by Al K. Line
He was given a lovely spot up against a wall, and Cassie felt it was important that some words were said. Mike was not a religious person, so rather than anything formal Cassie merely talked about their time together and how she loved him and would miss him dearly. She talked about knowing of his past, admitting that he had certainly been no angel. He had done good and he had definitely done bad, but he had been punished for his crimes and had begun a new life afterward. When he found Cassie he had been sure to let her know the kind of man he now was, and the kind of man he had been. She loved him all the more for his honesty, and the admission of failures on his part, ones he tried to rectify and learn by, rather than not be man enough to admit.
The early morning was damp and gray with a mist hovering just above the dew-drenched rich green lawn. It did nothing to improve the sombre atmosphere. Their footprints showed the slow trail they made from house to burial plot. It was a short ceremony, Cassie was in no fit state to talk for long. So everyone else paid their respects quietly and rather anxiously because of the sheer weight of sadness Cassie was obviously carrying, before Al and Kyle covered him over with the soil they had previously dug out.
A fractal cloud of migrating birds screeched low overhead, shattering the silence and startling the group as they said their goodbyes. Nobody knew if this was a good or bad omen.
After Mike had been given a proper burial Cassie did an odd thing. She dug a hole a few feet wide and slightly deeper than the length of her lower leg. She then sat on the still damp grass, took off her Crocs and put her feet in the hole — pulling the soil back into the available space remaining. It looked like she was trying to grow herself.
"Um, Cassie... whatthefuckyadoin?" blurted Kyle, unable to stop himself. He was worried she had gone over the edge with grief, it was palpable in the air.
"It's an ancient Yogi custom," she said. It absolutely wasn't, she had totally made it up but she did that quite a lot. "It gives you time to reflect on the fact that we all return to whence we came eventually." Cassie was doing her best to sound mystical and wise. All she really felt was fucking sad.
"Er, okay. Like when the Yogis go to graveyards and spend days covered in the ashes of the dead, contemplating their own mortality. That kind of thing?" asked Kyle, surprising Cassie.
"Yes, just like that, but without the gross bit."
Kyle was right, and Cassie was surprised he knew such things. In fact Kyle knew a lot of interesting things in addition to a lot of sheer crap. Spending a lifetime glued to the Web will do that to a young fella.
They chatted away for a while, and then everyone busied themselves around the place, exploring, taking stock of provisions and unloading the vehicles. They were going to stay, and they were going to make it their home for now. Nobody had yet had the time to consider a long term plan, or what the future would hold, but they felt sure this could be a place to gather strength, find out more about what was happening out there in the world, and to adjust to their new existence.
Kyle and Al found a number of large, and very heavy, sheets of steel in an outhouse, and with some considerable trial and error they miraculously got a large drill press working in a workshop. With a series of measurements and plenty of arguments they managed to arrange very permanent and very heavy-duty protection for the windows and doors. They then covered the sheets back over with the temporary wooden boards put up the day before. Fort Knox it was not, but the new home was surprisingly secure now, which allowed stress levels to abate somewhat.
There were a million and one things that needed to be done, so they worked through what they could methodically, that day and for many days to come. Jobs were done to the best of their abilities, improving each time as they became more familiar with the mysteries of the tools at hand and the workings of the house. The kitchen was rigged with a reinforced door, a few small sheets of steel screwed into the door to make it strong. Extra hinges and numerous bolts were fitted, and in permanent marker Kyle wrote inside and out on the sheet steel 'Lock The Door Or Get Your Brains Eaten' — it worked.
It was the one and only entry and exit point for the house now, the only other external door that worked led directly into the walled garden. That was to be the next job — securing the walled-off garden to turn it into an outdoor fortress.
It didn't all happen instantly, but in just a few days the place was transformed into a secure home that they all felt reasonably confident would withstand the mindless attempts of the dead reborn, if they decided to try to come for afternoon tea.
Without any knowledge of survivalist techniques they all did their best to make the place as safe as possible, it was a genuinely valiant attempt to secure themselves, and for rank amateurs they did surprisingly well. A great part of the reason why the house was so easy to secure was the walled garden, it gave them room to grow food and to escape the confines of the house without risking life and definitely limb. Picking such a place had been a genuine stroke of genius.
Nobody was to leave the house or the garden unless in pairs, with so many jobs to be done, and so many items to go through in the outbuildings, there were a lot of places that were prime attack locales. It was imperative every precaution was made at all times to stay safe and adjust to their new, and very dangerous world.
Time for Some DIY
"Brick please Al," said Kyle with a sigh — again.
There had been no time to rest after the passing of Mike. The first few days had gone by in a blur, now it was time to make their home a fortress. What followed the move to the manor house was a very steep learning curve for two men not used to such manual work — work that also involved a surprising amount of skill, as they soon discovered.
Kyle hadn't even known what a builders hawk was, let alone how to mix mortar for laying bricks. He had certainly never laid a bloody brick before.
He wrote code for fucks sake.
