CHARLOTTE, ASH and EMMA have 2 TICKETS to the RESETTLEMENT ZONE. Charlie and Emma are at ASH’S PARENTS’ HOUSE, who have revealed that they have 2 TICKETS for the Zone. Ash is at CHARLIE’S SISTER AND FATHER’S HOUSE, and has the opportunity to steal a TICKET from Charlie’s unconscious sister, AMY.

 

Charlotte wants to get Emma to the Resettlement Zone as soon as possible, so she wants a TICKET from ANAND and VIDYA.

 

Ash wants to get Emma to the Resettlement Zone as soon as possible, but he also wants to protect his parents, so he wants Amy’s ticket. He thinks that CORNWALL might be safe, and that ABROAD hasn’t been affected by the crisis..

 

Both Ash and Charlie are being offered opportunities to screw over their in-laws to save their partner.

 

Ash has flipped over whether to steal injured Amy’s ticket and leave her behind, or to get Amy medical attention (and lose the opportunity to steal the ticket).

 

The COIN is TAILS. Ash is going to steal Amy’s ticket and run away.

 

11:35pm Ash searches Amy’s pockets for her phone, and unlocks it using Amy’s finger. He pairs the bracelet with the phone, logs into the GOVERNMENT GATEWAY using Touch ID, and transfers the ticket to his bracelet, and his account.

 

He makes Amy as comfortable as possible and (as if this will do anything at this point!) texts 999.

 

He checks outside. The MOB has turned its attention back to the HOUSE OF A MIDDLE EASTERN FAMILY. He pulls the front door closed and dashes to ANAND’S FAST CAR. When he reaches it, he struggles to get the car keys out of his VERY TIGHT TROUSERS pocket. Members of the mob see him, and start towards him. As he gets into the car, some throw heavy objects, denting the bonnet and cracking the windshield. A jittery Ash gets the car started and screeches away.

 

Charlotte, Ash and Emma have 3 TICKETS to the Resettlement Zone.

 

Meanwhile, A RUSSIAN FAMILY (HUSBAND, WIFE, YOUNG BOY AND GIRL) cower in the LOUNGE of a large HOLIDAY HOME in CORNWALL.

 

One of the lounge windows explodes inwards. The family rush into a HALLWAY, and start to run upstairs. Behind them, an axe splinters through the front door. 

 

But suddenly flames rage around the UPSTAIRS. They rush back downstairs, and towards the BACK DOOR.

 

They head out the back door - but as they exit the wife is grabbed from the darkness behind them, and pulled back inside. The husband and children scream and flee.

 

They rush down a GARDEN, down steps, and onto the BEACH.

 

But waiting on the sand are MASKED ASSAILANTS. They have guns, hammers, bats, knives, axes. There are folk horror vibes, in this road … 

 

The assailants close in on the terrified family …

 

These roads are about the clash between grand gestures of love and pettiness, epic journeys and small-mindedness. They’re about the impact of parents on children, and about race in Britain.

 

ACT FOUR.

Ash speeds through Leamington, taking a different route from before, trying to avoid soldiers.

 

In ASH’S PARENTS’ LOUNGE, Anand cracks and snaps at Vidya - he can’t do this anymore. Vidya grabs at his shirt but he pulls away and goes to Charlotte. He has to admit something. Vidya tries to stop him, but he has to say it: they don’t have TICKETS.

 

Furious, Vidya screams at Anand and Anand breaks down. Charlotte’s shocked – she’s never seen them like this. Vidya explains: they didn’t get tickets, but they didn’t want Ash to worry. So they lied. They aren’t proud of it.

 

12:10pm Ash pulls up to his parents’ house. He’s trying to get his story straight in his head. He slips into the house quietly, and pauses when he overhears his parents’ conversation with Charlotte:

 

Anand thinks they should tell Ash that they don’t have tickets. Vidya thinks they shouldn’t. Charlotte agrees with Vidya. If they tell him, he might not go to the Zone … That’s reason enough to lie for Anand. He can’t tell Ash.

 

Ash now knows that his parents don’t have tickets, and that Charlie is going to lie to him.

 

He’s horrified, then furious. What can he do?

 

A Decision Point appears onscreen:

 

EITHER ‘Heads’: ‘Lie about Amy’s ticket and go to Cornwall’

OR ‘Tails’: ‘Go to Zone and leave parents behind’

 

He takes out his COIN - and pauses. Charlie didn’t ask him before she decided to lie, and didn’t flip. Screw this. He puts the coin away.

 

Ash decides to lie about Amy’s ticket, and pitch for everyone to go to Cornwall.

