Pt. 22 - Neurons Like Brandy - Chapter 9: Present

Neurons Like Brandy is a long running project of mine that I have been trying to finish for about 8 years. It focuses on a house in Brighton after the zombie apocalypse has passed, with flashbacks told by one of the remaining survivors every other chapter.

The chapter numbering is a little confusing so if this is your first time here and you are interested in reading more then I would recommend starting at the index where each of the chapters are ordered in the manner that they are meant to be read.

This returns to the present after DJ Henry Kissinger's madness. Read on:

Chapter 9: Present

Dan sat in the back of the car gripping his baseball bat. Joshua was next to him looking out at the scenery through the dirt encrusted window and Phillip was driving. The long haired boy was talking away about stuff that Dan couldn't hear. Andy was in the passenger seat looking at him and nodding in agreement.

They were heading out into periphery of Brighton as there were still a few convenience stores that were potential candidates for fresh supplies. 

The two car convoy consisted of theirs and Duck’s. She was the driver with Oli and Isaac as passengers. The second car was purely back-up and were meant to keep a look out. That and Oli would replace Phillip as the driver of the first car while the four explored anything that might be interesting. 

Their trip had already taken them out as far as Portslade a suburb-cum-village outside of the City.

Phillip, mid-sentence, stopped talking and slowed the car to a stop then reversed the car; almost colliding the car behind them. Dan sat up to see what had got his attention. Phillip was transfixed on a car at the side of road. Dan watched his expression curl up into a scowl, but he couldn’t figure out why.

Phillip beeped his horn, which was an indication that he thought he had found something and brought the car into park outside of a newsagent near a bus stop. Phillip and Joshua were out almost simultaneously. Andy quickly followed them but Dan took a little longer.

It was weird to feel so empty most of the time and then to be seized like what felt like muscle paralysis in the next. Dan had first felt it when Phillip had physically dragged him out of his room, demanding that he come with them on a search for more resources. At that moment he had felt his stomach start to churn and threaten to chuck everything up his throat and his joints had started to ache. Still stoned at the time he had admitted to himself that he might be suicidal but he didn’t have a death wish. 

Standing on the pavement, he could still feel his limbs complaining but at least he didn’t want to throw up. He looked around, in the last year the gardens of each of the houses had gone wild and spilled out into the streets. There were plenty of places for the Camers to be lurking, plenty of places for them to be waiting to finally make their move. Dan shivered slightly; he managed to look back at the second car and wave at Isaac who was standing on the roof of the vehicle so as to get a better view of the surroundings. Isaac waved back a half dopey grin on his face. At one point George, Phil B or Paul would have done his job but now their numbers were thinning that they just needed someone.

Dan looked back at the team’s destination, the newsagent’s. Both Phillip and Joshua were by the door and Andy was only a couple of feet away. Phillip looked at his partner and smiled, the door was locked which meant there was a good chance that no one had gotten to it during the mass hysteria and exodus in the early days and that meant food and booze.

Dan got closer.

Phillip looked at each of them in turn, nodded at Joshua and then took a step back and kicked the door in. All of them hesitated for a few seconds expecting for something to lurch out at them, when nothing did Phillip moved in. After a few seconds he came back out and nodded that the immediate coast was clear this was time for them to go in while he waited outside.

Dan looked back at the first car and made a mental note of the route he would take back to it if anything went wrong then followed them. He stuffed his bat into his rucksack as it would be useless in the confined areas of the shop. He looked at Phillip again who seemed to gazing back into the street, his scowl had returned. Dispelling his companion’s concern, Dan moved into the building.

The smell of mold and rot hit him as soon as he was in. He was used to it by now but he could see, in the limited light, Andy covering his mouth. 

Joshua raided everything behind the counter, namely the booze and packed everything into the oversized bag he was carrying. Andy went to the tins and pickled produce. As Dan moved further into the shop he heard Andy utter a little whoop of joy:

“Tinned pineapple and pickled onions.”

