It was fortunate that the house was so isolated. In the long hours spent outside only a handful of bodies had appeared. Whenever they became aware of movement the three survivors would drop their tools and disappear into the silent shadows of the farmhouse and wait until the withered creatures passed or became distracted by another sound and drifted away again.
Michael had impressed himself with his ingenuity and adaptability. As he had planned, they had used the stream as a natural barrier along one side of the farmhouse, building up the bank on their side with rocks and boulders from the water. Using the tall doors from one of the barns they had created a strong, padlocked gate across the stone bridge which spanned the width of the water. Two thick and removable crossbeams provided additional strength and security for the hours they would spend locked away inside the farmhouse. Much of the walls and roofs of the two barns had been stripped to provide extra materials to construct and reinforce the vital boundary. Now the remains of the buildings stood dejected and abandoned outside the fence, the bare bones of their empty frames reaching up into the air like the ribs of an animal carcass stripped of flesh.
In other places the barrier was little more than a collection of carefully placed obstructions. Piles of farm machinery and unneeded bags of chemicals were arranged to create a hopefully impenetrable blockade. Michael judged the success of each section of barrier by whether he could get through or over to the other side. If he had trouble then the tired and sickly bodies would surely have no chance.
As Monday evening drew to a close and the early dark hours of Tuesday morning approached, Michael stood outside checking and rechecking that the barrier was secure. Everything he could find that they wouldn’t need was placed against the fence or used to build it higher. As he worked in his cold isolation it occurred to him that it was one week to the day since the nightmare had begun. The longest seven days of his life. In that time he had experienced more pain, fear, frustration and outright terror than he would ever have thought possible. He refused to allow himself to think about what might be waiting for him tomorrow.
28
Wednesday night. Nine o’clock.
Michael cooked a meal for himself, Carl and Emma. He seemed to have allowed himself to relax slightly now that there was a decent physical barrier between them and the rest of the world. Emma noticed that he had now started to occupy his time by doing odd jobs around the house. She had casually mentioned that a shelf in an upstairs room was coming loose from the wall. By the time she’d next walked past the room Michael had completed the repair. Each one of the survivors had an increasing, burning desire – almost a guttural, basic need in fact – to keep themselves occupied. Keeping busy helped them to forget (almost to the point of denial) that the world outside their door had crumbled and died.
The three of them had been sitting in the kitchen for the best part of two hours before the meal was ready and Michael was finally in a position to serve dinner. It was the longest length of time that they’d willingly spent in each other’s company since the trip to Byster a few days earlier. The atmosphere was subdued and low as was to be expected. Conversation was sparse. Michael busied himself cooking (as usual), Emma read a book and for the most part, Carl did very little.
Emma found some wine. She had discovered a few bottles hidden in a dusty rack wedged between two kitchen units and she’d wasted no time in uncorking a bottle of white and pouring out three large glasses, passing one each to Carl and Michael. Carl normally didn’t drink wine but tonight he was ready to make an exception. He wanted to get drunk. He wanted to be so fucking drunk that he couldn’t remember his own name. He wanted to pass out on the kitchen floor and forget about everything for as long as was possible. He wasn’t even that bothered about waking up the next morning.
The food was good – probably the best meal they’d eaten together – and that, combined with the wine, helped perpetuate an uneasy sense of normality. That sense of normality, however, had the unwanted side effect of helping them to remember everything about the past that they had been trying to forget. Michael decided that the best way of dealing with what they’d lost was to try and talk about it.
‘So,’ he began, chewing thoughtfully on a mouthful of food as he spoke, ‘Wednesday night. What would you two usually have been doing on a Wednesday night?’
There was an awkward silence. The same awkward silence which always seemed to descend on any conversation that dared to broach the subject of the way the world had been before last Tuesday.
‘I’d either have been studying or drinking,’ Emma eventually replied, also sensing that it made sense to talk. ‘Or probably both.’
‘Drinking midweek?'
‘I’d drink any night.’
‘What about you, Carl?’
Carl toyed with his food and knocked back a large mouthful of wine.
‘I was on call,’ he said slowly. He was obviously unsure about talking about the past. He had only just begun to speak and it was already hurting him. ‘I couldn’t drink in the week but I’d make up for it at the weekend.’
‘Were you a pub or a club man?’ Emma asked.
‘Pub,’ he replied, very definitely.
‘So what about your little girl?’
There was an awkward pause and Emma wondered whether she’d gone too far and said the wrong thing. Carl looked down at his food again and swallowed a second mouthful of wine, this one emptying the glass. He grabbed hold of the bottle and helped himself to a refill before continuing.
‘Sarah and me used to walk down to the local in the afternoon,’ he began, his eyes moistening with tears. ‘We were part of a crowd. There was always someone in there we knew. We’d start drinking around three or four o’clock and then leave just before closing. There were always kids Gemma’s age there. They had a play area and she had her friends and they used to…’
When the pain became too much to bear he stopped and drank more wine.
‘Sorry,’ Emma mumbled instinctively. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything. I wasn’t thinking.’
Carl didn’t respond.
‘Why shouldn’t you have said anything?’ Michael asked.
‘What?’
‘Why are you apologising? And why don’t you want to talk about it, Carl?’
Carl looked up and glared at the other man with tears of pain streaked down his face.
‘I don’t want to talk because it fucking well hurts too much,’ he spat, almost having to force the words out. ‘You don’t know how it feels.’
‘I’ve lost people too…’
‘You didn’t lose a child. You don’t know how that feels. You couldn’t.’
Michael knew he was right. He wasn’t sure whether it was sensible or stupid, but he desperately felt that he should force this conversation to continue. He had decided that they wouldn’t be able to move on and make something of the rest of their lives until they’d managed to sweep away the remains of the past.
Carl was staring into space again.
‘I’d give anything to be back in lectures again,’ Emma sighed. ‘Stupid isn’t it? Before I used to do anything I could to avoid them, now I just want to…’
‘You just can’t imagine what this feels like,’ Carl said under his breath, interrupting her. ‘This is killing me.’
‘What is?’ Michael pressed gently.
‘Every morning I wake up and I wish that it was over and I was dead,’ he explained. ‘Every single day the pain is worse than the last. I still can’t accept that they’ve gone and I just…’
‘It hurts now but it will get easier,’ the other man said, beginning to regret his earlier words. ‘It must get easier over time, it must…’
‘Will it? Know that for a fact do you?’
‘No, but I…’
‘Just shut your mouth then,’ Carl said, his voice suddenly surprisingly calm and level. ‘If you don’t know what you’re talking about, don’t say anything. Don’t waste your fucking time trying to make me feel better because you can’t. There’s nothing you can say or do that will make any of this any easier.’