by Haywood, RR
‘He looks happy though,’ Marcy said, and the others all agreed that the fat man looked very happy.
‘Cannabis shed,’ I said and walked into the garden. Mohammed went over to the shed and broke the door open. He said it was full of weed. Weed is a slang term. It means cannabis. Weeds are also plants that grow in gardens that are unwelcome.
‘How did he know?’ Nicholas asked. ‘He’s like a Jedi.’
I didn’t know if Nicholas meant the person who owned the shed was a Jedi or if I was a Jedi.
I am not a Jedi.
Then, Natasha said she really wanted a joint.
‘What you doing here?’ Alex asked her. ‘I thought you were driving.’
‘Driving where? We’ve been in the same street for ten minutes.’
‘We should take one,’ Paula said. The others all looked at her. ‘What? Just grab one, and let’s go. Or two, grab two. Two of the big ones.’
‘Paula!’ Marcy said. Then, she told the lads to grab three or four cannabis plants. I wanted to tell them cannabis is unlawful, but then, I remembered the next thing in my head.
‘What about Henry?’ Natasha asked.
‘F*ck Henry!’ Paula said. But I had seen the sofa in the next garden and went into the house.
‘Classy,’ Marcy said when she saw the sofa in the garden. ‘And Jesus! Look at the size of that TV,’ she said when she saw inside the house, and a very big flat screen television parcel taped to the wall.
I saw the yellow clock in the kitchen and was walking through when I saw the body. But the body was not there before. ‘That body wasn’t here before,’ I told Mr Howie.
I thought he should know.
He looked at me, then said, ‘It’s the apocalypse, Dave.’
I said, ‘Okay, Mr Howie.’ And I kept going into the next house that Milly went through.
‘Stop!’ Marcy said in the kitchen. We all stopped, and she took a packet from the side counter. ‘Look! Lemon drizzle cake mix. I make the best lemon cake ever. I can beef it up with some extra flour.’ She was taking mixing bowls and baking trays from the cupboards. ‘Yes! They’ve got eggs.’
She broke one in the sink and sniffed it. ‘Yeah. They’re fine. Ish. Kind of. Whatever. It’s not like we can get sick, is it. Anyway. Stop messing about,’ she told Mr Howie in a very stern voice. ‘Dave needs to focus.’
I don’t know why she said that. Mr Howie hadn’t said anything.
I went outside, and we saw Roy standing next to Mr Henry’s open window.
‘I mean, a compound bow has manoeuvrability and needs far less power for the pull and hold, but in my opinion, the longbow is the best,’ Roy said as Frank pulled a face at everyone going past.
‘Honestly. You’ll love my sticky drizzle,’ Marcy shouted at them.
‘I mean. The longbow did the job at Agincourt, didn’t it,’ Roy said. ‘Interesting story actually, did you know that’s where doing the V sign with your fingers comes from?’
Mr Henry, Frank, Carmen, and Joan all said YES very loudly while Bashir rubbed his nose. Then, Mr Howie used the radio to ask for the Saxon to be brought around to the next street, and Maddox got out of Roy’s van and said he would do it, but Natasha ran over while holding a big cannabis plant and shouted, ‘GET OUT OF MY SAXON.’
The Saxon is not owned by Natasha. It is owned by the British Army as a training vehicle deployed to Salisbury Plains.
Then, I saw Mr Henry shaking his head, ‘Dear god. They’re using Dave like a bloody sniffer dog.’
I am not a sniffer dog.
I cannot smell the way Milly went. My nose is not powerful enough.
I saw the fence Milly climbed over to get into the safari park, and Marcy asked me if I could retrace her steps. That’s when the tree on the corner of the street started glowing in my mind, and I knew we had gone past it on that side of the street.
Then, when I saw the tree with my eyes, I saw a white gate glowing in my mind, and I knew we had gone through that gate. Then, when I saw it with my eyes, I saw a door glowing in my mind with a sequential transition from one to the next. The blue kettle. The gnome urinating in the pond. The broken greenhouse. The solar panels on the shed, and the smell of cannabis in the air.
That’s what happens when I fight. I can see the next steps in my mind.
Reginald said the neural pathways in my brain are structured differently. Which is how I am able to process vast quantities of data in micro-seconds.
