by Mark Morris
"Right," Dad said, "how are we gonna do this?"
"I'll go in," Max said. "You don't have to."
"Do you want us to?" Dad said.
Max shrugged and looked away. "Nah, it's all right, man."
I knew what Max was thinking. On the one hand he didn't like the idea of being in there on his own, in case of what he might find, but on the other he didn't like the idea of maybe getting upset in front of us.
"How about we come in with you, but if you want us to go we'll come back outside and wait for you here?" I said.
Max still looked unsure for a few seconds, then said, "Yeah, okay. Thanks."
Although he had a key, the wooden door had swollen with the wa-ter and he and Dad had to give it a few kicks before it opened. We jumped back as a wave of water came out, bringing a few things with it-a packet of toilet rolls, a cellophane wrapper filled with a green wet lump of mouldy bread, a wastepaper basket, a cushion, some lumpy stuff that might once have been newspapers or magazines, a black shoe and some other stuff too that I can't remember.
Max picked up the shoe and wiped a layer of mud off it with his thumb. It was a woman's slip-on shoe, black leather with a low heel.
"This is my ma's," he said.
Dad put a hand on his shoulder. "Are you ready for this?" Max
didn't look like he was, but he nodded. "Yeah, man."
We went in. The carpet was like a swamp, the muddy water swirling around our boots. Straightaway I knew (and I'm sure Dad and Max did too) that things were going to be very bad here. We'd only taken a few steps when the smell hit us. Unless you've actually smelled a rotting body it's impossible to describe how disgusting it is. Think of all the rotten things you've ever smelled-meat, fish, cheese, eggs-and then times that by a hundred. It's a thick sort of smell, like a big, greasy cloud of gas. It's hours now since we were in Max's house, but I still get whiffs of it, as if it's in my clothes and skin and hair, and every time I do it makes me want to puke.
I DID puke in Max's house. I couldn't help it. As soon as that smell hit me I turned my head and hurled up the wall. I didn't have time to go outside and do it in the garden. I felt really bad, like I was the rudest person ever, but then Max bent over and he puked too, right between his feet.
Dad took some rags out of his pocket and handed one to me. I thought it was to wipe my mouth, but he told me to tie it around my face.
"Sue gave them to me," he said. "She said we might need them."
The rag smelled of something nice, like lavender or something. It didn't make the disgusting smell go away, but it made it bearable.
When we all had our rags tied over our faces, Dad said, "You know the signs here are not good, don't you, Max?"
Max pulled a face as if he didn't want to hear it, but he nodded. "Yeah, man."
"Look," said Dad, "why don't you 2 wait here and I'll see what's what?You don't have to put yourself through this."
Max, tho, shook his head. "I have to see. Even if it's bad I have to see it with my own eyes."
"You sure?" Dad said.
Max nodded.
"Okay," said Dad. "Come on."
Whenever I see people on telly whose houses have been flooded or burned down or whatever, I always feel really sorry for them. I always think of the things they've lost that can never be replaced (photographs and family heirlooms and stuff) and how terrible that must make them feel. And I think of them having to build their lives up again from nothing, having to find a place to live and stuff to put in it. Not just basic stuff like carpets and curtains and furniture, but all the little things we collect over the years that remind us of places we've been or things we've done.
It's weird, but none of that material stuff now seems to matter. When I said this to Dad, he said, "That's because sentiment is a luxury we can no longer afford." What he meant is, sentimental things are fine when the world's okay, because the memories that go with those things exist in that world. But when the actual world's gone, when there's something much bigger to worry about, then the sentimental things aren't worth anything anymore. You can't live on them. You can't keep warm on them. And when nearly everyone's dead except you, the only REALLY important thing is that you're still here. It's like Dad and his Jimi Hendrix guitar string. If that had been nicked a couple of weeks ago he'd have been devastated. But los-ing it now isn't all that important. It's just a little thing. And we don't have time for little things anymore. There are too many big things to think about.
