by Adam Watts
‘He’d have deserved a good punch in the face. Just couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. Man alive… I’ve been looking forward to this chair. All that walking through the fucking woods really makes you appreciate the comforts of home.’
‘I’ve no sympathy,’ I say.
‘How about envy?’ he says, wiggling his eyebrows a little.
I’m always amazed at Stan’s ability to bounce so cleanly from one state of being to another. Only ten minutes ago he looked ready to tear the entire village to pieces, but now he’s the picture of contentment, sat there in his chair, looking to stir up a little banter.
‘Why would I be envious?’ I say.
‘Because your Uncle Stan has wandered beyond the fences to a lost world, the likes of which mere mortals can only dream of.’
‘Firstly, if you ever refer to yourself as my uncle again, I’ll punch you in the privates. Secondly, I’m pretty sure that even a mind as pegged-in as mine can comprehend what a town would look like if you took all the people out of it and smashed it up a bit.’
‘It’s weird, though… proper odd-ball. There’s literally no-one there at all, but it feels like there is. Know what I mean?’
‘Not really, no,’ I say.
‘You do know what I mean. Don’t go playing the cynic. I’m just saying that you walk around and the whole place is empty but you can feel eyes watching you everywhere.’
‘Sounds fucking horrible. Glad I stayed here.’
‘It’s funny, though. There were no bodies or anything.’
‘What do you mean?’ I say.
‘Bodies. Dead bodies. You’d have thought there’d be bodies lying about, skeletons and skulls and old clothes and stuff. But there’s not, there’s nothing.’
‘So… the bodies were probably eaten. That’s what happened, wasn’t it? That’s why everyone starting calling them zombies, because they ate people.’
‘But even a zombie wouldn’t eat a skeleton. And it’s not like they’d rot away that quickly. Even I know that.’
I shrug. ‘Don’t know what to say, mate. Who knows what happened…’
‘Reckon somebody cleaned up.’
‘Y’know… I did wonder whether you’d drag some new conspiracy theory back with you,’ I say, sounding more derisive than I mean to.
‘But you just said it yourself, it can’t be explained,’ he says, sitting forward.
‘It can’t! But so what?’
‘So… I’m just saying it’s weird that there’s no skeletons.’
‘I agree, it’s weird. But so what?’
‘Stop saying that! It’s annoying. You make me feel like a thick cunt.’
‘Why would somebody go and clean up a bunch of old corpses and then just leave the place empty?’ I say.
‘Exactly! See now you get it!’
That’s not what I meant, but I give in. ‘I guess we’ve got a mystery on our hands then, Scooby.’
‘Funny… anyway, you’ll see for yourself next time we head out.’
‘Wait… what? Next time?’ I say, wondering how on earth he can sound so blithe about the idea.
‘Yeah, next time. As in the next time we go over the fence.’
‘And by we, you mean...?’
‘Me and you, genius.’
The very idea of it almost makes me gag. How to convey the extent of my objection; exploring a desolate town where you can feel the scrutiny of dead eyes from the inky shadows. How to put over how little I wish to risk my mortal flesh on some field-trip to consider the absence (rather than the assumed abundance) of skeletons. And how to express my utter reluctance to remove myself from the security and splendour of this fine village simply to rummage about in the abode of the damned for a jar of instant coffee and a box of shrink-wrapped cake-bars?
‘Err… no thanks.’ I say.
Stan slumps back in his chair. ‘I knew you’d be a pussy about this,’ he says.
‘I’m not being a pussy, I’m simply saying I’m not willing to risk my life to play silly-buggers in the decaying ruins of plague-central.’
‘But there’s nothing there!’ he says, sitting forward once more.
‘So why go back?’
‘Jesus… Preston! Aren’t you the least bit curious about what it’s like out there?’
‘I’m not the curious type. Especially when there’s the chance of getting attacked by a horde of brainless freaks.’
Stan looks confused, but he shakes it off. ‘How can someone as clever as you not be curious? You’ve got that big old brain full of words and ideas, so how the fuck are you so chained down?’
