Quinton lived in Bexley, which was convenient, since that’s where Angus lived. Only Quinton lived in a slightly more upmarket street, in a grand old house filled with elephant guns, chandeliers and various curious objects from his many travels, like bronze-age sculptures of fertility goddesses, emeralds from Javanese temples, and in his private collection - one or two shrunken pygmy heads, Angus presumed.

As luck would have it, Quinton was actually in the country for a change, since his planned canoe trip up the Nile River searching for a particular ancient Nubian artefact had been delayed indefinitely.

As it turns out, the plane meant to be taking him from Heathrow to Timbuktu had disappeared over Burma a week before, and its woe-befallen passengers quickly digested by the local fauna.

And Angus knew this all, because right up until the internet went down, he followed Quinton’s social media with the same lusting eye that a teenage boy uses to lurk on the account of a page three glamour model.

You wouldn’t be wrong to think that Angus was transfixed with Quinton, maybe even obsessed. He represented everything that Angus wasn’t, and was convinced that, if ever Errol Flynn and Bantam Hodges (Bantam was a famous interstellar explorer and incorrigible womaniser) had a baby, Quinton would probably beat it in an arm wrestle, and then steal its girlfriend.

To get to Quinton’s house, however, Angus would need to get to the other side of Bexley, and on the way there - well - there was what was on the way there. Anything could happen between here and there, and mostly not good things - or probably even horribly bad things. Angus rifled through his cupboards, looking for anything that might protect him from the madness on the streets. There was his old cricket gear. It definitely didn’t look old - this was owing to the fact that it was only ever used once, during his only ill-advised attempt at competitive sport and broader social acceptance.

In an effort to join one of the lower-ranked cricket teams at school, he had taken a bouncer to the temple in his very first turn in the batting nets, resulting in three days of amnesia, a dishonourable discharge, and a doctor’s note excusing him from any future activities involving physical exertion.

The cricket equipment seemed usable - there was a pair of pads, a helmet, and an abdominal guard, otherwise known as a ‘box,’ for shielding his privates. But it wasn’t enough, unless the spear-wielding hunter-types had run out of spears and had taken to throwing cricket balls. Not to mention the only areas of his body to be marginally protected were his head, shins and crotch.

And on second thoughts - the knee pads would probably slow him down - and he definitely thought better of his chances while running and hiding than standing and fighting. So he disposed of the pads, but kept the helmet, the box, and grabbed a cricket bat and a few balls for good measure.

As he quietly crept around the narrow stretch of grass beside his red-brick apartment building, he felt a warm, wet tongue on his leg, and was surprised to find his neighbour Fred Tinker (an erstwhile boiler repairman and well-known alcoholic) doing his best impression of a domestic cat chancing for a treat.

Angus sighed with relief.

This was manageable.

He briefly considered staying there and not going any further, making the best of things with Fred. Angus could build him a scratching pole, they could snuggle up of an evening while Angus read his books.

Taking out the litter tray would be an issue though.

As Angus started to pull away, Fred snarled viciously and grabbed ahold of Angus’ leg. A brief struggle ensued, ending with Angus lightly bopping him on the head with the cricket bat, and Fred scurrying off and hiding behind a trash can, hissing malevolently from a safe distance.

Angus peered out at the street while crouched behind the wall to the front of his apartment block. It was varying shades of mad, presenting a range of opportunities for harmless Fred-level harassment, to mildly concerning situations involving pecking, chasing ostrich-types, right up to decidedly more stabby encounters. Angus eyed a line of hedges that ran up to the next T-section, braced himself, and made a run for it, only realising halfway through his dashing that he had closed his eyes - which was understandable considering Angus’s history of squeamishness, but nevertheless unhelpful. When he made it to the bushes, he found Delilah Tillerman (the wife of the man who earlier skinned and roasted the family beagle) crouched and shuddering with nerves, smoking a cigarette.

‘You know, I quit 20 years ago,’ she said, looking blankly into the distance.

Angus didn’t quite know what to say, so he just grimaced with an understanding look and pressed on past, her dead-eyed expression not moving an inch. When he got to the end of the line of hedges, he realised that he was going to have to cross the road and expose himself (not ‘expose himself’ expose himself - that would just be wasting valuable time and didn’t have any conceivable benefit). Luckily, there didn’t seem to be any particularly violent offenders about. Steeling himself and tapping his cricketer’s box just to be sure, he legged it (well, legged it is a rather broad term and doesn’t quite accurately describe the way Angus runs, which is more of a bow-legged amble). As he was about to duck behind another red-brick apartment fronting, he was jerked into panic by the sound of a thump and a squawk right behind him. Sadly for the squawker, it looked as if he had been attempting to hang upside down like a bat from a railing above and had found himself flat on pavement instead, with what looked to be a weather nasty spinal contusion. Angus wretched at the sight of the exposed vertebrae, offered pathetically to help - but his offer was rebuffed with an angry snarl interspersed with yelps of pain. Angus, while sympathising for the maimed individual, was quietly thankful since he didn’t like the idea of having to stop in such an exposed area and was quite happy to be on his way.

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Angus was able to get up the next three streets without much drama, and was even able to find a few snacks from a looted convenience store - namely steak pills (that expand into bite-sized chunks of lab-grown sirloin once popped into one’s mouth) and a couple of bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale. He thought it would be a nice thing to enjoy with Quinton once he finally arrived at his home, which was coming up rather quickly, thankfully. The last three streets were rather long ones, and they looked very quiet, so Angus ambled as fast as his spindly body could amble, concealing himself behind bushes and fences as much as he was able to. Sadly, when he finally got to Quinton’s street, he realised with a surfeit of dread that he would need to be entirely out in the open for approximately a quarter mile, since Quinton lived in Bexley North, which in the year 2162 was very well to-do and was entirely populated by millionaires and celebrities with walled-off private estates with 10-foot high walls, and nothing but artisanally-maintained flower pots and shrubs to hide behind - which is to say that they were no use at all, since even with Angus being not considered average or even under average height by any standard definitely still wasn’t able to hide behind a one foot tall shrub, no matter how hard he tried.

