Autumn Read online

  Slowing down to walking pace, he neared the edge of the bank and cautiously peered over. Some five metres or so ahead and below him, wedged tightly between two sturdy trees as if it had been caught, was the wreck of a small red car. Panting with the effort of his run but still in full control, Harry carefully clambered down the bank, knowing that he had to help. He hadn’t seen anyone else in the last half hour and chances were it would probably be at least as long again before anyone else passed by. It was down to him alone to try and help whoever it was who had crashed. As he made his rapid descent, it occurred to him that there didn’t seem any obvious reason why the accident had happened. There were no other vehicles around. Had it been a mechanical failure? Swerving to avoid an animal wandering across the road? Had something happened to the driver? A heart attack perhaps? Whatever the reason, it wasn’t important. Dealing with the aftermath was all that was mattered.

  The driver’s door had been wedged shut by the awkward angle at which the car had come to rest. The windscreen was shattered (it had been pierced by a thick, low-growing branch) and he pushed the remaining glass out of the way and peered inside. The driver was dead. The same branch which had smashed through the window had impaled the chest of the stocky, grey-haired man. The appalling injuries suffered by the driver were so extreme that, for a few seconds, Harry didn’t even notice he had a passenger alongside him. A woman of similar age, she was dead too. Harry looked into her lifeless face and tried to work out why. She was still anchored into her seat by her safety belt, and had no obvious wounds other than traces of blood around her mouth. Perhaps her injuries were internal? He leant across and checked for a pulse. Nothing.

  Harry’s options were limited. Did he stay with the bodies and wait for another motorist to pass (which would likely be some time) or did he try and get back to the village to get help? Although harder, the second option was clearly the most sensible. The people in the car were dead; there was nothing to be gained from stopping with them. Harry quickly scrambled back up to the road, brushed himself down, then started running again, continuing his clockwise circuit of the lake.

  What started as a gentle training run had become something far more difficult. As well as having to contend with the shock of what he’d seen, Harry also now needed to get his body working again. He’d only stopped running for a couple of minutes, but that had been more than long enough for his muscles to begin to tighten. He forced himself to try and maintain a steady pace, but his head kept telling him to run faster.

  Finally another sound disturbed the overwhelming silence. Harry could hear a plane in the distance. He rounded a gentle corner at the bottom of the lake and began to run the relatively straight two and a half mile stretch of road back up into the village. The sunlight flickered through the trees, blinding him intermittently. The run was getting harder. He was beginning to feel cold and the ends of his fingers and toes had begun to tingle. Had the temperature dropped, or was it shock? He’d run this route many times before and he knew he was more than capable of completing the distance, but now he was beginning to doubt himself. And the plane’s engines seemed to be getting louder and louder.

  At the side of the road a twisting mountain stream tumbled down the hillside, disappearing under the road and trickling into the lake. That was Harry’s two mile mark. If he pushed hard he knew that he could be home in around fifteen minutes now, but it would take every scrap of energy he still had to do it. His legs were hurting, and Christ, that plane sounded low…

  When the noise from the plane’s engine became so loud that he could feel it in his belly like an earthquake, Harry stopped running again. It didn’t sound like one of the military jets that often flew down the valley or even one of the smaller civilian aircraft that frequently passed over. The aircraft was moving in the same direction as he was, coming from behind and flying along the length of the lake towards the village. He could see it above the trees now, and he saw that it was far lower than any plane he’d seen here before. At this point the slope of the bank down to the lake was relatively gentle and he jogged down to the water’s edge to get a better view.

  The plane passed overhead, dropping fast. It was no more than fifty metres from the surface of the lake and it was falling rapidly. As Harry watched, its nose and starboard wing drooped down as if it was simply too tired to keep flying. The inevitable seemed to take an eternity to happen. The rapid descent continued until the tip of the plane’s wing clipped the water, then the aircraft somersaulted forwards, flipping over and over and breaking into several huge pieces which landed in the lake with a series of massive splashes, vast plumes of water shooting high into the air.

