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Read by Tony Bell - Full podcast here
Twenty-five feet wouldn’t kill him, especially given the blanketing of snow. He’d probably break something though, maybe a leg or an arm. Still, just a few more inches along the roof and he’d be able to reattach the wire. He was flat against the concrete tiles, his feet propped up by the guttering, sliding himself along towards the animatronic Santa and his reindeer, currently dark and motionless atop the ridge. He was holding the cable between his teeth while he dug his fingers into the gaps. Probably not the safest way to carry a high-voltage electrical wire, but fuck it, it wouldn’t be Christmas without Santa and his levitating caribou.
‘You all right up there?’ Vivian called. It was a useless thing to say. If he wasn’t all right, she’d have known about it when his body landed at her feet.
He resisted the urge to shout back the obvious, and instead took the cable out of his mouth and pushed it into the base of Santa’s sleigh. In an instant, night turned to day, and it was only at that moment he realised quite how many lights there were on the house. Plugging in the bearded old gift-giver had completed the circuit, and there were now glowing bulbs everywhere. They flashed in sequence along the edge of the roof and in random patterns on the Christmas trees on the lawn. They were red and green and yellow and blue, in the shapes of snowmen and stockings, elves and piles of gifts. There was even some kind of alien popping its head out from a Christmas flying saucer. And above them all, high up on the roof, was Santa, his body glowing red and white and his mechanical jaw opening and closing with a robotic ho ho ho. A tinny version of Good King Wenceslas was playing from somewhere in the garden, but only ever repeating the first few notes in an endless loop. It was tacky as hell, but it was Christmas. Rupert sighed with satisfaction and slid back towards the attic window.
‘When do you think they’ll get here?’ Vivian said when they were both safely back in the living room.
Rupert dusted some snow from his shoulders and looked at the clock on the wall, not that it would have helped even if it had been working. ‘Won’t be long, I wouldn’t have thought,’ he said. ‘Those lights will draw a crowd.’ He turned to the dining table and admired the red tablecloth and festive centrepiece. ‘This looks great,’ he said.
Vivian shrugged. The smell of her cigarettes was so powerful, he could hardly even look at her. He wondered how many she’d got through standing on the lawn. A whole packet? Two? He hadn’t even been that long.
‘How was the generator?’ she said.
‘In surprisingly good nick.’
‘Much petrol left?’
‘Enough,’ he said, and she nodded.
‘That’s good.’
She turned away and walked into the kitchen. Rupert poured some sherry and then downed the glass. It was rough stuff, like sandpapering his throat, but it did the job. He took a seat and poured another.
‘Dinner’s almost ready,’ Vivian called, and he could hear the oven door being pulled open and slamming closed, then the sound of the tap running and some cursing. Vivian emerged from the billowing steam with a plate in each hand.
‘Shall we start?’ he said.
‘Fuck me if I’m waiting any longer,’ she replied, and she picked up her knife and fork.
Rupert nodded and speared something green.
‘What are you going to imagine it is?’ he said.
‘Sprouts,’ Vivian said. ‘I love sprouts.’
‘Much maligned,’ Rupert said. ‘I’m thinking green beans or maybe asparagus. Did the tin give any clue?’
‘No label,’ Vivian said. She poured sherry up to the rim of her glass and then refilled his. ‘So it’s whatever you want it to be.’
They sat in silence for a few minutes while they ate. The veggies were tasteless and limp, somewhere between a solid and a liquid; it was like eating disintegrating loo roll. The meat, meanwhile, was stringy and tough, what little of it there was. He closed his eyes and tried to recall what real Christmas food was like, a nicely cooked turkey, some stuffing, pigs in blankets. He especially lamented the absence of Christmas cake. He loved marzipan.
‘I wish we had some crackers,’ Rupert said, and he caught himself looking at the clock again, even though the hands had, predictably, not moved an inch. ‘Nothing like a loud bang and a pointless bit of plastic to cheer things up.’
Vivian grunted and opened some bourbon.
‘Good choice,’ he said, and she filled them both up. ‘What were Christmases like round your way then, Viv. Can I call you Viv?’
She shrugged again and took a long gulp of whisky. ‘My family were all piss-artists,’ she said. ‘Every single year it was just an excuse to get together and get hammered. Half the time the food was burnt, or not cooked, or not even bought. The whole day was spent watching the grown-ups get more and more wasted, till they were so fucking plastered they couldn’t even eat.’
‘Sounds lovely,’ Rupert said. ‘Rather more sedate affair at the Daniels house, I’m afraid. Just my brother and me and the old folks. Then later Elliot’s wife, Daniella, and my wife, Clare.’
‘You’re too young to be married.’
‘No,’ Rupert said. ‘No, I am not.’
He poked around at his plate a little more and scraped some grey meat off the bone of the pigeon. They’d been lucky to catch the bird, really. Granted, it was half-dead when they found it and probably riddled with diseases. But you only live once, he thought, if you’re lucky. He piloted the last piece of bird into his mouth and ground it down with his teeth, closing his eyes again and imagining a nice golden-brown goose.
