From Despair to Where

by Oliver Smith

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  In the evening, around 7pm, people started streaming into the pub filled with anticipation for the meal that awaited them. Some brought bottles of wine and beer and a couple of older gentlemen brought guitars. The average age must have been close to 60 and there was almost a joyous expectation from those filling the pub. Jack thought that this must have been what it was like in the old days, before the Internet, television and social media had introverted society. It was a throwback to togetherness and the pub was the hub of the community once again.

  Maggie was out of the kitchen and had handed over the reins of finishing the meal to another couple who oversaw the final preparations. She weaved in and out of the group, warmly spreading kisses on cheeks and greeting everyone with open arms. She was a fine hostess and was quick to introduce Chloe, Lucy, and Jack around. She took Chloe to meet another little girl, the only one in the village, who was called Alexa and they ran around the pub playing. Jack and Lucy were introduced to Frank, who was a big, yet gentle man with a knowledgeable way of talking.

  Before long, beers, wines and spirits were flowing freely among the group as the noisy chatter echoed around the room. George and Cathy came over to say hello to Jack and Lucy and continued finishing each other’s sentences whilst never separating their hold of each other. Jack and Lucy were both worried that the noise would attract the dead; Maggie saw the anxious looks they gave towards the door and windows and assured them that the look outs would be watching and warn us should anything come uninvited into the village.

  Dinner was served and kept the room quiet for a short while as the hungry people of the community devoured their food with great appetite. After the meal, people began to circulate the room and introduce themselves to Jack and Lucy, they met quite a few of the village, some were dull, but some were interesting and insightful, the people they met included:

  Frank: A master of electricity and engineering, he was also brave having been out to the more populated areas to stock up on supplies to keep the power running in the pub. Frank explained to Jack how to set up and construct renewable energy sources into the mains and made detailed notes for Jack to take with him.

  Alice: A dull bore who spoke of missing playing Candy Crush and the fact that she was stuck on level 345, but had nearly mastered the level and was upset that she would no longer be able to complete it. Maggie was quick to see who Lucy and Jack were talking to and whisked them away. Lucy had been growing angry listening to the woman complain about such trivialities and was close to blowing her lid and causing a scene so was grateful to be pulled away.

  George: The man eventually left Cathy’s side and sat down to talk to Jack and Lucy about the state of the surrounding towns. He’d been keen to go on supply runs and check on surrounding villages. He told them that there were other communities around the hills that weren’t faring so well, many were losing members on a daily basis and weren’t as organised. He told them about two villages called Hope and Dove Holes that weren’t far away. The dead were in the streets and people weren’t working together to keep their communities safe and as such they were starting to panic and had begun to slowly succumb to the growing numbers of dead. He had tried to talk to people to help them organise, but they were only concerned with their immediate family and friends and weren’t prepared to change their habits. He also told them about trips to Buxton and Chapel-en-le-Frith that were practically no-go zones, although he had been there earlier in the week in a modified tractor to get supplies. He said he hadn’t seen any living and had a lot of trouble getting through the growing crowds of zombies. It was this information that speeded up the community’s decisions to try and fortify their village.

  Susan: She was younger than most, in her early 50s and a project manager in her previous life. She was heading up the fortification of the village. She had mapped out the houses closest to the pub and centre of the village and wanted to use the structures of the houses as the main parts of the walls. She was organising a team of 10 to come up with a quick way of building a strong barricade around the rest of the village. They had machinery thanks to the farm equipment and a ready supply of red diesel, to dig foundations, but they lacked the materials. Bricks and mortar were too slow to construct so she decided that they needed two sets of chain-link fences and was currently using the supply runs to source these.

  Maggie: Although Jack and Lucy had already got acquainted with Maggie, it turns out they’d only scratched the surface of her amazing character. Not only was she warm and kind, she was sharp and a natural leader. It was her that had brought the community together after studying the news on the TV and radio, and had quickly realised how badly the situation could escalate. She had saved many of the people in the community by her conviction to the cause and kept them from venturing out to look for those who had perished. She had called the initial meeting and had led the discussions about the grim outlook and had organised people into groups with tasks and objectives. It was by keeping the community busy that had brought them closer together.

  Jack had often thought that the idea of communism was essentially a good one, but that it was let down by the greed and corruption of humanity. People had really believed they were better than animals, but when it came to the crunch, people would often seize the opportunity to make for the top to the detriment of anyone who was in the way. It was common in the animal kingdom, lions fighting to become the dominant male, territorial animals fighting over their patch of land, humans showed the exact same characteristics and that they weren’t that much more evolved. What Maggie showed Jack was that the principles of Marxism could be achieved, namely a utopian society that is both classless and stateless, in a smaller community, committed to their basic needs of survival. There was no evident envy or need that was not fulfilled by the group.

