Molly looks up at me from the bed with her yellow eyes.

The left is bloodshot, not pink but a deep, blood red.

I stand in the doorway and watch as she tugs at the ropes that bind her wrists and ankles.  The rough weave digs hard into her skin, rubbing it raw.  She would keep trying to reach me until her flesh gives, I fancy, until her hands and feet come off.

Good morning, dear.  I don’t speak aloud; talking to yourself is for crazy people.  I know exactly what I’m doing.

She tries to reply, grunts of exertion, a moan of hunger, both are stifled by the thick wad of cloth stuffed into her mouth, secured with roll after roll of sellotape.

My god, she’s beautiful.  So free.

It’s time to try again.  Time to test my resolve.

I untie my dressing gown and let it fall to the floor.  I peel back layer after layer of clothing, insulation against this bitterly cold house, until my left arm is bare.

Sitting at her side, I place my forearm against her clothbound lips.  She tries to bite, her peeling skin brushing harmlessly against my flesh, the hair on my arms standing on end in the chill.

Her mouth follows my arm as I reach around, my fingers finding the knot to her gag.

I close my eyes, fingers trembling, the tip of my middle digit resting on the lump of knotted cloth.  It’s fear of the pain that stops me.  It would only last a few hours and I’d be free, as free as her.  We’d be together for always, no more worries, no more struggling, just an unlifetime of peace.

I can’t do it.  My shoulders slump with a sigh and my hand comes away.

My wife doesn’t care. She persists in trying to reach me, encouraging me to join her.

I run a hand across her chest and my fingers find the wound over her heart.

Her eyes never leave my body as I dress, urging me to have another go. But I can’t.

Twisted with self-loathing, I’m ready to face the day.  My only comfort is that I’m going to try something new.

The idea had come to me only the night before, a way to use the fireplace in the main bedroom without the light attracting any unwelcome visitors.  If I could just spend more time with her, I had decided, hole up alone in the room with her, with no need to leave, then maybe I’d be able to go through with it.

Of course, the plan means going outside and searching the garage.

I check at the windows.  The mist is slowly beginning to clear across the fields and if I squint I can just about see the distant shapes moving in the streets of the town.

I give my wife another look.  Her eyes bore into mine.

I’ll be careful, I smile at her.

Lifting the blood-crusted hammer from the bedside table, the handle knocks the tip of the knife blade next to it and sends it spinning a couple of revolutions.

Testing the weight of the tool in my hand, I look out the windows one last time.  The gardens seem deserted.

The smooth wood of the hammer handle becomes slick with my sweat, my fingertips whitening.  I fear killing almost as much as I fear death.  And what makes it worse is that this self same fear got Molly killed in the first place.

I had hesitated and Molly had been bitten, down in the town below.  I still hear the shuffle, the grunt, the gasp, the sickening crack of human skull.  The bite had barely broken the skin but it had been enough to sicken her.

A half hour later, we had found this place.

As I had sat beside her on the bed, watching her sweat and writhe and moan, the thought had begun to take hold.  At first, it had felt like giving up, but, as her fever worsened, it had begun to feel more like clarity and acceptance.  That was when I had picked up Molly’s knife and sent her on ahead.

I had cried when I had found out I was too cowardly to follow through.

Since then, I’ve killed three out in the gardens.  If I’m going to die, Molly’s going to be the one to kill me; a simple naturalistic exchange between lovers.

My own room is just next-door to hers.

I exit via the window, a rope tied to the bed so I can lower myself down onto the roof of the porch and from there to the gravel drive.  Always cautious, I check around me, hammer at the ready in case of something I’ve missed.

The garden is clear and I walk over to the garage just around the corner.  There are two doors, the large wooden one used for the car and a smaller one around the side.  I knock on the large one, count to thirty under my breath and knock again.  With no groans or responding thuds from the other side, I move around to the smaller door.  I pull the key from my pocket, neatly labelled ‘garage’.