  Harry didn’t connect the two crashes he’d seen until he found a third. Kenneth Hitchcock, the local postman, was dead in the middle of the road next to his motor-scooter. Letters were blowing casually like leaves on the breeze. Harry picked several of them up before realising there was probably no point.

  By the time he arrived back at the village, he knew that something terrible had happened.

  By the time he made it home, the wreck of the plane had sunk beneath the surface of the lake and the water appeared deceptively calm.

  By the time he arrived back at the village, everyone else was dead.

  JACOB FLYNN

  Part i

  Jacob Flynn is serving a prison sentence for manslaughter. Like pretty much every other inmate being held here, he’ll protest his innocence relentlessly to anyone who’ll listen. The fact of the matter is, however, that Flynn caused the death of a seventy-three year old pedestrian through his reckless driving. He’ll tell you the old man was at fault as much as he was. He’ll give you any number of entirely plausible reasons why he feels his case was handled badly, and why the judge had something against him, and why his solicitor let him down, and how, if it hadn’t been for the fact he’d caught his lying bitch of a girlfriend in bed with his best friend, he wouldn’t have been driving at almost twice the speed limit down a narrow residential road at just after two-thirty on a quiet Thursday afternoon in late November last year.

  Whatever Flynn might tell you, the fact remains he was travelling too fast when he lost control of his car around a tight bend. He mounted the pavement and mowed down Eddie McDermott as he walked back to his house after a lunchtime drink with friends. The fact remains that Flynn’s driving was the sole cause of Mr McDermott’s untimely death, and in the eyes of the law he is being punished accordingly.

  Flynn shares his small, rectangular cell with two other men; Suli Salman (minor drug trafficking offences and assault) and Roger Bewsey (corporate fraud). According to his mental records, he has now been locked up for five months, three weeks and a day.

  It is just after eight o’clock in the morning and he has been awake for hours.

  #

  I hate this place more with every second I spend here. I don’t know how the rest of them handle it. There’s some that’ve been banged-up longer than I’ve been alive, but I don’t know how I’m going to last another week. Every morning I wake up and wish I hadn’t got into the car that day. Every morning I wish I’d never found Elaine with that bastard Peters or that I’d never even met the bitch in the first place. We’d only been together for just over a year, and look how much it’s cost me. I’ll spend more time in here alone than we spent together. I know there’s no point thinking like this but I can’t help it. The hours are long inside, and there’s nothing else to do.

  It’s the stench that always gets to me first. Even before I’ve opened my eyes I can smell the disinfected emptiness of this fucking hellhole. Then I hear it – the relentless noise from the scum in the cells around me. No matter what time it is, it’s never quiet in here. There’s no escape. It never bloody stops. I keep my eyes closed for as long as I can but eventually I have to sit up and look around this concrete and metal hell.

  I shouldn’t be here.

  Maybe if I’d gone a different way that day or if I hadn’t gone around to see her then I would
n’t be here now. I’d be out there where I should be. Because of that fucking slag I’ve lost everything, and I bet she’s bloody loving it. She’s out there with him, sleeping in the bed that I paid for, wearing the clothes and the jewellery and the perfume I bought her. Bitch.

  Bewsey’s snoring again. He amazes me. I don’t know how he does it. There’s a man you’d have put money on cracking up by now. He’s in his late fifties, he’s overweight, has a stutter, constantly gets picked on by the mentally-challenged thugs in here and, as far as I’m aware, he’d never been in any trouble before he got himself wrapped up in the mess that eventually wound him up inside. Salman, on the other hand, the guy in the bunk above mine, is a cocky little bastard. He’s only here for another couple of weeks. He’s in and out of these places all the time and has been for years. He’ll be out and back in again before either Bewsey or I are released.

