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Radio Abel, Season Four

Part 4 of 6

ELOISE: Time for some letters.

HUGH: Only one this time, I'm afraid. It's there beside you.

ELOISE: Right. [tears open envelope, opens letter] "Dear Hugh and Eloise, I had the misfortune to hear your program while I was scanning the frequencies for a lost runner. I have risked my life to send you this letter..."

HUGH: This is not promising.

ELOISE: "I have risked my life to send you this letter because I hoped to persuade you to desist from your selfish practices."

HUGH: Sounds like my gran.

ELOISE: "How dare you drive around for pleasure while the rest of us are holed up under constant attack, attempting to rebuild society? How dare you squander precious petrol and stockpile food while we are stranded?"

HUGH: I knew I shouldn't have mentioned them Ritz crackers.

ELOISE: "How dare you - " Well, it goes on like that for three pages! Signed, Henry J. Stevenson.

HUGH: I should just shut up on this one, shouldn't I?

ELOISE: Yes, you should. Well, Henry - if that is your real name - let me inform you and your clumsy handwriting of a few facts of life. Number one, I am constructing a communications network as we travel, and Hugh is – is clearing up the postboxes in preparation for the new mail delivery system when it arrives.

HUGH: I've still got my keys!

ELOISE: Thank you, Hugh. Number two, we are providing a valuable social service for our listeners, most of whom are not stumbling donkeys like yourself! Number three, just because you don't hear us outside this van don't mean we ain't providing outreach and community support to the fascinating people we meet in our travels.

HUGH: You certainly provided outreach to that gobby teenager in [?].

ELOISE: I barely clipped her. Number... what number am I on, Hugh?

HUGH: Six or seven, I think.

ELOISE: The bottom line is that we've worked all our life, both of us, and we're older now, and if this is the end of the world, we're entitled to take a look at it before we go. So, Henry J. Stevenson, let's see you do your bit or shut the hell up! Go back to art school. And if I did clean your favorite supermarket out of Heinz beans, let me tell you, they tasted great! Anything to add, Hugh?

HUGH: Thank you for your letter. Do write in again.

ELOISE: Wait, the cable's tangled!

HUGH: I want to get started.

ELOISE: Well, get started. It's not like they can hear you taking off the nuts.

HUGH: Ow!

ELOISE: Hello, and welcome to our first outside broadcast. It's just like the BBC here. We've only run a two meter cable out of the van, but still.

HUGH: Read the letter.

ELOISE: What letter? Oh, yes. Uh, right. We've had a letter from... Steven, and he says, "Dear Hugh and Eloise, we... we have a car now and none of us have changed a flat tire before, so... um, how do you do it?"

HUGH: Thank you for your question, Steven. It is timely as our van has just suffered a puncture. There's three main stages: you loosen the nuts, jack up the car, then change the wheel.

ELOISE: Steven says, um, why do you loosen the nuts before you jack up the van?

HUGH: Well, Steven, that's an excellent question. You see, the nuts have to be on tight, so it'll require a lot of friction to turn them, and if you jack up the van first, you'll either turn the wheel instead of the nuts, or you'll drag the whole van off the jack.

ELOISE: Steven says, uh, so how do you choose the right kind of tire? Oh, Hugh! Crawlers, nine o'clock!

HUGH: What? Where? Grab the noisemaker, shut the door! What direction are we?

ELOISE: No, wait. Oh, it's just an old bin bag. False alarm.

HUGH: Eloise, I swear, if you do that again, you'll be changing the next tire by yourself.

ELOISE: What, to test out your instructions?

HUGH: No, because my heart will have exploded.

ELOISE: Mine does that every time I look into your eyes.

HUGH: Smooth.

ELOISE: I can't see any postbox yet. What does the book say?

HUGH: St. Andrews. They build a monastery here in the eighth century to house parts of St. Andrew.

ELOISE: Which parts?

HUGH: Uh, his arm, three fingers, and a tooth.

ELOISE: I guess they'd given away two fingers already.

HUGH: Those are digits that the Scots seem to use frequently.

ELOISE: Should we?

HUGH: Wait. They got his kneecap as well.

ELOISE: They could have rebuilt him. Robo-saint!

HUGH: It was also home to the third oldest university in the English-speaking world, a popular destination for students from England.

ELOISE: Isn't golf a big thing here?

HUGH: I was trying to skip that bit.

ELOISE: There's a golf course there, right between the town and the sea. The Old Course, isn't it? It's a big deal for some reason.

HUGH: I don't want to talk about it. I hate golfers.

ELOISE: Eh?

HUGH: Talking about their clubs, and their handicaps and caddies, and "playing through," and how the wind was, and the nineteenth hole, and that bloody scene in Goldfinger.

The worst is the clothes! Polo shirts, pastel, tartan, trousers! Little white visors, tank tops, and cardigans with diamond patterns. Look at these shops behind us. Half a dozen of them, all selling this shit!

ELOISE: Stop ranting and look over there. Are those people, just standing?

HUGH: They're bloody zoms! People so boring in life that even after they turned, they can't think of anything better to do than hang around some fairway with a sand wedge.

ELOISE: They actually are wearing the kind of clothes you described!

HUGH: Told you!

ELOISE: Here's a letter from Kirsty, and she says, "Dear Hugh and Eloise, like yourselves, I live with my partner. We have a defensible home, access to food and water, and we have repelled three zombie swarms to date."

HUGH: Well done, Kirsty!

