If you hit links we provide, we may receive compensation.
EW is pleased to present an exclusive excerpt, and cover reveal of the novel, below.
Excerpt from The End of the World Running Club by Adrian J. Walker
Belief
Beliefs are strange.
Credit: Sourcebooks
Things of certainty about things uncertain.
Take mine, for example.
I believe there are graves in the field next to the house where I live.
Sourcebooks
But I cant be sure.
So I believe instead.
This house, and the cliff to which it clings, is falling down.
I believe that I wasnt alone.
Some burn strong and bright, others barely glimmer.
Other things from many years ago still seem to be echoing now.
I believe what I believe to make life less terrifying.
Thats all beliefs are: stories we tell ourselves to stop being afraid.
Beliefs have very little to do with the truth.
Belief, memory, fearthese things hold you back, weigh you down, stop you moving.
And I need to get moving.
I need to stop thinking about this stuff.
Thats what Harvey would saystop thinking, keep moving.
Maybe thats why Im writing this downso I can stop thinking about it and get moving.
So I need a place to start.
I may as well start at the end.
The End
I heard my name called.
Once, twice, then a third time louder.
I was sitting down; my arms were folded, stiff with inaction.
The air was full of noise and movement.
Screams, colors flashing by, something tugging at my trouser leg.
I tried to focus.
A red, urgent face was looking down on me, shouting.
Beth gradually came into focus.
She sighed and looked me up and down, blew a wet ringlet of hair from her forehead.
A vague mixture of disappointment and disgust flickered across her face.
Look after Arthur, she said.
Our son, she said.
She pulled back her lips on this last word.
Im taking Alice on the big slide.
It was Saturday afternoon, the day before it happened.
Another child cried as she was pushed headfirst off a bean bag by a red-faced sibling.
All that noise and clamor, life beginning as it meant to go ona struggle.
The truth was that I was thirty-five and caught in my own headlock.
I wondered daily how we had ever even made it this far.
It was a joke, pointless.
I ate double portions, drank double measures, avoided exercise.
I was inflating like a balloon on an abandoned gas cylinder.
My world perplexed meevery day was a haze of confusion.
My job grated my very core.
My marriage gave me vertigo.
And my kids… Well, I wasnt what youd call the most engaged father.
For me, then at least, being a husband and father meant being simultaneously exhausted and terrified.
I was like a man on a cliff edge, nodding off.
You have to take care with your tenses when the world ends.
Later, after the hell of Cheeky Monkeys, we drove home on roads shimmering with heat.
The sky had that bright and colorless sheen that you only see in cities during the summer.
The volume of traffic had tripled for the weather.
There was no end to them, they just kept coming.
Arthur started up too.
Horns blared out behind me to get going, but there was no room for me to move.
I sat there, helpless, as the traffic mounted behind.
The kids yells got worse and I felt Beth bristling next to me.
Still the cars sped by, endless, a swollen sea of souls washing past the windshield.
Bacteria, sludge; an ever-expanding mass with nowhere to go.
I pulled out and the car stalled.
More car horns, more screams.
I raised a hand in apology and pulled away.
The truth is I was tired of it all.
The truth is that the end of the world, for me at least, came as a relief.
Perhaps that comes across as heartless or selfish.
All those people, all that horror, all that death.
But was it just me?
Didnt you feel the same?
Couldnt you almost hear that collective sigh, sense the worlds shoulders loosen?
But I kept going, didnt I?
Which, of course, it did.
I cant tell you exactly what happened.
It took a week.
It doesnt add up when you think about it.
I mean, somebody must have known well before thenmust have.
Maybe those German astrophysics students were right.
What did they call themselves?
The Watchmen, I think; something like that.
The Internet pricked up its ears.
NASA responded with just a few curt dismissals, but you could tell something wasnt right.
Still nothing from NASA, and then they went quiet.
And then there were conspiracy theories.
And then they were forgotten about.
Because there was a new series of Big fucking Brother, I expect.
And then everything happened very quickly.
The survivors will always remember that week.
The only real story was a mild outbreak of heatstroke.
Then an undercurrent appeared in the headlines around Wednesday: something odd, distant, unrelated to the heat.
Nobody really bought it.
It was summer; it was hot.
This had to be a joke, some kind of reality TV prank.
Thats what people said: Its a joke.
Creatures of denial who have learned not to be afraid of our closets.
We need to see the monster in the room before we scream.