The hammer comes up again as I swing the door open and stand back a little.  The room is mercifully empty.  There are silent rows of shelves on the far wall. The only hiding place is directly behind the door and that too is clear of attackers.

A quick search and I find exactly what I’m looking for: three tins of paint and a box of tools including, I sigh with relief, a large, thick roll of electrical tape.

Ignoring Molly’s moan as I move my equipment into her room, I start making the windows lightproof.  The electrical tape purrs as I unwind four six-inch strips, neatly ripping them off one by one.  I place two at eye height on each of the large bay windows.

I use the claw of my hammer to lever open one of the paint tins, this one a neutral beige identical to the walls of the third bedroom.  I begin to paint the East-facing window, starting at the edge and working my way in, painting over the tape, which I’ll later be able to unpeel and replace whenever I want to peer outside.

It doesn’t take long.  I sit on the edge of the bed to flex the ache from my arm before starting on the Southern window.

The icy winter sunlight has chased away the last strings of mist from the landscape, bringing everything back into focus.  Dark shapes in the town streets continue to sway and to shamble.  Up across the fields… there are two people.

I blink, squint.

They’re still too far away to make out any real details but the speed and purpose with which they move gives them away.  Walking side by side, their backs bulge with large rucksacks, arms crooked and thumbs hooked under straps in the way of travellers everywhere.

And they’re heading this way.

“Shit.”

I place the paintbrush on the window and close the curtains, ignoring the clatter as the brush falls to the floor. Paint beads splash across the carpet.

Running from the room, I lock the door behind me, place the key in the pocket of my shirt and run over to my room, shutting the curtains there as well. I move to the next room and the next.

Once all the curtains are closed, I creep back to the front to peer out.  They’re closer now, much closer.

“Shit.”

There’s nothing I can do.  Plenty of hours’ daylight left, I tell myself. Maybe they’ll just keep going.

The pair are in the field just over the road now, a man and a woman.  The man is tall, his frame hidden beneath his large weatherproof jacket.  Long, thin hair trickles down to his shoulders, grey.

The woman is a head shorter, her hair frizzy and crow-black.  Even from here I can see that her face is sharp, angular, red and weather-beaten.

Neither talk, a concentrated silence between them, as they pace up and down the side of the road, looking for a gap in the hedge.  It doesn’t take long.  They look up at the house as they walk down the road to the entrance gate and, with practiced hops, they climb over into the drive.

Still neither of them have spoken, the woman stares up at the house, her eyes skipping over my window.

The man heads straight for the car.  My heart stops. It’s my exit strategy, another testament to my cowardice. There’s still petrol in the tank, some supplies in the boot in case I need to leave in a hurry. I feel sick as he pulls at the handle.  Of course, it’s locked and so he cups his hands, peering through the window.

“Looks dead,” the woman whispers.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

I step away from the curtain, duck and return to hear what they’re saying, hidden below the sill.

“The windows have been barricaded,” she points out.  “Could be there’s someone in there.”

“Hello?”

“Shhhhhhhh.  Jesus, Michael, bring the whole world down on us, why don’t you?”

I bite my lip.  The call has set my heart racing.

Bare branches chatter in the wind.

“Well, that confirms it,” says the man.  “There’s nothing in there, maybe whoever barricaded it has moved on.”

“And left their car?”

“Sally, look at this place.  The drive has more than enough space for another car and you can bet if they lived here that they could afford more than the one.  They probably took the better one and all went together.”

“You reckon?”

“That’s what we would have done.”

“… Think we could take this one?”

No!

“Well, the keys are probably inside but I wouldn’t mind staying here for a day or two.  The tent’s beginning to look a bit worse for wear and as for the smell…  Besides, I want to sleep for a change, instead of worrying something’s going to just chew its way through the wall.”  Downstairs, I hear the front door rattle.  “Locked.”

The woman sighs.  I squeeze my eyes shut.

