Autumn: Aftermath Read online

  “How much longer?” he demanded as the boat swayed to one side, lurching sickeningly.

  “How am I supposed to know?” Driver grumbled.

  “You must have some idea.”

  “Forgot my sat nav.”

  “Don’t take the piss.”

  “Don’t talk bollocks, then. You can get out and walk if you like.”

  “Do we have any life jackets?” Caron wailed from close behind.

  “Do we look like we have any life jackets?” Harte angrily protested. “Wouldn’t we be wearing them?”

  “Would you all just shut up and let me concentrate,” Driver shouted. “All this noise is doing my bloody head in.”

  “You mean you haven’t been concentrating so far?” Howard asked, semi-seriously. The pointless bickering continued, and Michael took the opportunity to try and find out how much of it was justified. He clung to the side of the boat as a wave crashed against the starboard side. Bigger than any of the waves they’d so far seen, it splashed over the deck, soaking everyone, filling the bottom of the boat with about an inch of water and cranking Caron’s nervousness up to another level.

  “Do you have any idea?” he asked quietly. Driver looked at him.

  “I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. “I’m not completely sure. I mean, I have a bearing and I’ve been sticking to it as best I can, but it’s difficult. This boat’s not ideal, you know, and the weather’s getting worse.”

  “So what’s the prognosis?”

  “Keep heading in this direction for about another hour if we can. Then start with the flares.”

  “Flares?”

  Driver looked down and kicked the door of a waterproof cupboard with the toe of his boot.

  “That was the plan,” he explained. “Richard said sail as close as you can to where you think the island is, then set off a flare. Put one up every hour.”

  “And then?”

  “And then he’ll hopefully see us at some point, then come out and guide us in.”

  Michael nodded thoughtfully. It sounded like a pretty piss-poor plan, but it was still slightly better than he’d expected. At worst they could keep setting off flares all night until someone on the island saw them. “So how many flares do you have down there?”

  Driver looked at him before reluctantly answering. “Three.”

  62

  The rising panic of Driver’s passengers had been muted slightly by a number of factors. Caron’s continual wailing and complaining seemed to have worn her out and she was now quieter, numb almost, leaning against the side of the boat, drenched like the rest of them, shivering with cold. The release of the first flare had also helped temporarily, but the increasingly ominous silence which followed did not. Firing the second flare had again eased the tension, but there was still no sign of the helicopter.

  “Show me again where you think we are,” Michael said, looking at the wet map over Driver’s shoulder, peeling it off the boat’s instrument panel and managing to tear it in the process.

  “Careful! Anyway, what’s the point?” he said, rolling with the swell and holding onto the side of the boat for support. “It won’t make any difference.”

  “Please.”

  Driver reluctantly showed him. He drew a line with his finger between Chadwick and Cormansey. “That’s the bearing I’ve been following, but like I’ve already told you, I don’t have any way of accurately measuring how far we’ve traveled. We could be a couple of miles from the island, we might not even be halfway.”

  “I know, I know…” he mumbled, staring hopefully at the map as if he hoped to somehow find a missing clue, something he hadn’t noticed before. Any kind of marker would do. Anything.

  “Rocks,” Lorna yelled from the stern of the boat. The entire group forced themselves around in the enclosed space, feet splashing through several inches of water. Christ, Michael thought, she’s right. Out on the horizon was a small rocky outcrop. He turned to face Driver, who was already poring over what was left of the map, trying to match up what he could see. He circled an area south of Cormansey.

  “Look at this. Lots of little islands. It’s got to be one of them, hasn’t it?”

  In the complete absence of anything else on the map, Michael thought he had to be right.

  “Head for them?”

  “Safest option. We can use them to navigate. Even moor up for a while if it looks like we’re going to run dry.”

  There was no more discussion. Suddenly revitalized, the others held onto anything they could as Driver turned the boat and began to sail for the rocks, praying that more of them would come into view as they got closer. Michael said nothing, but he glanced around at the other faces here with him, and then at the ocean which seemed to stretch away forever. The vastness of the water brought home his individual insignificance. It didn’t matter a damn how smart or how lucky he’d been to get this far, how brave or how strong, his fate and everyone else’s now rested on this increasingly unsteady boat and the rolling waves through which they sailed. Even Driver was of little use now. He remained at the controls, valiantly doing all he could to keep the boat on course, but his actions seemed to be having little effect.

  Jagged spears of rock began to spring up on either side of them. The water swirled and splashed the boat around with renewed vigour, dragging the hull down then forcing it back up again, at one point sending it spinning through almost a complete turn before seeming to change direction, then sweeping them back the other way. The bottom of the boat scraped along a rock.

  “Is this the part where the boat gets smashed to pieces and we all drift off in different directions, hanging onto bits of wood?” Caron said unhelpfully.

  “Shut up!” Lorna snapped at her, beginning to think she might be right. The hull scraped again, a loud, sickening noise, then the boat lurched as a tall wave crashed against the nearest rock and broke over them.

