Autumn a-1 Read online

  ‘Get going,’ he said quietly. ‘Put your fucking foot down and get back to the house.’

  ‘Okay,’ she mumbled, her eyes filling with frightened tears. She clambered over the gate and took a couple of hesitant steps forward before pausing to look back. One last glance at the approaching bodies was enough. She turned and began running back towards the farmhouse for all she was worth.

  ‘Carl!’ Michael shouted. ‘We’re going. Pull yourself together…’

  Carl looked up and finally saw the two corpses approaching. In a defiant last outburst of anger and frustration he kicked the still moving corpse in the head one more time. He caught it square in the face and felt bones shatter and break under the force of his boot. Thick crimson-black, almost congealed blood dribbled from a gaping hole where its nose and mouth had been. The creature finally lay still. Silently satisfied, Carl turned and ran after the others.

  ‘I’m coming,’ he yelled.

  He sprinted back through the mud and hauled himself over the gate, almost losing his balance when a forth bedraggled body came at him from out of nowhere. He ran harder than he’d ever forced himself to run before, knowing full well that his life might depend on reaching the safety of the farmhouse.

  By the time the three survivors had made it back to the house the first battered body in the field had dragged itself up onto its unsteady feet again. It turned awkwardly and followed eleven other bodies as they converged on the isolated building.

  24

  ‘What the fucking hell is going on?’ Michael cursed as he pushed open the farmhouse door and ushered Emma inside. Carl followed seconds later and, as the second man entered the building, Michael slammed the door shut behind him and locked it. Emma slid down the wall at the bottom of the stairs and held her head in her hands.

  ‘Christ knows,’ she sighed, exhausted and out of breath.

  Carl barged back past Michael to peer through one of the small glass windows in the front door.

  ‘Shit,’ he hissed under his breath. ‘There are loads of them out there, bloody loads of them. I can see at least ten from here.’

  He seemed strangely fascinated by everything that was happening outside. While Emma and Michael were content to shut the door and lock themselves away from the rest of the nightmare world, Carl was pumped full of adrenaline. Almost ready, it seemed, for a fight.

  Michael sat down on the stairs next to Emma and gently rested his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘They’ve changed,’ she said, her head still held low. ‘I don’t know what’s happened or why but they’ve changed.’

  ‘I know. I saw it last night,’ he whispered, ‘when you and Carl were asleep.’

  Emma looked up.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I went out to shut off the generator and there were four of them hanging around outside the shed.’

  ‘You didn’t say anything…’

  ‘I didn’t think anything of it until now. Anyway, as soon as I switched off the generator they disappeared.’

  ‘Don’t think they’re coming any closer,’ Carl said, his face still pressed hard against the glass, still ignorant to their conversation. ‘Looks like they’re starting to move away again.’

  ‘Which way are they going?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Not sure. Might be heading towards the back of the house.’

  ‘Back to the generator?’ Emma wondered.

  ‘Could be, why?’

  She shrugged her shoulders and held her head again.

  ‘Don’t know,’ she mumbled, rubbing her tired and tearstained eyes. ‘Last night, did those bodies leave as soon as the generator was switched off?’

  ‘I think so,’ Michael replied.

  ‘Well that’s it then, isn’t it?’

  ‘What?’ he pressed, suddenly feeling a little foolish and confused because although she seemed to understand some of what was happening, he didn’t have a clue. He respected Emma’s opinion but wished that he could understand for himself what was happening to the once human shells wandering around the desolate countryside. She may only have been a part-qualified doctor (if that) but that part-qualification seemed to make her the last surviving authority on what remained of the human condition.

  ‘They’re starting to regain their senses.’

  ‘But why? Why now?’

  ‘I don't know. Remember how they suddenly got up and started moving around?’

  ‘Yes…’

  ‘So this must be the same thing.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Carl interrupted, turning from events outside to face the others and join their conversation.