“Let’s be careful then.”

“I say we check around first, maybe we’ll find a better way in.”

I creep along the corridor, following the sound of their progress around the house from room to room.  The back door handle squeaks and releases.  More crunching of gravel as they come back around to the front.

“Well, I suppose if we climbed up onto the porch roof we could see if there’s a way in through that window…”

Goddammit!  I swither in the middle of the room, not sure whether to retreat or reveal myself.

Goddammit!

I run my fingers through my hair, curse again, open my mouth, try to line up the words.  My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth, reluctant to let them out and…

“He- hello?”

The silence outside deepens.

“Hello?” the woman, Sally, replies.

I draw back the curtain and peer down into their surprised faces, my mind working fast.

“Thank god, you are people,” I speak in a stage whisper.  “I was in the bathroom when I thought I heard something moving around the back of the house.”

“Yeah, that was us.”  The man looks this way and that for anything attracted to the noise of our conversation.  “We didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“That’s alright.”

The silence stretches out between us.

“Look,” Michael breaks first, “we’ve been walking and camping outdoors for days.  We’d appreciate if you could, maybe, shelter us for a while.  Until tomorrow, maybe?”

The pair stare up at me with looks of tired desperation.

“We’re just so tired,” says Sally, picking up the slack.  “We’ve been running for so long. Just…please, let us stay a while.”

#

“You mentioned a bathroom?”

I point down the hall and Sally scurries off, leaving me alone in my room with Michael.

The man smiles, sheepishly, clearly embarrassed at his partner’s brazenness.

“It’s been so long since either of us have had the chance to go to the toilet indoors,” he explains.

“Understandable,” I reply.  “You really don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.”

“Ha. Yes, yes…” he scratches at his head, looks around at the room.  “So this is your place?”

“No.”  I shake my head.  “I arrived a few days ago, I was just passing by.  I thought, secluded, safe for a while at least while I check the radio and-“

“You have a radio?” he bursts.  “A working one?”

I almost retreat from his enthusiasm.  “Yeah… A clockwork one.”

“How often do you check it? I mean, is anyone broadcasting?”

I blink, the truth is I haven’t checked it since Molly died.  “There are a few broadcasts.  Nothing of any real value.”

“Would you mind if I have a listen?”

#

“Doesn’t sound good does it?”  Michael leans over and pushes the power button, cutting off the maydays and calls for salvation.  “No matter what we do we’re dead.”

“But at least there’re people,” I point out, “we’re not the only ones still living.  That ship picking up survivors in Portsmouth, there’s hope there, they sounded fine.”

“They’re fine now,” Michael grumbles, “but what about next week, next month?  Are we going to just sit around waiting to die?”

My thoughts go to the room just down the hall.  “Only if that’s what you want your life to be,” I say.  “I heard plenty of hope on that radio.  There are plenty of places you can move on to.  Places where you can start over…”

But Sally has begun to weep.  She leans on her husband’s shoulder and he begins to rock gently back and forth, creaking the bedsprings.

Feeling uncomfortable in such emotional presence, I leave the room, pulling the door not quite closed behind me.

I’ve set them up in the bedroom furthest from mine and Molly’s, right next to the bathroom.  They had been embarrassingly grateful.

Alone for the next couple of minutes at least, I walk down the hall and set an ear to Molly’s door.  I can’t hear a thing.

Cold panic begins to grip my chest.

Why did I let them in?  While they’re here I can’t do anything; can’t paint, can’t think.  I can’t even risk going into her room.

There’s no way they’ll understand should they discover her.

With them here there’s absolutely no way I can go through with this.

I run my fingers through my hair.  Maybe that’s exactly why I let them in.  Maybe, I want them to find her, I want them to make the decision for me.

The door opens and Michael pops his head out.  “Would it be alright if Sally and I had a cup of tea?”

“Don’t worry,” I say, “I’ll make you one.”