‘Because I value my brain, and under no circumstances do I want it scooped from my skull and eaten. My brain is not Ben and Jerry’s!’
‘Don’t you trust me? Because I can understand you not taking Wade’s word for it, but I’m your best mate and if I’m telling you it’s safe out there, then that means it’s safe out there.’
‘I do trust you. Completely. You’re here, you’re unharmed, you’re keen to get out there again. But still…’
‘But what?’
‘But it’s not as simple as just wanting to, is it…’
Stan kneads at his temples with his fingertips. ‘Look, Pres, you’re a good guy in your own awkward kind of way… but you’ve got to stop overthinking every little thing, or else other people are just gonna get pissed off and make the decisions for you. For all you know, us heading out on a day trip into town might be the thing that ends up saving our skin.’
‘Yeah… I’m not disagreeing…’ I say, even though I am, half-heartedly so.
‘Did you ever hear about that frog thing?’
‘The frog thing?’
‘Yeah… where if you boil a frog it dies?’
‘Well… I think if you boil any animal it –’
‘Yeah, yeah… smart arse. One of my teachers told me about it. She said that if you put a frog in water and boil it up slowly, it’ll sit there and die.’
‘I’ve heard that. But frogs are kinda dumb,’ I say.
‘Don’t you ever think that’s exactly what we’re doing here? Just slowly dying.’
‘We’re all dying, Stan.’
Stan clears his throat and gets up from his thinking chair, evidently having concluded his deliberations for the day. ‘That’s true,’ he says, ‘but surely there’s an art to dying well.’
‘That’s very deep.’
‘Been in my thinking chair,’ he says. ‘Now, I want you to go home and have a word with yourself. Because it’s time you starting living a little, my old friend.’ And with that kernel of advice successfully planted in the arid soil of my mind, he strolls out of the garage.
I wait just a minute or so, and once I’m certain he’s busying himself elsewhere, I take his place in the thinking chair.
‘Get out of that chair,’ I hear him yell from somewhere. ‘You’ll ruin my bum-groove.’
I head home, smiling to myself as I walk through the village. I’m happy Stan’s back. Even if he is a tool.
DANS LE JARDIN.
It’s the same dream I’ve had a thousand times.
I’m in the back garden. It’s the same back garden of the same house I’ve lived in all my life. I’m digging in the dirt with my bare hands, looking for bugs. My mum yells at me for covering my good trousers in grime, but I keep digging regardless, because I’m on a bug-hunt.
This dream is so familiar that whenever I have it, I know I’m dreaming. Lucid dreaming. That’s what my Dad told me it was called. I was too young to understand at first, but eventually I grew to like this dream, because it was mine to control and I could make anything happen. I could grow myself into a giant, find that kid who bullied me, and kick his swollen arse to the moon. I could conjure up a monster truck and put Mr. Loxley’s garden under its wheels to teach him for yelling at me and calling me feckless and idle. I could even make an actual girl appear right in front of me and show me her actual boobs, just for fun. But I don’t. I nev
er do. Despite the boundless opportunities open to me, I just keep on digging in that dirt, looking for bugs. So I guess that means I like it this way.
I know what happens next. It’s always the same. I dig, and I dig, and I dig a little more, and after much fruitless digging, there’ll be a dull explosion from somewhere far over the horizon; I’ll feel the blast resonate through the rock and soil. The breeze will shift back on itself, then die. It’s like the whole world just gasped in horror.
I look up, and rising in the distance is my familiar mushroom cloud; hundreds of miles tall; a billowing mass of orange and black. My mum runs over to me and once again pours scorn on the state of my good trousers. But I’m too busy to care. Too busy watching the mushroom cloud, and wondering with my dumb kid-brain what on earth it is, even though I know damn well what it is. But I’m not worried, mostly because Mum doesn’t seem bothered. She’s too busy complaining about her laundry pile. And if the mushroom cloud is less important than laundry, then it can’t be too much of a big deal.
