On another morning, sometime after yet another uncountable, sleepless night, Tom stood at the barricades along with Matt, Jack and Joe.
'Here, take a pull from this,' Tom said, and he passed round a bottle of Patrón XO Café after he took a draught himself. 'It'll wake ye up and get ya in a working mood.'
Tom grinned with his strong white teeth at the rest of the friends, who scowled with their bleak, hollow eyes against the strong sun. They looked somewhat reluctant to face the morning pick-me-up of choice, but each took their turn to have a swig.
'I literally couldn't not want this any less,' grumbled Joe.
'But you didn't not come,' said Jack.
'I wouldn't never refrain from doing so if I wasn't unforced.'
'Nevertheless you didn't abstain from that which you weren't uncompelled to not imbibe.'
'Goddamn it!' Joe counted the double and triple-negatives on his fingers. 'No, I didn't… not?' he replied.
'You two shut up?' said Matt.
As the others burped, snubbed out cigarettes and grumbled, Tom showed them a heap of timber, dismantled furniture, doorframes and wooden doors. He was livelier and more talkative than his usual self now. Barricades were his speciality; he was in his element.
'I managed to scavenge these out of houses. They'll make great additions to the barriers, and I've been busy and managed to stump together a bunch of tools and nails and things from where we emptied the sheds for the Bhuna,' Tom said. The friends listened to his plans for their Castle on the hill.
There needed to be a stronger barricade at a driveway on the north side, Tom said. A concealed exit in the bottom of the one over here should be made as it lacked an escape route for emergencies. Bear in mind all escape routes had to be ones you could push outwards in a hurry, and not ones that could be pushed inwards from the outside.
This other barrier was an early one and poorly constructed. This one should be torn down and the parts recycled. They needed to continue the trend of having a barricade mounted on L-shaped brackets. This would allow it to be removable, which in the future could be really useful, like if they ever wanted to bring the van into the driveway. Also, it could be flipped onto its front in an evacuation to allow several people to pass at once.
'Only having enough room for one to squeeze through at a time could be fatal,' Tom said. 'If we needed to escape together, the push could get someone stuck and then everyone could be trapped.'
'If we could use it so easily then couldn't the Dead do so as well?' said Joe.
'They couldn't push it forward from the other side because of the support struts going back along the ground. If we drove a couple of stakes into the ground it would stop the whole thing from being pushed back. We could attach a rope to the top so we could draw it back up once we're inside.' It was a dumb question but Tom was patient and used big gestures to explain what he meant.
'Are we still going with the idea that barricades need to be big and strong, or just well-camouflaged?' asked Matt. 'If so, how much faith can we put into making them light and removable on the understanding that the Dead won't pay it any attention?'
'The Dead are dumb. They wouldn't pay the barrier any attention because it's just an inanimate object. No interest to them,' said Jack.
'When we went trick-or-treating, didn't some people say they saw the Dead interacting with inanimate objects, like collecting them together, stacking them up and making things with them, though?' said Joe.
'Well, yes, I saw something that looked like that. It was hard to be sure. I think they were just piling junk together. I've never seen them do anything with any kind of constructive intelligence, though,' Jack replied.
'Good questions; well phrased,' said Tom. 'I think we should aim for a happy medium. Another function of the barricades is to provide an early warning. This is why we have to put up more alarms like tin cans strung on lengths of clothes line. The only trouble is, you have to blend it in with all the other junk so it just looks like it's piled on and so I doesn't knock about too much in the wind. Ideally we need concealed barricades that look like heaps of junk from looted shops. I know the Dead can't tell the difference, but if any people came by, you don't know what their intentions may be.'
'A lot of those shops were looted by us,' pointed out Joe.
'Yes, but not all of them. How is that relevant?' said Tom.
'I dunno. Just saying,' mumbled Joe. 'If someone saw them, some buildings were looted by us and they might tell because we were the ones who looted them, and I think if someone had bad intentions they would sneak in, but if they came to help they would knock. Or call for us, but how can you tell?'
