The only thought I had was that I had failed him. I was his only hope and I had done nothing. I wondered who the man was. It was so dark and he was in such a terrible state that it was almost impossible to guess his age. He could have been anywhere between twenty and fifty. Did he have a wife? A girlfriend? A boyfriend? Children? What had his job been? What had he liked doing? What music had he listened to? What books had he read? Had he been planning a holiday, saving to buy a house? Was he rich? Or on the breadline? Were there people alive who missed him? Or was he alone?
This was what life had become now. This man’s death was the way we would all die. Alone. Unmourned. A crumpled heap of diseased flesh for rats to feed upon.
I turned away. Angry at myself for wasting time. One man’s death was of no consequence. Not to me. Not any longer. I had my own life to think about. If I intended to survive, I had to put myself first. My main concern now was to find somewhere safe.
Geoff and I had split up to reconnoitre this part of town half an hour earlier. Geoff had taken the dog with him. I was glad he had. I wasn’t sure that Bobby would have been helpful in my encounter with the dying man.
I looked at my watch. Ten minutes to midnight. I had promised to meet Geoff at 12 o’clock precisely. That was why I’d been in the alleyway. I was making my way towards the industrial estate beyond the railway bridge. I went that way now, trying to forget what I’d just seen. Trying to ignore the sick feeling in my stomach. Trying to pretend that my legs didn’t feel like jelly. The truth of the matter is that I was scared that, at any moment, I might meet another sick or dying person, in the dense darkness under the bridge, or just around the corner. That some other monstrous sight would come shuffling towards me, begging for help that I couldn’t provide…
But it didn’t happen. I passed under the bridge and around the bend in the alleyway. I emerged onto a small road that ran between two-storey buildings, warehouses and office blocks. The signs on the buildings were reminders of the world that used to be: Jenkins Steel, Killforce Pest Control, Davies Precision Machining, First Call Builder’s Merchants, XL Tee-shirt Printing, TrustRite Security Systems…
Who needed them any more?
Geoff was standing outside a building that displayed the sign ‘Cadwallader’s Outdoor Supplies’. He was hidden in a dark niche between that building and a garage next to it. I couldn’t miss him though, due to the fact that Bobby ran out to greet me. The dog, I noticed was silent. He came to me, wagging his tail for all he was worth. But there was no yapping or barking. In fact, ever since we’d arrived in town, Bobby had been as silent as a hunting cat. I wondered if he sensed something? Something that made him realise that silence was our friend. Silence and darkness.
“This place has got the stuff we need,” Geoff said. He gestured behind him to a large window. The window was open. Geoff had prised it open using a huge metal jemmy that he was still holding. He’d found the jemmy in the garage next door and decided that opening the window that way was less likely to attract attention than smashing the glass. I guessed that there must have been burglar alarm systems which, not so long ago, would have pierced the silence with loud siren-wails if someone had jemmied open a window. Not any longer.
I crawled through the window. Geoff lifted Bobby up and I pulled him inside, then Geoff followed. Geoff had already pilfered a couple of torches and, once inside, we turned them on to see what we could find. It was like an Aladdin’s Cave of treasures: tents, knives, cagoules, walking boots, walking sticks, just about everything anyone could ever want before going on a pleasant ramble through the countryside. I wasn’t sure if they had everything we’d need to survive the end of civilisation. But it was better than nothing.
We each took a big rucksack – one of those things that fits onto a metal frame that you strap onto your back. Then we got ourselves a good pair of boots each, a few pairs of socks, sheepskin gloves, a couple of fairly ferocious-looking knives, a compass and various other useful-looking items.
We were about to take some cagoules but then I spotted a rack of parkas. The cagoules might have been more waterproof but the parkas were better padded and more suitable for cold weather.
It was then that I noticed the radios. I almost walked past them. I’d had enough of listening to endless repeats on Radio 4 back in the Church Hall. I’d given up believing that normal service would “resume as soon as possible”. Radio and TV had died with the old world.
But then I remembered what the old farmer, Douggie Lampton, had said. He’d told me he had followed the news on the shortwave bands. I wasn’t sure who broadcast on shortwave any more. I had a feeling that it was a kind of an amateur thing – ‘ham radio’. I tried to recall what I’d heard when Geoff and I had tried messing about with the radio receiver we’d found in Douggie Lampton’s basement. Crackling noises that faded in and out mostly. But there had also been a station broadcasting from Britain – “Radio True Britain, your only source of true news”.
It seemed a long shot but worth a try. I grabbed one of the smaller radios, quite a snazzy little thing, not much bigger than a paperback book and covered in knobs and dials whose functions I could only guess at. I checked the battery sizes it needed and grabbed a handful of batteries too. I didn’t know it at the time, but grabbing that radio was one of the best decisions I’d ever made.
“What next?” Geoff asked when we’d looted just about all we could reasonably carry, “Do we stay here or move on?”
I looked around the place. “It looks as though we are the first people to have come into this place since the snowstorm,” I said, “So we may as well stay here for the night. Don’t you think?”