ELOISE: Indeed! "The only fly in the ointment is that I crave a bit of time for myself. I used to go for long walks, but that's not really practical when at any point, you may be chased, bitten, infected, and killed. We only leave the house together for safety, and it is making me quite irritable. How do you handle this, and what do you recommend?"

HUGH: I can't say it's ever been a problem for us, Kirsty.

ELOISE: Hugh, we have a responsibility to our listeners to tell the truth! Kirsty, he gets the hump all the time. My biggest problem is working out whether he wants me to go away for a bit, or slide over and deal with you know what.

HUGH: I don't think Kirsty wants to hear about that.

ELOISE: Truth is, no matter how much you love someone, you need time for yourself. If walking is out, can you find a working vehicle? Even a little moped would give you the taste of fresh air and solitude you're craving.

HUGH: They're not hard to maintain, either.

ELOISE: Personally, I like charity shops. You know what you're getting in department stores or supermarkets, but in charity shops, you can find anything – clothes, books, CDs, things you don't even know what they are. Every small town has two or three, and sometimes a whole street of them! When I get cranky, I get Hugh to watch the street, and I break into a few charity shops and have a good rake through.

HUGH: It's true. She does do that.

ELOISE: And the best is now, you can get into the back shop, can't you? All those little stories of people's lives in the bags they packed up and threw away... So that's my recommendation: a moped and a charity shop.

HUGH: Sounds like retirement.

ELOISE: Just don't take all the good stuff, dear, all right?

HUGH: And check your tire pressure!

ELOISE: Thank you, Hugh.

ELOISE: Scotland's a lovely place and all, but I'll be pleased to get back across the border.

HUGH: You missed it, love. It was about a mile back, when we swerved to avoid them shamblers.

ELOISE: When I had to grab for the pots and pans?

HUGH: Yeah. Did anything get damaged?

ELOISE: The big frying pan landed on the Ritz crackers.

HUGH: Oh, I'm sorry, Eloise. You can still pour the crumbs into your mouth.

ELOISE: It's not the same. Wait, is this Berwick? That's in Scotland.

HUGH: No, it isn't. Check the book.

ELOISE: Hmm. I'll give you the full history. 11th century, it's Scottish, called South Berwick. But in 1174, William I of Scotland invades northern England, and has to give up Berwick when he's defeated. Then Richard I of England sells it back to him.

HUGH: Right.

ELOISE: Then in 1296, England goes to war with France. Scotland invades England again. Edward I of England captures Berwick.

HUGH: Right...

ELOISE: In 1318, the Scots besiege it and capture it. 15 years after that, the English capture it back.

HUGH: This is making my head hurt.

ELOISE: Margeret of Anjou gives it back during the War of the Roses. Then in 1482, Richard III captures it back for England.

HUGH: Anjou. Anjou.

ELOISE: So it's English.

HUGH: Right.

ELOISE: But the football team plays in the Scottish leagues.

HUGH: Not anymore.

ELOISE: There's interesting stuff here. We ought to have a look around.

HUGH: Too late. After all that history, we're already on the road out.

ELOISE: Damn it! Now I want a cracker.

ELOISE: "Dear Hugh and Eloise, I live in a small community of about 20 people. Of course, people have paired off. My question is, shouldn't we practice free love in order to repopulate the earth? Yours sincerely, Derek."

HUGH: I get the feeling that Derek might be single.

ELOISE: Shut up, you. Well, Derek, it's not an easy question, and you're not asking the right people. Me and Hugh decided not to have kids.

HUGH: And that's how she retained the fresh bloom of youth.

ELOISE: Hugh, sometimes you say things that are lovely and creepy at the same time. Derek, of course we need a new generation, but it still has to be a woman's choice whether to get pregnant. Your question kind of implies that you believe it shouldn't be a choice.

HUGH: Don't imply that, Derek. She'll come around and see you, and not in a sexy way.

ELOISE: Expectant mothers are like doctors – you shouldn't risk them. So while you've got pregnant women in the community, your fighting strength is reduced. You're not helping the human race if you produce new kids but your security isn't up to it.

HUGH: It's like football.

ELOISE: Well, this ought to be good.

HUGH: It's a question of numbers. The whole struggle for the human race is to maintain their numbers and stamp out the zombies.

ELOISE: I'm not immediately seeing how that's like football.

HUGH: You've never watched Bradford City play at home. What I mean is, there's a scoreboard. Every time a human [?] a zombie, the zombie score goes down one. But every time a zombie lands a bite, the zombie score goes up one, and the human score goes down one. So the zombies have a mathematical advantage.

ELOISE: That is nothing like football!

HUGH: Well, it's not like you answered his question, either. You just went off on a big thing about mothers and how great they are.

ELOISE: He just wanted me to agree with him so the next time he harasses some girl, he can say, "The lady off the radio agrees with me!"

HUGH: I should have said it was like tennis.

ELOISE: What?

HUGH: Free love. Get it?

ELOISE: No.

HUGH: Free love. Like, when one guy has three points and the other has none -

ELOISE: That's forty love.

[HUGH sighs]

HUGH: At least I'll get another Dick Francis.

ELOISE: We've got to look at something else this time. Every time we come to Alnwick, it's straight into the book shop, get spooked, there's a zombie at the back, run to the van and split, and we never look at the castle or nothing!

HUGH: There was a zombie in the loo that time.

ELOISE: That wasn't a zombie. That was just some unfortunate lady who had died on the toilet in the bookshop.

HUGH: You remember it because Elvis died that way.