'But how would they know it was us that looted them, or… where we are? What are you getting at?' said Matt.
'I'm just pointing it out! Did you know there's like a whole road of shops we haven't even touched if you go up past the roundabout and keep going up that way? But here we have.' Joe tried to explain.
'Oh yeah,' said Jack, 'Katie asked if someone could go with her to a hairdresser's at the end of the street. She wants to get supplies so she can cut our hair. I need it.'
But we haven't looted them, like here,' Joe interjected.
Tom was confused. 'What? What's this got to do with our barricades?'
'There's… a… whole… bunch… of… shops… up… the… road… we… haven't… touched,' Joe said, spelling it out to Tom as though he were an idiot.
'Why are you telling me this?'
'Because it's true!'
'How is this relevant?'
'Because it always is!' Joe shouted. Tom gave up trying to understand.
'Goddamn it, Joe, think before you talk,' said Matt. 'I agree that the barriers don't have to be really big and heavy. As long as they can keep out a few Dead and alert us, it can buy us time to think of a plan.'
'But if a mob came, and they travel in mobs, then we would be in trouble…'
'True, but it would buy us time, and that's important…'
'Why would any more than a couple even try to get in if they didn't even know we were here? The barrier doesn't need to be strong, especially on the back road…'
'If they did try to get through the barricade they would make noise and alert us. We need barriers even if it's just to stop a lone one getting in and surprising us…'
'I prefer the really big ones. I don't get why you're trying to make it too complicated.'
'Christ! I'll start again…'
These were the main points of the discussion the friends had before they started any work, but because of the alcohol and Bhuna, much of what was said was repeated or fuddled in meaning, told circuitously or meanderingly and misunderstood. It was early evening before they actually got to their feet to make anything happen.
During all this time Jack made less contribution to what was said and planned because his mind was elsewhere. Mostly on the subject of Emily. He had thought about her a lot since the last unhappy, confused time he'd spoken to her back at The Depot bar. He'd managed to offend her somehow. How could he clear the air? He knew she was lying in bed right now and she was hurt. What if he'd already left it too long to show that he cared? Jack waited until the discussion broke up and for everyone to take a break to urinate in someone's garden and then he sneaked off, the barricades much discussed but still untouched.
Sarah helped Katie cook a meal for everyone in a house that they and Emily had made their own. They boiled a large pan of quinoa to which they would add onion and garlic, olives and artichoke, tinned spinach, mushrooms and pine nuts.
'I made things like this a lot when I was back in student halls,' Katie said. 'I was a vegan once, for a bit.'
'This looks nice. Wholesome,' said Sarah. 'I never knew how to cook. My sandwich toaster was a lifesaver. Not kidding. You can pop pretty much anything between two bits of bread, burn it a bit and call it a sandwich. Lord knows I tried.'
'It makes such a nice change from just eating curry all the time. I'm getting pretty sick of it. We can't just eat that, we need proper nutrition. As if there isn't enough out there that's bad for our health or trying to kill us. We need proper nourishment. And the boys hardly ever change the recipe,' Katie said.
'Except when they get it wrong,' said Sarah. 'I've seen them. They never measure anything, just chuck it in and hope for the best. They're like "THIS IS THE KIND OF SHIT THAT GOES IN A CURRY. LET'S THROW IN A WHOLE HANDFUL" and then that's too much and so they have to add even more of the other stuff to balance it out. Then they go sample, grimace, chuck more stuff in, sample, grimace, chuck more stuff in, oh bugger that was too much, chuck more of the first stuff in, sample, grimace, chuck some more stuff in, sample, grimace… throw it away and start again…'
'Ha ha! Yes!' said Katie, laughing. 'And they never ever bother to clean up their mess afterwards. The day I see them actually follow a recipe, measure things out, time it and clean, I'll know the world as we know it really has come to an end!'
