by Tim Lebbon
"And that isn't the reason?" Ashley asked.
Paul shook his head. "'Course not. The real reason is, those machines carry nukes. One code, one button, one finger, and the tunnel is closed forever."
Ashley glanced at me and raised an eyebrow, but I just shrugged.
"You don't believe me?" Paul said.
"It's not that," Ashley said, "it's just that . . . it seems so unlikely."
"Why?" A pork joint was spitting fat and flaming, but Paul's attention was distracted. He hated it when people doubted him. I was one of the few who could see past his fanaticism to the inherent truth in many of his beliefs, and very often that scared me.
"Well, who'd do something like that?"
"The government. The military. Whoever owns them."
"All three?"
"Believe me, sweet cakes, they're all one." Paul went back to cooking, and Ashley moved closer to me so that she could put her hand on my knee.
It turned into one of those afternoons and evenings that you remember forever. At the time it's just another drink, another meal, another long chat with good friends, and you don't perceive the special sheen to the day until much, much later. Then you look back on it and realise that it was one of the days of your life. How could you have not realised what was happening? How can the look in your lover's eye have escaped you, or the sense of peaceful kinship between you and the guy who'd been your friend since you were nine, and who would die thirty years later, just two days before the woman you had loved all that time? But that's the thing about these most special of days: you can't make them special. You can't sit there and think to yourself, Right, this is going to be a day I remember forever. They just imprint themselves on your brain: the way your girl looks at you, something your friends says, the taste of a steak, the sensation of getting pleasantly drunk while the world goes on about you. You may forget that day for ten years, but then you'll be grocery shopping, agonising over what to have for dinner, and a particular moment from that day will leap into your head, a snapshot accompanied by an intense emotional recollection. It's as powerful as déjà vu, and you'll say to yourself, Damn, that was a fucking good time! I wish it could all be like that again.
But wishing cannot make it so. And you may think that times are worse than they once were, but you know what? Another ten years on, you'll have a flashback to that shopping trip and the evening that followed it when you ate a good curry and drank Wolf Blass and watched the God-awful remake of The Haunting, and that too will become one of the days of your life.
Sometimes days age like a good wine, and only time can make them special.
Three: Double Drop
We offer Michael the bed-settee in the old games room. It's back past the kitchen, tucked in between the utility room and a store room stacked with old, bad family portraits. Michael is grateful, and as he stands to wish us goodnight I think he sheds a tear. "Goodnight," he says, and I nod. The Theakston's has made a blur of my senses. I like that.
He leaves the room, and we all fall quiet as we hear his footsteps retreat along the hallway. He must feel very uncomfortable, I think. Waiting to hear us start talking about him. But something strange happens: none of us begins. The room remains silent but for the spit and crackle of logs settling in the fire.
I rise at the same time as Cordell. "I'm hitting the sack," I say. I smile at the others and leave the room. I think back to that long-ago time with Ashley in Paul's back garden, and remember the day twelve months ago when an explosion ripped the channel tunnel apart, killing thousands and making Britain an island once again. It had not worked, of course. Paul had called me that very evening to say he'd found a sore on his chest.
I walk upstairs, listening to the resounding silence of the people I have come to think of, very quickly, as the last friends I will ever have. And I wonder whether I will live long enough for this to become one of the days of my life.
I meet Jessica on the landing. I am the only one who still tries to talk to her about her past, and sometimes she smiles, offering a phrase or two that paints a bare outline of what she might have been through. I know she's a long way from home. She cycled here, she says she left no one behind. And usually she seems strong.
On the landing, just before she really acknowledges my presence, I see a flash of something in her eyes that I can't quite make out. Perhaps it's madness, or maybe it's fear; both terrify me.
"What do you think?" I ask.
"I think I'm tired."
"But Michael?"
Jessica shrugs. She does that a lot, and I've come to see it as something of a shield, a silent answer that gives nothing away.
"He says things are moving on," I say. And there's that flash in Jessica's eyes again as she turns around and goes to her room.
When I close my door and lean against it, I listen for crying. But all I hear is silence.
"Wake up."
There's a hand on my forehead. It's cool and comforting, and for a while I am not in the awful here and now. I'm not sure where I am exactly, but it feels safe. It feels different. There's no smell or sight to recognise, but I'm in a place where loved ones don't die of a virulent virus out of Africa, and where there's always another bottle of beer in the cupboard, the shop, the brewery. I think of Paul's comment after he rang to tell me he'd found a sore. The irony of it really grabs my shit. Africa: the cradle of civilisation, and the coffin of its demise. If I thought the world would be here long enough, maybe I'd write a book.
"Africa," I whisper, and the hand lifts from my forehead.
"Not that far," the voice says, and it is not Paul. "Cornwall will do." I open my eyes.
There's a shape sitting on my bed. Over the past few months I've had several visits from Jacqueline in the middle of the night. There has never been any tension between us, no threats of things getting out of hand, because we both know some of each other's story. The most we did was to lie down side by side and take comfort in each other's presence. But this is not Jacqueline, and I suppose I know that Michael is here even before I open my eyes.
Only Ashley has ever been able to comfort me with a touch.