The monster burst in on Sunday.
And thats when we finally got it, with no time left to prepare.
Im just saying I thought we had it coming.
Wed had it coming for a long time.
I dont know what happened.
Maybe the powers that be knew; maybe they didnt.
Or maybejust maybethey realized we were fucked.
That seems like a nice idea.
The plain fact is I dont know.
All I know is that the endin the endcame from the skies.
That Sunday I awoke from a long and difficult dream about cows.
I looked at the clock.
It was 5:00 a.m. and Arthurs cries were piercing the wall behind our bed.
Beth groaned and elbowed my ribs.
I dont think Im the first man to have ever pulled this one.
Not like being at home breastfeeding a newborn and entertaining a two-year-old all day.
What work actually meant…those days.
Careful with those tenses.
Anyway, yes, I hold up my hand, guilty again.
I insisted on my right to sleep.
Beth conceded, but only on the proviso that I took the early shift on Saturdays and Sundays.
I couldnt really argue with her.
Theres only so far you’re free to push it with a woman whos just given birth.
I grumbled something and pulled back the duvet, knocking the empty glass of water from my bedside table.
Another groan from Beth.
Sorry, I muttered.
These early starts had been going on since Christmas.
We had tried all the advice in the books, from friends and family.
Let him cry it out.
Change the bedtime routine.
Put some water in his crib.
Change his daytime naps.
Fill him up with cereal before bedtime.
Or, from those who werent parents: Cant you just ignore him?
Sure, ignore him.
We had called a midwife out in January.
Its just a phase.
Hell grow out of it when hes good and ready.
Id been watching from the kitchen as I tried to cram cold porridge into Alices bawling mouth.
What if this all just went away?
What if this all just blew away?
I cringe when I remember how hard I thought life was back then.
With no sleep, no sex, no time, no respite.
Honestly, I thought having kids was hell.
But Beth was the one who did it all.
Beth didnt drink because of the breastfeeding, but I pretty much drank every night.
And exercisewho had time for that with a nine-to-five and two children?The same tired, old excuses.
And I gave in.
I made it easy on myself, very easy.
And that made it hard on Beth.
I have to keep telling myself not to look back so much.
The past is a foreign country, someone once said.
They do things differently there.
My pasteveryones pastis now a different planet.
Its so different it almost makes no sense to remember it.
But still, everyone remembers that day.
Its just a phase, the midwife had said on that dark winters day all those months before.
Hell grow out of it when hes good and ready.
A phase that saved our lives.
It was another sunny day and already warm.
I actually felt happy.
Still air, warm sun, the distant roar of a road somewhere…
I just felt happy.
Thats probably my last real memory of anything normal.
The plants gave a fierce rustle.
The windows in the house rattled violently.
The windows in the houses opposite rattled too.
The kitchen door swung open and banged against the cupboards.
Behind the breeze came a very deep and distant rumble.
A split second and then it was calm again.
Arthur gasped and looked about, wide-eyed.
What was that, Art?
I said, waggling his hand.
What the fuck was that?
The microwave beeped inside.
Arthur gave a little shout and pulled his hand out of mine to thwack my nose.
Come on then, buddy, I said, and we went inside.
My thumb hovered over the red button.
Some flickering half memory.
I couldnt place it at the time, but I would soon enough.
Arthur sucked happily on his bottle, and I pressed the On button.
CNN, BBC1, HBO.
This wasnt unusual; our Sky satellite box sometimes crashed and just needed a reboot.
Arthur gurgled in dismay as the teat slipped from his mouth.
Waited ten seconds, twenty seconds for the box to reboot.
The box finally came back to life and began its cozy introduction video.
I told myself not to panic.
Broadband was out and I could never get a phone signal in the house anyway.
I heard my sons last dry sucks as the bottle emptied.
Come on, Artie, I said, standing up.
Lets take a stroll, mate.
This is close living, Beths dad had grumbled when he first came to visit.
I walked down the main road trying to find a signal on my phone.
It was a steep hill lined with huge houses set back behind long, gravel drives.
They had security gates, security cameras, triple garages, secluded yards with ponds and trampolines.
Some were styled with colonial wood; some, like American bunkers.
Beth was pregnant with Alice when we had first moved to Bonaly.
We used to take walks around these roads, naming the most impressive one Ambition Drive.
I heard a motorized garage door open.
It was still before six, usually too early for most people to be up.
Then I heard a woman cry.
