Autumn

nonchalantly as she accepted a drink from the bottle of water that Carl passed to her.
    ‘So why does it have to be you? Christ, who’s going to sit up with you for hours when you’re...’
    ‘Like I said,’ she interrupted, ‘someone’s got to do it. If we all shut ourselves away in rooms like this when things aren’t going well then we haven’t got much of a future here, have we?’
    Emma was immediately defensive of her own actions, despite the fact that she’d silently criticised herself for exactly the same thing just a few minutes earlier.
    ‘So do you think we’ve got a future here then?’ asked Carl. Now Emma really was beginning to feel uncomfortable. She hadn’t come in here to be picked on.
    ‘Of course we’ve got a future,’ she snapped.
    ‘We’ve got millions of people lying dead in the streets around us and we’ve got people threatening to kill each other because someone doesn’t like soup. Doesn’t bode well really, does it?’ Michael mused.
    Another silence.
    ‘So what do you think?’ Emma asked. ‘You seem to have an opinion about everything. Do you reckon we’ve got any chance, or do you think we should just curl up in the corner and give up?’
    ‘I think we’ve got a damn good chance, but not necessarily here.’
    ‘Where then?’ she wondered.
    ‘Well what have we got here?’ Michael began. ‘We’ve got shelter of sorts, we’ve got limited supplies and we’ve got access to what’s left of the city. We’ve also got an unlimited supply of dead bodies - some of them mobile - which are going to rot. Agree?’
    The other two thought for a moment and then nodded.
    ‘And I suppose,’ he continued, ‘there’s also the flip-side of the coin. As good a shelter as this is, it’s fast becoming a prison. We’ve got no idea what’s around us. We don’t even know what’s in the buildings on the other side of the street.’
    ‘But it’s going to be the same wherever we go...’ Emma remarked.
    ‘Possibly. Carl and I were talking about heading out to the countryside earlier, and the more I think about it the more it seems to make sense.’
    ‘Why?’
    Carl explained, remembering the conversation he’d had with Michael a few hours ago.
    ‘The population’s concentrated in cities, isn’t it? There will be less bodies out in the sticks. And less bodies equals less problems...’
    ‘Hopefully,’ Michael added cautiously.
    ‘So what’s stopping us?’ Emma asked.
    ‘Nothing,’ Michael replied.
    ‘Are you sure that you want to go?’
    ‘Positive.’
    ‘And what if no-one else does?’
    ‘Tough. I’ll go on my own.’
    ‘And when are you going to go?’
    ‘As soon as I can. I’d go tomorrow if I could.’
    Emma had to admit that, arrogant and superior as he tended to sound, Michael’s logic and reasoning made sense. The more she listened to and thought about his proposals, the more hopeful she became. Fired up with a new found enthusiasm and purpose, the three survivors talked through the first few long, dragging hours of the new day. By four o’clock that morning their plans were made.

12
    Michael Collins

    Bastards.
    Spineless, fucking bastards.
    Once I’d decided to leave that was it, I was going. It made so much sense. No-one could be sure what was going to happen next and no-one knew how safe we were going to be. Problem was the rest of them all seemed to agree that we should move on until the time came to actually do something about it. Until it was time to walk out the door they all agreed that getting out of the city made sense. When it came down to it though, none of them had the nerve to go. They were scared just sitting and waiting in the community centre for something to happen, but the thought of taking those first few tentative steps outside their new found comfort zone seemed to be even more terrifying. I stood there in the middle of the hall right in front of them all and told them why we should leave and like fucking sheep they nodded their heads and mumbled in agreement. Five minutes later though, when Paul Garner and Stuart stood up and had their say and told them why they thought it was better to sit still and wait for fucking eternity, the deal was done and the matter was closed. Suddenly it felt like it was me, Carl and Emma against the rest of them. I was beginning to identify more with the bodies outside on the streets than with the empty, lifeless bastards I found myself locked up with.
    But that was it. Long and short of