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&039;Dad,&039; Ed says

&039;What?&039; I grunt, annoyed that I&039;ve been interrupted I&039;ve been reading through a pile of ht I&039;d thrown these out years ago They&039;ve helpedafternoon

&039;What&039;s he doing?&039;

&039;What&039;s who doing?&039; I ask, not lifting my head

&039;That ?&039;

&039;What man?&039;

&039;Jesus Christ,&039; Lizzie screams as she walks into the rooazine and look up Fucking hell, the man who lives in one of the houses adjacent to our apart his wife out of their house and into the e wo about wildly Theby her feet and I can hear her screas her down the kerb and her head cracks back against the road He&039;s carrying so else with him I can&039;t see what it is

&039;What&039;s he doing?&039; Ed asks again

&039;Don&039;t look,&039; Liz yells at him She rushes across the room and tries to turn Ed around and push hi in the doorway eating a biscuit and Lizzie can&039;t get past

&039;Don&039;t look at what?&039; Ellis asks I didn&039;t see her co out of the

&039;Do what Mus onto the sill and won&039;t let go The children have been going stir crazy trapped in the house They&039;re desperate for any distraction

Outside Woods has stopped round and he&039;s standing on her neck Bloody hell, he&039;s put his boot and his full weight on her throat Her face is blood red and she&039;s thrashing aboutto keep her down even though he&039;s half her size

&039;Ellis, let go,&039; I shout as I finallyand I can&039;t help staring either I can&039;t look away It was a bottle that Woods was carrying He&039;s unscrewed the lid now and he&039;s e the contents all over his wife What the hell is he doing?

&039;What&039;s happening?&039; Harry asks Noe&039;re all in the living room He&039;s between et Ellis out I try to close the curtains again but I can&039;t reach from here Harry&039;s in the way

&039;Get the children out of here,&039; Lizzie screams

&039;Will you h&039;

I look out of theagain as Woods sets fire to his wife Christ knohat he just doused her in but she&039;s gone up in a huge ball of fla Bloody hell I put my hands over Ellis&039; eyes but I&039;m slow to react and she&039;s already seen too s on fire He staggers down Calder Grove but only makes it halfway down the road before he&039;s consumed by the flames

Between us we push the kids out into the hall I go back to the living roo No-one moves There&039;s no activity out on the street, not even when the fire froht to a pile of plastic sacks filled with rubbish which have been sat at the side of the road for s and fro the air with dirty fu, Lizzie pulls the curtains shut

Theat the top of the stairs is dead I crept out of the flat a fewhorrible way to go - ending your days slowly bleeding to death on your own at the top of a dark, concrete staircase Could I have done anything for hi for him? Definitely not He was a Hater, and its scum like him that have caused all of this They&039;re the reason everything is falling apart They&039;re the reason I&039;ve had to lock myself and my family in the flat They&039;re the reason we&039;re all fucking terrified

What scares me most about the body upstairs andon the street is the closeness of it all I could cope with this crisis when it was just so on the news I could even deal with it at the concert andthe fight in the pub and the kid under the car What&039;s changed today is the proximity of the trouble to my children and my home This flat felt safe until today