“Getting stiff,” Janice said as she lurched into the room and fell down onto the sofa next to Nathan.
“Rigor mortis,” Simon wheezed as he sat down heavily opposite them, barely able to believe what he was saying. “Won’t last long. Read it online.”
“Scared,” Nathan said quietly, the first word he’d managed to say since he’d died.
“I know,” Simon replied, trying to focus on his son’s face.
“We’ll all just sit here,” Janice said, pausing mid-sentence to swallow more air, “and rest. I’ll get us some dinner later.”
Rigor mortis kept the family frozen in position for almost a whole day. For a time, they were barely able to speak, let alone move. In the all-consuming darkness of the long winter night, Simon stared into space, unblinking, and tried unsuccessfully to come to terms with what had happened.
His family was dead, and yet he felt surprisingly calm-perhaps because they were still together and they could still communicate. Maybe the loss would hit him later. He tried to imagine how any of this could be possible-how their brains could even continue to function. He wondered: Is this strange state of post-death consciousness just temporary? Would it last as long as their physical bodies held together? Or might it end at any moment?
He tried to distract himself with other thoughts but it was impossible. Everything had changed now that they were dead. Janice’s earlier words rattled around his head: her instinctive offer of a dinner he knew she’d never cook. He realized they’d never eat or drink again. He’d never again get drunk. He’d never smell anything again, never sleep or dream, never make love… For a while that really bothered him. It wasn’t that he wanted sex-and even if he did, his sudden lack of circulation meant that the act was a physical impossibility now-what hurt was the fact that that aspect of his life had been abruptly ended with such dispassionate brutality.
Silent, unanswered questions about trivial practicalities and inconveniences soon gave way to other more important but equally unanswerable questions about what would happen next. What will happen to our bodies? How long will we last? For how long will we be able to move and talk, and see and hear each other?
As the long, indeterminable hours passed, still more questions plagued him. He thought about Janice’s faith. (Although he believed her regular trips to church each Sunday were more about seeing people and being seen than anything else.) Was there a god? Or had the events of the last day been proof positive that all religions were based on superstition and bullshit? Was this heaven-if there was such a place-or its unthinkable opposite?
He suddenly remembered a line from a horror film he’d seen once and adapted it to fit his own bizarre circumstance. When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk their living rooms, hallways and kitchens.
The next day, Janice had been the first to move. With a wheezing groan of effort she’d pushed herself up out of her seat next to Nathan-casting a disappointed glance at the large yellow stain she’d left on the cream-colored leather-then dragged herself upstairs on all fours. Simon went back to his office, leaving Nathan in front of the now lifeless TV. He needed to find answers to some of the many questions he’d asked himself last night.
Simon got lost on the still-functioning parts of the Internet. It took him a frustrating age to type and to move the mouse-he could barely hold it and click the buttons today-but he still managed to waste hours searching pointlessly as he’d regularly done before he’d died. He heard Janice crashing about in the kitchen, and her noise finally prompted him to move.
He checked in on Nathan as he passed the living room door. The boy looked bad. His legs and feet were swollen and bruised. His skin had an unnatural blue-green hue and one corner of his mouth hung open. A dribble of stringy, yellow-brown saliva trickled steadily down his chin, staining his favorite football shirt.
“Okay son?” Simon asked, having to remind himself how to talk again. Nathan slowly lifted his head and looked over in the general direction of his father.
“Bored.”
“Just sit there for a bit,” he said between breaths as he carried on down the hall. “Mum and I will work out what we’re going to do.”
Janice’s appearance caught him by surprise. She’d changed her clothes and was wearing a dress she’d bought yesterday.
“Might as well get some wear out of it,” she said.
“You look nice,” he said automatically, even though she didn’t. Always compliment your wife, he thought, even in death. Truth was, the way she looked made him feel uneasy. By squeezing herself into such a tight, once-flattering dress, she’d highlighted the extent to which her body had already changed. Her ankles were bruised and bloated like Nathan’s (because the blood which was no longer being pumped around her body was pooling there-he’d learnt that online) and her belly was swollen (most probably with gas from countless chemical reactions-he’d learnt that online too). Her once-pert breasts hung heavy and unsupported like two small, sagging sacks of grain. She lurched into the light and, just for a second, Simon was thankful for the frozen, expressionless mask that death had given him and which hid his true reaction.
Janice looked grotesque. She’d covered her face in a thick layer of concealer which appeared even more unnatural than the jaundiced tinge of decay her skin had shown previously. She’d applied mascara (managing to coat her eyeballs more than her eyelashes), eyeshadow and lipstick with clumsy hands, leaving her looking more like a drunken clown than anything else. He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
“Just want to feel normal again,” she said. “Just because I’m dead, doesn’t mean I have to forget who I am.”
For a moment the two of them stared at each other in silence, standing and swaying at opposite ends of the room.
“Been trying to find out what’s going to happen,” Simon told her.
“What do you mean?”
“What’s going to happen to us. How bad things will get before…”
Janice moved unexpectedly. She didn’t want to hear this. She headed for the dishwasher which she hadn’t emptied since they’d died.
“Don’t want to know…”
“Need to think about it. Got to be ready for it.”
“I know,” she wheezed. She squinted in frustration at the white china plate she held in her hand. It was dirty again now that she’d picked it up but she put it away in the cupboard anyway. “How long will we have before…?”
“Depends,” he said, anticipating the end of her question. “Could be six months. Need to keep the house cool, stay dry…”
She nodded (although her head didn’t move enough to notice), stopped unloading, and leant heavily against the nearest cupboard.
“We’re lucky really,” Simon said, pausing to take another deep breath of air. “Six months is a long time to have to say goodbye.”
By mid-afternoon the street outside the house was an unexpected mass of clumsy, chaotic movement. More and more dead people had dragged themselves out into the open as the day had progressed. Simon thought he recognized some of them, although they were pale shadows of who they used to be.
What were they hoping to achieve out there? Surely they must have realized by now that the situation was beyond hope? No one’s going to help you, he thought. You can’t cure death or make it any easier-these people needed to get a grip and get back indoors. Some of them began to squabble and fight, unable to react to their impossible situation in any other way. Most, though, simply staggered around aimlessly.