  It occurred to Jack that it was still early days and that discontent could grow, especially if something terrible were to happen in the community, but he also thought that the more elderly and wiser group had relinquished their need for material items and status long ago and realised the true beauties of the world, he was doubtful that a group of younger people would be so cooperative and peaceful with each other.

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  The night went on and Jack put Chloe to bed around 9pm after her eyes started drooping, she still resisted, but was quickly asleep when placed in the soft bed. Returning downstairs, Jack heard the strum of a guitar. Walking into the bar area, he saw Alan and Winston sat on stools, preparing to play a few songs. Walking over to Lucy, she leaned in, kissed him on the cheek and cheerily said, “This is a fantastic place with wonderful people. It gives you hope. It really does.” She squeezed Jack’s hand and watched on and listened with pleasure as the two men played a couple of songs that neither Jack nor Lucy recognised.

  After the second song stopped, Alan called over in Jack’s direction, “This is a long shot son, but I don’t suppose you know the words to Highwayman? Three of us do, but we need one more to complete the set.”

  Jack immediately blushed as this was one of his favourite songs and one he knew well. He was going to say no, because he wasn’t much of a singer and didn’t want to embarrass himself, when Lucy looked and smiled, whispering in his ear, “You know it, don’t you?” She was beaming.

  Jack did an involuntary nod in Lucy’s direction and stopped himself before he gave the game away, it was too late though, Lucy called to Alan with joy etched all over her face, “You’re in luck Alan, Jack knows this one.”

  There was a cheer from the on-looking group and Jack grimaced and turned a brighter shade of red, he turned to Lucy and said in a hushed tone, “I’ll get you back for this.”

  She winked at him and whispered, “I’ll make it up to you later, I promise.”

  Alan beckoned Jack over and he walked slowly, with his head down, to the two guitarists and other man, named Malcolm, who were getting ready to sing the other three verses. Alan asked, “Which verse do you want?”

  “Um, I’d like Way
lon Jennings’s verse if that’s okay with you gentlemen?” Jack asked and they all nodded their approval.

  “Good stuff lad.” Alan said and immediately started to play the opening chords and was followed by Winston.

  Alan sang the first verse as the crowd provided the percussion by slapping hands on the tables and clapping,

  “I was a highwayman

  Along the coach roads I did ride

  With sword and pistol by my side

  Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade

  Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade

  The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five

  But I am still alive”

  Malcom was next,

  “I was a sailor

  I was born upon the tide

  And with the sea I did abide

  I sailed a schooner round the Horn to Mexico

  I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow

  And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed

  But I am living still”

  And then it was Jack, who breathed hard and missed his cue, but was given a quick nudge by Malcolm to start, he quickly caught up and sang in a deep voice,

  “I was a dam builder

  Across the river deep and wide

  Where steel and water did collide

  A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado

  I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below

  They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound

  But I am still around

  I'll always be around and around and around and around and around”

  Finally, Winston sang, and they’d saved the best till last, his voice was silky smooth and perfect,

  “I fly a starship

  Across the Universe divide

  And when I reach the other side

  I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can

  Perhaps I may become a highwayman again

  Or I may simply be a single drop of rain

  But I will remain

  And I'll be back again, and again and again and again and again”

  The music stopped and the crowd cheered happily. Jack made his way back to Lucy with a few people giving him a slap on the back. Lucy greeted him, put her arms around him and kissed him tenderly. He melted.

  The kiss lingered, and he heard in the background from a man, “Hey, they’re as bad as George and Cathy, get a room.” This was followed by laughter from those that heard.

  The night went on, Jack had stopped drinking as he wanted a clear head for the morning, but Lucy continued, revelling in the atmosphere of the remarkable community. It was getting late, but Jack didn’t want to appear ungrateful and stayed up and talked with the group past 2am. When people started making for the exit, he was relived to make his excuses to hit the sack and asked if Lucy was coming. She was quite drunk, exhausted, and ready for her bed.

  They both checked on Chloe, who was sound asleep and then went into the room that Maggie had laid out for Jack, it was a single bed, but that didn’t stop them wanting to spend the night with each other. The evening had been full of meaningful glances, playful touches and lingering closeness, pressing themselves close feeling the electricity between them grow. Jack and Lucy were ready to tear each other’s clothes off by the time they reached the bed. They were both naked within seconds and Jack was harder than he’d ever been, before they knew it, their bodies were pressed up against each other and they were kissing passionately, their hands all over one another. The passion left no time for foreplay and Jack pushed Lucy up against the wall, he lifted her and she wrapped her legs around his waist as he pushed deep inside, she made a loud groan of pleasure and bit down onto his neck as the cold wall on her back and the thrusts of Jack’s lust brought them to climax quickly, both exhausted. They stood there for some time, gently kissing one another, naked pressed together.

  They sat up in bed together for a short while, happy. Lucy turned to Jack and lay her head on his chest and said in a soft voice, “We can do something similar as these people when we get to your mum and dad’s. They are an inspiration and have given me hope of a future that could be more beautiful than the world we’ve left behind.”