ELOISE: We never moved her, either, so she'll still be there.

HUGH: Waiting for us, reading on the loo.

ELOISE: Maybe I don’t need new books after all.

HUGH: We should have flushed, at least. What's the guide say about Alnwick?

ELOISE: Alnwick is the best place to live in Britain, according to Country Life magazine in 2002.

HUGH: Well, they need to update that. I just saw a leg sticking out of a bin.

ELOISE: But it's in the bin. It shows you that their civic pride survived the zombie apocalypse.

HUGH: What about the castle?

ELOISE: Last time they shot at us.

HUGH: What about the history?

ELOISE: The Scots attacked it in the 11th -

HUGH: Forget it. Find us one thing in this town we've never seen before.

ELOISE: There's a pub has the original lounge and staircase from the Titanic's sister ship. Mirrors, carvings, ceiling, all in the Louis XV style.

HUGH: Does it have beer?

ELOISE: Probably.

HUGH: I'm sold.

ELOISE: If you want to do it, you better start now.

HUGH: Are you up for it?

ELOISE: Yeah. Yeah, of course.

HUGH: Okay. We've had a letter that says, "Dear Hugh and Eloise, we never send out runners after dark, but you must spend most nights out there unprotected. How do you survive? Yours faithfully, Linda."

ELOISE: Why are you whispering?

HUGH: Because it's... I don't know. I just am. Good question, Linda. Now, we screwed up this quite a bit in the early days, and never got any sleep. We were driving about looking like zoms ourselves until we figured it out.

The thing is, zoms aren't interested in parked vans, are they? What they like is the smell of people, or movement, or light, or sound. So all you have to do is not give them any of that.

First step, pick a spot. You want somewhere with as much visibility as possible. No hiding places, and plenty of exit routes. Forget corn fields and wooded clearings and big hedges and that. Supermarket car parks are great. You stop and kill the engine. It takes a while to cool down and you have to keep an eye out. No lights, neither.

Next, the smell. Obviously, you keep your windows shut, but the best disguise is to have something that smells stronger than you do. We've had a few over the last year. Manure was good while we were growing on the roof. [?] all right, but you need a ton of them. At the moment, we've got a box of Stilton, well past its date. Zoms can't stand it. It stinks out the van a bit, so I tie it to the roof. Seems to work. Your mileage may vary, as they say.

Finally, Linda, last thing: try not to talk after dark. Chances are you've chatted all day, so you'll be happy to keep it quiet. If you've followed all the other steps, a small army of zoms can walk past and ignore you. Just make sure you maintain total... silence. [ELOISE snores] ... Um, Eloise. Love?

HUGH: Want me to drive?

ELOISE: No. Just entertain me for a bit.

HUGH: Uh... what's made of brass, and sounds like Tom Jones?

ELOISE: Trombones.

HUGH: Did I tell you that one before? Okay. What's colorful and smart?

ELOISE: A brainbow. Hugh, jokes ain't going to work, because neither of us has heard any new ones in a year! Read me something out of the book. Are we going to Durham?

HUGH: Durham. Hold on. [turns pages] This sounds good. Apparently, Durham was founded by divine intervention.

ELOISE: I'm up for that.

HUGH: They were carrying St. Cuthbert around 300 years after his death.

ELOISE: Why were they? Oh, never mind. Carry on.

HUGH: His body came to a miraculous halt at the bottom of some hill.

ELOISE: This van's done that on a couple of times.

HUGH: So they fasted for three days, and St. Cuthbert appeared to them and he said, "Move my body to Dunholme" and they said, "Uh, we don't know where that is," but he were gone. So they asked the first person they met.

ELOISE: Who was - ?

HUGH: A milk maid.

ELOISE: Of course.

HUGH: And she said, "I'll show you where that is. I'm looking for my cow." So they recognized this as a sign from the saint, and they followed her to a [?], then they build Durham Cathedral.

ELOISE: Just like that.

HUGH: Just like that.

ELOISE: And did they find the cow?

HUGH: Doesn't say.

ELOISE: All right. Try one more joke.

HUGH: What does a vegetarian zombie eat?

ELOISE: Hey, I don't know!

HUGH: Grains!

HUGH: This is from Aiden. He says, "Dear Hugh and Eloise, these are scary times. What are your greatest fears?" You want to go first?

ELOISE: Not sure I want to answer it at all.

HUGH: I'll take it. Well, Aiden, you're quite right that these are scary times, and sometimes the worst thing is your own imagination. For instance, I sometimes imagine that there is a guy out there who wants to kill me with a truck.

ELOISE: You what?

HUGH: I've never seen him, but one day when we were sleeping, he snuck up on us and placed a small transmitter on the van so wherever we go, he can track us down.

ELOISE: I can tell you, as an engineer, that is a lot more complicated than they make it in the movies.

HUGH: He's a psychopath or sociopath or whatever, so the fall of civilization has actually been a good thing for him, because it enables him to express his natural murderous urges without interference from the apparatus of society.

ELOISE: You've really thought about this, haven't you?

HUGH: He took against me for some small reason. Maybe it was because I wear my hats, or because of the color I painted the van. But he decided then that he was going to put everything else on hold until he killed me with a giant truck.

ELOISE: Uh...

HUGH: So he found an 18-wheeler in some motorway service station and he taught himself to drive it. But that wasn't enough for him. He started welding things onto it.

ELOISE: Hugh...

