Purification a-3 Read online

  Purification

  ( Autumn - 3 )

  David Moody

  David Moody brings the AUTUMN trilogy to a stunning and brutal conclusion. The survivors from AUTUMN: THE CITY are imprisoned in an underground base, trapped between the door to the outside world and the sealed entrance to the airtight cocoon where hundreds of soldiers sit and wait. The crowd of bodies on the surface continues to grow in size, drawn there by the heat, light and noise occasionally produced by the people buried underground beneath their rotting feet. The sheer mass of shuffling figures and decaying flesh above them begins to cause problems for the military with vents and exhaust shafts becoming blocked and useless. Soldiers are sent above ground to begin clearing the bodies away. Encouraged by a relatively successful first strike which is met with little resistance from the corpses, the officers order their troops to the surface again, this time to destroy them all. Trapped in the middle of a long and bloody battle between the military and the dead, the survivors' safety is compromised and they are forced to flee the base. Exposed and vulnerable once again, the group run for their lives without aim or direction. All hope is gone, but in the rotting shadows of the past they find the key to what remains of their future...

  DAVID MOODY

  AUTUMN:

  PURIFICATION

  Prologue

  Bodies.

  Thousands upon thousands of cold, rancid, decaying bodies once spread across almost the entire length and width of the dead land but now crammed into the space of just a few square miles. Relentless, vicious and unstoppable shells. Creatures without direction. Creatures without purpose. Savage, instinct-driven, insect-ridden carcasses.

  Empty, rotting, skeletal husks which had once each had individual identities and lives and reasons to exist but which were now nothing more than emotionless collections of tattered rag, grey-green greasy flesh, withered muscle and brittle bone.

  In little more than a few seconds the lives of each one of these pitiful, tortured things had been ended. Forty-seven days ago, without warning or explanation, the disease had struck and killed billions. The most brutal and unforgiving infection ever to have cursed the face of the planet tore through the defenceless population with unstoppable speed and ferocity, leaving only an unfortunate few unaffected.

  Now, more than a month and a half later, the full effects of the deadly germ were still making themselves known.

  At the furthest edge of a cold, wet and generally featureless field, the dishevelled carcass of what had once been an affluent fifty-three year old investment banker lifted its dark, clouded eyes. Surrounded on all sides by hundreds of similarly bedraggled and featureless cadavers, the remains of the once powerful, wealthy and well-respected man shuffled awkwardly forward, slipping and sliding through churned mud, and lifted its tired arms and grabbed clumsily at those bodies which stood in its way.

  The body didn’t know what drew it to the field, it didn’t know why it was there, it didn’t know what it wanted, it just knew that it had to be there. Survivors. Although it didn’t know what they were, it could hear them and feel them. They were different. Buried underground deep beneath the creature’s feet they hid in fear and attempted to salvage some kind of life for themselves in the unnatural semi-darkness of their subterranean base. But it was impossible for them to exist without giving their location away. The world had become a lifeless, empty place, and the sounds made by the people underground echoed relentlessly through the fragile silence. The heat they produced burned like a fire. In the cold, vacuous and featureless land they attracted the corpses to them like moths round an incandescent flame.

  The disease - if that really was what had caused all of this to happen - had dealt around a third of its victims a blow of unimaginable cruelty. All of those affected had been killed within seconds of infection. Most corpses - the fortunate majority - remained motionless and inert and simply rotted away where they had fallen. The remainder, however, had been sentenced to an unnaturally prolonged existence of relentless suffering. The germ had spared a key area of these creatures’ brains. Somehow unaffected, a spark of primordial instinct had survived the disease, leaving the bodies physically dead but still compelled to move; lifeless but incessantly animated. And as the flesh which covered these lurching, stumbling creatures had rotted and decayed, so the unaffected region of the brain had grown in strength and had continued to drive them forward. As the brain slowly recovered basic senses had gradually returned, then a degree of control. Finally something which resembled base emotion gripped the cadavers and forced the desperate figures to keep moving.

  They didn’t know what they were or where they were.

  They didn’t know why they existed and they didn’t know what they wanted. They had no need to eat or drink or rest or sleep or respire. Sentenced to spend every minute of every day shuffling pointlessly across the empty landscape, even the slightest sound or movement was enough to attract their limited but deadly attention.

  As the days had passed since their initial infection, so the behaviour of the bodies had continued to slowly change. Apathy and emptiness began to be replaced.

  Restricted by their steadily worsening physical condition, the hordes of the dead became violent and increasingly aggressive. They did not have decision making capabilities, only the desire to try and silence their individual pain and protect themselves. In the empty, featureless vacuum above ground they gathered en masse around every disturbance or distraction, no matter how slight or insignificant, hoping to find release. Only time and decay would end the torment, but the bodies had no way of knowing whether such release would ever come.

