Autumn: Aftermath Read online

  “Then like I said, stay away.”

  “Things are going to get difficult around here, I’m sure they are. I’ll watch out for you.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “I want to. I like you, Lorna. I think we could—”

  He immediately shut up when the door behind him flew open. Caron barged in to the kitchen, carrying a rattling bowl full of dirty washing-up. She sensed something was wrong and looked at Lorna, concerned.

  “Everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine,” Lorna said, not looking up.

  “I was just leaving,” said Ainsworth.

  “Good,” Lorna mumbled. She glanced over her shoulder and watched him leave.

  “I’ll catch you later, ladies.”

  “Hope not,” Caron said, just loud enough for him to hear.

  36

  Cooper wasn’t a natural captain, and Donna freely admitted she didn’t have a clue. Richard had guided them close enough so that they could see Cormansey in the near distance—a beautiful, inspiring sight, a few fires and the first lights of early evening burning through the endless darkness of absolutely everything else—but it had taken several hours longer for them to navigate around to the small port near Danver’s Lye. By the time they were finally ready to disembark, a large crowd of villagers was already waiting on the jetty.

  Jackie Soames and Jack Baxter were near the front of the group. Jack caught the landing rope Cooper threw to him, and tied up the boat.

  “Good to see you back,” Jackie said, helping Donna onto dry land, then hugging her affectionately. “We were starting to get worried. What’s with the helicopter turning back again?”

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” Cooper said, sounding subdued.

  “Nothing to worry about?” Donna yelled at him.

  “What’s wrong?” Jack asked. “Where’s Michael and Harry?”

  “We need to get the boat emptied so we can head back,” Donna said, ignoring his question.

  “We’re not going back,” Cooper told her. It was clear from the tone of his voice there would be no negotiation.

  “I am. I’ll take someone else if you won’t go.”

  Donna and Cooper stood on the jetty meters apart, barely able to maintain eye contact with each other. Jackie pushed her way between them.

  “Look, will one of you please tell us what the hell is going on?”

  “Michael, Harry, and Richard are fine,” Cooper explained. “We found more survivors. We were hoping to bring them back with us, but there was a complication.”

  “A complication?”

  “A couple of egos facing off against each other. Nothing too serious.”

  “Nothing serious?” Donna protested. “Fuck, were you listening to the same radio message as me? Harry said someone had been killed.”

  A ripple of low noise spread through the crowd gathered on the jetty.

  “So where exactly are the others?” Jackie asked.

  “They’ve gone back to try and get them out,” Cooper replied. “There’s no point us going back to help. There’s nothing we can do. They’ve got enough room and by the time we get there they’ll be on their way over.”

  “Jesus,” Jackie said. “And Michael’s gone too? Bloody hell, what will poor Emma say?”

  “Do we have to tell her? I mean, they should be back sometime tomorrow and—”

  “Of course we have to tell her,” Donna yelled at him, barely able to believe what she was hearing. “Michael’s the father of her child. She’s got a right to know.”

  “Did you bring me back any fags, Cooper?” Jackie asked.

  “Plenty, why?”

  “And booze?”

  “Loads, as ordered.”

  “Good, because I think I need a drink. Anybody care to join me?”

  “Not for me,” Cooper said. “You’re right, Donna, I’ll go and see Emma and let her know what—”

  “You stay away from her,” Donna interrupted, pushing past Cooper and moving through the crowd on the jetty. “Leave her alone. I’ll go.”

  37

  It was dark and cold. A full moon illuminated far too much of Chadwick and its dead population for Michael’s liking. He was standing on the car park roof, looking out toward the ocean and doing his best to ignore everything that lay between him and the edge of the water.

  “We ready?” Richard asked, hanging out of the helicopter door.

  “Go for it,” Harry said, and he climbed into the seat next to the pilot’s. Harte was already in the back. Michael got in, sat down next to him and buckled up.

  “You’re all completely sure about this?” Richard said as he ran through his preflight checks and started the powerful machine. “Hell of a risk, this.”

  “I don’t see we have much choice,” Michael said as the noise and vibration increased. “We have to try.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Richard pulled back on the controls and took off. The helicopter rapidly climbed up into the night.

  * * *

  The helicopter was over the castle in no time at all. Richard banked around and peered down into the courtyard. He could already see people down there, looking up, following the aircraft as it circled. He switched on his searchlight, both to help him and make it more difficult for those on the ground to track his movements. There weren’t as many people out in the open as he’d expected to see. Where were the rest of them? They’d already ruled out trying to touch down within the castle wall, but that was academic now because much of the courtyard below was filled with rubbish and clutter. The bus occupied the area where he’d set down previously. He couldn’t land there even if he wanted to.

  He completed another circuit, a little lower this time, sweeping around the castle and trying to distract and confuse the people down below. He could see figures up on the top of the gatehouse. When he saw one of them lift a rifle then fire it, he knew it was time to leave. He broke off from his flight path and flew back toward Chadwick, climbing rapidly, not about to risk being hit.