HUGH: Two or three extra horns so that when he honks it, it sounds like a chord of death! A bank of red lights along the top of the cab so he can make it look like hell when he comes for me. All these extra pipes and bits just to make the truck look evil.

And along the front, he sticks row upon row of old railings with the spiky bits forward. It's like a grill of slaughter. And when he hits roadkill, animals or zoms, he leaves the corpses hanging there, decaying.

And on the day he comes, he'll aim for the van with his juggernaut of death, and if I don't get killed in the crash, or my vital organs impaled, he's assembled this toolkit he always keeps in the cab, and he'll bring it out, and come around to the van door, and -

ELOISE: Hugh! Quit it, you're scaring me!

HUGH: Sorry, love. What was, uh, what was your fear?

ELOISE: Zombies, you wazzock!

ELOISE: Bobby's written in, and he says, "Dear Hugh and Eloise, I can't seem to meet the right person. How did you meet and fall for each other?"

HUGH: Ah. Heady days.

ELOISE: Bobby, thanks for your letter. In fact, it was letters that brought us together. You know that Hugh was a postman? Well, in the old days, he had a reputation for being the fastest postie in town. He'd get the bag and hare off down the street.

HUGH: Professionalism, see?

ELOISE: Professionalism, my ass. He wanted to get to the bookies for the first race at Haydock Park, didn't he?

There was one day he had a rip in his bag, and a letter fell out. I was walking behind him, and I picked it up. Then another fell out. He started leaving a trail behind him like a snail. So I shouted at him, but he had his music on, and he couldn't hear. I chased him, but he was really fast, and I had to keep stopping to pick up these letters.

You could see him thinking, "Wow, I must be shit-hot today, there's hardly any letters in my bag." And here I'm stumbling after him, and the Royal Mail dropping out of my grip left and right. And when I finally caught up to him, I was out of breath, and I yelled at him at the top of my voice.

HUGH: She was like Helen of Troy.

ELOISE: And he didn't go to the bookies that day. He brought me lunch.

HUGH: Lovely story. Of course, that wasn't what happened at all.

ELOISE: You tell it, then.

HUGH: You know Eloise was a telecomms engineer? Well, she was up on this roof in the wind, see, fighting with an aerial, and I see her, and I think, "She's brave, balancing up there."

And it starts raining, so all the slates are getting wet, and she's still wrestling with this aerial. But she's got this set to her chin that says she's not coming down until she's nailed it. And the wind keeps picking up and she's shaking the cable, and it's raining cats and dogs now, and she's shouting at the thing.

ELOISE: Professionalism, see?

HUGH: And I see it coming, and I rush across the road, and there's one big gust of wind, and woof! She slides straight off the roof, and I'm right under there to catch her. She looks at me, like, "Who's this guy?" I wanted to take her to the hospital, but she insisted on going right back up there, so the only way I could stop her was to ask her out.

ELOISE: [laughs] He was always a charmer. Well, Aiden, I hope that answers your question. Two for the price of one. Hugh, come over here for a minute.

HUGH: Yes, my love.

ELOISE: This is a nice spot. We're in Whitby, overlooking the river mouth and the sands. The abbey's up on the hill, and it's all very scenic. We checked all the postboxes and there's no letters, so it's good old-fashioned seaside holiday for me and Hugh today!

HUGH: Everybody must be dead.

ELOISE: Or perhaps they don't listen to our program. Or perhaps they don't have any problems because they're all perfectly happy.

HUGH: Nah, they're all dead. You can tell! No defenses or nothing. That big posh hotel up on the hill's probably full of decomposing bodies.

ELOISE: I was going to suggest we spend the night in that hotel as a special treat.

HUGH: Uh, that'd be great.

ELOISE: Forget it. Couldn't you focus on the sunshine, the bandstand, the harbor, or something?

HUGH: Well, look on the bright side. No survivors means no zombies. Probably.

ELOISE: Well, my next suggestion was that we go for a refreshing paddle, but now I'm going to be watching my back, aren't I? Any other seaside pleasures you'd like to stamp all over in your dirty great army boots?

HUGH: How about I go and get you an ice cream?

ELOISE: Well, that'd be lovely, apart from the fact that, as a milk-based product, any ice cream's been sitting without refrigeration for at least two summers.

HUGH: I always wanted to go to the Whitby Museum.

ELOISE: Hugh, you wanted to go to a museum?

HUGH: They've got a Hand of Glory.

ELOISE: Is that another ice cream?

HUGH: It's the pickled right hand of a murderer.

ELOISE: Hugh, what?

HUGH: They cut it off while he's still hanging from the gallows. Burglars burn the fingers like candles to send their victims to sleep.

ELOISE: We come to the seaside on a glorious day after the fall of civilization, and what you want to see is a dead hand?

HUGH: A pickled hand. Of a murderer. What?

ELOISE: Any luck?

HUGH: Nah.

ELOISE: That's twenty streets and two petrol stations, for how much?

HUGH: Maybe half a gallon.

ELOISE: Another dry town. This is going to keep happening.

HUGH: We've still got our stash -

ELOISE: I don't know what you mean, Hugh! And neither do our listeners.

HUGH: Oh. Oh! You're right.

ELOISE: We need a plan for when the fuel runs out.

HUGH: We can get from Land's End to John o' Groats twice on what's in the back.

ELOISE: And then what?

HUGH: Um...

ELOISE: Our system's based on movement! Food from fields and gardens, extras from little forgotten shops. When we stop moving, it all breaks down, and the zoms get closer!

