Read Online Autumn by David Moody - Free Book Online

I’ll...’
    Carl slowly shook his head again.
    ‘No, it’s okay.’
    Glad to hear that he wasn’t intruding (although not entirely convinced that he really was welcome) Michael walked across to stand next to Carl at the edge of the roof.
    ‘What the bloody hell is happening?’ he asked, his voice so low that Carl could hardly hear what he’d said.
    ‘Don’t know,’ he mumbled in reply, equally quietly.
    ‘Christ, it’s just the speed of it all,’ Michael mumbled. ‘A few days ago everything was normal, but now...’
    ‘I know,’ Carl sighed. ‘I know.’
    The two men stood in silence for a while and surveyed the devastation around them. No matter how long and how hard either of them stared for, they still couldn’t accept the sight of countless bodies lying face down on the cold ground. Even more difficult to accept were those pitiful corpses that were now moving. How could any of this nightmare be happening?
    ‘Almost makes you envy them, doesn’t it?’ Carl muttered.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘The bodies still lying on the ground. The ones that haven’t moved. I can’t help thinking how much easier it would have been to be...’
    ‘That’s a fucking stupid way to talk, isn’t it?’ Michael spat.
    ‘Is it?’ he snapped back angrily.
    In the heavy silence that followed Carl thought about his words. Bloody hell, how low and defeatist he suddenly sounded. But why not, he thought? Why shouldn’t he be? His life had been turned upside down and inside out and he’d lost everything. Not just his possessions and his property, he’d lost absolutely everything. And when he thought about poor Sarah and Gemma, lying there together in their bed at home, the pain he felt became immeasurably worse. But were they still there? Had they been affected by this new change? The thought of his beautiful little girl walking aimlessly through the dark streets alone was too much to bear. He tried unsuccessfully to hide the tears which streamed freely down his tired face.
    ‘Come on,’ Michael whispered, attempting to reassure him (although he already knew that there was no way he could).
    ‘I’m okay,’ Carl sniffed. It was patently obvious that he was not.
    ‘Sure?’ the other man pressed.
    Carl looked into his face and forced himself to smile for a fraction of a second. He was about to reply with the standard ‘yes, I’m all right,’ when he stopped. There was no point in hiding the truth anymore.
    ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘No, mate, I’m not all right...’
    Suddenly unable to say another word, he found himself sobbing helplessly.
    ‘Me neither,’ Michael admitted, wiping tears of desperation and pain from his own eyes.
    The two men sat down on the edge of the roof, their feet dangling freely over the side of the building. Michael stretched, yawned, and then ran his fingers through his matted hair. He felt dirty. He’d have paid any price to have been able to relax in a hot bath or shower and follow it up with a night spent in a comfortable bed. Or even an uncomfortable bed. Just something better than a hard wooden bench in a cold wooden building.
    ‘You know what we need?’ he asked.
    ‘I can think of about a million things that I need,’ Carl answered.
    ‘Forget about all the practical stuff for a minute, and all the things that we should have like warmth, safety, security, answers to a million questions and the like, do you know what I need more than anything?’
    Carl shrugged his shoulders.
    ‘No, what?’
    Michael paused, lay back on the asphalt and put his hands behind his head.
    ‘I need to get absolutely fucking plastered. I need to drink so much fucking beer that I can’t remember my own name, never mind anything else.’
    ‘There’s an off-licence over there,’ Carl said, half-smiling and pointing across the main road. ‘Fancy a walk?’
    He glanced down at Michael who was shaking his head furiously.
    ‘No,’ he replied abruptly.
    Another long silence followed.
    ‘Christ, look at him