One for the road

By the time the group filed out of the narrow passageway on to the main street, the shadows had lengthened and the sun glowed a warm gold colour on the sandstone walls of Huddersfield's dwellings. All twelve friends wore their motorcycle suits and carried designer handbags, sports duffels and high street store-brand shopping bags filled with cosmetics, shoes and party clothes.

Matt struggled to hold a large wok and several tubs of curry and rice along with his gear while others carried a camping gas stove, a mini hi-fi player, large bottles of water and a lovingly maintained Japanese tea caddy full of Bhuna herb and its paraphernalia. Sarah and the boys passed through the narrow passageway first, with a weapon handy. She insisted on it, no boy would dare disagree anyway.

They met Jack out on the street, who had been volunteered to go out first and make sure everywhere was clear, as he was widely regarded as the most expendable of the group. Seeing as he couldn't be bothered to bring a fresh pair of clothes for the party, he had the least luggage to weigh him down, they said. He offered to carry Emily's bag for her and soon found himself with Katie's and Emma's as well.

He was a good boy who liked being helpful, and now he had the chance to prove he was brave, they said. He wouldn't make a girl go out first if he was any kind of man, now would he, they said. Anyway, he would be harder to spot because he was so small, Sarah remarked to the amusement of the others, so out he went.

The decorations on Jack's suit carried on the chequered harlequin theme of his face paint, with fleur-de-lis and playing card suit designs. Such decorations developed on each individual's biker suit in much the same way as anything else they came into contact with for any length of time. The suits were bedecked in their adopted colours and designs. Looping organic and floral patterns sprouted on the girls' armour, with tattoo-like stars, hearts and wing motifs. The boys opted more for tribal stripes, Celtic knots, skulls, spikes and fists.

Despite repeated instructions not to, the same steadily happened to the minivan the group had commandeered at some point after finding the keys in a nearby house. In the end they had to conceal it in a neighbour's driveway along the back road.

Once inside the van, people flipped their helmet visors up and looked nervously out at the town around them. 

'I haven't been out in so long. Everything outside the walls seems different, alien and unfriendly. It used to look like home,' Andy remarked.

'I swear this van has a new stencil on it, if I catch anyone putting more decorations on this thing there'll be hell to pay,' Matt threatened from the driver's seat. 'Who even thought it would be a worthwhile use of their time to put a Japanese schoolgirl with a sword on this thing?' 

'I thought we wanted people to find us?' Jack said. 'And that the Dead can't do logic like make the link between the van and us being here. Not that I'm owning up to anything.'

'We want the right kind of people to find us,' Matt replied in a caustic tone. 

'But why, it doesn't make sense, I don't get it – what other people?' Joe said, but Nick and Matt kept silent in the front seats.

'Why are you bringing a bottle of wine with you? We're going to a pub,' Sarah said.

Jenny looked dumbfounded. 'I… er – it's one for the road,' she said. Sarah shook her head.

Matt let the van roll down the hill with his foot off the accelerator pedal to keep the engine quiet. 'I can't believe I went through with this damn-fool idea,' he said. 'Bread and bloody circuses. Who's really being clowned around?'

At the foot of Paddock hill, a squat, box-like set of modern flats was burnt out. Wrecked and abandoned cars became more frequent. The local petrol station and some houses had their windows put through and belongings thrown about over the road and pavement. Maybe it had been by them at some point, they couldn't remember.

The van guttered and chugged between the hulking stone legs of an industrial-age train bridge that loomed above and a left turn brought them to Manchester Road. This road led straight to the town centre, but from here on was a haphazard mess of cars sprawled across all the lanes, the pavement and even up the grassy embankment, which had been churned to mud. On the day when it all happened, whatever it was, everyone had tried to barge their way through the most direct route, as people did once they got in the herd instinct, and ended up getting nowhere in this mess.

Matt spun the wheel to weave the van through a narrow gap to take another route. A nearby back street ran parallel to the main road, and took a minute longer, but was clear of any gridlocked cars. 

'Hurry up, I want a smoke,' said Andy.

'Mate, we only just left,' Jane replied. 

Matt kept to his steady crawl and brought them to the ring road around the town centre, near the university.