Dan tried to smile. He had pulled refrigerator duty; this was the most unpleasant of the lot as there was usually sour milk, expired TV dinners and old eggs. Also, it had been where Denny was caught. It may have been a starving decrepit thing, probably in there since the beginning of the outbreak, but it had got Denny no problem. 

The back of the shop was dark, the only light source was the open door and whatever got through the muddied windows. Dan found his flashlight and switched it on. The horrible thing was that, although he could now see, anything outside the beam became something that might leap out at him. Dan tried to control himself, he knew that rushing to go into the walk-in fridge was more likely to get him killed and even if everything in him was advising him to run back out of that enclosed area he had to go in there. Bottled drinks were generally kept there and water was priceless in this world. 

He moved the latch down on the fridge door and pushed the door open. He took one step back as it swung clear so as to give a precursory sweep with his flashlight, his mouth wide open and taking large breaths. The last thing he wanted to do was smell the place.

There was nothing in there except the obvious. Dan's light came across some intact coke bottles, litres of water, some cans of drink in boxes that were probably okay. Still breathing through his mouth, Dan set the light down on the floor to face the entrance and took his bag off.

He quickly began packing as much stuff as possible.

As he reached for some unspoiled cans of diet lemonade he thought he heard a sound. He paused for a second and strained his ears; his hand reaching for the knife on his belt. He strained to make out any sounds the only thing he could hear were the rest of the gang raiding the shop. He picked up his light and gave it a slow sweep of the entrance to the fridge. There was nothing there. Slowly, he went back to packing his bag this time he reached for the litres of own brand coke. The sound happened again, this time closer.

Without even thinking Dan found the knife in his hand. He was trying to tell himself that he had imagined the noise, that it was just some of his clothes creaking as he moved. He kept his eye on the door as he reached, blindly, for another bottle. He shoved it into his bag, still looking at the entrance to the fridge, still clutching the knife with his other hand. He knew it was wrong to stay there, this was how Denny died, by not looking at what he was doing-

He snapped his head to look at the second bottle he was reaching for. There wasn't a thing reaching for him. Dan wanted to laugh; he was freaking himself out for nothing. Then he heard the sound again and his nerve broke. 

Dan shouldered the bag and grabbed the torch and walked out into the relative light of the rest of the shop. Phillip looked up at him as he walked out of the employee only area. Dan heard the noise again, it was directly behind him. He whirled around with the knife leading the way.

There was nothing there.

He turned back to his friends, his heart in his throat as he tried to calm himself. Andy and Joshua were both standing, weapons drawn, alert. Dan's actions had triggered them off. 

“We need to get out of here.” Dan whispered.

“What's up?” Joshua asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

“I don't know.” Dan said. “I heard a sound.”

Joshua nodded and collected his bags. 

Dan walked out into the sunlight, blinking. Looking around, he noticed that Phillip wasn’t outside the building. He started to panic until he saw that Phillip was lurking outside the car he had been staring at previously. 

He took a few steps towards the car wondering what the hell it was that had engrossed the boy so much. Still squinting slightly, he could see a T-shirt was hooked through the passenger’s window, so as to block out the sun. It was a faded Alice in Chains T-shirt that looked vaguely familiar.    

His attention was drawn away by Isaac whistling. Dan looked up at the blond boy on the car, he was pointing to the road ahead. He managed to look in the direction that Isaac was pointing and Dan saw Alison running towards him. His attention flickered back to Phillip, the boy’s attention had moved away from the car and on to her. Dan immediately turned back to her as she slammed awkwardly into a parked car then frantically pushed through the strands of an overgrown hedgerow.

She was wearing a black gown, her mouth was wide open, her skin was grey and her eyes were only white. She was also about 5 feet from Dan.