He manages a thin, watery smile and I feel a smile twitch my cheek.  “We both take plenty of sugar.”

This is a test, I realise, as I walk down to the kitchen.  I have to really show that I’m not afraid of dying, not afraid of death.  Molly is testing me, I have to prove myself to her.

I fear killing almost as much as I fear death.  If I can overcome one I can overcome the other.  Babysteps, Toby, babysteps.

The gas supply is still running. There’s a shiny hob kettle tucked away in a corner and next to it is a small pot containing the sugar.  I put the kettle on to boil, place two teabags in two mugs and begin to rummage under the sink, ignoring the sugar.

Rat poison, the box has a picture of a black rat on the front, sharp-toothed and red-eyed.

Molly means more to me than life itself.  What are a couple of strangers compared to that?

#

“Here we are.”  A smile twists on my lips as I set the mugs of tea down on the bedside table.

Michael gives me his thanks, passing one to his wife.

“Are you not having any?” she asks.

I mutter something about not being thirsty and sit down in the chair opposite the bed.

Michael gives me an uncomfortable smile. He knows something’s up.  I try not to watch, my hands wringing between my knees, as he takes his first sip.  I only look back when I hear his lips smack.  “I’d already kissed hot drinks goodbye.” He makes a face.

Sally stares down into her mug with a frown.  “It’s an unusual taste.”

“It’s Lady Grey,” I explain, my voice a little tight.  “It was all I could find.”

We sit in silence, them drinking their tea while I try not to fidget, cursing myself once again.

“So,” Sally sets down her empty mug, the first decisive sound in minutes, but nothing follows.  Her mouth hovers open before she blushes and looks down at her knees again.

Michael snorts.

“It’s funny,” he says, taking his wife’s hand.  “Me and my Sally, we host – hosted – a lot of dinner parties.”  He nudges her with a shoulder.  “We were the life and soul, weren’t we?  We always found talking to strangers no real problem but…I guess the kind of questions we asked only applied to more civilised times.  What do you do for a living, how many kids have you got? We’d talk about politics, theatre, literature.  None of that seems to matter now.”

Silence falls again.

“It’ll be alright,” Michael whispers.

I can’t bear it.  I take this as my cue to exit and collect the mugs.

Back downstairs, I can feel the red eyes of the rat on the box glaring at me, its tab left untampered.

I sigh and stare up at the ceiling.

Above, a floorboard creaks and a small sob punches through the ceiling.  “I can’t go back out there. I can’t.”

Over on the other side of the room, the ceiling that floors my wife’s bedroom is quiet, tranquil.

I sigh again, wipe the tear from my cheek.

What will it take?

#

The day crawls.

With nothing to do, I sit in the kitchen in what light the boarded up windows let through at the head of the dining table, letting my shadow cast out longer and longer across the dark-tiled floor.

My hands are clenched in front of me as I probe and test my psyche, trying to find that one little reserve of courage.

My purgatory ends as the light begins to take on a slightly orange tint, the sun touching the horizon.

The stairs thud and creak and the laminated floorboards in the hallway crackle under the weight of sock-shrouded feet.

“Hi.”

I turn in my chair to find Michael standing in the doorway. “Hello.”

Taking my greeting as an invitation, he comes and sits with me at the table.

“I’ve come to apologise,” he says.  “We’ve been up in our room all day, I… You must think us very rude.”

I sit in silence, unsure of how to react.

“My wife’s out of her mind with worry,” Michael confides.  “We have a son, he was in London when this all started.  We managed to ring his mobile once but all we heard was shouting.  We hope we might find him but…” He shakes his head.

“Are you married?”  He winces as soon as he asks the question, seeing my reaction as my pulse is sent racing.  “I mean, were you married?” and he winces again.  “God, that sounds so cruel.”

I run my tongue over my suddenly dry lips, it’s as though the moisture in my mouth has retreated from the question.  Instead, it’s leapt to my pores.  I begin to sweat.

