Drinking Bleach Instead
Raising children at the end of time.
Story by P M Buchan. Illustrations by John J Pearson.
First published in The Bleed magazine issue one, December 2011, and republished with illustrations in LOVE WILL TEAR US APART, November 2014.
Sixteen years old and off my face on ecstasy, I down a pint and effortlessly win another race at the bar, grinning like the arrogant fuck that I am. A man twice my age curses as he hands over a twenty pound note. My friends cheer in approval. Lighting a Lucky Strike and catching the eye of a girl that I’ll wake up naked with tomorrow, this the best night of my life. Everything is perfect and exactly as I remember it until the phone rings and nine years pass in a heartbeat.
Seriously Vincent, what does it take to wake you up?
Come on, I didn’t get home from work until five this morning, give me a break.
You need to collect Rose from school, Jessicka says. There’s been an incident.
An incident? What the hell does that mean?
Somebody bit her on the arm. She’s alright, I think, but she needs you. Go now.
I hang up. Fuck. Only six and she has to put up with this kind of crap at school?
We need to get out of this godforsaken city. Rose and Harry deserve better than this. All my life I dreamed about escaping from Newcastle, but that idea fell apart when I got Jessicka pregnant. Nothing less could have kept me here.
Daddy!
Rose has a bandage around her left arm but seems otherwise normal when I enter the headmistress' office.
Don’t worry sweetness, I’m here to take you home. Are you alright?
I was playing tag with Sally Smith, but when she caught me she bit me on the arm and then the teachers had to hold her down and she started shaking then they took her away to hospital and I got a lolly.
I’m terribly sorry, the headmistress interrupts. We don’t know what came over poor Sally, but she almost certainly didn’t intend to hurt your daughter. We hope to know more after Sally’s assessment, but the RVI is bursting at the seams with people infected this new flu, so I couldn’t tell you how soon she’ll be seen. According to Rose’s records her Tetanus is up to date. All the children are being sent home with a letter today from the World Health Organisation. They’re calling it a pandemic. Under the circumstances, I'd strongly advise that Rose rest at home until she feels one hundred percent. Now isn’t the time to take risks.
Leaving the school office with Rose, I'm mentally comparing shifts with Jessicka. There’s no way around it other than for me to work nights and take care of Rose during the day. We can’t afford for Jess to take time off. She would have given anything to be a stay at home mother. Well, anything but taking the pill and exercising something resembling control over her ovaries until we had better paying jobs.
Harry's classroom is empty as we pass. Today is his day for PE so he’s probably in the hall, dancing around in a vest and plimsolls. Harry’s seven, so his sympathy for Rose might extend to a brief hug when he hears that she’s been bitten, but that will dry up when he discovers that she doesn’t have to go to school tomorrow.
Rose climbs into the backseat of our car and asks if she can have a present for being so brave. We can’t afford to keep up with our credit card payments but one more cuddly toy won’t make the difference.
Rose is close to hitting thirty-nine degrees Celsius by the time her mother gets home and I'm so happy to see Jess that I’m blinking back tears. I never meant to spend my life with Jessicka, but we’ve been together for so long now that I can’t imagine a world without her.
Thank God you’re back. Ibuprofen took the edge off for an hour, but even with the windows open, her temperature is creeping back up again. What do we do?
Rose needs to go to hospital.
They won’t take us, Jess, I called already. This corvine flu has spread so quickly that both St James’ and the RVI have closed their doors until further notice. They won’t even take emergency patients. It isn’t just Newcastle, there’s a list on the BBC of all the cities that won’t answer 999 calls for ambulances until they clear the backlog.
Jessicka swears and glances in the sitting room. Harry is watching Mad Monster Party again and absent-mindedly reaching into an empty bowl for raisins that he’s already eaten. He doesn’t realise how serious Rose’s condition is. I want to keep it that way.
They’re rioting in London again, Jess says. Looting shops, burning buses. Everybody is so scared. They say the government isn’t doing enough to counter the outbreak, but what does that have to do with breaking in to Richer Sounds?
Well they’re not wrong, are they? Those fucking vampires have bled the NHS dry. It’s no wonder they haven’t got the resources to deal with this.
