Level: Attendant

“It’s quiet,” Sabrina whispered to Ome.
“Yes.”
Sabrina thought she discerned a trembling in Ome’s voice that she had never heard before. They had arrived at the block where Ome had left his two daughters. Crouching behind a car wreck, Ome assessed the dangers of entering the building.
“There’s a fire escape at the back, but it means going through the entrance corridor – no other way. It’s dangerous.”
It seemed to Sabrina that Ome hovered in indecision for quite a while.
“You stay here. I won’t be long,” he finally whispered.
“On no, I’m not! I’m coming with you!”
“Don’t bloody argue woman! Stay here!”
“Listen; if you think the old male chauvinist attitude will work in a post-holocaust Britain, you’re sadly mistaken!”
The two had raised their voiced to the point of shouting, and Sabrina’s soprano voice echoed against a nearby building, making them both duck.
“Listen; I’m … not an emotional man,” Ome continued. “I can control my feelings. Okay?”
“No, it’s not okay!”
“Lower your voice, or we’ll both be dead!”
“It’s not okay!” Sabrina whispered. “Look at you! You’re shaking like a leaf. I’m coming!”
“Alright. Just be very, very quiet.”
Ome pointed the AK-47 in front of him and crept up to the block’s set of glass-panelled front doors. He pushed one. It moved a few inches and stopped, blocked by something black. Ome leaned into the door with his shoulder and shoved as hard as he could. They heard the sound of something sliding across a concrete floor, as the door slowly swung open enough for them both to slip through.
“Bin bags,” Ome whispered. “Somebody barricaded it. Be very, very quiet.”
“You already told me.”
Because of the broken glass that littered the floor, each step had to be carefully chosen, but eventually Ome pushed the rear door open and leaned out to peer up at the fire escape and windows above. He gestured with the barrel of the gun for Sabrina to follow.
“Let me go first. Wait until I signal,” Ome said, putting his boot gently on the first step of the metal fire escape. He managed to reach the end of the fourth flight without making any sound that Sabrina could hear and beckoned her up. Using all the stealth she could muster, picking up her prosthetic when it proved obstinate, she reached his side and squeezed his wrist. She wanted to kiss him for caring about her so much.
Ome didn’t want to use the door, so he tried several of the sash windows, but he could see the catches had been secured. Taking a pen-knife from his pocket he deftly pushed aside the catch lever on one window and gently raised its wooden window frame. It made a loud screeching sound as the unoiled sides rubbed on their tracks. Ome slid it faster, to get the noise over with.
“Shit!” Sabrina whispered.
They stood, stock still, for several minutes, waiting for any other sound.
“Nothing,” Ome whispered, grinning.
He clambered into the room and helped Sabrina over the sill. Walking to the door of the apartment, Ome listened, before trying the handle. It opened, so he led Sabrina into the corridor.
“Number 27,” he said, pointing to a white door with the number on it.
But suddenly, he found he couldn’t move. Sabrina reached out and squeezed his arm.
“I’m with you baby!” she whispered.
Ome nodded and put his ear against the door.
For a long while he could hear nothing. But then he thought he heard whispering, so he opened the door and rushed in, grinning from ear to ear.
Seeing nobody in the lounge, or kitchen, Sabrina followed Ome as he opened a door and stopped.
“No!” he wailed, falling to his knees beside a bed in the room.
Sabrina crept forward and peered over his shoulder, just as a terrible smell assailed her nostrils. Two desiccated heads nestled against each other, all that could be seen protruding from heavy blankets. Ome stroked the larger head’s blonde hair and wept tears, that ran down the dry cheeks of his older child. “Michelle! Why? Why didn’t you wait for me? Oh Lorraine, I’m so sorry … I … I … .”
Sabrina kneeled beside her friend and leaned her own head against his back. She decided to wait as long as it would take Ome to pour out his feelings. It took hours, and the sun had begun to set, before Ome stopped talking to his dead daughters and painfully struggled to sit on the side of the bed. He cupped his face in his hands, while Sabrina sat beside him and put her arm around his shoulders.
“I can’t speak,” Ome croaked. “I’ll bury them in the garden now. Can you do something for me?”
“Of course, baby.”
“Wrap them carefully in the blankets while I dig the hole. You’ll find some belts in that cupboard. Tie them with that.”
It had become clear by now that the block was uninhabited, so Ome made no attempt to keep silent as he put all his anger into digging a hole deep enough for his two children.
Sabrina followed as he carried the solemn bundle down to the garden and laid it in the deep, black hole.
“I can’t do it!” he suddenly gasped, after standing still for a few moments.
“What? What can’t you do? Let me help!”
“I can’t … say a prayer. I just don’t know … any more. Sweet Mother of God! Why these two? Why?”
Ome broke into tears again, so Sabrina recited the Lord’s Prayer, not knowing what would be more appropriate.
“Can you … cover them please?” Ome said. “I can’t do it.”
Sabrina shovelled enough soil to cover the sad bundle, and then Ome grabbed the garden spade from her.
“Go inside!” he rasped.
While Sabrina waited, she heard a welter of obscenities and curses like she had never heard before. But by the time Ome joined her, his face looked calm, like water upon a sea after a great storm.
“We can’t stay,” he said. “But look around for any food, or anything useful.”
Sabrina stepped over the electrical cable that had been stretched between a large heater by the bed and the doorway. She also ignored a lifeless diesel generator in the bathroom and emptied out the contents of a small cupboard. By the time she reached the cupboard in the bedroom, she had still barely filled her bag with useful items. Ome still sat on the bed, but he had opened the window and appeared to be communing with the gentle night breeze that lifted his black locks away from his forehead.
“I don’t think there’s anything else,” Sabrina whispered.
“No food?”
“Nothing. Not even water, or any liquid at all.”

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