It was a cry of fear.
A child yelping, a man shouting.
Then the door banging shut, then silence again.
I walked on slowly.
I heard a glass break from an upstairs window.
Loud, rattling footsteps on wooden stairs.
Another bang, then silence again.
A police siren whooped twice, far in the distance, possibly in Edinburgh itself.
There was something wrong with the silence, but I couldnt put my finger on it.
Even though it was early on a Sunday, it was not usually this quiet.
The birds were missing.
I looked up and scanned the tall trees for signs of life.
The branches were perfectly still and empty.
The bushes, usually trembling with tits and starlings at this time of year, were deathly quiet.
I heard gravel scrabbling and a dogs yelps behind me.
I turned to see a golden retriever sprawled on a drive.
I had met him once at a neighbors Hogmanay party when we first moved in.
He had been guarded, predatory, scanning the room for opportunity.
I was not massively successful and therefore a strange thing, an alien.
No shares, no property portfolio, no deals to close.
What was there to talk about?
His wife had stood in the corner, a small porcelain shadow of a woman sipping Bacardi in silence.
They both had that strange, thick smell of wealth.
He caught my eye as he turned.
He was snarling as he slammed the great oak door behind him.
The dog whimpered and sat up, looking about in bewilderment.
He saw me and gave a little wag of his tail, licking his chops.
Arthur gave a gleeful hoot behind me.
Why would he be putting a dog out at this time in the morning?
No room for a dog.
That memory still flickered.
That little red warning light in my cranium, that lurch in my belly.
At the bottom of the hill, I turned right onto the main road.
There was no traffic, which wasnt unusual at that time of day.
I glanced four heads inside, a family.
A discarded chip packet was swept up in the tailwind as the car disappeared.
I couldnt find a signal.
It was after six oclock by the time I reached the shop opposite our terrace.
It was the only shop within a mile of the house.
It should have been open at this time, but the metal shutters were still down.
Jabbar was an overweight Pakistani who ran the shop with his brother.
Jabbar and his brother lived with their wives and kids in the house that joined onto the back.
There were no lights on, no sound.
The door through to the house was shut.
Jabbar, I shouted through the shutter.
Morning, I heard somebody say behind me.
She was about Arthurs age.
We were really just a bunch of strangers sharing a pub table.
I had been the only English one there.
We wont hold that against you!
He had always threatened to take me out cycling.
I always made excuses.
I sucked in my stomach when I saw him.
Mark, I said.
I turned back to the shop and peered through the window.
You tell me, I said.
Jabba the Hutts hiding in there.
Mark banged a fist on the shutters.
Come out of there, you fat bastard!
Weird, said Mark.
Aha, I said.
Mark nodded up at the hills at the top of the road.
I just passed a load of soldiers from the barracks running up to the Pentlands.
Didnt look like it.
They were all over the place, no leader.
Some had two guns.
Have you noticed the birds?
Our televisions out as well.
Must be a problem with the cable, I guess.
We looked at each other.
It was still quiet, still warm.
There are times when I wished Id savored that feeling more.
No, the van always drops them here before six though.
Jabbas usually sorting through them by now.
We looked around the pavement.
There was nothing there so we walked around to the back door of the house.
There on the ground was a fat stack of Sunday Times newspapers bound up with string.
Only two sheets thick, not the usual hundred-leaf wad you get on a Sunday.
Two blunt and terrifying words.
STRIKE IMMINENT
Then I remembered.
I remembered scrubbing the stain with a cloth.
I remembered the light in the room suddenly changing as a giant BBC logo filled the television screen.
I remembered the silence in the studio, the flustered looks on the presenters faces.
Then the picture flickered and a high-pitched tone sounded like a test card.
I remembered calling Beths name.
I remember struggling for words, slurring, trying to explain something even I didnt understand.
I remembered her disappointed eyes and her face flat as she told me to get out of the room.
I remembered protesting, trying to explain.
I remembered closing my eyes.
I remembered waking up to Arthurs cries.
A multiple asteroid strike on the United Kingdom is imminent.
Does that mean what I think it does?
Simultaneously, we ran back around to the front of the shop.
We started banging on the shutters.
We kept hammering and shouting until we saw those eyes again behind the door.
Jabbar started waving us away.
His eyes were set, determined, no longer the genial face of the local tradesman.
Eventually, the door behind the counter opened, and Jabbar stormed up to the shutters.
he said, flicking his hand at us.