 

Ash never willingly chooses the option that abandons his parents - he’ll always look for another way.

 

Ash starts to head back outside, but freezes. A FLASH OF: Amy on the floor, her head bleeding; Ash looming over her, then scrabbling through her pockets.

 

In the PRESENT, Ash realises that leaving Amy, stealing her ticket, was all for nothing. He shakes his horror off as best he can, and heads outside.

 

Ash re-enters the house, making a lot of noise. Charlotte, Anand and Vidya prepare themselves. Ash appears crestfallen, and tells them he didn’t get the ticket. Charlotte is a mix of emotions - she nods as if she knew her family wouldn’t come through, but the idea that they wouldn’t give her their ticket is a punch in the gut.

 

Ash tells them all about his interaction with the SOLDIERS who pulled him over, and how they said that the crisis is only in England. He pitches that they go to the COTTAGE IN CORNWALL, and use the MOTORBOAT to CROSS THE CHANNEL if things go belly up.

 

Anand’s on board immediately. He notes that the cottage’s cleaner, LAUREN, said that it was quiet down there. He notes that family friends stayed in the cottage recently, so it’s fully stocked, and clean. (He leaves out the video of the MILITIA he saw …)

 

Vidya is more cautious, and Charlie begins to put up a fight - they’ll have to drive down there, that’ll be dangerous!

 

Ash plays on their guilt about lying to him: he suggests that if they aren’t okay with his plan, then Charlie can drive Emma and his parents to the PICK UP POINT, and he’ll stay here and try for a ticket.

 

Vidya caves, and suggests to Charlie that maybe Ash has a point.

 

Charlie’s struggling, but she isn’t broken yet. She has her hand in her pocket, fiddling with her COIN.

 

A Decision Point appears onscreen, beneath Charlie:

 

EITHER ‘Heads’: ‘Take Emma to the Zone’

OR ‘Tails’: ‘Follow Ash’

 

But Ash knows what she’s thinking, and he goes and takes her hand. He gently pulls the hand from her pocket, and pries away the coin. He insists: we have another way. She points out that (she believes) the Zone is guaranteed safety, with an army escort there.

 

She sees Emma on Vidya’s lap, with Anand behind them. This hurts.

 

She tells them she needs some air, and she heads outside.

 

Charlie’s instinct still says: go to the Zone! But she’s a reasonable person - she can be convinced otherwise.

 

There’s an awkward silence between Ash and his parents - each of them made awkward by their lies. Ash breaks the silence: he wants to get out of this piece of shit country anyway. Vidya and Anand are a little shocked at the sourness, but they stay quiet. 

 

Charlie paces on the DRIVEWAY outside. She hears a commotion on the street beyond.

 

Outside the house opposite Anand and Vidya’s, a MIDDLE EASTERN FAMILY (FATHER, WIFE, TEEN SON, YOUNGER DAUGHTER) is debating with SOLDIERS. The mother insists that they be allowed into the jeep - they have tickets. The soldiers are refusing. One waves a WHITE COUPLE with tickets by. The mother puts her hand on one soldier’s arm, and he elbows her in the face. The teen son steps forwards and the other soldier puts his rifle’s barrel against the son’s head. The soldiers back off, leaving the family weeping.

 

Charlie’s horrified, but she stays hidden. Witnessing this smashes her last major reason for going to the Zone over going to Cornwall - the sense that the army will provide her family with safety.

 

Charlie decides to go to Cornwall.

 

In the lounge, Ash and his parents are calling FRIENDS ABROAD for information, but they keep finding that their calls are blocked.

 

Charlie returns to the lounge and tells them: perhaps, on balance, Cornwall is a better option.

 

Meanwhile, in Cornwall, LAUREN’S TEEN SON weeps over the bodies of his parents in their kitchen. The MILITIA LEADER enters - he knows the family. His MILITIA are outside in their cars.

 

The Leader claims that outsiders have caused these deaths. All locals have to band together and fight back. Lauren’s teen son agrees to join the Leader’s cause.

 

12:45am The Dhumal clan pack ASH AND CHARLIE’S CAR with Anand and Vidya’s things. Anand is quietly sad about the damage to his car. Vidya notices, and points out that it’s probably going to be destroyed in the apocalypse anyway. (She finds this funny, he can’t in the moment.)

 

They set off. Driving through Leamington, the streets are wild - SOLDIERS beating up CIVILIANS; CHILDREN crying on the side of the road; dead bodies. Vidya encourages Emma to sleep on her lap, to avoid the horrors.

