After the news of the girls' sterility was made known the whole mood of the group changed. Something lingered in the air and hung over them like a cloud. It was heavy, unmentionable, a topic that no one knew how or dared to breach. The grief was tangible in the sombre, deadened eyes, which none of the lads could meet for longer than a glance. The brave mask they wore had slipped, and the boys could only wonder at what it meant to each of the young women they had come to know as friends in the past few weeks if they saw them gazing off and thinking by themselves. It choked a lot of conversation. There were markedly fewer smiles and an abrupt halt had been put to the jocularity, squabbles and rivalries that had characterised recent days.
While they got together often, maybe more so and more regularly for company, there were no more parties like before, where a giddy high had been chased with a loud, whooping celebration over the blare of music. They drank their drinks and smoked the Bhuna with a joyless perseverance. A swift pull might be taken from a bottle and swallowed without being savoured, a glass refilled without asking. Curt streams of smoke were blown out without letting it linger and the butt ground out with a firm and merciless stub.
They played their music continually and without bickering over whose turn it was next or what they played. Spent batteries mounted on the floor around the hi-fi player, which was never allowed to fall silent. A new disc was played as soon as the last ended, like a chain-smoker lighting up as soon as their last cigarette was extinguished. There were endless games of cards. They doodled their art or crafted new ornaments to decorate their stolen nest where they spent their days brooding. It seemed they grew more creative and made more things together.
They invested more time in distractions like their games and artwork, lost in the thoughtless vacancy of a trance. The shapes and colours of their art flourished, the patterns wider, bolder, and more embellished. The vivid shades bloomed and flowered delicately and majestically all around the room in vibrant, living hues, which they traced with greater care and feeling than ever before, with more subtlety and depth. They shifted, changed, lived and breathed in the constant tides of the coloured lights.
Finally, when the light came up on a new day, the card players slumped back, weary of the same game they always played. The spliff had stopped going round and had settled at Emma, where it seemed she had forgotten to pass it on. Now and again she would absent-mindedly take a sip from the smoke as she stared at the mess of cards on the table. No one said anything or seemed to care. Tom was next, beside her, slumped and wordless. The two of them hadn't spoken and scarcely looked at each other.
These days they let it slide if there was an impatient snap or a reluctance for another to respond to what they said, or even to speak at all. They let them be silent if they wanted. Anything else was petty and insignificant compared to the shared pain the girls felt. The boys didn't murmur a word because of their mute horror at what had happened, so unexpected and shocking was it to the people they knew. What if the same had happened to them? They were haunted by the question, and the trouble was, there was no way of knowing. It hung over them, constant and brooding in the quiet they had to make an effort to break.
There was only so much of this silence and introspection they could take. There were spontaneous announcements that people were going on patrols or raids for supplies; others dropped what they were doing to say they were going too. Any residents of the town they encountered were no longer avoided or hidden from as before. If anything, the friends went out of their way to bash them down and kill them or send them retreating and wailing back to wherever they lurked among the silent, blacked-out houses with their gaping doorways and windows.
They found Katie in the early hours of the day after she disappeared. The whole group went out looking. They split into two groups and roamed the streets all night, huddling close and calling softly for their missing friend. They kept their torches low, lifting them up when they were startled by a noise, which was sometimes the wind, sometimes the town settling in its death-like sleep and sometimes a glimpse into the light-blinded eyes of one of the Dead. They wandered blindly through the dark of the town on a strange mix of adrenaline, anger and sorrow.
More than once the two groups surprised each other by coming face to face around a corner. They thought they must have covered each street twice in the whole of Paddock by the time the sky turned a dreary navy colour and the last few torches had dimmed and flickered out. They were wilting fast, limbs numb and heavy, throats dry and breathing hard. They had to give up.
When they finally returned to the house they found Katie huddled outside the locked steel gate, trembling in little starts, tearless and hypothermic. She stared ahead of her at some distant point and didn't react as they returned. Sarah held her close in a tight, fierce hug, pushing Katie's head in to her neck above her biker suit.
