Capital Falling | Book 4 | Sever Winkless, Lance (most popular ebook readers TXT) 📖

by surprise and in unison, we look towards the kitchen’s entrance.

“Andy!” Stacey cries as she bursts into the kitchen, her phone to her ear, looking as though she has seen a ghost. “It’s my mum!”

Stacey’s words hit me like a thunderbolt. I am flabbergasted, frozen for a second, unable to answer her.

“Andy, she wants to speak to you!” I hear Stacey say as she thrusts the phone across the table towards me.

Quickly pulling myself together, I reach out to take the phone from Stacey’s shaking grasp.

“Hello, Karen, is that you?” I ask redundantly as I get up from the table and leave the kitchen, which has fallen into complete silence apart from the sound of sizzling.

“Andy, thank God. Yes, it’s me,” Karen replies, her voice quiet and croaky.

“Where are you, and how are you?” I blurt.

“I’m still at work inside our building, with Jim. We’re wiped out but okay; we’ve been hiding in a storage room, but we don’t know what to do now. The zombie creatures seem to have vanished, so we snuck into one of the offices to use the phone. The power is out so our mobiles died, and we couldn’t risk moving before. What shall we do? Can you still come and get us?”

“We did come for you in a helicopter, but the building seemed to be overrun,” I tell her.

“I think we heard the helicopter flying around the building, but we couldn’t risk coming out. It was too risky then.”

“I don’t know what I can do, Karen; we escaped to Devon.” The line goes quiet for a moment, but in the background, I hear Karen becoming upset. “Karen?” I say into the phone.

“Andy, it’s Jim. I’m sorry to put pressure on you but can you tell us what to do?”

“Hello, Jim...” is all I can think of to say for a moment.

“Are you there Andy?”

“Yes, sorry Jim, I was thinking. Are the zombies still in the building? Can you get outside?” I ask.

“They’re still inside, we can hear them on other floors occasionally.”

“Shit,” I say out loud before I can stop myself. “So, you’re safe where you are for the moment?”

“I think so, we’re in a small office and we’ve got the door barricaded.”

“Can I phone you back? I need to think,” I ask.

“You won’t be able to phone us, it’ll just go through to the main switchboard,” Jim tells me.

“Okay, let me think.”

“Take all the time you need, Andy.”

A minute or two passes before I speak again, my mind racing to think of some way to help them, but I come up empty-handed of any plausible suggestions. “Jim, can you phone me back? I need to think this through properly. Say in an hour?”

“Yes Andy, we can do that. Anything you can do to help us; we’re desperate to see Stacey again.”

“I’ll try my best, Jim, you know that.”

“Yes, Andy, we do, thank you. We’ll phone you back in an hour, yes?”

“Yes, in an hour.”

I pull the phone away from my ear, my head spinning. I don’t move from the spot, unable to contemplate the barrage of questions that will surely come when I go back into the others. Eventually, I sit down on the sofa that’s behind me in the lounge, trying to calm my thinking, staring at the floor.

“Andy?” Stacey says quietly from the door across the room. Her face looks desperately at me for any positive news, news that I don’t have for her.

I look up at her and smile. “They are alive, Stacey; they are still inside their work building, but they are alive. That’s good news and they are going to phone us back in an hour. That is all I can tell you at the moment; I need to think it over, okay?”

“Please help them, Andy,” she begs me, tears rolling down her cheeks.

I get up and go over to her, putting my hands on her shoulders to look her straight in the eyes. “I will do whatever I can, Stacey, I promise you that.”

“Thank you,” she snivels.

“Come on, let’s go and see the others,” I say, directing Stacey back to the kitchen.

Thankfully, everybody lets Stacey and me sit down before anyone says a word and Josh even starts to put the breakfast out.

“What’s happening Dad?”

Unsurprisingly, it is Emily who is the first to ask a question and I tell her and everyone what I know, not that it satisfies my little girl’s curiosity.

“They have to get out and come here with us, don’t they, Dad? Stacey is really missing them.”

“Yes, I know she is, and we’re going to try and figure a way out to help them. But we need to think about it. It isn’t going to be easy for them to get out of London, you know that Emily, don’t you?”

“No, it won’t be easy, but you’ll think of something, Dad, you always do,” Emily says while she fiddles with her knife and fork.

No pressure then, I think to myself as my young daughter inadvertently applies it. The table goes silent with all eyes on me, waiting for my response to Emily’s innocent interrogation.

“I’m trying to think of a way to help them Emily, but it’s going to take time. Now let’s have breakfast while I think and then after breakfast, Josh, Alice, Catherine, and I will talk about it, okay?” I say looking at Stacey.

Stacey nods her understanding and Emily says, ‘okay, Dad,’ while Josh brings the plates over.

“Emily, it’s a nice day outside, so why don’t you and Stacey go and play for half an hour while we clear up the dishes?” I say when breakfast is finished.

“So, you can talk, you mean?” Emily answers.

“Yes Emily, so we can talk while we’re clearing up.”

“Okay,” Emily replies and jumps down from her chair. “Come on Stacey, let’s leave the brainboxes to think.”

“Stacey, can you leave your phone with me? I’ll call you when they phone back,” I ask, and she leaves it on the table where she was seated before she takes Emily’s hand