‘So, Viv,’ Rupert said. ‘How about it?’
‘It’s still a no,’ she said, and she pulled out two cigarettes from somewhere and put them both in her mouth.
‘That’s still a no, too. At least indoors,’ Rupert said, and she put the lighter back down on the table and poured some more whisky.
‘Compliments to the chef,’ he said, placing his knife and fork together neatly on the plate. ‘Shall I do the washing up?’ He laughed; it was forced at first but it became real and then escalated quite quickly, till he found himself creasing up in his seat and banging the table with his hands. He managed to stop before the weeping began. That was a good skill to have.
‘I think I hear something,’ Vivian said. She stood and went over to the window, peaked her head between the curtains. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘They’re not far away now.’
‘I could see the comet very clearly from the roof,’ he said. ‘Very low tonight. It’s getting closer.’
‘I still say it could have been the vaccine,’ Vivian said. ‘Or something made in a lab. That or 5G. I’d put money on 5G having something to do with it. I thought you said it was Trump anyway?’
‘No,’ Rupert said. ‘I said it was the comet, or maybe the earthquake, or the volcano, or that rain of blood they had in Kent. I don’t know.’
He stood up and took his glass over to the sofa. Christmas at the Daniels house, no-one ever left the dining table until everyone was finished. It was usually late evening before they’d all retire to the sitting room. His dad would pour them some sherry—some good sherry—and they’d curl up on the sofas, in all likelihood falling asleep there and groggily picking their way to their bedrooms at some point in the small hours. But this wasn’t the Daniels house. He didn’t know whose house this was. Whoever it was, they’d left many Christmases ago.
‘How long have we known each other, Vivian?’ he said. He picked up the remote control and pointed it at the television. No signal. He wondered if they had any DVDs.
Vivian turned back from the window and took the armchair. ‘Six weeks?’
‘Seems like six years, am I right?’
She shrugged. She was good at that.
‘It has been six years, though, hasn't it?’ he said. ‘I mean it's Christmas 2026 now, right? I’ve been trying to keep track of the time, the passing of the seasons, the falling leaves and the darkening days and such, to hold on to something of what we had before all of this.’
‘Why? there's nothing left to hold on to. Motherfuckers tore everything to pieces, whatever it was got into them. The world we knew is gone, and I’ve had enough of what’s left. There's probably still time for you to get away, though, you know. Take the car.’
‘And leave you alone?’ he said.
‘You don’t even know me.’
‘That's right,’ Rupert said. ‘But we're together. And it's Christmas, and that's all we have now.’
‘All right then,’ she said, and she slid the revolver out of her pocket, its little silver nose flashing with the reflection of the fairy lights. ‘One bullet could probably do us both, if we stand next to each other.’
Rupert shook his head. ‘Please, you take it.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes.’ He drummed his fingers on the side of his glass. ‘Before you go, though, can I just get a hug?’
‘OK’ she said, and he held her close, smelling her dirty, ashen hair and pretending she was someone else, pretending she was a multiplicity of people actually: his wife, his mother, his brother, even his little spaniel, Edie. All the friends who hadn't made it, all the strangers he'd fought alongside while he still believed they were going to come through all of this OK. He held on as the pounding began on the door and the windows, as the terrifying screeches of the infected drowned out the sounds of the mechanical Santa and the looping Christmas carols.
‘I’ll go upstairs and do it,’ she said, and he nodded. Shortly afterwards, he heard the bang of the gun and the thud of her body. And it was just him; him and them.
They had surrounded the place, just as he’d expected, drawn by the bright lights and the noise. He could see their silhouettes behind the curtains: their stumbling, shambling forms. He drank some more bourbon and felt it wash over his gums, pleasantly anaesthetising. The lights were fading now, and the glass was beginning to smash, and the inhuman cries were louder still. He closed his eyes and pictured a living room lit only by candles and fairy lights, a Nordmann fir heavy with baubles and decorations as old as he was, a stash of presents underneath, some decorations held up by sellotape that fell down several times a day, and all the people he loved in the same room for just a few days each year. Just a short time they had together, if only he’d known how short.
The first of the infected were stumbling through the broken living room window now, howling at him now from their ruined mouths. He held Vivian’s lighter up and struck a flame. It was a wonder he’d been able to smell anything all evening, what with how much petrol he’d poured out. ‘Merry Christmas,’ he said, and he raised his glass to better times.
(c) Rhys Timson, 2020
Rhys Timson is a writer from Zone 5, a sci-fi dystopia that closely resembles suburban outer London. His work has been published in 3:AM, Litro, Structo, Lighthouse and other literary magazines and appeared in Retreat West’s 2019 and 2020 competition anthologies.
Evening Standard Award nominee for A Man for All Seasons, Tony Bell has performed all over the world with award-winning all-male Shakespeare company, Propeller, playing Bottom, Feste, Autolycus and Tranio. TV includes Coronation Street, Holby City, Midsomer Murders, EastEnders & The Bill. He is also a radio and voiceover artist.
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