Geoff nodded. “Suits me. Not the most comfortable place to stay but at least we’ll be alone. I reckon we can be sure that there’s nobody else in here with us.”
But he was wrong.
2
It was just after half-past two in the morning when I heard the noises. I knew it was just after half-past two because the multi-function digital watch with the illuminated dial (which I had stolen earlier) told me that it was just after half-past two. In fact, it told me it was 02:32:54. It was a good watch.
In the sleeping bag next to mine, Geoff was snoring. Quite loudly. I shook him. That stopped the snoring and I whispered “Shhhhhh… we are not alone any more.”
Lying in the space between my sleeping bag and Geoff’s sleeping bag (the sleeping bags too were part of our recent loot), Bobby sat with his eyes wide open, his ears pricked up and his head angled first to one side and then to the other, listening, as I was, to the sounds coming from the floor directly overhead.
Footsteps.
Barely audible, but definitely footsteps.
The footsteps were moving slowly, padding their way across the floor above us. I tried to work out their direction. They seemed to be heading towards the far-end of the shop, away to my right. The question was, should we ignore them? Should we get out of the shop and make a dash for it? Or should we seize the initiative and confront whoever was responsible for the footsteps.
Geoff decided for me. He wriggled out of his sleeping bag and, using his torch (which I wasn’t sure was a good idea but, then again, without it we wouldn’t have been able to see a damn’ thing), he tiptoed across to a display of walking sticks. These were big, solid oak sticks, the sort that some people like to stride along with over dales and fells. He picked a stout, knotty one about five feet in length with a good, big knob at the top. I don’t think he had fell-walking in mind.
Once I’d extricated myself from my sleeping bag, I followed Geoff’s example. Geoff had picked the best stick for his own use. The stick I picked wasn’t quite as fearsome but I reckoned that if I gave it my best baseball-style swing and someone’s head happened to be on the wrong end of it, the person whose head I whacked wouldn’t be picking themselves up of the floor again in a hurry.
Thus armed, Geoff and I tiptoed over to the door. Above the door there was a non-functioning electric sign whi
ch should, according to a whole set of redundant laws and bylaws, have been illumined with the words “Fire Exit”. I pushed the door open and we crept through into a stairwell. Bobby crept through with us. You might think that taking the dog was a silly idea but, really, we had no choice. As long as he was with us, Bobby was content to remain silent. If we’d left him alone in the downstairs showroom, I had a feeling that he would have set up a racket of howling and barking which would have given the game away!
Before climbing the stars, I turned the intensity of my Cree torch down to its lowest setting. We needed to see where we were going but I didn’t want to announce our arrival with a searchlight. Then the three of us (Geoff and Bobby, with me in the lead), started climbing the staircase towards the next floor. When we arrived in the stairwell on that floor, I flattened myself against the wall, grasped my wooden walking stick soundly in my right hand, and glanced surreptitiously through one of the glass panels in the door that opened onto the main showroom area.
There was a light in there. A thin, pale light that barely illuminated much at all. Still, a light is a light. Combined with the footsteps we’d heard, it meant that someone was in there. For all I knew, someone was flattened against the wall on the other side of the door, with a wooden walking stick in his hand, waiting for me to open the door so that he could get a good swing at my head. I wasn’t going to make myself such easy meat. I gestured to Geoff to stay back and hold onto Bobby. Then I positioned myself a couple of feet away from the door and to one side of it. My plan was simple. I would push open the door with the end of my walking stick. If anyone was waiting for me on the other side, he would no doubt swing into action with whatever weapon he had to hand. We’d then know exactly where he was and what his intentions were. At which point we would either go inside and confront him or run like Hell in the opposite direction. If, for example, he started shooting at us with a semi-automatic, the run-like-Hell option was definitely the one we’d go for.
I carefully placed the end of my walking stick on the centre of the door. I mimed to Geoff: “One, Two, Three…”
On “Three” I thrust the stick at the door with all my might. And I very nearly dislocated my shoulder. The door didn’t budge. I’d forgotten that the bloody doors opened out from the showrooms into the stairwell. No amount of force would make them open inwards!
I cursed aloud. The time for silence was gone. I’d made so much noise with my damn’ fool attempt to push the door open, that whoever was in there must have heard us by now. All we could do was stand our ground and prepare either to fight or run for it.
We didn’t have to wait long. Just moments later, the door swung open and what appeared to be a gorilla-like creature with long, dangling ears shambled towards us.
3
“What on earth are you doing out there? Come in, my dear fellows, do come in.”
The figure swiftly raised the portable LED lamp in its right hand so that we could all take a good, long look at one another. It was just as well he did this swiftly. Another second longer and Geoff would very likely have bludgeoned him with the stick he was carrying.
What, in darkness, had appeared gorilla-like was, by light, revealed to be a plump, middle-aged man wearing an RAF-style sheepskin flying jacket over a long, woollen dressing gown. The dangling ears were no more than the ear-flaps of the trapper’s hat on his head.
“Aha, I see you have selected a couple of good, stout shillelaghs,” – he was looking at Geoff’s walking stick which was still poised over the man’s head, giving Geoff the option of landing him a good thump if things should happen to take a turn for the worse.
