‘This must be Mr Jones,’ he mumbled, reading from the address on the front of the envelope. ‘Mr Arthur Jones, Penn Farm. Nice place you had here, Mr Jones.’
‘No sign of Mrs Jones?’ wondered Emma.
‘Couldn’t find anyone else,’ Michael replied, shaking his head. ‘And he looks too old for there to be any little Joneses here.’
Emma noticed that Carl had sat down next to the body. He was staring into its face.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. No response. ‘Carl, what’s the matter?’
He shook his head, looked up at her and smiled.
‘Sorry, I was miles away.’
Carl quickly looked away, hoping that the other two hadn’t picked up on the sudden anxiety and unease he was feeling. Christ, he thought, he had seen literally thousands of dead bodies over the last few days, so why did this one in particular bother him? Was it because this had been one of the first bodies he’d actually sat down and looked at, or was it because this was the first body he’d seen with an identity? He knew the man’s name and what he’d done for a living and they had broken into his home. It didn’t feel right. He didn’t believe in ghosts or anything like that but, at that moment, he was convinced that somehow Mr Jones would get his revenge on the three intruders.
Michael sat down in a comfortable armchair and shielded his eyes from the early evening sunlight which poured into the room.
‘So will this do?’ he asked. ‘Think we should stop here?’
‘There’s plenty of room,’ Emma replied, ‘and there’s the stream outside for water.’
‘And it’s not easy to get to,’ Carl added, forcing himself to get involved in the conversation and ignore Mr Jones. ‘Bloody hell, we had enough trouble finding it.’
‘And it’s a farm,’ Michael said. ‘There’s bound to be much more to this place than just this house.’
‘Like what?’ Emma wondered. Michael shrugged his shoulders.
‘Don’t know,’ he grinned. ‘Let’s find out, shall we?’
With that he jumped up from his seat and left the room. Carl and Emma followed him as he walked down the hallway with the entrance to the kitchen and the wooden staircase on his left and a succession of rooms on the right. He looked into (but didn’t go into) a living room and a small office as he walked towards the back of the house. He stopped by the back door and looked back at the other two over his shoulder.
‘There you go,’ he said, grinning again. ‘Told you. That should help.’
Intrigued, Carl and Emma peered past him. On the small lawn at the back of the house was a large gas cylinder mounted on a firm concrete base.
‘Wonder what’s in the shed,’ Carl mumbled, looking into the trees at the bottom left hand corner of the garden.
‘Probably just tools,’ Emma guessed. ‘You know, lawnmowers, that kind of thing.’
‘Then what are those?’ he said, nodding into a small store room to his left. Emma peered into the gloom and saw that everything she had thought would have been kept in the shed had been housed in this little room.
‘Only one way to find out,’ she said and she stretched past Michael and opened the door. She led the three of them across the lawn.
It was obvious that this was far more than just an ordinary garden shed. It was too big and strong to be a potting shed and too small to be anything to do with the farm stores. Carl pushed the door open and leant inside.
‘What’s in there?’ Michael shouting, watching the other man with interest.
Carl reappeared.
‘You won’t believe this,’ he gasped. ‘It’s only a bloody generator!’
‘What? For making electricity,’ Emma said stupidly.
‘I bloody hope so,’ Michael sighed under his breath. ‘That’s what they usually do.’
‘Will it work?’ she then asked, equally stupidly.
‘Don’t know,’ Carl replied, ‘I’ll have a go at getting it going later.’
‘We’ve got plenty of time to try,’ Michael added as he turned and walked back towards the house. ‘Think we should stop here then?’ he asked sarcastically.
Neither Carl or Emma bothered to answer but it didn’t matter. Individually they had all decided to stop the first moment they’d arrived. Penn Farm seemed the ideal place for them to sit and wait. What they would be waiting for, however, was anyone’s guess.
17
Michael was asleep by eight o’clock. Curled up on a sofa in the sitting room of the rustic farmhouse, it was the best and most unexpected sleep he’d had since the disaster had begun. Fate had dealt everyone some bitterly cruel hands recently but, for this one man at least, a welcome respite in the nightmare had arrived.
The house was silent save for his gentle snoring and the muffled sounds of Emma and Carl’s tired conversation. Although they were easily as tired as Michael, neither felt able to close their eyes for even a second. No matter how comfortable and peaceful their surroundings had unexpectedly become, they knew that the world beyond the walls of the building was as inhospitable and fucked up as it had been since the first minutes of the tragedy last week.
‘I could have tried to get it going tonight,’ Carl yawned, still talking about the generator in the shed behind the house. ‘I just couldn’t be bothered though. We’ve got plenty of time. I’ll try it in the morning.’
Thinking about repairing the machinery had made him feel strangely relaxed. It reminded him of the job he used to do. He was looking forward to getting on with the job tomorrow and hoped that, for a short time at least, the grease and graft would allow him to imagine that he was back at work and that the last few days had never happened.
Emma and Carl sat on either side of the fireplace, wrapped up in their coats because the room was surprisingly cold. Michael had prepared a fire earlier but they had decided against lighting it for fear of the smoke drawing attention to their location. Their fear was irrational but undeniable. Chances were they were the only living people for miles around but they didn’t want to take any risks, no matter how slight. Anonymity seemed to add to their security.
The large room was comfortably dark. A low, dancing orange light came from three candles which cast strange, flickering shadows on the walls. After an awkward silence that had lasted for a good ten minutes, Emma spoke.
‘Do you think we’re going to be all right here?’ she asked cautiously.
‘We should be okay for a while,’ Carl replied, his voice quiet and hushed.
‘I like it.’
‘It’s okay.’
The staccato conversation died quickly. Next time it was Carl who disturbed the quiet.
‘Emma, you don’t think…’
He stopped before he’d finished his question, obviously unsure of himself.
‘Think what?’ she pushed.
He cleared his throat and shuffled awkwardly in his seat. With some reluctance he began again.
‘You don’t think the farmer will come back, do you?’
As soon as he’d spoken he regretted what he’d said. It sounded so bloody ridiculous when he said it out loud but, nonetheless, the body of the farmer had been playing on his mind all evening. These days death didn’t seem to have the same finality as it always had done before and he wondered if the old man might somehow find his way back to his home and try to reclaim what was rightfully his. He knew that they could get rid of him again if they needed to and that in a reanimated state he would pose little threat, but it was just the thought of the body returning which unnerved him. His thoughts were irrational but even so the hairs on the back of his neck had again begun to tingle and prickle with cool fear.
Emma shook her head.
‘I’m sorry,’ he blathered. ‘Stupid thing to say. Bloody stupid thing to say.’