Yet here he was, a wet mortar mix on the hawk, trowel at the ready, with Al holding a pile of bricks in his hands, ready to pass them to Kyle as and when he needed them. This was not going to be pretty. Al was having a great time though. He functioned to quite a high degree without regular routines but he functioned better when given a job to do, or when performing repetitive tasks. So Al had found great comfort in sorting through the large pile of bricks in the corner of the walled garden — counting out the one hundred and forty seven bricks needed to fill in the hole that the door made in the otherwise totally sealed walled garden.
Al is thirty six and just slightly over six feet and seven inches tall. He is also slightly autistic. He can function with some help, and he can function without help. Without regular guidance however, he sometimes loses control and often becomes very obsessive, or he forgets to deal with a lot of normal things. He won't wash or use the bathroom when he needs to, and will mostly just eat if he can find food. Counting and sorting the bricks centered him. Helping Kyle made him feel like a part of a family.
Al is slightly overweight, but in the way a bear is overweight. You wouldn't want to mess with him in other words. It only took him a few trips to carry all the needed materials to the wall opening, and he liked doing something practical. Burning off excess energy made him feel alive.
Not keen on bad language at all, as his mother taught him it was a lazy use of vocabulary, she did her very best to improve how he spoke and Al was a stickler for following the rules laid down to him as he grew to adulthood and beyond. He often mixed up the order of his words or used the wrong ones, even though in his head he can get them in the right order — they just come out wrong.
Ven is comparable to Al in many ways but to a much less intrusive degree. Like him she finds it hard to relate to most people emotionally, and there is a suspicion she is slightly autistic herself, probably a mild form of Asperger's syndrome (AS) but she may just be weird. It's easy to label people when all it means is they are slightly different to you. Heck, Kyle with his black clothes and zero interest in fashion or owning more than one pair of trainers
was as weird as fuck in Ven's eyes. Who only had one pair of trainers?
Al is different, he most definitely is unquestionably autistic, his particular set of issues meant he had always lived at home until he was found in the library. He loved his mom, and she looked after him, but he was very quickly able to accept that he now had new people to be his friends. He found it easy to move on, even from someone he had known his whole life, as long as he felt there were others that he could rely on to keep him safe and to make him feel needed. This was the depth of his emotion towards the woman that helped him through life.
Ever since he was young he knew he was different, he went to a 'special' school from an early age. There he was not ridiculed for the way he spoke, or for his size, and if he wanted to eat all day then he could. But it was very important that he not lose his temper, this was drilled into him on a regular basis. He had a penchant for getting angry and upset if he didn't get his way. The result of this hard work was that he had never hurt anyone in anger unless they deserved it — not solely from his point of view, anyone sensible would agree. Like, if a zombie was trying to eat your brains for example, you are allowed to smash in their heads then.
Having never had a paid job in his life, Al spent his days with his mother at home or going on special trips once he left his schooling behind. He loved helping her around the house, was of great help in the garden, and even went with her delivering meals to the elderly a few times a month.
He was a functioning man in other words, just one that was different. He didn't go on Twitter, didn't like Facebook, and hardly ever went Online at all. Al was able to deal with changes to his daily routine quite well, unlike many others with autism, but the one thing he was not good with was a lack of food. It seriously affected his brain chemistry and he would become extremely sullen and introverted if his energy levels were not kept high at all times.
When tested with the Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Al was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS). It's a kind of crazy-ass long title for a disorder, and it pretty much means 'yes you do have autism of a kind that is more severe than Asperger's, and you will have problems with speech and social interaction and may be a bit obsessive, but we don't really know to what degree'.
There are more severe forms and there are a lot of people with crippling issues because of this disorder, so Al, and maybe Ven, actually did well to function quite like they did. What is surprising is that one person in less than ninety on a worldwide scale has a form of ASD.
What it all boils down to for Al, and he certainly wouldn't be interested in the details above, is that he likes his food, he speaks funny, he finds it hard to connect on a deep emotional level and is very self obsessed.
Now, if that sounds familiar then hey, guess what, you aren't alone. It's all a matter of scale. Most people can relate to some, or all, of the symptoms personally. They certainly know someone that finds it hard to interact socially, is obsessive, or doesn't give a shit about other people. Sometimes we just call them twats — and sometimes they are.
Al was not fazed by danger of the real kind, he stood up for himself and others he deemed worthy of saving, but when it came to clowns, well, let's not talk about that much in case he hears. He will go from mild mannered Al to a rage and a frenzy, and he could easily be mistaken for one of those infected by the zombie botnet.
"Brick please Al," said Kyle, not exactly full of the joys of 'doing it yourself'.
"Here is a brick," said Al, passing it over to his little skinny friend. Al paused, expectantly. "Thank you Al," said Al.
"What? Oh, sorry big guy. Thank you Al."
"You are welcome for the brick Kyle," said Al. And on it went, brick after brick, with a repetitive thank-you each and every time, from the morning to the evening. There were food breaks galore as Ven brought out plate after plate of various meats and cheeses and anything else she could find. Al must have eaten at least three jars of pickled onions on top of everything else. Ven was under the distinct impression that Al would be eating the bricks themselves if she didn't keep the big guy well fed.
