Pt. 26 - Neurons Like Brandy - Chapter 11: 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 chapter is focused on the present day situation of the zombie apocalypse.




After Phillip left and Dan had fully recovered from his fits of hysteria, he got up and, as calmly as he could, returned to eating the cereal.

He didn’t want to think about anything else, instead he focused on reaching into the bag, gripping grains and then pulling them out of the bag and pushing them into his mouth. He kept it as systematic as he could.

I should have left with Phil B., he surmised. Phillip was right about him, what was the point? George would have figured something out, if not, maybe Jo might have been able to offer him some kind of reassurance that would do nothing to really make him feel better but that would, at least, make him not want to sit here and do nothing again.

I’d probably be dead like Alison is right now, or dead like Phil B. probably is if I had gone with them, he admitted.

He shifted as he felt his bum cheeks go numb, attempting to cause the tingling to stop. It diminished slightly but remained as a slow burn on the edges of his skin that was in contact with his trousers. He contemplated actually getting up but stuck to eating the flakes of sugar.

Occasionally he would find one of the breakfast morsels that had lost its battle with time and was now starting to grow new forms of life. The mold always had the same earthy unpleasantness to it that cut through all his taste buds in a way that no amount of extra sugar could mask. Rather than spitting them out, he resigned himself to it.

As he crunched through the box he was reminded of a film from his childhood – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In one scene two of the heroes commiserate that the pizza is covered in penicillin by humming a funeral march.

It struck him as odd that of all things to pop into his head; a moment that should have been forgettable from an already forgotten film from 15 years previous, yet the taste of something he had never experienced before had triggered reliving that pointless moment. 
 
As he continued to eat it reminded of the first time they had done their first attempt at a food run.

They had started to run low on food, or at least, George had estimated that they had maybe a week or two of food left before things started to get bad. He argued that if they waited until there was no food it would be worse.

Phillip had put up a perfunctory argument. That is what he had done with George, disagree with him on pretty much everything; sometimes he was right and it made sense but most of the time it was weird grumbling.

Dan hadn’t really thought about it until now but right up to the day George had died, Phillip and George had always made sure they were present. After a brief debate between them in front of Dan and Caryn they had made a decision.

George, Phillip, Oli, Denny and Dan made that first run. Dan drove them along the sea front with intent of going to the first major super market. Dan was arguing that if anywhere was going to be hit, like in all good zombie films then it would be the big supermarket. If it wasn’t zombies then there would be looters.

In this regard, he certainly wasn’t wrong.

Their journey almost ended in complete disaster as they drove into the Marina. To get to they had to drive through a small tunnel and down a curving ramp that led into the supermarket’s car park. It was within seconds of exiting the tunnel that they encountered a literal horde of Camers. Dan would have estimated at least a hundred, probably more, were loitering in the road. Dan could only imagine that people must have flocked to the supermarket in an attempt to get resources and with them had come the Zombies, as the people had been taken down they had come back and had no place left to go.

Dan had reacted quickly enough and reversed as the first of the fast ones saw them and started pelting towards the car; he could clearly see the one nearest the bonnet, half of his face was drooping off his chin, the edges of the skin that flapped in the wind were a green/grey mess.

As he recalled that haggard, flopping scrape of flesh it made Dan stop eating for a minute while he let his stomach settle.

On the day when they had almost made the supermarket undead sweep, instead they went to the outskirts of Eastern Brighton. The council estate was called Whitehawk, or ‘Shitehawk’ as most Brightonians would call it.

They settled for a less ambitious off-license on the way into Whitehawk. While Dan parked, Phillip started humming ‘An Englishman in New York. Dan looked at him and saw that he was grinning from ear-to-ear.

“I used to work with a guy that hated this place. Mind you, he hated everything. He always used to hum that Sting song because some radio show did a reworking about getting mugged in Whitehawk.” Phillip said. “Guy taught me everything I know but, man, he was an arsehole. Last I heard he had hooked up some Hippy nutters, which made no sense because he hated Hippies. Actually, he hated everyone.”

“So he did teach you everything you know then.” George retorted.

“No, that started way before I met him.” Phillip half-sneered then, as if he realised what he had said he added: “Besides, I don’t hate everyone, not like that guy did.”

They broke into the shop with little hassle, Denny and Oli stayed outside to keep watch while the three of them rooted around with flashlights. Dan looks back now at how disorganised they had been and how lucky they were no real protection, no real exit plan from the shop, and only one of the look outs with any knowledge of how to drive.