So I stand there, curiously observing my certain doom and wondering what happens next. And that’s when I’d usually wake up.
Except this time, I don’t. I stay rooted in my garden, clutching two fistfuls of dirt, gawping up at the mushroom cloud, watching it grow until it covers half the sky. Mum sees it now, too. Her eyes are wide and fearful.
‘Something’s coming…’ she says. ‘Do you see it, Preston?’
‘See what, Mum?’
‘Look,’ she says, her eyes now rolling and delirious. ‘Look there, look! See! It’s close now. It’s…’
‘What’s close?’ I say, wondering what’s wrong with her eyes.
She leans close to my ear and whispers. ‘It’s… much… later… than… you… think…’ The voice is not hers.
I squint up at my mum. The sun fades behind her shoulder. Her eyes have gone sour, and her lips peel back to reveal long crooked teeth. She stares, fixated by the horizon. Her body twitches and ticks. She lifts a rickety arm and points towards the growing cloud, and though I don’t want to, I can’t help but look.
Rats. Swarming. Consuming everything. Countless numbers. They’ll be upon us any second. A wall of jagged gnawing teeth and barbed claws, their red eyes burning like embers through the swarming darkness. A million appetites born of destitution, forcing themselves through us, stripping flesh from bone, making us one with their plague.
I glimpse the mushroom cloud one last time before I’m suffocated by the churning mass that forces its way down my throat. I can’t breathe anymore. I can’t breathe…
I gasp violently as I’m wrenched from the dream. I expect to be in the warmth and comfort of my bed, but I’m not. I’m in the garden. The same garden of the same house I have always lived in. My hands are caked in mud.
I glance up at the stars as I walk back to the house, but quickly avert my eyes before I start thinking too hard about which of those glistening points of light might already be dead.
COOKING TIMES MAY VARY.
‘You can’t be serious,’ I tell him.
‘Why wouldn’t I be serious? I want a welcome home party.’
‘You, me and Eve sitting round a fire, talking shit and drinking moonshine isn’t exactly a party, is it? It’s the same thing we always do.’
‘So? I thought you liked doing the same thing over and over and over and o–’
‘Yes, Stan… fine… I’m a creature of habit… I get it. But why tonight? It’s raining.’
‘A bit of rain doesn’t matter. Never stopped us before.’
‘A bit of rain does matter if you’re wanting a fire,’ I say.
‘It’ll clear up by the evening. Look, it’s already slowing.’
‘Since when did you become a seasoned meteorologist?’
Stan eyes me suspiciously. ‘You’re not bothered about the rain.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s not the rain, is it? The rain’s an excuse.’
‘It’s not. I just don’t see why we can’t either leave it until the weather’s better or have a few drinks at Frida’s. She’s missed you… so it’d be nice if we included her too.’
‘Don’t pretend this is about wanting to include Frida. We both know this is really about you and Eve and the fact that you blew your chances with her.’
‘Or… it’s the rain and the cold,’ I say.
‘You can’t avoid her for ever, Pres. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re living in a fucking compound, and judging from our conversation yesterday, you’re not too keen on the idea of leaving, so you might as well just get it over and done with.’
‘There’s nothing to get over and nothing to get done with!’
‘Then what’s the issue?’
‘There is no issue.’
‘Good! Then I’ll see you at seven. The usual place. I’ll tell Eve… I don’t trust you.’
‘Thanks, my bestest bud.’
‘No worries. Hey, listen… I’ve got a surprise for you both tonight. Was going to show you yesterday before that old fuck-face put the skids on it.’
‘It’s funny,’ I say, ‘but when you talk like that, I get this odd shrinking sensation in my groin.’
‘Don’t be a twat, Pres. Besides, your parts probably turned to dust and blew away in the wind months ago.’
‘I honestly don’t know how I end up gifting these things to you.’
