Below is back in the Present after Jo's details of the madness impending. Enjoy.
2: The Present
Dan awoke to the sound of angry punk coming loudly from Isaac's room. As Dan's temples throbbed, he marveled at how a stoner could enjoy 'music' that sounded like someone taking a chainsaw to a piece of steel.
Scratching his head absently, he put his feet on the floor. The music seemed to increase in volume in time with the increased pounding in his skull, or, Dan reasoned, maybe it was the other way round.
Dan couldn't help getting annoyed, but stopped himself short of shouting for Isaac to turn it down. Dan wasn't Philip.
And on top of that, he reasoned, it would hurt more to shout.
He slowly got himself out of bed and walked across the room to the large windows that looked out onto the square the building was a part of. He looked out onto the over grown green and watched a few of the stragglers from the main crowd shamble to and fro. The crowd around their building was particularly big today. This was most likely because they had been attracted by the previous day’s raid. Dan started thinking about the raid the day before, it had become so routine. Roll into a corner shop, super market or petrol station and loot it and get out. It had been getting easier like the video games that Philip and Joshua loved to play, the motions were part muscle memory. They had become complacent; Denny had become sloppy at least that was what Dan told himself now. The idea that they had collectively contributed to his mistake was painful to think about.
The drive back to the house had been excruciating. Denny had been sitting next to Dan in the back seat holding the bandages around his left elbow. It had been an unlucky moment with the drifter catching him under the padding and going through the leather jacket he had been wearing underneath with alarming ease. Denny had been the only one talking while they all sat in silence trying to think of what to say. No one wanted to touch him or comfort him in case they got infected too and Denny knew that.
Dan shook the image of his pleading friend out of his head and tried to decide what he would do. He figured he would go down and hangout with Oli and Orfax. Orfax’s name was Richard but since the end of the world he had taken a fancy to a character he had named in some computer game.
Jo still called him Rich though.
Dan left his apartment and headed down the stairs to Orfax, Jo and Jocelyn’s apartment. If Orfax was up, he and Oli would be in the living room of their apartment. This had been converted into a chem lab specifically aimed at the production of psychoactive drugs and amphetamines.
Dan had tried some of the pills they had produced and they were good, very good.
Oli, up until people had starting dying, had been a promising chemistry student at Sussex University. Three months ago he had managed to lead the group straight into the possession of some Ether, courtesy of his old place of study. Since then he and Orfax had been working on L.S.D. with varying degrees of success.
Ether was totally usable on its own, but the duo had been up for the challenge. The first batch of tabs had been effective. The second, a hit and miss affair.
A month ago Dan had come in on Orfax, during the production of the third lot. The boy was a big advocate of practicing what you preach and always tested the stuff on himself before letting anyone near the finished product.
When Dan had walked in, Orfax had been sitting, cross-legged in the corner of the lab. The tall guy's brow was deeply creased, both hands rubbing his eyes like he was suffering from lack of sleep (which he invariably was).
Dan had asked how he was. Orfax looked at him distraughtly, taking a minute to recognise who was talking to him.
“Nah, that wasn't right.” He said unhappily.
“I'm sorry?” Dan asked, not following Orfax's train of thought.
He frowned again and his eyes wandered off, probably following something induced by his trip.
“Nah, I'm fine,” he said, his frown deepening. “Think this stuff is a bit strong.”
He had then stood up, holding on to edge of a table like he depended on it for dear life. After standing for a few minutes he affirmed that he was all right then sat down again, slowly.
He leaned forward and in a conspiratorial tone, to no one in particular, said:
“I think I'll try the next batch on Oli.”
The acid they produced two weeks later, given artistic flare by Jo, were dubbed Flying Eagles and those were truly wonderful.
Dan must have spent an hour, maybe even a life time, giggling as the room he was in liquefied, dripping away leaving a vortex, only to reform seconds later and repeat the process.
Dan arrived at the landing on the first floor; from there he could see the generator sitting silently on its concrete throne. A sea of solid mortar that had once led to the entrance to the block of flats but since they had moved in had been set solidly to prevent anything getting in through the ground floor.
He didn't bother to knock on the front door, no one did. Privacy was reserved to your bedroom and bedroom alone.
Dan recalled walking in on Philip and Caryn having sex in the entertainment room a while back. The two, out of consideration had stopped long enough to look at him disinterestedly and then carried on. He'd apologised and left them to it but he doubted that they had even heard him.
Dan stood in the atrium of the flat, briefly looking at the closed door of Jocelyn's room. There was no sound coming from it unlike the 'Lab', which had strange squawks and cries emanating from within. Dan strode over and opened the door to be greeted by a swirl of cannabis smoke; the concentrated vapour made his eyes tear up.
Gritting his teeth and trying not to cough, Dan finally made out the forms of Oli and Orfax at work. They looked like two mad scientists making a monster as they moved from petri dish to petri dish, and checked on vials of odd coloured liquid.
