Autumn

by David Moody

  ‘Fuck off!’ she screamed. She let Gordon go and he slid to the ground. Hollis just looked at her, shocked. The last thing he’d expected to find in this ruin was another survivor.

  ‘I thought you were one of them.’

  ‘I though you were one of them,’ she replied, breathless.

  ‘What, a corpse that knocks the door?’

  ‘Piss off,’ she said.

  ‘You on your own here?’

  She shook her head and gestured for them to follow. They did. Hollis stopped in the doorway and looked around, amazed. There were more faces looking back at him than he’d seen since this nightmare had begun. A girl cradling a doll, another smoking a fag, a kid drinking from a can of lager, a prim and proper housewife sitting in a moth-eaten armchair, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, a guy with a straggly beard in a bus driver’s uniform, and a balding, overweight bloke who came marching over to him, hand outstretched. ‘The cavalry’s here then?’ he said, hopefully.

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘Got any idea—?’

  ‘What’s happened? No. You?’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Gordon said, peering cautiously around the doorframe.

  ‘That guy on the bike, he with you?’ the fat man asked.

  ‘Yep. You saw him?’ Hollis replied.

  ‘We saw what he did. Smart move.’

  ‘But you didn’t think to let us know you were here? Maybe come out and help?’

  ‘Sorry… didn’t want to get in the way.’

  ‘Are there more of you?’

  ‘This is us, unfortunately,’ the girl who’d attacked Gordon said, regaining her composure.

  ‘You picked a good place for a hideout,’ Hollis told her. ‘That’s why we’re here. We’re planning on fortifying the place.’

  ‘Be our guest,’ she said. ‘Welcome to the party.’

  THE HUMAN CONDITION

  Part i – GOING UP

  Barry Bushell sat at the dressing table in his wide, palatial executive hotel suite and fixed his make-up. He wondered whether this was just a fad, just a phase he was going through, or if he’d spend the rest of his life dressing as a woman. He wasn’t gay and he wasn’t transsexual. This wasn’t something he’d always wanted to do. He wasn’t a drag queen or lady-boy in training. Barry Bushell was just a typical, red-blooded, heterosexual man who happened to have recently discovered that he felt comfortable wearing women’s clothes. And when the rest of the world lay dead and decaying in the streets a couple of hundred feet below him, why the hell shouldn’t he wear whatever he damn well wanted?

  The last seven days had been the strangest of Barry’s life so far. Every aspect of his world had been irrevocably changed. If he was honest, his problems had started long before last Tuesday. A few months ago he’d been happy and settled and had a long-term plan. He’d moved into his girlfriend Tina’s flat with her and, for a while, life had been good. Better than good, in fact. But their relationship had abruptly ended on what had, until recently, been the worst day of his life. Out of the blue Barry lost his job when the company he worked for went into administration and its CEO went to jail. Penniless and distraught, Barry had returned home unexpectedly early to find his brother Dennis in bed with Tina. She’d proceeded to tell him that Dennis was better in bed than he was and that their relationship was over. By three o’clock that afternoon he’d lost his lover, his brother, his job and his home. That nightmare day had, of course, seemed like the best Christmas ever in comparison with last Tuesday when Barry had helplessly watched the entire population of the city (and, he later presumed, the world) drop dead. After the cruel and unexpected blows that life had dealt him recently, there was a part of him that found some solace in the sudden isolation and quiet. His anger with the rest of the world somehow made the pain easier to deal with. He blamed the inexplicable chaos for his sudden ‘gender-realignment’ (as he had labelled his drastic change in appearance). And now here he was, alone. As far as he could tell, the last man on Earth. Almost certainly the last man on Earth wearing a dress, anyway.

