Chapter Two
A family I’d known all my life ran past, skidding on the slippery ice. They didn’t look at me as they hurried on, tugging their daughter by the hand. A married couple half-led half-carried my grandmother between them, since she couldn’t walk. I caught a glimpse of my oldest cousin pulling away chunks of my deaf neighbour’s door, desperate to get inside and warn her. He looked like a thief breaking in, except that people swirled around him without objecting. Wood tore away from the door with a noise like ripping cloth.
The air stank with the sour tang of fear. Everyone ran in and out of the open doors of their neighbours’ homes, or huddled to whisper together as if the pirates were about to appear around every corner. With so many people awake the air should have been full of