Except that the Frankenstein monster had never had a full bodied Dragon tattoo starting from the base of his skull, winding down to somewhere below his waist (Jo said that the tail curled around his left buttock), nor had the crazy Doctor looked like he should be on the front of a gangster rap album. Oli stood in his usual apparel: baggy jeans, tight black T-shirt and skewed Baseball cap.
The large room was dominated by a huge work bench that stood in the center and was littered with chemist set style paraphernalia, most of them were imported from Orfax's house.
There were odd bits ripped off from pharmacies, but the bulk of the rest was from the University. Dan didn't even know what a fraction of them were for. He found it easier not to bother finding out.
Phil B. had told Dan of a time when he had been foolish enough to ask about one of the pieces. Oli had replied that the contraption did very little on its own and then went on to explain some kind of filtration process.
“I was looking for some kind of excuse to get away within seconds.” Phil had said.
Neither of the room's occupants had noticed Dan come in, he didn’t know if they were too intent on their work or they were too wasted to be aware of his presence.
Walking up to the table, he took one of the pre-rolled joints that were lying on the work surface next to some murky liquid in a glass. It looked like a week old Bailey's and coke.
The sounds that Dan had heard from outside were far worse now that the protection of the door was gone, the noise came from the CD player behind Orfax. Dan thought, as he took his first drag, that the apparatus might be broken, but the pitch kept changing.
After a few drags Dan mustered the thought:
“What are you playing?”
Both of them turned towards him, their expressions completely different.
Orfax's shaved skull swung round at him, his black rimmed eyes stared at him accusingly, his jaw clenched, it were as if he couldn't decide to be annoyed or scared.
Oli gazed at him, only half seeing him, smiling an empty smile. He was happy due to a large consumption of some kind of chemical. He gave Dan a gentle wave:
“Whatsup?”
“Yeh... how have you been?” Orfax face broke into a smile.
“Not bad.” Dan smiled, taking another toke. “What are you listening to? It hurts my head.”
The two exchanged glances, then in unison, they shrugged.
Orfax turned around and started to look through the piles of CDs that were stacked on the table that was the stereo's home. After knocking a dozen or so cases to the floor, he extracted the culprit, staring at it intently, Orfax finally made out the words on the cover.
“Whale song: Greatest hits.” He read aloud then looked up at Dan. “I thought it was getting a bit repetitive.”
“Fucking change it dude.” Oli said, still grinning from ear to ear.
“Okay, okay.” Orfax grumbled. “Man... I've only had 2 hours sleep.”
“Man, did you see the amount of chewing gum I found? And it's still in date.” Oli was talking to Dan.
The pure joint had, as usual, gone straight to his head. Dan felt light headed, he was a bit annoyed. When was he going to develop a resistance to this stuff?
Then he remembered that Oli had asked him a question. It hadn't been a particularly complicated one, but now it seemed hard to answer. After considering his options, he went with shaking his head.
“Fucking six boxes of it, pretty good thing too, we just finished this batch of pills.” Oli laughed.
Six boxes, shit. Dan thought. That's a lot of pills. Unless of course the boxes were really small boxes that only fitted a pill in each-
He saw Orfax turn back round, looking satisfied with himself as the same CD started playing again and the Whales started their groaning
Dan wanted to say something but was too embarrassed to do so in case Orfax had meant to put it back on.
Besides, he thought, I quite like it.
“Where's Jo?” He found himself asking.
This provoked both of his house mates to stop what they were doing.
“In Jocelyn's room.” Orfax said, in tone that could have only been considered lewd.
“She's been in there all night.” Oli raised his eyes mischievously. “All night long.”
Dan may have imagined it, but the two looked at each other and seemed to share some kind of unspoken communication.
The scene was broken by Phil B. walking through the door. It had the effect of snapping Dan out of the haze that had enveloped his head.
“Dan, are you busy?” He inquired.
Dan almost said yes then he saw the look on his friend's face.
“What's the matter?” He asked snapping himself further out of the funk.
“All night long, all night, all night. All night long.” Oli broke into a falsetto as Dan walked out of the door.
Dan and Phil B. climbed out onto the scaffolding that covered the front of the building and joined Craig and Joshua. Joshua and Craig were standing about 10 feet from the window.
It took Dan a while, but he found Denny in the sea of heads and arms. Denny had turned and was waiting for them to come down.
The hands of each outstretched limb clutching at the thin air between the dead and where the four stood on the wooden planks.
“Why did he come back here?” Dan asked, but he already knew the answer, all those things came here for the building and its contents as the occupants were the only source of meat for miles.
The sight of hundreds of Grey and gaunt faces desperately flailing at him made Dan want to scramble back inside the block of flats.
“Craig saw him while he was out here checking the walls of the ground floor.” Phil B. explained.