  ‘Don’t know really,’ she admitted. ‘Perhaps they weren’t as badly damaged as we first thought.’

  ‘Jesus,’ he laughed, unable to believe what he was hearing. ‘They couldn’t have been much more badly damaged, could they? They we’re dead for Christ’s sake!’

  ‘I know that,’ she sighed. ‘So maybe it’s just a small part of them that’s survived. The only reactions we’ve seen have been basic and instinctive. I was taught that there’s a lump of jelly right in the middle of the brain that might be responsible for instinct. Maybe that’s the part of them that’s still alive?’

  ‘But they didn’t attack me last night, did they?’ Michael reminded her. ‘I walked right past those bastards and…’

  ‘Perhaps they were only just starting to respond last night? This is a gradual thing. From what you’ve told me it seems possible that they’ve only been like this for a few hours.’

  ‘This sounds like bullshit,’ Carl snapped angrily.

  ‘I know it does,’ Emma admitted, ‘but you come up with a better explanation and I’ll listen. One morning everyone drops down dead. A few days later, half of them get up and start walking around again. A few days after that and they start responding to the outside world and their eyes and ears start working again. You’re completely right, Carl, it stinks. It does sounds like bullshit…’

  ‘But it’s happening,’ Michael reminded him. ‘Doesn’t matter how ridiculous or far-fetched any of it sounds, it’s happening out there.’

  ‘I know, but…’ Carl began.

  ‘But nothing,’ he interrupted. ‘These are the facts and we’ve got to deal with them. Simple as that.’

  The conversation ended abruptly and the house became deathly silent. The lack of noise unnerved Carl.

  ‘So why did that thing attack you?’ he asked, looking directly towards Michael for answer he knew the other man could not give.

  ‘Don’t know,’ he admitted.

  ‘I’m sure it’s sound they respond to first,’ Emma said. ‘They hear something and turn towards it. Once they see what it is they try and get closer.’

  ‘That makes sense…’ Michael began.

  ‘Nothing makes sense,’ Carl muttered. Ignoring him, Michael continued.

  ‘The noise from the generator last night, the gunshot this morning…’

  ‘So we’ve just got to stay quiet and stay out of sight,’ she sighed.

  ‘And how the hell are we going to do that?’ Carl demanded, suddenly and unexpectedly furious. ‘Where are you going to get a fucking silent car from? What are we going to do, go out to get our food on fucking push-bikes? Wearing fucking camouflage jackets?’

  ‘Shut up,’ Michael said, calmly but firmly. ‘You’ve got to try and deal with this, Carl.’

  ‘Don’t patronise me you bastard,’ Carl hissed.

  ‘Look,’ Emma snapped, standing up and positioning herself directly between the two men, ‘will both of you please shut up? It’s like Michael says, Carl, we’ve got no option but to try and deal with this as best we can…’

  ‘So what are we going to do then?’ he asked, a little calmer but with his voice still shaking with an equal mixture of frustrated anger and fear.

  ‘We need to get more supplies,’ Michael said quietly. ‘If they are becoming more aware and more dangerous all the time then I think we should go out rig
ht now and get as much stuff as we can carry. Then we should get ourselves back here as quickly as we can and lie low for a while.’

  ‘And how long is that likely to be?’ Carl asked, clearly beginning to wind himself up again. ‘A week, two weeks? A month? Ten fucking years?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the other man replied, equally agitated. ‘How the hell should I know that?’

  ‘Shut up!’ Emma yelled, immediately silencing the other two. ‘For Christ’s sake, if neither of you can say anything without arguing then don’t bother saying anything at all.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Michael mumbled, running his fingers through his matted hair.

  ‘So what are we going to do?’ she asked.

  Rather than answer or take any further part in the increasingly difficult conversation, Carl walked away.

  ‘Where are you going? Carl, come back here. We need to talk about this.’

  Halfway up the stairs he stopped and turned back around to face her.