It was like that with Max too. If I'd gone through his house with him in the normal world and it had been trashed by vandals or burglars, I'm sure he would have been gutted. But the fact that all his and his mum's and brother's stuff was wrecked just wasn't important anymore. Finding his mum was the only important thing. Even though we were 99% sure she was dead, all Max wanted was to find her. Then he could cry for her and close the door on that part of his life and move on, or whatever.
As we expected, we DID find her on the upstairs landing, and she WAS dead. She was lying on her front with her right arm above her head as if she was reaching for something. Her body looked shrunken and twisted, and there were white things moving all over her. Dad said, `Jesus," and Max made a noise that was half a gasp and half a word. I turned away, feeling sick.
Then Max started whispering over and over, "Oh God, Ma, oh God, oh God, Ma."
"What do you want to do?" Dad said, but Max didn't answer. Dad put a hand on his shoulder. "Max, what do you want to do?" he asked again.
Max was half crying, his voice breaking up. "We've got to bury her, man," he said.
"Are you sure?" Dad said, as if he didn't think it was a good idea. Max looked at him angrily. "I ain't leaving her here!" he shouted. "Okay," Dad said, and it sounded like the same voice he'd used in the supermarket when he'd been trying to calm down the madman. "If that's what you want, that's what we'll do."
Then Dad came over to me and said quietly, "I want you to wait outside,Abby."
I didn't argue. I went down and waited in the garden.A few minutes later they came out carrying Max's mum's body in a filthy wet duvet. I could see from Dad's face that things had not been good up there. Max looked shocked, as if he'd seen something so bad he was in a daze.
We found a bit of the garden that wasn't too swampy and cleared the rubbish out of the way, and then Dad and Max dug a hole, using part of a mangled car bumper, taking turns to scoop out great chunks of sloppy earth. When they'd finished they picked up Max's mum's body, still wrapped in the duvet. I went across to help, but Dad said it was okay, they could manage.
They put the body in the hole, then filled it in again. Then Max went down on his knees beside the grave, his legs folding under him as if he was so tired he couldn't stand up anymore. His knees sank into the mud but he stayed there for a while, his head down and his hands clenched together, as if he was praying.A couple of times his shoulders shook like he was crying, but I didn't hear him making any sounds.
At last he got up, the mud making a slurping noise as he pulled his legs out of it, and walked over to us. He'd taken the mask off his face and tears were running down his cheeks. He wiped an arm across his face and then he looked at us.
"There ain't even any f***ing flowers, man," he said, and he sounded really angry. "There ain't no f***ing flowers in this f***ing world anymore."
"Why don't you put the shoe on the grave?" I said. It was on the path where Max had dropped it earlier.
He didn't answer, and I thought maybe it was a really stupid thing to say. But then Dad said, "It was something that belonged to her. It's more personal than flowers."
Max looked across at the shoe and then he went over and picked it up. Without a word he walked back to the grave and put the shoe on it really carefully, right in the middle. Then he kissed his fingers and touched the shoe and walked back to us.
"Let's go," he said.
They turned the body over and recoiled, Max expelling a childlike scream. His mother's face was gone, eaten away
. In its place was a hollow of bone and rotting flesh, seething with maggots. More maggots, engorged on putrescence, spilled from the red-black wound of her stomach. As though crazed by blood and galvanized by their feast, the maggots began to twitch and then to leap, to flow upwards, fastening themselves to Steve's clothes, pattering his face and hands like raindrops. He felt them wriggling in his hair, attaching themselves to his flesh like leeches. He reeled away, batting at them, snatching handfuls of them from his clothes. He could feel their fat lit-tle bodies bursting beneath his fingers, coating his hands with a sticky liquor that smelt of rot. He felt them seeking the on-faces of his face, exploring his ears and nostrils, forcing them-selves between his lips, probing at the corners of his eyes.... He thought he might have screamed as he snapped awake, though he wasn't sure. If he had screamed, then no one had heard it, no one had stirred. He looked around the fomner classroom they had converted into a dormitory for himself, Max, Marco and Greg. It was pitch-black-no streetlights, nor even a glimmer of moon. But he could hear the deep breathing of sleeping men, Greg's gentle snores. He shuddered, like a dog shaking off the rain, then reached towards his rucksack for his torch.