'Like us you mean.'
'Alright, yeah, don't get clever. I've put tons of garlic and herbs in this, but you can still barely tell. It must be all the curry we've eaten. Nothing tastes like much any more, except –what do the lads call it? – The Balti.'
'THUH BALTI,' Sarah boomed in a man-voice, dropping the 't' to mimic the lads.
'BALTIIII,' boomed Katie. 'AN' THUH BHUUNERR.' The girls laughed and agreed that the boys were idiots.
'You're right, though,' said Sarah. 'I never thought I'd see the day when I could honestly tell you that I don't even care about chocolate any more. There's entire stores full of the stuff for the taking and I haven't touched any. It just tastes kind of bitter, and clayish.'
Katie quietly agreed. 'The same goes for everything except that bloody curry. It must have killed our taste buds. Even now, this hardly smells of anything either. I've put so much onion and a whole bulb of garlic in it. This should be stinkin'!'
Katie drained the quinoa and tipped it into a heated pan with frying onion and garlic. She told Sarah to start stirring in the mushrooms and pine nuts. 'I hope they actually eat some after all the trouble we've gone to,' she said.
The two of them sipped some wine and Katie admired her handiwork on the face-paint design she'd given Sarah before they'd started cooking. It was good to see her happy like this while they were doing something positive, Katie thought. Their eyes met. Sarah had a sunny beam on her face. It was a welcome change from the anger and tension of late. Sarah stopped looking back first and Katie thought she saw a glimpse of a bashful smile.
Actually, Sarah was trying not to smirk. A while ago she had painted an embellishment on the side of Katie's face in a distinctly vaginal shape. Katie still hadn't realised.
'The boys have got way too egotistical and domineering these days,' Katie said. 'What the hell's their problem?' Sarah stirred the pot idly and hummed.
'I'm sick of them being at each other's throats all the time,' Katie said. 'They have all these big ideas about what to do, and what they should do with us as well. I'm sick of them getting pushy with us. It's like they want to rush headlong to an early grave and take us all with them for the sake of these big ideas of theirs. All this happening has brought out a real nasty side to people. I don't think I even know some of them any more.'
Sarah hummed and nodded while Katie said her piece. She really couldn't be bothered to have this conversation right now.
'Why do you even want Nick around? We don't need him,' said Katie.
Sarah gritted her teeth a little and rolled her eyes.
The pot's contents didn't look appetising in the slightest. The girls tasted some. Sarah covered her mouth but politely didn't say anything while Katie wrinkled her nose. She dug a fork in, pushed it into her mouth and chewed laboriously for a solid minute. She even had to stop to breathe a couple of times. Katie tried hard but could only swallow the tiniest amount and spat the rest in the bin.
'I don't get it. It tastes like – nothing,' she whined.
'Chuck it?'
Katie slopped out the afternoon's work into the bin, pot and all.
'Oh, before I forget, did you manage to get what I asked for? Some pads and the pill?' Sarah asked.
A haunted, empty look appeared in Katie's eyes. 'Yes, I did,' she replied quietly.
'Good,' said Sarah. 'I'll be in need soon enough.'
Katie remained silent.
There was a tapping on the door, which creaked open to reveal Jack on the other side. 'Hi, where's Emily? I thought I'd pop round to see if she's okay,' he said.
'She's sleeping. Don't go in there,' said Katie, inadvertently indicating which room Emily was in.
'I just wanted to pop round and see how she is,' said Jack, and he put his hand on the door handle.
'She's sleeping, leave her alone!' shouted Sarah, and she moved in to block the door as Jack knocked on it.
Sarah intercepted Jack and stood between him and the door. He looked up at the taller girl, his head level at her chest height, and stood his ground as Sarah tried to prise his hand off the handle, which made him hold on tighter.
'Piss off, won't you? She's asleep!' Sarah shouted in his face.
