Autumn Page 0,84

couldn't.

'I'm tired,' she said.

'Want to go to bed?' he asked.

'No point. I won't sleep.'

'Me neither.'

His elbows aching, Michael lay back down again. He scratched the side of his face and then rubbed his chin. He hadn't shaved for three or four days. He couldn't remember exactly how long it had been but it didn't seem to matter. He put his hands behind his head and basked in front of the fire.

'If it wasn't for the bodies,' he said, his voice quiet, 'then I could put up with this.'

'What do you mean?'

'Don't get me wrong, I wish everything was back as it was,' he explained. 'All I'm saying is that I could deal with it all a lot better if the dead bodies had stayed dead. I can handle there being only a handful of us left, I'm just having trouble coping with the fact that it's a constant fucking battle.'

'It's not a battle.'

'Yes it is,' he insisted. 'Of course it is. If we want food then we have to fight for it. We have to sneak out, grab as much as we can and then sneak back like bloody mice. If we want heat and light then we have to be ready to be surrounded by those frigging things outside. It's a fucking battle and it's not fair.'

For a second Michael sounded like a spoilt child. But Emma knew that he was right and she agreed with everything he said. Had it not been punishment enough to have lost everything that ever mattered to them? Why now did they have to continue to suffer like this?

'And what really gets me,' he continued, 'is the fact that the bloody things are already dead. You can't kill them. I bet if you put a fucking bullet between their eyes they'd still keep coming at you.'

Emma didn't respond. She knew it was important for him to talk but this was a conversation that she didn't particularly want to prolong. She reminded herself that it was obviously doing Michael good. For too long they had each kept their fears and emotions bottled up for fear of upsetting the other two and disturbing the fragile peace and shelter that they'd found at Penn Farm. In the last twenty-four hours Carl had proved that holding onto private pain and frustration was not necessarily the best thing to do. His internal conflict and personal torture had driven him to take action which, from where she was standing, appeared tantamount to suicide.

'Want another drink?' Michael asked, disturbing her train of thought.

'What?' she mumbled, only half-listening.

'I asked if you wanted another drink.'

'No thanks. Do you want one?'

He shook his head.

'So why did you ask then?'

'Don't know. Just something to say I suppose.'

'What's wrong with saying nothing.'

Michael covered his eyes.

'Too quiet,' he replied.

'And what's wrong with silence?'

'It lets you think too much.'

'Don't you want to think?'

'No, not any more. I want a break from thinking.'

'But that's a stupid thing to say. You're always thinking, aren't you?'

He yawned, stretched his arms and then pulled them back and covered his face again.

'There's thinking and there's thinking, isn't there?'

'Is there?'

'Of course there is. Have you ever sat down with a group of friends and talked about nothing in particular?'

'Yes...'

'Have you ever had one of those pointless conversations where you spend hours discussing really bloody stupid things? You know, when you find yourself arguing about the colour of your favourite superhero's shorts or something like that?'

Emma smiled.

'I can't ever remember talking about superhero's shorts, but I know what you mean.'

'I remember when I was a kid, in the summer holidays, we'd get up early and disappear into the park for hours. We'd be there for most of the day and we wouldn't actually do anything. We'd walk around and play and fight and...'

'You need to switch off,' Emma said as Michael's voice trailed away into silence. 'We both do. We weren't designed for this kind of life. Your mind and body can't cope if you keep going at full speed all the time.'

'So when are you and me going to switch off then?' he asked. 'When are we going to be able to do something without worrying about the consequences?'

'Don't know.'

'Because I think you're right, we're both going to need to, Em. I think that somehow we're going to have to try and find a way to do it.'

'Meditation,' Emma suggested. 'We could meditate in shifts.'

'Are you taking the piss?'

'No, I'm serious. Like you say, we've got to learn to switch off and disconnect