There was no triumphant return home. It hadn't been a memorable send-off for Ryan, not a great party and celebration, nor the giant fuck you to the world that took him they'd intended. At one point they thought they were all going to die, when it was meant to be one in the eye for death, Huddersfield and the world that had oppressed them all. Instead, the friends returned to their home on Church Street defeated and in pain. Their injuries aching and confidence severely shaken, they limped and dragged their feet as they parted ways without goodbyes or even a backward glance.
They ascended the rusting metal steps to the flats above the shop or wherever else they'd made their nest among the abandoned homes the dubbed their 'Castle'. Now their bubble had been burst, it felt stupid to call it that. It felt stupid to wear their biker suits covered in their lurid decorations, stupid to wear their face paint and to go out looking for trouble and risk everything for trinkets they didn't even want any more.
Emily sniffed and numbly produced another tear as she was led along by Sarah, Katie and by Jane, who promised to come and keep her company. Matt grabbed Jane by the wrist and tugged her after him.
'You and me are going to have a word,' Matt said.
Each made their way to wherever they'd made their roost, and tugged off helmets, boots and gloves to let them fall where they may. The spoils of their venture were slung aside without a second thought and forgotten about. They didn't want them; they didn't want to even look at them after that disaster.
They scrubbed off their face paint, sloughing away the vivid circus of freakish carnival personas they morphed into in the untouchable heights of the delirium. Now it came crashing down, the colours melded into one muddy swirl, they wished they could wash away the memories with it too.
They were back alone, where they'd begun, nowhere nearer to getting out. The corpse of their friend was on his deathbed, the world in chaos around them and another day was burned through. They had set out to live it up and have fun, to burst out of their bounds and be brave, to not be intimidated, and had been beaten back into the dingy, stagnant dens of their retreat. The reward for their venture was that they had managed to hurt a small, timid girl who never really wanted to be part of their idiocy in the first place.
Someone else's bed or sofa became their resting place, or else they lay down in sleeping bags or heaps of bedding on the floor where they flopped down and drew blankets over their heads. Their minds buzzed, their heads spun and they stared at ceilings and walls until their eyes rolled back and consciousness slipped.
In another house, no one heard how Matt raged at Jane, raged at her for being so stupid, for defying him and being part of their idiotic games. She'd also encouraged others to become part of it. She stood there and trembled as silent tears tracked down her face, a familiar situation as Matt vented his anger on her. He loomed over her, frightening her. His rage-contorted face was up against hers as she looked mutely to the floor through a wet blur. She kept silent. It was better that way. It hurt less. It was her fault that she had not only exposed herself to danger but him as well, and she was truly sorry. She knew he couldn't let her go without him, and after all he had said she hadn't listened. The group had been badly hurt because of her stupidity.
Finally, when he was done, Jane sank to her knees with her face buried in her hands, reduced to helpless tears. She whispered over and over how she was sorry. She confessed that he was right and she should have listened, anything he wanted to hear. Matt needed her, and she needed him because he was the one who looked out for her, and for all of them. They would be lost without him. Then he shut her in her room for her own good. With no one else to go to in this world, she was completely alone.
Nick went quietly to Ryan's bedroom, turned the handle and opened the door, being careful not to make a sound. The air inside the room was thick and bad despite garlands of air fresheners hanging on the door handle, the wardrobe, drawers and curtain rails. Nick covered his nose and mouth as he went to the bed where he could make out the shape of his friend in the gloom, still in the position they'd left him beneath the sheet.
Last night, he'd snapped upright from where he'd sat, struck by a terrible thought. What if they came back home to be surprised by Ryan, risen as one of the Dead as he waited for them, biding his time to spring on them from the dark? Would it be like in the movies when the dead came back to life? No, surely not. His fears were getting the better of him.
'Ryan?' Nick whispered. He waited without moving and held his breath against the stagnant air.
Ryan's body lay motionless under the sheet. Maybe at any moment the shape could stir and rise up at him. Nick had already imagined it many times over by the time it took him to edge his way over to the bed. He couldn't shake the feeling that the body was waiting, dormant, and could hear him getting closer. It was waiting for the time when he would be near enough for the rigid, deceased limbs to jerk into life and make a grab for him, locking tight around his throat and pulling him in as the corpse rose up and the sheets slid off the terrible, wasted dead face beneath. Maybe the slightest noise would be all it took to make the body spring into violent action, maybe the tiniest nudge he made as he searched under the bed for what he fervently hoped was still kept there.
Nick's fingertips grazed the edge of a bag with Suzie's crochet kit and touched the cold surface of a steel knitting needle. Nick drew it out as slowly as he could. Still, the body under the sheets didn't move.