Vaccines take time, Vincent. I don’t like the bastards any more than you, but private healthcare isn’t going to save them, even if they can afford it. We’re all in the same boat.
Seconds stretch for hours and Rose’s temperature soars. At first, we made plans to take her on a boat trip, to see the puffins at Seahouses when she was better. It was easier to lie to Rose when she was still replying, but she hasn’t spoken for half an hour now. It’s all I can do to persuade her to sip water from the straw between her cracked lips. Rose’s chestnut eyes, usually so bright, are watery and weak, pus collecting in her eyelashes whenever she blinks.
Jessicka went into our bedroom to get a better wi-fi signal and read about the flu. It isn’t right that a little girl would suffer like this from just a bite.
My life would be nothing without Harry and Rose. The only thing I knew for sure growing up was that I wanted to travel and see the world, but then when we found out that Jessicka was expecting I gave up on that and made a commitment to become somebody that they could rely on. I love those kids so much.
It’s no use, Jessicka shouts. The connection is down. I can’t get anything on the computer or my mobile. Fucking coalition, it wasn’t enough for them to restrict social networks, I think they’ve shut down the net to stop the riots from spreading.
Love Will Tear Us Apart
LOVE WILL TEAR US APART is a 48-page adult horror comic about zombies and fatherhood. The anthology includes the 30-page comic strip LOVE WILL TEAR US APART, short story DRINKING BLEACH INSTEAD, plus exclusive pin-ups and a rundown of the top zombie songs of all time by cult horror host Tomb Dragomir. The collected stories and art explore themes of dome…
Jessicka sits with Rose while I get Harry ready for bed. He wants to know if his sister will be alright. I lie and tell him she’ll be fine. I’m already worried enough for all of us.
In bed I read Winnie the Pooh to him until Harry falls asleep, blonde hair plastered to his clammy forehead. Rolling back his duvet and tucking a stuffed hippo into his arms, I rejoin the girls.
Jess is on her knees by the bed, eyes closed in silent prayer. Rose is wearing only a pair of Flower Fairy knickers, her soaked with perspiration, closed eyelids flickering. We’ve given her all the paracetamol and ibuprofen in the flat but nothing helps. I creep out the room to check what’s happening on the news.
Fires blaze in the streets and mobs of people throng against walls of armed police. The riots must be spreading, because those aren’t the streets of London onscreen, that’s Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester. I try to listen to the newsreader but she says nothing of consequence, revealing as little as possible about the protestors. Moving on, the camera shows a quarantined hospital, struggling to cope with the pandemic, military figures fighting off crowds of injured people with nowhere to go. Every image shows the gnashing of teeth, scared and angry people with nothing to lose.
Vincent, Jess shouts, come quick.
I run to Rose’s bedroom. Her breath rasps harshly, lungs clogged with mucous. Taking her burning hand, I sing to her like I did when she was a baby. Jess takes the other hand and joins in, tears spilling down her cheeks.
The summer sun sets and our daughter stops breathing.
The sun sets, and our only daughter slips away from us.
The sun sets.
We hold Rose until the heat of the fever subsides, until her skin mottles and sinks to something like room temperature. Jessicka needs me to be strong. She needs me to hold her in my arms, but I can’t breathe.
A knot of grief and sorrow and guilt.
Don’t think it. Don’t let the words form. If I don’t think it, it can’t be true.
I think it anyway. I’m so grateful that it wasn’t Harry.
Jess falls forward onto Rose’s bed with a keening wail. Words fail me. Creeping out to Harry’s room, the rhythmic lull of his breathing soothes me. Our daughter is gone. Our daughter is gone but as long as we have Harry there’s still hope.
There has to be hope.
Pulling Harry's door closed, I shuffle back into the sitting room. Something has changed on the screen. The crowds are more savage than before, blood pooling in the streets. Soldiers mercilessly beat back the rioters, fighting for their lives.
The hospitals are still cordoned off by the military, but their weapons are trained on the doors now, as if to stop people from leaving.
How can I care about this theatre when tomorrow I'll bury my little girl? What will we tell Harry?
The newsreader's voice circles my thoughts, gnawing at the edges. Something about the virus mutating. Something about the virus that stole my baby. What if Harry’s at risk?
