Autumn a-1 Read online

  ‘Open the fucking door!’ he screamed.

  Stretching his hand out in front of him, Carl grabbed hold of the handle and yanked it downwards. To his surprise the door opened.

  Carl rocked the bike back and then accelerated and drove into the hall. Once inside he jumped off the machine and slammed the door shut behind him. As the heavy door fell into place he felt thud after thud after sickening thud as the loathsome creatures outside crashed into the building. Shaking with fear he secured the entrance and leant against the wall. He slid down to the ground exhausted, threw off his helmet and held his head in his hands.

  The abandoned bike had fallen diagonally across the width of the entrance hall. The engine had died but the wheels still span furiously and the bright headlamp shone relentlessly, burning into the dense darkness.

  There was no movement in the hall. Despite the panic and noise of his arrival, no-one had moved.

  With his legs heavy and leaden through a combination of fear and fatigue, he clambered back to his feet, using the wall behind him for support. His mouth was dry and he found himself unable to call out. He stepped over the abandoned bike, stumbled past the dark and silent kitchens and toilets, and walked into the main hall.

  Then he stopped moving.

  And he stared.

  Paralysed with disbelief, devastation and absolute terror, he fell to his knees.

  The relentlessly bright headlamp on the front of the bike filled parts of the hall with harsh, artificial light and that cruel and brilliant light revealed a sight so terrible that, at first, Carl was unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Even after everything else that he had seen during the last couple of weeks this new aberration sickened him. He could feel his legs weakening and tasted bile rising in his throat.

  The bare wooden floor of the community centre was carpeted with human remains.

  Moving without thinking, he stood up and took a few stumbling steps forward. Blood and bone mixed beneath his feet as he picked his way through a macabre maze of cold, grey flesh and crimson red gore. He began to think at speed – searching for explanations which he could neither prove or disprove. Perhaps the corpses were the remains of creatures from outside? Maybe they had somehow found a way into the community centre and the survivors had been forced to leave? There was a body on the ground in front of him. Half-dressed, its exposed skin had been ripped and torn to shreds. Fighting to keep control of his stomach, he reached down and grabbed hold of one exposed shoulder, pulling the body over onto its back. Although it was no-one he recognised, he could see immediately that this had not been one of the sickly, emaciated bastards from outside. What flesh remained on the face was clear and relatively unmarked and, apart from the countless horrific mutilations, the cadaver seemed to have been otherwise healthy and normal. There was no doubt that this was the body of one of the survivors.

  Carl began to sob. He stood in the centre of the room and gradually became aware of sounds coming from the darkness in front of him.

  ‘Is anyone there?’ he called out hopefully.

  No response.

  ‘Hello…’ he tried again. ‘Is someone there?’

  A figure appeared from the shadows, partially illuminated by the light from the motorbike. Suddenly elated, Carl took a few steps forward.

  ‘Thank Christ,’ he mumbled. ‘What happened? How the hell did they manage to get inside?’

  The figure inched closer. Every clumsy step it took forward brought it further into the light from the bike. Two more steps and Carl could see that the body was slumped forward with its head hanging heavily on its shoulders. It slowly looked up and gazed at Carl with familiarly cold, emotionless eyes. A diseased and rotting corpse, without warning it lunged towards him.

  ‘Shit!’ he yelled as he moved to one side. The creature lost its already unsteady footing in a puddle of thick, dark blood and slipped down to the ground.

  Carl steadied himself and stared at the wretched corpse as it struggled to drag itself back up.

  ‘Shit!’ he shouted again in desperation. ‘Bastard thing! You fucking bastard thing!’

  He took a step closer and kicked the creature in the face, the full force of his boot catching it square on the jaw. It fell back down to the ground and immediately began to right itself again. Carl unleashed his full fury and frustration on the pathetic carcass, kicking and punching at it until it finally lay still and did not move. It was rapidly decomposing. By the time he’d finished with it very little remained.

  Crying with pain, exhaustion and anguish, and unable to come to terms with what he had found, Carl walked back towards the bike. He knew that his options were limited – he could stay in the centre or take his chances outside. After travelling for hours he couldn’t face going back out there again.

  Using the dull light from a torch to guide him, he dragged himself back through the community centre and made his way to the small rooms at the far end of the building. Using the last dregs of energy that he could summon from his tired and aching body, he climbed out of the skylight and out onto the flat roof.

  Carl sat on the edge of the roof for hours, being buffeted constantly by a familiar strong, cold wind and watching the dead city decaying around him.

  The sun was beginning to rise.

  The thought of another day dawning filled him with dread.

  38

  When Michael woke up Emma wasn’t there.

  Drugged with sleep, he grabbed a nearby jumper from where he’d thrown it last night and pulled it over his head before shuffling through the living room to look for her. It was a cold, grey morning outside and the house was silent but for the noise of Emma working in the kitchen. She didn’t notice Michael had come into the room until he dragged a chair across the floor and away from the table and sat down.

  ‘Hello,’ she said quietly. ‘Sleep well?’

