Omega (48) "Lord Arthur?" Gasped Beta. "Shot? We only saw him yesterday, didn't we?" "You know him, do you?" Xenana asked looking at us both. "Or knew him, I should say. I didn't know you moved in such illustrious circles! Well, he's dead now. It wasn't much of a news story really, coming after all the other things. It seems to be connected with his flipping enormous debts." "How did it happen?" I asked. "Don't ask me for details. I can't remember everything the flipping newsreader said. It seems that the lion mixed in some dodgy company. Some of his debtors were criminals of some sort. They're not the sort I suppose to accept it if you tell them you're flipping skint! They found him lying dead in some disreputable part of the City. He'd been shot, they said, but not before he'd been tortured or something: I don't know. As I say, he had some jolly dodgy friends!" "Tortured!" Gasped Beta, wide eyed with disbelief. "Tortured? How was he tortured? Did they say?" "Probably. I don't know. I wasn't really listening. As I say, it was just one of the many flipping dreadful things happening today. I didn't know he was a friend of yours', or I might have listened with more interest!" "Well, you can't stay here forever!" Said Beta. "Shall we walk on?" Xenana nodded, stood up and accompanied us along the Suburban streets on her absurdly high platform boots. The wind picked up and it was becoming prematurely dark for this early in the evening. A strong gust blew dirt into our faces, and I screwed up my eyes. "Uurrgh!" Exclaimed Xenana. "What was that?" She glanced at a small drop of moisture that had landed on her arm. "Oh flipping no! It's not blinking raining, is it?" The pavement became speckled with dark spots on its otherwise dry surface. The drops became heavier and larger, and soon the ground was more damp than dry. "Oh no! Oh no!" Gasped Xenana with horror. "We're going to get soaked! And I've got flipping nothing to put on!" I was the only one of us at all covered, but this was totally inadequate as the rain picked up intensity and lashed into our faces. My clothes got more and more damp. "Where can we shelter?" I wondered in alarm, seeing all the available dry spaces being crowded out by the bedraggled refugees. Only the especially stoical or too despairing to care stayed in the open air. Beta broke into a trot. "We've got to find somewhere!" She announced, as Xenana and I tried running in step with her. "Perhaps in one of these houses!" Suggested Xenana, pointing at the ruined shells of houses on either side of us: gardens scattered with rubbish beaten down by the rain, sodden newspapers pasted to the pavement and water beating against the carcasses of deserted cars. Without waiting for our assent, she dashed down the drive of a house, chosen merely for its proximity, and straight through the splintered timber of its front door. Beta and I veered after her, as the rain became even more intense, battering and bruising us as we ran, and penetrating through my sodden clothes. We stood in the shelter of the hallway, amongst the detritus of recent destruction, looking through the curtain of rain beating insistently on the driveway, further battering down the broken stalks of flowers bordering the lawn, and dripping off a porch into a sodden puddle on the WELCOME mat. Another gust of wind drove us from the house's entrance and into its dark, unwelcoming interior. My feet crushed on broken glass and fragments of porcelain scattered around an upturned coat-stand. Beta and Xenana huddled together in the shadows by a smashed doorway, only the whiteness of their skin making them at all visible. I pressed the hall light-switch, but no lights came on. This was probably just as well, I reflected, as I didn't wish to know whether the dark smears near where a hall mirror had once stood were bloodstains. "Your clothes are absolutely saturated!" Beta remarked. "You better take them off to dry!" "What here? With Xenana here?" "Don't mind me," she sniffed. "I can't imagine you've got anything that I've not seen before." Beta approached me, carefully treading around the shards of glass, and took my hand. "Shall we sit in the living room? It's very gloomy, but there's a sofa." We pushed open the damaged door. Xenana hurriedly leapt onto the sofa which was about the only item of furniture not thrown over, but whose upholstery had a deep gash through which we could see a pale welling of foam. A television set trailed across the room, glass scattered from its smashed screen. A standard lamp was wrenched nearly in half over the remains of an audio system. The keyboard of a home computer lay amongst the fragments of ornaments and books scattered about the floor. A gust of wind blew against the lace curtains which was all that protected the room from the torrential rain beating against the shattered uPVC double-glazing. Beta carefully removed my clothes which damply clung to my skin, and placed them on a dining room chair around the splinters of a dining table and I sat on an armchair by the wreckage of an array of book-shelves. "I'll see if I can find a towel," she said, walking towards the door. "You're not going to blinking walk round the house by yourself!" Exclaimed Xenana incredulously. "There's no saying what you might flipping find!" Beta hesitated, and then smiled at me. "We can't just shiver like this. We might catch pneumonia. I'm sure it's no more dangerous here than anywhere else. Do you want to come with me, Xenana?" Her friend shook her head. She lay back on the sofa and sighed. "Not now! I've only just made myself comfortable. Perhaps your boyfriend might be more foolhardy?" Beta frowned at me. I was shivering in the cool evening air, the dampness on my skin spreading through my limbs. "I don't think so. We need a towel, and I'm sure I'll find one." With that she determinedly strode out, leaving me alone with Xenana, who yawned as she sprawled along the contours of the sofa. "I can't be flipping bothered!" confided Xenana, when Beta had gone. "I'd rather just rest. Mind you!" She glanced around at the shattered furniture. "You don't think there mightn't be some ciggies left behind. I could flipping kill for a smoke! Perhaps they've got some dope!" "I shouldn't think so," I remarked through