Look, I said.
I held up the paper and pointed at the headline.
Are there anymore papers?
Jabbar stared at the words and then back at us.
His fat cheeks were damp with sweat.
Behind him I could see a woman looking at us, cowering in the doorway to the house.
She was holding a crying baby.
Behind her was Jabbars brother.
He was holding a portable radio close to his ear, his fist pressed against his lips.
Jabbar shook his head violently.
No, he said.
I looked back at his brother.
Mark, I said.
Jabbar, growled Mark.
What do you know?
I stabbed the paper.
What does imminent mean, Jabbar?
Jabbar faltered, shaking, his eyes flicking between us both.
Its already happened, he hissed.
I remembered the sudden gust of wind on the deck, the bending branches, the rumble.
But Mark and I had turned from the shutters.
Jabbar peered up through the slats as well.
Far away, we heard a low, nasal drone.
A sound that was not supposed to be heard anymore, a sound that belonged in a different century.
It began to rise slowly in pitch till it reached and held its hideous, gut-wrenching howl.
A fucking air-raid siren.
Jabbar sprang back from the shutters and fled back through the shop.
Mark and I shared one last look and then bolted in opposite directions.
I cried as I ran, Arthur laughing in blissful ignorance as he shoogled in his backpack.
I sped through the archway and onto the path.
The siren was beginning its first awful dive back down.
Where the hell did Bonaly have an air-raid siren?
The barracks, I guessed.
As I crossed the road, I heard the banished dog from down the road join in the howl.
I saw people at windows, woken by the siren.
Tangled bathrobes, puffy, confused faces frowning in the light.
The sun that had seemed so warm and welcoming before was now vivid and terrible.
The words actually caught in my throat.
…going to be hit!
What do you do?
What did those government broadcasts tell you to do?
How do I arm myself?
How do I survive?
It occurred to me that I had subconsciously been preparing for this.
In the eighties, nuclear war was absolutely, positively, 100 percent how I was going to die.
Not asteroids, and certainly none of this slow climate-change bollocks.
You were going to evaporate in an atomic blast: finished, done, end of.
Now sex was going to kill you.
I could deal with AIDS.
But the nuclear threat was a different matter.
That was real terror.
I was fascinated and terrified.
I think it always had done.
Every major catastrophe, every natural disaster, every impending conflict gave me a little childish thrill.
This is it, I would think with nothing short of glee.
This could be the one.
The Millennium Bug, 9/11, the London Bombings, Iraq, Afghanistan, the London Riots…
There was no historical name for this one.
This was just it.
My apocalypse-obsessed teenager passed me up a list.
The houses on the terrace opposite ours had been built to a different design.
They were wider and had five bedrooms rather than our two.
There was a floored loft that you could stand up in.
Our loft was small and dark, enough for storage but nothing else.
They were the posh houses.
We were the cheap seats.
But what we did haveand what they didntwas a cellar.
Our kitchen had a small walk-in pantry.
It wasnt much, not very big.
But it was underground.
Uh-oh, said Beth when the real estate agent lifted the hatch.
Sheds, garages, studies, attics, cellars.
Places for menor at least their twenty-first-century equivalentsto hide.
Drink, smoke, look at pornography, masturbate.
For some reason this is perfectly acceptable; every man deserves his cave.
It is my right as a tired parent.
I rarely went down there.
I bellowed up the stairs.
Arthur bawled, the game no longer fun.
Thumping feet down the stairs.
Oh, thank fuck, youre up.
Id never been more proud of her.
I started opening and closing cupboards.
Daddy, said Alice, rubbing her eyes.
Arthurs crying, Daddy.
I know, sweetheart, I said.
We were low on supplies; Sunday was our big shopping day.
A bottle of balsamic vinegar landed on a can of tomato soup.
I picked it up and stared at it.
I left it where it was and piled more things on top.
What does that siren mean?
Daddeee, Arthurs cryyyiiing.
Rice, pasta, beans, canned fruit, chocolate.
Ed, said Beth again.
just, Im scared.
I slid the box toward the pantry and started filling another.
We need to get down in the cellar, I said.
Get blankets, duvets, clothes for the kids.
I turned on her.
It was all quiet apart from the wail of the siren outside.
How…how long?
She was making calculations.
I shook my head.
Beth carefully placed Alice down and ran upstairs.
I pulled out the bottom drawer and emptied the lot into the second box.