“I have a wife,” I reply.  “She’s… somewhere.”

This seems answer enough for Michael, again he scratches at his head.

“Have you eaten?” he asks.

I say that I haven’t.

I watch as he begins to rustle through the cupboards, taking things out and placing them down on the counter.

The room soon fills with the smell of cooking.

Sally comes down soon after he’s started and while Michael works she talks, telling me of how her husband is a fantastic amateur chef and of how he used to have a small cooking column for a local newspaper.  He was quite the local celebrity, she beams proudly.

I listen politely and try to turn my thoughts away from the box under the sink, of what I had tried to do to the pair of them. Tried and failed, I correct myself.

The meal is delicious and after I’ve set my fork aside, stifling a burp, I say so.

Michael smiles, resting his chin on the back of his hand.

His eyes are a little bleary.  Sally had found a small selection of wine and, since I had refused, the couple had worked their way through a bottle of red.

I make to stand but Sally stays me with a hand.

“I’ll do the washing up,” she says.

As she picks up Michael’s plate, I see them exchange a look.  He places his hand on hers, giving the slightest of nods.

He waits until Sally is at the sink, the dishes clattering and scraping before he speaks.

“Toby,” he clears his throat, “Sally and I have been wondering.”

Sally pauses in her work for the merest fraction of a second, the back of her neck turning a deep pink.

“It’s been so good of you to take us in today.  We… Well, we really appreciate it.  The past few hours, feeling safe and sheltered, have really brought home to us just how close we were to breaking out there.  We just spent so much time worrying from second to second, barely even thinking further than the next bush, the next fence, just trying to survive, waiting for hunger or one of those things to get us.”

His speech is broken as Sally takes a loud, tearful gasp.  Her back still to us, she brings a Marigold-gloved hand to her face.

“But now,” he continues, “because of you, because of this house, we feel that… maybe there is a future after all.”  He sighs. “Toby, I know it’s not what we discussed but, do you not think we’d be able to stay a day or two longer?”

He tries to look me in the eye.  I don’t let him.  I avoid his gaze, staring hard at the table corner.

Neither of them breathes as they await my reply.

Sally has abandoned all pretence of doing the washing.

All I can feel are the words ‘get out, get out, get out’ swarming like angry hornets in my throat, clamouring to rush out.

I chance a look upwards.  They’re both still watching. Michael is leaning closer over the table.

I shut my eyes, unwilling to hear the words I can feel welling up.

“That…sounds……good.”

Michael visibly deflates.  Sally begins to cry again.  Bringing a soapy hand up to her nose, she mouths ‘thank you’.

“You’re a good man, Toby,” Michael grabs my hand and pumps it for all he’s worth.  “You’ve saved our lives, you really have.”

I numbly accept their accolade.

In saving their lives, I know, I’ve condemned myself to one as well.

#

The wine suffuses my cheeks.  I know I’m drunk. Between us we’ve had four bottles, half the house’s supply.

Michael and Sally are sitting on the settee, laughing quietly together.

I can barely see them in the dark, only a little moonlight gets through the boards on the windows.  There are candles on the mantelpiece that we daren’t light, for fear of attracting Them.

They’ve done much of the talking.  Regaling me with stories from their past, interspersed with more sombre hopes for the future.

The alcohol has numbed me.  I like it.  I find myself laughing at some of Michael’s jokes.

The guilt strikes like a spear as I stumble to the top of the stairs and see Molly’s door.

Downstairs, I can hear Sally softly giggling at something Michael has said.

The key slips from my pocket and I fumble it as quietly as I can into the lock.  I close and lock the door gently behind me, leaving the key in the door.

Molly is bathed in silver on the grey sheets, the moonlight shining through the half painted window.

She tugs at her restraints to reach me, her eyes glassy, almost like mirrors.

The left is no longer bloodshot. Her internal, stalled putrefaction processes are a mystery.

