Autumn a-1 Page 15

  ‘Fuck this,’ he spat. ‘We’ve got to shift them.’

  He looked around again and spied a set of double doors behind a bakery display piled high with stale, mouldy bread. Without saying anything else he took hold of the body at his feet by its shoulders and dragged it across the floor. He kicked open the doors and threw the remains of the man into a room filled with cold, lifeless ovens. Making his way back towards Emma and Carl, he caught hold of the next closest corpse (a check-out operator) and disposed of it in exactly the same way.

  ‘Carl,’ he yelled as he made his way towards the third creature. ‘Grab hold of another one, will you? If you’re quick they don’t have time to react.’

  Carl took a deep breath and grabbed hold of the nearest corpse in a tight headlock. With its thrashing limbs carving desperate, uncoordinated arcs through the stagnant air he hauled it over to the bakery and pushed it through the double doors. It collided with the body of the dead check-out operator which, a fraction of a second earlier, had managed to lift itself back up onto its feet.

  Sensing that quick action was needed, Emma ran over towards the others and shoved through the doors the remains of an elderly cleaner who, unbeknownst to Carl, had been staggering dangerously near. She dropped her shoulder and charged at the pitiful figure. The unexpected force of the impact sent the shuffling carcass (which had all the weight and resistance of a limp rag-doll) flying into the bakery.

  In less than three minutes the survivors had cleared the main area of corpses. Once the last one had been safely pushed through the double-doors Michael wheeled a line of twenty or so shopping trolleys in front to prevent them from pushing their way out.

  ‘Let’s get a move on,’ he said breathlessly as he wiped his dirty hands on the back of his jeans. He stood up straight and rested his hands on his hips. ‘Just get whatever you can. Load it into boxes and pile it up by the van.’

  In silence they began to work.

  As Michael packed tins of beans, soup and spaghetti into cardboard boxes he nervously looked around. The cold, emotionless faces of the bodies in the bakery stared back at him through small square safety-glass windows in the doors. They were still moving continually. They were clamouring to get out but didn’t have the strength to force themselves free. Were they watching him? Had they not acted quickly in locking the bastard things away, would they have attacked them in the same way that the lone body in the field had attacked him earlier?

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Carl said suddenly.

  He was standing at the opposite end of the building to Michael and Emma, close to where the van had smashed through the entrance doors. His voice echoed eerily around the vast and cavernous room.

  ‘What is it?’ Emma asked, immediately concerned.

  ‘You don’t want to know what’s going on outside,’ he replied ominously.

  Emma and Michael looked at each other for a fraction of a second before dropping what they were doing and running over to where Carl was standing.

  ‘Shit,’ Michael hissed as he approached. Even from a distance he could see what had happened.

  Carl had been about to start loading the boxes into the back of the van when he’d noticed a vast crowd of diseased and rotting bodies outside. Their cold, dead faces were pressed hard against the windscreen and every other exposed area of glass. More of the creatures tried unsuccessfully to force their way through the slight gap between the sides of the van and the buckled remains of the supermarket doors.

  Emma stared through the van at the mass of grotesque faces which stared back at her with dark, vacant eyes.

  ‘How did they…?’ she began. ‘Why are there so many of them…?’

  ‘Heard us breaking in, didn’t they,’ Michael whispered. ‘It’s silent out there. They’d have heard the van and the crash for miles around.’

  Gingerly Carl leant inside the van and looked around.

  ‘There are loads of the fucking things here,’ he hissed, his voice just loud enough for the others to hear. ‘There’s got to be thirty or forty of them at least.’

  ‘Shit,’ Michael cursed.

  ‘What?’ Emma asked.

  ‘This is just the start of it,’ he replied. ‘Fucking hell, that was a hell of a noise we made getting in here. The whole building’s probably been surrounded by now.’

  For a few dangerously long seconds the three survivors stood together in silence. They exchanged awkward, uncertain glances as each one waited for one of the others to make a move.

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ Carl eventually said, stating the obvious.

  ‘Have we got everything we need?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Don’t care,’ the other man snapped. ‘We’ve just got to go.’

  Michael immediately began to load boxes and bags of food and supplies into the van.

  ‘You two get inside,’ he said as he worked.

  Carl loaded another two boxes and then clambered back through to the driver’s seat.

  ‘I’ll get the engine going,’ he shouted.

  ‘Leave it,’ Emma shouted back. ‘For God’s sake, leave it to the last possible second will you. The more noise we make the more of those bloody things we’ll have to get through.’

  He didn’t say anything as he climbed through the gap between the front seats and slid down into position. On Michael’s instruction Emma followed and lowered herself into the passenger seat, equally silent. The two of them stared in abject horror at the wall of dead faces gazing back at them. Trying hard to concentrate, Carl attempted to put the key into the ignition. He was shaking with fear. The more he tried to ignore the bodies and keep his hands steady, the more they shook.

  ‘Last couple of boxes,’ Michael yelled as he crammed more and more into the back of the van. He’d left just enough space for him to be able to climb inside and pull the tailgate shut.