Reginald is right. I can do that. I can look at a group of infected and know the numbers and individual trajectories of each one. I can gauge distance, motion, and risk and prioritise all of those things in order of threat.
But my brain does not work in social situations. I do not understand facial expressions. It is easier the more I know someone. Like with Mr Howie and Marcy, and the others, but it takes me time, and strangers are objects of mystery to me.
I am not a sniffer dog, and I don’t like that Mr Henry called me that.
It’s just that certain things work well for me. Especially when they are factual and clear. Like when we saw the tigers attacking Heather and Paco. I didn’t feel any surprise at seeing that. It was happening. It was fact, and I knew I couldn’t fire into them because of the speed they were all moving at. That meant I had to select my shots. Which I did when the tiger reared up, and the only reason I didn’t go for the head was because I was firing an assault rifle with a 5.56 round. Tigers have solid bone density, and I couldn’t be sure the bullet would not bounce off and hit someone else. That’s why I left the headshot for Joan who was armed with a higher calibre weapon while I used multiple shots to try and weaken, and distract the enemy to enable those headshots to be made.
Things like that work well for me. They are factual and clear.
Other things are not always clear.
Like after the tiger was killed, and Heather attacked Mr Howie. I saw the threat and reacted, and had it been a few weeks ago, I would have killed Heather, but now, I understand things a little bit better, and so I swept her legs out to buy a second of time to see what the others would do. Mo said she was safe, and so Heather was allowed to live.
Mr Howie and Paula, and Marcy all said I cannot just kill people. They said I have to be sure.
Sometimes those steps break down, and it’s hard for me to find them again. When I was tracking Milly, I saw a blue car glowing in my mind, and then, I saw the blue car in the street. That made me remember a metal watering can behind the wall. But it was not there, and without seeing the watering can, I could not see the next thing, and so I had to stop.
‘What’s up?’ Marcy asked.
‘There’s no metal watering can,’ I told her.
‘Right. Everyone, look for a watering can,’ Marcy said. ‘Watering can? Can anyone see a watering can? Danny? Anything over there? Booker? Watering can? It’s metal. A metal watering can.’
‘What’s up?’ Natasha asked from the Saxon that is owned by the British Army.
‘Dave’s lost his watering can,’ Alex said.
‘Oh, I saw one! Was it metal?’ Natasha said.
I said yes.
She jumped from the Saxon and ran down the street. I told her to go back and fetch her rifle. She ran back to get her rifle, then ran down the street to grab a watering can from another garden. ‘Is this it?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I said, and everyone looked at me. ‘Green toaster,’ I said and walked off.
‘Dave! Hang on,’ Mr Howie said. ‘How do you know the watering can was here? I mean. Could it be that house down there is the one we need?’
I said no and walked off.
‘But if you knew the watering can was here, then why didn’t we just go in this house? I mean. It was this house, right?’
‘Yes, Mr Howie.’
‘So?’
‘So what?’
‘Why not just go inside?’
‘Because there was no watering can, Mr Howie.’
‘No. But you knew the wate
ring can was here.’
‘Yes.’
‘So why not just keep going?’
‘Because it wasn’t here.’
‘No. But it was here. Like before. But just not now.’
‘Yes.’
‘Right. Was that a yes, it was here, or a yes, that we could have kept going?’
‘No.’
‘Eh? What the f*ck. No, hang on.’
‘Howie, it’s hot!’ Paula shouted at him.
‘No, but something else could be missing. Like… Like a brown bench! What if the brown bench is missing?’ Mr Howie said.
I told him there wasn’t a brown bench.
‘F*ck me. Okay. Then what if the green toaster is missing?’
I told him it wasn’t because I could see it.
‘But what if it was! What if the green toaster wasn’t here? What then?’
I told him they wouldn’t have a toaster.
‘F*ck me backwards! You’re doing it on purpose. He’s doing it on purpose. Okay. Fine. What’s after the green toaster?’
I said it was the black bin in the garden.
‘Okay. The black bin isn’t there.’
‘Howie! It’s hot as shit.’
‘Hang on, Paula. The black bin isn’t there, Dave. It’s gone. What now?’
‘What?’ I asked him.