He managed to take a step back as she lunged at him and saw her fly past him. He tried to retreat again as he swung out with his blade; the flashlight, forgotten, fell and hit the floor with a crack. This time Alison had him, had his arm and sank her teeth into his bicep. Dan heard himself scream as she bit the aluminium lining of his coat. He fell back with her on top of him. He could vaguely feel her biting the metal sheet several times. Her fingers were on his face; her pinkie finger was in his mouth.

Then Phillip was standing over him, Dan could see his face clearly, there was this fury etched in it that shook him. The tall boy pulled out a screw driver from his waist band and stabbed Alison through the back of the head, the flat end coming out of the side of her eye socket.

She slumped down onto Dan. 

Dan watched Phillip's face change from the anger seconds before to one of unadulterated fear and something that might have been guilt. He looked at Dan in a questioning manner. Dan just shook his head as if to say 'No, I'm okay'. Dan wasn’t really sure if that was true. 

Then Joshua and Andy were pulling Dan up, Joshua was saying something to him but he couldn't hear it at all his whole head was hot and the blood seemed to be pulsing through it. Then Dan felt himself being led to the car. Docilely he got in and sat in the back seat with Andy next to him. He watched rather dully as Phillip marched got in and started the engine as Joshua hopped into the passenger seat. 

Suddenly he was burning up and Dan started pawing at his coat trying to take it off, and after some struggling with the bag that was still on one of his shoulders he managed to whip it off of himself. He brought his arm up to his face as the vehicle bounced along the road. There were no marks on his arm. He ran his hands through his dreadlocks, why hadn't he been wearing a helmet? He should have been wearing a helmet. He rubbed his skin looking for abrasions. Nothing, he really was fine.

“You alright?” This from Andy.

Dan nodded.

“Mate, you're white as a sheet.” Andy handed a small bottle of brandy. “Get some of this downya.”

Dan took a slug and the spicy hot liquid flowed down him. He looked at Joshua who was discussing something with Phillip.

“-way. We aren't going back there right now.”

 “You're joking if she was there then he can’t be far.”

“You don't know that.” Joshua interjected. “Let’s talk about this when we get back. Dan looks in a bad way.”

Phillip said something that Dan couldn't hear.

“No, no. I think he's fine.” Joshua replied. 

                                                                        *

Dan left his collection with the rest of the gang and went to his room and grabbed a bottle of vodka and began drinking it. He turned on his CD player on and tried to knock back as much as possible. A song started playing and he hummed it as the chorus started. He took a few more drinks and felt it burn his stomach. 

The next thing he knew was that someone knocked on his door, Dan half expected it to be Jo there but instead he saw Caryn standing there. 

“Can I come in?” She asked quietly.

“Yeah sure.” He managed a rather fake smile. 

She sat down on the sofa opposite him.

“You might not want to sit on that.” Dan said weakly.

“Are you okay?” Caryn asked.

Dan took another swig of vodka.

“Phillip told me you got attacked by a fast one.”

“I got attacked by Alison.” Dan said. 

It was then that something dawned on him that made him sick to his stomach.

“Alison? Where did you see her?”

“A little out of town, didn’t Phillip tell you?” 

“No, he is wrapped up in something. You know how he gets things in his head and won’t talk.”

 “She kissed me the night before they left.” Dan said bluntly.

Caryn's brow creased. She seemed to realise that wasn't making Dan feel any better. 

Dan sighed.

“What happened anyway?” Caryn pushed. “How come she kissed you?”

“I'm not even really sure why. She said she wanted to talk and then she had me in a corner; might have gotten weirder if Isaac hadn't come in.” 

“Well, that is strange,” Caryn admitted as he finished. “You're going to have to stop being so charming all the time.”

This made Dan laugh. 

“What was the last charming thing I ever did Caryn?”

“I don't know.” Caryn smiled. “There must have been something.”

They didn't say anything for a bit. Dan wondered why the music wasn’t playing, he had zoned out previously and was unsure of what time it was.