  ‘Forget the rest of it,’ Emma shouted. ‘Just get yourself inside.’

  Carl managed to force the key into the ignition. He looked up and to his right. One of the closest bodies in the wretched throng lifted a clumsy hand into the air above its head. It slowly drew its weak and diseased fingers together to form an emaciated fist which, without warning, it brought crashing down on the driver’s door window.

  ‘Michael,’ he shouted, his voice wavering with strained emotion. ‘Are you in yet?’

  ‘Almost,’ the other man replied. ‘Last box.’

  Carl watched as a second body lifted its hand and smashed the side of the van. Then another and another. The reaction spread through the ragged bodies like fire through a tinder-dry forest. Within seconds the inside of the van was ringing with a deafening crescendo of dull thumps and relentless crashes. He turned the key and started the engine.

  ‘I’m in,’ Michael yelled as he hauled himself into the van. He reached out and grabbed hold of the tailgate which he pulled shut. ‘Go!’

  Carl pushed down on the accelerator and cautiously lifted his foot off the clutch. For a second there was no response then a slow, jerking movement as the van inched forward, shackled by the twisted metal remains of the supermarket entrance doors. Another lurch forward and they were free from the door but still progress was difficult, the sheer volume of bodies surrounding the front and sides of the vehicle preventing them from moving away at speed. Terrified, Carl pushed harder on the accelerator and lifted his foot completely off the clutch and this time the van moved away freely. The bulk of the bodies were brushed away to the sides but many others were dragged down under the wheels.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Michael mumbled, watching events behind them through a small gap between boxes and bags of food.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Emma asked.

  ‘They won’t lie down,’ he said. ‘The bastards just won’t lie down.’

  He stared in horror and total disbelief as the crowd surged after them. Although their slow stagger was obviously no match for that of the van, the relentlessness and pointless persistence of the rotting gathering caused an icy chil
l to run the entire length of his spine. There was no point in them following the van, but still they came.

  ‘Almost there,’ Carl said under his breath as he steered towards the car park exit.

  ‘Keep going,’ Emma yelled, her voice hoarse with emotion. ‘For Christ’s sake don’t stop.’

  A single solitary figure stumbled out in front of the van and, rather than waste precious seconds trying to avoid the woman’s body, Carl instead ploughed straight into it. The momentum of the van carried the corpse along for a few meters before it slipped down under the front bumper and was crushed beneath the wheels. As they left the car park and turned onto the road, Michael continued to watch the battered body on the ground. Its legs were smashed and shattered – that much was clear – and yet it still tried to move. The surging crowd tripped and stumbled over it ignorantly but still it continued to move oblivious. Reaching out with twisting, broken fingers, it dragged itself along the ground, inch by inch by inch.

  26

  Michael

  I didn’t know the true meaning of the word fear until we were on our way back to the farm. It was only then that the reality of our situation came crashing down around me. For the last few days life had begun to feel almost bearable – we had lived with our incredible situation for almost a week and the initial shock and desperation had, for a while, begun to subside and had been replaced by something resembling a sense of purpose. We had found ourselves somewhere safe where we could hide together and sit out the storm that had destroyed the rest of the world around us. But the bodies in the field and the visit to the supermarket had changed all that. Suddenly, having found some protection, we were exposed and vulnerable again. And the situation seemed to be deteriorating with each passing hour, practically each minute. As we drove back along roads strewn with rotting human remains and other wrecked remnants of society, I began to wonder what was next. How could things get any worse? The bodies were becoming more violent and unpredictable with each passing hour. If they were ready to tear us apart today, what would they be like tomorrow?

  Once we’d made it back to the farm we quickly unpacked the van. We literally threw the boxes and bags into the house. I watched Emma and Carl as we worked and I could see that they were obviously as terrified as I was. The fear was impossible to hide. Every unexpected movement caused us to freeze and catch our breath and every sudden sound made our hearts miss a collective beat. Even the rustle of the wind through the bushes was no longer just an innocent background noise. Instead it had become a whispered warning and reminder to be constantly on our guard.

  A few long hours later and the three of us found ourselves sitting around the kitchen table.

  ‘So what are we going to do?’ I asked. I couldn’t just sit there and wait any longer.

  Carl shrugged his shoulders and Emma did the same. To her credit she did at least answer me.

  ‘Don’t know,’ she mumbled.

  I had been thinking about our situation constantly, but I hadn’t yet managed to come up with any constructive ideas other than to lock all the doors and sit and hide in the dark and wait. It wouldn’t achieve anything, but at that moment it seemed to be the easiest option.

  ‘We’ll be all right if we can keep them away from the house,’ Emma said a short while later.

  ‘And how are we going to do that?’ I instinctively asked.

  ‘Build a wall or a fence?’ she offered.

  We had discussed building some kind of barrier before, and it still seemed sensible.

  ‘I don’t want to go out there again today,’ Carl grumbled pathetically.

  ‘Neither do I but if we don’t do something,’ I said, ‘then we really are going to be trapped here. We won’t be able to risk making a sound.’

  ‘So how are we supposed to build a fence without making any noise?’ Emma asked. A valid question to which I didn’t have an answer.