  Five days ago, many of the bodies in the streets had risen. At first Barry had gone back down to ground level to try and find out what was happening, only to quickly return to his comfortable hide-out as soon as he realised that things had worsened, not improved. The people down there were dead. Although they were moving, there wasn’t the slightest spark of life left within them. Their sudden reanimation was as impossible to explain as their equally sudden demise days earlier. Barry climbed all the way back up to the top floor of the twenty-eight storey, five star, city-centre hotel and barricaded himself in the Presidential Suite. It was the best place he could find to hide. Within the hotel’s three hundred or so bedrooms, its many kitchens, function rooms, dining rooms, bars, restaurants and sports facilities, he’d been able to find pretty much everything he needed to survive, and a vast wardrobe of women’s clothing, make-up and accessories to boot. He’d even found a pair of size eleven stiletto shoes.

  Barry stood up, smoothed the creases out of his dark blue dress, and looked himself up and down in the full-length mirror to his right. God I look good, he thought, pretty damn convincing save for the slight trace of a five o’clock shadow. His first experiments with make-up last week had been over-the-top, leaving him looking like a drag queen, but now he was definitely getting the hang of it. He wore a long straight blonde wig which he’d taken from a shop-window dummy, but he hoped in time his own hair would grow to a sufficient length for him to be able to style it. He’d started painting his fingernails and he was finally getting the hang of walking in heels. That had been the hardest part of all but it had been worth the effort. The knee-high leather boots he’d found in a bedroom on the seventh floor went perfectly with this outfit.

  Am I just confused, Barry wondered in a frequent moment of self-doubt, or have I gone completely fucking insane? Whatever the answer, he was relatively happy, all things considered. He could do whatever he wanted now. He was in charge. If he wanted to wear a dress then he’d wear a dress. If he wanted to walk around naked, then he could do that too.

  It was starting to get late. This was the part of day he really didn’t like, when he found it hardest being alone and when he started to think about everything that had happened and all he’d lost. His sudden change of outfit had been deliberately timed to give him a much needed confidence boost to help him get through the dark and lonely hours until morning. As much as he was comfortable in his own company, there were times when he wished this eternal isolation would end. He lit lamps in all the windows of the suite, praying that someone out there would see them, but at the same time also hoping no one would. He had to let the world know where he was, but in doing so he left himself feeling exposed. But he had to do it, he continually told himself. He would be safer with other people.

  Barry walked around the perimeter of the vast suite (which covered almost the entire top floor of the building) lighting candles, lamps and torches in every available window. He kept himself busy. So busy, in fact, that he was unaware of a sudden flurry of movement and confusion outside. For the first time in a week, other survivors had entered this part of the city.

  #

  ‘You’re a fucking idiot, Nick,’ Elizabeth Ferry screamed. ‘I said keep out of the city, not drive right through the bloody city centre. Fancy a little late night shopping did you?’

  ‘Shut up,’ Nick Wilcox yelled back. ‘If it hadn’t been for the fucking noise you two make with your constant bloody arguing, I wouldn’t have taken the wrong turn in the first place.’

  ‘Don’t bring me into this,’ Doreen Phillips said, listening in as usual. ‘It’s got nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Oh, it’s never got anything to do with you, has it?’ Ted Hamilton said from the seat directly behind her. ‘Of course it’s your fault, Doreen. You’re a bloody troublemaker.’

  Doreen turned around and glared at Ted who was, as usual, filling his face with food. ‘And you’re a greedy fat bastard who
should—’

  ‘For crying out loud,’ Elizabeth said, interrupting her. ‘Just give it a rest.’

  Doreen stopped talking, folded her arms and slumped into her seat like a scolded child.

  ‘Just keep going, Nick,’ John Proctor said from three seats back. His voice remained comparatively calm. ‘We’re here now and shouting at each other isn’t going to help. Just keep driving.’

