that he could find. He tried to look out over the ocean but, through a combination of exhaustion, the effort, his injuries and the mist which hissed as it hung over the water, he was able to see nothing in detail. He thought that he saw the sky beginning to change colour once more, but he could not be sure.

He cradled the heavy, lifeless body of Samantha in his arms and, as a brutal gust of wind blew against him, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes and buried his head next to hers. With the final ounce of strength that he could summon from his tired, dying body, he fought to keep hold of her as the red-hot wind threatened to tear them apart. Although his eyes were closed and he could feel little, Steven knew that the heat and light had returned.

For the final time, the fire descended on the world.

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Table of Contents

Prologue

Epilogue