The Days After Read online

  We sat and opened more wine, talking about what could have been and if we would have ended up together without this, Jessica often losing herself in the subjunctive. She cried when she started to think she was glad that this had happened and I comforted her, badly, panicked and kissed her.

  She looked up at me with her 'rescue me' look, with red eyes and in a soft voice. “Do you remember that time when we stole a bottle of brandy from Jacob’s house and climbed over the train tracks at Notting Hill Gate station, where that old fish market was? We stayed there for hours and watched it get dark, and you said that everything would be different for us when we got older. You would get your dad to sell the house and split the money with you, and we could travel around the world. You said you’d take me to every museum in Europe, even though you hated museums, and I promised that I’d make you happy everyday of our lives, even if it was raining or the car had broken or even if that day you just didn’t feel like being happy, I said I wouldn’t even let you be sad, not for a minute, not even if you wanted to. So that when we looked back there would not be one moment either of us regretted, not a single one. Do you remember that?”

  “Yes I do remember that.” I told her, unsure, “I wish we could do that now. Just run away, away from everything, even if this wasn’t happening.” I said, drunkenly and warmly embracing the silver lined version of events that Jessica seemed to remember.

  “Can we do it, can we run away from here. Tomorrow we can wake up and leave? We'll find somewhere away from all of this, from everybody.”

  “Where would you like to go?” I asked holding her hand across the table, I told myself it was result of the red wine.

  “A beach, one with crystal waters and where the sun shines permanently.” She paused, excitedly contemplating, “and a house right on the sand, so that in the mornings we can swim and in the evenings we can drink pina coladas and dance.”

  I mused with her, picturing her in a bikini on a bed of golden sand with clear blue water behind her. “How shall we get there?”

  “We just need to find someone who has a boat and can sail us there. I can see it now, the two of us sitting on the front of a long white yacht. Imagine it Harry, just us two with a beach all to ourselves.”

  “But what if there is no one left, what if it is just us?”

  “It can't be just us, we saw those two people earlier.” She hesitated, “it can't be just us.” She repeated. “The news always makes things sound worse than they actually are.”

  I began destroying the mood by reminding her that a two day power cut, fires across London combined with bodies in the streets and hollow corpses in newsagents signalled a situation more dramatic than either of us had potentially given credit to, but I managed to stop short of total doom and gloom and mentioned that at least I wouldn't have to go back to work or take my exam and Jessica gleaned what she willed.

  “I suppose, but it isn't the end of the world, it will return to normal eventually, once the government gets the power back on and they work out whatever it is that has been making everyone sick, and what on earth those things are that have been crawling out of people.”

  I agreed with her for the sake of the evening and she asked me what I had seen in the shop, and I explained trying and failing to exaggerate the gruesomeness of the body. She gasped at all the right moments and kept repeating, 'How horrible,' but once I had finished my story she brushed it off and we drank more red wine and smoked more cigarettes and she wanted to dance more.

  I stood up and drank from the wine bottle and asked her what she would like to listen to next and she darted off out of the kitchen and then there was a thud and a small yelp of pain.

  I called out to her with some concern, she was lying on the floor holding her head, giggling.

  “Whoopsies, I fell over.” She was drunk.

  I staggered over to her. I was drunk.

  I lifted Jessica up by both hands and then sat her down on the stairs.

  “You okay?”

  “Hurts a bit”

  ”I think with that it is bed time, probably a bit too much to drink for both of us.”

  “Can you carry me up, like you did earlier? Please.” She whined.

  I picked her up and carried her up one flight of stairs but she was too heavy for the whole way so we walked up the rest with her holding my hand, and when we reached her room she pulled me on the bed.

