Games night

“Ah you bastard.”

“Jerry!”

“Sorry.”

“DAMMIT that was MINE and you KNOW IT”

Chelsey giggled. Chris kicked her under the table and she yelped in surprise. “Mum!!”

Stacey eyed Chris with glare he knew not to push against. He threw down another card just before his dad’s, which was met with a spout of mumbled cursing.

Cards were flying in all directions, all eyes on the table. You couldn’t hesitate for a moment, and it drew the absolute concentration of all players for minutes at a time, broken only by the occasional insult or outcry of frustration. This was game night. And it was Chelsey’s favourite.

Three games in, and Chris had taken pole position. Gone were the days when Stacey had to halve her scores so as not to hurt her children’s feelings. Jerry was trailing, as was ‘typical’, and ‘just his luck’. Of course, nothing to do with skill.

Chelsey bit her lip. Chris had been doing her head in all week and tonight she wanted to beat him. She needed to beat him. It was all she could focus on. Next round in, she carefully watched him count his cards, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. Giving her deck one final shuffle, she counted hers out too. She had the Prague pack this round, the dud pack. These cards were the trickiest to lift off the table, and the pictures of the city adorning each card face made it hard to read the number quickly enough. In this game, speed was everything.

“Ready?”

She tensed.

“Go!”

An explosion of activity, cards being flipped three at a time and hands rapidly flicking cards back and forth across the table. The game progressed rapidly, with everybody’s pile diminishing minute by minute.

She kept her eye on the Jack of hearts, a card Chris had at the top of his deck. It was the last card in her pile. To her, this would be her victory.

Four of spades here, six of diamonds there, but hearts were still on two.

“Where are the hearts?!” she huffed. She glanced up and saw Dad had the three of hearts in his deck. “Dad – three!”. He looked up, nodded and placed the card on its new pile.

“Thanks kiddo.”

She grunted, her focus distracted. The four joined rapidly afterwards, followed by the five and six concurrently. Soon, it had reached nine. Still flipping her cards, a ten of hearts popped up. She grabbed it and tensed. This would have to be rapid. With one hand, she quickly placed her ten down, and was back for the Jack before Chris had even seen what was happening. She stretched across the table with a grin spreading across her face.

At that moment, the door flew open, and she glanced upwards. It was Jason. He was back early, Chelsey noted in surprise.

“OUT.” Chris had snuck his card in under hers while she was distracted, beating her to the Jack and finishing the round. She let out a strangled cry and leapt across the table, grabbing at his hands to make him take it back. He pushed her back and, grabbing her wrists, started kicking her legs. She kicked back, harder, and managed to wriggle one wrist free, enough to land a soft but noticeable punch in his abdomen.

After a moment she realised that mum hadn’t said anything. Dad wasn’t shouting at them to stop. In fact, nobody was making any noise at all. She looked round, and Chris, pulling himself away from her, looked up too. They were staring at Jason, still standing in the doorway.

But this wasn’t Jason. Not the normal Jason. Normal Jason was bright and bouncy, quick to smile, witty and laid-back. Jason was easily Chelsey’s favourite brother. No question. Having a twin sounded cool in theory, but all Chris did was wind her up. Jason on the other hand was older, more mature. He’d sneak her drinks at family parties, and keep an eye out for her when they used to be at the same school. Not that she ever needed it, but it was good to know he was there.

But this wasn’t normal Jason. This Jason was pale, his face looked drained. His hand pulled anxiously through his thick dark hair, and his trainers, normally kept in pristine condition, had flecks of mud which snaked up his trousers. That was when she noticed he was still wearing his scrubs, something he never did. But his eyes were the biggest giveaway. Something had changed. He looked scared. Really scared.

“Dad, it’s happened.”

Now it was Dad’s turn. The colour left his face, his eyes flickered and then grew still. Slowly, he stood up, calculating.

“How long?”

“A few hours.”

Nodding, he strode over to the door and pushed it shut with a click.

“What’s happening?” Stacey asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Chris punched her in the arm, but for once she didn’t react.

Stacey stood too, and pulled the twins to their feet.

“Jerry, what is it?”

So mum was just as clueless as we are, Chelsey realised. That didn’t reassure her in the slightest. Dad took mum by the shoulders. He blinked as he ran his eyes across her face, pausing briefly at her eyes, round and brown, which searched his eagerly for any hint of what was going on. Then, after glancing over at Chelsey and Chris, he said, slowly but deliberately, “We need to go.”

Silence, for a few moments. Then she nodded.

*************

Ten minutes later, they were all loaded into the car with a bag each full of the first few things they could grab. They pulled out of the garage, and onto the road. It was eerily quiet, no cars, no people. The only noise was the purr of the engine and the click of the traffic lights as they switched from red to green. Even the birds had fallen silent.

But Chelsey wasn’t really focused on that. She wasn’t really focused on anything. She was turning over in her mind what she had just been told. Although she was still just fifteen, she was beginning to understand the gravity of the situation which was unfolding around her, events she had no control over but which would irrevocably and unquestioningly change her life. She glanced up and noticed Chris bouncing his leg up and down. She hated it when he did that, but, strangely, it wasn’t bothering her. It just made her sad. She could sense his anxiety, and she felt it too. They all did. Jason ran his fingers through his hair, and dad reached over and took hold of mum’s hand, something he hadn’t done for years.

Twenty minutes passed, and then the car turned off the road onto a track running through a dense forest. The tyres crunched over the broken sticks strewn in its path, and the bushes on either side rustled. She tried to ignore the other unusual noises she could hear that belonged to neither the car nor the sticks. And then, just like that, the car pulled to stop.

This was it. The real games had begun.