"Cornwall?" I ask.
"A special place. It's solid. Roots planted deep. Up here is too . . . changeable." He stands and the bed springs creak. At least I know he's real. "Can we have a chat?" he says.
"Of course." I sit up and groan. My legs are aching from all the running up and down the tower yesterday, and I think of the frisson of fear I'd felt when I first saw the motorbike emerging from the dead city. I realise that Michael has yet to tell us any real details about himself or where he has been—the previous evening revealed little—but before I can ask he has flicked a lighter and lit the oil lamp. He brings the chair from beside the door and swings it around, sitting on it backwards. His pose is casual and controlled. There's something about him that disturbs me slightly, but I can't quite place it. Perhaps it's simply that we're here on our own. Yesterday, there was always someone else.
"I'm only here for a short time," Michael says.
"You're not staying?"
He shakes his head. "I have to move on. You're not the only ones left, and I have lots to do."
"There really are others? Like us?"
"Of course. Did you ever think there weren't?"
"But you said they were different, somehow."
"Some of them are, yes. Most. But not all."
I look away from him, needing to think. Did I ever believe that we really were the last ones? A foolish supposition, and yet there have been no signs of anyone else. Nothing at all.
"You have to go to Cornwall," Michael says. "A place on the north coast. It's called Bar None. It will soon be the last bar on Earth. I think it's somewhere you can be happy with your memories of Ashley."
I stare at him, all movements frozen. Even my heart misses a beat, then races, knocking the breath from me.
"Jacqueline told me her name," he says, but I don't believe him.
"Why Cornwall?"
>
"I told you, it's a solid place. Bar None will be safe. It's been arranged, and it won't change when the time comes."
"What if I don't want to leave?"
Michael leans forward. "Life is opportunity, and living is the greatest opportunity of all."
"Who are you?"
He smiles, looks at his watch. "Yesterday, I was Michael. But it's gone midnight now, and soon it'll be time for me to go."
"We can't just up and leave," I say. "There could be anything out there."
His face becomes stern. "There is," he says. "Factions that don't agree. People who have moved on. And not everyone who survived is quite as willing to accept things as you and your friends. But survival is an ongoing condition, and the weak must not prevail."
"Are we weak?" I ask. I think of the long days and weeks we've spent here, drinking and theorising and hoping that Jessica's new plants will take, to feed us through the next autumn and winter.
"I think you know the answer to that," he says.
"I want to stay. It's not so bad here."
Michael shakes his head, and I see a brief flash of yellow in his eyes. He sighs, the first sign of impatience, and holds out his hands. "What is there to stay for? Life won't get any easier, believe me. The beer is running out, and at Bar None the cellar is endless. Survive. Evolve."
"Sounds like a fairy tale," I say, smiling.
Michael does not return my smile. "If you like."
I nod, sit up straighter. "What about the others?"
"I've talked to them."
"Already?" I glance at my watch, letting the moonlight illuminate the dials. It's just past one a.m.
"I'm still Michael. To you, and all of them."
"You're not normal." Like a frightened child I gather my duvet, but stop short of pulling it up to my chin.
Michael simply shakes his head, but I'm not sure whether he's denying my accusation, or agreeing.
"I think I'd like you to leave my room." I feel no danger in this man, but there is something else . . . something different. He's not like me at all.
Michael leans forward, tipping the chair onto its two back legs. They creak beneath his weight. "Things are going to change," he says. "The world has paused, and after it catches its breath it will endeavour to move on. This is your chance to continue with your mantle of survivor."
"Move on?" I ask.
"Wouldn't you?"
I try to think of Ashley, but I see only her tears. "No," I say. "I want to go back."
Michael reaches out and touches my forehead again. It's a strange gesture, unexpected, but it does not feel at all peculiar or threatening. "That's why your memories are so precious," he says. He stands, moves the chair back to the wall and opens the door.
I expect him to pause for one more comment, but he merely glances at me before leaving the room. The door clicks shut quietly, and I hear his soft footfalls along the landing. For an instant they seem to be coming from several directions, as though he walked both left and right upon leaving my room. But then I hear him descending the staircase, and then the front door is unbolted, opened and closed.
I rise and go to my window in time to see Michael mount his motorbike and kick it to life. He cruises along the gravel driveway and passes between the open gates, turning left, uphill and away from the blankness of the dead city.
I look down and see my shadow thrown out over the gravel by my blazing bedroom light, and to the left and right of me are similar shadows, shifting as they are noticed and notice others, retreating, closing blinds and curtains against whatever the night has carried away into its ever-deepening darkness.
I cannot sleep for the rest of that night. I stare at the ceiling, trying to remember the network of cracks but forgetting them each time I close my eyes. I try to think of Ashley—her laugh, smile, touch—but again, it's only the bad times at the end that I can recall. My memory never has been very good. Armageddon seems to have made it worse.
