I’m going to die.

That’s my first thought as a hand touches my shoulder.

My left eye stings as it rolls dry in the socket; the right is crusted shut. Sunlight slips through the blinds, an unwelcome guest, and the moment it prickles my skin, it judges me unfit and unworthy of its warmth. Outside, a pigeon—or whatever it is that froths at this hour—starts up.

‘You can’t hide from the day, my love,’ Mum says, tugging at the sheets. ‘Look at you, such a delicate daisy. Was it worth it? How much did you drink?’

I had four pints. Life isn’t fair.

Okay, and some shots, maybe a glass of wine and a few Jägerbombs. But they’re the drinking equivalent of nibbles; they don’t count. They shouldn’t, anyway. Even drinking isn’t the same as you get older. A Jägerbomb used to be an event, the clink of the shot bobbing in the glass. Now you get a thimble of weak energy drink in a plastic disposable cup. That’s what I am now. Disposable. Weak.

I need to recover. I need sustenance. I need my mum. So that’s exactly why she’s here. I’m a shameless, dependent man-child. A mummy’s boy. This is a pre-arranged, standing appointment. She’s here to make my hangover special. Fry-up, a sheet of ibuprofen and a pot of coffee to wash it down. Breakfast in bed for the wounded soldier. A Sunday made tolerable by the love and doting service of my mother.

I would be lost without her. Can’t tell her that, though—I’m British and a bloke.

All this plays out as I let out a pathetic fart.

I do that a lot, take little journeys of the mind. Farts too.

I grunt in reply. I love my mum, but I can’t do words yet. Don’t judge; I make sure the fridge is stocked and I pay for her shopping too.

Clocking a battle she can’t win, she takes the order. ‘Bacon extra crispy, yes? It’ll take longer.’

‘That’s fine. I’m not going anywhere, and yes, please frazzle it. I’m not interested in chewing flabby fat right now,’ I reply, staring down at my tummy.

I’ve engaged in conversation now, though. It was a trap. I have to pay the mum toll.

The small talk flows as she heads for the stairs. Mum is excellent at modulating her volume so you can always hear her, no matter the room.

‘Dawn was telling me … did you see that thing in the Comet? A man died yesterday at Stevenage Day.’

I’m lying flat in bed, the room spinning and my head pounding. The words arrive cryptic.

My mum’s not into astrology. The Comet is our local paper.

A big celebration of our wonderful town is held on a Sunday in early June. This year it was moved to Saturday on account of rail strikes. That’ll teach the locals: prevent people going to a big field for subpar baked goods, shit music and mucky bouncy castles.

Like a general on the battlefield who isn’t sure if his troops are still with him, I command my hand towards the tiny bedside table to pad around for my phone. My little finger makes contact with it and ushers it onto the floor with a loud thwomp.

I’ve definitely cracked the screen. That’s always the thought, isn’t it? I’ll have to buy a brand-new phone. Just like that, I’m committed to the best part of two thousand quid before I even scrape it off the floor.

It’s fine. It’s fine. I groan like an unlucky matador, scoop the phone back off the floor and lie back down. Four fucking pints. Official count.

She continues down the stairs, practically shouting now. ‘It was a right scene. They’re saying it was some scientist. Convulsing and foaming at the mouth, stuff leaking and spraying out of him according to Dawn. She was there; she won the raffle. Can you believe it?’

I sit up.

A scientist?

I ask what Dawn won at the raffle as I find the article on the Comet’s website.

Fuck me.

Some bath smellies, apparently.

It’s Ash.

I placed him at Lumora.

I can’t believe he’s dead, and from the way Mum tells it via Dawn, with the Comet backing it up, it was horrific. You get to know the candidates you place quite well in this line of work, headhunting the best in their field. He was a microbiology superstar, wunderkind, once-in-a-generation talent. That was all the guff I put on the cover email for him, anyway. Full name Ashmik, but we decided Ash would work better for intros. His idea, not mine; I’m not racist. I will sell anyone to anywhere. Class, colour, creed, gender, sexual orientation … all the same to me on the commission slip.

Good point—they best not stiff me on the commission.

I placed him fair and square. It said nothing about him living the full term of his contract. I check my bank account and see that the payment has been scuffed.

Fuck Gary.

I’m sad he’s dead, but I’m angrier about my money.

I’m an awful person.

Surveying my empire, I sigh. It’s Sunday. Britain treats Sunday like waiting to die. Shops are different, people are different and the whole world takes on a shit complexion. A sombre mourning of the weekend as you perilously head towards a Monday you wish never came.

