Autumn a-1 Read online

  Another silence.

  ‘So what do you think?’ Emma asked. ‘You seem to have an opinion about everything. Do you reckon we’ve got any chance, or do you think we should just curl up in the corner and give up?’

  ‘I think we’ve got a damn good chance, but not necessarily here.’

  ‘Where then?’ she wondered.

  ‘Well what have we got here?’ Michael began. ‘We’ve got shelter of sorts, we’ve got limited supplies and we’ve got access to what’s left of the city. We’ve also got an unlimited supply of dead bodies – some of them mobile – which are going to rot. Agree?’

  The other two thought for a moment and then nodded.

  ‘And I suppose,’ he continued, ‘there’s also the flip-side of the coin. As good a shelter as this is, it’s fast becoming a prison. We’ve got no idea what’s around us. We don’t even know what’s in the buildings on the other side of the street.’

  ‘But it’s going to be the same wherever we go…’ Emma remarked.

  ‘Possibly. Carl and I were talking about heading out to the countryside earlier, and the more I think about it the more it seems to make sense.’

  ‘Why?’

  Carl explained, remembering the conversation he’d had with Michael a few hours ago.

  ‘The population’s concentrated in cities, isn’t it? There will be less bodies out in the sticks. And less bodies equals less problems…’

  ‘Hopefully,’ Michael added cautiously.

  ‘So what’s stopping us?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Michael replied.

  ‘Are you sure that you want to go?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘And what if no-one else does?’

  ‘Tough. I’ll go on my own.’

  ‘And when are you going to go?’

  ‘As soon as I can. I’d go tomorrow if I could.’

  Emma had to admit that, arrogant and superior as he tended to sound, Michael’s logic and reasoning made sense. The more she listened to and thought about his proposals, the more hopeful she became. Fired up with a new found enthusiasm and purpose, the three survivors talked through the first few long, dragging hours of the new day. By four o’clock that morning their plans were made.

  12

  Michael Collins

  Bastards.

  Spineless, fucking bastards.

  Once I’d decided to leave that was it, I was going. It made so much sense. No-one could be sure what was going to happen next and no-one knew how safe we were going to be. Problem was the rest of them all seemed to agree that we should move on until the time came to actually do something about it. Until it was time to walk out the door they all agreed that getting out of the city made sense. When it came down to it though, none of them had the nerve to go. They were scared just sitting and waiting in the community centre for something to happen, but the thought of taking those first few tentative steps outside their new found comfort zone seemed to be even more terrifying. I stood there in the middle of the hall right in front of them all and told them why we should leave and like fucking sheep they nodded their heads and mumbled in agreement. Five minutes later though, when Paul Garner and Stuart stood up and had their say and told them why they thought it was better to sit still and wait for fucking eternity, the deal was done and the matter was closed. Suddenly it felt like it was me, Carl and Emma against the rest of them. I was beginning to identify more with the bodies outside on the streets than with the empty, lifeless bastards I found myself locked up with.

  But that was it. Long and short of it, that was it. We could stay there and rot or we could go. It wasn’t much of a choice.

  That morning Emma stayed behind to pack our stuff together while Carl and I went out into the city to try and get everything we might need for our journey to God knows where. Once we were outside the stupidity and short-sightedness of the people hiding in the community centre became even more apparent. It was a bloody gold mine out there. Just about anything we wanted we could have, we just had to look for it. It was like shopping with a credit card that didn’t have a limit, and the dead shop assistants were infinitely less irritating than they had been before they’d died. The strangest thing though was standing in the shops and looking out onto the silent streets. There were plenty of staggering bodies drifting about aimlessly. Truth be told, there wasn’t much difference between the hordes of dead creatures today and the hordes of equally aimless consumers that had trampled the same streets less than a week earlier.

  We found ourselves a decent sized car from a high-class garage. It was one of those people carriers with seven seats. We didn’t have much stuff to take with us but it seemed to make sense to get the biggest car we could find. We decided that if push came to shove we could use it as a temporary shelter. We thought for a while about getting a Transit van or something similar but we decided against it. There didn’t seem to be much point roughing it when we could have a little bit of comfort for no extra effort and at no extra risk.

  We collected food and clothes because none of us had brought very much with us. From time to time while we were out in the open the option of actually going home to get our own things cropped up. At first I wasn’t bothered about going back but Carl was certain that he didn’t want to. He’d already told me a little about his wife and child and I understood why he didn’t want to go anywhere near his place. I lived alone and the more I thought about it the more unnerving the thought of going back to my empty house seemed. The memories and emotions stored there were enough – I couldn’t have coped if I’d left anyone behind. At the end of the day apart from my past all that was there were possessions which could easily be replaced. Just about anything I wanted I could take from the shelves of one of the desolate shops we looted.

  I was losing all track of time. We had been up and out since nine o’clock but it felt like it was much, much later. During the week my days had lost all form, structure and familiarity. No-one slept much. People woke up whenever they woke up and kept themselves occupied as best they could until they couldn’t keep their eyes open any longer. There were no set mealtimes, rest times or bedtimes, there was just time. Each hour dragged and seemed longer than the last.