I finally rise at five a.m. and go downstairs. For a few heartbeats, walking down the massive curved staircase that winds its way to the hallway, I have no idea what I will find. The possibilities suddenly seem endless: Michael has been and gone, and he could have left anything behind. He chose to come and talk to me in the night, but perhaps he had raped Jessica, throttled Cordell, set fire to Jacqueline as she tried to scream above a whisper. None of us knew him, none of us had any idea where he had come from or where he was heading. We ate and drank together all evening, but he succeeded in telling us almost nothing of himself. Our curiosity was piqued, for sure, but somehow the food and drink, and the heat of the fire, calmed us into a sense of peace. We did not ask him about those ambiguous shapes flying above and dipping down to the dead city. We did not ask what he had seen in there. None of us truly challenged him.
My footfall is soft on the hallway's oaken floor. I hear sounds of movement from the kitchen, and a light dances out from that door, a flame disturbed by a soft breeze. There is movement in the Manor's air however still we are, as though voices never stop whispering back and forth.
"Who's there?" someone says.
I walk through the door. "Only me. I couldn't sleep." It's Jessica, dressed in heavy sweatshirt and trousers, arms wrapped around her chest as she waits for the kettle to boil. We've got through three gas canisters since we've been here. Two left.
"Nor me," she says. "Tea?"
I nod. Should I mention Michael? I glance toward the rear of the kitchen, through the open door where he had gone to sleep the previous night. Jessica is making no attempt to be quiet. She must know he's no longer there.
"I usually sleep really well," she says. "Keeping my days busy. Keeps my mind busy too." She adds more tea to the pot and fetches another mug from the cupboard. It's powdered milk, of course, but we've all become used to it. "I'm exhausted by the time we all crash out. And the beer helps."
"It seems to help us all," I say. It's something we don't talk about very much, our growing dependency on alcohol to see us through. None of us has what would have been called "a problem" in times just gone—our stocks don't allow for that—but we all look forward to that communal couple of drinks each evening. We don't want to spoil the effect by talking about it.
I think it stitches us to the past. And for a while, perhaps it helps us forget the future.
"Last night, though . . ." The kettle boils and she pours, but I can see that she's distracted.
"Shall I start breakfast?" I say. "Fried potatoes?"
"He says we have to move on," she says. She stirs the tea slowly, methodically. "Cornwall."
"Bar None," I say.
Jessica glances up. "I was wondering."
"And the others?"
"Easier if he did visit them as well. But we'll see. Yes, fried potatoes sound good."
"Don't they always?" I take the cup of tea from her hands and set it down beside the wide gas stove.
Preparing and cooking food usually frustrates me, but today I find the process calming. The potatoes are old, so I have to cut out the eyes, and then peeling them takes several minutes. I slice them into half-inch sections, dropping them into a bowl of water to wash out some of the starch. Then I lay them out on a cloth, salt them, fire up a burner and coat a frying pan with a layer of oil. I drop in some garlic salt and a pinch of dried herbs, and as the oil starts to bubble I place the potato slices side by side. Jessica sits silently behind me, though I can feel her eyes on the back of my head. We're comfortable together, friends.
We sit and eat, the truth hanging between us seeming to enliven the air, and as we finish the others come down. Jacqueline mentions that she could not sleep, and Cordell goes straight to the stove, firing up the burner and cooking more potatoes. He does not speak, but I know he has something to say.
When everyone is there, making tea or eating or just sitting at the table, I stand and say, "Bar None."
Nobody seems very surprised.
"And now he's gone," the Irishman says. "He can't expl
ain himself, and he never even told us where he comes from."
"There are five of us here," Jessica says. Her long hair looks wild after a night of not sleeping, like an unkempt halo. "I saw him ride away around two this morning. How could he have come to all of us?"
"How long was he with you?" Jacqueline says.
Jessica shrugs. "Half an hour."
"Me too," Cordell says.
Silence, but for the sizzle of frying potatoes.
"Well, who's to say anything he said is true?" Cordell says.
"I believe him." I walk to the sink and swill my cup from the bucket of water standing there. Do we really have to leave all this? I think. The garden, the tower, the spring? Where will be get our water from on the road? Will the mains still be working in some places? Is it safe to drink it from a reservoir? What about the other survivors Michael mentioned, the good ones and the bad? And the other things he hinted at . . . those "factions." The thoughts rampage through my mind, setting me on edge and causing me to shiver. I look out the window and up the slope toward the tower. There are several rabbits dotted around its base, taking in the sun.
"What's there to believe?" Cordell says. Jacqueline is whispering something as well, but voices raise and none of us can hear what she's saying.
I stare from the window for a while, not joining in the exchange. It soon becomes so that I can't tell who is saying what, who wants to go, who wants to stay. Through all of it I hear Jacqueline's whisper, a background to the argument that will always be there when it's over. I know that we will hear her soon, and I know what she will say, because I'm thinking it as well.
"Quiet," I say. The word breaks through at just the right moment, and the kitchen falls almost silent.
"We're running out of everything," Jacqueline says, her voice low but, for the first time, strong. "The spring is still there, but maybe it'll dry up in the summer. Jessica is planting the garden, and I hope it will grow, but if the spring dries up . . . ? The food and beer is almost gone. We'll have to go out there to get some more, but Michael told me everything has gone bad. Even the tinned stuff, and the food in cans. All bad, he said."