She reflects my feelings of betrayal back at me.

“Honey, I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

Tears running and breathing hard, I clumsily tear myself from my clothing and thrust my forearm in front of her mouth.

She tries to bite, chewing at the cloth in her mouth to taste my flesh.

I hold there for a few minutes, feeling her skin against mine, feeling her cold breath.

With an exclamation of disappointment, I pull away again and collapse on the mattress next to her. I begin to weep.

“I’m a coward, Molly.  I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

#

I awake to the smell of food, an experience now so unfamiliar to me that it takes a few minutes to remember where I am.

I leap from the mattress.

Molly’s wrists have two deep, open wounds across them, a sickening purple-red against the parchment grey of her skin.  She’s been trying to reach me all night.

I stare in horror.

This can’t happen again.  Seeing my own wife can’t become an illicit love affair.  These people are going to have to leave.

The key turns softly in the lock and I open the door a crack.

They’re both downstairs. I can hear their intimate whisperings mixed among the clatter of plates and glasses, the slosh of juice and the sizzle of bacon in the pan.

Giving Molly one last look, I step out, shutting the door behind me, locking it and returning the key to my pocket.

My head throbs with last night’s wine.

The couple downstairs have reminded me what life is and I want no part of it.

They say they’re only staying another couple of days but that could become a week, a month, then it won’t be an issue anymore, they’ll just be staying.

The bottom stair creaks, making me flinch, and I step back a pace so it looks as though I’ve just emerged from my room.

Sally smiles up at me.  “Good morning,” she beams.  ”Would you like to come down for breakfast?  Michael’s just cooked us something.”

“Sounds good,” I grunt.

A smile of understanding crosses her face.  “Come along, then,” she says. “Too much wine last night?”

In the kitchen, the table is set for three.

Michael is serving the food.  He’s managed to find an apron from somewhere, one of those comical ones that make it look like he’s wearing hardly anything at all, all hard abs and pecks.

“Good morning,” he smiles.

I return the greeting, seating myself at the table.

The pair come over, Sally putting a steaming mug of tea down in front of me while Michael sets down the plates piled with bacon.

It’s now or never.

I manage to force the words out through my motionless jaw, bullying my tongue into complying.  They come out as the merest of mumbles.

“You’re welcome,” Michael replies.

“No,” the word comes out a little louder than I intend, making them both jump in their seats.  “No, that’s not what I said.  I…” and again my nerve fails, the words standing idle in my mouth.

“Never mind.” I give up and look back down at my plate.

“What is it, Toby?” asks Sally, looking a little concerned.

I mumble again.

“Excuse me?”

“You can’t stay here.”

The food freezes in their mouths.  They look at each other.

“What?” Michael pales.  “Why?”

My hands continue to twist in my lap, my shoulders cinch almost to my ears.

I don’t know what to say.  I hadn’t thought this far ahead.

“Toby,” says Michael, “you said we could stay.”

“I know what I said.  I just… I just want you out of here.  I found this place.  It’s mine.”

The cutlery wobbles in their hands, light shimmering off the fork prongs.  Their faces have turned the colour of sour milk.

“I’m sorry but that’s just the way it is.”

Sally lets out a little worried mew of sound around the scrambled egg now lying forgotten in her mouth.  She looks to her husband who’s blinking back tears.  The sudden change of mood has robbed him of words now and all he’s able to let out is a number of feeble croaks.

“That’s just the way it is,” I say again.  I stand and push my plate away.

As soon as I’m out of sight, Sally lets out another whine of distress and Michael begins to whisper, his words like machine-gun fire.

I don’t have long.  I reach into my jumper and pull out the key, unlock the door and step inside.

No time for Molly, I pick up the bloody knife on the bedside table, cross the room, retrieve the hammer and out again, the door locked behind me, the key back in my pocket.

Straight into my own room, I place the knife under my pillow, the hammer in my back pocket.