HUGH: Did I wake up this morning with Eloise, the herald of doom?

ELOISE: The herald of thinking ahead! Why are you not bothered about this?

HUGH: Every day with you is -

ELOISE: Oh, stick it! What are we going to do when there's no fuel left?

HUGH: Long before that, you're going to find us a little retirement palace. If you don't, well, we'll go out in style. Together.

ELOISE: Go out in style?

HUGH: We'll load the van up with explosives and use the last of the petrol to drive it into the base of a zombie mastermind.

ELOISE: Like Bonnie and Clyde.

HUGH: Just like Bonnie and Clyde.

ELOISE: I don't think the zombies have a mastermind.

HUGH: Does it matter?

ELOISE: Guess not.

HUGH: It's an early start today with a letter from Lorraine. She says, "Dear Hugh and Eloise, I used to enjoy a hot croissant in the morning. What are the special breakfasts that you miss in these challenging times?"

ELOISE: Ooh, I could go a croissant. They're about two thirds butter already, and I like to smear every piece with butter.

HUGH: And that's how she's kept her heart healthy all these years.

ELOISE: You never cared much about breakfast, did you?

HUGH: I wouldn't say that. I sometimes miss cereal. Them nice mueslis with the weird things in them.

ELOISE: Like that bug you found in the -

HUGH: Not bugs! Weird things like papaya and loganberry.

ELOISE: You know what we're missing for both of these?

HUGH: What?

ELOISE: Fresh milk. We sometimes get the UHT stuff, but it's not the same.

HUGH: The fresh stuff all spoiled long ago.

ELOISE: Yeah. But the cows are still there. Think you could milk one?

HUGH: Yeah, no problem.

ELOISE: There's a field right back there.

HUGH: Oh.

ELOISE: Get the bucket out the back, then!

HUGH: All right. [parks van, opens door]

ELOISE: Squeeze it, Hugh! [cow moos, HUGH shouts] Oh my God! [laughs]

HUGH: Drive! Drive, drive! Drive!

ELOISE: Did you get any, then? [laughs]

HUGH: Burton Agnes. Burton Agnes. Burton Agnes.

ELOISE: Oh God, not this again.

HUGH: What?

ELOISE: You want to go somewhere because you think the name sounds funny.

HUGH: I don't know what you're talking about.

ELOISE: You were like this about Leonard Stanley on the way up, and remember what we found there? Nothing. A pack of zoms that chased us all the way up to the M5.

HUGH: Well, you must admit, Leonard Stanley sounds like some kind of New York character actor.

ELOISE: So you said.

HUGH: Young fashionable bearded detective who everyone ignores at the back of the precinct house. But occasionally he provides a seemingly irrelevant observation that is the key to cracking this week's case.

ELOISE: So you said, and we were no sooner out of there than you got obsessed with [?].

HUGH: Well, I wanted to find out what a [?] was.

ELOISE: And did you?

HUGH: No.

ELOISE: Because you got freaked out by the hedges.

HUGH: It's not natural, is it? Humanity gets wiped out, vicious pillagers roaming the land, and what do they do? They trim their hedges nice and square. It isn't normal. It's suspicious.

ELOISE: And before that, there was Westley Waterless.

HUGH: All them ponds. What was that about?

ELOISE: They were flooded fields! It had, after all, rained for two days straight, and you seemed to be expecting the Sahara Desert.

HUGH: It was a big disappointment.

ELOISE: As was Quaking Houses.

HUGH: I watched those bastards for 45 minutes. There was a moment I thought they were leaning. It was just clouds moving behind them.

ELOISE: So never mind Burton Agnes.

HUGH: Okay, you're right. We'll turn here. We're going to Cherry Burton instead!

ELOISE: Oh no!

HUGH: They might have pie.

ELOISE: Ah, a classic question this time. Vijay writes in from just outside Hull, and he says, "Dear Hugh and Eloise, what with living in a 45 dormitory with 8 other people, and all our food being canned vegetables, and only being able to take a hot shower once a fortnight, and all the unexpected leaps out of bed to repel zombie attacks and shoveling up steaming human organs at three in the morning, the romance has gone out of my relationship. Can you suggest something I could do to freshen things up?"

HUGH: Vijay, I hear you, my man. This whole zombie situation has forced the romantics among us to redefine our toolsets.

ELOISE: Stay tuned, this is going to be a classic.

HUGH: The first thing to do is work within the practicalities. For advice on that, I'm handing over to Eloise.

ELOISE: Cop out.

HUGH: Get on with it.

ELOISE: Truly, you are one of the romantics among us.

HUGH: Get on with it!

ELOISE: Well, Vijay, everybody defines romance a little differently, but I think the essence of it is being thoughtful and doing something special for your partner.

HUGH: It's not all flowers and balconies anymore, but I've got to tell you, Vijay, both these things are easy to come by now, and they're free.

ELOISE: Thank you, Hugh. The point is, you have to make time for the two of you away from the daily grind. What you do is almost secondary to making the effort.

HUGH: She says that, but I want to assure you that if you do the wrong thing, you'll hear all about it.

ELOISE: Hugh, if you don't shut up, I'm going to hand back to you to answer this question!

HUGH: I'm shutting up.

ELOISE: Perhaps things have become too safe in your 45 dormitory, and you need to take a run together to find a place which is special to you, and take some time away from the others. Perhaps pack a special picnic, even if it's just your favorite canned vegetable. Hell, you could take a bath in a freezing river together and shriek like hyenas! Yes, all that is a risk, but life is a risk, and there's a reason the great romantic stories are not about people playing by the rules.