See, I hate my job—career, rather. Recruitment. I love the money, though, so that’s why I do it. I live alone, in a four-bed house, in the nice part of a town called Stevenage. I have to qualify the nice part, because when people hear Stevenage they think of the slums, thanks to our most famous alumnus, Lewis Hamilton. Other than his lordship, I’d say our biggest claim to fame is we were designated the first New Town after the war. A neat solution for the housing crisis. Get people out of the smog and cramped conditions of London by plonking them on the outskirts in concrete tubs of prefab towns. The selling point nowadays? That we are a whopping twenty minutes from the centre of London by train. Get people out of the city so they can fawn over getting back in.

Come to Stevenage; the best thing about it is that it’s quick to leave!

I could live in a fancy place in London or a big house in the country. Ashmik was prepared to traverse the entire globe for his dreams. I barely get out of the postcode. I hear pots and pans clanging downstairs, the dishwasher being unloaded. I’m here for Mum. I can’t leave her on her own, or I’m scared to. A few more reasons too. My friends, my house and my commission.

Four pints countered by four reasons to carry on existing.

Before long, my existential pondering is interrupted by Mum’s steps coming up the stairs. As the smell of food gets stronger, my stomach lurches for half a second, but I will power through like the patriot I am and consume my fry-up, as is my right as a British male.

Mum says I should go to the funeral. I mumble a response. I’m thinking about Ash writhing on St George’s playing fields, a few minutes from my house. I was chatting crap down the pub as he was ceasing to be.

My head hurts. I need those tablets.

She puts the tray down on the floor. I frown because the painkillers are far away. Mum tuts as she finds the one patch of carpet not covered in joggers, pants, shirts and my other shit clothes.

‘You need to clean this up after. Have a productive day. What about the gym? You wanted to sign up. Or maybe paint the spare bedroom?’

Fitness makes me feel sick and DIY can fuck off. I don’t say that, but my face conveys it all.

Mum smiles and pats my foot sticking out of the bed.

She loads up for round two. ‘I can’t keep making you hangover cures forever.’ She points to the marvellously high Victorian ceilings—the estate agent called them that; I don’t have a clue. ‘This house is too big for you to be alone in. I worry.’

I scratch at my stomach and make a noise like a bemused wildebeest. I don’t need to be guilt tripped into becoming an adult, so I nod and say the cheat code that will skip the melancholic cutscene.

‘Where am I going to meet someone? I’m here or stuck on a train into London. And besides, I’m waiting for the one that’s good enough for my old mum, aren’t I?’

She relents. I am victorious.

She hands me the tray and I dig in after dumping four capsules of ibuprofen into my gob. ‘Yeah, appreciate it Ma, love you,’ I manage, muffled, gnawing at a rasher.

‘Love you too.’ She stops at the door and turns. ‘Dad would be proud of you, you know.’

Congealed egg mush falls from my mouth as a wave of emotion crests inside. It almost forms into tears. Instead, I let out an involuntary laugh.

‘Thanks. I mean, I still need my mum to baby me at the age of twenty-nine, but thanks.’

‘Well, I think he’d be proud.’ Her face tightens a bit before she heads off downstairs.

I sit staring. The food isn’t as appealing now. I push the tray away and drink deeply from the coffee mug.

Dad died when I was nine. It was a neat and tidy episode of cancer. None of this fighting on for years beyond the prognosis. He felt an ache in his back and kept complaining about feeling tired at work. The doctor sent him for some tests and it was quickly picked up as rampant prostate cancer. I forget all the terminology on the letters now. I just remember Dad’s face when he came home and told me. Like he had let me down. His face was never the same after that day. He went for another three months before … that was that.

Would he be proud of me?

I guess the question I’m really trying to answer is, am I proud of myself?

I’ll get back to you on that.

The last thing he said to me as he lay on his bed at the local hospital floats around my squalor. ‘Look after Mum.’

A loud thump lands on my front door.

I’m not expecting anyone. Certainly not anyone that has the gall to knock on the door like an elephant. On a Sunday of all days. The Lord’s day.

I hear Mum opening the door. ‘Oh my, has there been an accident?’

Then the front door flies open and crashes against the wall harder than anything I’ve ever heard.

Mum screams.

Not her normal scream. Not spider-in-the-bath stuff. This is the scream that changes your life.

I shout. I hear my name screamed back. My heart is pumping as glass smashes below. I bounce out of bed, almost getting a foot stuck in the duvet, and make it to the top of the stairs.

I have what’s known as U-shaped stairs. I don’t care about that, but I was told by the estate agent it’s definitely not a spiral staircase. He also said I have fifteen stairs; most houses only have thirteen. I was bragging about that when I bought it.

Whatever. Mum. Focus.

I peer over and feel as if my brain is cut off from the rest of me. Like I’ve run into a room quickly and kicked the cable loose that feeds the TV. From the banister, I see the stairs U-turn their way down, and resting at the bottom is a body.

That can’t be right.