  ‘What’s left to talk about? What’s the point.’

  ‘The point is we’ve got to do something and I think we should do it now,’ Michael said. ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen next, do we? Things could be a hundred times worse tomorrow.’

  ‘He’s right,’ agreed Emma. ‘We’ve got enough stuff here to last us for a few days but we need enough to last us weeks. I think we should get out now and barricade ourselves in when we get back.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Carl, now much quieter and calmer. He sat down on the stair he’d been standing on. ‘I don’t want to shut myself away in here…’

  ‘Maybe we shouldn’t,’ Michael said. ‘Maybe we should try it a different way, try and seal off the farm from the outside.’

  ‘And how are we supposed to do that?’ Emma wondered.

  ‘Build a fence,’ he replied, simply.

  ‘It’d have to be a fucking strong fence,’ Carl added.

  ‘Then we’ll build a fucking strong fence,’ Michael explained. ‘We’ll get whatever materials we need today and make a start. Face it we’re not going to find anywhere better to stay than this place. We need to protect it.’

  ‘We need to protect ourselves,’ said Emma, correcting him.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said, picking up the keys to the van from a hook on the wall by the front door.

  ‘Now?’ said Carl.

  ‘Now,’ he replied.

  Michael opened the door and made his way to the van, stopping only to pick up the rifle from where Carl had left it in the yard in front of the house.

  25

  Carl drove the van while Michael and Emma sat in the back together drawing up a list of everything they could think they might need. It had been a conscious move by Michael to hand the keys over to the other man. He hadn’t liked the way Carl had been acting this morning. Sure all three of them were right on the edge at the moment, but his position seemed more precarious than that of the other two. There was an undeniable air of uncertainty and fear in his voice every time he spoke. Michael’s logic was that by distracting him and giving him a definite role to concentrate on, his mind would be occupied and any problems could be temporarily avoided. He could sympathise with the poor bastard entirely. He knew that he personally could just about handle what was going on around him at the moment, but if anything else happened he wasn’t so sure that he’d be able to cope.

  Less than two minutes trying to draw up the list and the two survivors stopped, both of them quickly realising that it was a waste of their precious time and that they couldn’t afford to even try and be specific anymore. Truth was they couldn’t risk wasting time trying to find the things they thought they might need, instead they had no option but to fill the van with whatever they could lay their hands on and only stop when there wasn’t space for anything else.

  Carl drove towards the village of Byster at a phenomenal speed. Michael silently wished that he would slow down but he knew that he wouldn’t. He’d found himself accelerating at a similar rate whenever he’d driven recently. Driving was deceptively difficult because although silent, every road was strewn with hundreds upon hundreds of random obstacles – crashed and abandoned cars, burnt out wrecks and the remains of collapsed buildings. There were scattered, motionless corpses and scores of other wandering bodies everywhere. When Michael had driven he’d found that a nervous pressure had forced him to keep accelerating. He felt sure that Carl was feeling that same clammy, noxious fear too.

  Before they reached the village they passed a vast, warehouse-like supermarket, brightly painted and completely at odds with the lush green countryside which surrounded it. Carl slammed his foot on the brake, quickly turned the van around and drove back towards the large building. It was a crucial find. They guessed that pretty much everything they needed would be inside. More importantly, filling the van with supplies there meant that they didn’t need to get any closer to the centre of the village. More to the point, it meant that they could keep their distance from the sick and diseased remains of the local population.

  ‘Brilliant,’ Carl said under his breath as he pulled into the car park and slowed the van down. ‘This is fucking brilliant.’

  He gently turned the steering wheel and guided their vehicle round in a wide and careful arc. Other than four stationary cars (two empty, one containing three motionless bodies and the other a charred wreck) and a single body which tripped and stumbled towards them they seemed to be alone.

  ‘You want to get as close as you can to the main doors,’ Michael advised from his position behind Carl. ‘We want to be out in the open as little as possible.’