my shivers. "Drugs aren't very popular in the Suburbs." "Tuh! Typical. You Suburbanites aren't famous for your sense of fun." She scrutinised the devastation strewn about the room. "Still, I bet there's absolutely tons of decent stuff here, if we could only take it away with us. I'm sure whoever used to live here wouldn't flipping miss it. If they're still alive, that is!" "You don't think they've been killed, do you?" I remarked, reflecting on the motionless, blood-stained body of the young girl's father. "After what they flipping did to Maria and Hamid I wouldn't be at all blinking well surprised. And I bet some of this stuff's worth a lot. The bits that aren't broken that is! Perhaps we ought to just take as much as we can." "That doesn't seem right." "Nothing's flipping right today, if you ask me. Ah! Here's our fearless explorer." Beta came in carrying three large towels, one she handed to me and one to Xenana. She rubbed herself down with the last one. "There's definitely no one here," she announced. "Whoever did all this damage were very thorough. Every room's in a terrible state. There's traces of blood in the kitchen, and knives and things thrown all over the place. It's horrifying." She glanced upstairs. "There's a bathroom here. And the water's still pretty hot. They must have had a full hot water tank before the electricity was cut off." She rubbed the top of her thighs with the towel, and remarked thoughtfully. "It seems a shame to waste it. I think I'll have a quick shower. Maybe that'll wash off some of the horror from all the gruesome things we've seen today!" "Yes, you do that, Beta," Xenana agreed. "Just keep the door open so we can warn you if any of those horrid monsters come in!" "I'll have to keep the door open to let some light in. It's terribly dark. And I'm sure it's not nightfall for an hour or more. It's the rain! And it's still pelting down." We looked at the lace curtains, flapping in the wind, a puddle of water expanding just underneath the window. Beta sighed, and left us for a second time. Xenana continued her survey of the room, her eyes becoming more accustomed to the dimness. "You Suburban people are so rich. All this space and furniture. It makes my bedsit look so tiny. They say it's the City where all the wealth is, but I reckon it must be here in the Suburbs. You Surburbanites commute to the City every day, get paid City incomes but pay far less for anything than I ever have to. This is where the real luxury is. It makes you feel sick!" She buried her face in the white towel, rubbing off the last vestiges of make-up into a dark smeary wound. I patted my chest with my towel, discreetly holding most of it over the top of my thighs. Though the sound of beating rain, I distinctly heard another rush of water emanating from the shower. "Mind you, I'd never dream of living in the Suburbs. What sort of flipping life can it be? All these semi-detached houses! All the hedges, lawns and bowling greens: it's so flipping boring! I'd much rather live in the City. We've got everything there! It's the real world. Not some kind of sleepy backwater. I couldn't cope with the flipping tedium. I guess that's why you chose to leave the Suburbs yourself and go to the City. God only knows what possessed you and Beta to leave it again and come back here!" She took the towel and pushed it hard against her crotch. "God! That feels flipping better!" She smiled at me. "I know what you're looking at," she said lasciviously. "You Suburban people think that nudity and sex are the same thing, don't you?" She blatantly squeezed her crotch, while grinning at my attempts to avert my gaze. "Not that you get much sex here I imagine. You people just don't have a sexual appetite at all. Mind you, you're with Beta now. Is she still a flipping virgin, eh? Or have you had your evil way with her? What about it? Have you had sex with Beta?" "I'd rather not talk about it." "That means yes, doesn't it? She's a good looking girl, don't you think? I don't know how she managed to keep her chastity for so long! And what about me? I bet you think I look good too. I've got a good pair of breasts, haven't I?" She glanced down at her crotch while idly stroking it. "I'm in full working order, I can tell you." I drew in a deep breath, to suffocate the percussion of my heart, and discreetly piled more of the now damp towel over my groin. Xenana stood up, and sauntered lecherously towards me. "If you like, sweetest, I can show you just how well I'm functioning. I'm sure Beta won't mind. She's an open-minded modern ms!" I shook my head, feeling sure that she would mind very much. Xenana came right up to me, and placed her hands on my shoulders and looked me directly in the eyes with an expression that was both inviting and unnerving. I stared back, my powers of resistance crumbling like a towering edifice built on sand. "Xenana! Just what do you think you're doing!" Suddenly demanded Beta's voice in a strident burst of wrath. "I only have a shower for a few minutes and you're already trying to seduce him. You've not changed at all, have you! No wonder so many people were pleased when you left the Village!" Xenana took her hands off me, and glared angrily at her friend. "Don't you flipping well preach to me! Don't impose blinking Village morality on me! I do what I do because I like it, and I don't blooming care what people might think!" "Just keep your hands off him!" "I can put my flipping hands wherever I jolly well like!" I anxiously stood up, clutching the towel to my middle, and spread out my palm in a conciliatory gesture. "We really mustn't argue! We've got more pressing worries." I glanced at my clothes, which were still quite damp, and wondered whether to put them back on. "He's right, Xenana!" Agreed Beta. "I'm sure you only behaved the way you did because of all the stress we're under. However, I came back in to say I found plenty of food in the kitchen. We might as well eat it before its goes off!" "Food!" Xenana gasped. "Why didn't you say? I'm famished! Let's go eat! To the kitchen!" "I'll fetch it in here. I don't think it's safe in there with all the knives all over the place. And there are some nasty stains on the fridge."
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