The shop was small, all of the cases of beer had been ransacked from the displays on the floor, most of the wine was gone from the displays too.
The spirits behind the tills had fared a little better from what Dan could see but before he could move to vault over the counter, Phillip stopped him. The boy motioned to something with his head that was when Dan had heard the scratching sounds.

Phillip cautiously moved to side of the counter and then stole a quick glance down towards where the sound was coming from, swinging the light down as he looked. He turned to them and motioned to follow him.

There was one zombie, trapped under 3 crates of beer, seemingly launched at it from the back room. The scraping noise was it feebly trying to move the bottle of over priced champagne that it still clutched, this caused the worn away cork to brush against the equally frayed wood of the counter. Dan remembered wondering what that zombie’s story had been and whether it had been trying to move that bottle for weeks.

He held the flashlight in the direction of the figure as Phillip stood over it carefully, George had the insight to keep a light on the back of the shop in case there were anymore. The creature seemed to come alive seconds before Phillip jammed the kitchen knife through its forehead, as if it had finally realised its purpose but way too late to compensate.

They cleared the back room and cellar and found nothing else except for a treasure trove of crisps, chocolate and booze of varying sizes. Although a number had been done on the front of the store people clearly hadn’t been desperate enough to venture into the dark of the downstairs. They loaded up the car as quickly as they could with everything that looked even vaguely edible, they prioritised water and soft drinks after that but Phillip had already allocated space for bottles of bourbon and whiskey.

On they third trip in Dan caught George staring at the corpse with the sparkling wine. When he realised that he had been caught George pointed at it:

“Very Camoo.” He observed.

“Who?”

“This guy called Albear Camoo wrote about an outbreak of the Bubonic Plague in Algeria, I think.” George explained as picked up another box of items. “Early on, he describes a character that tries to horde peaches to capitalise on food growing scarce during the imposed quarantine.”
Dan grabbed to shrink wrapped six packs of 2 litre cokes and followed him out as he continued.

“Within pages of this the guy gets the plague and dies, never getting to see the fruits of his entrepreneurial endeavours.”

“Nice pun.” Dan pointed out.

“What?”

“You said ‘fruits of his endeavours’ and he was hording peaches.”

George laughed heartily and genuinely.

“Man I hadn’t even thought of that, trust you to catch that.” He said, dumping the box in the back of the car. “The point of the story, I think, was that no matter what you material plans might be nature has other ideas. That person picked a magnum bottle of Bollinger but look what good that did them.”

Phillip appeared at the conclusion and snorted:

“That, or don’t be a cunt because Karma is a bitch.”

George got a weird smile on his face and went to say something, hesitated, seemed to change his mind and then said:

“There is that too.”

Dan thought about that moment over and over again. Phillip had essentially rephrased the sentence with more vulgarity, had George being smiling because he hated the swearing, maybe liked the swearing? Had he been genuinely amused but because Phillip hadn’t really understood the state, or simply chosen to ignore it? Had he been amused because Phillip had to argue with him at every point, or had he been irritated with him for the exactly the same reason?
George had been his friend, tried to be everyone’s friend, or at least tried to get along with everyone. Phillip was the exact opposite, or at least Dan had always thought so and yet when Phillip had approached him earlier he had seemed genuinely hurt when he had considered them to no longer be friends even though Dan would have considered them to not have been friends for months now.

Dan blinked; at some point it had got dark without him noticing.

He felt a little faint and noticed that his hands were shaking. He got a mild hint of nausea as his body tried to reject the food but he managed to fight it back down.

He debated getting up and then the restlessness of wanting to be stoned, as he realised how long he had been sitting there, kicked in.

He got to his feet and fought off the pins and needles in his legs, limping a little as he went to grab a hoody before going outside.

He went upstairs to the greenhouse; his only wish was that Craig or Duck were up there and ready to share a joint.

Unfortunately, there were no lights or candles in the shack. Dan resigned himself to raiding the plants himself and smoking alone in the dark.

As he gingerly made his way through the dark, still waiting for the feeling to come back to his legs and also trying not to kick the buckets that littered the floor, he heard someone emit a sigh coming from the wall.

He suppressed a brief flash of panic.

“Hello?”

A torch clicked on the beam swung towards him making him squint as it rested on his eyes.

“Hello Dan.” It was Caryn.

The light moved down and lit up the ground in front of him, and he walked towards her.

Once he had sat down next to her, she flipped the light to point straight up; the glare cast shadows on her face that made her look like she was in a horror film with the top of her face less well lit than the bottom.

