"I remembered something else.  I remembered his laugh.  Not Dad’s.  He didn’t laugh.  He made a sort of ‘urgh’ sound, and then some whimpering, as if he was our dog and he’d hurt his paw."

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Chapter One

Once upon a time...

All the best stories begin with 'Once upon a time...'

Once upon a time, Jack climbed a beanstalk and encountered a giant and a magical goose.   Once upon a time, three little piggies ran away from the Big Bad Wolf, whom they wouldn't let in by the hair on their chinnie-chin-chins.  Cinders did go to the ball.  Snow White did live happily ever after.

Once upon a time, my parents died.

It doesn't quite have the same fairytale sound, does it?  Though the monsters, beasts and creatures of the night rampage through tales from the Brothers Grimm and Disney, they're all, in the end, vanquished.  The handsome prince or the downtrodden girl almost always gets their Snow White happy ending.

My parents died.  There was no prince or girl or witch or dwarf to save the day.  No knight in armour, shining or otherwise. They died.  As simple and as clean as that.

I saw it happen.  Right in front of me.  It was in the Purge last year.  They broke in and shot them both, my father in the stomach so he'd live long enough to watch them shoot my mother in the head.  Then, they left him.  The trail of blood from where he initially fell to my mother's body where he finally died took an age to dry.  It remained liquid, sticky like strawberry syrup, for such a long time I thought it might never congeal.

It didn’t taste like syrup, strawberry or any kind.  Curiosity battled with sense in a heated war which caused me to frown and sweat a little.  I dipped my finger in.  I couldn’t help it.  Don’t worry, I didn’t wonder what it was like to be a vampire, nor did I feel the urge to dine on the bodies of my parents.  I could have – I could see inside my father’s stomach.  I could have reached in and pulled out a tasty morsel.  It was wet.  It looked like I’d thrown up in there and bits of puke had peppered the area around the hole.  I hadn’t.  I’d thrown up in the corner at the bottom of the stairs.  I didn’t think the puke could have quite reached this far.  I sucked the tip of my index finger.  It tasted like I was sucking on a penny.

I think I cried.  I would have, wouldn’t I?  If your parents are shot in front of you, you’d cry, right?  I’d vomited, so I obviously felt something, so I’m sure I cried.  I didn’t remember.  I only remembered that streak of blood across the floor as if Mum had been cleaning it and had accidentally stuck the mop in a tin of red paint rather than the bleach, fabric conditioner and water concoction she used to clean the laminate with.  And the cavity in her head.  And the way Dad was lying across her, his hand touching her cheek, his guts touching her arm.

I sat there, with them, for a long time.  The sun was almost up, the Purge almost ended.  I slept.  I slept forever.

England had resisted the Purge for almost a decade.  We were too good.  Too decent.  Too up ourselves, according to my father.  The Americans, with their Hollywood mentalities and guns you could practically buy in the corner newsagent, had it right.  Go crazy.  Get it out your system.  Have a blast and then you won’t feel the desire to hurt anyone or steal anything for the rest of the year.  Why would you?  You could do a lot in twelve hours.  Murder.  Steal.  Rape.

Die.

Last year’s had been the first.  An experiment, apparently.  Let us all have a go, just once, to see how it went.  To see how it affected us.  To see if it worked.  England, once so proud, was dying, eaten away by those who would prefer to take rather than earn.  Criminals were becoming the new leaders, the new lawmakers.  The rest of us were falling in to line or falling in the nearest river.  It was time, Dad said, to take control.  It was time to seize the day and make our country great again.

I didn’t see how the ability to kill without reproach made you a better person.  I didn’t see how the ability to rape random women or steal a car, mowing down any person who was too slow to get out of the way, improved our country or bettered us as a nation.  Surely, it simply made us like ‘them’?  Like the ones we were wanting to overcome?

Dad and I disagreed on many things.  It was usual.  Tradition.  Like Chinese food at the All You Can Eat buffet along the beach on a Tuesday.  Like Coronation Street marathons on a Friday night by a mother who’d never have time to watch them the nights they were actually on.  Like Dad stroking her cheek with his hand.

