Autumn Page 18

  Get some food, he thought, then get back underground. I’ll re-stock the bunker, get rid of the body, make myself comfortable, then wait for all of this to blow over.

  #

  Almost four o’clock. Exhausted and anxious, carrying a heavy holdall full of spare clothes, Councillor Cox approached the supermarket that he and Marcia usually shopped at. He’d had to walk. His way out of the front of his house blocked, he’d instead sneaked out the back and climbed over the fence at the bottom of the garden. Bloody hell, some of the public had been waiting for him there too! He’d found himself in the middle of a crowd of between twenty and thirty of them. He’d tried to reason with them, tried to make them see there was nothing he could do to help so many of them, but they wouldn’t listen. To his shame he’d pushed and barged his way through the crowd in tears, unable to get away quick enough.

  The supermarket was as desolate as everywhere else. That pleased Ray. He was sick of the way what remained of the population gravitated towards him whenever they saw him. He wished they’d just leave him alone. Didn’t they know that he had problems too? Who was going to help him out? Just because he wasn’t as sick as they obviously were, it didn’t mean he was able to run to the aid of every person who happened to see him. As he neared the building he could see a few people swarming around the front entrance doors. He decided to try and get in through the back. The loading bay was a much quieter option.

  Ray weaved through the abandoned lorries, trolleys and carts at the back of the huge store, then worked his way through the bakery and into the main part of the shop. Bloody hell, the place smelled rank. The council health and safety department would have had a field day. A week’s worth of rotting food and rotting flesh had combined to leave a smell so strong it made him gag. Stay calm Ray, he told himself, you can do this. Get everything you need here then shut yourself away for as long as it takes for this bloody mess to sort itself out. It’s not all down to you.

  Two bodies staggered towards him. Ray turned when he heard one of them crash into a display of boxes of crisps, stacked up like a pyramid.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ he hissed at them, loud enough for them to hear but not so loud that the rest of the dead shoppers would notice. ‘I can’t help you. There’s nothing I can do for any of you…’ But they kept coming. What didn’t they understand? ‘Look, I’m really sorry. I’m sure someone will be along soon who’ll be able to help, but it’s not me. I’m just here to get some food then I’m leaving. You’re not the only ones with problems, you know.’

  The corpses were undeterred. The nearest of them was just a couple of metres away now and its relentless, slothful approach unnerved Ray. He went down another aisle to try and get over to the other side of the building, but there were more of them waiting for him there. Panic rising, he looked around and could see them dragging themselves towards him from just about every direction; creeping up the aisles, crawling over empty cardboard boxes and piles of spoiled food… he counted more than twenty of them now, and more were beginning to pour in through the supermarket’s open entrance doors. In desperation and exacerbation he climbed up onto the lid of the nearest of a row of chest freezers full of defrosted food to both address the advancing public and get out of their reach. He needed to put these people straight once and for all.

  ‘Stop!’ he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous building and attracting the attention of the few remaining bodies who hadn’t yet noticed him. ‘Just leave me alone, will you? There’s nothing I can do for any of you. Go away!’

  In his confused, misguided state, Ray failed to appreciate the stupidity of his actions. With renewed interest the corpses surged towards him now. As the closest reached out and grabbed at him with numb hands, he scrambled back across the row of freezers. One of them – the fourth in line – was open but he didn’t notice until it was too late. He slipped and he fell into it, sinking deep into a mushy sludge of soaked cardboard boxes and rotting quiches, pizzas and lasagnes. The sudden drop meant he was now face to face with the dead; eye level with what was left of the people of the borough of Taychester. The same people who used to use the tennis courts and football pitches that he had responsibility for, the same people whose lives were shaped in the council meetings he slept through. Ray tried to get up again but lost his footing and slipped deeper into the soggy mire. Terrified, he reached out and grabbed hold of the shoulders of the nearest cadaver and hauled himself up, using the body for support. He clung onto it as he climbed out, and stared into its face, hideously distorted by decay. But there was something about it… the shape of its wiry frame, the lank white hair which hung listlessly from its scalp… It reminded him of his mother. He’d buried mother more than five years ago though, so there was no way it could have been her—

  —the body threw itself at him. Distracted, he was knocked off-balance. It tried to force its claw-like hands up closer to his face. He panicked and tried to push the foul thing away again but it managed to slash at his jacket, its fingers snagging on his lapel, tearing one of its nails clean off. He gagged with disgust as he picked off the nail and flicked it away, then ducked to one side as the body came at him again. Another corpse behind him did the same and the two cadavers grabbed each other when they both missed him. He dropped down as they scrabbled above him, clawing at each other, half-fighting, half-trying to get away.

  On his hands and knees, crawling through ice-cold, foul-smelling water and muck, he weaved through the vast forest of unsteady legs surrounding him. The people didn’t seem to see him down there, so he kept moving.

  Councillor Cox crawled out of the supermarket. Soaking wet. Smelling of decay. Panic-struck. Terrified. Ashamed.

