I am so sorry people! I've just started 6th Form and I had a Leader 1 Course and my life just flipped itself on its head. Please forgive me!
On another note; some of you are evil! Do I attract readers who want death doom and destruction? Apparently so. Do not fear though, I shall deliver in a few chapters ;)
There will be several POV switches in this chapter as we're nearing the climax.
You roll over and crack open your eyes only to have the fright of your life. "Grief!" You sit up quickly and push the cause of the fright away from you. "Alia, what on Earth are you doing?"
"It's Saturday."
"I'm well aware of that. I went to school too you know."
Alia laughs and pokes your tummy. "But it's today."
You roll your eyes and decide to play dumb. "Saturday's today, yes. And then its Sunday."
"Muuuuum!"
You laugh and flip Alia onto her back, tickling her to the point where she's threatening to wet herself. "Okay, okay. Go get dressed then." You laugh, releasing her from your clutches. "Go get dress then. They'll be here shortly." Alia laughs and runs from the room towards the bathroom. You groan and flop backwards, burying your face in the pillow.
An hour later and your ordering the clean up of the house. "C'mon you two! Two hours and counting!" Alia's cleaning downstairs with you and Megan's been tasked with cleaning upstairs. Your eldest daughter kept pausing to look at the three baby scans on the mantle so you had to send her upstairs.
"Taylor and Suzie are going to sleep either side of me and Molly's going to sleep opposite me next to Megan and Jeremy. Then the others are going to fill in the gaps. We have sweets, chocolate and popcorn and movies and games and I can't wait!"
You roll your eyes. "There will be ground rules."
"Like no disturbing the evil man next door?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"That's what daddy calls the man next door. He doesn't like him."
"He's met him?"
Alia nods. "He visited him. He didn't like something the man said. Is everything okay?"
"It will be." You head out to the kitchen to check on the cookies, the only thing you seem to be cooking lately. "Make sure your room is clean!" You call back, removing the tray from the oven.
This is what your life has boiled down to; baking cookies everyday and turning your friends', or those who used to be your friends, children against them. It only feel like yesterday that you were being called out to some part of England with a dinosaur problem. Now your a stay-at-home mum, not even a stay-at-home wife.
X
"Are you ready, Alex?" Alex's mother demanded. The boy's mind flickered briefly to the chain around his neck and he nodded. Maybe, when all of this was over, he'd be able to find this 'Becker' character and return the pendant to him. And maybe find out just why it had ended up so far out of time in the first place. "Go!" Alex's mind snapped back to the present, or his version of, and he moved swiftly through the anomaly from one forest to another.
He found himself stood in a forest which looked and smelled different from the ones before. The air wasn't as clean and the trees were too thin and not as green as they were before. There was also a faint sound of something he didn't recognise and wildlife noises were virtually non-existent. "What is this place?" He asked his mother, once she and the dogs had joined them.
"The new forest. About ninety miles from where we need to be." Alex's mother moved off in one direction, closing the anomaly behind her. "We'll need to move quickly. They'll have picked up the anomaly and we need to make sure we're clear of the area within the next hour."
"Hour? I thought you said it was ninety miles away? That would take them over a day at the least!"
"Not in this time period. There are means of transport that you can's begin to imagine." Alex asked no more on the subject
X
The bell rings about an hour early and you frown as you answer it. "Duty calls." Matt offers as an explanation, herding the children inside. Over his shoulder you can a handful of stationary vehicles. Becker, Rosanna and Abby are in the one at the front, Danny in the one behind and soldiers in another three. You roll your eyes and let them in.
"Megan! Alia! People are here!" You hear Alia's happy yell and a moment later she bounds down the stairs and chaos erupts around you. You turn back to Matt expectantly. "Well? The world awaits." You politely close the door in his face and lock it, turning to look at the mass of bodies blocking your way. "Bags into the study!" You call. "Then into the living room!" The younger ones take off straight for the living room, but Chris and Megan stay behind to help you transport the bags. "Call Jeremy and tell him he can come earlier if he wants. No point in him hanging around." Megan smiles as you moved into the living room. "Sit down!" You cry and there's a moment of silence before a mad scramble for the sofa. Chris, Taylor, Suzie, Molly, James, Alia and Morgan all manage to squeeze themselves onto your three-seater sofa. "Thank you. Now, there area few ground rules; no obnoxiously loud noise past nine o'clock, no noise at all past midnight, do not disturb me until nine tomorrow morning, everyone's up by three pm and there's no junk food past one o'clock this morning. Okay?" The all nod. "Good. No go do whatever it is you do."
X
Alex stared at the thing before him. He didn't know what it was, what it was made of or what it did, but it was definitely a thing. "It's a car, Alex." His mother sighed. "Specifically a white van. Get the Hyaenodons into the back and then get in the front." His mother moved around the side and climbed inside, leaving Alex and the creatures outside. Acting on instinct the teenager grabbed the black rectangle on the back of the van and pulled. The larger, white rectangle it was attached to swung open, revealing the dark interior. There was a pile of meat inside, tempting the Hyaenodons. Once there were inside he slammed the rectangle shut and moved around to the other side. He pulled open the second rectangle and scrambled inside. "This is a seatbelt." Alex' mother laughed harshly as she pulled another rectangle over him. "If we crash, it should protect you."
Alex didn't really like the 'should' part of that sentence. He disliked at almost as much as the van. It was loud and had a weird smell to it. It went way too fast, covering twice as much ground as he could cover in an hour.
Before long they joined a long, wide strip of grey with a few other white vans. Alex's mother threw words at him as they went. "Anything that doesn't resemble a van is a car. Except for the things with two wheels; they're motorbikes. We're driving on a motorway which is a big road. Oh, an on your right, the big mass of black cars? One of them holds the man your going to kill." Alex peered out of the van, trying to catch a face of of anyone inside one of the cars moving in the opposite direction. They were moving to fast for him to even count how many cars there were.
"Will all of them need to die?"
Alex's mother glanced over at him. "Whoever gets in your way."
Okay, so this doesn't really make up for my absence, but we're onto the final arc in the next chapter :)