  The mornings here are hard. Some days there’s work to do, but most of the time there’s nothing. Most days we spend virtually all of the time sitting in here, locked up. That’s when it really gets to me. I’ve got nothing in common with the rest of the foul shite in here. I’ve got nothing in common with Salman or Bewsey except the fact we share this cell. I don’t have anything to talk to them about. I don’t even like them. They both irritate me. Sometimes I wake up and I can’t imagine I’ll last ’til the end of the day. I feel like that now. Tonight seems forever away. Next week feels like it’ll never come. And I’ve got years of this to get through…

  Here we go, first fight of the day. I can hear trouble a few cells down. Someone’s screaming. Sounds like they’re being strangled. This kind of thing used to shock me, scare me, even, but you get used to it quick and now it doesn’t bother me. You can’t go longer than a couple of hours in here without someone trying to—

  Jesus Christ!

  Bewsey just scared the hell out of me. I thought he was asleep. Shit, he just sat bolt upright looking like he’s seen a ghost or had his parole turned down again or something. Bloody hell, his face is ashen white. Something’s not right with him.

  ‘What’s up, Bewsey?’

  He doesn’t answer. He just sits there, looking at me with this dumb, vacant look on his face. Now he’s starting to rub at the side of his neck, like he’s hurt or something.

  ‘You okay?’ I ask again. Being in this place has made me suspicious of everyone, no matter how harmless they might make themselves out to be. I don’t trust him. He’s either trying to trick me into getting closer or he’s gonna have a full blown panic attack. Either way I’m stopping over here, right out of the way.

  ‘I can’t…’ he starts, still rubbing the side of his neck. He’s looking into space, but his eyes dart up to look above me. Salman’s trying to get down from his bunk. He’s half-tripping, half-falling down. Now he’s doubled-up with pain on the floor and he’s coughing and wheezing like he can’t catch his breath. He’s dragged himself over to the toilet. Christ, he’s puking up blood. What the hell is going on here? Now Bewsey’s on his feet, still grabbing and scratching at his neck.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask but he can’t even hear me, never mind answer. He’s not faking. This is for real. The cell is suddenly filled with noise, both of them coughing their guts up, trying to scream for help.

  Bewsey can’t breathe. Bloody hell, the poor bastard can’t get any oxygen. He’s up on his feet and he’s trying to take in air but his throat is blocked. I have to do something. I jump up and push him back down onto his bed. He tries to get up, then collapses onto the mattress. His body starts to shake and he tries to fight but all his strength has gone. I can hear Salman moaning and coughing behind me and there are similar noises coming from other cells around this one. I look back over my shoulder just as Salman falls to the ground. He smacks his head against the wall, knocking himself out cold.

  Bewsey’s convulsing now and it takes all my strength to keep him down on the bed. His eyes are full of panic – as wide as fucking saucers and staring straight at me like whatever’s happening is my fault. There’s blood on his lips. Shit, there’s a dribble of blood trickling down his cheek from the corner of his mouth.

  He’s stopped shaking now. Bad sign.

  Fuck! He grabs my arm and he’s squeezing it so bloody hard I think he’s going to break it. Another silent scream. More spitting blood. He arches his back, then crashes down onto the bed. And now he’s not moving at all.

  I just look at him for a second, then touch his neck and check for a pulse.

  Can’t feel anything.

  He’s dead. Jesus Christ, he’s dead.

  I stare at Bewsey’s body for so long I almost forget about Salman. I turn around and I can tell by the way he’s lying that he’s dead too. Like Bewsey, there’s blood trickling from his mouth and there’s more pouring out of a deep gash on his forehead.

  And now I realise I can’t hear anyone else.

  The whole bloody prison is silent. I’ve never known it like this before. I’m scared. Jesus Christ, I’m scared.

  ‘Help!’ I scream, pushing my face hard against the bars and trying to see across the landing. No one there. ‘There are men dead in here. Help! Please, someone, help!’

