Handling the Undead (24 page)

The house shook with detonations that were drawing closer. David managed to coax Magnus into eating a piece of toast with cheese and marmalade, and a glass of milk. He alternated between regarding Magnus as a machine that had to be taken care of, and as the only other life that existed on this earth. After the wine, it was the latter view that had started to dominate and he had to hold back tears as he looked at his son.

Magnus went off to brush his teeth and at the instant he disappeared from view, panic started to burn in David's stomach. He drank the dregs of the wine straight from the bottle and leaned against the kitchen table, watching the lightning.

After a minute Magnus came back and stood next to him.

'Dad, why does the light move faster than the sound?'

'Because .. .' David rubbed his hands over his face. 'Because ... good question. I don't know. You'll have to .. .' He broke off. He had been on the verge of saying:
You'll have to ask Mum.
Instead he said, 'You should go to bed now.'

He tucked Magnus in and said he was too tired to tell him a goodnight story. Magnus asked him to read one instead, and he read the one about the leopard that lost a spot. Magnus had heard it many times, but always thought it was funny when they got to the part where the leopard counted its spots and discovered that one was missing.

This evening David lacked his usual storytelling verve. He tried to act out the leopard's consternation, but Magnus' dutiful giggle was so pitiful that he had to stop, and simply read the story as it was written. When it was over they were both quiet for a long time. When David made a move to get up, Magnus said, 'Dad?'

'Yes.'

'Is Mum coming back here?'

'How do you mean?'

Magnus curled up and drew his knees up to his chest.

'Is she going to come back like how she is now and be dead?'

'No. She'll come later. When she is well.'

'I don't want her to come here and be dead.'

'She won't.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes.'

David leaned over the bed and kissed Magnus on the cheek, and on the mouth. Normally Magnus would make trouble-want to play the Angry Game, make funny faces-but now he just lay still, allowing himself to be kissed. When David stood up Magnus was lying with his brows knit. He was thinking about something, wanted to ask something. David waited. Magnus looked him in the eye.

'Dad? Are you going to be all right without Mum?'

David's jaw froze. The seconds ticked by. A sensible voice at the back of his consciousness shouted at him:
Say something, say something now, you're scaring him.
Finally he managed, 'Go to sleep, buddy. Everything is going to be fine.'

He left the bedroom door open, went to the bathroom and turned on the bathwater, hoping that it would drown out the sound of his sobs.

He had imagined Eva dead many times. Tried to imagine. Wrong.

Many times the thought of Eva's death had been forced upon him. Yes. Because things happen, you read about them in the paper every day. Photographs of roads, lakes, some nondescript forest glade. Someone had been in a crash, someone drowned, someone was murdered. And he had thought. A life of emptiness: routines, duties, perhaps eventually a bit of light from somewhere. But now, when it had happened, of course the worst pain came from things he had not been able to imagine.

Dad? Are you going to be all right without Mum?

How could an eight-year-old say that?

David sat on the floor with his head bent over the bathtub where the water was slowly rising. Maybe it was wrong of him to hide his grief from Magnus. But Eva was not dead, he was not allowed to grieve. And she was not alive, so he could not hope. Nothing.

He turned off the water, pulled the plug and walked out to the kitchen and opened a new bottle of wine. Before he had time to pour himself a glass, Magnus came out wrapped in his blanket.

'Dad, I can't sleep.'

David carried him to his and Eva's bedroom, tucked him in again. Magnus almost disappeared in the big bed. He used to toddle in here when he was little and woke in the night. Here was security. David lay down next to him, his hand on his shoulder. Magnus squirmed in and sighed deeply.

David closed his eyes, wondered,
Where is my big bed?

He had been afraid that his mother would have seen the morning news, but she had not, so when she called in the afternoon and exclaimed about the evening's events he let her talk for a while and then said he had no time. Both she and Eva's father had to be informed, but he couldn't bring himself to do it just now.