  ‘And what are we going to use to build this barrier?’ Carl added.

  Another question that I couldn’t answer.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied honestly. ‘I suppose we’ll just have to use whatever we can find lying around. This is a farm for Christ’s sake. There’s bound to be plenty of stuff if we look for it…’

  Emma picked up a pen and a scrap of paper from the table. She began to sketch a very simple outline of the house.

  ‘You know,’ she mumbled as she drew, ‘there wouldn’t be as much work to do as you’d think. Look, we could build something from the wall of the house down the length of the yard, then take it straight across to the stream.’

  It took a couple of seconds for me to understand what she was saying. From her rough sketch nothing was immediately apparent until she turned it around. As soon as I had my bearings and could associate the drawing with the house, the forest, the generator and the stream and bridge, it started to make sense. By using the barriers that we already had, we could cut down the amount of work we had to do virtually by half. At the moment the bodies still had trouble walking and moving with any co-ordination – there was no way that they’d be able to cross the stream. It wasn’t particularly deep or wide but it was difficult enough for them to keep their balance on dry, solid ground.

  ‘So what do we use to build this fence?’ Carl asked again.

  I thought for a few seconds.

  ‘Doesn’t have to be a fence, does it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, confused.

  ‘It just has to be a barricade,’ I explained with a hundred and one ideas suddenly flooding into my mind. ‘All we want to do is stop those things getting close to the house, isn’t it? Doesn’t matter how we do it. We could build a fence, dig a trench or just park cars and tractors around the place. That would be enough to keep them out.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Emma agreed.

  ‘Okay so they’re strong in numbers,’ I continued, ‘but individually they’re easy to stop. Emma, I watched you shoulder-charge the body of man twice your size today and you virtually threw it across the room.’

  My mind was racing. It all seemed so simple and so obvious. Build a fence down from the side of the house to the bottom of the yard and then across until it meets the stream. Use the bridge as an entry point and block it off somehow. Do the same at the back of the house and take the barrier out far enough to enclose the generator shed and the gas tank. Simple. Safe.

  I took the paper and pen from Emma and began to draw over her basic markings. Perhaps feeling as if I was taking over, she stood up and walked away. Sensing that the conversation had ended (not that he had contributed much anyway) Carl also got up from his chair and left the room.

  For a short time my planning and sketching brought a welcome distraction from the nightmare that was the outside world.

  With my mind occupied the time passed relatively quickly. Before I knew it the morning had ended and we were well into the afternoon. Both Emma and Carl had found other ways and means to occupy themselves and I had been left alone in the kitchen to think and to plan.

  By half-past two I had reached the stage where I knew exactly what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it, but I wasn’t sure what materials we had to use. Perhaps foolishly, I picked up the rusty rifle from where we’d left it lying on one of the kitchen units and went outside.

  There were no bodies to be seen. The afternoon was dry and clear but cold. As summer had faded and died and autumn had arrived the temperature had dropped steadily. There was a light breeze rustling through the trees and bushes but otherwise the world was silent.

  In the two large barns at the side of the yard I found some timber and a few fence posts. There was also some barbed wire. While I was there I looked at the barns themselves. They appeared strong but not indestructible. The wooden walls and the sheets of corrugated metal on the roof of each of the dull buildings also looked like they were going to be useful. On top of all of that I discovered numerous bits and pieces of farm equipment scattered around the place. I didn’t know what half of it was for,
but I knew that all of it could be used in someway to build a barrier between us and the rest of the diseased population.

  I began to walk back towards the farmhouse feeling unusually calm and assured. The terror and stomach-wrenching fear of the morning had, for a time at least, subsided and been put to one side. The respite didn’t last long. The light was beginning to fade and, as night rapidly approached, a single innocent and unexpected thought wormed its way into my tired brain and slowly and systematically destroyed the confidence and sense of purpose that I had spent the previous hours silently building up inside me.

  I thought about a friend from work.

  Just for a fraction of a second I pictured her face, and the memory of all that I had lost and left behind suddenly returned. With this torrent of unexpected memories came an equally unexpected torrent of pain and raw emotion.

  For what felt like hours I sat alone on the steps outside the porch of the farmhouse and wept. I pictured the faces of my family and friends, of my colleagues from work, my customers, the people at the garage who had fixed my car a couple of weeks ago, the woman who’d sold me a paper on the morning it had all begun… as I saw each one of them the bitter realisation that they were gone forever felt like nails being driven into my flesh. And each dull pain was followed by a second hurt. While everyone I knew lay rotting in the streets – either lying motionless on the ground or dragging themselves around in endless agony – I had survived. Why me? Why should I have lived over all those others? I thought about my two brothers – Steven and Richard. I hadn’t seen them for a couple of months. I hoped that they were like me and that they had survived. The thought of them being like those fucking monsters I’d seen this morning was too much to take…

  But what could I do?

  Why should I feel this way?

  There was nothing I could have done to have changed any of it.

  I picked myself up and went indoors. I was filled with a deep hurt that I knew would never completely disappear. But I owed it to myself to try and build something from what was left.