The street where The Depot was located was narrow and shared with a few other bars and takeaways. A turn-off at the end on the left led straight to the town centre, but thankfully the street remained still, and empty.

'Wait! Sit down and stop bloody trying to get out before I've even parked,' Matt said.

He turned the van around to face the direction they'd just come in case a swift retreat was needed, a lesson hard learnt from experience. He killed the engine, then for a minute or so they sat in silence and looked around for any movement. There was none. They disembarked and left the van doors unlocked and the key in the ignition; another lesson hard learnt, again with its own story.

Tom rattled the bar's door handle. 'Locked,' he said as he turned to the others and shrugged, his prominent white teeth set in a smile. 'It does sometimes happen in post-apocalyptic Huddersfield.'

'Bloody selfish is what it is,' Jack remarked.               

Nick grunted and fetched a doormat and a bedsheet. Everyone kept a lookout as he wrapped the bedsheet around his dumbbell, took a deep breath and pounded the door's window as hard as he could.

The sheet muffled the sound but the thump still echoed around the buildings in the street.

At first, little seemed to happen. Then, after further pounding, a web of cracks spread from the centre of the wire-reinforced glass and the pane shook in its place. Conscious of the level of noise he was making, Nick got desperate and swung harder. People began to assist with helpful advice: 'Come on Nick, hurry up…' 'Hit right in the middle…' 'Try hitting the corners…' 'You've got the sheet wrapped too many times round the dumbbell …' Lift the weight-thingy up higher before you hit…' 'Do you even lift?' 'Do the same thing as that, but like, better…'

'Shut up, shut up, shut up!' Nick hissed.

'You're not doing it hard enough. Here, let me do it,' said Matt. Not about to let that happen, Nick gave one almighty swing.

The glass pane broke loose of its frame and flopped inwards, held together by the wiring. Nick lay the doormat over the window frame to protect against splintered glass then hopped in.

Nick flipped his visor up so he could see through the gloom in the bar. He pushed open a second set of doors and breathed in the air, to smell of the first waft now he'd broken the seal.

Right now, the bar's familiar smell of spilt drinks and cleaning products had a mustiness to it from neglect, not the stench of decay. There was a hint of something unpleasant, but that could have been a broken-down fridge, the toilets, or perhaps the bins. The others clambered in as Nick scanned his surroundings and untwisted the sheet from around the dumbbell.

The last person made it inside, with a leg-up for the shorter ones in the group, like Emily, Emma and Jack, although the latter resisted any help for as long as he could. They hushed each other and crouched low out of sight from the door and windows. They stayed there for several minutes and anxiously watched for any regulars who might come to investigate the noise.

'All clear,' said Matt, before Nick was fully satisfied.

'All right!' said Joe, who blundered merrily behind the bar. 'Now then, lads and ladettes, what'll it be?' The others started drifting towards the rows of taps and fully stocked fridges.

'Wow, look at all this!' Tom said, peering at the bottles in the fridges and on the back bar. 'Anything your heart could wish for. Shame it's all warm. Chuck us a cider.'

'Nah, don't fink so. No shoes, no shirt. You kids got any IDs?' Joe growled.

'Shut up, knobhead,' said Matt. 'I'll have an IPA.' Joe laughed and fetched one.

'We need to make sure the building's clear,' said Nick. Joe handed out room-temperature bottles from the fridges while the others started to disperse. They gravitated towards the chairs, the bar or the toilets.

'What are you lot playing at?' Nick said angrily, and he strode in front of those heading towards the toilets, blocking their way. 'Did you hear what I said?' he demanded. 'I said we need to make sure the building's clear.' He practically shouted in the face of Katie who was nearest.

'Jesus Christ!' said Sarah. She pushed her way to the front and stood right up to Nick. 'We're going to search in here first, alright?' she shouted back in his face. She barged past Nick to the toilets, pulling Katie with her by the arm. Emily stepped past Nick sheepishly and followed them in.

Andy and Jack hesitated at the doors to the boy's toilets. Nick glared at them, daring them to go in. They hung back as Nick booted the door open and rushed inside. After a few seconds he came back out again and muttered that it was all clear.

