Shift Read Free

no people walking around.
    ‘Bank holiday?’ I ask.
    ‘We wouldn’t have been at school.’ Billie continues to scan the usually packed high street. ‘And people would still be out and about. Wouldn’t they?’
    She’s right, but there doesn’t appear to be another single human being anywhere. Billie gently pushes open the nearest shop door, a health food shop run by the unhealthiest-looking
man I have ever seen. The door creaks a little as Billie peers in.
    I wait for her to look around before she pulls the door shut again.
    ‘Empty.’
    ‘What d’you mean?’
    ‘What d’you think I mean?’
    I squeeze past her and take a look for myself. The health food shop is completely deserted.
    ‘They shouldn’t leave it unlocked,’ I tell her before backing out. ‘Someone should tell them about that – they’ll get robbed.’
    We move to the next shop, a key cutter and shoe repairer. Billie opens the door. Again it’s unlocked and again it’s empty.
    ‘Let’s try another shop,’ I tell her.
    We head into the travel agent. There are computer terminals at small desks, a bureau de change at the far end and stacks of travel brochures lying neatly on shelves. But no people.
    ‘Maybe everyone booked themselves a holiday,’ Billie jokes.
    We enter the phone shop next door, which is nearly always packed with people wanting an upgrade on a phone they’ve had less than a week, and the result is the same. No one home.
    We emerge from the phone shop and look up and down the empty high street again. I even scan the second- and third-floor windows of the offices above the shops, but there’s no sign of
movement behind any of them.
    Billie heads into the next shop along, Boots. I follow her through the automatic doors.
    My heart is starting to quicken and I’m getting a tingling sensation in my arms and shoulders.
    ‘Gas leak?’ I ask. ‘Chemical spill?’
    Billie isn’t listening because usually the first thing you see in Boots are the women on the make-up counter who have applied so much product on their faces you’re always surprised
there’s any left to sell. But the painted ladies aren’t there today. No one is.
    ‘Where is everyone?’ Billie asks, but it’s not a question I’m likely to have an answer for. ‘Hey!’ she calls out.
    ‘What are you doing?’
    ‘HEY!’ she shouts louder this time.
    ‘Shh, they’ll throw us out.’
    ‘Who? Who exactly is going to throw us out?’ Billie is enjoying the emptiness less and less. She breaks into a fast walk, hurrying down the aisles looking for a sign of life.
    I try to keep up with her as she moves quickly from aisle to aisle.
    ‘Hey! Hello!’ Billie looks at me, her eyes wide. I know her heart is pumping as hard as mine is.
    Billie hurries out of Boots and I chase after her as we race into more high street shops, calling out, hoping that someone is there. But each one is the same. Empty.
    There is absolutely no one to be found. Everything looks the same, it feels the same and even smells the same, but without actual people it just isn’t the same.
    ‘Terrorists? It’s got to be terrorists.’
    Billie’s eyes grow even wider. ‘God, Rev.’
    ‘I’m just saying.’
    ‘You think there’s been an evacuation? Like they’ve found a bomb or something?’
    ‘What else could it be?’
    ‘So where are the soldiers? The police?’ she says, looking more freaked out by the second.
    ‘Let me try my mum.’ I grab my phone and call home, but it goes straight to answering machine. I try to act cool and casual. ‘Mum, you there? Something going on that I’ve
missed? Call me . . .’ I try to say the last bit in a sort of happy-clappy, sing-song voice – as if I haven’t a care in the world – but my voice cracks halfway through and
that’s when I hear my heart pounding in my ears, like it has a sixth sense or something. That it’s beating out a warning. I look at Billie and she’s also on her phone.
    ‘Dad, just saying hi. Uh, where . . .