 

But they’re quickly into the countryside. They take BACKROADS to avoid SOLDIERS and traffic, driving with their headlights off where possible. The roads are littered with the crashes and bodies of people who broke the curfew earlier. What soldiers they do see are distracted by crises and losses, and broadly unable to cope with the situation.

 

Anand and Vidya try to keep the mood up. They relate buying the cottage – all their Leamington Spa friends were doing it, and they thought it was a fun idea. They had the cash. Their families thought it was a little odd, but they didn’t care. They wanted to spoil little Ashwin. He was into pirates at that age, and they wanted to give him a taste of the sea. Charlotte notes that he’s been thirsty for it ever since. 

 

They pull off the road a handful of times, to avoid ARMY JEEPS and CONVOYS OF CITIZENS.

 

The closer they get to Cornwall, the fewer CITIZENS or SOLDIERS they see.

 

At 3.15am they pass a MAN WHO LOOKS LIKE CHANNING TATUM (Ash points out the resemblance) and a WOMAN arguing in front of a VW VAN. The woman has a glug of water from a bottle and shakes her head.

 

They hear on the radio that LONDON AND BIRMINGHAM HAVE BEEN BOMBED BY A FOREIGN POWER.

 

Entering Cornwall, they see a ROADBLOCK in the near distance. Ash turns off the radio. Charlie tells Ash to turn around, but he thinks something is off and gets closer. When they pull up, slowly, they see that all the soldiers are dead.

Charlie gets out and moves the barriers, and they drive on.

 

They pass signs for THE EDEN PROJECT. Trying to keep people’s minds off of the conditions outside, Ash suggests that maybe they should go live in a dome at the Eden Project instead - they did always want to take Emma there …

 

Cornwall is absolute chaos. Everything is burning; the dead strew the roads.

 

Nearing PORTSCATHO - the cottage’s local village - MILITIA VEHICLES pull off of dark tracks and flank the Dhumals’ car. Charlie urges Ash to keep driving at first, but when one of the vehicles nudges the Dhumals’ car, Charlie orders Ash to stop.

 

Charlie winds down her window and readies her HUNTING KNIFE. The Leader climbs out of one of the vehicles and approaches.

 

He greets them politely enough, and explains that this area is under the militia’s protection. Charlie explains that they have a house there, but the Leader looks around the car and announces that he doesn’t know any of them. He claims to be a reasonable man, and he’ll allow them to leave if they turn back now.

 

The militia returns to their vehicles and drives away … but you get the sense that they’re watching.

 

The Dhumals are terrified. Ash wonders aloud whether they should turn back. The others agree. They’ll leave Cornwall, and make fresh plans - perhaps head to FAMILY FRIENDS in DORSET. Ash turns the car around.

 

They approach the roadblock again. From a distance it’s clear something’s different. There’s … movement.

 

Getting closer, they see that it’s been restaffed by a new PLATOON. The SOLDIERS see them, and fire their rifles into the air.

 

Ash turns and speeds back into Cornwall. A JEEP gives chase at first, and then turns back.

 

Charlie orders Ash to take another route to the cottage. They’ll all keep an eye out for the militia. Anand talks Ash through an alternate route.

 

Nearing Portscatho again, they don’t notice that a MILITIA SQUAD, parked in a lay-by, sees them pass. One MEMBER radios the other squads. Another - a LIEUTENANT - psyches up her squad, which includes Lauren’s teen son. These fuckers, coming down here, shouldn’t even be in England in the first place. She’s heard it’s a biological weapon attack by terrorists. This group could be another cell. The teen son wonders aloud: they looked quite old, though? They had a kid with them? There’s an awkward silence, and the Lieutenant dictates that this is what such cells do - they use the old and the young as a disguise. She passes round a FLASK OF TAP WATER, and each member has a glug.

 

Ash pulls into the COTTAGE’S DRIVEWAY, and they all climb out of Anand’s car. It’s a beautiful place. Its GARDEN backs onto THE CHANNEL. There’s a LITTLE DOCK with a MOTOR BOAT. They head inside, cautiously hopeful.

 

Anand tries the MOTORBOAT with Charlotte and Emma. It’s still working! He revs it. Emma’s impressed. 

 

Vidya turns on a radio in the KITCHEN, with Ash. A LOCAL STATION is still on the air. A GROUP OF CITIZENS has figured out that it’s the WATER SUPPLY causing the mysterious deaths - it’s in the TAP WATER.