The mist has barely begun to lift outside.

The soft hurried whispers below have grown in volume, the words are inaudible but their tones are harder, angrier.

I close the door to my room, expecting a knock at any moment.  Counter-arguments are already whirling around my head.  My throat has constricted in a half-gag of anxiety.  Just let them leave, let them leave without a moment of fuss.

Michael’s voice cuts clearly through the house, angry, abrupt and defiant.

Just make them go away.

Then comes the thud of footsteps up the stairs.

“Michael, no!”

I stare at the door, my hands feeling light and strengthless.  The hammer hangs heavy in my pocket.

The door rattles with a demanding tattoo, making me jump.

I don’t move, can barely breathe.

“Toby?”

I don’t answer.  I freeze, all extraneous movement rerouted to the increasing tempo in my chest.

“Toby, I know you’re in there.”

My tongue scrapes across my dried lips and I stare down at the pillow, seeing the knife in my mind’s eye.  It would scare them off.

Once I had locked them out, I would give them back their stuff.

Another knock.  “Toby, please, let’s talk about this. Please.”

While he’s speaking, I snatch the knife up again, tucking it into a loop in my belt.  I throw on the dressing gown to conceal it.

“Toby, come on now,” and the door flies open, Michael stumbles inside, had perhaps thought I’d barricaded myself in.  I jump back towards the window, bring my hands up to my chest like a terrified child.

Recovering, Michael’s eyes flit around the room before resting on me.  “Toby, come on, just tell us what we’ve done wrong, we’ll try and fix it.  Whatever it is, we’re sorry.”

“It’s nothing-“

“It must be something.”

“It’s nothing,” I repeat.  “You did nothing wrong.  I just want you out.  This is my hideaway.  I made the barricades, I got the food-“

“We can help-“

“I don’t care! I would rather, I would rather, you just left.”

Michael’s jabbering mouth grows still.

“We have nowhere else to go.  If you send us out there we’re going to die.”

I stare down at his feet.  “That’s life.  You seemed to be surviving before, you can do that again.  You can keep the radio if you want.  Find your way somewhere where people are broadcasting, maybe there are other ships picking people up.”

“But there might not be.  You could be just sending us out to die.  You know that and yet you’re still… Why?  Why are you doing this?  Surely you don’t want to be alone for the rest of your life?”

It’s in that moment of questioning silence that there comes a sound from Molly’s room, something knocking against wood.

My head snaps up to see if Michael has heard it too.  It’s obvious that he has.

“What was that?”

He takes a step back into the hallway, cocking an ear and leaning towards my wife’s door.

Another knock, making Michael jump back.  He gives me a look and then approaches the door again.

“Sally?” He rattles the handle.

“Do you have the key to this?” he demands.  “Are you keeping someone in here?”

I don’t reply.

“Hello?” he calls through the wood.  “Is anyone in there? Hello?”

I watch as Sally comes up the stairs.  “What’s going on?”

“Toby’s keeping someone in here.  Who is it?  The family that lives here?  Hello?  If you have any way of letting us know you’re alright…  Who is it?  Is this why you wanted us out?”  He rattles the door again, leaning in this time, putting more weight on the frame.

“Get away from there,” I say, too quietly for the couple to hear over their own noise.

“Sally, get the crowbar from my bag, we need to open this thing.”

“I said, get away from there.”

He does as I ask, takes another step down the corridor, putting himself between his wife and me.

“Who’s in there?”

Sally backs away towards their room and disappears inside.  There comes the sound of a frantic search.

“Look, I just want you to leave.”

“Not until you explain what you’re doing locking someone up in there.”

“Look, it’s-”

“Who’s in there, Toby?  Who’s in there?”

“My wife, alright?  My wife.”

I watch Michael’s face change from angry to confused to horrified and back full circle to angry again.

“You mean to say that all this time we’ve been sharing a house with one of those things?”