  He nodded but didn’t say anything. All things considered, he had slept well, but he was too tired to engage in conversation unless he absolutely had to. He knew he’d feel more sociable when he’d had a few minutes to properly wake up.

  ‘I’ve been up for ages,’ Emma continued. ‘There was a storm a couple of hours ago that woke me. I’ve just been in here sorting through the stuff we got while we were out yesterday.’

  Yesterday afternoon’s priority had been to get Carl safely on his way back to the city. Although that in itself hadn’t taken too long to organise and arrange, there had subsequently been much associated thinking, questioning and soul searching which seemed to have prevented Emma and Michael from doing pretty much anything else. The supplies which they had collected from the village had been left in a pile of boxes and bags on the kitchen floor. Emma had worked hard since she’d got up and had sorted most of it away.

  Michael cleared his throat and rubbed his eyes.

  ‘So how you feeling today?’ he asked, his voice quiet, flat and subdued.

  She stopped what she was doing and looked up and briefly smiled.

  ‘I’m okay,’ she replied, giving little away. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  Silently and independently they were both still preoccupied with thoughts of Carl, although neither wanted to talk about their missing colleague to the other. Emma found herself wondering what he had found in the city whilst, more pessimistically, Michael was wondering whether he’d got there at all.

  ‘So what are we going to do today?’ Emma asked unexpectedly.

  Strange question, Michael thought. What is there to do?

  ‘Don’t know,’ he answered. ‘Why, what do you want to do?’

  She shrugged her shoulders and returned to her work, wondering what had made her ask such a stupid question in the first place. Perhaps it had just been instinctive? Whatever the reason, the lack of any worthwhile answers was depressing. The complete and utter lack of any positive distraction and interest in their lives, coupled with the constant fear of everything beyond the farmhouse walls, was beginning to grind her down.
The relentless boredom, fear and frustration hung over her head like a black storm cloud. And the fact that Carl had left only served to increase her negativity further still.

  ‘Maybe we should make something,’ Michael suggested, picking up on Emma’s sadness. Not much of a suggestion, granted, but it was all that he could come up with. ‘You know, build something…’

  ‘Like what?’

  He struggled to answer.

  ‘I don’t know. Bloody hell, there must be something we could do. Christ, we could spring clean or decorate a room or bake a fucking cake…I don’t know.’

  ‘Maybe we could just sit here and watch the clock until we fall asleep. Then we could get up tomorrow and do the same again…’

  Emma’s attitude hurt. Michael knew just how she was feeling, but the fact that they had been able to relax a little last night made her apparent anger and disinterest even more frustrating and harder to swallow. Perhaps it was for that very reason that she was like this? Was she now punishing herself for finally allowing herself to drop a few barriers and reveal her true feelings, thoughts and emotions?

  Michael wondered if this was how it was always going to be.

  39

  Carl Henshawe

  I slept for about an hour, curled up in a ball on the roof. It was fucking freezing, but it was better to freeze out there than to go back into the hall. I couldn’t bring myself to go back inside. I knew I’d have to go through it eventually to get to the bike and get out again, but not yet.

  The thing I remember most about the morning was that it was grey. Everything was grey. The sky was grey, the buildings looked grey and the streets and bodies were grey. All the colour had gone, drained and rotted away.

  I first looked at my watch just after five, and it took me until just before eight to decide that I was going to do it. The longest three hours of my entire bloody life were spent sitting on the roof of the community centre in the wind and rain thinking about everything I’d left behind in the city and whether I should go back to it. I knew that I had to do something. I couldn’t get this close and then just turn around and go back, could I? From the second I’d left my house on the first morning, all I’d thought about was Gemma and Sarah. That was the reason I couldn’t see the point of whatever it was that Emma and Michael were trying to achieve. For me there was no point in going on if I didn’t have Gemma and Sarah with me.

  For a while I even thought about suicide, but I’m such a fucking coward that I couldn’t decide how to do it. I didn’t have any pills or drink or drugs with me and I couldn’t get any without crowds of those fucking things surrounding me. And the prospect of a thousand rotting corpses fighting over me was not worth thinking about. Once or twice I actually stood at the edge of the roof and got ready to jump, but it was nowhere near high enough. I’d probably just break an arm or a leg and end up lying there in agony and waiting for them to get me. Christ, the bloody irony of it all. Millions and millions of people lying dead around me and all I wanted to do was join them but I couldn’t. If I’d brought the rifle with me from the farmhouse I reckoned I could have done it that way. Quick and easy. Bloody hell, it had been weeks since anything had been quick and easy.

  And in the long lonely minutes that followed even more irony tormented me. I kept thinking about Sarah and Gemma and each time I pictured their precious faces I just wanted to stop and give up. But I knew that Sarah wouldn’t have wanted that. If she’d been able to see me up on that roof she would have crucified me. If she’d known that I’d been thinking about giving up and ending it all then she’d probably have done it for me. And if I was honest with myself I’d have felt the same if our positions had been reversed. If she’d survived and I’d been the one that had died, I would have wanted her to be safe and to try and make something from what remained of her life.