 

4am The Dhumal clan gathers in the COTTAGE’S LOUNGE. Charlotte notices she has a voicemail from her father, BILL. She listens to it. We CUT TO:

 

FLASHBACK: Bill paces around his KITCHEN, calling Charlie. Behind him, a NURSE FRIEND is treating Amy’s headwound - she’s conscious, but she doesn’t look well. Bill doesn’t get an answer. Just her voicemail. He really lets loose - Charlotte is a traitor, Ash a scumbag. Was that Charlie’s plan all along, for her coward husband to attack her sister and steal the ticket? But to leave Amy on the floor there, to die … Bill announces that Charlie is dead to him, and ends the call.

 

Charlotte is horrified. She rounds on Ash, and reveals that she knows what happened at her father’s house. Anand and Vidya are horrified – our little boy did what?! He tries to explain, but Charlotte won’t hear it.

 

Here comes The Confrontation.

 

Charlotte says she thought that Ash was just a coward, but actually he’s a complete scumbag and a liar. Ash suggests that Charlie would have done exactly the same as him. He reveals that he knows she’s been lying to him about his parents having tickets - she would have just left them behind. In fact, he thinks that she would have just left him behind, eventually, too.

 

Charlie accuses Ash of being in total denial about the reality of the night - about everything, in fact. About his career, about their marriage. That’s why he needs the coin.

 

Ash throws this back in her face - she’s the one who needs the coin! She doesn’t give a fuck about their marriage, and she’s happy to use the coin because it’s the laziest form of engagement.

 

The atmosphere is poisonous. Charlotte announces that whatever happens, their marriage is over, and leaves the room with Emma.

 

Upstairs in one of the COTTAGE BEDROOMS, Charlie considers leaving. She takes out her coin. A Decision Point appears onscreen:

 

EITHER ‘Heads’: ‘Stay at the cottage’

OR ‘Tails’: ‘Try to reach the Resettlement Zone’

 

But she pauses. Why is she still flipping? She’ll do what she wants, like Ash. She puts the coin away.

 

In the lounge, Anand and Vidya suddenly burst: what was Ash thinking?! They didn’t raise him like this. They gave him principles.

 

Ash is shocked, but after their lies he’s not going to put up with this. He tells them that his principles would probably have gotten them all killed.

 

Vidya says that that’s better than what’s happened here. Anand agrees. Survival isn’t everything.

 

Charlie returns to the lounge, carrying Emma and some BAGS. She tells them all that she’s taking Emma to the Zone. Ash argues back - what about the roadblock? What about what the soldiers told him, about it being safe abroad?

 

But Charlie puts her foot down. She doesn’t trust him anymore. She can’t be sure he’s telling the truth about this. She thinks he’ll say anything to avoid the reality that he’ll have to leave his parents behind, and he isn’t thinking of Emma. She shouldn’t have let him get in her head about the Zones. He can either come with her or stay here; she will be leaving, and he best not try to stop her.

 

Charlie goes upstairs for more bags, and Ash thinks. He tells his parents that he’s going to try to get to the Zone with Charlie and Emma. Vidya announces, on behalf of her and Anand, that they’ll come and try to help if Ash wishes, but otherwise they’ll stay here. Ash tells them to try to bunker down at the cottage, and try to cross the channel if necessary.

 

They pack the car quickly. Charlie hugs Vidya and Anand goodbye, and then climbs into the driver’s seat. Ash and Emma say bye to his parents, and then climb into the car. Charlie pulls away.

 

Anand and Vidya head inside. Outside, MASKED MILITIA MEMBERS begin to watch the house from the hedges, look through windows, check inside the garage. Inside, Anand and Vidya are oblivious. Anand’s extremely anxious about the night’s events. Vidya puts on music to calm him, and draws him into a slow dance.

 

4:30am Driving down the country roads, Charlie sees MILITIA PICK-UPS parked just off the road, at a couple of points. She’s suspicious.

 

They’re about to pass a car parked on the side of the road when suddenly a CRYING BLOODIED WOMAN rushes out from behind it, to wave them down.

 

Charlie knows what this is. She speeds up. Ash freaks out. The woman sees what’s coming and starts to run to the side of the road, but Charlie swerves and hits her.

 

From around the other side of the car, a MILITIA MEMBER emerges with a RIFLE - but Charlie’s already reversing. The member hesitates - shoot or flee? And Charlie runs him over.

 

Charlie stops the car. Ash jerks out of the door and vomits onto the road. 

 

Charlie checks round the side of the car, where the woman emerged from - there’s an AXE and a WALKIE-TALKIE. The walkie-talkie crackles to life - the militia are converging on the house. They have Anand and Vidya trapped.

 

Charlie freezes. She should flee. No, she should help her in-laws.

 

The Decision Point appears onscreen:

 

Obscenely, she takes out her coin and flips.

 

Which road will you choose?

 

Are you going to make Charlie a good daughter-in-law, or a ruthless survivalist?