Autumn: Aftermath Read online

  He’d taken to living on the bus. It was as good a place as any: better than most parts of the castle itself—windproof and relatively warm—and as spacious as most of the caravans the others used (less crowded, too). This morning, however, it was particularly cold. Driver opened one eye, then quickly closed it. It was still dark, and he was nowhere near ready to start another day just yet. He snuggled down deeper into his sleeping bag and wrapped his arms around himself to try and retain as much precious heat as possible. He was on the verge of drifting off again when something slammed against the back end of the bus, close to where he was lying. He sat upright in an instant, heart pounding, expecting to see bodies surrounding him. He relaxed when he saw that it was just Jackson, wrapped up like an Arctic explorer. He gestured for Driver to let him in. Still in his sleeping bag, he grudgingly shuffled, jumped, and tripped the length of the bus to open the door.

  “Bloody hell,” he said, “do you know what time it is?”

  “Do I look like I care what time it is?” Jackson replied, irritated. “Get yourself ready, Driver, we’re going out.”

  “Out? Where?”

  “Bromwell.”

  * * *

  Within the hour, Driver found himself standing inside the prefabricated museum with a small team of volunteers. He looked around at them. Most people (himself included, if he was honest about it) did as little as they could to get by, content to leave the much of the work to the minority of folks. And here they were: the usual suspects—the same faces which tended to appear whenever anything important needed doing. Bob Wilkins was there, despite his frequent protestations about staying inside the castle walls and not taking risks, and next to him, wearing a grubby hazmat suit, was Steve Morecombe, another man who seemed to talk a lot but who said very little worth listening to.

  Next to them, leaning up against the nearest wall, was Zoe, a tall, athletic-looking student. Driver liked Zoe, not that he’d had much to do with her so far. She was different from the others, and liked to keep herself to herself. He could identify with that. She was what Driver’s ex-wife Sandra would have called “an individual.” Much to the bemusement of the rest of the group, Zoe referred to herself as a student because that, technically, was what she still was. She could often be found alone in the corner of the classroom or the caravan where she lived, continuing to pore over the books and other texts she’d kept with her from university. What good’s all that going to do you now? people asked her with infuriating regularity. Where was the point in studying a now-defunct subject such as criminal law, or in studying anything else for that matter? Driver knew they were missing the point entirely. He didn’t need to ask Zoe why she studied, because he already knew. It was obvious. Like the newspaper he had read over and over, Zoe’s studies were her coping mechanism. They were both a distraction and an occupation; a link to the past she wasn’t yet ready to lose. “Just because you’ve all forgotten who you used to be,” she’d sometimes tell them when she was feeling particularly frustrated, “doesn’t mean I have to.”

  Kieran and Jackson marched across the courtyard toward the classroom, feet crunching through the gravel and frost. They’d barely got through the door before Bob was at them.

  “Well?”

  “Well what?” Jackson asked.

  “Is it safe?”

  “No way of knowing that for sure until we get out there, is there, Bob?”

  “That’s reassuring,” Steve grumbled. Driver said nothing, but he shared their concern. This seemed like the most tenuous of plans.

  “All I can tell you,” Jackson said, “is that they’re all pretty much frozen solid right now. The frost last night was particularly severe. I tried digging a hole just now, and I could barely get the spade to break the surface of the soil, so those things outside shouldn’t be much more than chunks of ice. As long as we’re back before they start to thaw out, we should be fine.”

  “Should be fine?” Bob said.

  “Will be fine. Now, are we ready?”

  There was a muted, barely audible response.

  “I’m ready,” Zoe said, keen to show she was willing and to kick the others up the backside a little.

  “Good stuff,” Jackson continued. “I know you all know what we’re doing, but just so we’re clear, I’ll go through it again, okay?”

  Nothing.

  “Kieran’s going out there first in the digger to clear those icy bastards off the road, Driver follows with the rest of us. He’ll get us to the hotel, then it’s in and out and back again as quick as we can. No messing around. Got it?”

  “You make it sound so easy,” Steve said.

  “It will be easy,” Jackson replied. “Trust me.”

  “Oh, we trust you, all right,” Bob said, following Zoe as she walked out of the classroom. “It’s what’s left of the rest of the world we have a problem with.”

  Driver was the last to leave, his stomach knotted with nerves. He didn’t know what scared him more—the prospect of leaving the safety of the castle walls, or what he might find back at the hotel.

  10

  Mark Ainsworth’s fifteen minutes of fame had ended shortly before the rest of the world had died. He’d worked in a call center selling car insurance for eight years until just before last summer when a chance encounter on a busy high street had resulted in him appearing on a couple of episodes of a poorly rated, fashion-based reality TV show. Most people’s professions had been rendered redundant by the apocalypse, none more so than Mark, but with the blissful ignorance of someone who thought that a brief appearance on TV suddenly promoted him from a nobody to a somebody, he refused to shut up about it. He still put gel in his hair every morning and used copious amounts of deodorant, still checked his appearance in the mirror whenever he left the caravan. But there were no TVs now. No fashion. No advertisers. None of it mattered—not that any of it ever had. Melanie was sick of hearing about it.

