Autumn

but they were definitely gravitating around the shed.
    When three out of the four bodies were around the back of the shed, temporarily out of the way, Michael pushed past the other one and opened the door. He slipped inside and, struggling to think over the deafening noise of the generator, he found the control panel that regulated the machine and switched it off.
    After wiping his face and hands dry on a dirty towel and pausing to catch his breath, Michael went back outside.
    By the time he’d shut the door to the shed he was alone. The four shadowy figures had drifted away into the darkness of the night.

23

    Despite having gone to bed exhausted, Michael was awake, up and dressed by six o’clock the following morning. He had spent another uncomfortable and mostly sleepless night tossing and turning on the hard wooden floor at the side of Emma’s bed. He was glad he’d woken up before she had. She hadn’t said anything to make him think that she minded him being there, but he was quietly concerned as to what she thought his reasons were. Regardless of what she might or might not have been thinking, it made him feel much better not to be sleeping alone.
    Even though his twenty-ninth birthday was now just a couple of weeks away, Michael had spent the last few dark hours curled up in fear like a frightened child. His mind had been full of the kind of irrational fantasies the like of which hadn’t troubled him since he’d been eight or nine years old. In the early morning gloom he had hidden under his covers from monsters lurking under the bed and behind the wardrobe door and had found himself sitting bolt upright in the darkness, certain that something terrible and unidentifiable was coming up the stairs towards him. In his heart he knew that these were nothing but foolish thoughts and that the sounds he could hear were just the unfamiliar creaks and groans of the old house but that didn’t make the slightest bit of difference. The fear was impossible to ignore. As a child there had always been the safety of his parents’ room to rescue him from his nightmares but not today. Today there was nothing and no-one to help and the bitter reality beyond the door of the farmhouse was worse than any dark dream he’d ever had.
    As soon as the morning light had begun to creep into the house he had felt more confident. The uncomfortable fear he’d experienced was quickly replaced by a uncomfortable foolishness leaving him feeling almost embarrassed that he’d been so frightened in the night. At one point in the long hours just passed, when the howling wind outside had been screaming and whipping through the trees with an incredible and relentless ferocity, he had covered his ears and screwed his eyes tightly shut, hoping with all his heart that he would fall asleep and wake up somewhere else. Although no-one else had seen or heard him, in the cold light of day he felt ashamed that he had allowed a chink to appear in his brash and arrogant exterior.
    It was a strong, safe and sound house and Michael need not have worried. In spite of all that he had imagined in the darkness, nothing and no-one had managed to enter Penn Farm. Still drugged by sleep he stumbled into the kitchen and lit the gas stove. The constant low roar of the burner was strangely soothing and comforting and he was glad that the heavy silence of the early morning had finally been disturbed. Slightly more relaxed, he boiled a kettle of water and made himself a mug of strong black coffee which he quickly drank. He made himself some breakfast but couldn’t eat much more than a couple of mouthfuls.
    Bored, tired and restless, he desperately needed to find something to do. As he had already discovered to his cost recently, these days an unoccupied minute tended to feel like an hour and an empty hour seemed to drag on for more than a day.
    A open door from the kitchen led to a large utility room which Michael wandered into aimlessly. He had spent some time in there yesterday, but no longer than half an hour. In the furthest corner of the room was a pile of empty cardboard boxes and other rubbish that the survivors hadn’t yet been able to dispose of or find a home for. This had been the least important room in the house as far as the three of them had been concerned and, as such, they had paid it little attention other than to use it as a temporary store. Michael thought for a second or two about trying to sort the room into some kind of order but, if the