'I've got you, it'll be okay,' Sarah whispered, quiet, frantic, so relieved. They guided Katie inside, wrapped her in blankets and rubbed her vigorously to warm her back up in fear of her life. They hadn't found her because she went down past the allotments to the train tracks and ran, following them in whichever direction they took her, anywhere, just to get out of that awful place. Sense eventually returned to her and she walked back the way she came. Every footstep back there broke her heart, she said. She wanted to leave, but where could she go? She had no choice but to turn back. There was nowhere else for her to be but there.
Katie mumbled that she was so sorry about causing all this trouble for everyone. She hadn't realised they would all search this far, as she fell asleep in the arms of her closest friends, all of them mentally, physically, emotionally exhausted. 'Of course we would,' they said. 'Of course we always would.'
Jack and Joe decided they would venture out at some point in the next few days, just for a laugh and from the wanton foolishness that came from sheer boredom. Jack had heard Matt start asking, in that subtle way of his, if people might consider joining him on a trip to fetch more water and other essentials. So, after he crept back down the stairway he was halfway up and found Joe, news of the impending chore was enough motivation to make themselves busy.
They persuaded Tom to come along with them, Jack being eager to show off his shaky new driving skills in his brand new (very pre-used) car that he was now the proud owner of (that Nick had stolen for him). They deliberated as they went along over a route that could take them on a trip down into Huddersfield that would bypass the town centre to a large supermarket by the canal.
They carefully selected a route that would take them through quieter roads away from trouble and took a haphazard and winding journey through the organic, winding sprawl of streets typical of English towns.
They hadn't told anyone that they were going, in case they were told they weren't allowed to do so, and were probably expected to make their reappearance after an hour or so. Tom kept reminding them of this but it only made Jack more stubborn and determined to keep going and try to get back on course to head for the supermarket after their tactically improvised route took them further out of town than they hoped, as Jack revved, ground the gears and hopped along with great caution, trying not to draw attention to them all.
They passed strange scenes of burnt-out cars and buildings, debris and discarded trash strewn out across unfamiliar streets, and they speculated at what had happened along the way. There was a riot here, one said, or here a shop was ram-raided and fought over. They encountered several of the Dead along the way. For the most part they rolled the car past as the Dead turned to stare at them. Only once did they have to shunt their way through a group that gathered in an eerie congregation in the road. Jack took it slowly and powered through, and he and Joe laughed as the bodies rolled clumsily off the bumper and sprawled undignified on either side of the vehicle.
When they finally got to the supermarket it was locked down. Steel shutters blocked off the doors and windows, the contents sealed off from those that needed them most.
'Selfish bastards!' Jack slammed his hands down on the wheel and honked his horn by accident. It gave a little toot. 'Why can't the greedy, short-sighted fools share what they have with others when I'm most in need of it? This was so typical! Just my luck.'
Tom sighed. 'Let's get out and have a look,' he said, sounding weary.
Gouges and scratches marked the steel shutters and there was a collection of tools lying around. Tom held a crowbar to his one eye with any sight and looked it over.
'The end's all chipped and blunted on these. Someone's had a good go of getting in before us, so I don't think we'll have much luck,' remarked Tom.
Other items of debris proved quite interesting, especially a paper bag containing a crust of what looked to be home-made bread, and traces of fresh leafy greens between the slices. Someone must have grown them recently.
Even when they cupped their hands and pressed their faces in close to the shutters they couldn't see inside. The dark interior of the store with all its hidden promise remained impenetrable.
'Maybe if someone were sprightly enough to get up on the roof, there might be a way in through there,' remarked Jack without thinking. So up he went.
With a leg-up from some metal shelves that displayed rows of withered plants, Jack grasped a drainpipe and shimmied up from there, getting anti-vandal paint all over himself in the process. Joe chucked his mallet up to him, a little too low and too hard. It clipped Jack painfully across the shin and caused him to fall into a row of trolleys.