  Carl’s immediate response was to do and say nothing. After thinking for a couple of seconds he put the van into first gear and pulled away again. He turned away from the building and then stopped when the glass entrance doors were directly behind him.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Emma asked quietly.

  ‘I think he’s going to reverse back,’ Michael replied, his voice equally low. ‘It’s what I’d do. If I was driving I’d try and get us almost touching the doors so that…’

  He stopped speaking suddenly when Carl jammed the van into reverse gear and slammed his foot down on the accelerator pedal. The force of the sudden and unexpected movement threw Emma and Michael forward in their seats.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Michael screamed over the screeching of tyres tearing across the car park. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  The other man didn’t answer. He was looking back over his shoulder, looking past Emma and Michael and towards the supermarket doors. The engine whined as the van hurtled back towards the silent building.

  ‘Carl!’ Emma protested uselessly. She turned to look behind her and then crouched down with her hands over her head as she braced herself for impact. The van smashed into the plate glass doors and then stopped suddenly – the ear splitting noise of the engine immediately replaced by the deafening crash of shattering glass and the ominous groan of metal on metal. Carl pressed hard on the brake and Michael looked out of the window to his side. The van had stopped a third inside the building and two thirds out in the car park. They were virtually wedged in the doorway.

  ‘You stupid fucking idiot!’ Emma screamed.

  Ignoring her, Carl turned off the engine, opened the tailgate using a control lever by his right foot, took the keys from the ignition and then clambered out over the back seats. He stepped out into the supermarket, his boots crunching and grinding jagged shards of glass into the marble floor.

  ‘Good move,’ Michael mumbled under his breath as he watched Carl. He quietly acknowledged that the other man’s unorthodox parking, whilst battering the exterior of their van, had made their situation infinitely easier. Not only had he got them safely inside the building, he’d also managed to block the entrance at the same time, and the entrance would stay blocked until they decided to leave. He was impressed, but he didn’t want Carl to know that he approved. Michael felt sure that he was having real difficulty in
coming to terms with recent events and he thought it was important to keep his feet firmly planted on the ground. If he boosted his confidence by applauding his risky and very direct actions what would he do next?

  Michael followed Carl out into the supermarket and Emma followed a few seconds later.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ she scowled, screwing up her face in disgust.

  ‘Stinks, doesn’t it?’ Carl said, turning back to look at the others.

  Michael covered his nose and took a few cautious steps further forward. The air was heavy with the sickening stench of rotting food and rotting flesh. More than just unpleasant, the obnoxious smell was stifling and suffocating. It hung heavy in the air and he could feel it coating his throat and dirtying his clothes and hair. It was making Emma retch and heave. She had to fight to control the rising bile in her stomach.

  ‘We should get a move on,’ Michael suggested. ‘We don’t want to be here any longer than we need to be.’

  ‘I agree,’ Emma said. ‘I can’t stand much of this…’

  Her words were viciously truncated as she was knocked off balance by a lurching, staggering figure which appeared from out of nowhere. The stumbling creature had silently dragged itself along an aisle of rapidly decomposing food. Emma screamed and instinctively pushed the corpse away and down to the ground. Michael stood and watched as the remains of a gaunt, mousy-haired shop-assistant lay still for a second before its withered arms and legs began to flail around again as it desperately tried to haul itself back up onto its unsteady feet. Before it could get up he kicked it in the face and it dropped back down again.

  ‘We should have a look around,’ he said, anxiously looking from side to side. ‘There’s bound to be more of them in here.’

  He was right. The deafening crash of the van as it ploughed through the glass doors had attracted the unwelcome attentions of a further five ragged cadavers which had been trapped inside the building. The clumsy remains of four shop staff and one delivery driver slowly advanced towards the three survivors. The battered body on the floor reached out a bony hand and grabbed hold of Michael’s leg. He shook it free and kicked the creature in the head again.