She was awake before the town.

And she looked weird.

Dan had his phone carefully cradled in front of his text book, his feet on the cuffed panel of the 24x7 countertop. He was supposed to be studying for an exam.

Somewhere, deep down in the depths of his soul he knew he never would take that exam. He just never would. He did not care anymore (and began to wonder if he ever did) about frequency curves and the economic growth profile of Venezuela.

So he had his phone out on his lap, the room dull and dingy with pale white flickering light. The aisles were stacked with whatever the hell they sold here. Food, beer, magazines, medicines. You could get your gas outside and be on your way. The British countryside adventure. Seven hundred little villages, all of them called Shitfordshire or something to that effect, all of them with nothing new to offer. A Domino's. A 24x7 with a petrol pump next to it.

Dan ignored the rat-tat-tat the first time. There were a couple of dogs that ran around this area, patting at the doors at night.

The rat-tat-tat came again. Dan looked up from his phone and saw nothing. There was nobody there. Just the blackness of the nights, the dust motes floating in the streetlight. And plain old Dan in behind the cash-register, his eyes sore.

Rat-tat-tat.

Dan put on his glasses. That's when he saw her.

She was young. So terribly young yet so terribly tall.

She opened the door.

"Sir. May I please use your toilet?"

Earlier

Mark looked at the house.

"There's a basement here." he said.

"Go shove it up your arse. There's nothing here. Twenty foot foundation." Gavin said, unfurling his blue sheets and tacking them on to his board.

"Bet you twenty quid."

"What? A beer?"

"Twenty quid. Whatever you want with it."

"You bet me a beer you've got a basement here."

"Yes sir."

Gavin nodded. "One of those expensive ones."

"Twenty quid."

Alright.

Mark rolled up his sleeves and walked around the place, greeting the men. All of them their own boys, this time. No contractors. They didn't need them. A little explosion, some clearing away and they'd be done in a fortnight. A little slice of history wiped away into the ash-pan of progress.

"Such is life." he and Gavin would say as they sipped their beers admits the throng.

Such is life.

Mark chuckled.

"What do you lads think? Basement?"

"Naww." Lumley said.

"Not in the plan, sir?" Another one-Peter Gallif, mArk thought his name was- asked.

"It's an old Victorian. Nobody's bothered to tear up the floorboards in years. And no original plans."

"Shit. I guess not then. We haven't found 'em in this kind of house before, have we."

"Well, no. Just a feeling."

The men laughed. Mark joined in.

They spent the rest of the day pitching up the temporary shelters for the workmen, and surveying. Pulling out whatever useless junk the last family had left behind.

An old, wiry television with a DVD player. A fridge. An old doll.

A sofa.

They pulled them out and prepped the place for the first wave, got the equipment ready and dispersed by around six.

Mark went straight to the hotel, ordered a pizza, managed to gulp it down with a beer from the mini-bar and tried to sleep.

He wasn't very good at sleeping.

He ambled back up to work the next day and they began tearing it down.

Mark and Gavin had exhausted their philosophical scope when it came to destruction.

They bounced around with the theory that it might in fact be about birth, rather than death. The birth of new air. The birth of space where there wasn't any before. The birth of a fresh patch of land.

They took their lunch break and Mark ambled back to town. He wolfed down a cold chicken pie and some tea at the delicatessen and then wandered back. There was nobody at the site.

he walked in, past the security tape and into the house, making sure his safety cap was secured. He tapped the ground with his feet.

He couldn't say.

Maybe there was, maybe there wasn't.

They finished the day's work, hit the pub and then went back to the hotel.

He thought of her again.

He dealt in explosions. That was his life. Dynamite, wrecking balls, JCBs. That was the language he spoke.

And that's how she died.
You could argue that it was a different explosion. A different story. But no. Metal against metal and something soft and delicate in between.

Evelyn was dead, and an explosion killed her.

He found his pillow wet and dewey the next morning.

He ambled back to work.

"Lumley's gone." Gavin said, not looking up from his chart.

"What?"

"He isn't here."

"He can't just leave, can he?"

"He did."

They didn't speak much. They finished the day's work and dispersed quietly.

He dreamed of the explosion again.

He got a beep on his iPhone the next morning and woke up.

"Mark, you won't believe it. Another two are gone."

"Gav...what...I don't understand."

"They're disappearing, idiot."

"Where?"

"Just get here."

He got there.

They fretted about it for a while. They worked.

Another one disappeared the next day.

"Let's just leave it, Gav."

"We can't, idiot. You start a job, you finish it. Policy."

The men eyed him.

"You know what? Let's stay here tonight."

Mark nodded.

They tore down the floorboards.

No basement.

Mark and Gavin hunkered down in the men's quarters, on one of the bunk-beds.

Mark felt something poking at his ribs. He pulled it out.

"What's this?"

The men, now down to the last five tried to laugh it off.

"That? That's just something we found...you know. Just...forget it."

"Dirty bastards." Gavin said. He turned off the lights.

Mark didn't sleep. He tossed. He waited.

It happened at one.

Later

"Come in. It's right over there."

She looked. Dan couldn't help but stare. She was white. And cold. Except for her pink lips and cheeks. And her hair. Strawberry blonde, he guessed.

"Right there. Down the stairs, to your left."

She emerged.

"Is this a basement?" she asked when she came out.

"I guess you could call it that."

She smiled. "Where are the newspapers?"

"D'you want the local one or the Sun?"

"The local one, please."

"80p."

She gave him ten pounds. In coins.

"Are you foreign or..."

"Foreign? No. I've always been here."

He gave her back the balance along with the local Times.

She read the headline slowly, like a little girl would. "Twelve workmen found dead in construction site."

"Yeah. Bloody insane, that."

"It makes a lot of sense, actually."

"Does it?"

"Hmm Hmm." she nodded. "I really like your basement. Mind if I stay for a while? It's cold outside."

"Yeah. Why not?"

xxx

Earlier

Mark didn't know who it was. The man picked up the doll they had tossed the previous night. He walked out into the moonlight.

Mark recognized him the moment he stepped outside the house.

The tall, lanky flame. The blonde whiff of hair trailing behind him.

Gavin.

And the doll.

He entered the house and Mark followed. He traced a path among the detritus and lifted a couple of wooden beams.

A trapdoor.

Gavin opened it and climbed down the staircase.

Mark followed.

The smell of rot hit Mark like a wave.

He said nothing.

There was light down there. A cold, blue light.

From the four bodies lining the floor before them.

Gavin sat down before them, on his knees and kissed the doll.

"Gav, what the fuck are you doing?" Mark croaked.

Gavin turned. "Why?" he asked.

"Oh." A voice as clear as moonlight on a lake. The voice of an explosion. Mark's explosion. "You don't have to introduce your friend. We know each other. We know each other very well. "