But Angus could see the elegant turrets of Quinton’s stately Tudor home just peeking over the walls from where he was crouching, and he resolved to sprint with as much pace as his legs could muster, and he did so, and it was glorious, right up until he was suddenly winched high into the air by a crude netted trap that he really should have seen. Then, soon after, he was prodded inquisitively by a band of men from the financial district in shredded Saville Row suits who had seemed to have taken on the characteristics of some sort of hominid caveman- type characters, and Angus, while conscious of the mortal danger he was now in couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony of it all. These stock trading stone-age brutes had fashioned spears from fence posts and tree branches, had feathers in their hair and while eyeing Angus they were communicating in a series of clicks, beeps and grunts while rather disconcertingly licking their lips and rubbing their bellies. Angus knew it - he was a goner. Mince meat. Dead to rights. He even appreciated the darkly poetic irony of it all - since the men whose favour he so wished to gain back at prep school were now about to cook and eat him. But while Angus considered how his sinews would end up lodged between the teeth and in the bellies of men who only just weeks ago pronounced ‘finance’ ‘finn-nance,’ his captors were suddenly engulfed in a hurricane of tanned muscle and khaki. All he could hear were the blood-curdling shrieks and the sound of bones snapping, and a gruff, manly cackle, before he was knocked out cold by a wayward-flung stone spearhead.

When Angus came to, he was in Quinton’s stately manor home, sprawled out on a red leather chaise lounge. His head hurt, as well as most of the rest of his body, but it was all there in the right places, so he chalked that up as a win. Quinton, who hadn’t noticed Angus had awoken, was in the middle of some sort of carpentry. While reflecting briefly on Quniton’s consummate Hemingwayesque manliness, Angus cleared his throat hesitantly. Quinton’s ears pricked, and he placed the elegantly-hewn dovetail joint he had been whittling softly onto the mahogany Elizabethan-era credenza next to him. Then he cracked a broad, tanned grin with more fluorescently white teeth than should naturally fit in a person’s mouth, with a tasteful crinkling around his sparkling blue eyes.

‘G’day Gus. Long time. What’s it been? 30 years?’

‘Quinton - h-hi - hello there m-m-mate…w-what happened?’ Me head sore,’ replied Angus, gradually regaining the ability to form sentences.

‘Oh out there? You looked like you were going to become a nice fillet mignon for those kooked-out Wall-Streeters out there. You were bloody lucky I wasn’t working out back today. Copped a view of the whole shebang from the front porch mate.’

‘Ooh…yeah…’ replied Angus. ‘The…net?’

‘Mmmhmmm. You were a bee’s dick away from a spit roast I’d say.’

Quniton picked up the dovetail joint again, spat on it and gave it a polish. Angus rubbed a rather large bump on his head and winced.

‘You took a bit of shrapnel to the head there fella. You’ll probably want to take it a bit slow for a while. Just rest up and you’ll be right as rain.’

‘OooooOOohkay.’

Angus looked around.

‘Place looks…nice,’ he sputtered, marshalling his few working brain cells in an attempt at convivial repartee.

‘Geez, thanks Gus - you think?’

‘mMmmmmmmm!’

‘Well, it works for me I guess. Though I never spent this much time here before in one stretch. I get itchy feet mate - never do like to stay in one place too long. I’m what they refer to as a rolling stone I guess.’

Quinton slowed the pace of his whittling and sighed.

‘To be honest with ya Gus, I’m definitely getting a bit of cabin fever. Maybe even a touch of the blues. Pretty much all of my friends are dead. That’s what I would refer to as a definite downside of the apocalypse. And there are a few.’

Angus acknowledged the sentiment. There are definitely downsides. Quinton clicked the joint into place, finishing off what looked to be a battle fort with more panache than was probably needed, but Angus certainly appreciated the craftsmanship.

‘So Angus, as nice as it is to see you again mate, I’ve got to ask - to what do I owe the pleasure…we haven’t exactly kept in touch...’

Angus rocked in his hammock, painfully recalling the events of a few weeks earlier. The presentation. The rat. Mrs Higgins. Angus winced at the prospect of coming clean to such an accomplished man as Quinton about his monumental buggering of the current state of Britain.

‘M-m-my f-f-fault,’ he blathered.

Quinton looked quizzically at Angus.

‘What - you mean all the stuff outside?’

‘MmmmYeahh…’ Angus replied pathetically.

Quinton’s forehead knotted as he thought handsomely for a moment.

‘Angus. Angus, you funny little bugger. Blaming yourself won’t get us anywhere. Christ knows what’s going on out there. It could be bacteria, or a virus, or - blimey - it could be God trying to tell us that the Jews were right all along. Ha haa. But it’s not your fault.’

‘Nnnooooo it wath meeeeh!’ Angus protested feebly.

Quinton sighed deeply again, heaving his rippling pectoral muscles hypnotically.

‘Look mate, how about you have a bit of a lie down and we’ll talk a bit more later on. Here, get this down ya gullet,’ Quinton said, as he popped a pill out of a bottle and placed it in Angus’s gaping mouth with a hand roughly the diameter of a dinner plate. ‘This’ll help ya noggin.’

Quinton then turned around, and made a ‘this guy’s bloody nuts’ look to himself, as he picked up another piece of wood and resumed whittling.

Angus then quickly drifted off into a soft and peaceful sleep for the first time since he could remember.