Dealing with Max's mum's body had been grim, but Steve had done his utmost to hold himself together for the boy's sake. It was only later, walking back to the hotel, that the effects had hit him. He had begun to shake as if his central nervous system were under attack. When they got back to the hotel he had shut himself away for an hour, trying, not for the first time, to come to terms with the way the world had been tipped on its head. Tonight's dream had been an exaggeration of what had happened, but not a wild one. Steve had certainly never seen so many maggots, and particularly not ones that appeared so lively. Indeed, it was the fact they had seemed al-most aggressive that he had found so repellent. Careful as he and Max had been not to touch the corpse, they had still dis-covered maggots beading them throughout the enshrouding of it, had had to keep swiping away the wriggling little lumps of life that managed to find their way onto their sleeves and thighs, even their shoulders and lapels.
Making sure that his torch was pointing upwards, he turned it on. The water-stained ceiling squashed the beam into a white pool of illumination that cast definition around the room. Steve glanced over to where Max was curled in his sleeping bag. If Steve was suffering nightmares, then God only knew what Max was going through-though for the moment he appeared to be sleeping peacefully.
Steve shucked off his sleeping bag and rummaged in his rucksack for his tin of tobacco and his rolling papers. He slipped on his still-damp boots, grimacing at the clamminess he felt against the soles of his feet; then in a T-shirt, sweater, boxer shorts and boots, he made his way out of the room.
Plodding down the corridor, torch beam probing ahead of him, it occurred to Steve that they could not have found a more eerie place to make camp than this secondary school in Dollis Hill. Schools in general were weird places-full of life by day and mausoleums by night. The thought that most, if not all, of the children who, until just over a week ago, had come here every day were now gone forever made the place seem eerier still. If ever there was a building where the spirits of the dead might congregate, then this was it.
He shivered and entered a classroom at the far end of the corridor. Spooked by his own thoughts, he forced open the water-swollen door of the stationary cupboard in the corner to ensure that there was nothing lurking inside, ready to leap out at him. On this side of the building, the room was intermittently lit by flashes of the blue lightning out on the horizon. Steve's torchlight crawled across chairs and desks, which had been strewn about as though by a mob of unruly children, the wood they were constructed from softened and darkened by water. He found a chair that was cleaner than most and easy to tug from the tangle of furniture and equipment. He guessed this room had once been a language lab, judging by the two laminated posters, bleached and wrinkled, that still clung to the walls. He wiped clots of silt from the seat of the chair and set it beneath the window. Then he sat down and rolled himself a cigarette.
He wondered how long it would take them to reach Scotland. How far away was Scotland? Five hundred miles? Today they had traveled about five miles, working their way mainly up the A5, through Paddington and Maida Vale, Kilburn and Cricklewood. Sue had spent Sunday afternoon building a kind of sedan chair out of dried-out planks of wood salvaged from the surrounding streets. This had been used to lift Mr. B's wheelchair over the tricky bits, and overall it had worked pretty well. He, Abby, Max, Marco, Sue and Libby had taken turns carrying the old man in half-hour stints. The day had been uneventful aside from one major blowup between Sue and Marco. It had started because Marco had grunted something about Mr. B being a burden when it had been his turn to carry the old man's wheelchair.
The only person who didn't seem to take offense at Marco's comment had been George himself.
"You're right, old son," he said, "I am a burden. I wish there was somethin' I could do about it, but there ain't. So if you decided to leave inc behind, I wouldn't be able to blame yer."
"Don't you worry, Mr. Beamish," Sue said. "If anyone's going to be left behind, it's him."