  “You’re right and I couldn’t have put it more eloquently. I feel like I can do anything when I’m with you and would move heaven and earth to give you the future we all want.” Jack said feeling Lucy’s warmth. She didn’t respond as she had fallen asleep. He spent the next 10 minutes watching her in the candlelight. Finally, he managed to shuffle down the bed without waking her, blew out the candle and drifted off into a contented sleep of his own.

  Chapter 31 - Hordes

  2015 figures showed that the population density in the UK stood at an incredibly crowded 268 people per square kilometre. That’s 1,000 metres, by 1,000 metres. In England that figure jumped up to 420 people and in Scotland it fell to just 69. In short, that made England like an incredibly dangerous sardine can.

  During the first week of the outbreak, around 85 percent of people perished. The first few days, when news spread about the global catastrophe, survival figures were much higher, with 52 percent enduring the uprising of the dead, but that still meant 48 percent of people died. Take London for example, the population stood at 8.8 million people in 2016, 48 percent of that number equates to over 4.2 million people. Not all of the poor souls who died were turned into flesh eating zombies, but many did.

  The second wave of deaths came as the dead grew in numbers and began to congregate and follow the living en masse. Many people had followed warnings to stay inside, especially in the big cities, this decision had been made a lot easier with the sheer volume of blood thirsty monsters on the street. However, when food and water ran out, people were forced to flee with many falling victim to the hands and teeth of the dead.

  Those living out of the cities fared a little better in the beginning. Much like the village Jack had lived in, the numbers of dead were manageable for one or two people willing to halt the steady growth. But, again, much like Jack’s village, they were idyllic in their appearance but were perilously close to densely packed populations. Many of the places that people sought refuge were not far enough away from the large towns and cities and this turned the commuter belt areas into sitting time bombs. Danny, when still alive, was wise to predict the influx of the dead, but he was in a small minority with the foresight to see things clearly.

  Food began to disappear in towns and cities and with less of the living to feed them, the dead began to wander; they followed cats, dogs, pigeons and even rats; anything living. Hordes as big as 100,000 slowly moving bodies gathered in London, in Manchester and in Birmingham and they were like a plague of locusts; devouring everything in their sight. The people who were locked away and had the misfortune of attracting these crowds were soon overcome as their barricaded windows and doors could not withstand the constant barrage of combined force, eventually letting the dead in to eat their victims alive.

  The roadblocks that the army had quickly put together in the major cities began to shift and scrape open as tonnes of crumpled cars were swept aside as a mass of bodies combined their strength in numbers to pursue whatever had sought safety the other side of the roadblocks. It wasn’t long before blockades were no longer fulfilling their purpose and the dead were streaming into the countryside like ink slowly spreading itself on blotting paper.

  Fields with livestock helped to draw the hordes deeper and deeper into the countryside, the walls and hedges keeping the stragglers at bay were no match for the force of the dead as they marched on. Soon the people who had felt relative safety were being devoured in their homes and on the road. Villages close to the major cities were torn apart by the hordes. These large groups were like a symbiotic organism, acting as one, working together for their next meal.

  The worst affected areas in the beginning were around London, Birmingham, the North West, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and the North East as large
towns and cities merged into each other to create mass urban areas. It was the villages and rural areas that were close or sandwiched between these urban sprawls that felt the full force of the largest hordes. The hordes were so big that they toppled buildings with the weight of their numbers and those unlucky enough to be caught in the earliest and deadliest of crowds were mostly ripped limb from limb, surrounded without hope of escape.

  The hordes didn’t follow any particular pattern in their movement, the places they stumbled upon were down to chance, sometimes they were drawn by the living, other times it was simply following the path of least resistance. Roads and railway lines drew the dead along, as if some sort of semblance of their past made them traverse along the country’s transport links, in reality, these were just paths for the dead to follow. Some communities evaded the hordes by chance, some act of God, or fate or luck, diverted crowds, as people sat out the disaster in their homes; unaware that they narrowly avoided hell dropping into their front yard. Because the UK was so small, it was only a matter of time before luck ran out for those that managed to escape the masses.

  The best way to survive being in the middle of a horde of the dead was to remain unseen, make no noise and hope and pray that it moved on and didn’t stop to wait it out. The dead have an endless supply of patience and can wait an eternity for their supper. Escape wasn’t out of the question either, although again, this relied on luck. Many people on the coast took to the water in boats, zombies can’t swim, and their brains need oxygen to function so avoided water. Many people who had the experience and access to boats, set off for islands in sunnier climates looking for a new life away from this deadly outbreak.

  People were learning fast or dying. The need to adapt to the new world was a necessity. Only the most adaptable survived. Maggie and the rest of the community in the Peak District had age and wisdom on their side and had adapted to their new surroundings well. Were the close-knit and organised community strong enough in the face of a horde to survive? Time would tell.