'It's okay,' they heard Emily said from inside the room. The handle moved under Jack's hand and the door opened a crack to reveal Emily on the other side. Sarah let go of Jack and he slid past her on his way in.
Emily hadn't been asleep. She had been lying in the dark for quite some time, listening to the voices outside, and at the sound of the argument got up to put a dressing gown on. She sat back on the bed, smoothed back her hair and pulled the dressing gown tight over her hands to cover the cuts and bruising of her injuries. She was also conscious of how she must smell, having been laid up in bed and not having washed for some time. All in all, she felt tired, grimy, and quite unattractive.
Jack closed the door behind him. 'Shall I open the curtains?' he asked.
'I'm not sure you want to do that,' Emily said.
After hesitating and perching on the corner of the bed Jack attempted to make conversation. 'Are you okay? Getting better?' he asked her. Emily gave a small noise in response, neither a yes nor a no.
Jack looked a bit stuck and picked at his thumb nail.
'People wonder how you are,' Jack said. 'You shouldn't shut yourself away.'
'Do they ask after me?' Emily asked, quietly.
Jack said they did. 'How come we never see you? Why do you lock yourself away in here?' he asked.
'Well, how would you feel if there's a world out there full of dead people who want to kill you? When the only people you know act like idiots and are their own worst enemy?' Emily couldn't keep the edge from her voice. Jack looked off into the distance and nodded. He probably thought she was only referring to Nick, or Matt.
'It's not so bad. It has its moments,' Jack said, as he struggled for any words of optimism.
'And they all seem intent on taking everyone down with them.' Emily hugged her knees tighter.
'Well, when those around you have their grand plans and seem so deadly serious in their intent, I think it's fun to play the fool once in a while. That way you can take all this madness with a pinch of salt and not be too serious. If you're stuck in here feeling down, you should try it!'
'For once in our life we are given this one special opportunity – a gift! To be freed from society and how it wants us to be. Why don't you come out and join us if all this makes you glum? Come and steal a laugh from this big cruel world, rob yourself a chuckle from the mean old mess. There's wisdom to it in these times.'
Jack appeared to warm to the theme. 'What better than to make a joke of it all and play a prank on the cold hardness of the world and all the rules it makes up for itself, and all the self-important people in it? Show me a visionary and I'll show you a fool. The grander their ideals, the greater their ambitions and self-opinion, the more preposterous they are in their conceit. They build their castles on clouds and build palaces in monument to their ego. See how easily it all comes tumbling down. There is nothing more foolish than the vaulting ambitions of a would-be king, and none wiser that the one who mocks it all - the Joker.'
'Not standing for anything doesn't make you clever. Messing around and not trying at anything in life doesn't make you wise or me any less hungry,' retorted Emily, frowning at Jack's speech.
'We are the reluctant heirs of the whole planet and all that's in it. The world is our stage and we write the play – we, the actors and audience, rule-makers, jesters, lords and lawbreakers. It's all ours if we want it to be. We only have to make our claim to it. We can own it, not hide in the wings and let the carnival pass us by.'
'I nearly got killed. We live hand to mouth on meagre supplies of food that we don't know how long will last and we can't stay here forever. I don't want to stay here forever. Not now, not at all, not a moment longer than I must,' Emily could hear her voice tremble.
'Hey, this isn't forever. There's a kind of freedom to it all, for once in a lifetime. All the things you disliked about the old world, all the things you would change or thought were unjust are now resolved, because that old world no longer exists. It's a chance to start fresh and reinvent yourself, to reimagine the world and yourself in it.' Jack narrated his musing somewhere up towards the ceiling. 'Yes, it's a rare chance at true freedom, with everything out there in the world free for the taking. That's why I play the fool.'
'You do,' Emily said.
Jack gave an awkward laugh. The comment clearly dug at him.