HUGH: On the other hand, don't get yourself chomped by zombies.

ELOISE: I think that covers it. Thank you for your question!

HUGH: Do write in again.

ELOISE: Remind me why we're doing this?

HUGH: The bridge is blocked with abandoned cars, but the van'll fit through this old train tunnel.

ELOISE: That's not the whole story. You've got one of your weird psychological plans going on.

HUGH: I don't know what you mean!

ELOISE: I told you about that time when I was a kid, and I got lost in the tunnel.

HUGH: I don't remember.

ELOISE: Yes, you do. We were on some tunnel walk and I lost hold of my mom's hand, and I freaked out in the total darkness.

HUGH: Oh! I do remember that story.

ELOISE: And this is your way of getting me over it with some weird situationist therapy or something.

HUGH: This is my way of getting us across the river.

ELOISE: So why don't we have the lights on?

HUGH: Call it a whim.

ELOISE: Call it Mister Amateur Psychotherapist.

HUGH: Honestly, love, it's nothing like that. I'm just driving the van down a tunnel for a change.

ELOISE: With no lights?

HUGH: With no lights.

ELOISE: That's stupid.

HUGH: Think about this: we live outside. I know we have a van, but essentially, we're campers living beneath the stars. It's nice, right? But deep in the human psyche is a primitive need for enclosed space, for darkness. It's why our ancestors settled in caves, why people hide under the bed during a storm. See it as a temporary return to the womb.

ELOISE: Turn on the lights for a minute.

HUGH: All right, but you can't just -

[zombies roar, ELOISE and HUGH scream, tires squeal]

ELOISE: You moppet.

HUGH: Fair point, fair point!

HUGH: We got a good crop at the last place.

ELOISE: Potatoes?

HUGH: No, letters. Here's one from Ida. She says, "Dear Hugh and Eloise, I am 73 - "

ELOISE: That's not a problem, Ida. Remember that -

HUGH: There's more to come.

ELOISE: Oh, sorry.

HUGH: "I'm 73, and I bloody hate my neighbors. There's this smartass with a Gatling gun who fires it off every night. I'm a bit deaf anyway, but his tracer ammo lights up my bedroom when I'm trying to sleep.

ELOISE: Uh, right.

HUGH: Also, this other little bastard that breeds attack dogs for zombie defense and lets them roam free. I've had to fend them off with my umbrella more than once, and now it's all torn, so I get soaked when I go on my supply runs.

ELOISE: Supply runs?

HUGH: She says something further on about having a bicycle. I don't think it's an actually run.

ELOISE: So what's her question?

HUGH: She wants to know if we'll help her relocate. Like, pick her up.

ELOISE: Ah. Um...

HUGH: She's got a lot of stuff, apparently.

ELOISE: Well...

HUGH: A lot of stuff. Valuable old newspapers, Victorian decanters, a nearly complete collection of royal -

ELOISE: Ida, one of the harsh truths about the new society we are building is that we have to be able to let our material possessions go. You're free to leave any time with only what can fit in your bike basket. Take a long look at this other stuff that's holding you back, and decide if you really need it. You do that, and drop us a line next time we're around.

HUGH: We could -

ELOISE: Thanks for your question, Ida. That concludes our program for today. [audio clicks] I don't want to drive around with some foul-mouthed, deaf old biddy we don't know.

HUGH: You didn't press the button right. We're still transmitting.

ELOISE: Shit. [audio cuts off]

ELOISE: Now, as we've been driving around the country, we've picked up a lot of simply queries, so we've saved them up, and we're going to have a quickfire episode! Right, Hugh?

HUGH: Your pile's bigger than mine.

ELOISE: That's because you read slowly.

HUGH: It's true.

ELOISE: Ready? First question: "What's the best place to live now?"

HUGH: Well, the islands are a good choice because you'll get less wandering zoms. Although we have heard that they can survive underwater. Well, not survive, exactly, but you know what I mean. The disadvantage of being on the islands is that you have a restricted pool of stores that you can forage from. There's fishing, of course, but then we're back to these zoms that -

ELOISE: Hugh! It's a quickfire episode. You have to answer quickly.

HUGH: Oh, right. Uh, Milton Keynes.

ELOISE: What? Why Milton Keynes?

HUGH: I was under pressure.

ELOISE: Brighton's still nice. Next question.

HUGH: Right. Uh, "Are the swimming pools still filled?"

ELOISE: Yes, some of them. But some have zombies in them.

HUGH: And trust me, you don't need to see a zombie in Speedos. Next question.

ELOISE: "Is it worth finding a generator to power up my TV?"

HUGH: No. Read a book. Next question: "What is the most fun you've had on your travels?"

ELOISE: We made bottle rockets and fired them off the Cliffs of Dover! Next question: "Are you guys cannibals?"

HUGH: No. Next question: "Don't you get cold at night?"

ELOISE: Yes. Next question: "What are your little treats these days?"

HUGH: Every day with Eloise is a treat.

ELOISE: Now and then, Hugh takes a nap. Next question.

HUGH: "What are essential camper van supplies?"

ELOISE: Duvet, food, water, fuel.

HUGH: Music, sunglasses, beer, cool hat.

ELOISE: [imitates buzzer sound] That concludes our quickfire episode!

HUGH: I need to lie down.

HUGH: Garden needs a bit of work.

ELOISE: That just means it's been abandoned for a long time.