'Hey, you two, come and help me search the rest of the building,' Nick ordered. Jack and Andy dithered but then followed, weapons handy.

The three of them passed an area of the pub that was made up like the drawing room of a manor house. Chandeliers hung overhead and the walls had vintage floral wallpaper, along with huge flat-screen televisions they once showed sports on. Comfy, beer-stained sofas lined the tables, and over a mock fireplace there was a huge portrait of a grinning chimpanzee in a suit, holding a cigar and a glass of brandy.

Nick nodded towards the group of friends at the bar. 'Look at Matt. There could be anything lurking back here, but he's not bothered. He's more interested in having a drink and leaving up to someone who gives a damn. I notice the way he pushes people around, even though I was away for so long. That guy's getting too big for his boots and I don't appreciate it. I don't know who he thinks he is, but he hasn't got a clue. Now them lot are even taking their suits off to change into party clothes before we've even made sure the building's safe. It's irresponsible, like they haven't learnt a single goddamn thing.' 

Andy and Jack agreed, but quietly.

'We've got to be on the ball. More alert, more careful,' said Nick as they came to a door with a stencilled inscription that said 'If You Can't Stand The Heat, Stay Out Of The Kitchen'. 

When Nick pushed open the door, the odour Nick had smelt in the air when he first entered the pub rushed out a hundred times stronger. whatever bar food was mouldering in the fridges wasn't the only thing on the menu. On the kitchen floor was the brown, pulverised ruin of a corpse whose decaying remains covered half the floor. A huge man was crouched over it, digging his fingers into the mess, and a mangy sheepdog gnawed at a bone.

Nick stood there, stuck to the spot, as both the big man and his dog looked up. The man had ginger hair that contrasted vividly with his grey-white dead skin and both their frost-blue eyes had the glazed fury of the Dead.

The kitchen door flew open and the three lads fell out on top of each other. Gangly, ungainly Andy was the last, and he was too slow to move out of the way when the dead man swung out at him and landed a ferocious punch to his ribs that knocked him to the floor.

'Get over here and help us!' Nick shouted. The dog dashed out at his legs but he managed to kick it away. The girls stood at the bar and screamed. Joe froze with his mouth open. Matt and Tom dropped their drinks and ran to help but in their haste left their weapons behind.

The dead man grabbed Jack and started trying to rip his helmet off while making furious bellowing noises. Nick yelled as the dog jumped again and sank its teeth on to his arm. He managed to fling it off and take an ineffectual swipe at it but missed as he was knocked off balance.

Matt tried to grab the barking, snarling dog by the scruff and force it down as it jumped up at Tom, its jaws snapping close to his bare face. Matt couldn't get a grip as the dog thrashed around and sank its teeth into a weak spot in the armour on Tom's thigh. Jack pulled back from the scrum, panicking, unable to find an opening in the heaving bodies. All he could do was tug Andy out of the fracas as he crawled, gasping and contorting, on the floor.

Nick and Matt managed to ram the snorting, growling dead man back against the wall as he smashed his fists down on them in a berserk rage. Nick snatched up his dumbbell and tried to swing it at the man's head between the pounding, flailing mass of limbs, while he and Matt heaved with all their strength. Tom yelled as the dog's jaws crushed down on his leg and pierced his biker suit while he tried to prise it off from him.

Nick managed to land a couple of blows down on the big man's head in a few lucky gaps between the press of limbs. The man still fought despite his wounds for the first three, then four strikes, but then a final one hit the mark. He slumped down heavily, floundering, and in a final attempt, Nick barged Matt aside and landed a final wallop on the man's skull that rendered him motionless.

Matt grabbed the dog by the neck, ripped it from Tom's leg and wrestled it to the floor as it squirmed and thrashed about. 'Hit it! Hit it!' he yelled to Nick.

'Hold it still!' Nick shouted. He hesitated, trying to get an aim on it, but the dog moved too much. If he missed, he would surely break Matt's arm. Just as he stepped in to take the shot, the dog suddenly broke loose and bolted away through the kitchen, leaving Matt with a handful of fur.