None of this helped her in any way, Emily thought. Fake philosophical posturing didn't get them food or water, made them safe or got them any closer to being rescued. Quite the opposite, if anything. It was all an unnecessary goading of fate and led them on a merry dance to even more danger.
She didn't even think Jack believed the nonsense he said, at least what she could follow. Especially when whatever giddy buzz he was in wore off, and in a sombre moment he skulked about looking so excruciating and awkward, and acting forlorn, scowling and depressed under his stupid clown make-up, whatever it was supposed to be.
Another awkward silence. Emily didn't know what to say. Why was he here, what did he really want?
Jack lowered his voice. 'Are you badly hurt? Did they really hurt you, are you still shook up by it all…'
'Yes, I'm still shook up by it all. You don't know what it was like under all of them, to be attacked, to be trapped and helpless like that. I thought I was done for, with them all on top, trying to hurt me.' There was a flash of memories. Reaching, clawing, grey hands, pounding fists, raking, purple nails, distant screams of panic and terror, probably her own. Emily screwed her eyes shut.
'I can still see their teeth marks on my arms where they bit me. Their teeth didn't puncture the jacket but they still bruised my arms, and my hands. My jacket's thinner there and the bites are nastier. They could chew through my gloves,' Emily said.
'Can I see?' asked Jack, and he held out his hand. Emily hesitated, her arms still folded up in the dressing gown, but then she placed her hand on his.
Emily felt herself nearly crack up in tears at the state of her arms and hands. 'You can't see them so well now, they've faded since yesterday, but those are people's teeth marks. You can see the shape of them, how they grew in each person, their natural differences. I can't tell you how much that disturbs me. It upsets me. You can see how each tooth grew in the living person, but now they are all grey and sick and they wanted to hurt me and I don't know why. Those were people out there who were alive, and we saw them or knew them, maybe passed them in the street or waited in a queue with them, went to the same places maybe. They had names, but now they're like that. Dead.
'Don't you feel different, since we started smoking that… stuff?' Emily said. 'It's got to be bad for us, the way we go on. It's got to be bad for our health. My skin always feels so cold and dry. I hardly perspire and my veins seem dark, almost grey.' Emily ran her fingertips over her pale skin and the dark welts and bruises of her arms. 'My pulse seems so shallow and faint, and we hardly eat,' she whispered.
'Lots of stimulants have an astringent effect. They reduce perspiration and blood flow to the skin and outer extremities,' Jack pointed out. 'And they affect the appetite.' Emily was silent.
'Well, we don't feel ill, do we? I feel great when I smoke. And hey, at least we won't get fat.' Jack grinned.
This was no comfort at all as far as Emily was concerned. She held her knees close to her chest and hoped Jack didn't intend on hugging her as he hovered close by.
'I want to get out of here. I want to go home,' Emily said. 'I don't even know what the hell could be my place in all this. Everyone seems mad, with their stupid plans, and they constantly fight when we're already surrounded by so much danger. It's like the world's burning and people want to play with the fire.' She shot a look at Jack. 'I don't want to be part of it, and I don't want to ever be anywhere near another of the Dead ever again.'
'Don't shut yourself away and brood in here. Come out and party sometime with me and Joe, that'll make you feel better,' Jack said.
'I miss everyone back home, all the people I used to know. Friends, tutors, even the ones I didn't like. I wish I could see them all again,' said Emily.
'It'll do you a world of good to get out there and do things, to get motivated and be out there in the world,' Jack said.
'I want someone to listen and understand, at least someone who can make me feel better and feel safe. Katie and Sarah don't. I feel like I don't know anyone any more.'
'There's loads of fun things we've found to do! I don't just mean games we play, but so many places to explore and new things to discover. There's the whole world out there – if you get out and see it then you'll feel better for it I'm sure!'
'I've had enough and I don't feel I'm keeping it together any more.'
They were talking at cross-purposes and the weak attempt at conversation meandered out. Emily withdrew her hand.