She says the virus has mutated into something unforeseen. That the virus could lay dormant within any one of us, that the virus can survive within its host, beyond their natural death.
What does that mean? She says the infected should be dispatched by any means necessary. A stranger on TV tells me that the United Kingdom must show bulldog spirit if we hope to stop this contagion, while a sea of bodies crashes over the riot police, the gnashing of tooth and claw.
Vincent!
Jess is beaming with relief when I follow her voice to Rose’s room. Snot and tears smear across Jess’ ecstatic face, immeasurable happiness. Rose sits up in the bed, off balance and swaying like a drunk. Her eyes are open but rolled back into her head, bloodshot white, with flies crawling across her cheeks. Our perfect girl.
She’s ok, Jess says. Rose woke up. Our little miracle.
How long had it been since I last saw the light of hope in Jessicka’s eyes? Here it is now, overjoyed at the return of our daughter. Our dead daughter.
Forty minutes must have passed since Rose last drew breath. And counting.
That’s incredible. Why don’t you get Rose some apple juice from the fridge while check her over? She needs fluids.
This feels like a reasonable request to make. Jessicka wipes strings of mucous from her face and leaps to her feet, nodding eagerly. As Jess leaves, Rose lumbers out of the bed, face pointed towards me. Her pupils are nowhere to be seen.
There are two of us in the room, but it feels like I’m alone. Something is spoiling in the summer heat.
When she was a baby, Rose slept in the crook of my arm.
A hot gush splashes on the rug beneath her feet as Rose empties her bladder, bares her milk-teeth and lunges towards me.
It would be less painful to bare my throat and let her rip it out, but then I remember Harry and pick up the bedside lamp, shaped like a toadstool fairy house, and smash it through Rose’s face.
Delicate fingers and nails that I should have cut in the bath last night claw at my throat. Rose thrashes like an animal in a trap as I throw her to the floor.
There were plenty of play fights between Rose, Harry and I, plenty of times when things got out of hand and she threw herself at me trying to prove her strength. They were nothing like this. Despite her slight frame, it’s all I can do to keep Rose down. She snarls as I plant a foot on her throat and press down, leaning in until her vertebrae grind and crack. Her arms slap against the bed-frame and I pull out a drawer full of vests and Hello Kitty pyjamas, using the drawer to pound her skull over and over again until the hands stop scratching, until her body stops twitching. What’s left on the carpet is unrecognisable mostly from her pyjamas.
Glass shatters in the kitchen, echoing through the flat.
Vincent! Jess screams but’s not here yet. I can’t let her see what I’ve done. Running from the room I throw the door shut behind me. Jess arrives, face contorted in fury, desperate to push past me.
Let me see Rose!
Jess flails to reach the door handle, the second of my girls to scratch at me in as many minutes.
She’s gone love.
What did you to her, you monster? What have you done to my sweetheart?!?
She never woke. Jess, that wasn’t her.
Jessicka deserves better than this but my hands are coated with gore from our youngest child and my voice fails me, so I wrap my arms around her and drag her to the television, ignoring the furniture falling around us as she battles to be free.
The screen is a vision of hell, a moving black painting, flaming corpses writhing and tugging at strings of intestines while remnants of riot police eat each other’s faces. Insanity.
Jess blames me for everything, alternating between roars of rage and misery, beating me until she runs out of energy. Eventually she stops fighting and curls up into a ball. I’d like to join her, but Harry walks in room, rubbing his eyes and asking what’s wrong.
Floor.
I’m on the sticky linoleum of our chequerboard kitchen floor, a pool of saliva gathering around my face. Vomit builds in my throat but I swallow it down and open my eyes.
Vodka.
How much did I drink? Cheap shit, like paint stripper, formaldehyde. I’m never buying from that off license again. I don’t even remember what…
No. I remember. I remember everything. Rose is dead. I bashed her brains in, Harry cried himself to sleep and Jessicka wouldn’t speak to me so I drank until I blacked out.
Half-crawl, half-stumble to the window to gauge the time of day, but the sky is thick with smoke and the sun for sorrow will not show his head. The windows are closed, but the double-glazing compromised. The air smells like it did during the foot and mouth crisis, when farmers burned infected cattle in mass graves.