This was stupid; this was mad. Nick began to doubt what he was doing. Maybe he should run away from here as fast as possible and never come back.
He could see the outline of Ryan's skull underneath the bedsheet, the skeletal shape of the face, the sunken eye sockets that had become so emaciated in his last days. There was no movement. Nick stared so closely at the fabric that the room began to spin.
Now was the moment of truth. Nick peeled back the sheet from Ryan's head and choked back the feeling of what he saw, how hideous and pitiful the remains were of the person he used to know. The eyes were open slightly, gummed up and dull.
It looked like a deceased body, that was all. A sad, sick, deceased body. Nick thought he was losing it, but he couldn't take the chance.
His hand shook as he placed the needle's tip just below Ryan's ear. Slowly, trembling, he felt for the right place underneath the earlobe. He'd once read that there should be a soft bit where there was a hole in the skull for the ear canal.
He pressed the needle in. It met hard bone and stuck there. Nick tried again and again. Each time the needle drove up against Ryan's skull. Maybe he was wrong. Nick felt a surge of panic rising with each unsuccessful attempt. He couldn't find the right place.
'Sorry, sorry, sorry,' Nick repeated under his breath as he tried to push it in. Finally, after about the tenth desperate try, the tip stuck home and met no resistance. Nick moaned and screwed his eyes closed as he pushed the needle slowly, horribly, into his friend's brain.
He drew the object out and flung it across the room. Ryan's face was frozen, inert, waxen and unfeeling through it all. So unreal. It was just a dead body. He had gone and stabbed a knitting needle into the brain of his friend's dead body, in all likelihood for no reason. What was going on? What was this world where he had to do things like that? He was losing it. Ryan wasn't going to come back to life and rise up again… what a ridiculous idea. That was stupid. It was the body of someone he knew and cared about, and now he had done this to it. Nick stepped back and hyperventilated.
He was weary. Exhaustion came all at once. It was the end of an era. No more nursing and caring and being shut away from the world in this room. It was over. Nick leant against the doorway and staggered outside, where he met Jenny. She held him upright as he mumbled about burying Ryan.
'Come on,' she said. 'You're exhausted. We're all exhausted. We'll do it tomorrow. Let's get some rest.'
Emily sat in her bedroom with Sarah and Katie sometime in the afternoon. She was using up a box of tissues along with the other girls, whose tears she set off in sympathy. They asked for Andy to come to check her injuries, but he had passed out and was dead to the world.
'It was horrible,' said Emily as she stammered through her crying. 'I could feel them pulling at me and could feel their teeth through my clothes, and I thought that any moment they would get through to me and bite my skin. It still hurt through the suit. It hurt so much. They hit me and were twisting and grabbing so hard, and I could smell them and… oh, God it was horrible.'
Emily was covered in deep bruises, scrapes and welts, but the suit's fabric had held firm against the savaging it'd received and hadn't punctured or torn, to their relief and surprise. They were still shocked to see the distinct shape of sets of teeth on her skin and the clear impression of so many hands that had clamped down on her. It was disturbing to see the individual marks of so many different people on their friend, people with the appearance of walking corpses who had turned into something rabid and monstrous.
With her free arm, Sarah turned over a damp swab of cotton wool that she held under Emily's chin. The helmet's chinstrap had mercifully held as the hands of the Dead had grasped and wrenched at her, but it had left a raw scratch mark.
'Why are they like that?' Emily moaned, sniffing. Her voice was hoarse and choked. She surely could have no more tears left in her body soon, they thought. 'I'm sick of this. I don't want to smoke any more of that stupid shit and I don't want to be here any more. I want to go home! I want to go home and see my family and for things to be how they used to be.'
'I know, I know,' her friends said and all held hands. 'We'll get through this,' 'we'll be alright,' 'we will get rescued.'
'But how? Who's going to rescue us?' Emily cried, and the other girls struggled for an answer, at least one that sounded convincing.
'The army maybe, emergency services, or maybe a group of other people that made it,' Sarah said, trying to soothe her.
There was a knock on the door. Katie opened it to find Jack on the other side.
'Is Emily okay?' he mumbled.
'Oh, she's fine, thanks. Thanks for calling,' Katie said with displeasure, in a very insincere tone. 'We're just going to sit together for a while. Thanks for all you did.'
'Alright, it was no problem,' he mumbled Jack. He hovered for a little, trying to see past Katie before he gave up and left.
'Did you see him out there today?' said Katie as she closed the door.
'I don't think I paid much attention to him,' replied Sarah. 'Didn't he try to make himself useful somehow, in typical Jack fashion?'