Marco sneered. "Oh yeah? I'd like to see you try."
"Oh, I don't think you would," Sue said dangerously.
With an arrogant shake of the head, Marco said, "You ain't the law no more, girl. You might think you are, but you ain't."
"Believe it or not, I'nm well aware of that fact," Sue said. "What I am, though, is a member of a group of people who need to work together to survive. Do you understand the situation we're in here, Marco? Has the significance of what we're facing not just today but possibly every day for the rest of our lives penetrated that tiny brain of yours? Because I don't think it has."
"Fuck you!" Marco snarled. "I don't need to listen to this shit."
"I rather think you do, Marco," Greg interceded quietly.
"Fucking hell," Marco said, "you're all in this together."
"We're not in anything, Marco," Steve said, "except deep shit. Sue's right. We need to work as a team, help each other. You included."
"Might have thought you'd have your fucking say," Marco said. "Well, you're not nay fucking boss, pal, and you neverwill be."
"Grow up, you moron!" Sue yelled suddenly, making Abby jump.
"Yeah, nman, shut your mouth," Max said.
Marco looked wildly at each of them-and then he swung the Heckler and Koch he had been carrying from his shoulder. He didn't exactly point it at anyone, but he held it as though he would be prepared to if provoked.
Libby took a step backwards. Mabel gave a little scream. George said conversationally, "What you gonna do, son? Put nee out of my misery?"
Before Marco could respond, Sue said evenly, "If you point that at any of us it will be the biggest mistake of your life."
"Oh yeah?" Marco said.
"Yeah," said Sue, and turned to Steve. "Knew it was a mistake giving him a gun. Knew he wouldn't handle it responsibly. It's just lucky I didn't give him any ammunition."
She swung her own Heckler and Koch from her shoulder and tapped the stubby magazine that was loaded forward of the trigger. Marco stared at her weapon, then his own, and saw the empty space there. His face turned a deep crimson. He hurled the gun to the ground.
"Fuck you!" he screamed, then turned and stomped away.
"Oh dear," Mabel moaned.
"Marco," Greg called, and started to go after him.
Sue, however, held up a hand, as though halting traffic. "Let him go."
`But we can't leave him to his own devices," Greg said. "I doubt he'd have the resources to survive on his own."
"He'll catch up," Sue said.
"How can you be so sure?" asked Libby
Sue turned and gave her a hard smile that failed to reach her eyes. "Trust me."
She was right. A couple of hours later Marco reappeared, silently tagging on to the back of the group. No one said anything. No one spoke to him until half an
hour later when Steve and Abby were coming to the end of their stint carrying George's wheelchair and it was time to hand over to someone else. Then Sue called, "Hey, Marco, you want to help me with this?"
Abby braced herself, but Marco gave an abrupt nod and plodded forward. Steve looked at Libby and raised his eyebrows and was rewarded with a wink and a smile.
So. At their present rate of progress it would take them one hundred days to reach Scotland. Three months traveling. That would take them past Christmas and into the New Year. Steve wondered where they would spend Christmas Day and how they would cope with the tumbling temperatures as winter approached.
"Penny for them," a voice said behind him.
He spun so violently that his cigarette went flying out of his hand. Silhouetted in the doorway was the figure of a woman. A crackle of blue lightning revealed it to be Libby, her skin and hair limned in blue. Her laughter was light, but with an underlying throatiness that Steve found incredibly sexy.
"Sorry," she said, "did I make you jump?"
"No, no," he said, spying the glowing ember of his dropped cigarette and plucking it from the damp floorboards. He grinned. "My hair hasn't turned white, has it?"
"Well... perhaps just the tiniest bit gray. Mind if I join you?"
"Not at all," said Steve. "Pull up a pew On second thought, you have this one, and I'll get another for myself."
He hauled another chair from the silted tangle of wood and metal. As Libby sat he saw her cross her arms and shudder.