Once Jack got back up to the roof, Joe tossed his weapon back up to him with more care this time, his head tender from the succession of sharp, ringing slaps he'd received to the back of the helmet.
The roof was a flat, tarmacked surface that was empty and barren, speckled with chewing gum and cigarette butts, exposed to the dry wind and restless, grey sky. From here, Jack could see the murky canal set in its ancient stonework, over to what looked like an industrial park on the other side and a green belt of woodland up over the crest of the valley wall beyond. Flocks of well-fed crows cawed and flapped among the ventilators and skylights of the roof and regarded Jack with their mean, beady eyes. They were so bold and numerous that he had to swing a kick at the ones that swaggered closest.
A children's play tent was incongruously set up on the far corner outside a doorway. In the parting between its colourful, fluttering sheets a pair of legs protruded, large and bloated where the grey flesh hadn't been pecked to the bare bones. They stirred as Jack got close enough to see that the doors were chained and padlocked shut from this side. Jack whipped open the tent and grimaced at what the crows had left of the person lying there. He squinted in the blue-red gloom of the tent's interior but couldn't see a key as he scanned its contents. There was nothing for it. Despite everything in him that told him not to, he ducked inside. Jack knelt on the person's arms to pin them down. There was no way he or she, whatever the person was, could see him any more after the crows had done their work but the husk knew Jack was there. It writhed and gave a piteous grumbling in response. Jack fished in the pockets of the two padded coats the person wore to protect them from the cold but found nothing but the wrappers from chocolate bars. One coat still had its tags on, he noted. Jack rummaged through their trouser pockets, a knapsack, and through a sad collection of empty sandwich packets as quickly as he could and tried not to breathe. The horrible remains of whomever it was struggled and moaned beneath him. Even after searching everywhere twice, Jack couldn't find a key. He had to give up and roll back out.
There were fire exits on the ground floor and windows higher up on the Café area, Jack supposed. Trying to brute force their way in through those wasn't the first choice by any means, with all the noise it would make. There was a possibility of climbing down into the building through a vent, but the idea of getting stuck in one with no hope of rescue made Jack think he would rather skip through the town naked and covered in barbeque sauce.
There was nothing for him up here. He had to cut his losses. Besides, Jack had caught sight of a few shuffling scarecrow-like figures that were approaching from the other side of the car park behind Tom and Joe. He pointed over at them and gestured for Tom and Joe to turn around and look.
'What? What are you pointing at? I don't get what you mean!' They yelled back. The noise from their shouts made the Dead look their way.
Jack swore. He hadn't really considered how he would get down from the roof once he was up there. He jumped on to a van roof, landed pretty much where he'd aimed to, but his momentum kept him travelling forward. He rolled off the other side and the car alarm sang out.
'One day I swear I'll return to this damned place and ransack it for all it's worth!' Jack vowed as he hobbled away under the arms of the other two. 'But next time I'll bring a bloody ladder.'
They saw the Dead closing in were already between them and Jack's car. Their new plan was to lead them away then come back round and behind them to get to the car. The three of them hurried down a flight of stairs off the side of the car park that led down to the canal. A pathway along the water's edge ran alongside the supermarket and past the car park where they could climb back up, out of sight of the ghoulish creatures that followed them.
'How the hell did fresh bread end up out here?' Tom asked as they descended the flight of steps to where the canal sat brownish-black and still.
'Well, it would have been from one of the other groups of people,' Jack said, able to limp on his own as long as he held the rail.
'What other groups?' Tom demanded.
'Well, there's the group I encountered when I kind of lost it and went off on one into the town centre.'
'I never knew you found some other people!'
'Well, yeah! One lot of them shot me, but then there were some other nice ones who bandaged my hand, though I can barely remember.'
'You never got shot,' Tom said, disbelieving. The three of them hurried along the narrow footpath by the water's edge, hoping that the Dead would be distracted enough by the van's alarm that they could flank round and give them the slip.