  “Just give it a rest, Mark,” she said, teeth chattering in the cold. “You’ve already told me.”

  “I know. Pretty cool though, eh?”

  “If you say so.”

  “They were talking about getting me to do a few PAs at Oceania in town. Now that would have been awesome. Did you ever go to that club?”

  “Yeah. It was shit.”

  “You’re kidding me. Oceania? That place was the dog’s bollocks.”

  “Well it was bollocks,” she said, “I’ll give you that.”

  “You’re a total dick, Mark,” Will Bayliss said. “Shut up about your fucking TV and all that. You’re doing my fucking head in.”

  Ainsworth finally shut up. Bayliss, several years his junior but with the offensive swagger of a wannabe bad boy, intimidated him. Bayliss tutted, and looked Ainsworth up and down dismissively. Paul Field, standing just behind him and doing all he could, as usual, to stay on the right side of Bayliss, shook his head and mumbled something that none of them could make out. For the first time she could remember, Melanie was actually pleased to see Jackson walking toward her.

  “You lot ready with the gate?” he asked.

  “We’re ready,” she said.

  “Get it shut again as soon as Kieran gets the digger back inside, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said. Neither Ainsworth nor Bayliss made any comment, but he was used to their disrespect. He nodded his approval at Melanie, then walked back toward the digger and gave Kieran a thumbs-up. Kieran started the engine, filling the air with noise. Jackson looked around at the others—Sue Preston, Charlie Moorehouse, Shirley Brinksford, Phil Kent—all of them standing ready, armed with clubs and axes, poised to mop up any of the corpses which managed to avoid being crushed by the digger and squirm through while the gate was open.

  Shirley’s mouth was dry and her legs were heavy with nerves. She didn’t know if she could do this. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Aiden’s young face pressed up against the caravan window. He shouldn’t be watching this, she thought. He’s too young. I should go back inside and look
after him, leave all this violence to the boys.

  “Okay,” Jackson shouted. “Open up!”

  Ainsworth and Bayliss pulled their respective ropes and the two sides of the gate slowly opened. The nearest dead were immediately visible. Here comes the flood, thought Kieran, watching nervously from his elevated position. But they didn’t move. A vast number of them had crowded up against the gate, melding together as a single gore-soaked mass, but they were completely frozen and were now stuck in position like someone had hit the pause button. The gate was fully open now, and still there was no movement. Perhaps there was a slight twitch now and then, a barely visible shudder, but that was all. The relief was palpable. Shirley dropped her ax and beckoned Kieran forward. He lowered the digger’s heavy scoop and accelerated.

  From up in his seat, Kieran had a clear and uninterrupted view of the frozen dead and the world beyond the castle walls. It truly was a bizarre sight; one of the strangest things he’d ever seen (and that was saying something, given everything he’d witnessed since September). It was impossible to even begin to estimate just how many bodies had crowded onto the road leading up to the castle gate. They were unrecognizable, having long since lost virtually all semblance of individual form, packed together like this. First the decay had deformed and distorted them, grossly altering their once-standard shapes in random ways, then the constant crowding had caused more damage, and now the bitter frost had welded them together. Their limbs and torsos were largely obscured by the general mass, but countless heads remained poking up above the bulk of the frozen flesh, their features delicately highlighted and given a strange, glassy sheen by a layer of ice.

  Kieran stopped before the first impact, almost unable to comprehend what now lay ahead of him. It was, by turn, terrifying and pitiful. Terrifying because even though they remained motionless and unable to attack, the dead were still here in almost incalculable numbers. And pitiful because these damn things, which had caused him and everyone else so much pain, appeared to have been rendered utterly harmless by a sudden change in the weather. It was almost as if they’d been cut off midsentence, and he found it strangely reassuring, although he also felt uneasy knowing that a thaw would inevitably give some of them back their freedom. He almost laughed out loud at one of them. It had an arm raised and its head held high as if it was an athlete sprinting for the finishing line, caught in a freeze-frame photo with all the other corpses to decide the winner. When he thought he saw it tremble slightly—whether the result of vibrations from the digger, a slight increase in temperature, gravity, intent, or something else entirely—he shoved his foot down on the accelerator pedal and drove straight into it.

  Jackson got onto the bus and stood next to Driver, both of them watching as Kieran powered along the road outside the castle, quickly carving a remarkably clean groove through the motionless ranks. He couldn’t hear it, but he could imagine the noise of bits of the bodies crunching and snapping, the ice creaking, and he stared as random limbs were broken off like the dried-out branches of dead trees. He glanced across at Driver who remained looking forward, his face expressionless. He’s either focused or completely fucking terrified, Jackson thought. I can’t tell which.