Where did he put it all? He was big but the amount he consumed was ridiculous.
Bos Bos had a great time, running around the enclosed space, stopping for a pee or a poo whenever he felt like it, and taking regular breaks to watch Kyle drop mortar on the borders and snag some cheese every now and then. This was the kind of life a dog only dreamed of: lawns, snacks, plenty to sniff, plants to pee on and kill, people and space — doggie heaven.
Even having to contend with Alex 'You Can Call Me Al' The Giant, and Demon Sandwich Eater Extraordinaire Bos Bos The Rotund, Kyle was stuffed by the end of the day, and very sore indeed from the unusual amount of physical labor. Al made the mortar mix, passed bricks and ate the food. Kyle bed them in, tried to do a decent job, and was actually pretty impressed with himself by the end of it all.
They had used some thin metal strips they found in one of the sheds to tie the new bricks into the old, Al hacking out the old mortar joints to bed in the strips, Kyle then bedding new bricks between the strips. Once the mortar had gone off hard over the next few days the sealed entrance would become a solid part of the wall. Both were convinced it would keep out the infected if they ever had the intelligence to note a difference in wall design. One that was a little wonky in other words. It was Kyle's first try after all.
"Well, we can always grow a wisteria across it," whispered Cassie conspiratorially to Ven. Cassie had come out to see the finished work, denting Kyle's pride somewhat, even though he didn't have a clue what a wisteria was. "Just kidding, well done you guys."
Al and Kyle beamed happily at the compliment.
"And don't forget that you are now owing me two pounds and thirty pence Kyle. Swearing at bricks is not good, and I am not forgetting that you said all the words you should not."
Kyle had amassed quite a debt throughout the day, forgetting the rules and swearing each time the fucking mortar fell off the side of the brick he was trying to bed in.
It was a happy sight at surface level, everyone pleased with the job, kidding around, and enjoying the huge walled space full of flowers, fruit and vegetables. With insects buzzing and birds chirping it was almost like the world wasn't burning and people weren't dying in incomprehensibly horrible ways all over the planet — because of Ven.
Cassie was putting a brave face on things, the truth was that she was a shell of her former self. Keeping very busy seemed the best way to try to blunt the sharp pain in her very soul that she felt at the loss of Mike. She tried to smile and joke around to encourage the others to stay in high spirits, as she simply didn't want to drag them down to the level of despair that tugged her towards a wish for oblivion. She kept quiet about her inner demons, not wanting to burden others, and not feeling that they could offer any real way to escape the ache she constantly had in her heart. A chunk of her soul seemed to be missing. Mike had taken it with him and it could never be repaired. He was her one chance at true love, and now he was gone.
Cassie thought ahead to tomorrow. She was going to keep busy, and she was going to show everyone something that was both educational and fun. She wanted them all to learn a few basics about being self sufficient in a world where nothing could be taken for granted any longer.
Especially not love.
Fucking Magic!
The following morning Cassie cajoled and shooed them all into the warm kitchen. They sat around chatting, talking about the achievements of the previous day and discussing the work priorities that still needed to be achieved before they could all safely relax.
Al was on fine form, he seemed to have grown calmer and more confident after the previous day's activity. Hard work centered him, and the dispersing of his excess energy into a focused task made his brain function in a much more linear fashion than it was prone to do if he was left without a routine, and physical exercise, for more than a day or two.
Kyle was just shattered
and finding it hard to stay awake in the cosy cocoon of the well heated kitchen. His limbs ached, his lower back had sharp stabbing pains, and he felt like he could just lie down on Bos Bos' bed and curl up with the rotund ball of fur and sleep for a week.
"What's brown and sticky?" asked Al, gesturing expansively whilst beaming at the room in general. Al was more Christmas cracker when it came to comedy than Louis C.K.
"A muddy dog."
"Poo."
"Chocolate cake."
"A mamamuh maaah." (That was Tomas)
"Woof." (Bos Bos)
"A stick," chortled Al, hardly able to blurt it out, the answer being that funny. He ended up bent over double with laughter, tears streaming down his face. Everyone else couldn't help themselves — the laughter was contagious. The room was filled with the delightful sound of people being happy and enjoying each other's company.
When he finally managed to get himself together he asked a question again that he had posed before his joke, still not quite believing the reply.
"So, the bread I have always been eating, it is just grass and water in it?" He totally didn't believe it, thinking he was having his leg pulled.
"Well, not quite grass Al. It's the ground seeds of the grass, and there is yeast too, plus lots of kneading. Then you have to time it all just right when you put it in the oven," explained Cassie, going over it all once again.
"But still, apart from time and the yeast, it is a mixture of the water from taps or bottles and the dried bits of some grass?"
"Yes," chimed everyone together. Even Bos Bos gave out a woof in agreement, his ears flopping about wildly.
"Fucking magic," said Al wondrously.
The room went deathly quiet. Everyone stared at Al, totally aghast. And then he realized what he had done, and hung his head.