Of course the referendum was passed and the votes were in and the Purge was attempted.  France had followed the US’s lead a couple of years previously – and it had yet to be proven a success – so England had pressure from both sides.  It wasn’t a case of an angel and a devil on each shoulder, it was a pair of devils.  Mirror images of each other, both whispering in our Capital’s ears.  If any fight was put up, it didn’t particularly last.    The Purge was advertised as a return to national pride.  We no longer needed to be ashamed to hoist our flag or sing our national anthem.  Not that I’d ever sung it, apart from a couple of times at school.

Dad, naturally, would say they were angels, not devils.  They were whispering words of pride, of power, of privilege.  Words of triumph.  Not words of ruin and devastation.

Last year, though he said this would be a new dawn and Britain would once more be Great, he elected to stay in.  He wasn’t going to venture out and join in the fun.  He’d rather not engage in murder and mayhem.  For all his strong words and pseudo-beliefs, my father was a coward.  Before the Purge was a reality, he’d always been the one to back down.  Avoid confrontation.  Hang his head.  Once the Purge was in effect, he could hide behind the shutters.  He could help protect his family.  Staying with us, he would be able to ensure we were ok.

Go Dad!  What a guy!

I told myself he was being brave doing so.  If the new shutters, standard fair for most of the country (at least one business could benefit from the decimation which would ensue – them and the funeral directors), didn’t hold, Dad would be there to safeguard his wife and son.  He told my mother that’s why he remained inside.  I think he believed it himself.

We stood side by side for the first few hours, watching the ‘action’ on the news.  There was no Coronation Street that night, only an endless stream of manic images.  He had his shotgun and I had a pistol.  Gun laws had been altered more in line with our cross-Atlantic friends to even the playing field.  If you could attack and be attacked, you should be able to defend yourself.  Dad had never fired his gun.  I had, mine.  Only soft drink cans and ‘stumpy’ beer bottles, granted, but at least I could usually hit somewhere in the region of my target.  I think he had chosen his weapon because of its spread – if you didn’t need to aim so accurately, you were more likely to hit your target.

I didn’t plan to discharge my pistol.  I held it because he held his.  I didn’t agree with the Purge, so I couldn’t see myself actually killing someone – even, I supposed, if they wanted to kill me.  But, I wasn’t going to argue this time.  I was going to stand by him and remain there until dawn broke and normality returned.  Then, we could debate its effects and dispute its consequences over breakfast.

Everyone had the same alarm and security system, pretty much.  One particular company had leapt into the newly opened gap in the market with all the vigour of a four year old in a ball pool.  This created a problem in itself.  Having an alarm and security system so widespread the same brand logo was painted on almost every house in your town, let alone street, meant everyone knew how to open it.  How to circumvent it.  Everyone knew how to skip past it as if it was a young girl in the street and you were running for a bus.  The child would be standing there sucking on a lollipop, the way some would suck on a blood soaked finger, and you’d have to dance around her to avoid crashing her into the road and the path of an oncoming vehicle.

If the Purge was in effect, that wouldn’t be a problem.  But then, if the Purge was in effect, you wouldn’t be running for a bus.  The bus would, most likely, be running for you.

After the first few hours, I needed the toilet.

After the first few hours, the gang had reached our house and had easily popped the shutters open.

After the first few hours, my dad had raised his shotgun, had it grabbed from his hands, and my mother was dead and my father was dying.

I remembered something else.  I remembered his laugh.  Not Dad’s.  He didn’t laugh.  He made a sort of ‘urgh’ sound, and then some whimpering, as if he was our dog and he’d hurt his paw.

Our dog.  I never did see him again after that night.

No.  I remembered the laugh of the man who killed them.  I would have expected it to be high and manic, fuelled by adrenaline and hysteria.  It wasn’t.  It was low.  It was measured.  Calm.