  12th July

  I felt tired, but not sleepy. The red wine hangover was already beginning to settle in. I tossed about in bed, Jessica lay next to me, snoring. Whichever way I rolled her, that little mouth and that button nose of hers didn't stop. She was frustratingly peaceful and it was driving me mad. The Venetian blinds were open and the moonlight was shining through the cracks. I yanked and twisted the cord to try and close them and eventually the whole thing fell of the wall and smacked against my toes and I let out a defeated grunt. I pulled the shirt and the suit trousers on that where in a pile on the floor and went downstairs, I lit a cigarette and tried to read a famous five novel that was on the shelf by the sofa. The book was old and the pages were an amber colour, the moonlight made it just about possible to read, but I found myself using the light of the cigarette to trace the words on the page.

  The first thing I saw in the morning as I woke was the yellow glow of the sun filling the room through the blinds on the bay window at the foot of the sofa. With a stiff neck I stirred and finally managed to get upright and eventually onto my feet. I stretched towards the ceiling and then back behind myself. I shuffled towards the kettle and pushed the button on its tail down, to which it popped straight back up, a few more attempts offered me no further joy so I riffled through the low lying wooden kitchen cupboards until I found a sauce pan. I went and tried the light switches to the same end. Then I remembered the power had gone out. My head hurt, right behind my eyes, it felt like my brain was pulsating, trapped and trying to burst out from behind the front of my skull. A flash of fear came over me and I looked around to make sure I wasn't blind, realising I could see, 'For fuck sake Harry!' I scolded myself. I fished around the freezer, pulled out some defrosted bread and saw some beans in a cupboard. I found a tray in the kitchen and took the lukewarm meal of beans on toast and coffee carefully up the stairs. The clattering of the ceramics and the cutlery on the metal tray bludgeoned the back of my hot eyes. I kicked Jessica’s door a number of times and shouted. I put the tray down on the floor and twisted the handle and tried to push the door open, it wouldn’t budge.

  “Jessica, are you naked in there? Why have you locked the door?” I said, trying to sound cheeky, but I was too hungover to pull it off, the words were leaving my mouth too slowly and I couldn't be bothered with the effort of being jovial.

  “Fine, have it your way. I'm going to start, I’m starving.” I sat on the landing outside, slowly and clumsily tearing at the soggy toast and spilling beans as I shovelled them into my mouth, making loud 'mm' noises and commenting on what an excellent chef I was. I sipped at the coffee, it was not what I wanted, I felt dehydrated and it irritated my hangover.

  I started to worry, it had been a couple minutes of silence from her, she wasn't singing or talking and she hadn't laughed at any of my comments and noises, not that I was being particularly funny, but she was well mannered enough to have laughed at my efforts.

  Worried, I stood up and pushed all my weight against the door and it opened enough to peer my head around. I could see Jessica though the gap, she was lying in bed, still asleep, her pale face resting peacefully on the pillow looking towards the ceiling. As I looked down I saw it. The thing that had been pressing against the door. It started oozing through the gap until it was almost touching my foot. The room was dark so it was hard to see it exactly, but it looked like a lump of dark red glistening flesh, beating, an enormous heart. It kept on moving, adjusting itself around the door as if it was trying to escape from the room. I slammed the door shut before it could get enough of itself in the gap to create a wedge, an
d I sat on the landing next to the door. I could hear the thing next to me behind the piece of wood that separated us. I could hear it rub itself up against the door, every now and again there was a quiet squelching noise.

  I stayed there on the landing for a while longer, passing time in my head, unsure of what to do. Whenever disbelief crept into my blank thoughts and I started to doubt what was in the room next to me, a quiet squelch from behind the door would slam me back into reality. I called to Jessica, knowing it was pointless. I tried to cry, but I couldn't see any tears. I thought about what people might think of me for not crying. I thought about what I would say to Jessica if she saw me now, how she would hate me, how confused she would be that I wasn't overwhelmed with grief, that I wasn't obliterated in loss on the landing, not even trying to get to her, why had I let this happen to her, I had promised she'd be all right. I felt sick, I was sick, cold and self-absorbed.

  I forced open the door to Jessica's room and left the house.