  Nick took one hand off the steering wheel for a second, just long enough to wipe his face and rub his eyes. He’d been driving for hours and he was struggling but he wasn’t about to let the others know. They annoyed him beyond belief. He’d only found five other survivors since all of this began. Why did it have to be this five? This small, volatile, and dysfunctional group had been together for just three days, discovering each other by chance as they’d each individually wandered through the ruins of the world. Elizabeth and John Proctor had met first, Elizabeth having walked into the church where he used to preach, just as he was tearing off his dog-collar and walking out. A cleric of some thirty years standing, his already wavering faith had been shattered by the unstoppable infection which had raged across the surface of the planet and killed millions. If this God of ours is so all-powerful, loving and forgiving, he’d asked Elizabeth, then how could the fucker have let this happen? John’s sudden loss of faith had been as powerful and life-changing as his initial discovery of the church in his early days at college. Elizabeth had, in all seriousness, suggested that the plague might be some kind of divine retribution – a great flood for our times. Did she think he was a 21st century Noah? He told her in no uncertain terms that she was out of her fucking mind if she believed any of that crap.

  Ted Hamilton, a plumber, part-time football coach and full-time compulsive comfort eater, had been on the roof of an office block working on a corroded pipe when the infection struck. He’d had an incredible view of the destruction from up there, but that was where he’d stayed, too afraid to come down. He’d sat on the roof for hours until he saw Doreen Phillips walking down the high street, shopping bags in hand, stepping gingerly over and around the mass of tangled bodies which covered the ground. Together they’d wandered aimlessly in search of help which never came. Their constant shouting and noise had, however, eventually attracted the attention of Paul Jones, a sullen and quiet man who preferred to keep himself to himself but who had recognised the importance of sticking together, no matter who these people were or how stupid they appeared.

  Paul had suggested establishing a base from which they could explore the dead land around them and, perhaps, find more survivors. As obvious and sensible as his plan had been, it also proved to be unnecessary because as they struggled to establish themselves in a guest house on the edge of a small town, more survivors had found them. Three days ago the eerie silence of the first post-infection Friday morning had been shattered by the unexpected arrival of a fifty-three-seater coach driven by Nick Wilcox. Nick – who had previously driven coaches for a living, usually taking bus loads of pensioners around various parts of the south coast – had ploughed through the town with a nervous disregard for anything and everything, destroying any corpses that got in his way. Paul and Ted ran out into the road and flagged him down and it was only Elizabeth’s quick reactions (fortunately Nick had picked her and John up a day earlier) which stopped him from gleefully running them both down.

  The motley collection of survivors made the coach their temporary travelling home. It was relatively strong and comfortable with room inside for them, their belongings, and enough supplies to last for a couple of weeks. And the coach had a huge advantage over everywhere else they’d previously tried to shelter because it moved. When things got ugly or there were too many bodies around for comfort, they just started the engine and drove somewhere else.

  ‘Keep going, Nick,’ John said again, his calm and deceptively relaxed tone helping diffuse the tension. ‘Get us onto a major road, then follow it back out of the city.’

  ‘Problem is I can’t see the bloody road, never mind follow it.’ Even with the headlights on full-beam, Nick could see very little. The streets were teeming with movement, the dead continually swarming around the vehicle.

  ‘Does anyone know where we are?’ Elizabeth asked hopefully. ‘Anyone been here before?’

  No one answered.

  ‘We could just stop,’ Ted eventually suggested, his mouth still full of food. ‘We’ve done it before. Sit still and shut up and they’ll leave us alone after a while.’

  ‘Come on, Ted,’ Elizabeth said, ‘there’s got to be a better way. They’ll take hours to go, you know that as well as I do, and there are hundreds of them around here. We’ve never seen them in these kinds of numbers.’

  ‘I’m not sleeping on the floor again,’ Doreen protested, her voice high-pitched and grating. ‘It’s bad for my back. It’s all right for you lot, you don’t have to—’

  ‘Doreen,’ Ted interrupted, ‘with all due respect, love, would you shut your fucking mouth. You couldn’t keep quiet if you tried so there’s no point talking about it.’