All the detritus of kitchen life fell into the box.
Alice was now twirling with her hands in the air and singing.
Look after your brother, sweetheart, I said.
Alice sighed and slumped her shoulders, her teenagers sigh we called it, though she was only three.
She trudged over to Arthur as if Id asked her to do her homework.
Daddy, I want my milk, she grumbled.
I found a first aid kit and threw it in the box along with some bandages.
I could hear Beth thumping about above me, pulling things out of drawers and cupboards.
Two large boxes of diapers thumped at the bottom of the stairs.
Daddeee…
How much time do we have?
I once saw a film about a girl who survives an apocalyptic event.
It was some unnamed worldwide cataclysm; we werent told the details.
She says, Whats happening, Daddy?
I shouted up the stairs.
Fill the bath, Beth!
Znot basstime, Daddeee!
shouted Alice, twirling in the sunlight that was still streaming through the kitchen window.
There were more thumps from above.
Beth screamed something unintelligible.
Keep the taps on!
Silleeee Daddeeeee woo woo wooo!
I had a sudden vision of our house destroyed.
Brown air, heavy cloud, nothing but dust, brick, and bent iron.
Perched on top of the rubble is our bath.
Its a dry, scorched husk.
The taps are stretched, black liquorish strings melting over the sides like a Salvador Dali painting.
You want to know how long it takes for the fabric of society to break down?
The same time it takes to kick a door down.
I once read a book about Japanese veterans remembering the darkness of the Second World War.
More often than not they would rape them first.
Ask anyone who has been in a crowd that becomes too strong, where bodies begin to crush you.
Is your first instinct to lift others up, or to trample them down?
The knot is weak.
The post is brittle.
All it takes is two words and a siren to cut it loose.
Stay here with Mummy, darling, I said.
Daddy, where are you going?
I ran back to Jabbars shop.
There were people gathered there, banging on the shutters and shouting for him to open up.
Others were gathered around the stack of papers.
I stopped short of the pavement and ran around the back.
A few from the front saw me and started to follow.
I shouted through the letter box in the back door.
All I need is some batteries and water!
Youve got more than enough in there!
shouted Jabbar from inside.
There was another sudden great gust of wind.
The tall trees down the hill creaked painfully as their branches crumpled.
Then the short, deep rumble again.
Then screams and renewed hammering on the shutters of the shop.
Three cars sped past and down the hill.
Where the hell are they going?
I was aware of people joining me at the door.
I shouted one last time.
Hearing nothing, I stepped back.
A shock of pain in my ankle made me howl.
The door had not shifted.
I tried again closer to the lock.
This time the wood split and I heard footsteps running from inside.
I couldnt remember the last time I had pushed or punched anyone.
Primary school, maybe?
Get the fuck out of here!
The place was hot, dark, and stank of old curry and babies.
Jabbars wife was hiding in a doorway behind Jabbar, who was still sweating profusely.
Not all of them, just enough for me and my family.
said Jabbar, stepping out and squashing me against the wall with his shoulder.
Get out of my house!
His bulbous, wet stomach pressed into my chest as he tried to wrestle me back through the door.
His breath was full of hot panic, his eyes wild.
Jabbars hand was on my face now.
I could taste the salt of his rough skin in my mouth.
He cried out and fell like lead on the stained carpet, clutching his leg.
Our next-door neighbor Calum was the first through.
He stared straight past me and elbowed me out of the way and into the shop.
Behind him were an old couple I didnt recognize.
Jabbars brother was on the floor now.
Two of the crowd were kicking him and pushing him into one of the rooms.
With the batteries balanced on the crates, I marched back down the corridor.
screamed Jabbar again as I stepped over his fat head.
His wife was crouching next to him, holding his head and weeping.
At the end of the corridor I avoided eye contact with any member of what was now a mob.
Hey, he said, blocking my path.
He was in his early sixties, perhaps.
Beth and I would wave and talk about inviting them over for a play date with Arthur.
I think his name was Frank.
He nodded at the water.
Theres more in the shop, I said.
I moved toward him, but he grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me back.
He made a sound I hadnt heard before.
Perhaps, out of context, it would have sounded amusing.
But this was a man I saw almost every day.
I had never shaken his hand.
Frank fell to the ground and held his chest.
I had almost reached the path to our house when I saw Mike standing at the corner.
Mike was an old widower who lived in a one-bed flat around the corner.