'It's true! Someone shot at me, it must have been a shotgun, and I got hit by the ricochet. How have you not heard about this? Surely you haven't forgotten already.'
There was something about that incident that troubled Jack at the back of his mind. This was aside from the question of who those people were and why they wanted to murder him at first sight. Jack had sustained his injuries to his hand and the speckling of lead shot a short while ago and for some time they hadn't changed a bit. Where the skin was broken it had remained crusty and scabby, liable to open up again and leak more dark blood if he even moved or scraped it against something. The dull stains of bruising from where the shot impacted had remained the same shape and hadn't even changed colour like other bruises had in the past.
He'd shown no signs of healing until they'd brought him some food to eat. Virtually overnight the bruising shrank and lightened, and over the next couple of days the top layer of torn skin on his hand dried out and peeled off with ease, with the stitches still in it. Underneath, it left a layer of pink, tender, new skin. The scabs on his leg brushed off and left only little marks, like after chickenpox, completely healed. Jack could still see and feel a few small lumps of shot under the surface. The next day he was mobile again, and his bandages came off. Damn, he'd never finished his historical diary.
'No-one ever tells me anything,' Tom complained bitterly.
'Maybe they were mates with that old fella, remember him?' Jack said. 'He had to have come from somewhere, and he said he was going to Golcar. Matt and Nick took a trip round there but said they couldn't find anyone, though.'
Joe was out of breath and he began to gag. He doubled up, dry-heaving through his open visor. Then he leapt in the canal with a splash. He resurfaced, thrashed about, went back under in the brackish water, resurfaced again and tried to climb out but slipped and fell back in. He tried to heave himself up over the side but couldn't lift himself further than shoulder height without the help of the other two. It took all their strength to haul him out by the arms,
'The smell from my suit was making me feel sick, so I thought I would jump in the canal to wash it off real quick,' he explained.
Joe said this as water sloshed from his sleeves and trouser legs on either side as they bloated like balloons. Water squirted out of little holes and scratches in them. Jack thought it looked like garden gnomes peeing and began laughing, even as he held his head in bewilderment. Joe leant against the wall and tilted his leg up behind him to pour noisy gushes of the water out from his boot and squelched about side to side on the flagstone pathway.
'WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!' Tom screamed. 'They must have heard all that! We came down there in the hope we could still give the Dead the slip and you've well and truly paid to that in one bloody move!'
'God damn it Joe,' said Jack.
Jack got a sneaking suspicion that part of what Tom meant by demanding to know what the hell was wrong with Joe included him as well, but there was no time to ask.
By the time they'd scaled the stairs back up to the far side of the car park even more of the Dead were waiting for them, right around where their car was parked. Joe slopped and sploshed his way behind them, and he had to hang back as Jack and Tom struggled with three cadavers who came snarling and bellowing at them.
Where's your fucking hammer?' Jack shouted as he bundled an old lady to the ground and hit a portly bearded man in a white robe between the eyes.
'It's at the bottom of the canal, isn't it!' Joe said, as though it was a stupid question.
The three of them were forced to run and trip through a row of bushes as they were chased onto the street. They had no choice but to flee and leave the car behind due to the number of the Dead that followed them.
They thundered, waddled and squelched their way across a wooden bridge over the canal that led them to a pub's beer garden on the other side.
It was a nice-looking pub, with white woodwork around the long windows and a wide, sloping slate roof which gave it a cricket pavilion kind of vibe.
The three of them crashed through its beer garden, upsetting chairs, tables and ashtrays along the way until they could hide round the back and catch their breath.
Well, that was a complete clusterfuck. What are we supposed to do now?' said Tom, angry at the pair of them. 'There's no way we're getting back to the car.'
'I don't know, we could just steal another? There's a whole town full of cars. Jack's was shit anyway,' Joe said. Tom shook his head.
Jack peered around the corner. The Dead seemed to have stopped following them. They wandered around on the far bank, pacing about, looking aggravated.