Sally returns, a crowbar and baseball bat in hand but she gives neither one to her husband.

“You don’t call her that,” I say.  “She’s not one of those things, she’s my wife.”

“She’s not your wife anymore, Toby,” says Sally.  “Surely, you must see that.  Your wife is dead.”

“Of course she’s dead!  I know that!  But she’s still my wife!”

“We’ll give her a proper burial,” says Michael.  “Look, the less of those things there are in the world the better.”

“No.”  I take a step forward, closing the distance between myself and my wife’s door, putting myself between them and her.  “I won’t let you do it.  You are not just bashing my wife’s head in.  I just want you both to leave, leave me and my wife alone in peace.”

I’m surprised at my own words.  Where did this steel come from?

“We have to do it, Toby,” says Sally.  “We know it’s terrible but that’s just the way the world works now.  We’re sorry.”

“No, it works however we decide.  This is my house and I want you both to leave.  Let me and my wife get on with things.”

“Things?” says Michael.  “What things?”

“Just… things.  Look, I want you both to leave. Now.”

Michael straightens.  “That’s not going to happen.  I need to protect my wife.  I’m not letting you throw us out because of this.” He waves a hand at the door.

“The food won’t last with three of us,” but already my voice is beginning to sound thin.

“Toby, it won’t last with just one of you either.  What will you do then?  Go into that town on your own?  Carry another month’s supply of food back with you?  With those things snapping at your heels?”  When he says ‘those things’ he indicates Molly’s door again.  “We’ll have a better chance of surviving this if we stick together.  We’re staying here and that’s all there is to it.”

I don’t know what to say, my mouth hangs open.

And then it closes again as I feel an icy calm descend.

“Fine.”

#

That’s all there is to it.  It becomes the mantra that wordlessly fills the house for the rest of the day.

There isn’t a single exchange between us except for fleeting, uneasy looks.

They say nothing as I take precisely a third of the food and store it in my wife’s bedroom. Nor do they do anything other than bat an eyelid as I take over half of the magazines and newspapers and do the same with them.

I’m doing it, that’s all there is to it.

That night, I lock the door behind me and leave the key in the lock.

The windows have been painted over and already a fire is crackling merrily in the grate.  I’ve checked from outside, the windows are totally lightproof.

The flames make the shadows shiver across my wife’s bed.  It had been her efforts to get at me the previous night that had freed her arm this morning.  The restraints had cut so deeply that the rope had no longer held her right arm securely. She had been knocking her hand against the wooden headboard, trying to get at the voices she could hear in the corridor.  Her decaying flesh had given, not the hemp.

She lies so still now as to be truly dead.  To the gag, I’ve also added a blindfold and filled her ears with cotton.  Her arm has been retied.  She has no idea I’m with her, except for when I rattle her mattress and she reanimates, shifting and grunting to find the source of the movement.

All too soon, the room has become unbearably hot.  I never expected to make myself a prisoner but I can’t leave her alone, not with them outside.

I sit with my back against the wall opposite the fireplace, next to my stockpile of food and burnables, staring deep into the flames.

My heart skips a beat each time I hear them on the stairs or in the corridor.  I notice the pause as they crest the staircase, hear them straining their ears to hear what’s going on inside.

I’m not sure if I can risk sleeping and so I stare into the flames, and wait for the noise outside to stop.

And one night becomes two, becomes three.

The box of rat poison remains under the sink, the red-eyed rat blind in the dark, but the silver box tab is now in the bottom of the bin, along with a large measure of sugar from the pot by the kettle. Now all they have to do is make themselves a cup of tea.

They both take plenty of sugar.

In their small way, they’ve helped me.  I’m ready now.  I just need to sit here and wait.

I can’t let Molly bite me while they’re still here. Who’d protect her? Protect us?

In living they’ve forced me to confront life but in dying they’ll finally allow me to do the same.

All I have to do is wait.

And that requires no nerve at all.

I’m coming Molly.