Chapter 2 – Evaluating The Situation

"So you say you had a premonition?"
"Yes." John told Officer Burke, who was now questioning him.
Officer Burke glanced thoughtfully. He knew he'd come across this somewhere before. But where? And when? Then it struck him. Him, and his new wife, Kimberley, who had only got married and moved to England so they could protect each other and have a fresh start, had been in the exact same situation. In fact, it was Kimberley who had had the premonition of a devastating car crash moments before it happened.

"Oh no…it's happening again."

"What – what's happening again?"

"…You were supposed to get on that train."

"So I was meant to die? Gee, thanks a lot. You're great at consoling people in times of crisis, you know that?"

"No, let me explain it a bit better. You see, Death has a design, we're meant to die, when we're meant to die. If someone screws up that design, then Death has to come up with a new design, and a new way for you to die. And now, Death is slowly moving towards all those people you saved, and all those people you stopped from getting on the train in the first place."
"So, what you're saying is that I'm going to die soon?"
"Yes."
John was gob-smacked. He'd heard cases of this before, in fact, that was why he hadn't gone on the train in the first place.
"H-How do you know all this?"
"Well, I was in a situation just like this, only one year ago."
"You mean that huge car accident in America?"
"Yep. I was actually meant to die two years ago, but if that kid hadn't gotten of off Flight 180 I would have died that very day. Instead, I'm still waiting for my time to come"
"You and me both, buddy." John joked, attempting to lighten up the situation a bit. Officer Burke wasn't amused at all.

"This isn't a laughing matter kid, this is serious. You and your friends are in serious danger."

"But how come you haven't died yet if this has happened twice? Surely Death's a lot more pissed off at you, cos this has only happened once to me, to my knowledge anyway."

"I've had to avoid Death on several occasions in the last year, I've stayed off all the dangerous jobs, done paperwork around the office mostly. I don't even go near the shredder. Sometimes I wish Death would try and get me, but lately he seems to have been a bit…preoccupied."

"Yeah probably trying to kill off every other nutjob policeman." John wasn't fully buying it, although he still had some sort of a nudging feeling in the back of his head. But he suppressed it.

"You and your friends are in grave danger!"
John stayed still. Not even his parents had shouted him at this badly.
"Maybe I'd better not send you to a nice, warm, safe jail cell, and let you face this alone, then you'll see that I'm telling the truth."
"Maybe you should."
"You may leave." Officer Burke had obviously had enough, judging by his tone.
John got out of his seat, and quickly left before he changed his mind, and went back to his friends.
"He just let you off?"
"Yep!" John told them. "No charge or anything!"
They all cheered in celebration.
"Well, I don't quite know what you were thinking yesterday, but I hope you're back to normal." Laura said.
"Yeah, but the officer was really weird. He said something about Death's plan, and that we were supposed to die in that train crash. By not dying then, we've screwed up Death's design, and that he'll come back to get us."
"Yeah, right. What a weirdo."
"Count yourself lucky, you didn't have to be interrogated by him."

"Goodnight, mum." Harry Patrick called to his mother.
Mrs. Patrick came and sat beside her son, and kissed him goodnight.
"Mum?"
"Yeah?"
"I miss Jodie."
"I do too sweetheart, I do too." She sniffed, hugging her son.
Outside, Jasper was barking frantically at something. He was tied up to his kennel, but he was out of it, barking at the wind. A cat suddenly darted past him; Jasper tugged at the lead, desperate to chase after it. The wind blew again, shaking his kennel, loose enough so that Jaspers lead came loose and he chased the cat round the garden, his lead trailing behind him. The cat darted up a nearby tree and Jasper jumped up at it, his lead trailing up into the air behind him. As he was coming back down again, his lead somehow wrapped itself around one of the branches and got itself caught. Jasper was dangling there, the lead getting tighter and tighter.

"What's he barking about now?" Mrs Patrick sighed, looking out of the window. She finally noticed Jasper, dangling from the tree, struggling to get free of his lead. "Oh my goodness – Jasper!"

She ran downstairs, leaving Harry wondering what was wrong. He looked out of the window and saw Jasper at the tree struggling for a bit and then falling still. He was dead. The cat he had chased was nowhere to be seen.

"Death's design my ass!" John cried as he chugged another pint of beer, looking up towards the bar TV.

"In a sad string of events, the Patrick family, who have just lost their daughter to the terrible train tragedy in London, have just lost another. This time, a family pet, strangled to death by his own lead."

"That's weird."

"What is?" Bobby, who was sitting next to him, asked.

"There was a girl and a dog in my vision."

"So?"

"I'm just thinking about what that man said, and how you can't cheat Death. It just seems like a coincidence, that's all."

"So who's next going by that police officers logic then?"

"Well there was a little boy there too."

"Well see they've mentioned nothing of a little boy now, have they? So I wouldn't worry about it. It's just coincidence."

The funeral for Jasper was the next day. Mr. and Mrs. Patrick laid him down into the ground on a shovel, then started to cover the ground with dirt. A few of Harry's friends had turned out for it, as they knew Jasper quite well.
"We're sorry for your losses." Harold Jenkins, a friend of Harry's told the parents.
"Why thank you Harold. That's But I don't think you'll be going to another of our family's funerals for a long time. We're taking extra precautions now that two close family members have died." Mrs. Patrick managed to stop herself from crying for a few moments, before succumbing to tears once again.
"How?"
"Well, for example, I just got the kitchen windows double-glazed."
"That must be expensive."
"Well, it's a small price to pay for our family's safety."
"Yeah, I spose." Harold shrugged, still bummed out by everything.