Dan just kept staring at Denny; the boy’s eyeballs were rolled up into the top of his skull with the whites of his eyes showing.
“What do you think we should do?” Phil B. asked him.
“Where's Philip?” Dan mumbled, feeling the pleasant indifference of being stoned slipping away from him. The sensation replaced by the cold clasp of reality.
“You won't be able to wake him for another couple of hours,” Joshua spoke gazing at the crowds. “He had himself a bit of a time last night.”
“How come you're up?” Dan asked.
Joshua tilted his head to one side, still staring at the mob.
“No matter how much I've had to drink, the sun always wakes me up.”
“Well, Jocelyn can't see him.” Dan said. “I guess we have to shoot him.”
“Hang on won't that make a lot of noise, and what about the body?” Phil B. interjected.
“It's it the only way.” Dan said. “Denny is dead now. His body will fall under the rest of them and if the mob clears he won’t be recognisable.”
“No you're right.” Phil B. agreed hastily. “Besides it's not like Jocelyn comes out that much.”
Joshua climbed back through the first floor window to get a gun.
Craig, who had remained silent throughout, spoke:
“Do you think they need us?”
“How do you mean?” Phil B. asked his brother.
“Well, it's been more than a year now, if you look down there, that guy has been here for at least two months.” Craig paused, took a drag of his rollie and then sat down, his feet dangled over the edge of the platform, less than a meter from the clasping hands. Dan imagined if one of them had been able to jump.
“He hasn't eaten since he got here, I don't think he's moved more than a foot in the whole time I have been coming out here.”
Craig nonchalantly dropped some ash into the hungry faces; they remained indifferent to any burning sensation that might exist:
“They don't attack animals; most of them just grasp and scratch, waiting for us.”
“You sound like you watch them too much.” Dan said.
Craig looked at him, grinned and then shrugged.
“Naught else to do.”
Craig offered up the butt. Dan declined it but Phil B. took the offering.
“Over the last couple of months it has been mine and Isaac's little game.” Craig explained, picking his nose. He looked at the result and then flicked it. “We ignore the ones we actually recognise then we pick one of them and make up their life, what they did for a living, how they died, and how they ended up here.” Craig started swinging his legs. The hands moved in time with his dual Pendulums.
“Makes you wonder what we did to deserve all this attention.” Phil B. said handing Craig back his doobie.
“Yeah.” Craig mused then, for no particular reason that Dan could imagine: “Do you guys reckon that there's a Heaven?”
Dan and Phil both stared at him.
At this point, Joshua came back out; a carbine nestled in his arms. Joshua handed the gun over to Dan.
“Craig, if there is a heaven, I don't know about you. But I'm not going there. You guys better brace yourselves.” Joshua said as Dan leveled the barrel at Denny, aimed, and fired.
The bullet went through the zombie's temple, splattering its brains out the back of its cranium. Denny's visage dropped out of sight, disappearing in the mass of bodies.
The shot had been loud, Dan wondered if it would have woken Jocelyn, or if she had been awake she would have been aware of its significance. A stupid thought but one that lingered nonetheless.
The snatching crowd remained oblivious to the loss of one of their number, still trying to reach Craig's feet.
Dan crossed himself and climbed back inside, Joshua followed him while Phil B. remained with Craig for another joint.
“Why the fuck do you need me for a decision like that?” Dan grumbled.
“You may not realise it but some of the people look up to you.” Joshua replied. “Philip makes the decisions that no one wants to make, and people look at you to either back them up. Or make a different decision.”
“Fuck off.” Dan laughed, stopping to look at Joshua.
“You would be surprised” Joshua looked at him sincerely.
Dan continued to stare at him; he was a strange man that Dan could never quite read. He had this manner of raising his eyebrows and giving his target a stare that always looked as earnest as was possible. Dan could never tell whether he was mocking people or serious.
“What are you doing today?” Joshua asked, allowing Dan to pass through the flat's door and out onto the landing first.
“Don't know.” Dan said. “O. and O. are wasted. I might just spend the time in my room and get high.” He added quickly. “You can join me if you like.”
“Well, I do have six hours of Henry Kissinger on tape if you want to listen to it. I've got some other stuff to do. But I wouldn't mind popping in and out.”
“That would be cool.” Dan smiled.
About four months previous, long after everyone had given up any hope of hearing anything on any frequency. Jay and Maria had come across someone broadcasting. At first the household had become quite excited. There had been talk of it possibly being the re-establishment of some kind of society. Early broadcasts had seemed to support that with Kissinger talking of hope and refuge However, the more they listened, the more they realised that this was one man putting on an erratic, deranged show.
Then the show started coming on every day. The length and the monologue-to-music ratio always varied. Some days Kissinger would talk for 2 or 3 hours and then play music for a bit, on others he would rant and broadcast for almost the entire day. Regardless of the quality the household would record them and listen as the only outside source they knew of.
Dan and Joshua sat in his room and played the tape.
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