The three of them searched the car park at the rear but the few vehicles left were all locked. Tom found a sorrowful little heap of ragged cloth and bones, picked clean by the birds and rats that scuttled away and eyeballed them warily from the flowerbeds.
Tom fished around in the heap of cloth and bones and pulled out a wallet and some Volvo car keys, but there were no Volvo cars in sight, neither in the car park or road outside the pub.
Jack, Joe and Tom walked back down the empty road to the nice-looking pub and listened to Joe squelch away beside them. With each squelch Joe made, Tom got angrier. There was a great distance between them and that would take a lengthy and uncomfortable journey to plod along in the biker suits. They were out of breath and tired from the pursuit and they already knew they would be in serious trouble when they got back as it was. They sat down on a bench out of sight on the canal side to regain some strength for what promised to be a very long and difficult trek home.
'Sorry, Jack,' said Joe. 'Sorry, Tom.'
From where they were they could see the broad lanes of the ring road that led directly home. It was wide and empty. It would take them right past the town centre, the university, the road where The Depot was and The Piazza. It was too open and exposed, and they couldn't move very fast, especially Joe.
The other direction would lead them far out of town. The small roads like the ones they'd used on the way there would add a lot longer to the journey and had their own dangers, like how the winding streets restricted how far they could see ahead and made them run the risk of running into the congregations of the Dead they'd passed on the way there.
None of them were that athletic to begin with; now one had a suit full of stagnant, stinking water and Jack was limping on a sore leg from when a hammer had been chucked at him. It didn't look good. Frankly, it was depressing.
Only the murky water of the canal led in the direction they wanted, Joe pointed out, but they couldn't cross it by foot and certainly couldn't swim it. 'Oh well,' said Joe, and appeared to think nothing more about it.
Those same murky waters did have a whole row of smartly coloured barges moored right outside the nice-looking pub, though.
A whole row of barges, waiting there. Outside the pub. Where they sat. Jack looked from one to the next.
Jack surprised them when he jumped up, grabbed Joe by the shoulders, shook him and called him a genius. He scrambled down to the moorings and the other two followed, asking what had got into him.
They persuaded each cabin door open with a hefty boot, and as luck would have it they found one with an occupant languishing inside and the keys still in the engine. They gave the occupant a respectful burial at sea, with their heartfelt gratitude, a heave-ho and a splash. They got the engine chugging away, and after they thought to unmoor the vessel, they cruised down the canal, laughing in delight at the devastating genius of their wit.
They flipped the bird to the dozen or so Dead who'd gathered on the bridge to glare and sputter oaths at them as they very steadily sailed by. A couple at the front got too close to the water's edge and were nudged in by those at the back, much to their amusement.
From there it was literally plain sailing. The canal took them on a steady voyage through the town, the industrial-age bridges soaring majestically overhead, and they reached up to stroke the slimy, ancient stone and metalwork as they glided by.
They felt the roughness of the stone, the sheer coldness of the metal and were exhilarated and thrilled to laughter at how they drifted along with such ease when the prospect of a long trudge back had been so daunting all but a few minutes ago.
They watched wide-eyed and held their breath as they were steadily, inexorably swallowed by the looming maw of tunnels and entered the gloomy majesty of the cavernous underworld before they emerged the other side into the sunlight.
After all the time they'd lived in Huddersfield, they'd never once paid attention to these narrow waterways that interlaced the town. The canals had always been there, silent and motionless on the other side of the rough stone walls or buildings they had passed so often. Now they sailed by these familiar places and saw them from the other side, hidden to the public.
Jack supposed there was a kind of voyeuristic fascination to see the buildings from these new angles, the forbidden views of the rear elevation, which they were never meant to see. They were off-limits to any average pedestrian and could only be seen by the bold trespasser who had the courage to revel in their shenanigans.
