Aftermath

no illusions because she certainly didn’t —then she’d have seriously considered painting a final frieze and hanging it on the museum wall. Twenty-one thin and frightened people. A handful of caravans. A basic smattering of supplies. An invading army of corpses waiting on the other side of the outer wall. Hardly a grand finale to the castle’s hundreds of years of history.
    This kind of physical work didn’t come naturally to Caron anymore, but she bit her tongue and smiled when she needed to so as not to offend anyone. There were worse jobs to be had around here. She left the museum/storeroom and looked out across the courtyard as she walked. Elsewhere, Jackson had a group of people gathered around him, all trying to assemble some kind of bizarre construction out of wood and ropes close to where, according to some plans she’d been looking at, the kitchens had once been Elsewhere, people were chopping wooden pallets for firewood, making an industry out of something which probably didn’t require such large amounts of effort, grading wood into large, medium, and small pieces and storing them in a dry shelter. Others were cleaning the caravans. Someone else was burning rubbish …
    Too busy watching what was happening elsewhere and not concentrating on where she was going, she literally walked into Hollis. He jumped with surprise.
    “Sorry, Greg.”
    “My fault,” he mumbled apologetically. “I wasn’t looking. You okay?”
    “Fine.”
    “Been working hard?” he asked with a grin. He knew she hadn’t.
    “To all intents and purposes.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    She glanced around before putting down a bucketful of cleaning equipment. She moved a pair of unused yellow rubber gloves to reveal a well-thumbed paperback, half a bottle of wine, and some chocolate wrappers.
    “Between you and me,” she said secretively, “I’ve been taking it easy.”
    “I’m surprised at you,” Hollis said, shaking his head with mock disappointment. “What would our Mr. Jackson say if he found out?”
    “You’re not going to rat on me, are you?” she asked, knowing full well that he wasn’t. “Honestly, Greg, I know we didn’t know each other before all this madness, but you know me well enough by now. Dirty, hard, physical work … it’s just not my style.”
    “Caron,” he said, grinning, “I know you well enough to understand that you’re probably the person least suited to dirty, physical work I’ve ever met. Just keep your head down and get it done though, eh? A few more months and we’ll be able to stop hiding away like this and you can go wherever you want then. Let your new house get as dirty as you damn well please. Spend your life doing whatever you like. You could live like a pig in shit if it’d make you happy.”
    “Quite,” she said, not sure how she was supposed to respond to that.
    “Anyway,” Hollis said, excusing himself, “speaking of shit, I’d best get to work myself.”
    “Oh, Greg, you’re not?”
    “And you thought you’d got it bad, eh?”
    Caron laughed and picked up her stuff and walked on, leaving Hollis to head in the opposite direction. He’d have gladly swapped duties with Caron, but he knew she’d have balked at the very idea of slopping out. Someone had to do it, though, and at least working around the chemical toilets kept him away from everyone else. Right now, that was how he liked it.
     
     
    14
     
    Jackson was standing at the edge of the courtyard, near to where a number of interior walls had once stood. They were just crumbled ruins now, as dilapidated as everything else, but a single feature remained which still interested him—a well. They’d not yet managed to ascertain whether the water source was still there and accessible, but Jackson intended to find out. They had enough bottled water to see them through for a while longer, but having a steady supply on tap would make things immeasurably easier for everyone. Bob Wilkins had some engineering experience, and Charlie Moorehouse had been a Scout leader for a while. Between them they thought they’d be able to improvise a basic rope and pulley system to lower a bucket deep enough down and find out whether or not the well was dry.
    A number of other people had been conscripted to help. Lorna, Mark Ainsworth, Paul Field, and Harte were busy digging a series of four holes around the well. Bob and Charlie were constructing two A-frames out of wood they’d taken from a working