  What had begun as a few random corpses stumbling upon the underground military base by chance had now grown to be a massive crowd of vast, almost incalculable proportions. The appearance and movement of the creatures inevitably attracted more and more of them from the surrounding area. Now, several days since any of the soldiers had been above ground, almost one hundred thousand bodies fought to get nearer and nearer to the impassable bunker entrance.

  The dead investment banker’s way forward was blocked by more bodies. It lifted its emaciated arms again and then, with unexpected force, lashed out at the figure immediately in front. Soft, putrefying flesh was ripped from bone as the decaying office-worker tore the unprotected body in front of it apart. The sudden violence rapidly spread to the nearest cadavers on all sides and then rippled out further into the enormous crowd before petering out again as quickly as it had begun. All across this massive, decomposing gathering in random, isolated pockets the same thing was happening, triggered by each body’s instinctive need to ensure its self-preservation.

  Apart from the continual shuffling and fighting of the bodies and the wind blowing through the swaying branches of nearby trees, the world around the buried base appeared motionless and frozen. Even birds had learnt not to fly too close to the creatures because of the reaction their darting movements and fleeting appearances invariably caused. In spite of the fact that the dead were individually weak and clumsy, what remained of the rest of the world instinctively feared them and despised them.

  Deep underground in the military base, almost three hundred survivors cowered helplessly and waited for something - anything - to happen. Despite being physically stronger than the dead, and even though they had control, intelligence and power on their side, they were afraid to move. It was obvious to all of the lost and terrified souls trapped in the concrete maze below the fields and hills that the sheer number of bodies on the surface would soon be too much for them. Their options were desperately limited.

  They could sit and wait, but no-one knew what they’d be waiting for. They could go above ground and fight, but what would that achieve? What use was open space and fresh a
ir to the military? The disease still hung heavy in the contaminated air. Each one of the soldiers and their officers knew that a single breath would, in all probability, be enough to kill them. And the survivors immune to the disease who also sheltered there knew that they would fare no better from such a confrontation either. Any attempt to clear the bodies from above the base might help in the short term, but the noise and movement such an act would inevitably cause would doubtless result in thousands upon thousands more cadavers being drawn nearer to the shelter.

  Below the surface the survivors and the military were forced to remain apart. The base was reasonably well-equipped and technologically advanced. Designed to cope with the expected after-effects of chemical, nuclear or biological attack, the air pumped through the underground levels was pure and free from infection. The survivors, however, were not. Decontamination had been half-heartedly attempted, but the woefully ill-prepared military commanders, scientists and advisers who controlled the base had known from the start that it had been a futile exercise. The germ could be washed away from equipment and from the soldier’s protective suits, but the survivors were riddled with infection. They had been breathing the contaminated air constantly for more than a month and a half. Virtually every cell in their bodies must surely have carried the deadly contagion and, whilst it had no effect on them, even the slightest exposure might be sufficient to start the deadly chain reaction which would inevitably lay waste to the soldiers and contaminate the base.

  Despite their sizeable arsenal of weapons and the huge psychological and intellectual advantage which they had over the dead, the soldiers and survivors alike knew that they were trapped. The men, women and children sheltering underground lived with a constant sense of uncomfortable claustrophobia and despair. The military occupied almost all of the complex (everything beyond the entrance to the decontamination chambers) with the thirty-seven survivors having to exist in the main hanger and a few adjacent storage, utility and maintenance rooms. Space, light, heat and comfort was severely limited. After fighting through the hell above ground, however, the limitations of the military facility were readily accepted and hugely appreciated. The alternatives which awaited them on the surface were unthinkable.

  1

  Emma Mitchell

  It’s almost two o’clock.

  I think it’s two o’clock in the morning, but I’m not completely sure. There’s no way of telling whether it’s day or night down here and, if I’m honest, it doesn’t matter.

  Whatever time of day or night it is, it’s always dark. There are always some people sleeping and there are always other people awake. There are always people gathered in groups and huddles talking in secret whispers about nothing. There are always people crying, moaning, fighting and arguing.

  There are always soldiers moving through the decontamination chambers or coming into the hanger to check, double-check and triple-check their stockpiled equipment and machinery.

  I can’t sleep.

  I’ve been lying here with Michael for the best part of two hours now. I always seem to feel guilty when we’ve been together like this and I can’t clear my head enough to switch off and sleep like he can. I wish I could. We haven’t done anything wrong. We’ve made love together four times in the three weeks since we’ve been down here and each time he’s slept for hours afterwards. When I ask him why he tells me that when we’ve been together like this he feels more human and complete than he does the rest of the time.

  He tells me that what we do makes him feel the way he used to feel before all of this happened.