“So, after last night, do you want to go one worse and tell me that my mother was arsehole?” She asked

Dan felt himself look guilty, she could clearly see that because she countered.

“It’s okay.” It was said in a way that he knew that it wasn’t. It was said in a way that he remembered lead to her listening to Riot Grrl music loudly and not talking to him.

He tried to think of something to say but she already had something lined up.

“It is better that I know.” She said and then hurriedly added. “I mean, he said he was going to tell me.”

“I was pretty wasted.” Dan offered by way of explanation.

“Oh, I could tell.” She said in a tone that dripped with sarcasm. Dan could see where this path was going to, she wasn’t just a little angry, she was furious.

“Look-

“No, just listen to me because I am so fucking angry at you right now.” She said quietly but the tone was threatening.

“Seriously, I was really drunk.” Dan protested.

“It isn’t that.” She said casually then more angrily: “It is like you are trying to destroy everything.”

“That’s what Phillip said.”

“Well, it might be true.” She snapped. “It isn’t enough that Jo hates you and all you have to do is apologise. Instead I talk to you and you can’t just apologise for coming into the room, drunk, with a big grin on your face and telling me my boyfriend is cheating on me.”

Dan remained silent. Images were fluttering through his head; it was still unclear to him if the conversation had ever happened but now he kept getting new snapshots of what he saw. It overlaid his previous reflections and this, in his head, he was laughing as Caryn looked concerned after he had told her about the kiss. She pushed him to confirm this for certain, he had nodded trying to contain himself and wipe away the tears.

“Laine is one thing. She is a confused child and I am not happy but you, it is hard not to see what you are doing as malicious.”

“What are you saying?”


“I think you know what I am saying.”

“Phillip killed Grey.”

Caryn hesitated, retreating from the light of the torch then she leaned forwards.

“Who told you?”

“Isaac, he told me before he died.” Dan caught up with the conversation. “Wait, you knew?”

“Of course, we don’t keep secrets like that from each other.”

Dan tried to process everything, failed to, and then relented.

“What were you trying to say?”

“I said I would talk to you about leaving.”

“This is more my home than yours.”

Caryn paused again as if trying muster up something.

“Is it really though? You have to admit that you aren’t really contributing anymore.”

Her tone had changed again, she wasn’t angry now and that made it worse. She was trying to be reconciliatory, nice and it actually hurt Dan.

“You have to admit, it would be for the best.”

“No, I think that I would be dead in less than a week.” Dan replied. “Is that what you want, for me to die?”

Caryn didn’t answer, he could tell that she had backed herself into a corner.

“Is this Phillip’s decision?” He asked.

Caryn snorted.

“No, it was our decision. He doesn’t know how to talk to you about it after this morning. He feels like you have betrayed him.”

“Why, because I questioned his decisions? I thought you said that was a good thing?” Dan, for the first time in a long time could feel himself getting genuinely upset.

“I don’t know, exactly.”

“When do you want me to leave?” Dan asked.

“Don’t say it like that.” Caryn said softly.

“Tell me when you want me to leave.” He said a little more determinedly.

He could see her grimacing at this point.

“When does it suit you to leave?” She asked.

Dan wanted to get angry but there was something holding him back. She hadn’t said the exact words, he told himself, so he didn’t technically have to leave.

“Okay.” He replied and got up.

“Don’t be like that Dan.” She called after him. When he didn’t respond and kept walking, kicking things out of his way as he went. “Oh fine, be like that. Walk away, don’t apologise, don’t fucking change.”

Dan returned to his room and started scouring through his possessions on the floor. He found a half empty bottle and took swig, it was Malibu; the taste was so sickly that it made him gag as he tried to get it down his throat.

I don’t have to leave, he kept telling himself. At the same time he knew that if he didn’t it was only going to get worse.

But Caryn hadn’t said the words, Dan told himself.

He finished the coconut flavoured drink and then marched to the recreational room to find more alcohol. When he arrived, ready to try and be angry, he found that no one was there. Unsatisfied with this he made his way to where he knew there would be something to drink. Finding an interesting looking bottle in the dark he unscrewed the top and was greeted by the overwhelming aniseed taste going down his throat it didn’t stop him drinking.

He still had this strange, nervous energy that he had no idea what to do with. He walked around the room as best he could, occasionally slipping on discarded DVD cases or bumping into furniture. All the while he kept supping on the bitter, sluicing liquid.