  * * *

  In an overgrown field a mile and a half farther north, Michael, Harte, and Harry stood and watched the lights of the helicopter disappear. Between them they carried a mass of mountaineering equipment which had been looted from Chadwick in the hours prior to them setting out again. Harry already had much of it prepared. While most people who had survived had cast off virtually all remnants of the lives they used to lead, others had found new outlets for the skills they’d previously employed. As an outdoor activities instructor, many of the things Harry had spent his time teaching to school kids and corporate employees on team building weekends were still proving useful. Sailing for one. Mountain craft and rock climbing another.

  They clambered over a low dry-stone wall which ran around the perimeter of the field where Richard had set them down before flying over the castle. The moon highlighted everything with its ice-white light, but Michael wished it would disappear as they approached the outermost edge of part of the vast crowd of bodies which had encircled the castle. Although the immediate threat the dead once posed had now been substantially reduced, and the plummeting temperature had restricted them further tonight, crossing this immense sea of decay was still a daunting prospect. The three men stood together on the last patch of clear grass they could find, each of them looking for reasons to delay the next step forward.

  Harry hoisted a long coil of heavy climbing rope up onto his shoulder and looked toward the castle up ahead.

  “There’s nothing much in the way of cover out here,” he said, “but I don’t think anyone’s going to be expecting us to walk through this lot.”

  “I don’t think they’re expecting anything,” Michael said, sounding more confident than he felt. “I think they’ll have fallen for Richard’s little bluff. They’ll think we’re all still in the helicopter.”

  “Is this going to work?” Harte mumbled, far less confident than the others. Everything had made sense back at the port, bu
t the nearer they’d got to the castle, the more uncertain he’d begun to feel.

  “If we’re careful it should,” Michael replied. “Like I said, Jas won’t be expecting this. And if you’re right and more of them want to leave than want to stay, then he’s going to be well outnumbered too.”

  “Suppose,” he said, still not convinced.

  “Come on, ladies,” Harry said, tired of dawdling, “let’s just get this done, shall we? Opposite end to the gatehouse, you reckon?”

  “That’s our best bet,” Harte replied. “No caravans or anything else around there as far as I can remember. There’s the cesspit, but that’s all. The bloody stink from that keeps most folk away.”

  “That’ll do, then.”

  Harry took his hesitant first step into the remains of the dead. His boot cracked a thin sheen of ice, then sank into a layer of mud and decay that was several inches thick. The ground—what he could see of it—was unexpectedly uneven. The mulch they were going to have to walk through was filled with buried bones and other less obvious obstacles. He stopped walking as suddenly as he’d started, and tried to work out the physics of the crowd. There were shapes that were more recognizable as human up ahead, but out here on the fringes everything appeared to have been reduced to a featureless sludge. That made sense. New arrivals to the massive gathering would have been less restricted and, over time, would have crushed their weaker brethren under their feet as they’d advanced toward the castle, creating a compacted layer of dirt and gore. The situation would no doubt change as they got deeper into the decay.

  They walked in single file. Harry attempted to lead them in a relatively straight line through the unending muck, but it was next to impossible given what they were trying to walk through. Michael brought up the rear, the gruesome mire making his stomach churn. It was ankle-deep now, and there were more recognisable remains around them: a half-buried corpse still trying to crawl, another stood upright with its foot stuck, unable to get free, another lying flat on its back, spindly arms occasionally thrashing like a drowning swimmer. Their boots snapped bones like twigs, and whenever Michael lifted a foot and looked down, he saw teeming movement where his boot had just been. The viscous sludge was alive with worms, maggots, and all manner of other creatures which gorged themselves on this proliferation of putrefying flesh. He was thankful it had hardly rained over the last few days. A couple of heavy downpours was all it would have taken to turn this place into an impassable quagmire.

  Progress was slow, their footing constantly unsteady. Obstructions had been hidden by the blanket of decay. Walls, fences, streams … everything remained invisible until they were virtually on top of them. Up ahead now was a dark, featureless mound—it looked like a glistening heap of rot—and for a time the men were unable to work out what it was or why it was there.

  “It’s a car,” Harte said. “Fuck me, look at that.”

  He took another sliding step closer, then gingerly grabbed a cadaver’s shoulder with one gloved hand. He tried to pull the corpse away, but its level of decay was severe and where he expected the whole body to move away, instead its legs remained fused. He pulled it harder still and it snapped, folding back on itself near the base of its spine. The creature’s head was now upside down, its skull almost touching the back of its heels, and as he stared into its disease-ravaged face, he thought he saw its mouth move.

  Harte moved another corpse to try and uncover more. He was right, it was definitely a car, and he pushed several bodies away to reveal almost the full width of its windshield. The make, model, even the color of the vehicle was impossible to make out such was the amount of rot piled up all over it, but he could see that the dead driver remained behind the wheel, held in position by his safety belt. Preserved by the relatively dry air inside the car, the corpse was less decayed than most others. As they watched, it lifted its head to look at them, then raised a single bony hand and slapped it against the window. Harte jumped back with surprise. To Michael’s right, another body tried to lift itself up and separate itself from the rest of the upright mass it was glued to. Even now after months of decay and all that it had been through, the creature still seemed to immediately identify Michael and the others as a threat and tried to attack.