Caryn stood up after they hadn't said anything for about 5 minutes and headed for the door. She turned before she left:

“Look, everyone knows what has happened between you and Jo.”

Dan felt himself laugh again.

“I know you used to rely on her for a lot of support.” Caryn started slowly, then added: “If there is anything I can do to help.”

Dan looked at her.

“Not that. You’re not that fucking charming.” She smiled, incorrectly interpreting his expression. “If you need to talk, I'm always around.”

Dan nodded. Then called to her before she left, she turned and smiled again. 

“If Phillip didn't tell you about Alison, I'm going to guess he didn't want people to know about it. Not yet anyway.” Dan said.

Caryn nodded.

Caryn walked out of the room and left Dan to his drinking and thoughts. 

He was about third of the way down the bottle when Nufonia popped into his head as she always did. He reached over to his CD player pressed play again. The same song that had been playing when he drove her to the hospital came on and he pressed the repeat button. He sat drinking and wondering about whether he was now infected. Wondering if Phil B was still alive and whether there was any good weed left around.

As if by magic Isaac and Duck appeared at his door.

“Hey man.” Isaac drawled. “You up for a little stoner party?”

“Sure.” Dan was having trouble focusing by this point and Duck and Isaac were doubling and quadrupling. “Why not?”

The two came in and sat down on the sofa. This time Dan said nothing.

Isaac immediately started rolling a joint.

“That was pretty fucked up today.” Duck said, startling the other two as she never started conversations.

Dan just nodded, not sure how to respond.

“Hey, no harm, no foul.” Isaac mumbled licking the joint shut.

“Has anyone told Craig?” Dan managed to ask; every time he blinked it was like the whole world disappeared.

“Whatever.” Isaac coughed a little before lighting the joint.

“Hey, just because of Lain.” Dan started uncertainly. “Just because of Lain doesn't mean that he doesn't deserve to know.”

“Know what?” Duck tried to take the spliff from Isaac but he refused. She was a little surprised at first so instead , she started rolling her own.

Isaac looked at Duck.

Dan looked out of his window the sun was pretty much gone and it was starting to get dark.

“Didn't you see?” Isaac asked.

Dan turned his attention back in time to see Duck shake her head.

She took a few more tokes of her joint and passed it to Dan. He, in turn, forgot he was holding a vodka bottle and dropped it to take the reefer. The bottle thudded to the ground but was caught by Isaac before much spilt or even Dan himself noticed what he had done.

“Whoa there.” Isaac remonstrated him. 

“So what was the deal?” Duck asked, taking the bottle of vodka from Isaac.

“I can't believe you didn't see.”

“I was in the car I barely saw any of it, there was a phone box in the way.”

Dan took a huge drag and let it wash over him. Pot succeeding alcohol could not be a good idea but Dan didn't care.

“That was Alison.” Isaac said. From where Dan was sitting it seemed like Isaac was underwater.

Dan felt the joint being taken off of him. 

“No fucking way.” Duck snorted. 

“I was definitely her.” Isaac said, a little uncertain.

Dan felt himself being shaken and looked up to see it was his stoner housemate. 

“It was her, Dan, it was, wasn't it?” He asked.

Dan looked at them through lidded eyes and shrugged.

“It can’t have been her, I mean, what are the chances?” Duck pointed out. “We just stop right there and she appears? Bullshit.” She made a face like she had just sucked on a lemon.

Dan hesitated but before he could say anything else the door to his room opened.

“Hey, hey.” Oli's voice came from the doorway. “Am I smelling some good sensimilla?”

“Alright man.” Isaac said from somewhere Dan couldn't quite tell. “Come in.”

Dan's senses were quickly shaken by movement on his bed and two thin arms wrapping around him.

“Wha?” His eyes pulled back into focus to see Jocelyn all inches from his face.

“Hey.” She half-whispered. “How are you?”

Feeling slightly sobered Dan managed a reply.

