Autumn: Aftermath Page 13

  “It was rush hour,” Donna said quietly. “Remember that?”

  Michael remembered the daily hell of the rush-hour grind all too well. Like the people who had died here, he’d once had to cram himself into overfull buses and trains to get to work and back each day. He remembered it with a kind of nostalgic fondness now, but another look into the desolation was enough to snap him out of his daze. The interior of the modern-looking building was like a mass grave, many bodies lying in the shadows on top of each other, many more still languidly moving through the dark. Some of them gravitated toward the glass, decaying hands pawing the windows and doors as if they were trying to attract his attention and get help. The time for that was long gone.

  Leaving the others for a moment, Michael walked farther around the perimeter of the station, captivated by the succession of horrific sights which unfolded in front of him. A bus had become trapped in the station exit, hitting the wall on one side, becoming wedged and completely blocking the way out. Even now he could see a sticky mass of decay which was once its passengers, reduced to little more than a bone-filled soup as a result of several months’ constant movement, grinding against each other in such a confined space. He couldn’t see how many people had died on the bus, but their decay was sufficient that, even now, an offensive-smelling, yellow-brown bile was still dripping out from under the door.

  Michael continued in the direction he’d been walking, and saw that this had been a railway station too, not just a bus depot. He stepped over the crumpled remains of a corpse lying at the bottom of a steep staircase, its neck broken by the fall, then climbed up onto an elevated walkway. This pedestrian bridge had obviously been necessary to get people over the train tracks which ran directly below, but it had also been designed as a viewing area of sorts, and from the midpoint he had a clear view over the entire station below: the tracks, the engines, the platforms, and the concourses. Jesus, he thought, this place had been packed when the world had been brought to an abrupt end last September. The station was heaving with decay. And as for the trains themselves … He could only look for a few seconds before turning away. At every window in every carriage there seemed to be countless dead faces staring out, still trying to escape after all this time.

  Harry took out a few of the nearest corpses as they advanced toward the marina—it didn’t feel right not to—but they simply walked past many of the others. It was almost as if time had stopped and everything had frozen. It felt impossible, surreal almost, and yet, bizarrely, it also felt good.

  It’s like we’re in control again, Cooper thought as they walked—walked!—through the kind of open spaces which would have been impossible to cover on foot last time they were on the mainland. He crossed a miniature golf course nearer to the seafront, climbing over small hills and stepping over dried-up streams, weaving around wooden windmills with faded paint.

  Today was a stark contrast to the last time he’d been on the mainland. He remembered his desperate escape back then after being stranded in the overrun airfield at Monkton with Emma, Juliet Appleby, and Steve Armitage. He never admitted as much, but he still had occasional nightmares about that day. Maybe his time back here now would change all that? It was a trendy expression he hated to use, but perhaps being here again would bring them all some closure.

  21

  They kept the car park and, more important, the helicopter in view as much as possible as they explored the rest of the town. After finding a small, industrial-looking boatyard first, they worked their way through increasingly exclusive-looking sections of the marina, eventually ending up in a more secluded landing area where a number of fantastically expensive boats had been moored. Most were empty. In one, a luxurious cruiser named The BarJerr (obviously a grotesque amalgamation of the owners’ forenames, Cooper thought), Harry found a body preserved to an unfortunate degree by the dry conditions and relatively steady temperature inside the cabin. It still wore a pair of hideous shorts and sandals, and a shirt once pastel pink but now stained anything but. It threw itself at him with sudden speed—just like they used to, he thought—but it was no match for his strength. He cut it down with a few well-aimed strokes, leaving it hacked into two uneven halves on the deck, then moving on to the next boat.

  After identifying a number of possibilities, they eventually found two boats moored next to each other which looked like they’d do the job: the Duchess and the Summer Breeze. They were both of a similar size, ten meters long, obviously strong and seaworthy, but more important they were in relatively good condition given the fact they’d been left in the water untended through the autumn and winter months, and looked easy enough to sail. Cooper and Harry both had a reasonable amount of experience with boats, albeit very different types of vessels they’d sailed in wildly different circumstances. But it would be enough to get them back to Cormansey.

  Their objectives were straightforward—transport and supplies. They left Harry to secure this part of the marina, then check the two boats over and get them ready to sail. They took him at his word that he knew enough about electrics, propellers, waterproofing, outboards, and the like to get the job done.

  Cooper, Richard, and Donna found a nearby supermarket. They broke in quickly and began looting, initially working at frantic speed, falling into old habits and grabbing whatever they could get their hands on as corpses began to crowd the building and slam up against the windows. After a while, however, their nervousness faded and they began to loot at a gentler pace. They took their time and collected food which would last and they could easily transport and distribute. Food which would keep the people on Cormansey healthy and strong. Medicines. Tools. Clothes. Cooper didn’t find everything he was looking for. He made a mental note to try and find a garden center, DIY store, or farm shop before they returned to the island. We need to start thinking ahead now, he thought, realizing just how much their situation had changed since they’d last been on the mainland. We need to start planning for the future, now that it looks like we might actually have one. We need to be able to plant and harvest crops, to grow as much of our own food as we can. We need to get ourselves into a position where everything we need can be found on the island and we never have to come back here again unless we want to.