  My phone was out of battery so I didn't know the time. The air was thin and the sun was lurking in the middle of the sky, it felt like I was on the cusp of the pm. The street was empty but it looked healthy, the cleanly painted Victorian town houses stood silently watching the trees sway ever so slightly in the square garden in front of me. I thought about going home, I decided against it. I left the suit jacket on the steps leading up to Jessica's front door, I rolled up my sleeves and lit a cigarette.

  Jessica seemed so far away now, my memory of her belonged in that house and I told myself that with each step the experience was fading, and so too was my guilt.

  Whatever had infected everyone had not the done the same to the animals. There was a bird flying about above and a squirrel or two causing trouble on one of the old conquer trees. I wandered towards Notting Hill Gate through the paved tree groves, the beautiful houses in the sunlight, set back from the pavement, some with creeping ivy and others with rose bushes in their front gardens'. There was a black hatchback parked in the middle of the road, the driver was still at the wheel, a pallid white neck with a rigid Adam’s apple. His head was facing the grey felt ceiling, an open mouth with cracked brown lips. A few inches below his neck was a gaping hole, almost circular in shape and stretching past where his nipples would have been all the way down to his belly button. The skin around the outside was dark purple in colour and curling back on itself. I peered in at the man through the front window with my hand over my mouth and something caught my eye. Squirming in the foot bay of the passenger seat. A slither of sunlight, it glistened. It was breathing and beating, a pulsating orgy of bloodied flesh, every now and again it looked as though there was a fist trying to punch its way out, stretching and tautening the pockmarked and furrowed skin. The strangeness of it combined with the rhythm was mesmerising and I found my self beguiled by its pulse momentarily. I tried the handle of the car, the door was unlocked but I did not open it right away in case it leapt out and grabbed me. I climbed onto the bonnet and then onto the roof, which was hot, the black paint absorbing the ascending sun. I leant down and awkwardly pulled at the handle and quickly wriggled back into a steady position on the roof and kicked the door wide open with my foot. The thing did not move however, at least no more so than before. It continued to convulse in its bunk at the bottom of the car. I watched it for a few more minutes but nothing changed and its languishing became boring; It must have been trapped in there, able to escape so easily from the confines of the body yet so easily defeated by a small bunker. I clumsily slid down the bonnet of the car and continued my walk up Ladbroke road.

  I called out every now and again from the middle of the street but there was no response. When I rang doorbells, nothing. I lit a cigarette when I reached the police station. The smoke clouded my mind, and I felt tired and heavy, proudly without melancholy; the red wine was still pressing on my brain and the midday sun was attacking my sensitive eyes. I threw the cigarette on the floor and looked back at the street. There was something moving in the distance. In fact I could see two things moving in the distance. Two mounds of dark red approaching, growing in perspective. I counted the one in front pass a car, it took almost fourteen seconds to travel the distance between the two wheels, It was slow, and the fact was comforting.

  There was a bus parked over a sleeping roundabout and a few of the shops ahead had had their windows smashed-in. When I got closer I could see a number of people lying on the pavement across the road. A passenger’s head was leaning against the window inside the bus, his mouth was open and his eyes had rolled into his head, the whites stared towards me. I felt a chill up my spine and began to jog around the corner towards Holland Park. I could see in the distance a few more of the red mounds of flesh hovering in the street as if they were undecided as to which direction they were going to make their slow crawl. I picked up the pace and started to run home down Holland Park Avenue. The road was full of parked cars all facing the same way, and I could see more people with their heads leant against their windows or looking towards the ceilings, open mouths and chalky teeth. Surrounding the endless line of metal cars was a barricade of organic matter, red, glistening in dappled sunlight. A 4X4 which still had its lights on was completely covered by beating flesh. I kept running, and when I looked back I could see some of the ones I had run past further up the street had peeled off from their line and started to creep onto the pavement. When I made it to Norland square I quickly took a right off the main road and kept running until I reached St James Gardens, I then took a left at the church and a right at the bottom of the square to my house on the corner. I fingered through the keys in my pocket on the way to make sure I had the right one for the front door ready, just in case there were more of them near the house. I reached the door and slotted the brass key into the lock. I jumped up the stairs in twos, ran into my brother's room and lay on his bed watching the streets of the square from his window. I rubbed the curtain on my face to soak up the sweat. I was severely out of breath and I felt like vomiting. I lay there for a few moments panting and watching out of the window. At fourteen seconds for those things to move two metres, then the ones I had left on Holland Park Avenue would be at the house in about an hour, so I waited.

