Paradise [Draft 1]

Chapter 6: Joshua (6312)

Chapter 6: Joshua (6312)

By the time December rolled around, Johnny Frost was back at his flat. His money had run out again and he was working at a hotel in Langwood called The Fechy. It had once been a decent enough hotel that had catered to summer tourists, but it was now used as a place to dump displaced people and refugees while they were found better places to live. There was no luxury here, but the beds were clean, and the food was edible, a far sight better than anything down on the Delta. It was not far from Johnny's flat, so he usually walked to work. His job was to sweep and mop the floors, move deliveries down to the stock room, and help serve the meals. He stole as much food and toilet paper as he thought he could get away with.

As the year ended, Evermarch had a quietude about it, a familiar feeling to everyone that had been in the city at this time the year before. Six months after the reditus there had been a period of fear and confusion that had led to months of rioting and killings. Nobody wanted a Christmas like last year, with everyone huddling indoors as the police and the muta roamed the streets trying to restore order and the Splinter Viruses ravaged the hospitals and care homes.

The city waited, quiet but tense, waiting to see what was going to happen. The world had changed, but now there was a new normal. Things had been calm since the summer, it was safe to walk the streets again and people were returning to what was left of their old lives. Johnny spent his time between the college, his flat and the hotel.

He was the only one left in his second-story four-bedroom flat. The other students that had once lived there had not returned to their studies this term and Johnny imagined that two of them were probably dead of drug overdoses somewhere and the other more sensible one had gone home to his parents. He was now the only one living there, and he found this greatly to his liking. He had cleaned the kitchen, the living room, and the bathroom, and aired all the upstairs bedrooms. There had been a cat once, but it seemed to have gone as well, so he had thrown out the foul litter tray that had stunk out the kitchen as well. If he could ever persuade Stiffy to come this far into Evermarch it was now a dwelling fit to take girls back to, if nothing else.

Paying the rent wasn't a problem as the landlady had not been to collect it since the reditus. God only knew where she was now. He could just about live off food stolen from the hotel and the antiquated telephone landline was free. His only expense related to the flat was the ever-hungry electricity meter. When he ran out of money, he had to switch off the heating upstairs and sit in the dark by the fireplace in the living room until pay day. He regularly thanked God for the fireplaces as it meant that whatever the weather, he could always at least keep one room warm. He burnt anything he could find that was flammable and he gathered fallen wood from a nearby park. He was far from the only person that went there for that purpose.

As it sleeted outside, Johnny sipped at a cup of tea and looked out of his window, down to the narrow street below. Across the way was a small yard with its gate kicked in where couples would occasionally have sex and there was a kebab shop below him that occasionally opened, but that was mostly closed. The flat opposite had hung up Christmas decorations. Johnny was surprised at that. There had been a lot of confusion last year about whether people should have been celebrating the birth of Christ or not, considering that God was here now. There had been a lot of talk about it being a date that was essentially meaningless, a hangover from pagan deities and all that. The muta had tried to stop it and had succeeded, but largely because most people were more concerned about where their next meal was coming from that buying presents and hanging up stockings. Johnny himself had had beans on toast for Christmas dinner last year. He knew that the flat across from him had children in it and he assumed that the family had decided to risk it. Maybe there had been a leaflet that had gone round saying it was OK that he had missed.