  “There!” Michael yelled before ducking down as another wall of ice-cold spray crashed down over them. He’d been pointing at something, but the violent rolling motion made it impossible to see what he’d seen. More as a result of the movement of the water than anything Driver had or hadn’t done, the little boat was pushed away slightly, then sucked in toward the rocks again. But that brief moment was enough, and Driver saw it: a small outcrop with a narrow strip of shingle beach.

  “Just aim for that,” Michael said, holding onto Driver’s shoulder and trying desperately to keep them both standing upright as the boat rolled. “Just get us ashore.”

  The water level inside the boat was increasing, and not just as a result of the waves now. Harte saw that they’d sprung a slight leak, but he kept his mouth shut and covered it with his foot, knowing there was no point adding to the panic now. Kieran leaned over the side and looked down into the swirling waters, trying to gauge how deep it was and how strong the currents were. He was so desperate to stand on dry land again that, for just a second, he seriously considered jumping.

  “Don’t do it,” Howard yelled, grabbing his arm and pulling him back. “If the waves don’t smash you against the rocks, the cold will kill you.”

  “Recognize anything?” Driver asked Michael as he fought with the controls. The boat’s small, stuttering engine was having next to no effect now. It was going wherever the sea wanted it to.

  “Not a damn thing,” he shouted back over the wind. “Just get us onto land and we’ll take it from there. Keep the last flare with you whatever you do. We should try and set it off when we’ve landed.”

  Now, finally, they appeared to have circumnavigated the rocks and were getting closer to the shingle beach. And with unimaginable relief, they felt the direction of the boat change too. The waves and the engine combined to send them closer to the shore, forcing them into what looked like a small cove.

  “What was that?” Kieran asked, and he leaned down over the side of the boat again until he was sure. And then they all heard and felt it: the bottom of the boat scraping along the seabed. Mi
chael didn’t stop to think about what he was going to do next. He jumped over the side of the boat and fell into the surf, losing his footing and going under. The ice-cold temperature stunned him and stole the air from his lungs. He managed to get his head out of the water but cracked the back of his skull against the hull of the boat. Barely able to coordinate his movements now, he forced himself to try and swim, then managed to dig his feet into the shingle and start walking. Harte followed his lead, landing with a little more success, and between them they managed to catch the mooring rope and pull the boat to shore, the waves at last helping, not hindering, their progress.

  And then, finally, they stopped. The boat listed over and became still. No more rolling or lurching. The waves continued to crash around them but the boat had at last come to rest. The others disembarked and immediately went to Michael and Harte’s aid, wrapping them in layers of their own slightly less wet clothes.

  “We need to find some shelter, fast,” Howard said, scouting around the small beach, looking for somewhere they might be protected from the biting wind.

  “Use the boat,” Driver suggested. “We can drag it further up the shore.”

  “Do we have any food?” Caron asked. “Anything we can give to these two?”

  “Nothing,” Kieran replied.

  “Anything we can start a fire with, then?”

  Harte dug a trembling hand into his pocket and threw Caron his lighter. He was shaking violently, blue with cold. Caron tried to flick it into life but it was dead, as wet and useless as everything else.

  “There’s nothing we can burn, anyway,” she grumbled.

  “Well, we need to do something,” Lorna said. “If we’re out here much longer we’ll all end up with hypothermia, never mind these two.”

  “I’ll go and look around,” Kieran said. “I’ll try and get up onto the rocks and get a better view.”

  He was gone before anyone could say anything. Lorna and Caron helped Michael and Harte to get as far as they could from the water, then nestled up with them beneath a slight overhang. Howard and Driver were close behind, Driver having fetched the last flare from the boat. Might as well take it, he thought, though Christ knows what good it’s going to be.

  Kieran returned a few minutes later, clambering down the rocks, then running back down the beach toward them.

  “Anything?” Howard asked. Kieran nodded as he struggled to catch his breath.

  “It’s not much, but it’s something,” he explained, still panting hard. “There’s a wreck. Looks like a fishing boat or something. It’ll get us out of the wind for a while, at least.”

  The seven of them began the unsteady climb up the rocks to find the wreck Kieran had discovered. Lorna had images of huge trawlers in her mind, and was disappointed when she saw that it was just a small vessel, and that it appeared to have been there for some time. It had crashed at the bottom of another rock face, and she hadn’t even seen it until she’d been almost on top of it. At first glance it appeared to be little more than a few scraps of corroded metal and wood.

  “Is this it?” Caron asked.

  “It’s better than nothing,” Kieran said. “It’ll have to do.”

  She gingerly moved closer to the wreck, recoiling when she saw that what was left of a crewmember was still onboard. His skeleton—stripped of all flesh and bleached white by months of beating from the saltwater waves—had been trapped among what looked like a block of rusting winch machinery.

  “Wait…” Michael said, but his throat was dry and his body was shaking, and he couldn’t finish his sentence. They looked at him and he looked back, but still he couldn’t speak.

  “What is it?” Lorna asked. He looked from her face, to the wreck, then back again. Barely able to function, he had to summon his very last reserves of energy to talk again.

  “I know this … seen this before…”

  Kieran immediately seized on the importance of what he was saying. The others took a little longer, but he didn’t waste time explaining. He raced up the rocks in front of them, then stopped when he reached the top. He gestured for the others to follow and they did, climbing up the slippery rock face painfully slowly, pushing and pulling each other toward the top.

