"With the short lull in the storm, NHS statisticians were better able to calculate the true scope and cost of the Omega variant of the virus and the results are far worse than anyone could have imagined.
With infection rates in excess of four times any previous variant and a mortality rate with an even greater increase, concerns are mounting that the Omega variant may very well cause the deaths of over two billion people, worldwide.
In response, the Prime Minister has ordered a month-long total lockdown to come into effect in one week. Shops and supermarkets have been ordered to allow sales of no more than two of each item, per customer, until the lockdown comes into force. After that, if anyone other than emergency services are found outside their own homes, they will face arrest and quarantine until the end of the lockdown."
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13
McAreavey refused to leave them alone after the three men left on the tiny boat. He stood watch at the upstairs window, his shotgun in his hands. He only moved to accept a hot mug of tea, though he didn't even glance at Runa when she handed it to him. He, obviously, felt as concerned about those three men as Runa.
Almost as soon as the boat left the little dock, the storm smashed against the island once more. Runa couldn't say she had become used to it, but she no longer flinched at the lightning strikes, nor trembled at the constant rumble of thunder that rattled the windows, or shiver at the wind that seemed to find the tiniest gaps with which to rush through, making piercing whistles throughout the cottage as it did so.
As she had passed the mug to Alf, she had noticed the strangest thing, however. The boat had only moved a few hundred feet from the shore and there it stayed. The storm passed the boat by, leaving it in a tiny circle of becalmed waters, undisturbed, unmoving. The figures of the three men clearly facing back towards the island. It felt as though they stared right back at Runa.
"Aye. You feel it too." With the shotgun cradled over one arm, Alf took a drink, holding the mug in the other hand. "That there isn't natural. I don't know how, or what's happening here, but something is very wrong, Doctor ... ah, Runa. What are your thoughts?"
"If I told you what I thought, you'd think me mad." He gave a little shrug at her words, but didn't ridicule her. Yet. "What do you know of the Norse gods? Of Ragnarök?"
He took another sip of his tea, appearing to consider the questions. He remained silent for the longest time and, at one point, leaned forward to catch sight of those two, huge black birds circling above the cottage, neither seeming to find any difficulty flying within the throes of the storm.
"Nothing much. Time was there were a few communities, up here on the islands, that followed those old gods. Not my kind of thing, mind, but I was never one to think less of folk for their beliefs." His eyes returned to the unmoving boat, out on the sea. "They had books like that one you had downstairs. A long time since I've seen its like. Of course, all those old communities are long gone, now. Died, or moved away."
"Was my husband's family among them?" Her stomach clenched. If McAreavey said 'yes', she would have to question everything she thought she knew about her life. "Did he, my husband ... did he follow the old gods?"
McAreavey did look at her then and Runa could see the worry creasing his face. He gazed at her for a long time before turning back to look out of the window. At any other time, she would find these pauses of his as he collected his thoughts and considered his replies, endearing. Right now, those pauses felt like a millennia of individual seconds.
After a fashion, she appreciated it. Unlike many other people, McAreavey didn't say what was on his mind in that exact second. He took his time and thought things through. Probably some relation to how he saw the days in 'island' time and 'mainland' time. A product of living in the same space as only a few people. Easy to upset and annoy in such close proximity. Of course, he had lived on the island alone for some time, now.
"Not the MacCabe's, no." For only the second time, he turned away from the window, surveyed the room and then angled the mug to a specific spot upon a nearby wall. "Never known a more god-fearing folk as the MacCabe's. They'd have had fits if they even thought someone might think them pagans, or worse, heathens."
There, upon the wall, Runa could see something she hadn't noticed before. A mark that showed where something had once hung upon the wall, in a specifically chosen place above where the head of the bed sat. The shape of a cross. A large one at that. She ran her fingers across the spot, wishing that such a symbol could help them right now.
She wasn't certain that it wouldn't. If those three men were, in fact, gods and the beast that hid itself within the bones of the island, in a cave that was, and was not, there, was Fenrir, then anything could exist. Everything could exist. The Abrahamic God. Hindu gods, Roman and Greek and Japanese and native Americans, north and south. The Australian Aboriginal dreamtime. Anything.