“I call them shillelaghs,” the man explained, “But that’s just my little joke, you know. A small witticism can brighten the darkest of days with a gleam of merriment, don’t you think?”
Slowly, Geoff put down the stick. We were starting to get the impression that the man was not an immediate danger to us. This impression was confirmed by Bobby who was wagging his tail and licking the man’s hand. In my experience, dogs are generally good judges of character and I was prepared to take Bobby’s opinion – for the time being anyway.
I thought it was about time I said something. But I wasn’t sure what to say. Finding someone in a locked and (we had assumed) deserted store was surprising enough. Finding a rather posh-sounding middle-aged gent wearing a dressing gown, flying-jacket and trapper’s hat, was just about the last thing I’d expected. Eventually, I said, “What are you doing here?”
Predictably, he replied, “I might well ask you the same thing!”
“We’ve just arrived in town,” I said.
“Up from the country, ’eh?”
“You could say that.”
“I’m afraid you won’t find much to do of an evening. Things have gone downhill recently, as you may have noticed. Would you care for some tea?”
“That would be lovely,” I said.
Geoff was staring at the two of us as though we were both insane. I could see his point. We’d just been about to cudgel the old geezer over the head with a heavy stick and now here we were engaging in polite conversation as though we were taking tea with the local vicar.
“Coffee, alas, I am unable to provide. And as for alcoholic beverages, sadly…”
Geoff interrupted – “Never mind all that. Who are you and how the bloody hell did you get in here?”
“Oh, but I was here all the time.”
“You can’t have been. We checked. The doors and windows were all locked. I had to jemmy open one of the windows to get in.”
“Ah, was that the noise I heard? I do hope you didn’t damage it.”
This was not an answer to Geoff’s question, so I added, “So how the bloody hell did you get in here?”
“As I said, I was here all along.” He produced a key from a pocket of his nightgown. “Mechanical locks, you see. I can come and go as I wish.”
“Where did you get a key?” I asked.
“Where did I get it?” – he looked confused for a moment and then enlightenment broke upon him – “Ah, deary me. I can appreciate your perplexity. I haven’t introduced myself. How remiss of me.” – he extended a hand to be shaken – “Cardew Excelsior Cadwallader at your service.” He said this as though the name would be instantly recognisable. As though he might be a film star. Or the President of the United States. The name meant nothing to me.
“Cadwallader,” he repeated, “Of Cadwallader’s Outdoor Supplies.”
“Ahhhh….”
“You own this shop?” said Geoff.
“And many others like it,” said Cardew Excelsior Cadwallader, “I take it you are not regular customers?
“Well…”
“Oh, no need to feel embarrassed. There are many fine, upstanding people who, through no fault of their own, are not regular customers of Cadwallader’s Outdoor Supplies. I assume that may be due to ignorance rather than malicious intent. I shall not hold it against you. I have Darjeeling, Lapsang Souchong or PG Tips. Which would you prefer?”
4
It was as though we’d stumbled into the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. We sat around a wooden table, with benches at either side – the kind of table and benches you might expect to see in the garden of a moderately well-to-do country house. Tea was served in floral-patterned bone china cups. A selection of chocolate biscuits and shortbreads had been arranged on matching bone china plates. A Bonio dog biscuit had been provided for Bobby and he was munching away at it under the table.
Mr Cadwallader had been holed up in his old shop ever since the first great snowfall. “That I happened to be here was entirely fortuitous. I had decided to stay late to do a little stocktaking and make some final changes to a new display of gentleman’s thermal underwear. I must have become absorbed in the task and it was in the early hours of the morning that I decided to lock up and set off for home. When I stepped outside, I realised at once that a change of plan was in order. Unbeknownst to me, snow must have been falling for some h
ours and it lay at such a depth that it would have been quite impossible for me to drive through it. So I slept in my office. That is not an unusual occurrence. I keep a camp bed tucked away in there, along with a few essentials to keep body and soul together – Bath Olivers, shrimp paste, Gentleman’s Relish, chocolate digestive biscuits, that sort of thing. I assumed that the snow ploughs would be out and about and that, by the following day, the temporary inconvenience of the snow would have been dealt with. Such, alas, was not the case.”
On the first day after the snow, the situation in town had been much as it had been in the countryside. Roads were blocked, people couldn’t get to work, kids took the day off from school to build snowmen and throw snowballs.
“But then, of course, the situation deteriorated. Thankfully, by the time the looting and violence began, I was still safely locked away in here,” Mr Cadwallader gave a snorting laugh, “I watched it all on the TV set in my office. They had all the usual commentators spouting their hare-brained theories. Scientists, sociologists, the Archbishop of Canterbury. But, in truth, nobody knew what was behind it all. As for myself, I put it down to the disintegration of public morals. It’s the schools I blame. Did you know they no longer teach logarithm tables? French irregular verbs are, I am given to understand, quite unknown to a large percentage of the younger generation. The inescapable consequence is what we now see. Mob violence. Shops looted, buildings set on fire. Oh my word! You seem to have had an accident!”
The Exodus Plague | Book 1 | The Snow Page 7