Eventually he tired himself out so he sat against one of the sofas and kept taking tiny sips of what was left.

It occurred to him that maybe Phil B. and Alison hadn’t stolen any booze at all. Instead, it had been the collective just ‘borrowing’ the bottles in late night visits when they had felt like it.

Maybe, he thought, it is all nonsense.

Dan started to feel the effects of the alcohol taking over; he desperately wanted to lie down but knew that it was a bad idea because he wasn’t in his own room.
He started to feel his eyelids try and force themselves down and he kept having to try to keep them open as he stifled yawns and tried to drink more. In turn, the aniseed drink had become less and less palatable the more he drank of it.

The radio receiver crackled alive and he found himself hit with a burst of energy. He couldn’t tell if he had been dozing and then woken up after minutes or hours, or if he had never been asleep and the sound of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’ had snapped him back to a different level of sobriety.

The song ended and DJ Henry Kissinger started talking. At first he seemed uncertain of where he was going with his thoughts, slowly the speaker gained momentum. Dan had been trying to focus but now that the talker was energised he found himself paying attention. It was that point that the Disc Jockey said something that had him grasping for something that might be able to write.

Dan found a biro, the body shattered by a careless foot step and he started to scribble the information down on his arm.
The show ended but Dan felt the same nervous energy.

I have a purpose, he told himself, I can make things better. I can contribute.

Dan felt himself smile.

His next conscious experience was the assault of sun light on his face. The sensations going through his brain felt like someone had taken a surgical saw to his upper lobe and split it open then jammed electrodes into it.

He managed to groan before covering his face with the grimy sheet. He kept his eyes shut in the vague, sticky darkness but the longer he did it he felt like his head was swinging listlessly. The longer that those gyrations kept going the closer he felt to throwing up. He sat up in an attempt to control his bowels.

He slapped his hands up to his face to block out the glare, with his eyes still open he could see the orange/yellow glow through his palms.

He held himself like that for a while then, gradually, he moved his arms away, blinking in an attempt to make the liquid in his eyeballs function correctly instead of stinging him.

Once he his gaze was in focus he noticed Joshua on the sofa opposite him.

“Oh hey, you are up.” Joshua said casually, a smile flickered and disappeared on his face, his right hand brushed through his hair as he did so.

“When did you get here?”

“About an hour ago.” Joshau replied, still brushing his hair. “I heard you and Caryn talking last night.”

“So, are you here to kick me out?”

Joshua pulled his head back and frowned, his chin almost disappearing into his neck.

“I’ve packed my stuff.” He said.

“What?”

“I am done here.” Joshua gestured with his hands to the air. “It has been fun but now I am done. You are leaving right?”

“I was.” Dan said uncertainly, he looked at his arm and saw what he had written the night before. The recollections slipped back into place.

“Cool. I like everyone here but I have the feeling that if I don’t leave now with you it might be harder for me to do so, safely, later.”

Dan looked at him and then crawled out of bed and towards some clothes.

“So what do you think?”

“Sure, if we can get to a car, it would help me.”

Dan found a T-Shirt and after a little while, a cardigan. He stood up, and attempted a smile that came out all wrong.

“Err, aren’t you going to pack?”

“No.”

I can still contribute, he thought to himself.       

5 comments:

  1. Interesting... curious to see where this goes.

    "Albear Camoo"? :)

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    1. Well, you are going to have to wait a few weeks and a couple of chapters to find out what is going to happen next in regards to this story.

      Albear Camoo = Albert Camus

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  2. Great chapter!

    I love the sense of comradery from Joshua at the end of this chapter, and the sinking feeling of betrayal/pain as Dan talks to Caryn (or that's how I interpreted it, anyway).

    Also, Dan's realisation that they'd all just been gradually drinking the booze and probably no one had stolen it made me laugh a bit. ;)

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    1. Glad you liked it, I was a little uncertain about the talk between Caryn and Dan. I wasn't sure it worked.

      I would also say that it is your interpretation of the events but that is a good thing. It is ambiguous enough and it is true that there is definitely a sense of betrayal but there is also Caryn's perspective. Dan, intentionally or not, is fucking up her relationship and has fucked everything else up that he touches. From Dan's perpective this has all sort of just happened to him but really a lot of it was set in motion but his actions or inactions. He is easily his own worst enemy and he doesn't see it.

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    2. Also, I started to realise that every chapter needed a little more humour so, yeah, Dan falls downstairs and drunks drink booze and forget about it.

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