‘Force of habit. Hey! Speaking of disintegrating genitals… do you remember when the PCP put out the vote on microwaving people’s groins to make them go sterile?’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Yeah, don’t you remember? There was a whole thing about it.’
‘Microwaving people’s genitals?’ I say, wondering how that would even work.
‘It was a thing… an actual thing you could vote on.’
‘So… the politicians – presumably – would simply ask people very nicely if they wouldn’t mind parking their todgers in the microwave.’
‘Pretty much. Three minutes, full power. Mix thoroughly half way through and Hey Presto! No more plebs breeding pleb babies.’
‘Genius. You could do your lunch at the same time.’
Stan ponders the idea and looks out over the trees. ‘Yeah… you’d need to double the time, though. Maybe six minutes for genitals plus soup, depending on the wattage.’
I laugh, and Stan looks surprised, like he’d been giving genuine consideration to the time it’d take to simultaneously microwave his genitals and his lunch.
‘What about croutons?’ he says with a grin. ‘Nice crispy ones.’
‘You’re a crouton, my friend.’
‘I don’t even know what that means, Pres.’
‘Don’t worry about it, mate. So… did you vote for or against people microwaving their parts?’
‘I don’t think it was as straightforward as that. I think they must’ve worded it differently.’
‘Did you vote, though?’
‘Yeah. I voted no. Thought it was a bit harsh. Probably just one of those votes that got pushed through to kill the idea and stop people going on about it.’
‘It is a tad harsh.’
‘Not as harsh as when national conscription nearly got brought back in.’
‘Don’t remember that one either,’ I say.
‘I don’t get you. I thought all you university types were clever enough to know about politics.’
‘Voting never interested me much. Always thought it was a waste of time. Whatever directly benefits you probably creates some other problem that sneaks round the back when you’re not looking and fucks you from behind. So what’s the point in voting? One way or another the system screws you.’
‘Fair enough… but you’ll get screwed all the harder if you do nothing, probably won’t even get a reach-around. A shit opinion’s still worth stating.’
‘Did you learn that at The University of Life?’ I ask. Stan’s heard it a thousand times.
‘Nah… my unc
le told me that.’ Stan’s face drops a little. And though he tries to pick his grin back up, it looks a little heavy.
‘You miss him?’ I ask, realising it’s a dumb question. Of course he misses him.
‘Nope,’ he says with an unflinching stare.
‘It’s ok to miss someone.’
Stan looks at me like I’m as thick as pig shit. ‘I don’t miss him. He was a dick.’
‘Oh…’
‘He was, though. You saw the state of that radio.’
‘I thought you did that.’
‘Why would I smash up the radio? I want out of this place. I’d be a prize wang for breaking up the only bit of communications kit we had. Besides, you never know what secret conversations you could’ve picked up on that thing. It was a proper bit of gear too. Army or something.’
‘I just… I don’t know. I remember you saying how much time your uncle spent on it. I thought maybe you broke it when he went because you were angry at him and needed something to take it out on.’
‘Nope. Wrong again, genius. He smashed it up before he fucked off. Reckon a whole year of radio-silence twisted his screws a little too tight.’
‘Figures. I don’t know why I assumed you two got on so well,’ I say.
‘In defence of your lack of perception, I don’t think I ever said anything bad about him in front of you. I assumed you knew I didn’t like him.’
‘Then why did you come here to visit him?’
Stan sighs. ‘Long story short… the parents got sick of me, so I figured Uncle Lawrence might throw me a bone. He’s the only one who ever crawled out of the Stanhope pit and made some decent money. Something he never let anyone forget. The man used his success like a weapon. Always on about the struggles he had to endure to make himself. Prick.’
‘What did you need the money for?’
‘I wanted to go to Luxemburg.’
‘I thought you wanted to go to Luxemburg because there wouldn’t be any zombies there.’
‘That… yeah. But also, you never hear about any trouble in Luxemburg, do ya? Or Holland, or Switzerland. Just clean streets and nuns.’ Stan smiles to himself. ‘That always appealed to me. No trouble…’