'Yeah, very useful! I remember him going on an errand to get something for breakfast with Joe and he came back hours later, re-drunk after the night before, covered in chocolate powder with a bunch of meat and crackers. Then when we went shopping, Joe hit a lady with a tray of sweets and he fell about nearly pissing himself and had to be carried along. Then, when we finally got to look for all the things we actually needed, he appeared and started pestering us to leave. It was so pathetic.' Katie managed to coax a smile out of Sarah and even Emily.
'He just wants to be accepted,' Emily said, sniffing.
'Yeah, and he does whatever Matt says and he is Nick's bitch,' said Katie.
'Matt says a lot,' replied Sarah.
'What's new?' said Emily.
'But more than ever now. He annoys me just slightly more than Nick. Just slightly. And to hear those two go on – oh my God. They're so pushy. They're way, way too bossy. Matt especially, trying to be the big man.'
Katie said, 'Yeah why does he do that? He goes so over the top. The other day he had a right go at me to go and get some water or something because it was my turn on some stupid bloody rota. This is the same rota that he pretty much made up himself that day and then says we all agreed to it. I didn't agree to it. He started following me and ordering me about and wouldn't drop it just because he decided that he wanted a shower or something but had run out.'
'Also, have you noticed how Jane acts around him? She just completely clams up when he's around and doesn't say anything. She seems so cowed whenever he's about and does what he says like she's scared. There's something strange going on there,' said Sarah.
Katie shrugged. She hadn't noticed. 'I suppose he can be domineering and scary like that, but today he was the one that got us through when it all went wrong.'
'I'm never going out and doing something like that ever again,' said Emily.
'Earlier I didn't like the idea of fighting the Plebs, but after today I want rid of them. They're dangerous,' Sarah said.
'No, it's disgusting when we fight,' said Emily. 'Sometimes they just fall flat on their arse and lie still and that's it, but other times you can see their head cave in or a bone break and their brains come out or you can see their blood and guts. Their eyes just roll around and they carry on like they can't even feel it. It's disgusting. I nearly threw up so many times. There's too many to fight and it'll get someone killed. We should just stick to the plan and get rescued. We can be safe here.'
'I wish they were gone. Maybe they should all get cleared out,' said Katie. 'And another thing – I think we should be involved in the decision-making. I feel us girls should get more involved and have our say. I think the boys treat us like children. They're being so sexist, trying to make us do house chores and push us around while they go out and do things. I'm not going to stay here and do chores and I'm tired of being treated like a second-class citizen or just plain overlooked. Our contribution is equally important.'
Sarah was frowning a little with the effort of trying not to smile, 'what's your contribution again? Besides painting and decorating absolutely everything in sight?'
Katie struggled to respond. 'That's important to – to make us more at home, to keep peoples' spirits up, and I-I cut people's hair!' she stammered.
'When was the last time you did that for anyone but us two?'
'Well, I would if they weren't being dicks! Women's contributions are just as valid!'
'So you're going to go and wipe out all the Dead from the town centre too?'
'Nooo, I'm not really made for fighting.' Katie looked embarrassed. 'But that's just me. I've got these skinny arms.' She held them out. They were indeed very slender. 'I can help by supporting those who can! And if any other girls want to go out there and do things, they should be able to and we shouldn't let the guys behave like a bunch of chauvinist pigs.'
'I'm not going out there again.' Emily blew her nose. 'Never again.'
Sarah looked Katie over. She was pretty useless to the group, and now she had taken it upon herself to make a big thing of it. She should probably keep quiet and not raise the issue, Sarah thought.
Katie poured herself and Sarah a very large gin and tonic then started skinning up a spliff. At least she was good for that.
'Are you eating properly, hon?' Sarah asked Katie. 'Your arms are very skinny.'
'I'll be alright,' said Katie. 'I'm not mad keen on curry and I get full easily.' The other girls knew full well about Katie's past eating disorders but kept quiet.
'I think all the Ferals should be wiped out. Maybe Nick's got the right idea about making this a war on those sick freaks out there.' Sarah blew out a cloud. 'Just make sure you keep your strength up. You'll need it to keep fighting the good fight, sister.' She raised a fist in the air and smiled as Katie looked up sharply.
'What did youse get when you went shopping then?' Tom asked the others as they sat in one of their dens.
'You know, I'd completely forgotten. The mood was kinda killed after that,' said Jenny, who was sitting with Emma, Jane, Jack and Joe. They stopped playing yet another round beyond counting of their card game, the only game they ever seemed to play, called Scum. 'Where did we put it all? I don't even know after all that.'