  Just before eleven Carl and I drove our silver van loaded with supplies back along the silent streets to the community centre.

  13

  Emma had managed to pack all her belongings into two carrier bags and a cardboard box. She did the same with Michael and Carl’s things. Between the three of them everything they had was condensed into the sum total of five carrier bags and two boxes.

  She breathed a sigh of relief at three minutes to eleven when Carl and Michael returned. The others had hardly spoken to her in all the time that the two men had been away from the community centre. It was almost as if she had suddenly ceased to exist. The rest of the survivors seemed to think that they were being abandoned, and Emma had real difficulty trying to understand why they felt that way. The invitation still stood for any of them – all of them if they wanted – to leave with Michael, Carl and herself. She guessed that the only thing stopping them was uncertainty and their personal and irrational fears of stepping outside the creaky wooden building. Countless times in those few hours she looked up and made eye contact with other people, only for them to look away again quickly. Countless times she heard people whispering behind her back. She knew that they were talking about her because nothing was private anymore. The eerie silence inside the hall amplified every spiteful word.

  ‘Everything all right?’ she asked as Michael parked the van in front of the building and clambered out and stretched.

  ‘Fine,’ he replied quietly, flashing her a quick and reassuring smile as he did so. ‘You okay?’

  She nodded.

  Carl walked around from the other side of the van.

  ‘We got everything we need,’ he said. ‘What do you think of the transport?’

  She nodded again and slowly walked around the large family car. There we
re seven seats inside, two at the front, two at the back and three in the middle. The front two seats and the seat behind the driver’s were empty. The others were piled high with supplies.

  As she looked through the tinted glass windows it suddenly occurred to her that they were standing outside and, for the first time since it had all began, none of them seemed to be giving a damn about what had happened to the devastated world around them. They were surrounded by bodies – some still, some moving – and yet today she wasn’t the least bit bothered. Perhaps it was because they were about to leave. Maybe deciding that she didn’t need the protection of the hall anymore had subconsciously changed her way of thinking.

  ‘Have any trouble while you were out there?’ she asked, snapping herself out of her daydream.

  ‘Trouble?’ Carl replied, surprised. ‘What kind of trouble?’

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘I don’t know. Christ, you spent the morning in the middle of a city full of walking corpses. I don’t know what you saw. Did you…’

  Michael interrupted.

  ‘Nothing happened,’ he said abruptly. ‘There were plenty of bodies walking around, but nothing happened.’

  ‘Not as many as I expected though,’ Carl added.

  ‘That’s because they’re starting to spread out,’ Michael grunted as he shoved their carrier bags and boxes into the back of the van.

  ‘Spread out?’ said Emma.

  ‘It’s the blotting paper effect, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it?’

  Michael stopped and turned to face her.

  ‘When all this started there was a high concentration of bodies in the middle of the city, wasn’t there? People were at work and school, weren’t they?’

  ‘Yes…’ she replied, unsure where the conversation was leading.

  ‘So if those of them that are up and moving around are walking randomly, it stands to reason that they’ve spread out from the centre of the city like ink spreads across blotting paper.’

  ‘I see…’ she mumbled, far from convinced.

  ‘It might take a while, but it’s started and I bet that’s what will happen.’

  He returned his attention to loading the last two bags into the van. Emma continued to think, trying hard to follow through the route of his logic.

  ‘So,’ she eventually continued, ‘if what you’re saying is right, given time there could be equal numbers of bodies all over the country?’

  Michael thought for a moment.

  ‘Suppose so. Why?’

  ‘Because if that’s the case,’ she said quietly, ‘why the hell are we bothering to run?’

  ‘We’re not running,’ he snapped, deliberately avoiding the very valid point of her comment. ‘We’re backed into a corner here. What we’re doing is giving ourselves a chance.’

  Sensing that the conversation had opened up a particularly unpleasant can of worms, he slammed and locked the van door and headed back inside.

  The silence which greeted Michael as he walked back into the main hall was the most ominous silence he’d heard since he’d first arrived there days earlier. The rest of the survivors – all twenty or so frightened individuals – stopped and stared at him, Carl and Emma in unspoken unison. Some of those people hadn’t acknowledged him in all the time they’d been at the community centre. Some hadn’t even spoken a word to anyone since they’d got there. And yet, suddenly and unexpectedly, Michael got the distinct impression that it was the three of them against the rest. There was real animosity and anger in the room. It felt like betrayal.

  The wave of hostility stopped Michael in his tracks. He turned around to face Emma and Carl. The three of them found themselves exposed and stood together in the centre of the room.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ he asked, keeping his voice low.

  ‘It’s been like this since you went,’ Emma replied. ‘The rest of them seem to have a real problem with what we’re doing.’

  ‘Fucking idiots,’ Carl snapped. ‘It’s because they know we’re right. We should tell them that…’

  ‘We’ll tell them nothing,’ Michael ordered. The surprising authority in his voice silenced and stunned Carl. ‘Let’s just go.’

  ‘What, now?’ Emma said, surprised. ‘Are we ready? Do we need to…’

  Michael glanced at her. The expression on his face left her in no doubt as to his intentions.