‘No. I’m asking you. What now? Cos the black bin has gone.’
I asked him where it went.
He said, ‘I don’t know.’
I asked him then how does he know it’s not there?
‘Cos the f*cking bin pixies took it away. I don’t know. The wind. The wind took it.’
I told him the bin had rocks in it.
‘F*ck my ears! The rocks fell out, then the wind took the bin away. The f*cking bin ran off and got married to another bin, and they had bin babies.’
I said okay.
‘Okay what?’
I said, ‘Okay, Mr Howie.’
‘No. No! Everyone, shut up. F*ck me, this cannabis plant stinks. Why are we even carrying them? Put them in the Saxon. Or in the van. Put them in Reggie’s van.’
‘They’re not putting them in my van,’ Roy said.
‘Roy said you’re not putting them in his van,’ Tappy shouted over.
‘The Saxon then. Put them in the Saxon. Booker, take mine. Right, Dave. Okay. The bin is gone. There is no bin.’
‘Howie!’ Marcy said. ‘Dave, just keep going.’
‘What the f*ck!’ Mr Howie said. ‘But I want to know how it works.’
Marcy said I probably don’t know how it works. She said that’s the thing with autism, ‘Things either work, or they don’t work. And not all the time either because it’s a spectrum. Like blindness. You can be a bit blind or a lot blind.’
‘I know what a spectrum is,’ Mr Howie said. I then saw the black bin in the garden and looked at Mr Howie. ‘They got divorced,’ he said.
I said, ‘Sprinkler.’ And walked off.
‘Don’t!’ Marcy said and pointed at Howie.
I carried on and found the sprinkler and the next object after that. But Mr Howie was right with what he said because sometimes I do tease him on purpose.
The team all call each other tw*t and c*ck, and d*ck. That’s called banter. It strengthens the bond between people within a fighting unit. Just because I am autistic, it doesn’t mean I don’t want to bond. I do want to bond, and when Mr Howie questions me sometimes, it’s my way of calling him a tw*t. But I don’t smile on the outside when I do it. That does not mean I don’t find things funny. I do find things funny. But I laugh on the inside.
Marcy was also right because I could not explain right at that moment what I would have done if the toaster was not there because the toaster was there.
I would not have been able to verbalise my thoughts. But now, I can. I don’t know why that happens. But it is very important to me that Mr Howie cared enough to ask and try, and find out. Nobody ever did that before.
It was the same when we worked at Tesco.
Mr Howard said I had to leave the team and start a new life in a supermarket. I did what I was told. But it was lonely. And because I am autistic, and I don’t know how to talk to people, other people thought I wanted to be left alone.
But Mr Howie didn’t do that.
Mr Howie spoke to me on every shift. He always asked me how I was. He spoke about the weather and the things going on, and he always made a point of finding me at break times so I was never left on my own. He invited me to sit at his table. He asked what food I had, and he always said goodbye.
I liked the way Mr Howie was a bit sarcastic sometimes too. He’d say things like great chat, Dave. But he smiled when he said it. Like banter. Like joking. I was in the army for a long time. I was used to it. It was familiar without being insulting, and Mr Howie never patronised me. Even when he gets cross if we talk and I tease him, I don’t think he actually means it. It’s like a game because I can’t feel his anger.
I can feel Mr Howie’s anger when he is really angry. Like at the fort when Mr Howie found out I knew Mr Howard and Mr Henry, and Paula’s Uncle George. I felt his anger, and I was sorry I had not told Mr Howie.
I tried to tell Mr Howie why, but the thoughts would not get right in my head. I was scared and upset.
That means that I could tell Mr Howie was not really angry with me for not telling him how I was retracing our steps. This was our banter, and I liked it.
I said the next thing was a pink flamingo.
‘I remember that,’ Mr Howie said when we found the plastic, pink flamingo in a garden. ‘Okay. Let me try one.’
I said okay and waited for him.
‘Right. Pink flamingo. Pink flamingo,’ Mr Howie said. ‘What comes after the pink flamingo?’
‘That’s like a Blowers’ sex line,’ Alex said.
Simon called him a tw*t, and I smiled on the inside.
‘Leather sofa!’ Howie said and clicked his fingers. ‘Is there a leather sofa?’