It was to the vagabond and delinquent with the wit to think outside the box that the town opened up and exposed its secrets. For once, that person was him. In the days before the Big Bang he'd been timid and reclusive, held captive and tormented by the constraints of others and the world around him. Now he could freely hop between the tightropes of the rules with impunity. This is why he was the jester with his harlequin mask. He was one of the special few who escaped God's apocalyptic wrath to laugh among the ashes.
By the time they returned home they were so thrilled by what they saw and were so impressed by their own exploits they forgot how much trouble they were in. They were empty-handed, Joe reeked of stagnant canal water and no one was impressed by his and Jack's delirious gabbling about their nautical adventure. Tom was able to pass all the blame to them with ease.
The friends gathered in a den after a morning spent reinforcing a barricade. It was a couple of days after Tom, Jack and Joe, with infinite regret, abandoned their barge when they came to a lock gate at the foot of Paddock hill. Jack and Joe still hadn't been forgiven for their seafaring adventures and having lost Jack's car but continued to chatter away about the genius of the escape they made. At least it broke the mournful quiet that hung over them all.
'It was the bestest fun,' Jack said. 'We merrily cruised the briny straight through Huddersfield and they couldn't. Even. Touch us.'
'Alright, Cap'n Jack, we heard you say all this the first time,' Nick said as Andy passed a joint around. 'You found a love of the sea. At least from what you swallowed.'
'We were the legendary land pirates of Huddersfield, sailing the seven ADD's!' Jack responded.
'Have you got ADD? You haven't stopped talking about it and been jabbering away about boats since we sat down,' said Andy,
'Who knows how far the waterways go? We've got free pass all the way round town to go where we please. I wanna go again, and see where we can end up,' said Joe.
'The barges have loads of storage space. We can sail back with a fat load of cargo and not have to carry all our loot around,' said Jack.
'Don't they go at two miles per hour and leave you exposed in the water like a sitting duck?' Katie asked.
'Well, yeah, but…' Joe began.
'Dunno, doesn't sound like fun to me,' Sarah cut in. 'I'd rather rest up and get some rest.'
'Rest from what?' Matt said.
'We could get the whole crew down there and go sailing, explore a bit, and see where it takes us,' Nick said. 'At least it would be a new way to get around.'
'Yes!' exclaimed Jack and Joe.
'No!' said Matt.
'We could use a trip out of here. I'm bored. We might find somewhere new, somewhere untouched,' Jenny said as she blew a plume of smoke and took it back in through her nostrils.
'We could all dress up like pirates!' said Sarah and chuckled into her glass of wine. There was a pause.
'No, that's silly.'
'Yeah, that would be dumb.'
'Let's not be daft about this.'
'Although…'
Within hours they had taken a trip down to the lock gate dressed as pirates. Their face paint had been redone, fresh and vivid, and they seemed in high spirits, each determined that they were going to appear bright and cheerful today. Today was going to be fun and they would all enjoy it. It was a good turnout and nearly all of them attended.
Matt was infuriated by the idea, which they found predictable, and his girlfriend Jane was absent from the group also. They hadn't seen much of her recently. Jane made her excuses and said she felt unwell. She rarely left her room these days.
The rest of the bold, colourful troupe reversed the barge back down the canal with the help of some scaffolding they used like a gondola pole after they liberated it from a house forever frozen halfway through construction. They wore tricorne hats, eyepatches and costumes they'd found in a toyshop. They swigged rum from the bottle, waved plastic cutlasses and smoked Bhuna out of old-style wooden pipes.
After some struggling and bumping they sailed back down the canal to where the other boats waited in the wharf outside the pub. In the docking area they managed to commandeer another barge and had room enough to sail their rival ships, where each circled each other under the sun of an uncommonly pleasant afternoon. Now and then they took potshots at each other with water pistols and toy guns that fired foam darts as the hi-fi played. On occasion, someone would good-naturedly lob an empty bottle at the opposing vessel.