Yet, none of those other gods were the ones that appeared to have brought the world to the brink of collapse. Or maybe they all had? Maybe this was the culmination of the apocalyptic prophecies of many religions? Maybe it all manifested in a form more easily recognised by the person observing it. But that only begged yet more questions for which she couldn't possibly have the answers for.
Her analytical mind couldn't help here. Not by trying to make sense of the possibilities. Her area of expertise was not metaphysics. She could not make a workable hypothesis if she tried. It all defied analysis, anyway. Three men on a tiny boat, one of whom she felt certain was Odin, or supposed to be him, another, Thor. The third, she didn't feel certain she could identify.
"What if I said Ragnarök was upon us and that one of the battlefields is right here." She moved back to the window, tilting her head to see Alf's response. "What if I said the great wolf, Fenrir, hid upon this island and those men were gods, come to drag him back to usher in the end of the world?"
"I'd say you were mad, lassie." He chuckled but he didn't look at her, then his face turned reflective. "Or I would have a few days ago. I've seen the news. I know what's happening and I can't explain it. If it's gods, you say, it might be mad, but it's an explanation. And God knows, that brings me a mite comfort. Otherwise, it would mean the world had gone to hell for nothing. No reason. I can't abide no reason for it."
"So, you believe me?" She looked out towards the sea and that boat, sitting there as though nothing was wrong. As though they were on a day-trip fishing.
"There's a storm outside that's circled this island many times." He nodded up into the sky. "Two birds flying around and the wind doesn't touch them. And a boat, with three huge buggers on it, sat in a circle of calm that the storm is all but ignoring. Aye. I believe you. I wish I'd brought my pipe, eh."
He glanced into his mug and, seeing that he'd finished the tea, passed it back to Runa without taking his eyes from the boat, away off the shore. Runa hadn't even seen him drink it, so involved in their conversation she had found herself. Her own mug still sat downstairs, on the coffee table where she had left it.
Down there, the children were continuing their studies. She couldn't think of anything else to do except to try and keep some normalcy. To try and hold off from showing any sign that anything was wrong. Not only for Hertha and Stigr's sake, but for her own, too. She placed a hand on McAreavey's arm and gave it a squeeze. He, in turn, patted her hand with his own, wrinkled and calloused fingers. The farmer felt like an old friend, now.
She returned downstairs and checked upon the children's work. As she had thought, as soon as she had left the room, they had forgotten all about school work and had probably fallen in to talking amongst themselves. They seemed so resilient. So unafraid and Runa wished she felt half as afraid as she was.
"Is old Mutton-Chops ... ah, I mean ... is Mr McAreavey staying?" Stigr looked up from his workbook, pretending that he had continued studying, yet he hadn't turned a page. "It's because of Odin, isn't it?"
"How do you know it's Odin?" The last thing Runa wanted to do was to cement the idea that gods walked the Earth, but the matter-of-fact way that Stigr spoke caught her by surprise.
"Because of his one eye." Hertha joined in, using her finger to draw the shape of a scar across her own eye. "And because of his ravens. Huginn and Muninn. They're his eyes and ears. You said so, last night, when you read the book to us."
That she had, indeed. Those two ravens continued to circle above and around the cottage. If they were Odin's ravens, they were, no doubt, relaying everything they saw and heard back to that old man upon his boat. Should any of them leave the cottage, to visit Fenrir, say, and to warn him, those black birds would let Odin know immediately.
But, things could not go on as they were. If she had any say in it, at all, she did not want this war, this Ragnarök, happening here on the island. Not near her children. If the world was going to end, she wanted to spend it with her children, in as close to a state of peace as it could be. She needed them all gone. Fenrir, Odin, his ravens and the others. Gone and far away from this island.
She had a thought and headed back to the stairs, calling up as she climbed.
"Alf? What range does that shotgun have?" It only needed one of the immortal interlopers to go and the others would follow.