  #

  Ray arrived back at the council house in a supermarket-branded home delivery van. It had some food in the back, and he hoped that would be enough because there was no way he was going back there again. He slammed on the brakes when he reached the civic square and looked around anxiously, checking ahead and in his mirrors. Already more of the people of the borough were heading his way from all directions. Would they never stop? He’d only been stationary for a couple of seconds and already they were swarming around the van, banging and hammering angrily on its sides, demanding he help them. He edged the vehicle forward, hoping to nudge them out of the way, but they just stood there defiant and stared at him. In temper he slammed his foot down on the accelerator and tore through the lot of them.

  Into the car park. Down the ramp. Round and round and down until he reached Level 2. He reversed the van close to the open bunker door and ran into the underground shelter. It was still empty, thank God, except for the body in the dormitory, of course. Too scared to stop and think about what he was doing Ray crashed through the bunker then yanked the dormitory door open. Shelly Bright’s corpse, now looking particularly grotesque and discoloured, lunged at him at the same time that he lunged at her. The councillor and the corpse both fell heavily to the ground. Ray scrambled back up onto his feet first and then, with utter contempt and total lack of respect, he grabbed a handful of Shelly’s hair and pulled her back towards the door. A clump of skin came free and she crawled away, a raw bald patch left just above her forehead. Ray lunged at her again and caught her in a tight neck-lock. Panting heavily, he dragged the kicking and squirming dead payroll clerk out of the bunker and threw her into the car park.

  There were other people close now. It looked like hundreds of them coming towards him, their speed exaggerated by gravity and the downwards concrete slope. Some fell and rolled down the ramp, their clumsy bodies temporarily obstructing others. Obviously attracted by the noise he’d made returning to the bunker, he could see even more of them spilling into the car park, desperate for his help.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Ray whimpered as Shelly Bright’s foul, hairless came at him again. This time he angrily shoved her away to one side, not even giving her a second glance as she bounced off the wall, collapsed, then picked herself up and started towards him again. He’d wante
d to get the salvageable food from the back of the van but he knew he didn’t have time to do it now, there were just too many of them about. Maybe he’d be able to come back out in a couple of hours when the excitement had died down and the bodies had disappeared. He remembered the ever-increasing size of the crowd of corpses outside his house and tried to convince himself that this would be different. They wouldn’t stay down here in the darkness waiting for him indefinitely, would they?

  Shelly Bright hurled herself at him yet again. There was another body almost as close now, and another… He had to move.

  Ray Cox looked around at the decayed faces of the people of Taychester one last time before scurrying back into the bunker and sealing the door.

  #

  No sign of them disappearing yet. Every so often I try and open the door a little bit to see what’s going on. It’s been three days now and they’re still all waiting for me. It looks like the whole car park is full now. How the hell am I ever going to get out? Maybe it’s the noise of the generator and the air conditioning pumps that’s attracting them, but I can’t turn them off, can I? I’ll just have to sit here and wait. They’ll get bored eventually, won’t they?

  I try not to think too much about what’s happened because I don’t understand it and I don’t think I ever will. All that matters now is getting through it in one piece. I don’t mind spending a little more time down here on my own. I’ve spent years keeping a low profile. It won’t be much longer. Just a few more days. A couple of weeks at the most.

  Head down, duck and cover.

  BEGINNING TO DISINTEGRATE

  Part iii

  Happy families, this most definitely was not. Caron’s home had begun to resemble a hostel for troubled young adults and dysfunctional drop-outs. Lorna pulled her weight, the rest of them didn’t. Ellie spent her time tending to her plastic baby’s every need, whilst Anita and Webb sat out on the patio, drinking Caron’s booze and smoking their way through their limited supply of cigarettes. Lorna had realised quickly that even though she never said anything, Caron was struggling. Similar to Ellie, she too had adopted a replacement child to help her come to terms with the loss of her own. Ellie’s was plastic and had come from a shop, but Caron’s new charge needed far more attention. Fussing over Webb seemed to be helping her cope with losing Matthew, who, Lorna had discovered, lay dead in the garage, covered with a dustsheet.

  To Lorna, it seemed that whenever it felt like she was beginning to come to terms with her bizarre situation, something happened which changed everything again and kicked her back to square one. The resurrection of the dead was another such event. On the third morning, first light after they’d found Caron and Webb in Wilmington Road, many of the corpses outside had risen. It took Lorna all day to pacify her housemates. Thankfully many of the dead remained where they had fallen, and that included Matthew. Lorna didn’t know how she’d have handled it if he’d picked himself up and started lumbering around the garage on unsteady feet. Caron’s emotions, Webb’s jealousy… it didn’t bear thinking about. She’d probably have just packed up and left them all to it. They wouldn’t have even noticed she’d gone until one of them wanted something or had to make a decision for themselves.

  The reanimation of the dead felt like just another complication to Lorna, though she realised the implications were vast. At first she’d thought they might be able to sit out the storm in Caron’s relatively comfortable three-bed semi, but with each hour that passed, that appeared to be less and less viable an option.