I said I didn’t know.
‘Jesus. Okay. So what’s the next thing for you?’ Mr Howie asked me.
I said Wellington boots.
‘Green wellies!’ Alex said. ‘I remember them.’
‘By the front door,’ Simon said.
I said the Wellington boots were blue, and they were next to the understairs cupboard.
‘Burned!’ Marcy said. She pulled a face at the others. She did not mean something was burning. She meant I had played a trick. Then, she smiled and winked at me when we saw the Wellington boots. ‘And there’s no leather sofa either,’ she told Mr Howie.
‘There’s a leather sofa somewhere,’ Mr Howie said.
‘I’ve got FOMO going on right now,’ Natasha shouted from the Saxon.
‘What’s FOMO?’ Howie asked.
‘Fear of missing out,’ Marcy said.
I did not know that FOMO means Fear of missing out.
‘Ask Maddox to drive then,’ Nicholas said.
‘Er, f*ck off. She’s my Saxon,’ Natasha said. (The Saxon is definitely owned by the British Army.)
‘Bread bin!’ Mr Howie shouted. ‘In the kitchen. With a moving lid thing.’
‘Painting of a horse,’ I said as we walked into a hallway.
‘Ooh, I wanna see it,’ Charlotte said. They all stopped to stare at the painting. ‘That is a really sh*t painting of a horse,’ Charlotte said.
‘FOMO!’ Natasha shouted from outside. (That means fear of missing out.)
‘It’s a sh*t painting of a horse,’ Nicholas told her.
‘Ha! No bread bin,’ Marcy said.
‘F*ck. Okay, you do one,’ Mr Howie said.
‘How? I wasn’t here, you tw*t,’ Marcy said.
‘Oh, yeah. Ha, oops. Okay. Pond. Dave, there’s a pond,’ Mr Howie said.
I said there was a Barbie bicycle, and they all came outside to see it.
‘I’m telling you. There is a pond somewhere,’ Mr Howie said.
‘
Yeah? Is the leather sofa in it?’ Marcy asked. Then, I remembered the dead woman and went to the next garden to see the corpse in the garden, and the next thing came into my mind.
‘Leather sofa,’ I said.
‘No way,’ Mr Howie said when he saw the leather sofa in the front room.
‘Bread bin,’ I said in the kitchen.
‘Get in!’ Howie yelled. I don’t know why because I would never fit in a bread bin that size. ‘Come on, three for three. Please let there be a pond,’ Mr Howie said.
Then I pointed to the pond in the garden.
‘F*CK, YES!’ Howie said. He was smiling and laughing.
‘You lucky sh*t,’ Marcy said.
‘Luck, my *rse. Skill. Eh, Dave? We’re on the same wavelength. We’re like brothers,’ Mr Howie said. He pushed into my shoulder, and I smiled on the inside.
‘What’s next?’ Alex asked.
‘Okay, er, what’s next?’ Howie asked.
I asked him what next one.
‘The next thing,’ Mr Howie said. ‘Which way?’
I didn’t know what he meant. ‘What way?’ I asked him.
‘Howie, stop,’ Marcy said and pushed him away to stand in front of me so she could see my eyes. ‘Dave, why don’t you know?’
I said this was where we first saw Milly.
Mr Howie said blimey and started looking around at the street; then, Paula called out and pointed over the road to a house.
The ground floor windows were all boarded up with planks, and the small garden looked dirty and full of litter and long weeds. (The unwelcome garden plants. Not cannabis plants.)
Then, Paula pointed up, and I saw a piece of paper with torn corners sellotaped to the inside of the window, and the name MILLY written in pink crayon across the front.
‘Good spot, Paula,’ Mr Howie said.
‘Not just a pretty face, eh?’ Clarence said; then, he went very red which he does a lot when he talks to Paula. ‘Right. Stop p*ssing about, Cookey. You need to focus.’
‘Eh? I didn’t do anything,’ Alex said. He was right. He hadn’t done anything.
‘And stop the backchat,’ Clarence said. He was right too because younger people should not talk back to elders.
‘Wow. That’s some weird energy right there,’ Howie whispered to Marcy.
‘Isn’t it,’ Marcy whispered. ‘Even Dave’s picking it up.’