  “Keep moving,” he said. “Try not to look and just keep moving.”

  * * *

  The gruesome, sticky sea through which they were still slipping (and frequently wading now) seemed to constantly be changing in texture and depth. Knee-deep in some places, shallow in others, every single footstep was unpredictable. They’d been walking for what felt like an eternity. Harry estimated they’d crossed almost a mile of dead-packed land, but it was virtually impossible in the low night light to see how far they still had to go. While more bodies remained upright the deeper the three men went, the constant shifting and grinding of so many of them in such close proximity for so long meant there was little more left than bone. Occasionally one still had enough muscle and nerve remaining to manage a clumsy swipe at the men as they trudged past, but such attacks were easily avoided.

  “Cut right,” Harry said suddenly. Harte moved too far too soon and took a misstep, one of his boots crunching through the exposed rib cage of a creature which lay on the ground with its back arched. Michael steadied him as he shook himself free.

  “Fucking things,” he complained pointlessly as he shook all manner of foul gunk off his shoe.

  Harry continued to walk forward, and he suddenly began to sink. For a moment he panicked, terrified that he was about to be sucked down into a foul quicksand-like pit of decay. He fought against his instincts and did all he could to remain calm and not thrash wildly, and his feet eventually made contact with solid ground again.

  “It’s okay,” he said, feeling his way forward. “Some kind of furrow, I think. Maybe what’s left of the moat.”

  Michael and Harte followed cautiously, matching his footsteps and speed as best they could. Michael continued to sink—the mire reaching his thighs, then almost up to his belt—and he found himself gripping onto the remains of occasional corpses stranded upright so that he could keep his balance. Harte gagged when he slipped and found his face just inches away from the slurry, and his retching and dry heaves made Michael taste bile too. Christ, he hoped this was going to work. He didn’t think he could face the prospect of having to walk back the same way if they couldn’t get into the castle. He glanced down when he almost lost his footing, but when he saw an ear floating on top of the slop, then the fingers of a hand, then half a face, he made himself look anywhere else. He breathed hard, each time taking in a lungful of germ-filled, foul-smelling air, but it was either that or he’d vomit and he didn’t want to lose control. With his head spinning and his entire body drenched in a cold, sticky sweat, he made himself look dead ahead and focus on Harry’s back. And then, finally, he saw that the other man was climbing again. Harry changed direction slightly to avoid another corpse—he couldn’t see its face, but he could swear it had started turning towards him—then led the three of them toward clearer ground. Before long they’d made it through the slurry and away from the last of the corpses.

  Despite now climbing a steep and steady rise up toward the base of the castle walls, Harry didn’t let his pace drop. He only dared stop when he’d reached the very top and could stand with his back up against the ancient masonry, safe in the knowledge no one inside the castle could see him from here.

  Michael reached the top of the climb about thirty seconds later, Harte another minute after that.

  “You both okay?” Harry asked.

  “Think so,” Michael said. Harte just nodded, too tired to answer. Michael took his rucksack off his shoulders and emptied it. There were three smaller bags of clean clothing inside, one each. The men took their allotted bags and began to change, peeling off their sodden, stinking gear and dumping it. Harte passed around towels and they cleaned themselves up as best they could. It was bitterly cold, but each of them preferred to freeze than to keep
wearing their soiled clothes. The rot had even seeped through to their underwear. Michael’s inner trousers, long johns, and boxers all had to be discarded.

  It took an age for them to change, but eventually they stood together in the shadows of the castle wall, numb with cold.

  “What do you think then, Harte?” Harry asked. “Is this the right spot?”

  Harte looked up and down the length of the massive, gently curving wall.

  “It’ll do I think,” he said. “Should be fine here…”

  Harry looked at him. Did he have more to say? He looked unsure. “But…?” he pressed.

  “Nothing … it’s just that the wall looks fucking huge now we’re stood next to it. Are we going to get over it?”

  “We’re going to have to,” Michael said. “Desperate times call for desperate actions.”

  “Where d’you get that little gem from?” Harry grinned.

  “Can’t remember. Some film or other, I expect. It’s true, though.”

  “Bloody hell,” Harte continued nervously, “climbing over castle walls in the middle of the night. It’s all a bit James Bond, isn’t it?”

  “Give us an alternative and we’ll listen,” Harry said.

  “We gave up on the idea of a helicopter rescue, remember?” Michael said. “Now that was more like James Bond.”

  Harte was too anxious to see the funny side. Truth was, he wasn’t even listening anymore.

  “It’s fine,” Harry said, trying to reassure him. “I did a lot of climbing. I’ve been up rock faces far worse than this in my time.”

  With that he began to get himself ready. He took various pieces of kit from the bag Harte had been carrying—carabiners, harnesses, and the like—and issued the same to both of the others.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” Harte asked.

  “Nothing. Leave it to Michael. You remember what to do, don’t you Mike?”