  From studying the behaviour of the corpses, she quickly deduced that they could hear and see. They reacted whenever any noise came from thirty-two Wilmington Road, and that began to happen with increasing regularity, no matter what she told the others. If it wasn’t Webb causing arguments, it was him and Anita sitting out on the patio, pissed-up on what was left of Caron’s drinks cabinet, laughing at nothing like they were kids hanging around on a street corner, not the last few people left alive after a catastrophic event they could barely bring themselves to talk about, let alone understand.

  One of the dead had, by chance, tripped down Caron’s drive a short while earlier. It had slammed up against the front door and she’d immediately gone to answer it, conditioned through years of subservience, of pandering to the needs of her husband (who, coincidentally, she’d barely given a moment’s thought to since this chaos had begun). The shape behind the frosted glass looked like any other visitor. Caron had her hand on the latch before Lorna stopped her. ‘Wait. You don’t know what it is.’

  ‘It might be someone like you,’ Caron whispered, indignant. The person outside – the thing – had continued to hammer against the door. ‘I didn’t leave you standing out on the doorstep, did I?’

  ‘I know, but the dead were still dead back then, remember?’

  Caron thought she knew best. She went to open the door but Lorna had managed to slide the chain across just in time. The door had opened a few inches inwards, and a greenish, blood-stained hand shot through the gap and began to swipe at the air clumsily. It stretched out, clawing at nothing. Lorna caught it and held the creature’s greasy palm up close to Caron’s face. Caron had stared at the discoloured flesh, a fingernail hanging off, a deep cut that didn’t bleed… and the stench… it made her gag. ‘Let it go. Get it away from here.’

  ‘Thought you wanted to let it in,’ Lorna had sneered. She’d shoved the corpse back out and kicked the door shut.

  #

  In the morning, the house was surrounded. Lorna had tried again to tell them it would happen, but the rest of Caron’s house guests were making too much noise to listen. They were either too stupid to understand, she decided, or they simply just didn’t give a shit. It wasn’t until the dead had crowded Caron’s dining room window to such an extent that they’d blocked out all the light, that they began to realise the implications.

  ‘We can’t stay here,’ Lorna explained.

  ‘I’m not leaving my home,’ Caron protested, indignant.

  ‘Fair enough. I am.’

  ‘We could get rid of them,’ Webb suggested.

  ‘How?’

  He didn’t have an answer. Ellie turned her doll’s face away from the window, shielding her. Webb walked up to the glass, and the bodies on the other side immediately began to react. The bay window was a mass of dead faces gazing into the house, pawing endlessly at the grease-stained glass with claw-like hands. Lorna pulled him back out of view.

  ‘They’re showing more interest in us by the hour. We’re going to need to get out of here soon.’

  ‘I’m not leaving,’ Caron said again. The thought of leaving her home was somehow harder than trying to come to terms with everything else.

  ‘We won’t have any choice if this carries on,’ Lorna said. ‘I think we should get out of here now and find somewhere better to wait this out.’

  ‘Like where?’ Anita asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Somewhere stronger. Somewhere with fewer windows. A decent fence…’

  ‘There’s the community centre on Long Nuke Road,’ Ellie suggested, rocking her baby.

  ‘I thought of that, but it’s too exposed. The clue’s in the name. Community centres are designed to be accessible, aren’t they? They’re the last places you’d want to get stuck. Fuck, they were the last places I’d have gone before all this kicked off.’

  ‘Where then?’

  They were all looking to Lorna for an answer, but she didn’t have one. ‘Don’t know yet. Just get ready to go is all I’m saying.’

  When Webb started pissing around with Anita again, ignoring everything she’d just said, antagonising the bodies at the window and moaning at Caron because she’d run out of alcohol, Lorna turned her back on the lot of them and went upstairs. Fucking morons.

  #

  She watched the empty world from Caron’s dead son’s bedroom. She thought it funny that this one room had been left untouched; a shrine to the corpse in the garage. When there was so much death outsid
e, why they all remained so respectful towards one dead teenager bemused her. Whatever the reason – and she thought it more than likely due to the fact the corpse in question was under the same roof as them – she was glad of the space. The idea of climbing out of the window, shimmying down the drainpipe and making a run for it was tempting. She might have done it too, had the prospect of a long run home to an empty house not been so unappealing. The people downstairs might all have been idiots, but at least they were idiots with a pulse.

  Lorna did what she could to shut everything else out and focus. Standing in front of Matthew’s window she looked out over the world, watching for any signs of life. Apart from the listless bodies in the streets, not a damn thing moved. No traffic. No lights. No noise. It felt alien, like she was the one who was out of place, like it was she who no longer belonged.

  She could see a church. A strong building, standing defiant, but that was about all it had going for it. Inside it would be cold and uncomfortable, and not at all suited to their needs. A fire station? She liked the idea of cruising the streets in a fire engine – obliterating anything that got in her way – but the station building itself didn’t look like it would offer much in the way of protection: large glass doors, easily accessible. A school? The idea of spending time where hundreds of kids might have died made her skin crawl. She hadn’t much cared for schools at the best of times… And what about the hospital, the roof of which she could just about see? Just the thought of wards filled with the remains of dead patients made her go cold.