In the Air

By Steve Edward

One day it all goes wrong for humanity. The birds fall from the sky, the animals drop alongside the people. Hardly anyone or anything survives. For those who do the world is a scary new place. Nobody knows what caused it to happen, new dangers are faced in the most ordinary places. Some cope, others just look like they are coping.


Page after page of high tension and drama with characters you will believe in, plot twists to shock and surprise you and events which will leave you breathless....

'Five star ratings for this debut novel from Steve Edward'
'This book had me hooked from page one, I couldn't put it down, I HAD to know what was coming next'
'The imagination used to write this is amazing and yet each character and every situation is so believable'
'A vivid, descriptive book with a real message'
'I cannot wait for the sequel!'

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781326031862

Book preview

In the Air

IN THE AIR

COPYRIGHT

First edition 2015

© Steve Edward

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Cover Photograhpy by Malcolm Cole Photograhpy

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The rights of Steve Edward to be identified as the author has

been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act 1988

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 publishers prior consent in any

form of binding or cover other than that in which it is

published and without a similar condition being imposed on

the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN 9781326080862

Acknowledgments

I would never have written this had I not been inspired by a

lady I am proud to call a friend. Lisa J Hobman, our genres

may be miles apart but you are the lady who set me on this  

path without even knowing it at the time. I adore you.

I was blessed to have some amazing school teachers (many

years ago). Miss Martin and Mrs Snowden taught me English

and encouraged me to think, imagine and never use the word 

'nice' when so many other words are.. nicer!   

Amy Barnard, for reading as I wrote and giving me your

feedback, your enthusiasm kept me going through the gaps

when my mind was blank.

Laraine Robinson-Green my proof-reader with your audit-red

pen at the ready, I cannot thank you enough for spotting all my

typos. IBLUMBBBCBM! Mmllp.

Mouse, for the amazing photo that captured exactly what I

wanted. It was so good it made me cry. 

Emma, for always believing I can do whatever I set my mind to.

Dave, thank you for letting me draw on an experience that was

painfully real when I wrote a part of this.

I love you all

Thank you

Steve Edward 01/02/2015

IN THE AIR

CHAPTER ONE

The latest hit by Barbara Dickson was playing quietly. The melody came from the radio, a fluffy bit of bubblegum pop floating in the air of the kitchen. The window was slightly ajar, a light late-spring breeze wafting the net curtains gently almost in time to the music. The occupant of the home couldn't hear the music although she was in the room. Sarah, 43, civil servant. Married, her husband at work, she had the day off and had been reading the newspaper at her kitchen table prior to having lunch. The music played on but she was unable to hear. She had no problem with her ears, the radio was suitably turned up. The 'listener' however was dead.

On BBC one Jan Leeming was mid broadcast on the One o'clock news, a role she had filled many times, her voice and face familiar to every viewer. 'The West German chancellor today declared' The rest of the sentence was left forever unsaid. Jan, looking directly at the lone camera in front of her stopped. Her eyes showed a flicker of something, something that viewers may have seen before when a breaking bit of news came in and she changed track suddenly to announce the latest IRA bombing or suchlike. There was no more news. Jan slumped forward, her head hovered momentarily above the news desk before banging onto it. Jan would never report the news again, a true professional who would never be given the opportunity to work for the BBC again. It would have been tricky had she been given the chance, for now she was slumped there, dead.

'Glenda. Glenda. GLENDA!' Mary was in her 85th year and tired of waiting for her daughter downstairs to bring her lunch. She didn't have much of an appetite now but she still needed SOMETHING to keep her going. Didn't Glenda realise the time? Did she expect Mary with her bad hips and dodgy knees to go down and get it herself?

'Glendaaaa' she shouted once more then stopped, closed her eyes and shouted no more, in fact she moved no more.

Glenda had been in the garden, she heard her mothers shouts. 'God that woman never gives me a minute! she forgets I'm in my 60's myself', she muttered under her breath. 'I'll just finish hanging these sheets out, then I'll boil her egg, I'm not shouting back, the neighbours will think I...' Those were Glenda's last thoughts. She dropped to her knees, the sheet floating in her hands as she fell face front onto the grass in front of her. Glenda, 62, never married, once kissed (she hadn't like it much) and certainly never done any of 'that' (her Mother would never have given her time!) lay there, undignified on the back lawn of the house she had lived in all her life. Dead.

A poster, slightly torn from the recent winds flapped in the spring air. 'Weds 8pm. Depeche Mode' One gentleman who wouldn't be attending this gig lay still  on the pavement beneath the poster, a young girl laid over his legs where they had fallen almost simultaneously. Dead.

Around the corner, Oxford Street. One of London's busiest thoroughfares at any time, probably one of the busiest streets in the world, normally full of bustling shoppers, traffic slowly edging its way along belching out its noxious fumes, the bustling city alive. A huge queue of traffic was there but several cars had smashed into shop windows, vehicle after vehicle piled into the one in front along the road, engines still spluttering and horns wildly sounding in the air. Some people lay underneath lorries, cars and buses which were scattered facing all directions in various kinds of tangled, grotesque  heaps along the road.