Nick chased after it. He slid on the putrid remains on the kitchen floor to crash against a metal cooker unit, scattering cutlery and pans. He turned to barge through another door into the staff area and was about to turn the corner when he heard another door slam open and felt a draught of fresh air.

Beyond the kitchen was a narrow corridor that had stacks of boxes along each wall as several closed doors, but there was no sign of the undead dog. At the end of the corridor, a fire exit swung open to the street.

'No way,' Nick said as he took a look out on the street and pulled the door shut. The dog must have jumped up and pushed the door open using the bar before it escaped. All the other doors were shut and could only be opened by turning a handle. 

The others didn't believe him and went to see it for themselves.

'That's one smart son of a bitch.' Matt shook his head and stroked his beard.

'I hope we don't meet him again,' said Nick respectfully.

The friends stood around and looked at the dead man while they held their sleeves across their mouths and noses. The only sounds were the heavy breathing from those involved in the fight and Andy's laboured, asthmatic wheeze from when he'd got winded. Tom grimaced and examined the bite wound on his thigh.

The dead man was tall and heavyset, probably in his forties. He had been overweight in life and the sickness had bloated him some more. His ginger hair was messed up but they could see that he styled it in a parting from the left. He wore a blue chequered shirt and his jeans were tucked into pointed leather boots. His eyes, though now dim, stared incriminatingly back at the group. Matt closed them.

'Him and the dog were eating a corpse in the kitchen,' Matt said grimly. 'Why do they do that – can they even digest what they eat if they're dead?'

'If they're technically still alive but have a disease then they would still need nutrition to live. If they're truly dead, however, then there's no reason for them to do so,' said Jack.

'It's the old question we've argued about before,' said Nick, wearily. 'It's anyone's guess. It doesn't change anything.'

They looked at the body silently.

'Who do you think they were?' wondered Jenny.

'All the outside doors were locked and both were in the staff area, so maybe they worked here,' said Jane.

'He looks like a retail manager,' observed Emma. The incongruity of the comment brought a few laughs from the group.

'He does though!' she said. 'He has that kind of look going on. You know, that kind of stressy, uptight look, job and family sucking the life out of him, bit of mid-life crisis happening away there… We've all had bosses like that, right? I mean, he's wearing cowboy boots, for Christ's sake.'

'Yeah, that explains everything,' Jane said. 'What about the dog?'

'Towards the end, he brought his dog along to the office each day to help with the paperwork,' Jack said gravely. 'Terrible what a life in retail can do to you. It turns your brain.' Everyone ignored him.

'This was a student bar, and he doesn't look like one of the regular crowd. I doubt he was here to loot the place, so maybe he stayed to protect his pub and all the stock?' Katie said.

'Are you lot thick?' said Matt. 'Of course he's the pub manager, he must have personally kicked you out about a dozen times.'

Andy crouched down for a closer look. 'He's got some other injuries, older ones. There's lacerations and bruising on him like he's been hit with blunt objects and a knife. I think he's been in a fight. It looks like someone tried to bandage an injury on his shoulder, badly,' said Andy. 'There's also bite marks on his forearms. They look like teeth marks from the dog.'

'Ugh, they're all swollen and black and infected,' said Sarah.

'So, he fought off some attackers but was injured,' Jenny said.

'Then he locked up the bar to hide away from the worst of what was going on outside so they could take care of his injuries…' said Emma.

'… and shelter the other guy. His chef. But the dog was already infected and bit him when he'd done all he could to defend them all. Then he got sick and they both turned on the other staff member they'd once protected,' Tom concluded.

'Then, after doing what he could to save him, they ended up eating him,' said Jane.

They all stared in silence at the body. This nameless man now had a story. They could see what kind of person he was and guess at what had happened to him.

 'Let's just get him out of here,' said Katie. 'It's messed up.'

'Yeah, that's right, it's messed up! You all messed up!' Nick said venomously, which took them by surprise. 'We've always got to stay alert and have a plan. The only thing that separates us from the Dead is if we're smart and have a plan. That's the one advantage we have when they outnumber us – thousands to one.'

Nick turned to Matt while he continued his rant. 'We already have a plan. We go and find them and hit them first. We should have searched this place before we assumed it was safe. If we're going to fight back, we need to take the initiative, because that's one thing the Dead don't have. We need to be like soldiers in a team! Not standing around oblivious getting drunk.'

