Mark didn’t return for the dinner party. He left a brief message with Lisa explaining that they were overrun with patients and that he would be back as soon as he could. Lisa was disappointed, I could tell, but she refused to cancel the dinner party which is how I came to be sat at a table with four strangers who I truly did not like.

“I’m saying.” Peter gestured with his fork to emphasise his point. “That while those Tory twats are in power, every day we are marching a step closer to a fascist dictatorship! How can anyone, especially from a minority group, believe that the bloody Tories will never turn on them?”

Peter, the ersatz philosopher, sat back with a smug expression on his round face, sure that his point had been made in such a manner that it could not be refuted.

Not that anyone around the table would.

There sat Claudette, the walking liberal stereotype with her bright green hair and various pagan symbols hanging from her earlobes and on chains around her neck. When she raised her arm the mass of bracelets jangled gratingly, yet still she did it with a careless frequency as she sucked on the vape before expelling a cloud of overly perfumed mist.

Beside her lounged the sour-faced Ethan. Expensive clothing, tailored to fit his trim form. He had given me one, quick look before dismissing me as a potential hookup or conversational partner. He had soundly ignored me ever since.

Peter sat opposite, an academic with the sallow look of a man who spent his days indoors, arguing online whenever he stepped out of his usual echo chambers full of people parroting the exact same drivel that he spouted in an attempt to get Claudette to notice him.

Mary sat beside me and was, seemingly, the most normal of the lot. She hadn’t grown up surrounded by wealth and privilege like Ethan, nor had she spent all of her time since university in academia like Peter.

No, while Claudette was attending rallies and smoking weed, Mary was working hard to build connections in business. She had earned her degree while working to help cover her costs and started pretty much at the bottom of her current company before working her way up the ranks to become the head of her department.

Bright-eyed, intelligent and with a coy smile that set my heart beating a little faster, I was smitten. It helped that she was only five years younger than me, with her fortieth birthday approaching in the next few weeks. I listened intently as she told me her plans, while Lisa guided the conversation with the others onto less argumentative topics.

“So, that’s it,” she said, offering a coquettish smile as she sipped at her wine. “How about you?”

“Well, I’ve lived in Hull pretty much all my life. No long-term partner, and a career that was stalled so I was looking to try something new here in the big city.”

“Family?”

“One sister and a niece.” I smiled at the thought of them. I’d always been close with her but since our parents had passed, we’d become even closer. “Will be hard to leave them but if all goes well down here, that could change.”

Mary opened her mouth to ask another question but was cut off by Claudette. “Did anyone watch the news before coming here tonight?”

“Which news source?” Peter asked. “I keep up with several.”

I rolled my eyes, raising a smile from Mary as we turned our attention back to the main conversation.

“They were talking about a new virus going around and making people sick.”

“Passed on by rats,” Ethan agreed.

“What were they saying?” Lisa asked, leaning in. She’d been too busy cooking to do much of anything else. “Mark told me they’re inundated with patients.”

“I would have thought the public hospitals would be busy,” Ethan snorted. “Not the private facilities.”

“They’re handling overflow from the others,” Lisa replied, a little primly.

“Apparently they’re talking restrictions,” Peter said, eager to show his knowledge of what was going on. “Since it passes easier from human contact.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Bites. He didn’t say that, and I doubted that the news would have thrown that out there, but it was what was meant. Human bites had nearly a hundred per cent infection rate.

“What restrictions?” Ethan asked, tone curious. “Get some of the benefit scroungers out clearing the rubbish from the streets and make sure there’s nothing for rats to feed on. It will soon burn itself out.”

I wasn’t so sure about that but I also wasn’t interested in arguing with this bunch of pretentious pricks that Mark called friends.

“Exterminators are out all day and night,” Claudette added, ignoring Ethan’s comment. “I’ve seen them in my block of flats, spraying chemicals everywhere.” She grunted indignantly. “You don’t know what they’re spraying but it can't be healthy.”

“Darling, you probably inhale worse things whenever you smoke that horrible weed,” Ethan sneered. “Not to mention those vapes.”