Magnus' breathing deepened. His head was wedged in David's armpit.

Where can I go?

The only thing he saw was the kitchen counter where the full bottle of wine was waiting. He would go there as soon as Magnus was fully asleep. Because it was Eva who was his big bed, his only haven, and he could not go there. He lay with his head deep in the pillow, looking at the blue light that occasionally flickered across the ceiling. The rumbling was more distant now, giants mumbling behind the mountains. The rain was fairies tiptoeing across the window ledge .

. . . and the dead have awakened ...

A thought glided past and he took hold of it gratefully.

If everything ... if everything impossible starts happening now.

Yes. If vampires came out. If things floated, disappeared. If the trolls came out of the mountains, if the animals began to talk or if Jesus returned. If everything ... became different.

David smiled. He smiled at the comforting thought. The continued normality of society-picnics in the park and automated phone systems-was a mockery, and its collapse into the supernatural would be a relief. The attempts of scientists to understand the phenomenon from a biological perspective had nothing to do with him. Come angels, come fairies, it is starting to get cold.

Taby Municipality 20.20

In two hours they managed to visit twelve houses, perhaps twenty people. Some shut their doors as soon as they heard what it was about, but more were willing to hear them out than they had expected. Elvy had herself received visits from the Jehovah's Witnesses several times and treated them with courteous dismissal. Once she had been sitting at the kitchen window and followed their progress, how quickly they were back on the street after visiting each house. It went much better for Elvy and Hagar.

Perhaps it was due to the extraordinary circumstances, or the passion of Elvy's conviction. Even though Elvy had had her vision, had been given her task, she was not naive enough to think she could immediately convince everyone else. Things like that did not even happen in the Bible.

The pressure front of the storm was wrapped around them the whole time like invisible muslin, but it was as if the storm had folded his arms and was waiting for them to finish their task before letting loose.

Most of the people they had managed to interest or convince were women their own age. But there were a couple of men too. The one who embraced their mission with the greatest enthusiasm was

a man in his thirties. He was a computer consultant, he explained, and he offered them his services in case they needed help in setting up a web site to spread their message via the internet. They told him they would think about it.

By eight o'clock the storm was no longer able to contain itself. It was already as dark as a winter evening when the wind started to ruffle the treetops, and shortly afterwards the rain came. In a few minutes it had grown to a downpour.

Elvy and Hagar unfurled their umbrellas and the rain streamed down the fabric, creating a curtain of water around them, smattering against the metal roofs of parked cars with such intensity that they could hardly hear each other's voices. Arm in arm, they continued homeward.

'Poor old horses of the apocalypse!' Hagar shouted and Elvy did not know if she was referring to them or their legs, but there was no sense in asking since there was no way Hagar would hear over the din of the rain. They trudged on in silence with the water rushing around their flat shoes.

It was raining so hard that there was hardly any air left to breathe. They proceeded slowly under their buckling umbrellas so as not to exhaust themselves. The first bolt of lightning struck at the exact moment they reached Elvy's house, and the thunder rolled down the street a couple of seconds later like a drumroll of doom.

Hagar closed her umbrella and shook it out. 'Phew!' she laughed. 'Is this the End, do you think?'

Elvy smiled crookedly. 'Your guess is as good as mine.'

'Oh my, oh my ... ' Hagar shook her head. 'The heavens have opened, as they say.'

Elvy's reply was inaudible; the storm had drawn closer and a blast sent a shudder through the house, rattling the wineglasses in the cupboard. Hagar jumped and asked, 'Are you afraid of lightning?'

'No. Are you?'

'Not really. I just have to .. .' Hagar tilted her head and turned something on her hearing aid. Then she said, a little louder, 'Now I can't hear so well, but the thunder ... it gets too much.'