'Are you blaming me for this?' Matt thundered. 'Oblivious is one thing that I'm not, pal! I'm always thinking of the group. I can't count the times when I had ideas that made a difference for us all. I made up plans to get us supplies, which no one follows. All I get is a load of attitude and resentment for my troubles when everyone is more than happy to use what I bring in! Coming here was a bloody stupid idea and I don't know why I agreed to it. We already have a plan. We sit tight, keep safe and wait to get rescued.'

Nick and Matt squared up to each other, fists clenched.

Nick pointed a gory finger. 'You're so ready to tell others what you think they should do, but when it came down to looking after everyone's safety today it was down to me! Nobody listened, and then they gave me a load of attitude and resentment when I was the one who searched the building for any danger.'

'Yeah, you certainly found it!' retorted Matt.

'We live under constant threat, and you would have us stuck in those place under your reign of timetables!' Nick responded. 'We can't win a war by staying at home and writing bloody rotas. It's a waste of time. It's a waste of time waiting for someone to find us, they might never come! We have to go out and find them. They might even be here in this town. Everything else we need is right here in this town, but we have to fight for it and take it. This is a war!'

'Are you nuts?' Matt threw his arms up in exasperation and it made Nick flinch. 'This is a fast track to getting ourselves killed. What's this shit about war? Look at us, we aren't soldiers or warriors or something, and you're not either! We'd barely got in before you started your little army patrol, and I saved your ungrateful arse when you couldn't handle it. You think I'm trying to be everyone's boss around here? You're wrong. I'm the one with the good ideas and I say what needs to be said. It's common sense. Your idea's dumb and it's dangerous!'

'We need to be proactive and take the initiative. If people had listened to me and been there to back me up, then no one would have been injured today. It's on you that they did!' Veins stood out on Nick's temple and neck.

'Don't use me to make a point!' Tom protested. He sucked air through his teeth and held his thigh.

'Will you two knock it off?' said Sarah. 'You're both being way too pushy. This has got out of hand.'

'People are actually hurt here,' said Katie, and she asked Andy and Tom if they were alright.

'I'll be okay,' said Andy, rubbing his chest. 'Speaking of which, if you two have quite done, there's someone here who needs attention. With all this talk about war and fighting, I'll show you how to help someone when you get them hurt,' Andy said, drily.

Andy fetched one of the first-aid kits he brought with him from the van. The others plugged their dry mouths with bottles from behind the bar while they gathered around the chair Tom was sitting on. Nick stayed on the far side, away from Matt.

'I've put several first-aid kits around the houses and in the car,' Andy began, as he opened one and displayed its meticulously arranged contents. 'I've stocked them all up with their original equipment and some other bits I think may be necessary,' he said.

'As well as bandages, plasters and the like, there are also things like rubbing alcohol. Don't drink this,' he said as an aside to Joe and Jack. 'There's scalpels, although they're the art supply kind in the absence of anything better. There's also tweezers, needles, sutures and superglue.'

Everyone watched as Andy applied rubbing alcohol to a cotton wool pad.

'Tom, I'm afraid you'll have to pull your trousers down so I can get at it.'

Tom looked probably turned a shade of pink under his face paint as he hesitantly made to unbuckle his belt. Tom's design was half-green, half-blue on either side of his face with Aboriginal style white dots and orange lines curved around his eyes and mouth. His peroxide-blond hair burst in a zany extraversion above this, a style much adored and affectionately tousled by people throughout his life. He pulled the look off well. The fringe came down to the level of his eyes, often covering one. Tom's eyes were strange. From birth he'd been partially sighted in one eye and blind in the other, where the pupil faded to the clear blue of the iris.

People grinned as he got up to comply but then burst into laughter as he hooked a thumb in his underwear and for the briefest second exposed a little more than he intended.

'Whoa! Easy!' Andy said, covering his eyes.

'Steady on, Tom!' said Jenny, and the girls whooped and cheered. 'Oi-oyyy!' 'Natural blond!'

Goddamn it,' said Tom, and he shook his head, grinning in embarrassment as he took his seat.