  So I decided to go home.

  I climbed back down into the hall and walked through and started the bike. Without even bothering to think about what might be outside, I just started the engine, pushed the door open and rode out into the cold morning.

  I had reached Hadley in a few minutes. As I got to the top of Gresham Hill I cut the engine and let the bike freewheel down towards our estate. I felt scared and I was so fucking nervous that it was hard to think straight. I didn’t even stop to think about the bodies. I was too busy looking at everything and thinking how much it had all changed. There probably hadn’t been another living soul there since I’d left on the day it had all begun, but everything looked completely different. I went past the pub where we’d been on the last normal Sunday night. The car park was overgrown with weeds and there were rats looking for food around the bins. The doors were hanging open and it was black and cold inside. The last time I’d been there it had been full of sounds and light and people.

  Because I wasn’t making any noise the bodies didn’t seem to take any notice of me. If I moved slowly and took my time they didn’t even look up when I passed. I got off the bike and pushed it round into our road. Then I saw our house and I stopped. Part of me wanted to turn round and run but I knew that I had to carry on. But what if I got in and Sarah and Gemma weren’t there? Worse still, what if they were there and they’d become like the things which were still dragging themselves around the streets? Whatever I might have found, the thought of leaving and not knowing seemed much worse. I knew that I had to carry on.

  I pushed the bike onto the drive and walked up to the front door. There was post in the porch, and like a fucking idiot I picked it up and started to look at it. A gas bill and a credit card bill. I even opened the bloody things to see how much I owed. And I dared to hate the bodies for following their instincts…

  I had carried my house keys with me every day since we’d left Northwich. I hadn’t ever thought about going back there before, but for some reason I just hadn’t been able to let them go. With my hands shaking I unlocked the door and went inside.

  I was just like it was when I left it. Everything was where I expected to find it. Gemma’s shoes were by the door, my mug was on the kitchen worktop, Sarah’s coat was hung over the post at the bottom of the bannister. I took off my crash helmet and just stood there and looked around. It was like the weirdest fucking dream I’ve ever had. If I half-closed my eyes and ignored the smell I could almost imagine that nothing had ever happened. There was a half-inch layer of dust on everything but other than that it still looked like home.

  I stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked up.

  This was the real reason I’d come back.

  I knew I couldn’t do anything for them and that going up to the bedroom wasn’t going to bring my girls back, but I had to go up. It took me about ten minutes to climb the stairs. I went up one at a time, forcing myself to climb higher and higher and, at the same time, having to keep control of my emotions and stop myself from running out of the house and getting back on the bike. Eventually I was at the top, standing on the landing, holding onto the bedroom door handle with my hands shaking.

  I listened carefully. There was no noise coming from inside the room. I coughed, and still there was no reaction.

  My mind was filled with memories of my family.

  I pushed the door open and waited.

  Nothing happened.

  I looked at the bed and saw that they were both still there, still covered up by the duvet I’d draped over them before I’d left. I could just see a few curls of Sarah’s hair peeking out from under the covers. Much as I wanted to see them, I didn’t want to look at either of them. I wanted to remember them as they were and it was enough just to know that they were still together. I leant across and kissed them both through the bedding before I said goodbye. I shut my eyes and told them that I loved them and that I would always be thinking about them.

  And that was all I did. I didn’t want to disturb them or move them. I just wanted to know that they were both still there. I just wanted to be sure that they were still together. It was more for Gemma than any other reason. I hadn�
��t been able to get the nightmare thought out of my mind that either one of them might have walked and that my beautiful little girl could have been on her own somewhere.

  As it was she was okay. She was lying safe in bed, curled up tightly next to her mum.

  And then came the question of what to do next.

  The survivors had gone – I hoped they’d moved on, but I knew in my heart that something fucking terrible had happened to them.

  My family were safe and were resting peacefully and I knew that I wasn’t going to go back home again.

  I hadn’t expected to be on my own. Getting into the council depot that I’d talked about before suddenly didn’t seem like much of an option. Okay, so I could get myself in there, but then what? I’d already discovered that I didn’t have the balls to kill myself. So was I going to just sit there and starve or wait to die from dehydration, loneliness, boredom or old age?

  The farmhouse I’d just come from was the safest place left.

  40

  Michael came in from outside.

  ‘We’ve got a problem,’ he said, his face flustered. Immediately concerned, Emma stopped what she had been doing and rushed out to him in the hall.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The van,’ he replied. ‘It’s completely fucked. There’s oil and all kinds of stuff leaking out. Looks like something’s cracked underneath.’

  ‘So can you fix it?’ she asked. A sensible question. Michael shook his head despondently.

  ‘I haven’t got a bloody clue,’ he admitted. ‘I can drive a car, fill it with petrol and change a tyre but that’s about all. I wouldn’t know where to start with something like this.’

  ‘So what do we do? Can we get by without it?’

  ‘We can, but we’d be taking a hell of a chance. What if the same thing happens to the Landrover?’