Cars have been abandoned in the street, people milling up and down Westgate Road aimlessly, limbs jutting out at awkward angles.
Harry and Jessicka need me. I can’t believe that I let them down like this.
Being a father means sacrifice and that was what I did when Harry was born, gave up so much to be there for him. Gave it all up so that he knew he could rely on me. How could I have fallen back into old habits so easily?
The sitting room is empty. They must still be asleep. Creeping into Harry’s room, trying not to wake them, but his bed is empty, clean clothes laid out on his dresser. Harry must be with Jessicka. He slept in our bed every night until he was four. People said that we were crazy, but I knew that one day he’d be too old to share a bed with us, so what was the harm?
Nudging open our bedroom door, I make no noise. Half-closed curtains block out most of the light, but Jessicka’s silhouette is there. She’s not in bed, she’s in a chair. The bed is empty and something is wrong. My eyes adjust and Jessicka comes into focus, holding Harry in her arms.
He’s so still.
Jess?
If I turned the light on, everything would be clearer, but then there’d be no going back.
Harry’s head lolls backwards. Jessicka clutches something long and thin. She hasn’t knitted in years. Why are her balls of wool on the floor?
It’s better this way, Jess says. When something happens to us, there’s no way he could have taken care of himself.
Tears roll down my cheeks and now they’ll never stop.
What were you thinking? I would have protected you both. He was all we had left.
You don’t have to lie anymore. You were going to leave me, remember? The week we found out I was pregnant. You wanted to see the world. I was so grateful that you stood by us, but it’s over now. We’ll never hold you back again.
Harry looks so peaceful. He could almost be sleeping. A trickle of something black drips from his ear.
Nothing in this world has ever been as important to me as that boy. Once when we were out feeding the ducks, for no reason that I could understand, he kicked a swan that was hissing at him. When it bit him on the hand, he cried so hard that he burst the blood vessels around his eyes. I didn’t know how we would explain it to Jessicka. We do everything together.
You’ve got it all wrong. It took me time to adjust, you’re right, but you three were everything to me. You were my world.
I’m sorry I could only ever be second best to you Vincent. But part of me hates you for lying to yourself, even now. You tried so hard to give me what you thought I deserved, but you know what I really wanted? I wanted you to love me as much as I loved you. I don’t know why I loved you so much. I wish I hadn’t.
Jessicka stands and passes Harry to me, heavier than I thought possible, blue lips sighing as I squeeze the air from his tiny body.
I cradle my perfect dead son in my arms as Jess turns her back on us and runs towards the open window, launching herself between the curtains, three storeys above the street.
Her scream cuts off with a thunk. Harry and I walk to the window and peer down. Jess lies on the stone steps leading up to our door, limbs twisted and torn by jutting bone.
When she stands, dark fluids gushing from her abdomen, Jess glances up and catches my eye. I want to believe that she recognises me, but her expression gives nothing away as she turns and shuffles down the street, into the smoke of burning cars.
I do what I can to maintain some semblance of routine for Harry, bathing him tenderly and dressing him in clean dinosaur pyjamas before putting him to bed and closing his eyelids with a kiss.
Somebody on the street yells for help. Their screams don’t last long.
My children are gone and my wife died convinced that I stayed with her out of duty, not love. I’ll never be able to convince her otherwise and I don't even know if she was wrong.
No reason now not to indulge myself.
At the kitchen table, I fill a pint glass with ice and all the vodka that we have left.
No reason to wake up tomorrow morning.
Wondering how Harry and Rose might have looked when they grew up I drink my life away, one swallow at a time, washing down every pill from the bathroom cabinet.
When the glass is empty, it occurs to me that this probably won't be enough to finish me off.
There are no spirits left so I open the cupboard under the sink and take out a bottle of bleach. My eyes water as I fill the pint and wonder what sort of a god would allow this to happen. Then I tip the glass to numb lips and go to meet him.
LOVE WILL TEAR US APART
If you enjoyed DRINKING BLEACH INSTEAD, you can read the full anthology that it was originally released in here: LOVE WILL TEAR US APART.
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