'Yes, quite. Well, I'm glad that's all there, but we just need to see your thigh today. Okay, settle down. The first thing you need to do is disinfect the injury with the alcohol and cotton wool bud to stop it going septic,' instructed Andy.

The typical wavering, fluttering motion of Andy's hands ceased as soon as he focused on his task. 'This will also help coagulate any bleeding. After this, we have two options: stitches or superglue. Stitching is preferable, but it's a fine art and takes practice, so you're probably better off using the glue.' He held it up for people to see.

'Superglue was used in the Vietnam War to hold wounds shut on the battlefield. . It also takes a lot less time, so if you're in a tight spot this is your best option.' Andy's fluttering returned and he dropped the tube. Irritation was plain on his face as he wrung his hands, picked it back up then carried on.

Andy squeezed a line of glue into the nasty gash on Tom's thigh and pinched it shut for a few seconds. 'There, that's all it takes. Just don't glue yourself to the patient,' he concluded. His hands fumbled, but nevertheless he expertly wrapped Tom's thigh up in surgical gauze and taped it shut.

 People quietly watched his awkward movements. It was a form of dyspraxia, he'd told them. It affected his hands, his walk, the whole posture of his body, which frequently settled into a natural position of being hunched and slightly twisted to one side. He said it was a condition he'd fought against all his life. At one point in his childhood it was so bad that his limbs were bunched up tightly to his body and he lacked the co-ordination to hold anything. The dedication it had taken to work against it was something that none of the group of friends could even guess at.

Andy had cultivated a lot of respect, as well as the Bhuna herb. The others felt for him; the clumsiness he laboured against meant his fingers were often covered in plasters. He'd never let it beat him, and he'd got to where he was today, a fully qualified nurse. Andy packed up the first-aid kit and was given a bottle of beer.

'Didn't that hurt?' asked Emma, and she came to give Tom a hug.

Tom frowned as he thought it over. He shook his head. 'No, it didn't, really. In the past, something like that would have really stung, especially with the disinfectant.'

'It must be the Bhuna. I'm pretty sure it's an anaesthetic,' Nick said, but Tom sat and frowned.

'What's happening to us? We all look so pale,' Tom asked in a low voice. 'You've all seen what we look like when we wash the paint off. Our eyes have dark circles and our veins are grey through our skin. It must be the drugs. This can't be healthy.'

Everyone became subdued. Nick saw people stealing a glance around to those they knew best and the other friends about them. They looked ashamed, secretly, and afraid. At least Tom's simple bluntness had forced it into the open.

'My heart rate seems slower,' said Emma, pressing two fingers to her wrist.

'I nicked my finger the other day and the cut didn't heal for days. It stayed the same and kept opening back up. Then one day, it healed overnight. Completely healed – I can barely see where it was,' Katie remarked. 

'Food tastes weird, horrible, but kind of like nothing. I tried eating a chocolate bar but it was like chewing cardboard mush,' said Joe.

'The only difference is the curry you guys make. Though we season that to such a blistering heat, maybe it killed off all our taste buds,' said Jack. 'I could really go for some now, though.'

'Are we sick? Are we dying?' asked Emily.

'Is it the Bhuna that makes us sick?' said Jenny.

'No, it was stopping smoking the Bhuna and going cold turkey that killed Ryan,' Matt corrected them.

'The Bhuna's life,' contributed Andy.

'I thought it was because he caught the sickness. The one the Dead have,' said Joe.

'We would all have it by now, surely, if that was the case,' Sarah said, frowning.

'I thought it was because he starved himself,' said Jane.

Nick suddenly interjected. 'We're alive!' he appealed to the others with a forced grin. 'We don't feel sick, do we? We feel healthy, energetic, full of life! We're not dying. As long as we keep smoking the Herb and watch out for ourselves, we aren't going to die. We'll get ourselves out of this.'

'How?' more than one of the group said.

'We're going to get rescued,' said Matt, and he looked to Nick to back him up.

Nick nodded. 'Yes, we are going to get rescued,' he said. 'But today we came to honour Ryan's memory with a feast, and right now we need to eat. First let's have a smoke break.'

'Can I pull my trousers up?' said Tom.