  Sex is different now. In many ways it’s sad and it reminds me of everything I’ve lost. In other ways it helps me to realise what I’ve still got. I still get scared when I think about how easy it would be to lose Michael and how lucky I am that we managed to find each other and stay together. Sometimes I’m not sure if I sleep with him because I love him, or whether it’s because we just happen to be there for each other. There’s no room for romance and other long forgotten feelings anymore. I don’t think I’ll ever have another orgasm. I can’t imagine being relaxed or aroused enough to feel those kind of emotions again. When we’re together there’s no seduction or foreplay. All I want is to feel Michael inside me. I need the intimacy. He is the only positive part of my world. Everything is cold except his touch.

  When we were above ground I hated this motorhome. I was trapped in here and it was all we had. Now it’s all I want. It’s where I spend most of my time. This is our little private space where we can shut ourselves away from the rest of the people we’re trapped down here with. We’re lucky to have this privacy and I appreciate it. The rest of them have no choice but to spend all day, every day with each other. I wonder whether they resent us? Even though I know they’re probably not interested, sometimes I think that they do. I’ve seen the way they look at us when we’re together.

  I’m cold. I don’t know what the temperature’s like deeper underground on the other side of the decontamination chambers, but out here in the hanger it’s always freezing. You can usually see your breath in front of your face. The air is motionless and still although sometimes you can smell the decay and disease outside.

  You’d think we’d be used to the smell of death by now, but none of us are. Yesterday I overheard a couple of soldiers talking about the air on the lower levels of the bunker. They said it’s getting thinner. They said there are so many bodies above ground now that the vents and exhaust shafts around the base are gradually becoming blocked by the sheer weight of corpses crammed around them. Cooper told me he expected that to happen sooner or later. He said that most of the vents are scattered over a couple of square miles. It scares me to think just how many bodies there must be above us now for them to be having such an effect.

  Christ, there must be hundreds of thousands of those damn things up there.

  Supplies are coming in.

  Two suited soldiers have just emerged from the decontamination chambers to deliver our rations. The military don’t give us much, just enough to survive. I guess they’ve only got so much for themselves and I’m surprised we get anything. There’s going to come a point when the provisions they’ve hoarded in their storerooms run out.

  Maybe it won’t matter by then. Donna Yorke keeps talking about how it’s going to be different in a few months time.

  She says that by then the bodies will have rotted away to almost nothing and we’ll be able to live on the surface again because they’ll no longer be a threat to us. I hope she’s right. I believe her. I’ve no reason not to. We can’t stay down here forever.

  Whatever happens to us the future is far less certain for the soldiers. Every time I see any of them I can’t help thinking about what’s going to happen to them. The air might still be filled with infection six years from now, never mind in six months. And how will they know if it ever becomes clear again? Are any of them going to be brave or stupid enough to take off their suits, put their heads above ground and risk breathing in? You can’t see much behind their protective masks but every so often you catch a flash of stifled emotion in their eyes. They’re as scared as we are. They don’t trust us. Sometimes I think they hate and despise us almost as much as they do the bodies. Maybe they’re keeping us here because they want to use us? Perhaps they’re planning on forcing us to scour the surface to stock up their stores and provide them with food and water?

  I put on Michael’s thick winter coat and walk over to the nearest window to get a better view of what’s happening outside. The window is covered in condensation. I wipe it away but it’s still difficult to see what’s going on. The lights in the hanger are almost always turned down to their lowest setting. I guess they do it to conserve power. It only gets any brighter when the soldiers are about to go outside and that hasn’t happened for well over a week now. The doors have only been opened once since we’ve been down here. Two days after we arrived outside they tried to go out to clear the mess we’d made getting in. They started to ope
n the doors but there were too many bodies. They burned the first few hundred of them with flame-throwers but there were thousands more behind.

  I can see Cooper checking over the vehicles that he and the other people from the city arrived here in. You can tell just by watching him that he used to be a soldier. Even though he has nothing to do with the rest of the military now he’s still regimented and he has a level of control and confidence that none of the others possess. I often see him exercising and sometimes, when the army are out of sight, he gets small groups of people together and tries to show them how to use the military equipment left lying around here. Most of the time no-one’s interested. Cooper checks the battered police van and prison truck at least once every day to make sure they’re still in working order. What does he think’s going to happen to them? They’re not being used and apart from him no-one else has been anywhere near them in days. I asked him about it yesterday. He told me that we can’t afford to take any chances. He told me that we have be ready to get out of here quickly if we need to.

  Much as I think Cooper is overdoing it, I keep asking Michael to make sure our vehicle will be ready when the time to leave finally arrives. And none of us are under any illusions here, we all know that the time to leave is going to come eventually. It might be today, it might be tomorrow or it might not be for six months. The only certainty we have is that we can’t stay down here indefinitely.

  Michael is stirring in bed.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asks, waking up and noticing that I’m not there next to him. His eyes are dark, tired and confused as he looks around for me.

  ‘Nothing’s the matter,’ I answer. ‘Couldn’t sleep, that’s all.’

  He sits up and yawns and beckons me over. I’m still cold. I get back into bed and lie down and he grabs hold of me tightly like we’ve been apart for years.