After Nigel, Damien, and Steph, there was Old Graham and Harry.  Just the five of them; the full set.  Tuesday was a quiet night.

Harry swivelled on the bench, pulled his right knee sideways onto the cushion, and peered out the pub’s main window.  The Trumpet sat upon a hill overlooking a small row of dingy shops and a decrepit mini-supermarket that had steel shutters instead of windows.  Steph once told him that the pub was barely surviving on the wafer-thin profits brought in by the lunchtime traffic of the nearby factories and, if it were to rely on its evening drinkers alone, the place would have closed its doors long ago – even before the public smoking ban came in and ruined pubs across the land.

Usually Harry could see the shops and supermarket from the window, but tonight his vision faltered after only a few feet, swallowed up by the swirling snow and impeded by a thick condensation hugging the window’s glass.  For all Harry knew, the darkness outside could have stretched on for eternity, engulfing the world in its clammy embrace and leaving the pub a floating limbo of light in an endless abyss.  The image was unsettling.

Like something out of the Twilight Zone.

Snow continued to fall as it had nonstop for the past day and night.  Fat, sparkling wisps that passed through the velvet background of the night, making the gloom itself seem alive with movement.  Harry shivered; the pub’s archaic heating inadequate in defeating the chill.  Even the warmth of the fireplace was losing its battle against the encroaching freeze.

God only knows how I’ll manage the journey home tonight without any taxis running.  Maybe Steph will let me bed down till morning?  I hope so.

Harry reached for his pint and pulled it close, resting it on his thigh as he remained sideways on the bench.  He traced a finger over his grubby wedding ring and thought about the day he had first put it on.  He smiled and felt the warmness of nostalgia wash over him, but then his eyes fell upon the thick, jagged scar that ran across the back of that same hand and the warmness went away.  The old wound was shaped like a star and brought back memories far darker than his wedding day.  It was something he dared not think about.  He drank his beer.

God bless booze and the oblivion it brings.

Harry chuckled about how once he had not cared for the taste of lager – white wine had been his tonic of choice – but The Trumpet wasn’t the type of place where a thirty-year old man could order a nice bottle of Chardonnay without being called a poofter.

Funny how a person changes, Harry considered.  Just wish I’d changed for the better.

He took another swig of beer and almost spat it out again.  In only two minutes since he’d last tasted it, the beer had gone completely and utterly flat, as if something had literally drained the life from it.  But before Harry could consider what would cause such a thing, a stranger entered the pub.

A second later, the lights went out.

Chapter Two

“Bugger it!”  Kath cursed aloud and slapped her palms down on the supermarket’s checkout desk.  She’d been two minutes away from finishing the 9PM cash-up and the building’s power blinked out like someone had flipped a switch.

Bah!  Working at this dump ten hours a day is miserable enough without having to do it in the dark.  I must have the words, SHIT HAPPENS, stamped across my forehead. 

“Peter!”  She hollered into the darkness.  “Check the fuse box, will you!”

A muffled voice from the nearby stockroom led Kath to believe her order had been received.  She sighed and waited while her sight adjusted to the dark, wondering where she could find a torch or some candles (Doesn’t Aisle 6 have some?).  The Fire Exit sign above the supermarket’s entrance gave off a small degree of illumination, but not enough to see her acrylic fingernails in front of her face.  Kath had other senses, however, and her ears picked up the sound of footsteps echoing down the Bread & Pastries aisle.

“Who’s there?” she called out.

The person was standing close enough that the unexpected volume of their voice made Kath flinch.  “It’s me,” said the voice.  “Jess.”

“Jessica?  You stupid girl!  You gave me a fright.”

“Sorry, Kathleen.  Didn’t mean to, I swear.  You know why the lights are out?”

“No.  I’ve told Peter to check the fuse box.”

“Good idea.  You reckon it’s just us, or the whole area?”

Kath shrugged in the dark.  “How should I know?  Walk out the front and see for yourself.”

“Okay,” said Jess cheerily, before wandering off in one of the gleeful dazes that Kath hated so much.  Sometimes Kath was sure the girl was out to annoy her.

Like the way she always calls me ‘Kathleen’.  If it wasn’t so ridiculously hard to fire people these days, that girl would have gotten her marching orders long ago.  Goddamn tribunals. 

Jess reached the store’s main entrance with a skipping hop and her complexion changed ghostly as she entered the pulsing green hue of the glowing Fire Exit sign.

Kath cleared her throat.  “Well?  What are you waiting for?”

Jess pushed open the door and exposed the stark white night outside.  Immediately a chill entered the building, rushing quickly to all corners like a horde of fleeing rats.  Kath waited impatiently as Jess popped her head out of the door and looked left and right, then left and right again, before finally stepping back inside and pulling closed the door.  When Jess turned back around to face Kath, her company-supplied fleece was peppered with snow.

“The weather out there is craaaaaazeee!” said Jess.  “With a capitol zee”

Kath sighed at the girl’s childish tone.  “What about the lights?  Are anybody else’s on?  What about The Trumpet across the road?”

“No,” Jess replied.  “I can’t even see the pub it’s so dark.  I can’t make out Blue Rays Video Rentals or any of the other shops either.”

“Wonderful!”  Kath shook her head and felt a migraine coming on.  If the whole area was out then she would be forced to sit and wait for the electricity company to get off their overpaid be-hinds and do something about it.

…and God knows how long that will take.  Two minutes?  Two hours?

Either way, until she could cash up Kath couldn’t set the alarms and go home.  Not that she had plans (besides catching up on episodes of Eastenders she’d recorded) but staying at a dingy council-estate mini-mart on the coldest night of the year wasn’t her idea of fun.

How did my life turn out so wrong?  To think I spent four years at university…  I make one little mistake and I’m condemned to a life of pointless mediocrity.  Kath breathed in deeply then let the cold air out through her nostrils.  What a wretched waste of intellect!

“It’ll be back on in a jiffy,” said Jess, still standing by the fire exit.  “It never takes long, Kathleen.  Tell you what, I’ll take a little walk over to the pub and see if anyone knows anything, okay?”

Without pausing for an answer, Jess slid out through the exit and was immediately swallowed by the shifting snow and darkness.  A second later it was as if the girl had never even been there.

Kath sighed, leaned back into the torn-padding of the cashier-desk stool, and rubbed at her aching forehead.  Shivers ran up and down her spine and made her think about the store’s heating.  With the power off, so too would be the store’s electric fan heaters.  It was Britain’s worst winter in history and she was stuck in a building with no warmth.

Just gets better!  Probably why the power went off in the first place.  All those lazy slobs, cosy at home in front of their fan-heater, over-taxing the grid while people like me, who have shown some commitment to work, suffer.