Page 32 of 59 Minutes
FRANKIE
The truck she’s been shoved into is large, but Frankie’s being tumbled around among other legs, grasping hands.
She feels like she’s drowning. The teenage girl in the back seat scrunches up against the far door, trembling, the driver revs into the mist and the front passenger slaps his legs with excitement.
She hears the chunky confirmation of central locking. Feels the gritty carpet under her sock. When did one of her boots come off?
‘Otis!’
The man’s hand is over her mouth then, she gags at the taste of his dirty fingers as the truck lurches forward again, so fast she sprawls sideways.
She’s half lying on the man now, his soft bulk beneath her.
Her head is back so she can only see the upholstered ceiling.
Frankie thrashes, but the man is too strong and besides all that, the man in the front passenger seat has turned around now and is pointing his gun at her.
Directly at her head. She freezes. The girl lets out a whimper.
‘Martial law, love,’ the man who grabbed her says in her ear, his voice similar to the others. Her newly sensitive pregnancy nose smells fruit cake and sour orange juice on his breath. When did he eat fruit cake, before or after the alert? ‘Now sit up and behave.’
He slides from under her with a grunt, pressing himself against the door and pushing her between his right thigh and the left thigh of the girl, who recoils like Frankie is a fat spider who has just dropped down from the ceiling.
It’s a roomy truck but it’s still a crush, with three of them in the back and two of them swollen with fear.
She puts her hand on her stomach. Four. There are four of them back here.
‘Please,’ she says, ‘just let me out.’
‘No can do,’ the passenger says. ‘We’ve told you already, this is a rescue mission.’
They turn sharply into the lane where Otis left the car, some of the other vehicles have thinned out but there are still some dotted haphazardly and the truck just ploughs through them, sloughing wing mirrors and nearly snapping off an open door. The Fiat 500 with the little dog has gone.
The driver fiddles with something on the side of the steering wheel and then everything ahead of them gets clearer.
Fog lights, of course, a prerequisite if you live around here.
Through the windscreen, she can make out Otis’s car up ahead where they left it.
The colour of dried delphiniums, a little blue oasis on the road.
It will still smell of them, their journey mess still dotted in the cup holders like artefacts, their CD soundtrack still in the old stereo.
This car is still intact, with enough room to manoeuvre. They would have been okay if they’d just got to it in time. If he’d just left the shop a bit sooner, if they’d not separated, if she’d not taken a piss. They’d still be together.
She cranes her neck, desperate to see a flash of Otis’s grey hoodie racing after them but everything swirls with mist, the mellow streetlights behind them showing glimpses of abandoned cars, nothing more. She can feel the truck moving faster, flashing past tight little cottages and abandoned cars.
They whip past the Mercedes now and she watches it become a blue smear in the rear mirror, going nowhere.
The last link to her old life. To Manchester.
What if these people keep her captive forever?
Will the fallout keep her captive for them?
Will Otis ever meet our baby? Will I live to have our baby? Will our baby live?
‘Where are we going?’ Her voice is high and pleading and she hates it. Hates the whine, the desperation.
‘Sanctuary,’ the man in the passenger seat says, with a laugh.
Overhead, two planes cross the sky in quick succession. The air force? Are they monitoring movement? Can they see anything through the mist? They’re gone again in seconds. Is there anyone who can save her from these bloody nutters?
The girl has her head pressed against the window, staring out, her fingers turning a bricked mobile phone over and over in her lap. ‘Please let me go,’ she says, quietly. ‘I just want my mum.’
The men ignore her.
‘What’s your name?’ Frankie says, but the girl just stares out of the window, tears streaming now. ‘I just want my mum,’ she says again.
‘Where do you live?’ Frankie tries. ‘Could you get there if they let you out?’ The girl nods, but doesn’t turn around.
‘Can’t we just let her out?’ Frankie says, appealing to the man next to her, who laughs.
‘What?’ he snorts, eyes dancing with amusement. ‘’Cos we’ve got you now, you think we don’t need her?’
‘She’s got a mam waiting for her,’ Frankie says. ‘And she doesn’t want to be here.’
‘She belongs with us,’ the driver says, gruffly.
‘But her mam must be terrified, you can’t just—’
The passenger turns back with a warning in his eyes. The gun bobs in and out of view between the two front seats. ‘That’s enough,’ he says, snapping the radio on.
‘Gather batteries, food, and fuel. Keep water supplies covered. It is unlikely that the emergency services will be able to help the majority of people once the strike occurs. You will need to stay inside, the fallout will be extremely dangerous.’
‘Does your mam know where you are?’ Frankie whispers to the girl.
Without lifting her head from the window, she whispers back, ‘No, she has no idea.’