Lisa spoke before the two could begin arguing in earnest. “What were the restrictions, did you say?”

Ethan’s hooded eyes flicked back to Lisa as Claudette smouldered, cheeks heating up. “The army, for one.”

“You can’t be serious?” Peter said with a gasp. “Those corrupt bastards are going full fascist on us now. Soldiers on the streets. There will be death squads next, you mark my words. This is a blatant attempt at controlling us.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ethan sneered. “The army has been used many times in the past to help out.”

“During the binmen strike,” Lisa agreed. “And when we had those floods all across the country. The army was used to help then too.”

I settled back in my chair and let the bickering wash over me as they went back and forth over the same nonsense.

Outside, the sound of sirens could be heard as emergency vehicles drove past. It had been non-stop all day and when I’d gone out onto the balcony earlier, I had watched them pass with a pit forming in my stomach. The feeling that things were going to become so much worse just couldn’t be shaken.

I resolved to speak to Mark as soon as I could, to get an idea of how bad things might get. If it was looking to go as badly as I was starting to suspect, then I needed to get back home. My sister and my niece were there and as the only family I had, I wanted to be there to look after them.

“Cal?”

“Sorry.” I raised a wan smile. “Lost in my own thoughts there for a minute.”

Mary smiled knowingly and nodded. She seemed interested in me and I was definitely interested in her, though she could have been just being polite. I could never really tell, which likely said a great deal about why I was still single.

“Would you like another drink?” She held up the bottle of wine she’d just used to top off her glass.

“Sure, why not?” I waited as she poured before lifting my glass in salute to her and taking a sip. Too dry for my taste, but not bad overall. “Thank you.”

“What do you-“ she cut off as a crash sounded from outside. We all stopped and looked towards the half-open balcony door. “What was that?”

I shoved back my chair and was halfway across the floor before the others thought to move. I pulled back the door and stepped out on the balcony.

Eight floors down, on the road just outside the front entrance to the apartment block, a car had crashed. It had driven up onto the pavement and slammed straight into one of the iron posts that were there to prevent cars from doing just that.

The concierge was already at the car, pulling at the door as he tried to reach the people trapped inside while a woman stood off to the side, her phone pressed to her ear as she spoke rapidly into it. Presumably, she was calling for an ambulance.

“Should we go help?” Mary asked, looking around as the group gathered at the railing.

“Will be all over by the time we got down there,” Ethan replied for the rest of them.

I remained silent but shared a concerned look with Lisa. While it could be a random accident, it seemed unlikely.

The concierge had the door open and reached in to unbuckle the driver’s seatbelt. He recoiled, holding his hand and I winced. It was too high to see for sure, but I suspected he’d just been bitten by someone inside the car.

“Police are here,” Mary murmured.

“That was bloody quick,” Peter said, brow furrowing. “Usually takes them ages to come out for anything.”

“They’ve been driving past her all day,” Lisa added. “Might just have been passing when the call came in.”

The police car skidded to a halt and two uniformed officers were quickly out. They went straight towards the concierge first, ignoring the people in the car after just one quick look inside. The concierge held up his hand and the first officer took hold of his arm and guided him towards the police car.

“What the fuck!” Peter leaned out over the balcony. “You can’t do that!”

The police officers ignored him as they bound the concierge's hands and pulled a cloth hood over his head before pushing him into the back of the car. One of them then spoke on his radio while the other went back to the crashed car and peered inside, making sure to keep well back.

“Hey!” Peter called. “He did nothing wrong!”

He was ignored, and that only seemed to make him angrier. It was everything Lisa could do to persuade him not to go down there and confront the officers himself.

Another police car soon pulled up and two more officers climbed out. Together, the four of them were able to secure the people inside the car and managed to pull a hood over each person's head before pulling them out and holding them on the ground while they struggled, as their hands and feet were bound.

They were then bundled into the back of the police cars and driven away, the wreckage left as it was and the woman who had called the police originally, standing slack-jawed as she watched them drive away with the concierge.

I met Lisa’s gaze and held it for a moment before I said, “I’ll head home in the morning.”

She nodded and we both stood and stared out at the city as the rest of the group argued behind us.