David Moody - Autumn

‘I don’t. Christ, last night we were surrounded.’

‘Yes, but…’

‘Just answer me this, Emma. What would you do if those things got through the barricade and got into the house?’

Emma struggled to answer.

‘What would happen? As far as I can see you wouldn’t have many choices. You could lock yourself into a room and sit tight or you could try and get to one of your vans and try and get away that way. Or you could just run for it.’

‘You’d have no chance on foot.’

‘That’s exactly my point. This house is surrounded by miles and miles of absolutely fucking nothing. There’s nowhere to run to.’

‘But we don’t need to run…’ Emma protested, raising her voice.

‘But you might. Back in the city there are a hundred places to hide on every street. I don’t want to spend the rest of my time locked away in this bloody house.’

Emma sat down on the steps in front of the house, dejected and frustrated. Michael was busy working to unload the supplies from the back of the van. He already seemed to be doing his level best to ignore Carl.

‘I’m worried about you, that’s all,’ Emma said quietly. ‘I just hope you realise that if anything happens to you on your own, that’s it.’

‘I know that.’

‘And you’re still willing to take the chance?’

‘Yes,’ he said, simply and definitely.

Carl leant against the bike and looked deep into Emma’s face. It was the first time for days that the two of them had made anything resembling real, purposeful contact with each other. Looking into his dull, tired eyes, Emma felt her earlier anger mellowing and mutating into something that resembled pity. The man standing in front of her was nothing more than a shell. He was less than half the man he had been when they’d first met. He had lost everything including, it seemed, all direction and reason. She knew that he wasn’t bothered about surviving anymore. All his talk of finding shelter and of reaching the survivors was bullshit. She knew in her heart that all he wanted to do was go home.

‘Planning on leaving tonight then?’ Michael asked.

An hour after returning from Pennmyre and Carl was still outside, getting ready to go and refuelling the bike and loading his few belongings. He looked up and nodded at Michael.

‘Might as well,’ he quietly replied.

‘Sure you want to take the risk?’

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘We’re all taking risks whatever we do,’ he answered. ‘I don’t think it matters anymore.’

‘Well I think you’re asking for trouble. You should at least wait until the morning when it’s…’

‘I’ll be all right,’ he insisted.

‘Fine.’

Michael sat down on the damp ground near to the bike. He looked around the yard, first quickly checking that the barrier round the house seemed secure and then looking up high, staring into the trees surrounding, listening to drops of water from the earlier heavy rainfall dripping down from leaf to leaf to leaf before falling to the ground.

‘Look,’ he said, sensing that he had a duty to again try and persuade the other man not to leave, ‘are you sure you know what you’re doing?’

Carl sighed.

‘Christ, not you as well. I had enough bullshit from Emma earlier…’

‘It’s not bullshit. We’re just worried that…’

‘Worried that what?’

‘I don’t know,’ he lied, feeling awkward and reluctant to reveal his true feelings. ‘I guess we’re just worried that you’re doing the wrong thing. I’ve heard everything you’ve said about wanting to go back to the community centre and I understand why you think you need to go but…’

Carl stopped what he was doing and looked at Michael.

‘But…?’

‘I think you’re confused. I think you’ve been through too much to cope with and you’re having trouble dealing with it all. I don’t think you’re capable of making the right decisions at the moment and…’

‘I’m not a fucking lunatic if that’s what you think,’ Carl snapped, his voice surprisingly calm, ‘I know exactly what I’m doing. The fact is I just don’t feel safe here. And before you say it, I know we’re not safe anywhere anymore, but I obviously feel differently about this place than you two do. That excuse for a fence we built doesn’t make me feel any better…’

‘That excuse for a fence,’ Michael interrupted, annoyed, ‘kept a thousand of those bastards out last night.’

‘I know, but there are millions of them out there. Eventually they’re going to get through.’

‘I don’t agree.’

‘We’ll put a bet on it now and I’ll come back next year and see how you’re doing.’

Michael didn’t find Carl’s attempt at black humour amusing.

‘Okay, so we’re not as isolated as we thought we were here, but we’ve done all right so far, haven’t we?’

‘Better than I ever thought we would,’ he accepted.

‘So why leave now? You’re going to get ripped to pieces out there.’

Carl thought for a moment. He had done a good job of keeping his true feelings and emotions hidden from the other two for most of the last week. The pair of them had been so wrapped up in building and protecting their precious ivory tower that they seemed to have forgotten everything else that was ever important.

‘I just want to go back to somewhere I know,’ he eventually admitted. ‘I know I’m taking a massive chance but I think it’s worth the risk. If I’m going to spend the rest of my days hiding from those bloody things out there, I might as well hide somewhere close to the place I know best, somewhere I actually want to be.’

‘But think about the other risks,’ Michael said, his voice tired and low. ‘Think about the bodies that are just lying rotting on the ground. Every city will be filled with disease.’

Carl just shrugged his shoulders.

‘I don’t know anything about that and there’s nothing I can do about it anyway. I used to mend fucking twenty-ton presses for a living, doesn’t matter if you tell me there’s germs and disease about because I can’t do anything about it. I’ll have to take my chances there just the same way you and Emma will do here.’

‘But we’re not taking chances…’

‘How do you know that? How do you know that there isn’t cholera, typhoid or a thousand other diseases that we’ve never even heard of already here in the air or in the stream or…’

Michael knew he was right. There was no point in arguing.

‘You don’t have to go,’ he said, quickly deciding to change tack completely. ‘Please stay here with us. Just do me a favour and think about it for a couple of days at least will you?’

Carl shook his head.

‘All I’ve done this last week is think about this. Look, it’s nothing personal. You were the one who kept telling us how important it was to look after ourselves, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, but…’

‘So can’t you see that’s all I’m doing. You keep doing what’s best for you and Emma, and I’ll look after myself. We all might be gone tomorrow…’

‘Don’t talk like that,’ Michael interrupted, suddenly angry. ‘You can’t talk like that if…’

Ignoring him, Carl continued.

‘We might all be gone tomorrow but the three of us might still be around in ten years time. I just can’t lock myself away in here and sit and wait for something to happen. If all we’re going to do is cower and hide for the rest of our lives then we might as well just end it now.’

‘I understand what you’re saying,’ Michael sighed, accepting that nothing he could say or do would persuade Carl to stop. ‘I understand completely, but I still think you’re a stupid fucking bastard.’