They found a heap of carrier bags and handbags under a sofa and pulled them out.
'I have no idea whose bag was whose. Honestly, there's a few gaps in my memory about the whole time,' said Emma.
'I must have found your bag, Emma,' said Jane, and she pulled out a purple sex toy. Emma gave a small scream.
'No, it's far too small,' said Jenny.
'Oh my God, whose bag is this?' said Jane. 'It's full of this shit.'
'When did we ever go to a shop that sells that?' said Jenny.
Mine's full of pretty cool stuff,' Emma said, and she tipped out a load of jewellery, necklaces, rings, bracelets and crystals of broken glass. 'I think I'll take this one.'
'There's loads of really gay clothes in mine,' said Jack.
'Oh, that would be Nick's,' said Joe.
'Makes sense,' said Jack.
'There's some cool watches in here, though.' Jack tried one on, an expensive brand he had never even touched before. 'Wow, look at this one. And this.' Jack tried one on, then wore a few at once, like Nick did.
'Maybe you could try wearing some clothes like that, someday,' Jenny suggested, referring to how fashionable they were, as opposed to Jack's grubby, plain jeans and hoodie with its cracked and faded pro-gaming logo. Jack missed the point and thought she was calling him gay. He laughed awkwardly.
'Mine's full of girls' clothes,' said Joe. 'I don't know how that happened. Perhaps I was trying to come to terms with something. Maybe I feel the need to express myself someway new.'
'Or, maybe you got my bag? Let's swap and see, shall we?' said Jane. 'Oh wow, this is mine! I don't remember putting half of this in here, though.'
'Ah, I've found my bag. Oh wow, isn't that lovely!' Jenny exclaimed, trying on a diamond ring. 'Jack, you aren't seriously going to try that necklace on, are you? Not really your style.'
'No, I'm just looking,' Jack said, putting it down hastily. It was a ladies' silver necklace with amethysts and jade. 'I thought it might make a nice gift, for someone…'
'I don't really think it will suit you, mate,' said Tom.
'It's not for me!'
'Not really your colours.'
'It's not for me!'
'It's okay if you're into that, maybe wanna try a new look? Joe could teach you.'
'God!'
The friends rummaged through the heaps of treasures, mesmerised, while the music played on their hi-fi.
Enraptured by all the spoils, they put on wreaths of necklaces and bracelets, armfuls of watches. They looked up to see Tom lolling backwards with the giggles. He had stacked as many pairs of designer sunglasses on that would fit on top of his nose. People laughed and joined in, stacking as much loot as they could on top of themselves to see who could look the most grandiose, the most ridiculous.
Emma picked up a camera from somewhere and thrust it into Jenny's face and took a picture. She squealed as the flash dazzled her. Then everyone took turns taking photos of each other as they hugged and pulled silly parodies of poses. They pouted and did mock gang signs with their hands. Jane took one where she kissed the tip of the purple toy.
'That bag's definitely Sarah's,' said Jenny. 'Do you think that's been used?'
'Urgh!' Jane gagged and dry-heaved.
'No, if it belongs to that yeasty bitch, you could bake bread with it,' Emma chipped in. The girls squealed and Jane was nearly sick.
They rammed it in Tom's ear. He feebly protested through tears of laughter as they sang, 'Ear rape! Ear rape!'
'Well, this is nice,' Jane said, and held up a woollen cardigan.
'Jay, how can you think about something plain like that when we have all this bling on the table?' said Emma.
'Jewels, Janey, jewels!' said Jenny, grabbing handfuls of glittering trinkets. 'Why don't you show off a bit? Don't be a plain Jane.'
'I never really wore jewellery, except for this one necklace I'm wearing now. It's got sentimental value,' said Jane.
'Matt gave you it?' asked Joe.
'No, no. God, no. Matt never got me any jewellery.' Jane pulled a face. 'It was from my dad. On my sixteenth birthday before he got deployed.'
'Oh God, I'm sorry. I never knew,' said Emma.
'I know, it's okay. I don't really tell people about it.'
'What happened?' asked Jack.
'We didn't see him again after that,' Emma had to explain.
'Shit, sorry.'
There was silence at the table. People sorted through bags and emptied them. There was real white and yellow gold that gleamed in their hands, sapphires, opals, diamonds, emeralds and rubies. It was mesmerising.
Jane scrolled through some pictures they took together on her phone and they all crowded around to watch the videos they took. They were amused for a little while.
Jane scrolled back through some pictures on there from the old days. Not so distant really, but a lifetime away.
Her family, friends, places they had been. A picture of a pet cat, a grinning toddler, a grandparent nodding off at a party.
