Hater Page 0,57

away. She clings onto the windowsill and won't let go. The children have been going stir crazy trapped in the house. They're desperate for any distraction.

Outside Woods has stopped moving now. His wife is still lying on the ground and he's standing on her neck. Bloody hell, he's put his boot and his full weight on her throat. Her face is blood red and she's thrashing about more than ever but he's managing to keep her down even though he's half her size.

'Ellis, let go,' I shout as I finally manage to prise her away from the window. Ed is still watching and I can't help staring either. I can't look away. It was a bottle that Woods was carrying. He's unscrewed the lid now and he's emptying the contents all over his wife. What the hell is he doing?

'What's happening?' Harry asks. Now we're all in the living room. He's between me and the door and I have to move round him to get Ellis out. I try to close the curtains again but I can't reach from here. Harry's in the way.

'Get the children out of here,' Lizzie screams.

'Will you move, Harry?' I snap. 'I can't get through...'

I look out of the window again as Woods sets fire to his wife. Christ knows what he just doused her in but she's gone up in a huge ball of flames and the fire has caught him too. She's still moving. Bloody hell. I put my hands over Ellis' eyes but I'm slow to react and she's already seen too much. Woods trips away from the burning body, his trouser legs on fire. He staggers down Calder Grove but only makes it halfway down the road before he's consumed by the flames.

Between us we push the kids out into the hall. I go back to the living room.

Outside no-one does anything. No-one moves. There's no activity out on the street, not even when the fire from Woods' wife's burning body spreads and sets light to a pile of plastic sacks filled with rubbish which have been sat at the side of the road for more than a week. Thick black smoke billows up from the bags and from the corpses in the road, filling the air with dirty fumes.

Sobbing, Lizzie pulls the curtains shut.

The man on the landing at the top of the stairs is dead. I crept out of the flat a few minutes ago and went up to check. What a fucking horrible way to go - ending your days slowly bleeding to death on your own at the top of a dark, concrete staircase. Could I have done anything for him? Possibly. Should I have done anything for him? Definitely not. He was a Hater, and its scum like him that have caused all of this. They're the reason everything is falling apart. They're the reason I've had to lock myself and my family in the flat. They're the reason we're all fucking terrified.

What scares me most about the body upstairs and what we saw on the street is the closeness of it all. I could cope with this crisis when it was just something on the news. I could even deal with it at the concert and when we saw the fight in the pub and the kid under the car. What's changed today is the proximity of the trouble to my children and my home. This flat felt safe until today.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The kids have definitely sensed a change now. Maybe it's because they've been trapped in the flat without contact from anyone else for days. Obviously what they've seen today has made matters worse. They keep asking questions and I don't know how to answer them. I don't know what to say to them anymore. I took the bolt I fixed on Sunday morning off the bathroom door and attached it to the inside of the living room (or 'safe room' as we're now supposed to call it) to try and make everyone feel a little safer. I don't know if it's done any good.

We've been sitting in the safe room for hours and I can't stand it any longer. I get up and wander aimlessly around the flat. I can't sit and do nothing, but there's nothing I can do either. I don't want to talk to anyone. I'm cold and tired and frightened. I walk into Josh and Ed's small room and climb up onto Ed's top bunk. His small screen TV