  * * *

  A short time later he found Donna standing in the middle of a clothing department, standing in silence, just looking up at the dust-covered mannequins. Jack Baxter had been moaning to her recently about all the clichés in the post-apocalyptic books he used to love to read. “I don’t want to end up looking like an idiot,” he’d told her. “I want to wear decent, comfortable clothes, not hand-knitted jumpers and coats made out of sewn-together animal skins!”

  Donna hadn’t moved for a while. Cooper wondered what was wrong.

  “You okay?” he asked, startling her. She caught her breath and turned around to face him, smiling briefly.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You sure?”

  “Sure.”

  “What were you looking at?”

  She pointed at two female dummies directly in front of her. The wig had slipped off one of them, partially covering its face and leaving half of its head unflatteringly bald. The other had a beard of cobwebs stretching from its chin to its chest, and wore a short party dress; even now some of the thousands of sequins caught the afternoon light which trickled in through the window. It had a handbag slung over one frozen shoulder, and it was wearing a pair of gorgeous (Donna thought), yet completely impractical, stiletto heels.

  “Love those shoes,” she said.

  “Have them, then.”

  “Are you having a laugh? I mean, I know I could take them, but what’s the point? When am I going to get to wear them? When I’m walking into the village? Around the house? They’re not that practical for trudging across fields.”

  “Sorry,” Cooper said quickly, feeling unexpectedly embarrassed and insensitive.

  “It’s not your fault.” Donna sighed, looking down with disappointment at the
jeans and mud-splattered boots she was wearing, shoving her hands into the pockets of the same winter coat she’d worn every day for as long as she could remember. “I was just thinking, are we ever going to be able to dress like that again?”

  “Well, I’m not,” he joked, immediately regretting his ill-considered jibe when he saw the expression on her face.

  “I can’t believe we ever used to look like this,” she said. “I used to love getting dressed up for a night out with the girls. Getting ready was half the fun. We were usually pissed before we’d even got out the front door.”

  “Bloody students,” Cooper grumbled, but she didn’t bite. Instead she thought more about what she’d just said, and tried to picture the others on Cormansey letting their hair down. Would any of them ever bother? Even if they did—all of them piling into the island’s single pub, perhaps, finding a way to play music and glamming up for old times’ sake—she knew it wouldn’t be the same. It’d be like playacting, and would inevitably leave them all feeling emptier than ever. Such a night would only serve to highlight the fact that all of this was gone forever now. It was time to accept that that part of her life was over.

  * * *

  A few doors farther down the street, Michael was on his own in another store, collecting baby equipment from a list Emma had drawn up with help from some of the women on the island. She wasn’t even halfway through her pregnancy yet, but he didn’t know if or when he’d get another opportunity like this. He hadn’t felt able to ask any of the other islanders to get this stuff for him—some people had lost kids, others assumed they’d now never have any—and that had been the main reason he’d agreed to come back here himself. Now he stood in the baby store, completely alone, the handwritten shopping list gripped tight in his hand, wishing he could feel even a fraction of the excitement he’d always imagined an expectant father should.

  It was strange, he thought. Of all the silent, empty places he’d been since most of the world had died last September, this felt like the quietest, emptiest place of all. It was eerie. He was used to being alone—they all were—but being here took loneliness to another level entirely. Around him, the walls were covered with paintings of fairy-tale characters, oversized letters and numbers, and black-and-white photographs of the faces of innocent toddlers and expectant moms. He couldn’t imagine that this place had ever been quiet like this before. On the rare occasions he’d had to come into stores like this, he’d always been driven out by the sounds of kids crying and the incessant nursery rhyme music being piped through the PA on repeat.

  Michael had almost been looking forward to coming here—as much as he looked forward to anything these days—but the reality had proved to be disappointingly grim. He dutifully fetched himself a trolley and began to fill it, ticking items off the list: baby-grows, nappies, bottles, the odd toy, all the powdered milk and food he could find which was still in date with a decent shelf life … As he worked, disappointingly familiar doubts began to reappear. He’d managed to blank them out for a while, but here today on his own with Emma so far away, it was impossible not to think about the future his unborn child might or might not have. There remained a very real possibility—perhaps even a probability—that the baby would die almost immediately after birth. But even if it did survive, what kind of a life would it have to look forward to? He imagined the child growing up on Cormansey and outliving everyone else. Suddenly it didn’t seem too fantastic to believe that, all other things being equal, his and Emma’s child might truly end up being the last person left alive on the face of the planet. How would he or she feel? Michael couldn’t even begin to imagine the loneliness they might experience as their elders gradually passed away. Imagine knowing you were never going to see another person’s face, that no one would ever come if you screamed for help …

  Snap out of it, he told himself. Get a fucking grip.