HUGH: Zoms could be living there.

ELOISE: Zoms are dead.

HUGH: Hmm, fair point.

ELOISE: What do you really think of it?

HUGH: Well, roof looks sound. It's on a hill, which means you can see movement from miles around. Singular approach up a narrow track. Pretty defensible. And there's space for a vegetable patch and a chicken coop. And you can see the sea. You always wanted that.

ELOISE: So you like it?

HUGH: It's as good as we've seen.

ELOISE: But do you like it?

HUGH: It's okay.

ELOISE: Oh, you never commit to these things!

HUGH: Take a look! I'll keep the engine running. [starts van]

ELOISE: Right. [opens door]

HUGH: Eloise does this every three months. It's like a chime goes off in her head and says, "Find a place to live and stop driving around." It's always something like this – little cottage with moss on the walls, somewhere you can light a fire for the evening and put your welly boots on the porch.

She'll be all domestic and lovey-dovey for a fortnight, and then she'll start complaining that she feels cooped up. In a month, we'll be back on the road, mark my words.

As it happens, there's always something not right. Once, the taps where the wrong way around. Once, it was the feng shui. And this one time – hold on, here she comes. [van door opens, ELOISE sighs] No good?

ELOISE: Family slaughtered inside. Blood all the way up the walls. Zombie head in the sink for some reason, looking up at me.

HUGH: Move on, then?

ELOISE: Move on.

HUGH: Brian writes in, and he says, "Dear Hugh and Eloise, my partner and I have had a baby, Jennifer. She was eight pounds at birth and she has her grandmother's eyes.

ELOISE: Oh, that's nice!

HUGH: Yes, it is. But Brian says, "She cries a lot, especially at night. I know it is a normal part of my child's development, and we have to learn to leave her be, but I am worried that the constant wailing will attract zombies in the night. I keep having nightmares about them breaking in and chewing her up like a footlong sandwich. Can you suggest anything we can do?"

ELOISE: Uh...

HUGH: That's quite a visual image, that sandwich thing.

ELOISE: Yeah... I, um... I feel a bit uncomfortable answering questions about kids.

HUGH: Don't say that, love. You're very good at handling them.

ELOISE: I don't think clipping them around the ear when they're rude counts.

HUGH: I certainly feel grateful there is no obvious police presence in most of the places we visit.

ELOISE: The baby's too young to reason with, so I guess you need to... wrap her up in something at night to muffle the noise, like a big hamper or a duvet.

HUGH: Remember air holes. Breathing is very important.

ELOISE: Yes. Thanks for your letter, Jennifer.

HUGH: The baby's Jennifer. It was Brian who wrote in.

ELOISE: Well, you answer the question if you're so damn smart!

HUGH: Brian, you have to channel your inner muso. Set up the baby's room like a recording studio: heavy curtains everywhere, soft furnishings, bass traps in the corners. Easiest thing to do is visit some farm where everyone's dead, and take all the big egg boxes, then nail them to every wall. Most of the sound'll get absorbed, and with a bit of luck, Jennifer grows up to be something of a vocalist. All right? Thanks for your question.

ELOISE: That was quite a good answer.

HUGH: Now you give us a song, love.

ELOISE: Ah, this looks like another one about food.

HUGH: I could do with a pie.

ELOISE: Philip writes in and he says -

HUGH: Chicken, I think. With that nice sauce you used to make.

ELOISE: What sauce?

HUGH: In the chicken pies.

ELOISE: Ah. That sauce.

HUGH: What do you mean, "that sauce"?

ELOISE: Nothing. Philip writes -

HUGH: You're doing that suspicious thing again with your nose.

ELOISE: Eh?

HUGH: You flared your nostrils. It means you're putting one over on me.

ELOISE: No, no! Back to Philip's question -

HUGH: What is it? What was in that sauce? Why are you being weird about it?

ELOISE: That sauce was... well, kind of spontaneous, and since you liked it so much, I just kept using it.

HUGH: What do you mean, "spontaneous"?

ELOISE: Well, it was just, well...

HUGH: Spit it out!

ELOISE: It was just cream of chicken soup.

HUGH: Hey?

ELOISE: One time, I didn't have time to make a sauce, so I just poured in a can of chicken soup. And you went on about how great it was.

HUGH: Oh. I didn't know I was so cheap.

ELOISE: Sorry, love.

HUGH: What's the question?

ELOISE: Philip says, "Dear Hugh and Eloise, we have exhausted our stocks of canned vegetables, so we're going back to meat. We figure that since the apocalypse is here, there's no point in being weird about cannibalism, so we plan to eat the fresher meat from the zombies we kill. Can you recommend any recipes?"

HUGH: Uh...

ELOISE: Don't eat zombie meat. Are you insane? One bite and you'll turn.

HUGH: You could always pour a can of chicken soup on it.

ELOISE: Well, we've got a very different show for you today. Marianne's written in from Stibbington, and her problem is she doesn't have playtesters for a game she's devised, so we're going to be the first players. Right, Hugh?

HUGH: Can't talk. Zombies. Concentrating.

ELOISE: Oh, come on. You can handle this kind of mob in your sleep.

HUGH: Lean this way!

ELOISE: The trouble with this game is that you've got to be rather close to a great deal of zombies to make it work.

HUGH: We better be getting a percentage for this.

ELOISE: As I understand it, she's going to distribute it free through Rofflenet.

HUGH: There goes another chunk of my pension. Why don't you explain the rules, and then we can – [zombie growls, tires squeal] Whoa!