Those with him, two men and a woman, slapped him on the back and cheered when the shots were fired.  The men each had bottles of vodka and banged them together in appreciation of their friend’s exploits.  One of the bottles shattered, throwing a spray of glass shards and liquid over my mother.  The woman, older than her clothes suggested but younger than the men, clapped and danced a little jig.  Her skirt flared up, baring her thighs.  They weren’t as smooth or as lean as I’m sure she’d have preferred.

The man who pulled the trigger stared at the television for a long moment.  He seemed intensely interested in what was being shown.  A split screen, as if Jack Bauer had visited Grimsby and was filming the latest series of 24 right here in town, revealed various scenes of destruction.  A car slammed into the side of another.  The drivers climbed out, one steadier than the other, and jumped upon each other.  A building was on fire.  The leisure centre not too far from my house, I think.  I thought it was meant to be being knocked down to be replace by a new state-of-the-art fitness complex.  They wouldn’t need to now.  Someone was shooting somebody else.  A group of men were chasing a girl.

The man, I’d called him Mr. Composure in my head, turned on his heel and walked out of the front door without a word.  His mess of blond hair, rough and sweaty-looking, flopped on his head as he walked, as if it, too, was as dead as the couple on the floor.  He had a smile.  A sly smile which matched his laugh in restraint.  It was poised.  Not too broad yet still noticeable.  It was one of acceptance.  Of a man who had achieved a minor triumph.  A man who felt he could now move on to bigger and greater things.  Perhaps as great as Britain was meant to be.  The other three faltered briefly, then hurried after.

“Hold on, Tom,” the woman said, not quite managing to stay atop her heels.  “We don’t want to miss anything.”

I sat in the shadows at the top of the stairs and watched my father crawl to my mother.  Then I joined them.

When I awoke, birds were singing.

I felt insulted.  How dare they?  How dare they sing and be cheerful after what had happened the previous night?  Nights were always meant to be quiet and peaceful.  They were for sleeping or loving.  Last night’s allure had been tainted.  It had been dirtied by blood and death and depravity.  How dare the birds be happy about that?  I wanted to run outside and scream at them to shut up, to fly away, to go be joyful somewhere else.  I was sure there’d be a building still burning or a wounded victim still gurgling their final declarations as breath left the beaten body and joined its brethren, the wind, to swirl free on a whim.  The birds should be entertaining them, not serenading me.

I stood, slowly as my body ached from using a pair of corpses for a mattress when there were comfier ones upstairs.  I arched my back, wincing as it cracked in protest.  I looked at my parents.

They were still dead.

I walked out of the door, turning on my heel as abruptly as Mr. Composure had done – almost in deference to him, in fact.  I didn’t return.

Had the Purge worked?  Of course, the debates raged.  In Parliament there were a few empty seats as the intended occupiers were unable to attend, either due to injury or lack of breath.  The Deputy Prime Minister chaired and rebutted the arguments admirably for someone who was so suddenly forced into the top seat.  In America, government officials were exempt from the Purge.  They couldn’t be targeted.  Here, however, it was decided it should be ‘all or nothing’ to be fair.  No-one was exempt.  No-one was able to avoid a bullet or a knife or a bomb.  Eventually, though the vote was extremely close, it was decided it had indeed worked.  America was right.  France, too.  Other European countries decided to follow suit and elected to hold their own Purges.  It would be, almost, a national holiday.

More so, it would be a continental holiday.  An international day of terror to herald in a glorious new era of loving thy neighbour and being happy with your lot.  At least for all but one day of the year.

I liked holidays.  I remembered Skegness and Mablethorpe when I was younger.  Majorca, later on.  Beaches and sunshine.  This didn’t seem like a holiday to me.  Where was the suntan lotion?  Where was the ice cream?  They were replaced by balaclavas and knives.  Laughter by screams.  Roller coasters by burnt out cars and buses.

It was fine.  What could I do?  A vote was a vote.  A decision made.  It was, indeed, fine.

I just had to live for a year.  Twelve months.  Twelve months for twelve hours.  Then I could find Tom and let him hear my own laugh.  I wondered if it would be as deliberate as his.