She had tried to give Jack one more chance to man up, show that he cared and to be there for her. He wasn't listening or seemed able to understand even after she was brave enough to open up and confess how she felt. He must be too immature to understand.
With nothing left to say, Jack got up to leave. On his way out he said he looked forward to seeing her again later, when she was ready and hoped she got better soon before he shut the door.
Sarah and Nick slipped off to a place where they whispered plans to rendezvous in a house along the front of the Castle on Church Street.
He let Sarah in to what seemed like a family home, neat and clean, lived in by a young couple. Now they had vanished and left the house behind, pristine and untouched since the big day, Nick and Sarah found a couple of pictures of them and some family members, smiling and laughing. There was still the faint scent of them and their deodorants, perfumes and cleaning products in the dormant air. Nick found clean bedsheets in a cupboard, and they still smelt like fresh laundry when he buried his face in them. It was one of his favourite smells, he said. It was an old smell, an extinct one for them. The laundry cupboard was next to an empty bedroom with a cot, forever left waiting to be filled with life.
Nick had explored this house a few days back, after he'd tried his luck with the house next door. In that one, Sarah had held a ladder steady as Nick crawled through an open window and fell into its bathroom. While he searched the house for a key, he caught a whiff of the now-familiar smell of putrefaction and sewage. Behind a door he found one of the Dead harnessed in a wheelchair.
It was a boy. He looked up at Nick's intrusion with a weak moan, startled into life from the inert silence of where he'd been left. The boy had malformed limbs that grew at irregular, misshapen angles from the bony cage of his ribs that were skeletal with malnourishment. His family must have left him there. Nick put a bag over the boy's head to blot out the world and slow him to deactivation. He shut the door. This house was no good, he said to Sarah, but he never told her why. And so they tried the next house.
In this clean, quiet home, with its occupants vanished in their Marie Celeste-like mystery, Nick and Sarah were free and could find a little solace from the outside world.
Nick lay down on someone else's bed and enjoyed its comfort while he waited for Sarah to emerge from their bathroom. She took in her spoils from the shop on The Piazza. Some seemed to be missing, she remarked with regret. They lit about a dozen candles around the room, and they guttered and flickered with their warm glow when they drew the curtains. Nick was keen to see what else she had in her bag.
After a while, Sarah walked out of the en suite. She wore knee-high black stiletto boots and a fishnet body stocking with nothing underneath. The colours of her face paint burned freshly vivid.
The purple stars over her eyes and her white face and scarlet lips glowed, and the turquoise and gold tiara rendering across her brow gleamed. The entire length of her tall, slender body glistened as she stood in front of Nick, who sat up to see.
Sarah poured some kind of glittering massage oil along the length of her arm, over her shoulder, and down across her chest. She smeared its wet gleam over her skin and rubbed the luscious fluid onto her breasts. Sarah bit her lip and felt the sensation all over her, lost in the performance she'd dreamt up over the past few days.
Sarah's hair flicked out as she turned her back on Nick, heels pinioned to the floor like compass points. She twisted to the side so she could smooth the brilliant lustre down her side, back, and along a leg, making her skin sheer and glassy, wetting the dark string she wore until it clung to her. She rubbed the oil in, massaging the length of her body in the wetness. Sarah held her hair aside as she poured this magic oil down her back, and it ran with slick, languid slowness. If it could have made a sound it would have been of hearts breaking. She bent forward to trace it with her fingertips down the back of her thighs.
Nick lay still, breathing hard, and was aching to be free of his jeans as Sarah scissor-stepped her way over to him in those heels, which pinned the whole world down beneath her feet. She stayed Nick's fumbling hand and held it back down to the bed.
Sarah put one hand on Nick's chest and bent down until her nipples touched his and her lips were tantalisingly close over his own, and he strained to reach them.
'Nuh-uh,' she breathed. 'You're mine.'
She removed the torturous, restraining hand, and with a firm tug, she exposed Nick to the cool air and drank hotly from him.