The thunder came at closer intervals and Hagar shot a frightened look at the ceiling. The part about her not being afraid of thunder was probably not entirely true. Elvy took her hand and Hagar squeezed it gratefully, allowing herself to be led into the living room. Elvy herself felt nothing other than ... reliance. Everything was as it should be, and they had done what they could.

When they reached the living room Elvy noted that the ceiling lamp was swaying slightly. Then it went out. All the lamps in the house went out and it became pitch dark. Hagar squeezed Elvy's hand harder and asked, 'Should we pray?'

They made their way onto the floor, easing their stiff legs into place. Hagar grimaced with pain as she got down on her knees, said, 'I can't ... my knee .. .'

Elvy helped her up again and they sat next to each other on the couch instead, hip to hip. They interlaced their fingers and lowered their heads in prayer while the rain continued to run down the roof and thunder filled the world.

When the power had been out for ten minutes and the lightningstrobe of the storm was still playing on the house, Elvy let down the blinds and lit two candles on the coffee table. Hagar, half-lying on the couch, resting her bad knee, was transformed from storm-lit movie monster to dignified saint.

Elvy walked up and down in the room with a rising sense of irritation.

'I don't know,' she said. 'I don't know.'

'What?' Hagar cupped her fingers behind her ear, but Elvy waved the gesture away. She had nothing important to say.

Why is nothing happening?

It wasn't that she had expected an immediate conversion of the masses, but something ... something that made this undertaking greater than just two old ladies tottering around together hawking their faith. After all, she had been chosen, personally singled out and marked. Was it like this for all visionaries?

Probably. The thing was to hold onto her vision, not let go.

But for how long, Lord? How long?

She was back in the hall on one of her circuits when there was a gentle knock on the door. She opened up.

Outside stood a sodden likeness of her next -door neighbour. Her

hair straggled, her dress spotted with dark patches of moisture. A          I '

series of lightning bolts illuminated her and she made an altogether

miserable picture.

'Come in, come in,' Elvy said and guided her into the hall.

'Excuse me,' the woman said, 'but you said that ... well, that your house was open. And my husband has been very odd since you left. He drank a great deal and then he went out and ... if this really is going to be the last night ... '

'I understand,' Elvy said, and did. 'Come in.'

While her neighbour was towelling her hair in the bathroom, there was another knock on the door.

Why all this knocking ...

But then Elvy remembered that the power cut must also have knocked out the doorbell. Fearing that it was her neighbour come to fetch his runaway wife she opened up, with a speech about freedom of association ready on her lips.

But it was not the neighbour. It was Greta, one of the older women who had appeared to be swayed when they visited earlier. She came better prepared than the neighbour. A vivid green rain poncho was draped over her head and shoulders, and she pulled a basket out from underneath.

'I brought a little coffee and some home-made pastries with me. So We can keep vigil together.'

It was not long until yet another of the women came. She had brought a box of candles with her, in case they did not have any. Finally Mattias arrived, the young man with the computer background. He said that he had thought about bringing his laptop but that there was no point while the storm was still going.

When they were all assembled in the living room with extra candles lit, coffee poured out and pastries served, there was a general outbreak of explanations. The thunder had died down so Hagar was able to turn up her hearing aid and take part.

It was the storm, they all agreed. It had driven it home. If tonight was going to bring the end of the world, or at least a complete change in life as they knew it, they did not want to sit alone when there was the option of gathering with like-minded people.

When they had spoken about this for a while, everyone's gaze turned to Elvy. She realised they expected her to say something.

'Well,' Elvy said, 'of course, on Our own we can do nothing. Faith only lives when it's shared. It was a blessing that you came here. Together we are greater than the sum of Our pans. Let us now sit vigil through this night and if it is the last, We will at least meet it together. Hand in hand.'

Elvy finished her speech abashed. It was not inspired. She had simply tried to say what they had been expecting her to say. The others considered her platitudes quietly, until Hagar cried, 'Do you have

mattresses?'

Elvy smiled, 'Where there is heart, there is room, and so forth.'