  When the curve of the road meant that Kieran disappeared from view, Jackson decided it was time to move. He nudged Driver sharply and he pulled away, following the almost perfect channel through the dead which the digger had left. There were steep banks of drifting decay on either side, and even as Jackson watched, he was sure he could see movement. It was subtle and slight, but it was definitely there. Some of the bodies buried deepest had been protected from the worst of the frost, and what was left of them was already starting to slowly inch back toward the area which had been cleared. He knew that if they waited long enough, the track would completely disappear. They had to get out and get back again before the corpses thawed out. The sun was beginning to climb. They didn’t have long.

  11

  Driver’s nervousness reached almost unbearable levels as they approached the hotel. His initial trepidation at being out in the open again had quickly faded and had been replaced with an even more uncomfortable feeling of apprehension. What were they going to find at the hotel? Either way he looked at it, it was going to be tough. Contrary to what Hollis, Lorna, and the others he’d left behind might have thought of him, he felt genuine affection for the people he’d been forced to abandon. He hoped they’d find them all safe. If they were dead, he knew he’d be riddled with guilt. And yet, conversely, the prospect of finding them alive made him feel equally nervous. How much would they all hate him for what he’d done? Even though he’d eventually returned for them—albeit a little over a fortnight later—would any of them ever be able to trust him again?

  No time to think about that now. They were here. He could see the hotel up ahead.

  “So does anyone have a plan for getting them out?” Zoe asked. She was standing just behind Jackson, holding onto a handrail as the bus clattered along.

  “Sort of,” Jackson replied, giving little away. “Difficult to plan much when you don’t know what you’re going to find.”

  “Great.”

  She knew Jackson was right. It was just her nerves talking. Making detailed preparations had been impossible from a distance. Driver had given them an overview of the basic geography of the area as best he could, explaining about the road between the hotel and the golf course, the fences and gates, the blocked road junction and the crashed vehicles (those he knew about, anyway).

  They’d looped around and were now coming from the direction of Bromwell itself. Driver had deliberately chosen a route which would approach the hotel from this direction, because by coming this way, he’d explained to Jackson, they’d be able to get access to the hotel through the field below the golf course. That was where he thought Jas and the others had blown up their cars, and it seemed the most direct way to gain access to the building without having to waste time moving trucks or scrambling over the wreck of his poor old bus.

  Driver stopped at the entrance to the field. The steep slope ahead was covered in remains, some standing upright, some decayed down to an almost unrecognizable mulch. Much like the hordes of bodies camped around the castle incessantly, the crowds here had been vast in number, and as a consequence it appeared that many of the dead had literally been trampled into the dirt. Much to the survivors’ collective relief, the area remained almost entirely motionless. The bodies here were still frozen.

  “I’ll never get this bus up there,” Driver said, looking at the gore-covered hill which climbed away in front of them. “Best not risk it.”

  “Let us out,” Jackson said, barely acknowledging him. Driver did as instructed, and the four others disembarked.

  Zoe, keen to get this done and get back, marched ahead. Her steel-capped boots crunched through the ice, then slid through the fleshy muck below as she stepped out onto the field, vile-smelling liquids splashing up her overtrousers. Bob followed close behind, carrying a screwdriver with a long shaft as a weapon. They walked along the bottom edge of the field to begin with, then began to climb when they reached the hedgerow nearest to the hotel building. A body which lay on its back beneath the hedge, shielded from the worst of the frost and still able to function to a limited extent, reached out for Bob and grabbed hold of his foot. Bob kicked it over, trod down on its neck, and plunged the screwdriver deep into one of its temples. He shook the screwdriver clean and looked over at Zoe. She was standing a short distance away, looking up into the sky.

  “Problem?” he asked.

  “Possibly,” she replied. Since leaving the castle the skies overhead had cleared and were now relentlessly blue. Although it was still cold, the sun was fierce and where the light hit them, the bodies were beginning to defrost. Steam snaked away from them, carried on the gentlest of breezes, and now they could hear the drip, drip, drip which heralded the beginning of the thaw.

  Steve and Jackson caught up. They were carrying two long ladders between
them.

  “We need to get on with this and get it done fast,” Steve warned. “I don’t fancy being stuck out here when those fuckers start moving around again.”

  Jackson agreed, although he didn’t bother saying anything. Instead he continued to climb up the hill, dragging Steve behind on the other end of the ladders. Each step forward became increasingly difficult, the slope of the ground combining with the slush underfoot made it hard to get a grip. And the farther they climbed, the more statuelike corpses they had to negotiate. Jackson watched them intently as he weaved around their frozen shapes. Maybe it was the way its face caught the light, but he was sure the one he was approaching now had just moved its eyes. Was it looking at him? Out of spite and for no other reason, he kicked out at it and it fell back into the icy mire like a felled tree.

  “Gate,” Zoe said, taking the lead again. There was a metal gate in the top right-hand corner of the field where the land leveled out slightly. She opened it fully, scraping away an arc of once-human remains. “Here’s the road Driver was on about,” she added, looking up and down the curving track which wound its way around the perimeter of the hotel grounds. Jackson caught up. Steve and Bob took the weight of one ladder, while he rested the other up the impenetrable hedgerow in front of them. He held it steady while Zoe climbed up. She lifted her hands to her face to shield her eyes from the brilliant winter sun.