27. Vodka doubles for two pounds

Amanda and I are both hungover. Last night, we went to see our friend Freddy's punk band and the bar was selling vodka doubles for two pounds. This seemed like a very good deal at the time, but this morning I find it to be less attractive.

It's 11am. Amanda stayed over on the sofa. We are eating bacon sandwiches, drinking tea and watching Halloween.

I am wearing pyjamas with brown polka dots. Amanda is wearing a gold and black Adidas tracksuit and last night's makeup.

On the screen Jamie Lee Curtis is slumped against a wall, exhausted. In the room behind her Michael Myers slowly starts to sit up.

One of the things I love about horror films is the way you can see the sum of primeval human fears in them.

There's this faceless...thing. With supernatural strength. And it lives in the dark, and it always knows where you are, and it's faster than you. And no matter how many times you think you've beaten it, it just never fucking dies.

And all it wants is you.

Makes me think about a forgotten tribe of slow, weak, hairless monkeys, huddled together somewhere in the dark endless African rainforest a million years ago. Listening to lions roar in the distance. 

I think this is the point of horror. To show us what we're scared of and show us that it's controllable, that there are rules. That we can escape.

Rammstein has made himself into a fat round cushion on the sofa between us. He's on edge because Amanda's dog Buffy is here. Rammstein and Buffy have had regular encounters since their childhoods. Their relationship is cordial, but distant.

Whenever Buffy has left Rammstein insists on going round every room in the flat and rubbing his chin on all the furniture to renew his territory markings. It always reminds me of someone with OCD wiping down everything the visitors touched to get rid of their germs.

Buffy is currently asleep on the special tartan blanket I keep for her. Rammstein loathes this blanket, and occasionally wees on it.

Halloween finishes. We stock up on tea and biscuits. It's Amanda's turn to choose a film, and she decides to indulge her crush on Cillian Murphy by putting on 28 Days Later.

Chimps jump around cages in a lab.

"I love this film," I say. "But I don't understand it. I don't think any virus could replicate quickly enough to have this strong an effect within seconds of infection."

"Yeah, and I would have thought any illness which makes you projectile vomit this amount of blood is going to kill you within a few days," Amanda says. "Let's see if it's actually possible."

She starts playing with her phone but gives up when all we get is fan fiction and Youtube videos.

"I think Cillian Murphy would fancy me," she says.

"I think you're right," I say.

"Maybe I should start stalking him. I could find out where he lives and hang around outside all the time."

"I think that's going to work. He'll go for that. Especially when you send him your own severed fingers to show how much you love him."

Amanda nods.

"He looks like the kind of guy who would appreciate severed fingers," she says. "That's one of the things I like about him."

We drink our tea, eat Party Rings, and watch the world ending in torrents of blood on the screen.