They rammed each other or boarded the enemy's vessel by hopping the gap and play-wrestling and sparring with their plastic swords when they got there. The boys made the girls scream when they stood on the ship's deck and rocked it, making it pitch from side to side, threatening to capsize. They splashed water at each other despite Jack and Joe imploring them not to do so. There were only a couple of occasions when someone nearly fell in and dunked a leg in the vile water, but they were helped back up by any and every nearest hand. Not being weighed down by the biker suits, they were heaved back up on board with little trouble to let the sun dry them.
The Dead observed them from the bridge and the pub beer garden. They stood in their grave-like regiments, still and watchful. They stared and they twitched, reacting to some of the louder noises and movements the friends made. The ever-present crows, guttural, saturnine and impassive, hopped, flocked and cawed to each other in the nearby greenery, and the rats flitted and cheeped, defiant towards the bizarre, multicoloured intruders in the town they claimed as their own. The Dead stamped or kicked at any rat that got too close or swiped at a crow that flew nearby. They could do nothing about the humming clouds of flies around them.
Laughing, the friends decided to name the Dead who watched them and invent stories about them and their private lives.
'Barry here is getting it on with Tracey, but Becky doesn't know,' remarked Nick, with a grin.
'Becky doesn't know Barry's got a secret bank account with what he embezzled from work. He's sugar daddy to Tracey and two other girls. But Tracey doesn't know that,' said Emma.
'G'warn Barry!' said Sarah.
'Tracey doesn't know that Barry's into pegging,' said Jack.
'Helen's bi-curious with Mandy, and likes it when Terry watches,' said Jenny.
'Terry's father to Barry's kid.'
'Becky has a bucket list. She wants to work her way through the alphabet and is mad as hell that Xavier's a fruit.'
'Terry turned down Xavier, but five drinks later they got it on at the bowling green. Now Terry has a confession that he needs to make to Helen.'
'Mandy has crabs.'
'She got them from Terry.'
'I want to take a dip,' said Jenny, fumbling and uncoordinated in her attempt to take her pirate costume off to get down to her bikini.
'I would advise against it,' remarked Joe, sage from his experience.
'Not the best idea,' said Jack.
Jenny scowled and muttered something under her breath. She held herself over the side of the boat and slid into the water.
'It's fine,' Jenny said as she swam about for a few strokes. 'Why don't you come on i-'
Jenny floundered and went under. Her head burst up to the surface. She screamed and went back down again.
Nick dived in and skimmed under the surface. He hooked an arm under Jenny's shoulders and swam her backwards to the barge. Jenny cried out, thrashing and panicking with a look of terror on her face. She slapped Nick about the head while the others shrieked and clamoured for someone to do something.
On the deck Jenny sat and shivered, and sobbed with fear.
'What the hell happened?' asked Emma as she wrapped Jenny's t-shirt around her shoulders and gave a vigorous rub.
'A hand grabbed my foot,' Jenny stammered. 'It pulled me under.'
The others didn't know if they believed her. They looked at Jack and Joe with scorn as they failed to conceal their amusement when Jenny was sick all over the side of the boat from the water she'd swallowed.
The friends looked into the canal. It was black and still.
'Maybe you snagged your foot on a trolley,' said Emma.
'You're safe now. It'll be alright, get yourself dry,' said Tom.
Nick peeled off his t-shirt it dropped on the deck with a wet slap. He scraped off handfuls of the water that left dark streaks over him and wrung it out of his hair. The mood was ruined.
The sun began to set. The friends sat and watched the warm yellow and orange glow in the sky and passed around their bottles or pipes.
'I would advise you wrap up and put some clothes on if you hadn't already, even if you don't feel the cold,' Andy mumbled as he lay on the deck and slipped into semi-consciousness.
Many pulled on uncomfortable, damp clothes and wished they'd thought to bring a towel. It had been a fun day but they decided it was time to head home.
Those that got wet sniffed themselves and complained that the water made them stink.
'We told you so,' said Jack and Joe, and were told in return that no one asked them.