  Shit, I’m crying like a bloody baby now. I don’t know what to do. This cell is on the middle floor. I can see the bottom of the staircase which leads up to the top landing. One of the officers is sprawled out over the bottom steps. I don’t know whether he fell or whether what killed Salman and Bewsey got to him too. Even from a distance I know he’s dead.

  #

  For more than an hour, Jacob Flynn stood in the corner of the cell in shock. He pushed himself back hard against the wall, trying to get as far as possible from the bodies of his cell mates. It was a while before the initial panic began to subside and his brain was able to function with enough clarity to start trying to make sense of the situation. What had happened to the men who shared his cell? Why was the rest of the prison silent? Why did it feel like he was the only one left alive?

  A few minutes later and Flynn’s logical thought progression helped him arrive at the cruellest realisation of all. If everyone else really was dead, then he was trapped. He dropped to the ground and began to sob uncontrollably, knowing there would be no exercise or work sessions today. There would be no meals, showers, or classes or counselling sessions. If he really was the only one left, then this was it. The cell door would stay locked forever.

  As the day wore on and no one else came and nothing changed, Flynn realised that, without warning, the term of his comparatively short prison term had been dramatically extended to life. No parole, no early release… life. Paradoxically, he also knew that without food or water, that sentence would only last for days, not years.

  All he could do was sit and wait.

  BRIGID CULTHORPE

  Brigid Culthorpe yawned, rubbed her eyes and squinted at the spray-paint-covered sign at the end of the street, trying to make out the name of the road they were in.

  ‘It’s like a bloody maze round here,’ she grumbled to her partner, PC Marco Glover. ‘Don’t know how you can tell one road from another.’

  Glover grunted and nodded as he slowed the patrol car down and coaxed it gently over a speed bump. ‘You get used to it. Believe me, Brig, you’ll spend plenty of time down here.’

  ‘Get much trouble here then?’

  ‘Virtually all the trouble we get starts here,’ the more experienced, grey-haired policeman sighed. ‘Every town has an estate like this. It’s a dumping ground. It’s where the scum and the unfortunate end up, and they don’t think twice about preying on those folks who can’t look after themselves. And even if the trouble doesn’t start here, wherever it kicks off it’s usually people from round here who start it.’

  ‘Great,’ Brigid said as the car clattered over another bump. Glover turned left.

  ‘Right, here we are, Acacia Road. Sounds quite nice, but believe me, it ain’t.’

  He stopped the car. Brigid got out and looke
d up and down the length of the street. Ten or twenty years ago this might have been a fairly decent area, she thought, but not anymore. It was desolate. Weeds sprouted through cracks in the pavements and overgrown front lawns had spilled out over collapsed walls and broken fences. The battered wrecks of old, half-stripped down cars sat useless outside equally dilapidated houses. Uncollected black sacks of rubbish had been dumped in piles waiting for an overdue council collection. Acacia Road was a grey and depressing scene.

  Brigid’s throat was dry. She wasn’t long out of training. Her stomach churned with an uneasy mix of nerves, adrenalin and anticipation.

  ‘Which number was it?’ Glover asked.

  ‘Forty-six.’

  ‘Come on then. Let’s get it done.’

  Glover began walking down the road and Brigid followed. They started at number four (which, as it sat between house numbers twenty-two and twenty-six, was most likely actually twenty-four) then increased their speed. Thirty-eight, forty, forty-two, forty-four, and then they were there. Number forty-six. The number had been daubed on the wall in off-white emulsion paint next to a boarded-up window. Even from the end of the path they could already hear the argument inside. She saw the remains of a large piece of furniture and a liberal sprinkling of broken glass in the middle of the overgrown lawn. The front bedroom window had been smashed and a pair of thin, mustard-yellow curtains blew in and out in the early morning breeze like dirty flags. It didn’t take a genius to work out what had happened.