What Happened Next

Four: Old Pennies

Milo kept watch out of the kitchen window for the ambulance.

In the end, after several failed attempts to get through to the nine-one-one switchboard, he'd reached a very young dispatcher. He had to give his address at least six times and was finally told, 'Someone will be with you shortly.'

That was forty-five minutes ago.

'Anything yet?' his mom asked. She was kneeling beside Sally's high chair, with a bowl of warm water from the sink between her knees. She was cleaning the blood off her daughter's face with a cloth. She wrung it out after every wipe. The bowl water was black and had ugly, fleshy scrags floating in it.

Every minute or so, she'd crawl over to check her husband was still breathing. They'd laid him onto the floor and put him in the recovery position. He was still unconscious, and the breaths were wheezy and unsteady, but he was breathing.

Jill had a good mind to drag him out to the car and drive him to the ER herself. But he was very heavy – at least three times her own weight – and she didn't want to trigger some sort of convulsion while lugging him around like a piece of furniture.

A white van crawled to a stop at the bottom of the drive. It had the outline of a fish etched onto the side, with the words 'New Hampshire Cod Company' printed below it.

Milo frowned.

'Mom, did you order some fish?'

'Fish?'

The van's doors flung open, and two podgy men stepped out onto the concrete. Their white overalls were covered in dark brown stains. They pulled open the doors at the back of the van and took out some plastic aprons, which they slipped over their heads and tied at the back. Next, they took out a folded, steel stretcher, expanded it, and wheeled it up the driveway on its castors.

Milo went and opened the door.

'Hello?'

'We're here to collect...' one of the men started, before quickly checking his clipboard, '... Dallas Winters.'

'What's with the fish van?'

'Is he here or not, son? We have a lot of collections today.'

'Come through.'

The stretcher clattered onto the kitchen tiles. It made the glasses rattle inside the cupboards.

The men gazed in horror at the breakfast table. The thick, black blood filled the plates and the spaces in between them, and it dribbled off the table's edges.

The room stank of old pennies.

Sally waved at one of the men from her high chair. He gave a half-smile and waved back.

'Oh, thank god. Thank god,' Jill said as she dropped the bloody cloth into the bowl of meaty, black soup. 'He-he's still breathing. We put him on the floor. We thought that was best.'

Her eyes were red and raw, like they'd been pepper-sprayed.

The two men stood still and stared down at Dallas blankly.

'Aren't you... gonna check his vitals?' she asked, after waiting for them to spring into action. 'Give him oxygen? Give him anything? Aren't you going to do anything?'

The men quickly exchanged a glance.

'Uh, we're just here to bring him in, ma'am,' one said.

'The doctors and nurses will take good care of him,' added the other.

Jill shook her head. 'What the fuck is going on in this country?' she muttered under her breath.

The men wheeled the stretcher beside Dallas, lowered it, hoisted him on, and then raised it again. His arm drooped over the side like a limp trouser leg hanging out of a laundry basket. They fastened straps across his legs and chest.

As one of the men stepped back, something crunched under his boot. He reached down and picked up a rattle. He handed it to Sally, who giggled and shook it fiercely.

'We're gonna take your daddy to the hospital now, sweetheart,' he told her.

Sally reached out her chubby fingers towards Dallas as they wheeled him out of the room, and she cried, 'Dadda.'

Jill picked her up from the high chair, held her to her chest, took the Mamba's keys off the side, and jerked her head for Milo to follow. They all stepped out onto the driveway and watched as the fish men lifted Dallas into the back of the van.

'You're taking him in that?' she asked as she read the logo.

'Ambulances are all occupied,' one of the men said. 'Our whole fleet has been roped in. Same for Deliver-It and The Parcel People.'

In every direction, they could hear a choir of sirens wailing in the distance.

'We're dropping them at the loading bay around back. They're asking that family members stay at home.'

'Stay at home?' Jill asked.

'We've seen the ER, ma'am. It's carnage. Honestly, your kids are better off here at home. The hospital will keep you posted with any updates. Just stay by the landline. The mobile networks are all jammed.'

The two men climbed back into the van. It took off down the street. The mask shot up out of the drain and floated around in the air like an autumn leaf.

'Get in the car,' Jill said, as she unlocked the Mamba.

'Didn't you hear what that guy said?'

'Get in the car.'

'He said to stay here. He said they want families to stay at home.'

'Get in the car.'

'Mom, he said ER is carnage.'

'Get in the fucking car, Milo! Do as your mother says for once in your life!'

'But–.'

'I don't care what a goddamn fish seller says. Something is happening, and we all need to stay together. We aren't letting them stick your father in a hallway somewhere to forget about him. We're gonna go to the hospital and scream in the faces of every doctor and every nurse until somebody helps him.'

'Why don't I stay here with Sally? It's not gonna be nice for her there, is it?'

Jill rolled her eyes. 'What did I just say?'

'You can go. I can stay here with her.'

'Everyone's getting sick. What if you get sick? What if Sally gets sick? Cell phones aren't working, Milo. How are you gonna get hold of me?'

Milo didn't have any answers.

'You're coming with me to the hospital. That's the end of it. Now get in the damn car.'