Autumn

here. There are all kind of things wandering round out here and I...’
    ‘All we’re doing is...’ Carl had replied.
    Michael had stopped and turned back around.
    ‘All you’re doing is wasting time. The two of you are standing out here risking your necks trying to do something that doesn’t even need to be done. I’m going back inside.’
    With that he had gone, and Carl and Emma had been left alone with the two lifeless bodies at their feet. They had stood together in silence, both unsure as to what they should do next. For a second Emma had been distracted. She thought she’d seen movement deeper in the forest. She wasn’t sure, but she thought that she had caught a glimpse of another body staggering through the trees a short distance away. The thought of more bodies being close by made the cold night feel colder still and had returned her attention to the corpses on the ground.
    Emma had been annoyed by Michael’s attitude and manner, but what upset her most of all was the fact that he was right. He was cold, heartless and unfeeling but he was right. Whether they had wanted to bury the body out of duty to the farmer or out of instinct it didn’t matter. The burial would have served no real purpose other than to make the two of them feel a little better and less guilty about what they were doing. But they were simply trying to survive. The farmhouse and everything in it was no use to Mr Jones any longer.
    In the fading light they had reached a silent compromise. Rather than bury the bodies they had instead just placed a light covering of loose soil and fallen autumn leaves over the two dead men.
    ‘What are you thinking about?’ Carl asked, suddenly distracting Emma and bringing her crashing back into the cold reality of the living room.
    ‘Nothing,’ she lied.
    Carl stretched out in the chair and yawned.
    ‘What do we do next then?’ he asked.
    Emma shrugged.
    ‘Don’t know. If you’re talking about tonight I think we should try and get some sleep. If you mean in the morning, I’m not sure. We need to decide if we’re going to stay here first of all.’
    ‘What do you think? Do you think we should stay here or...’
    ‘I think we’d be stupid to leave right now,’ said Michael, surprising the other two who turned to look at him. He had been sound asleep just a few moments earlier and his sudden interruption had startled Carl and Emma.
    ‘How long have you been awake?’ Carl asked.
    ‘Not long,’ he yawned. ‘Anyway, in answer to your question, I think we should stay here for a while and see what happens.’
    ‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ Emma mumbled.
    ‘I bloody well hope you’re right,’ he said, yawning again. ‘I think we should spend tomorrow trying to find out exactly what we’ve got here. If we’re safe, sheltered and secure then I think we should stop.’
    ‘I agree,’ said Carl. He kept his motives hidden well. It wasn’t that Carl particularly wanted to stay in the farmhouse, it was just that, for a few days at least, he didn’t want to go anywhere else. In the journey from the city he had seen more death, carnage and destruction than he’d ever thought possible. The old, strong walls of the house protected him from the rest of the shattered world.
    ‘I’m going to bed,’ Michael said as he stood up and stretched. ‘I could sleep for a week.’

18

    Emma was the first to wake up next morning. It was Saturday - not that it seemed to matter anymore - and she guessed by the amount of low light which was seeping in through the crack between the curtains that it was early morning, probably around four or five o’clock.
    After a few seconds of disorientation she remembered where she was and how she’d got there. She gazed up at the ceiling above the bed she’d been sleeping on and stared at the numerous bumps, cracks and bubbles. Her eyes drifted towards the walls where, in the semi-darkness, she began to count patterns on the wallpaper. The design was made up of five different pastel-pink flowers (which looked grey in the half-light) printed on a creamy white background. The flowers were printed in a strict and repetitive rotational sequence.
    Emma had counted twenty-three rotations of flowers on the wallpaper before she stopped to question what it was she was doing. She realised that, subconsciously, she had been filling her mind with rubbish. She realised that it was much easier to think about patterns on walls and other such crap than it was to have