  Angry for allowing himself to sound so defeatist, and now moving with much more speed than before, Michael pushed the trolley around into another aisle and then stopped. Lying in front of him was the body of what he assumed had once been a young mom. Judging by the look of the stretched clothing which now hung like tent canvas, flapping over what remained of her emaciated frame, this woman had probably been pregnant when she’d died. Just ahead of her was a pushchair which had toppled over onto its side.

  And it was empty.

  Michael panicked, irrationally fearing that at any moment the dishevelled remains of a dead baby might be about to scuttle across the floor and attack him. He grabbed the rest of the things he needed and ran for the door, feeling like he was being watched.

  * * *

  When the four of them finally returned to the marina, they found that it had been surrounded. Harry had built a temporary blockade to keep the dead at bay, but they’d continued to advance. They moved almost too slowly to see, trickling forward like thick molasses.

  22

  It had always been their intention to spend at least one night on the mainland, probably two or three. After the emotional events of the day now ending, the group planned to make the most of their situation and relax. It actually seemed possible to do that now they realized how little a threat the dead posed in their pitifully weak condition. They lit a series of bonfires in metal dustbins and positioned them in open spaces around the marina and the closest parts of the town to distract the corpses and draw them away from the boats.

  Harry had managed to get both of the boats’ engines started while the others had been out looting. He’d even managed to rig up a basic radio in each boat. That had been unexpectedly unnerving, scanning the wavelengths and hearing nothing but unending static. For a while he’d wondered if he might find someone else transmitting, like he’d always seen happen in the movies. But he didn’t. There was nothing.

  It had taken a while to load up the boats, splitting the supplies equally between them, and yet there had still been plenty of space. Cooper suggested they should “shop” again in the morning, both to maximize the usefulness of this expedition, and to replace the food and booze he intended gorging himself on tonight.

  Michael found another boat moored well away from all the others. It was an enormous luxury craft, so large it warranted a section of the marina almost to itself. He thought it would probably have cost more than his house, maybe even the entire street. They’d be back on Cormansey in a couple of days’ time, and he suggested they spent their nights here. It would probably be their last opportunity to eat, drink, and relax in such relative comfort for a while, if not their last ever. There were rooms enough for all of them to sleep, and a large lounge. Harry managed to get the electrics working—he was proving bloody useful to have around—and the five of them settled down to an evening which, unexpectedly, began to echo the normality of their old lives.

  Richard was in the galley, cooking. In times past he’d been a keen cook, to the point where he’d taken a couple of courses in the evenings after work. He’d initially gone along because he’d thought it might be a good place to meet women, before realizing that cooking was something he actually enjoyed. He’d long since tired of the bachelor life, but he’d never had much luck with relationships. A helicopter pilot who loved to cook: he used to joke with his friends that he couldn’t understand how women could resist him. But there had been a serious side to his lighthearted moaning. He wasn’t getting any younger, and he’d been actively looking for someone to settle down and share the rest of his life with. He’d even joined a couple of dating Web sites and had put one of those “last chance” (as he called them) lonely heart adverts in the local paper. It had all been academic, because the end of the world had come along and fucked everything up before he’d met anyone. Now he was damned like most of the rest of the men who’d survived to an enforced life of celibacy. It hadn’t mattered until recently—until he’d been on the island for a while and had actually had a chance to start thinking about things like love and sex and relationships again—but it was beginning to really play o
n his mind now. He’d been daydreaming about finding a camp populated exclusively by nubile young female survivors, desperate for the company of men …

  His idle thoughts were interrupted by a loud crash and a scream of protest from the other end of the boat. He quickly ran to the lounge but relaxed when he saw that it was nothing. Harry had knocked a bottle of beer over the table where he and Donna had been playing cards.

  “Be careful, for Christ’s sake,” Richard said, acutely aware that he was starting to sound like an overzealous parent. Truth was, all he was worried about was the fact there were a finite number of bottles of beer left in the country, and he couldn’t bear the thought of any drink being wasted.

  “Food nearly done?” Harry asked, wiping the table with his sleeve, sounding slightly booze-slurred.

  “Not yet,” Richard said, already on his way back to the kitchen. “You can’t rush perfection.”

  The meal was almost ready. He hadn’t cooked much, but he’d enjoyed working in the galley with its equipment, which actually worked. In his house back on Cormansey he still used a portable gas burner which sat on the top of a perfectly good, but completely useless, electric oven. Other people cooked on open fires. In the early days on the island, there had been a spontaneous, almost ceremonial disposal of pretty much anything electrical. Telephones, computers, TVs … they’d all been thrown on a huge fire in the middle of Danver’s Lye. There hadn’t seemed to be any point keeping anything like that.

  Richard opened the oven and sniffed the cottage pie he’d cooked. Bloody hell, it smelled good. The meat and vegetables were tinned, the sauce was out of a jar, and the mashed potato on top was from a packet mix, but it didn’t matter. What he’d have given for some fresh ingredients though. Imagine that, he thought, his mouth watering. Steak … a bacon sandwich for breakfast … a mug of tea first thing in the morning made with real milk …