  Nick managed half a smile as he steered the bus around a sharp bend in the road and powered into another pack of corpses. He knew as well as the rest of them that many hours of total silence would be necessary if they wanted to try and fool the dead into leaving them alone. With Doreen on board five minutes of silence was impossible, never mind anything longer.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Ted said suddenly, swallowing his last mouthful of food and wiping his greasy mouth on his sleeve. ‘Look at that.’

  ‘What?’ Paul asked, quickly moving along the length of the bus towards the others, surprising them with his sudden involvement. Ted pressed his face against the window and pointed up.

  ‘Up there.’

  ‘What is it?’ Elizabeth anxiously demanded.

  ‘Lights,’ he answered, not quite believing himself. ‘Up there, look.’

  Visible fleetingly amongst the shadows of numerous tall, dark buildings, the light – although relatively dull – burned bright in the total blackness of everything else.

  #

  High above the disease-ridden streets, Barry’s quiet and solitary life was filling with contradictions. He wanted to be surrounded by light, but the brightness left him feeling vulnerable and exposed. Likewise, the darkness sometimes made him feel safe, but it was also unsettling; he was scared of the shadows that filled the hotel at night. He wanted some noise to end the eerie silence but, at the same time, he wanted the quiet to remain so he could hear everything that was happening elsewhere. He wanted to sit out of sight in the comfort of his suite, but he also felt compelled to constantly check the windows. He knew he was alone in the building and that it was secure (he’d checked every room and had got rid of every dead body over the last week), but his nervous paranoia left him feeling convinced there were bodies climbing the staircases and walking the halls, moving ever closer. He felt sure that rotting hands would reach out of the shadows for him whenever he opened a door. Whatever he was doing he felt uncomfortable and unsafe, and it was far worse at night. Each successive evening he found the darkness harder to cope with, and that led to the cruellest paradox of all: Barry’s fear kept him awake night after night. Only when the morning (and the light) finally came was he able to relax enough to sleep. Invariably he would drift and doze through the morning and early afternoon and miss almost all of each precious day.

  He wandered listlessly along the long west wall of the suite, the heels of his boots click-clacking on the marble floor. Where was this all going to end, he wondered? Was he destined to stay here at the top of the hotel indefinitely? It wasn’t a bad option, in fact he struggled to think of anywhere else that would be safer or more comfortable. The height of the building meant it was unlikely the corpses down below would ever see or hear him. The only problem would come when his supplies ran out. Okay, so he appeared to have the entire city at his disposal, but even if he managed to find everything he needed, there remained the prob
lem of dragging it up literally hundreds of steps to his new home. Maybe he could set up some kind of winch or pulley system? Perhaps he could use the window-cleaner’s cradle he’d seen hanging halfway down the side of the building?

  His mind full of questions and half-considered answers, Barry reached the corner of the room and stopped walking. He turned around and was about to retrace his steps when he happened to glance down into the dark streets hundreds of feet below. In disbelief he watched the bizarre sight of a coach ploughing through the rotting crowds, sending whole and dismembered bodies flying in all directions, hurtling at speed towards the hotel. He waited for a fraction of a second – just long enough to convince himself that what he was seeing was real – before throwing off his boots and sprinting out to the staircase barefoot.

  #

  ‘Next left,’ Paul ordered. He’d moved up to the front of the bus and was now standing next to Nick, doing his best to guide their driver through the mayhem and towards the light. ‘No, wait, not this one. Take the next one.’

  Nick yanked the steering wheel back around, making the whole coach lean over to one side. Their breakneck journey had become so turbulent that even Doreen Phillips was uncharacteristically quiet and subdued.

  ‘Can you see where it’s coming from?’ Nick asked, glancing up for a second and glimpsing the light again.

  ‘Not sure,’ Paul admitted. ‘It’s bloody high up, though.’

  Nick braced himself as he forced the bus over a low mound of rubble and mangled metal at the side of the road. The passengers behind him – not expecting the sudden jolt – bounced up in their seats as the huge vehicle clattered up and then back down onto the road.