He was seventy-three, bald, with a white beard and a cheap blue jacket.
He smiled and raised a hand.
Hullo, Edgar, he said.
Mike, I said.
you’re gonna wanna get inside.
Cant you hear the siren, Mike?
you should probably get inside.
He shook his head.
You take good care now, Edgar, he said.
Look after your family.
Then he took a long, quivering breath and turned his face up to the blue sky.
That long breath, the squeal, the dogs howl, the air-raid siren.
These are the sounds that stayed with me, which will always stay with me.
The crates were slipping in my hands.
I heard a shout.
A few of the other bathrobes who were clamoring to get into Jabbars house had turned as well.
They were all now looking at me.
Frank started to stride across the road.
His broken body somersaulted over a hedge and landed against a trash can while the car sped on.
The others who were following Frank across the road stepped back momentarily.
Then they continued across the road, glancing between me, one another, and the road uphill.
As I closed the door, I saw the others arrive at the gate.
They were shaking it and screaming.
Beth was standing at the open cellar door.
Come on, darling, Beth whispered.
Come down with Mummy.
Noooo, said Alice.
Alice didnt like the cellar.
Beth was trying to smile.
Come on, she said.
I heard our bamboo fence start to break and turned to see two of the mob scrambling over it.
The woman behind landed on his head and made toward our door.
Get down in the cellar, NOW!
Alice began a low moan.
Dont, youre upsetting her!
Come on, darling, Daddy didnt mean it.
Theres no fucking time!
Get down there NOW!
Alices moan rose up like the air-raid siren.
The air was now a nightmare of wails and howls of different pitches and intensities.
The womans face was at the door, wild with terror and rage.
Others had broken through our gate and were following up behind her.
I ran to the cellar door and threw the crates of water down past Beth.
Then I started pushing Alice toward the cellar hatch.
She squealed and tried to wriggle away.
Alice, you need…
NooooOOOO, DADDEEEEE!!
Bodies were now pressed against our kitchen door, hammering and kicking the glass from top to bottom.
Alice, I said.
Im sorry, darling.
Beth instinctively ran down the steps with Arthur.
I picked Alice up and dropped her down into the pit.
She hit the stone floor with a thud, and the air left her tiny lungs with a huh.
I closed my eyes so I couldnt see the faces at our kitchen window.
Then I followed Alice down and went to pull down the hatch.
I want my bunnies, she said quietly.
The fucking, fucking bunnies.
Tell me you got her bunnies, I said to Beth.
Oh, no, oh, shit, said Beth.
Oh, bollocks, theyre upstairs in her bed.
Alices bunnies went everywhere with her.
In bed, in the car, on the sofa, at the table, at nursery.
When she was scared.
I looked down into the gloom of the cellar.
My bunnies, Alice said again, deadpan, no emotion, hand held out, all business.
I weighed the options.
An unknown time spent in the cellar.
An unknown time before fuck-knows-what happened to Edinburgh.
Faces at the window trying to get in, trying to get to us.
One of the square panes of glass in the door broke and a fist came through it.
Suddenly, the air-raid siren stopped.
We were free-falling now, free-falling into whatever came next.
I leaped up the steps and through the kitchen, up the stairs and into Alices room.
My heart thumped in my throat.
Everything was eerily quiet after the noise.
The dog had stopped.
Even the mob outside had stopped in momentary confusion.
The bunnies were on Alices pillow.
I grabbed them and turned but stopped as I left for the door.
Out of the window, on a branch in our tree, was a single small bird.
It was a blue tit perhaps, chirping merrily away and flicking its head about like small birds do.
Behind it, far away against the blue sky, I saw something else.
A small, dark shape that shouldnt be there.
Not a plane, but something like it.
A tiny speck moving quickly, a dark trail behind it.
Then more behind that.
I bolted down the stairs and threw Alices bunnies down to her.
I fell down the steps.
As I did, I risked one last look at the door.
The mob had renewed their attack on it.
The first woman had her face and palms squashed against the glass.
Fifteen or twenty others surrounded her, their pummeling fists sometimes connecting with the back of her skull.
By her side was a little girl not much older than Alice.
She was wearing a nightie and holding on to the womans legher mother, I supposed.
A trickle of urine ran down her mothers thigh and over the girls hand.
Silence again, the noise sucked from the air.
A blinding white light blossomed in the sky behind the faces at the window.
I slammed the hatch shut.