Each vehicle contained one or more passengers, every one of them unmoving, unseeing, unfeeling. Dead.

Nobody came rushing to the aid of those in the vehicles. Nobody came to assist those corpses trapped underneath tons of metal. The whole of Oxford street was still, thousands and thousands of people who had moments ago being going about their business had suddenly stopped. Each and every person dead.

Bodies lay on top of bodies, many eyes still open but unseeing. Here and there a child still holding a mothers hand lay still on the pavement. A gentleman in a long brown overcoat despite the mild weather looked to be still standing up, leaning against a department store window. His lower limbs pushed tight against a pile of bodies, his upper half leaning back. Stuck. Still. Cooling. Dead.

The carnage was repeated in each and every street leading off from Oxford Street, throughout the capital city there was no human movement. No help had been summoned from surrounding areas, there was nobody to come and help. Luton, Oxford, Birmingham, Manchester. Everyone had stopped. Cars on motorways had caused massive pile-ups, the M1 if viewed from above would have resembled some macabre dodgem ride with flames and crushed metal as far as the eye could see.

Glasgow airport had a huge cloud of acrid black smoke hanging over it, the wreckage of  a Boeing 737 almost disintegrated on the runway where it had been coming into land. The only grace was none of the crew or passengers had known anything about the devastating crash. A few seconds before they, like seemingly all others had perished instantly. As one they had stopped, slumped or crumpled as their heart took its final beat.

In the terminal building alarms were sounding, automatic systems had kicked in when a plane had crash landed, the radar wildly circling round. No fire crews had been scrambled. Nobody would be removing the thousands of dead arriving and departing passengers from their concrete and glass tomb. The automatic doors attempted repeatedly to close, each time being hampered by the bodies blocking it.

A passenger ferry smashed violently into the wall of Aberdeen Harbour, waves of water being forced up beyond the docks and out onto Market Street, engulfing a red mini which had been travelling up towards Union Street and its abundance of shops. The two passengers were rocked violently from side to side by the water, in the next moment their faces were lit up by the huge ball of fire that swept through the crashed ferry. Neither flinched. Neither glanced in the direction of the ferry. At 13.08, they had already died. The car which had stalled seconds before had already been hit by a bus and smashed into the barrier at the edge of the road. There had been no screams, no fear, no time.

As the afternoon drew on some fires across the country raged more intensely , some naturally burnt out. Some new ones started when unattended appliances reached critical temperatures, others when other aircraft dropped from their flight paths or boats smashed into land. Nowhere escaped. Nobody moved.

No phone calls came from America or France, no military aid was despatched from any of the allies. No emergency broadcasts were being made informing the world of the disaster. The red cross were not arranging for medical supplies to be distributed to the UK. Every country on every continent was at last equal. Super powers and the third world united. In death.

CHAPTER TWO 

Night fell across the UK as temperatures plummeted to their seasonal normal levels. A chill in the air descended as the clock came to 7pm. Peter Weston lay on the grass of Hyde Park, his high-visibility jacket catching the early evening moonlight. 11.27 am that morning he had arrived to carry out routine maintenance on some cabling. He had worked for British Telecoms for eight years and had much preferred the outdoor work, he loved being in an endless range of houses, listening to the  housewives telling him their life stories as he tried to connect their new telephone, but when the sun was out he always felt that he should be out too. At 13.08 he had completed his work and sat down on a bench to take a drink from his flask of tea (black, sugared) when he, like all others had stopped. He looked to be asleep, still on the bench, flask smashed on the ground where it had fallen, a  small blister had formed underneath his jeans on his left thigh where his tea had splashed as he dropped it.

Peter was thirty-two, just managing to get by on his wages, it allowed him to rent a small, one bedroom flat in Vauxhall. The 80's had been kinder to him than many of his friends, he had been unaffected by redundancy, unemployment or direct industrial action. He had always considered himself to be fortunate, he was happy with what he had in life,  Normally liked a pint or two each evening. Just about six feet tall with short tidy brown hair, not gym fit but neither was he overweight. 'Normal' or whatever normal was nowadays. Throughout Hyde Park lay many kinds of normality. Men wearing make-up, ladies in suits, old women wearing fur and young people with hair all colours of the rainbow. Peter  had always spoken to anyone. New romantics, mods, punks, age eight to ninety eight, Peter could have chatted to anyone and been genuinely interested in them and their life and beliefs. His parents had been proud of him, making his own life although they would have happily had him live at home forever. His father had never 'quite' understood how Peter could so easily mix with anyone (punks and boys in make up scared him!) but they knew they had raised a great guy, nobody ever had a bad word to say about Peter. Educated at comprehensive he had left school at sixteen and tried various jobs. Mechanic, labourer, barman but had settled in his current job and had no plans to leave.

The last person he had seen had been briskly walking through Hyde Park to reach her next client. Sonja, 22, escort. High class prostitute many would have called her. Pretty, undeniably and well dressed, but her talents had been in how she could charm almost anyone and make them feel 'special'. She had never reached the 50 year old man she was heading for, never filled her purse with his easily earned cash after he had filled her with himself. She had fallen a mere six feet from Peter, her head now lay at an unnatural angle from where she had hit the tarmac path. Sonja, Dead.