  To my relief, they didn’t make it in that hour, in fact they never made it to the house. From the window I saw a small swarm crawl towards the church and then stop for a few minutes, and turn back. When I felt sure they weren’t on their way to the front door I relaxed.

  I searched through the packets, bags and cans of outdated and disgusting food in the Kitchen cupboards. I eventually found a packet of chicken noodles. The cooker had no spark, I was furious with it. Using an old yellow pages and an empty plant pot in the garden I made a fire, thick black smoke bellowed into the air. The taps were still working, so I filled a saucepan and boiled the water over the yellow and green flames. The noodles were tasteless and unsatisfying.

  I spent the afternoon wandering around the house, bored, picking things up and putting them back down, I sang and talked to myself out loud, I looked out of the window at Jessica's house and the image of her lying in bed in the dark room flashed into my mind, it reminded me of Ophelia, I swallowed the thought. I had a cold shower, I changed clothes, I looked out of the window some more. I grabbed a bottle of whiskey from a dark wooden cabinet in the sitting room. I chose the bottle based on the amount of dust that had collected below the neck, I found an old Dirk Bogart novel in the kitchen. On the top floor I pulled the rope hanging down from the ceiling and a ladder descended from above. At the top of a ladder was a hatch, with a firm push it jolted open to the rooftop. I picked up one of the deck chairs that had been folded up and stacked in the corner years before; rust had taken hold of the metal hinges and the white and green striped fabric had almost turned completely green. I brushed as much of the mould as I could off with the palm of my hand and wrenched the chair open and placed it down facing south west. The view to the west was littered with tall tower blocks, but the idea of watching the su
nset seemed intrinsically appropriate.

  The book I had picked up was depressing, from what I gathered of the first few pages it was about a man with aids who had died. I put the book down and got drunk. The whisky was warm and burned as it trickled down my throat, my hangover from the previous night was still lingering but the whisky at least muted the dry pounding red wine inside the front of my skull.

  In the distance I could see a makeshift sign on a rooftop nearly half a mile to the east. I stared at it for a while trying to read the painted black letters, but it was too far away and at an awkward angle. I creaked out of my chair and climbed along the terraced rooftops. Standing on the final house, the whisky numbing my vertigo, I leant over the edge and squinted, It said 'Hello' or 'Help' in large black letters across the top half, and underneath there was some more writing but it was smaller and I still couldn't make it out. I returned to my chair and had another dram. The sun finally disappeared behind the distant buildings, the sky was a mixture of deep oranges and pinks to the west and dark blue in the east; a sinister full moon somewhere in-between. I sat there watching the stars turn their lights on one by one as the darkest began to tuck in the city. There were no lights on in any of the surrounding windows, no cars driving through the streets beneath me. It was lonely. The whisky only made me feel more alone. I longed to be a poet so that I could find beauty in the city that was seemingly so devoid of the life that it bustled with only so recently. I had a sudden urge to write my thoughts down, but I knew no one would ever read them and indolence withered my intent. I thought about what I would say if I met someone and what I would tell them if they asked me what I had done at the end of the world, and I thought about how I would lie to them, and how I would tell them that I had found peace on this rooftop under the stars having watched the sunset, and that I was overwhelmed by the silence of it all, how beautiful it all was, and how lucky I felt to have been given the chance to live, even if it was only for a quarter of a century, and I would tell them that at this moment, I was content.