  ‘What are we going to gain from waiting around?’ he hissed. ‘We’re better off travelling in daylight so let’s make the most of it. Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘Are you sure…?’ Carl began.

  ‘You sound like you’re having doubts?’ Michael snapped, the tone of his voice seeming almost to carry a sneer. ‘You can stop here if you want to…’

  Carl shook his head and looked away, feeling intimidated and pressured.

  ‘Oh bollocks to it,’ Emma said, her voice now a fraction louder. ‘You’re right. Let’s just get out of here.’

  Michael turned back to face the rest of the survivors who still stared at him and his companions. He cleared his throat. He didn’t know what to say or why he was even bothering to try and say anything. It just didn’t seem right to walk out without trying one last time to persuade the rest of them to try and see the sense in what they were doing.

  ‘We’re leaving,’ he began, his words echoing around the cold wooden room. ‘If any of you want to…’

  ‘Fuck off,’ Stuart Jeffries spat, getting up from his chair and walking up to Michael. The two men stood face to face. ‘Just get in your damn car and fuck off now,’ he hissed. ‘You’re putting us at risk. Every second you spend here is a second too long.’

  Michael looked into his tired face for what seemed like an eternity. There were countless things he could have said to Jeffries and the others – countless reasons why they should follow and not stay locked in the community centre – but the anger bordering on hate in the other man’s eyes left him in no doubt that to say anything would be pointless.

  ‘Come on,’ Emma said, grabbing his arm and pulling him away.

  Michael looked around the room one last time and stared back at each one of the desperate faces which stared at him. Then he turned his back and walked.

  Carl led the way out, closely followed by the other two. Just seconds after taking their first steps out into the cold afternoon air the door of the community centre was slammed and locked shut behind them. Sensing that there was no turning back (and feeling suddenly nervous and unsure) the three survivors exchanged anxious glances and climbed into the van. Michael started the engine and drove out towards the main road, pausing only to let a single willowy-framed, greasy-skinned body stagger oblivious past the front of the van.

  14

  Less than an hour into the journey and Carl, Michael and Emma found themselves wracked with fear and scepticism. Leaving the shelter had seemed like the only option but now, now that they had actually left the building and the other survivors behind them, uncertainty and unknowing had begun to set in and take over. Doubt which bordered on paranoia plagued Michael as he fought to keep his concentration and to keep the van moving forward. Problem was, he decided, they didn’t actually know where it was they were going. Finding somewhere safe and secure to shelter had seemed easy at first but now that they were outside and could see the shattered remains of the world for themselves it was beginning to seem like an impossible task. The whole world seemed to be theirs for the taking but they couldn’t actually find any of it that they wanted.

  Emma sat bolt upright in the seat next to Michael, staring out of the windows around her in disbelief, looking from side to side, too afraid to sit back and relax. Before she’d seen it for herself it had seemed logical to assume that only the helpless population would have been affected by the inexplicable tragedy. The reality was that the land too had been battered, savaged and ravaged beyond all recognition. Countless buildings – sometimes entire streets – had been razed to the ground by unchecked fires which
even now still smouldered. Almost every car which had been moving when the disaster had struck had veered out of control and had crashed. She counted herself lucky that she had been indoors and relatively safe when the nightmare had begun. She silently wondered how many other people that had died in a car crash or some other sudden accident might actually have gone on to survive had fate not dealt them such a bitter hand? How many people who shared her apparent immunity to the disease, virus or whatever it was that had caused all of this had been wiped out through nothing more than misfortune and bad luck? Something caught her eye in a field at the side of the road. The wreckage of a light aircraft was strewn over the boggy and uneven ground at one end of a long, deep furrow. All around the wreck lay twisted chunks of metal which freely mixed with the bloody remains of the passengers the plane had been carrying. She wondered what might have happened to those people had they survived their flight? It was pointless to think about such things, but in a strange way it was almost therapeutic. It seemed to help just to keep her mind occupied.

  With unnerving speed the three survivors found that they were becoming impervious to the carnage, death and destruction all around them. But, even though the sight of thousands of battered and bloodied bodies and the aftermath of hundreds of horrific accidents were now almost commonplace, from time to time each one of them still saw scenes that were so terrible and grotesque that it was almost impossible for them to comprehend what they saw. As much as he wanted to look away, Carl found himself transfixed with a morbid and sickening curiosity as they passed a long red and white coach. The huge and heavy vehicle had collided with the side of a red brick house. Carl stared in disbelief at the bodies of some thirty or so children trapped in their seats. Even though they were held tight by their seat belts, he could see at least seven of the poor youngsters trying to move. Their withered arms flailed around their empty, pallid faces, and the sight of the children made him remember Gemma, the perfect little girl that he had left behind. The realisation that he would never see or hold her again was a pain that was almost too much to bear. It had been hard enough to try and come to terms with his loss while he had been in the community centre but now, strange as it seemed, every single mile they drove further away made the pain even harder to stand. Sarah and Gemma had been dead for almost a week but he still felt responsible for them. He’d just left them lying in bed together. He felt like he’d failed them.