At 7.20pm Hyde park remained as quiet as it had ever been. Some alarms were sounding in the distance and the wind was blowing through the spring night but no person moved. No person made a sound.

At 7.21pm Peter opened his eyes.

At 7.22pm across London Glenda lay still in the garden. She would never know that upstairs her mother Mary had also just opened her eyes.

CHAPTER THREE

Mary was aware of the smell before she was aware of the sensation. Urine and faeces, hers. Her bladder and bowel had long since evacuated and soaked through her nightdress and into the mattress. She could see where it had seeped into her bedspread and began to dry. It had happened more than once lately, she still felt shame when it did. 'Good God!' she thought, 'Where on Earth is that useless daughter of mine, and what bloody time is it?' It had been light when she had last looked and now the sky outside was black.

'Glenda' it was little more than a croak for her throat was dry 'GLENDA!' she swallowed hard and tried for more volume. Reaching over to her bedside table she fumbled to turn on her reading lamp and look at her clock. She thought she must be imagining it, it couldn't possibly be that time – although her stomach told her it was way past tea-time and she couldn't quite remember having had her lunch. Her memory had been getting gradually worse (although she NEVER admitted it to anyone else) but she was certain that Glenda  had not brought her food since breakfast and obviously had completely forgotten about her all day, allowing her to sleep so long she had shit and pissed herself. (A few years ago she would never have thought those words never mind considered saying them, but if she couldn't say shit and piss at her age then when could she?)

'Wait till she comes up here' she thought 'I'll give her what-for'

'GLLLEEENNNDDDAAAA' her voice had cleared considerably and she gave full force to this call to action for her daughter.

She listened closely but heard no movement downstairs, nothing to suggest Glenda was coming. A few years ago she would have made her way down there herself to confront her daughter but age and frailty had long put paid to her moving any further than to her commode (and she could only manage the short lift from her bed to that with help).

Mary considered that Glenda may have gone to the shop or be gossiping outside with one of the neighbours. Her bed was directly beneath the window, she liked feeling the warmth of the sun coming through to warm her legs on a fine day. She reached gingerly for the window sill and slowly began to pull herself up. The effort was great to raise her head to window level but if Glenda was out there she was determined to see her and rap sharply on the pane to get her attention  'Good for nothing ,waste of spa....'

Mary saw something on the grass below.

It looked like Glenda, but what was she doing? Laid outside on the grass below, fully clothed but looking like she was asleep. The neighbours, what if they saw? The neighbours, none of whom had switched their light on or drawn their curtains tonight. The neighbours, like Meryl from across the road who lay on the pavement, her shopping bag by her side and her groceries scattered around her. The neighbours like Mr and Mrs Johnson, their front wall destroyed by a white car  which had ploughed through it before coming to a stop. The neighbours who surely must be able to see the fires in the distance that Mary was seeing, the plumes of smoke rising high into the night sky, the scenes of devastation reaching way beyond their street.

Mary feebly tried to rap on the window but her strength had all but been used up by the effort to look out. 'Glendaaa' she managed to mutter, 'What's wrong? Get up, please, get up....' Mary was confused, what had happened on her street? Why were there so many fires? 'Terrorists!' she thought 'Bloody terrorists' She glanced briefly round towards her television, still on, its picture still showing the news  reader with her head on her desk. 'Well that's great isn't it?' she though 'Supposed to be telling us what's going on and the silly cow is laid there aslee...' 'Dead' she uttered, fear suddenly overwhelming her. The news lady, Meryl, the man in that van, her Glenda , everyone she could see, not moving, not breathing, dead.

Mary's grip on the window sill tightened but the effort was too much for her old bones. She felt a sudden searing pain through her right wrist and knew instantly it had snapped. She fell backwards, her head fortunately landing on her pillows. Disbelief filled her tired old body. Sobs began to overwhelm her. The pain in her wrist would have made any person cry these tears were for Glenda, her tears were not just for herself.

'Everyone's dead' she cried out sounding like a small child, 'Everyone but me! Why?'

Mary was too old, Too tired. Too hungry. Too human. Too upset to even try to understand.

She was helpless. She whimpered, subconsciously holding her wrist with her left hand. She cried as she had never cried before. She cried until no more tears would come.

Then, she closed her eyes and waited to die.

In Hyde Park Peter was awake but was sure he must be dreaming.

CHAPTER FOUR

Peter rubbed his eyes, he felt a pain in his leg but nothing to worry about, he was more concerned with what his eyes were telling him than what his brain was reporting as a small soreness.

That girl, laid there, she had been walking past... Peter had guessed pretty much straight away as to how she could afford such  expensive clothes. Slag, his friends would have called her. Peter was more understanding, prostitution was as much of a job to some ladies as his job was to him. She wasn't moving, Peter had to try to help her but his body still felt exhausted following his unexpected and unscheduled sleep.

His mind was racing, wondering why it was so late, why he had