  Finally they were level with Kieran. They found him sitting on a low stone wall.

  “Well, we’re either back on the mainland,” he began to say, “or…”

  Michael stared up ahead, almost unable to believe it. He looked around in all directions, trying to get his bearings, and then he broke free of the others and started to walk. His legs were numb and he struggled to keep moving, but he knew this was it.

  No more running. No more fighting. One last push.

  * * *

  It seemed to take forever, but it was less than ten minutes later when he reached the door of the small cottage. It was locked. He hammered on it to be let inside. After a delay of a few seconds, it opened inward.

  “You took your time,” Emma said.

  “Sorry,” he replied.

  “Are you going to stay here now?”

  “Forever.”

  Two Years, Seventeen Days Since Infection

  63

  THE LAST FLIGHT

  DONNA YORKE

  Have we done the right thing? Our first night on the mainland in an age, and it feels strange … almost like we’re trespassing. The first night of the rest of our lives, Cooper said.

  Two years. Five deaths. Three births.

  Life on the island has been hard but successful. We’ve done well—better than any of us ever thought possible—but things have steadily changed there and I don’t feel the same about the place as I used to. Neither of us do. The birth of Maggie, Michael and Emma’s first child, was a turning point for all of us. When that little girl was born last year, we all knew we had a better chance of surviving long term than we’d originally thought. We sat in the pub and held our collective breath on the night she was born, waiting for the germ to kill her, not expecting her to survive. When she lasted a minute I began to believe the impossible might have happened. Days later and we were still expecting the infection to get her, but it didn’t. And now she’s over a year old and Emma’s pregnant again, and I couldn’t be happier for them. Lorna is pregnant too, but that’s not for me. Not yet, anyway.

  The babies have taken the edge off the air of finality we’ve all felt since the day the world died. For a while things started feeling less hopeless than they had been. But while most people on Cormansey seem to think that everything’s changed and we’re back in control now, I don’t. As it happens, I still think our days are numbered. It’s just that we might have a few more days left than we expected, that’s all.

  So we’re going to make the most of them.

  I came back to the mainland once before with Jack and Clare, but it was too soon. We weren’t ready. We thought we could live here again but we were wrong. We lasted a while, then got ourselves picked up again when Richard and Harry came back for more supplies.

  Things feel different this time. Coop and I hitched a lift and I don’t think we’re ever going back. I don’t know if we can. The flight that brought us over here had been planned for some time. Richard said he thought it might be the very last flight, depending on how hard the winter proves to be on Cormansey.

  Jack used to love to read. When we were over here before, he was always telling me how he used to like a good end-of-the-world story more than anything else. He talked a lot about them, and on his recommendation I read a few last year, but the endings used to piss me off. Often they’d finish with some smug little community of do-gooders rising up from the ashes against all the odds: a merry little band of farmers and cooks and teachers and … Call me selfish if you like, but I’ve never really gone for all of that. It’s taken me all this time to realize I didn’t want to just jump straight back on the wheel again and build up a carbon-copy, small-scale imitation of what we used to have. I want to do something with what’s left of the rest of my time. I don’
t want to spend my life tending sheep, boiling water over log fires and wearing homemade clothes. Why should I? Why should any of us? I tried it, but it didn’t work out. There are too few of us left to make a difference anymore, too much damage has been done. They tried to stop us, said we’d be back like last time, but Coop and I had made up our minds.

  We left just after ten this morning and we were back on the mainland by eleven. Everything has changed beyond all recognition here. Buildings have started to disappear—swallowed up by moss and weeds, a crawling layer of green slowly overtaking everything. There are huge cracks in some of the roads, craterlike potholes in others, and some buildings have already collapsed. And when you look closer, hidden among all the greenery and rubble, there are bones everywhere. Those bones are all that’s left of everyone else. Jack said it was going to be like this, but until you see it for yourself, you can’t begin to appreciate the scale of it all. It makes you realize how insignificant you actually are.

  Before we left the island I went to see Jack one last time. He had his face buried in a book, as usual. He said he’d come across a word in the dictionary that summed everything up, and he told me to look it up once I got here.

  Coop and I walked through a town this afternoon. We took tins of food from a supermarket and strolled down the overgrown high street like we owned the place, drinking wine, shouting out, and doing whatever the hell we wanted. It felt good, like a lot of ghosts had been laid to rest. Later we found this house. We checked it was empty and structurally sound, then set up camp for the night. Coop was asleep in minutes, but I can’t switch off like he does. Maybe I will in the future, but not yet.

  In a small office on the ground floor of the house, I found a dictionary and I looked up Jack’s word like I promised him I would. Aftermath. I didn’t know it had two meanings. The first was obvious, the one that everybody knows: something that follows after a disastrous or unfortunate event, like the aftermath of a war. But it was the second definition that struck me: a new growth of grass following mowing or ploughing. Jack was a deeper man than he’d ever admit. I thought our little community was the aftermath, but he saw the greenery which is slowly covering everything as the aftermath of the human race.