ELOISE: Right. It's zombie bingo! I think to be safe, you need a vehicle to play it from.

HUGH: Bloody tank would be ideal.

ELOISE: Hugh's not dissing the concept, Marianne, he's just looking at practical details.

HUGH: Explain the rules.

ELOISE: You get a bingo card listing zombies to spot. For instance: one eye, or dog chewing zombie leg, or - here's a tough one - bone protruding from left shoulder.

HUGH: I think I see that one.

ELOISE: Really, where?

HUGH: Right ahead – [tires squeal] right behind us.

ELOISE: There are a lot of bones protruding there.

HUGH: Not initially.

ELOISE: So that covers it, really. Cross off all your zombie sightings, and you get to shout, "House!"

HUGH: Can we quit now?

ELOISE: As long as we're here, we might as well finish the card.

HUGH: What do we need?

ELOISE: Just one more. Zombie cheerleader. [HUGH sighs]

HUGH: Here's a letter from Nigel. Nigel, may I compliment you on your fine penmanship? As a time served postal worker, I can tell you that, while legibility is important, the occasional piece of elegant script is a cultural moment in an otherwise mechanical day.

ELOISE: You want me to turn back so you two can get a room?

HUGH: You know you've spoiled me for other men, my love.

ELOISE: That was so nearly a compliment, and then it was suddenly a mile away.

HUGH: Would you like to hear Nigel's question?

ELOISE: Certainly.

HUGH: Nigel says, in an immaculately presented letter, "Dear Hugh and Eloise, I hear about people trying to rebuild society. However, it seems like my neighbors and I spend all our time keeping zombies at bay and making do with the few supplies we can obtain. We rarely make progress.

Of course, I hope the zombie scourge can be overcome in our lifetime, but what if it can't? What should we – selfishly, perhaps – be doing to prepare for our old age? In other words, what's my pension in this new world?"

ELOISE: A very thoughtful question.

HUGH: I knew it was going to be good when I saw the handwriting.

ELOISE: There's a number of answers to that, Nigel. One isn't very nice, so I'll give you it first: the truth is, all our life expectations dropped by 20 years when the zoms appeared. Even if you don't get bitten, you'll probably get something you need treated in hospital, and there aren't many open now, so preparing for old age is not the priority it used to be.

HUGH: I thought I was the pessimistic one.

ELOISE: A nicer way to look at it is that you've already invested in your future by building community. The fact you mentioned cooperating with your neighbors is a sign that you're with a group who'll look after you when the chips are down.

HUGH: Or your hips are [?].

ELOISE: Pardon?

HUGH: I don't know. I was just thinking about hip operations and it rhymed.

ELOISE: Nigel, get the right people around you, and look after your neighbors. And that's your pension. All right, love? I think you'll be fine.

HUGH: What about these stashes we hide around the country?

ELOISE: Remember we agreed not to mention that on-air?

HUGH: Oh yeah, right!

ELOISE: We're nearly done for today, and Hugh is driving us through a misty morning to doom and disaster.

HUGH: Is that where we're going? I missed the sign post.

ELOISE: Our final letter is from Sandra, and she says – hmm.

HUGH: What?

ELOISE: Oh dear. Sandra writes, "Dear Hugh and Eloise, I am going to kill myself. I am quite serious about this. I have worked it all out. I have seen too many of my friends bitten by zombies and turned. I saw one in particular go. Billy. Everything that made him Billy was twisted and ruined when he changed. I still see the image of his face after they shot him. I see it all the time.

I can't face being bitten and turning gray. Becoming that thing that Billy did and being shot by my friends. I've been feeling a little happier lately, and I think this is the time to end it. I can't tell anybody here, or they will stop me doing it.

I really like your program and I just wanted you to know before I did it. I wanted somebody to know. I'll listen in this one last time."

Now, Sandra, listen to me. You don't do anything hasty! There are people working on a cure! You don't know -

HUGH: Eloise, leave this to me, love.

ELOISE: Okay.

HUGH: Hello, Sandra. It's Hugh here. Let me tell you something that happened to me a few years ago. I was having trouble in the loo. A big effort to produce a tiny little stream, so I went to the doc, and he sent me to a special doc. This one checked out my gentleman's area and said my prostate was enlarged. I had to look up what that was. They cut a bit out, and checked, and it was the big C. Cancer. And it was quite bad. Well, my dad died from cancer.

The urologist woman said they could just watch it. They could do the radioactive thing, or I could have surgery. I tell you, Sandra, I'm stone cold terrified of surgery. I looked over at Eloise and saw how pale she was, how she had her brave face on, and I knew I had to get it out. So I just closed my eyes and said, "Surgery."

ELOISE: Hugh...

HUGH: They cut the bad stuff out, and three weeks later, the zombie thing happened. If I'd have waited or gone for the slow treatment, I'd be dead! Okay, I've got my issues with the loo now and sex and stuff, but none of that really matters. Because I'll tell you, Sandra, when I looked death right in the face, I found that more than anything, I wanted to live, and spend as much time as I could with this woman and her crazy schemes.

Maybe you feel alone right now, Sandra, but you don't know what the future holds. And if you don't have the courage to stick at it, you might miss the best days of your life! [sighs] All right. Get the map, Eloise.

ELOISE: Where are we going?

HUGH: Anywhere you like, my love. We've got all day.

#zombies run #zrs4 #s4 radio #s4 radio part 4 #zr transcript

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