But it is. Mum’s on the floor. She’s not moving and her eyes are closed. I crane my head to the side and notice something on the walls above her. It’s white, squirming its way down towards the carpet. It looks like heavy cream or milk left out too long, skinning over as it slides.

I’m mouthing for Mum to wake up. The volume kicks back in and no, I’m screaming it.

It’s like I’m watching myself. I want to go down to her. I make my way towards the stairs and get about five steps down when I see them.

Four figures lumber into view by the front door, which is lodged in my wall in a crater-like impact site. I can only see the bottom halves of them. Their legs are covered in the same shit that’s on the wall.

I shout a good Phil Mitchell style ‘Oi!’

One of them takes a step forward—more of a slow-motion lunge, really. It’s a man. I wince as I see his face. He’s a junkie. Well, if a junkie was illustrated by the Daily Mail. Hair that smells more than it looks; a ripped hoodie stained with God knows what. More of that liquid drips from his hands, threading between his fingers like melted mozzarella before snapping onto the floor. They are swollen and milky. He must be off his nut.

My brain catches up to the present and the conclusion I reach is that Mum’s been assaulted and I’m being robbed. It has only been about five seconds since I got to the top of the stairs.

I literally have no frame of reference for this. I’m a middle-class millennial slob with no tangible value. I’m used to comfort, to subscription services, oat milk flat whites, peeing in the shower and Deliveroo for lunch. I’m not prepared to process what’s going on.

Still, that floating feeling continues. I’m aware I’m gripping the banister as I slowly edge forward, tempting a fate I want nothing to do with, yet I creep. I need to get to Mum.

A second person comes into view. The other two are further back by the door, so from my position I can still only see their legs. The second figure is strange. I can’t decide if it’s a man or a woman. They’re small, much smaller than the first guy.

Fuck me, it’s a kid.

That’s the neighbour’s kid, isn’t it?

I go down a few more steps. Six left until the bottom. Until Mum. My fists are clenching. My plan, such as it is, seems to be to throw myself into them. I’m going to have to beat up a child and a drug-addled bum.

The figures bend down to Mum. Their hands snake out towards her.

I let out an angry roar.

They hear it and stop. The kid looks up. The man looks up. The two further back look up. Four pairs of milky, swollen eyes find me.

Click, click, click, click.

A noise emanates from them, like rickety wheels on a bicycle.

I freeze. They stop. We make eye contact. I’m aware of a wave of nausea, the adrenaline overwhelming. The little kid’s eyes are milky and puffy too, bulging and pulsating as they flick up and down, taking me in. The skin around them looks stretched and waxy, like two boiled eggs under clingfilm. The lead junkie does the same. Mum said accident—a car crash, perhaps?

My logical rationalisation of the situation is dispersed as the little kid roars back at me in the exact tone and length of mine.

A sense of dread floods over me. It subsumes me like a rope yanking at my midsection, trying to pull me down. Make me cower in a ball and close my eyes.

Before I’ve had time for so much as a cowardly scream, the women at the back do the same as the kid, then the lead junkie follows.

They’re mocking me.

Something moves to my right.

My goosebumps stand to attention at once and my teeth weld shut with fear. I’m level with the door to the kitchen on the right and my home office on the left. I swivel my head as a blur rushes at me. Another roar, identical to mine. I’m tumbling as something tackles me to the ground. My head hits the carpet of my home office and everything goes a shade darker.

The fifth figure is another man. He looks familiar, but he’s covered in the sticky milky substance. He’s quick to scramble away, on all fours now, towards Mum. Like he’s checking on her.

They’re all like that.

None of this makes sense.

Mum screams in agony.

I want to explode. I want my mum. I want my dad. I grab hold of the doorframe and pull myself up out of the office.

Mum is still lying on the floor and the five of them are on her. The two women pin her arms. The man has her legs. The kid finds a gap between them and is at her torso. I stumble forward, my head still spinning, but the fifth man senses it and sits up. He snarls at me before heaving his arms towards me. I fall back in a panic.

It’s a flurry of movement, a blur of motion. They are biting, pulling, ripping. Creating an aperture, an orifice in her stomach. Using her arms like appetisers, any flesh they can find, they gorge on. Skin stretches and comes away in wet strips. Something pops. Something slaps the skirting board. There is blood everywhere and it mixes with the white liquid, giving a pink hue to everything in my hallway.

Mum’s favourite colour.

I put my hands over my ears, but it doesn’t help, and I can’t close my eyes. Mum’s muffled screams quieten until all that is left is the sound of smacking lips, chewing, and the horrible soft suck of mouths pulling away from meat.

I don’t know what to do.

I am a coward.

‘Look after Mum’ rings around my head.

My dad would be disgusted with me.

Mum is silent now.

Good job, Thomas.