Everything was going ok, until Harry decided to go inside to get a drink. He went inside, the door slammed behind him because the wind had caught it. He poured himself a glass, and then went to get some ice from the freezer, leaving the tap running. He opened the freezer door, and tried to reach the top shelf. He couldn't reach. He got a chair, and stood on it, reaching the ice cubes. Suddenly, a bird smacked into the window, startling Harry, he grabbed onto the door and flailing, accidentally kicked the chair out from under his feet. He was hanging there. He tried calling but to no avail. They couldn't hear his cries through all the noise going on inside and outside. He took his chances and leapt back down from the freezer. Unfortunately, he'd spilt some water as he was reaching up. He slipped, twisting his ankle, and hitting his head on the chair. He lay there, still. He put his hand up to his head. It felt warm. He was bleeding, quite heavily. And getting colder and colder. He tried calling again, but he was getting weaker and it was getting harder to. He was slowly and coldly bleeding to death.

John threw his shoes into his apartment and slammed the door behind him. He had been out drinking again with his mates, and just wanted a long rest, tired from a hard days drinking.
He lay down in his bed, and switched the TV on.
"Harry Patrick was found dead in front of his freezer last night, as somehow he had slipped and landed in front of it, and quite literally, froze to death. The family was attending their dog's funeral at the time, and said they could hear no screams coming from the kitchen whatsoever."
"Oh my God!" John cried.
Officer Burke had been telling the truth. Death was coming for him, and his friends. He had to warn them. He ran out of the house, and to his friend's house. He had to warn them before it was too late. But first he wanted to talk to Officer Burke.
"Where's Officer Burke?" John cried as he barged into the police station.
"He's at a meeting, sir. Do you want me to schedule an appointment?"
"I need to talk to him urgently. Which room's he in?"
"He's on the second floor, room 18."
"Okay, thanks."
John ran upstairs and into the meeting room.
"May we help you?"
"Er, can I just talk to Officer Burke for a moment please?"
"Well, I don't know, Officer Burke, do you want to reschedule?"
"Not really, but it could be urgent."
Officer Burke got up; realising it was the same man who had the premonition, who'd probably come back for answers.
"What can you tell me about Death?"
"I thought you'd ask something like that." Officer Burke smugly told him. "You see, Death moves in mysterious ways. When our time's up, our time's up. And we can't avoid it. Easily. But when we do avoid it, we screw up Death's design, and he has to make a whole, new one. So when you don't die when you're supposed to, you're going to die some time later."
"Why haven't you died then?"
"I don't know, I was supposed to die three years ago a few days ago, but nothing's happened."
"I could have guessed that."
"You and your friends are in grave danger; you need to be careful. You and all those people who you stopped getting on that train are doomed. They will die in the order that they were going to die, unless you save on of them, in which case it skips past that person and moves onto the next."
"Then what?"
"Then it starts all over again."
"Not if I can help it."
"You can't."
"Maybe not, but I'll give it a damn good try."
"Good luck. Try to not disrupt Death's plan too much. Oh wait, you already did."

John left the smug smirk of Officer Burke and ran down the stairs, to save his friends. They were next.

But they weren't. John hadn't realised that there were several people who had failed to get on the train because of the fiasco at the ticket barriers. For example there was Simon Bacon, the wealthy businessman who had tried and failed to help the old lady. Simon had just secured an important business deal right before the whole tragedy, and was on his way home from a successful day at work. He was a believer that if you work hard, good things will happen to you. So he was pretty shook up on the whole train crash thing, and had taken to drinking heavily. He was watching the report on the Patrick's, but switched it off as he was too creeped out by the whole thing. He had a glass of very alcoholic wine, next to the half empty bottle on the floor by the sofa, and was smoking a large cigarette. He was trying to calm his nerves after the whole ordeal, but it didn't seem to be working very well as he was still shaking more than ever.

He was just getting comfortable watching some of the late night chat shows, when all of a sudden, a bird smacked into the window. He turned around and stared out of the window, almost thoughtfully. Next thing he knew there were flames in front of him – his cigarette had dropped into his glass of wine, and the flames were shooting up high. Startled, he accidentally kicked the table his glass was on, it fell over and shattered on the ground, spreading glass and fire.

The fire travelled across the floor, until it reached the bottle, which promptly exploded, sending shards of glass into the bottom half of Simon. Stumbling, he went for the kitchen to get some water to try and douse the flames, before then attending to his wounds. He staggered into the kitchen, half collapsing onto the stove, knocking the gas dial so it was slightly on. He fell onto the floor, and aware of the danger, tried to turn the gas back off. But he was distracted by the ever-present flames getting closer and closer. He had spilt some wine down his shirt, and had been dripping from the sofa to the kitchen. He had set up the trail to his own death. As he pondered how cruel life could be, he wished he'd done more with his life. Been a better person. Then maybe his wife wouldn't have left him just a week ago…

The explosion shook the entire house, leaving little of both the kitchen and the living room. It was too late for Simon, but for the others it had just begun…