“I'm okay, doing better.” He nodded.

“That's good.” Jocelyn positively beamed; her curly hair framing her face so that the edges of her lips disappeared under its shadow. “That must have been so terrible.”

Dan looked into her eyes; they were as large as saucers. Even in his intoxication he could tell that she had clearly been doing pills or MDMA or some variation. With her arms still wrapped around him, he looked up at Oli in the fading light; he was bopping away to the indie tune. 

“I'm so glad that you are alright.” Jocelyn drew his attention back to her. “It would have been terrible if anything had happened to you.”

Dan felt a half smile come across his face as she squeezed him again. 

“Everyone else is bein' lame and watchin' TV.” Dan couldn't see Oli but could tell from the way the guy was exhaling he was still pumping away as he spoke.

Jocelyn finally let go of Dan and eagerly nabbed the joint that was proffered to her.

Dan smiled; pills, booze and pot were a strange combination.

                                                                        *

He wasn't sure when he had agreed to drop a couple of pills but he was well aware of when he came up on them. It was a slow feeling of wellbeing that spread through him, with the unerring feeling that his heart might push through his ribcage. 

He had already smoked and drank enough to knock himself out but the speed and MDMA combo was content to keep him on his feet. He remembered dancing to Cypress Hill, De La Soul and some guy called DJ Shadow. He remembered the power coming on for a bit but Oli and Isaac insisting on keeping Dan's room dark and only a solitary flashlight for rolling more doobies. Dan vaguely remembered being sick into a bucket then helping Jocelyn dissuade Oli from setting up a fire in the corner. He remembered Isaac and Duck being as bug-eyed as him, feeling like he would burst if he didn't hug them, and then hugging them. Each of these instances were bookended by blanks with the only the sense of his capillaries pulsing in his skull as if they were gently stroking his brain. None of the shattered recollections felt like they were in any particular chronological order but he wasn’t sure that they weren’t. 

“Secrets.” Isaac said triumphantly. “There's secrets everywhere. I have them. You must have them too and you too Duck.”

The three of them were sitting down in a triangle; each with their own bottle of cheap whiskey. Oli and Jocelyn were dancing to some generic scratch music.

“I have secrets.” Duck nodded solemnly. “But then I'm not going to tell anyone, am I?”

Dan was vaguely aware that he was chewing the inside of his mouth as he gurned a little.

“Secrets, secrets.” Isaac nodded. “You tell anyone, they aren't secrets anymore.”

The other two nodded in agreement, Dan took another sip of the whiskey.

“No, you can't tell anyone else.” Duck was also smoking a joint. “But then if you don't tell anyone how would anyone know you had secrets?”

“You just told me you had some.” Isaac pointed out, he was nodding his head. Dan didn't know what he was bobbing his head to but found himself somewhat entranced by the action. 

“Yeah.” Duck agreed.

“I have the ultimate secret.” Dan managed to force his jaws apart and talk. 

The two of them looked at him.

“When I drove Nufonia to the Hospital, she said something to me. The music was too loud so I couldn't hear her.” Dan said confidently. “It’s still a secret but I know it exists. It is the ultimate secret.”

Isaac frowned. 

“But you don't know what it is, what kind of secret." Isaac said.

“I am telling you man. That Andy and Lain, they have secrets.” Oli piped in. “Think about it. Why are they here? Why did their car crash. It is all a conspiracy all a crazy-

Dan was standing at the window of his room, looking out at the sun coming up. His right arm propped him up against the frame. He looked down at the window sill and saw a pile of ash from an incense stick and something told him he had tried to smoke it. Gazing out the window he could just make out shambling corpses in the square and it flooded back to him that the things he had hoped were fictional were very much in existence. He looked over his shoulder and saw Jocelyn was embracing Oli and the two of them were dancing to something that might have been a slow Chemical brothers or Orbital song. 