They sighed. Then they watched as Jane quit the picture gallery and went into her contacts. She highlighted the one marked 'Home'.
'Jane, don't,' said Jenny.
Jane pressed 'Call'. The phone worked away for a heart-wrenching second then bleeped softly. There was the message 'NO SIGNAL'. They all knew it would do that, but for the briefest second they couldn't help feel a surge of hope. Jane tried again. And again.
'Jane.'
Jane blinked back a bright sheen of tears from her eyes and went to scroll back through that day's picture gallery. She gave a sharp little intake of breath and pressed her lips together.
'Oh no,' Jenny said, as she saw there was only two per cent of the battery left.
Then the phone shut itself down. They felt cheated of the last percentage of battery life. Jane held the dead device in her hand and forlornly tried CPR on the power button a few times with her thumb. There was no effect.
She tossed the phone away without looking where. There was no way of recharging it and no chance of finding another live battery because that model was a few years old now. It was over, those memories were gone. She sniffed but managed to smile. Jane dabbed her eyes, trying not to smudge her freshly-applied face paint. It was designed like a pair of wings, like a dove or angel in white that spread on her cheeks, with black shadow around her eyes over a red and purple background.
They went back to looking through the loot.
'I can't even believe we're holding this stuff,' Jenny said, captivated. She sat back and shook her head, then she lit a joint. 'It actually does look so different when you have it all to yourself right there, not just to see it behind a glass cabinet or on someone else. Know what I mean?' She passed the spliff to Jane.
'I never even saw things like these before. I mean, I knew they were out there but I never really troubled to look. They're nothing I could have ever had or even anything like my parents ever had…' Joe said, too captivated by the jewellery to realise Jane had started to tear up. The subject was back on parents again.
'They look so good. We've got everything in the world, all the world has to offer…' Jack murmured.
'I don't know where Mum is,' Jane cried out loud. Everyone looked round in surprise. They knew Jane as always being there for everyone, being brave and positive. 'I don't want all this. I want to go home,' she said, and she hid her face in her hands.
Tom shuffled closer and put an arm around her. 'It'll all be…' He pulled off the five pairs of glasses he was wearing and chucked them down on the table. 'It'll all be okay,' he said. He checked to see if the glasses were alright.
'We don't even know if our families are alive any more,' said Jane between sobs. 'It won't ever be the same because so many people are dead. We don't even know if there is anyone out there any more.'
During this time, Jane held a joint without seeming to notice it. Jenny tried to lift it to Jane's lips but she struggled free and threw it on the table. 'No! I don't want any more of this,' she yelled.
'I wish I was dead,' Jane said, quietly. The rest of the group were quiet. There were no words to say. She had said the forbidden words that no one was allowed to confess to anyone else.
Tom, Jenny and Emma guided Jane out to her bedroom. Jack and Joe were left alone as they looked on awkwardly from the other side of the table. They didn't know what to do with themselves.
'Wanna hug?' Jack said.
'Shut up, Jack,' Joe said, scowling.
When Nick woke up it was brilliant daylight. He could see the sky from the window. It was a beautiful, pitiless azure, indifferent to the catastrophe of the human world.
He didn't feel any better after the sleep. The scratches throbbed on him and the bruises ached from the fight.
Worst was the feeling of being alone. He was sure that Jenny had lain down and slept beside him, but there was no one there.
Did that actually happen? Yes. He could vaguely remember her curling up with him, laying her head on his shoulder and wrapping her legs around his as he flopped down in a world that lurched and whirled with no sense of which way was up. He didn't think they'd had sex. It was hard to tell. He doubted if he was capable of it.
To wake up to find he was all alone in the world was one of Nick's secret fears. It kept breaking his sleep, the feeling coming with a lurch in his guts, as irrational as it was. He needed a smoke.
How long have I slept for? he thought. There was no sense of time. If anything, time felt to have done the impossible and gone backwards. They were back further than when they started, achieving nothing, just now without Ryan. How long had they all been there for?
Nick wondered what had happened while he'd slept and wasn't able to keep an eye on the world around him. He rolled around in the dirty-feeling, unfresh sheets and imagined what would happen if one of the Dead did get in while they all slept. What would happen if it was Ryan's body that came back – if he'd botched the job and the corpse came lurching stiffly back to his room, reaching for him. What if it came to his doorway with the dead accusation in his stare at him for what he had done?
He jumped out of bed and floundered to the next bedroom, where he found some of the sickly, unnatural-looking Bhuna going stale in a tin. He didn't so much roll a joint as wrap it up in a skin and set fire to it. It burned far too quickly and smokily but he still got a good pull off it, which made things a little better.