Shock

-11-

My heart raced as I pushed through the door.
The five foot long corridor seemed to have stretched to five miles.
Nathan, Haley and Peter were waiting for me by the fire escape. It took ages for me to reach them. When I finally did, I was shivering. I wasn't sure if it was due to the cold or the nerves. Either way, it didn't matter. I had to go outside.
"Ready?" Nathan asked.
I wasn't. But I nodded anyway and he opened the door.
Ice cold wind smacked me in the face. I looked at the others and saw that they had put on jackets as well. Haley was even wearing a hat.
"So..." Nathan said, "which way?"
"There," I pointed east, "past jail park, down Harper Road."
My description was clear, but our path was everything but. Tall oak trees had snapped in half like twigs, buildings that had been standing strong for decades all of the sudden had tears in the facade and the pavement under our feet was cracked. We started in the direction I'd indicated. Now and then we had to take detours because the condition of the road was that bad.
"It's like Armageddon!" Peter gasped, taking in our surroundings.
"What's that?" Haley asked.
"A movie you are way too young to see."
I shot Peter a stern look.
He shrugged. "It was on Netflix."
I heard Nathan chuckle beside me and gave him the same look I'd given Peter. But then I relaxed. Here I was lecturing my brother about watching a movie about a certain situation, while in the mean time, we were in that very situation.
"He seems very... spirited." Nathan said as Peter started frantically explaining the plot of doomsday to Haley.
I huffed. "You should see his brother."
Immediately after I'd said it, a wave of sadness washed over me.
Nathan noticed.
"We'll find him."
His tone was so sincere that I believed him.
I mean, what were the chances he'd been playing outside when the quake hit?
What were the chances he'd been hit by a tree? And my parents, they'd probably been inside too. And Greg...
I sighed. It was no use convincing myself everything was okay when in reality, there was no way of knowing. I'd just have to wait and see.
I tried to distract my mind by asking the question I'd been wondering about.
"So what's up with Keith and the trust issues?"
Nathan looked at the ground and kicked a pebble.
"He, uhm, lost his previous job due to violent behaviour."
I felt my eyes widden.
"What?"
"It's not like... that serious."
"Violent behaviour is not that serious?"
"Well, it is, but he'd never hurt those kids. He didn't even start the fight."
"Then who did?"
"I don't know."
"Wait, how do you know this anyhow?"
"I don't know. Look just-" he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Don't worry about the kids."
"I didn't, until you told me the guy I left them with has anger management issues!"
In my anger I ignored the fact that only about an hour earlier, I'd been willing to let a guy that had punched me in the face babysit the kids.
"He doesn't. Like I said, he didn't even start the fight."
"How can you know if you didn't even-"
"It was me! Okay? I'm the one who started the fight."
I was silent for a while. I looked at Haley and Peter but they were too far ahead and too engrossed in their conversation to notice ours, or even that we'd stopped walking.
"But- why?" I asked, completely baffled.

"His dad's a cop. They were researching Derek's case and they said..."

He shook his head.

"He said my brother threw the first punch. He accused him of being a drunk and said this probably wasn't the first time something like this had happened, only the first time he got caught. he started saying... Saying he got himself killed."

I thought it was a bit ironic to start a pub fight over a dispute about a pub fight, but found it best not comment.

"I'm sorry..."

He smiled sheepishly.

"You couldn't have know."

Then he chuckled.

"It's kind of messed up you were gonna let two guys who got fired from their previous jobs for starting a fight together babysit a bunch of children, isn't it?"

I felt the corners of my mouth curl upwards in relief for the change of mood.

"Yeah, it kind of is."

We started walking again, jogging a little to reach Peter an Haley quicker.

Meanwhile, I was baffled by how foreign the landscape felt. As we turned onto Borough Road, I saw the convenience store. Its usually always so bright sign seemed to have faded completely in a single day. The night store next door had a broken window and cracks in the housefront.

Across the street, a postbox had toppled over.
Peter was right. The town looked like some kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland.
I was so distracted that I nearly bumped into the kids, who were walking so slowly they migt as well have been extras on the Walking Dead.
I looked at my watch, pressed the button to change from the timer to the hour display and saw that it was nearly two AM. I showed Nathan, who had taken Haleys hand to keep her from falling.
"Maybe we should take a break."
He agreed and we sat down on the pavement. Within seconds, the two were fast asleep, leaning on me and Nathan. My eyelids almost met but my brain kept them apart. Worry and anxiety played hide and seek in my thoughts.
I looked up to the sky. Now the street lights weren't polluting the night, thousands of stars twinkled like fireflies.
"Full moon," Nathan remarked.
"You gonna turn into a werewolf?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Bit of a personal question."
I laughed, and for a moment, that was the only sound around.
Then, an ambulance sounded in the distance. That sound always gave me the chills.
"So there are still people out there," I said.
Walking alone on these deserted streets, that didn't seem as obvious as it once had been.
"It is kind of weird we haven't seen anybody."
"Maybe they're staying in. It does seem safer."
"Yeah, but why aren't there any emergency services? Surely Grace isn't the only one who got hurt during the earthquake."
"The network is down."
"I know. But still. It's just... strange."
It was. It made sense that there would be more ambulances in the city centre, but none in the surrounding areas? Even on an average weekday I saw one or two on my way to school and work.
A gust of cold air sent a shiver down my spine. The battered, empty streets were starting creep me out, so I turned my gaze back to the stars above me and tried not to think.