Duck was semi-comatose in the corner where he had been talking about secrets. Isaac was sitting next to her coughing his guts out and sweating. Dan looked back at Oli and Jocelyn the two were slinking off and out of Dan's room. He noticed that somehow he now had a cigarette in his left hand and wondered how that had got there but immediately started to smoke it for all its nicotine goodness. 

The sun was fully up and casting its rays into the square. Dan smiled at how he had managed to stay up all night. 

Unfortunately the pills were starting to wear out and he was now exhausted and drunk.

He managed to shuffle to his bed and found a small bottle of whiskey next to it. He knocked some of it back, crawled along the length of his mattress and switched off the CD player before passing out.

Dan slipped in between sleep and consciousness for some time. He was vaguely aware of first Isaac and then Duck leaving his room. There was a weird dream going on his head where he was running through a Spanish village with two men in suits chasing him. Dan was totally aware that he was dreaming but couldn't do anything to shake himself out of it. He was able to outrun the two men for short periods of time, he was even able to confront them and knock them down but both men appeared uncaring of how often Dan got away from them or how many times he threw them down stairs. They just dusted themselves off and recommenced their pursuit of him. Several times he forced himself awake only to sink back into the same dream. When he finally awoke properly he was bathed in sweat and exhausted. 

Dan's comedown was dissipating at this point but his hangover was in full force. His sweat stank of rancid alcohol, his hair of tobacco and Marijuana. His skull was pounding and the light of day was making his retinas sore. Dan lay there for a while trying to figure out what time in the afternoon it was, trying to ignore the way his temples felt.

His own smell was now really bothering him. It must have been at least 3 weeks since he had cleaned properly so he decided that what he needed was a bath. Each flat had a share of the rain water that they were to use for washing and then subsequently for flushing the toilet; Dan and Isaac being as unhygienic as they were failed to use the water very often for anything other than flushing. Dan decided that today was going to be different.

He grabbed a decent sized saucepan and filled it with water, then used a large, portable camping gas cooker to start heating it.

He made his way past the bathroom and knocked on Isaac's door. There was no response, so he knocked again. He heard Isaac groan and cough.

“Hey Isaac.” Dan said quietly so as not upset his head. “Do you want a bath? I'm taking one and you can share the water.”

There was no response. 

“Isaac?”

“Yeah?” Even through the door Isaac’s voice croaked; clear evidence of the night before.

“Do you want a bath?”

“Nah.”

After boiling the water, and filling the bath with about two inches of cold water, Dan emptied the hot water in after it and tried to clean himself. The water was lukewarm at best, but with an old flannel and some shower gel he managed to scrape off enough of the grime to make himself feel as if there were some semblance of humanity in him. Leaving the water in the bath after he was done, Dan returned to Isaac's door and knocked again. This time he heard some grumbling and groaning.

“If you want a bath. I'll even boil some more of the water if you like.” Dan wondered why he was even bothering to do this.

“No.” Dan hardly recognised Isaac's voice. “I'm okay.”

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I'm fine.” Isaac said, sounding anything but fine.

Dan wanted to walk away but something made him open the door and walk in.

Isaac was sitting on his single bed, in his small room smoking a joint. Isaac's body was glistening with sweat and pale, nothing like his normal sun kissed appearance. His blond hair was matted against his scalp; there were black rims under both his eyes. His fingers shakily held the blunt to his lips.

Dan stopped, he felt himself go cold. Isaac looked at him wearily.

“I'm okay, really, I'm okay.” The stoner managed.

Except they both knew he wasn't. 

“When did it start?” Dan asked.

“I started feeling weird as we started driving back.” Isaac kept smoking fiercely. 

“Oh Isaac.” Dan said, just staring at him.

“It’s alright I just wanted one more night of normal before anyone said anything.” Isaac started trembling. “I don't want to die Dan, I really don't.”

By this time his whole body was shaking furiously as if he was going to start laughing, instead he just burst into tears.