by David Moody
Walking slowly through the gloom of early evening without fear or concern, Paul eventually reached a construction site. With a rucksack full of booze on his back, he climbed to the cab at the very top of a huge crane which towered over the foundations of a never-to-be-finished office block. Protected by the height and enjoying a view which was even more impressive than the one from the hotel, he drank and slept.
In the morning, when the sun finally came up, he looked back across town at the hotel he’d left behind and watched the occasional stupid body fall from the roof. Many hours had passed, but even now the dumb fuckers were still dropping like stones. He laughed out loud without fear of retribution.
Paul Jones had decided to take his own life, but not yet. He’d do it when there really were no other options left.
#
Once John had lost sight of Elizabeth he’d stopped running too. He slowed his pace to match that of the dead and, for a time, had been able to walk among them undetected. I can do this, he thought, I can outwit them. I can move around them and between them and I can do this. Barry was wrong. They were all wrong. I don’t have to run and I don’t have to give up. It’s not over yet…
For almost a day he managed to survive, but his foolish confidence proved to be his undoing. It took only a glance into the sun and a single sneeze to blow his cover. One sneeze in the middle of a vast crowd of bodies and his position was revealed. And John, being a cowardly man, tried to run. Instead of standing his ground and continuing to mimic the actions of the bodies all around him, maybe blaming the sneeze on the corpse next-door, the stupid man tried to get away. Deep in the middle of a mass of several hundred rancid, rotting, dripping cadavers, he didn’t stand a chance. They ripped him to pieces before he had chance to scream for help.
Wouldn’t have mattered. No one would have come.
#
Barry Bushell lasted for several more days. The hotel suite was overrun with bodies but, as far as he could tell, they didn’t know he was in the bedroom. He remained quiet and still. Without food and water, however, he soon became weak.
Barry died a relatively happy man. He’d rather not have died, of course, but he’d managed somehow to retain the control he’d so desperately craved – the control that the infection had stripped from the millions of bodies condemned to walk tirelessly along the streets outside until they were no longer physically able.
Dressed in a silk negligee and lying in a comfortable (if slightly soiled) bed, he died peacefully in his sleep halfway through a really good book.
DAY TWENTY-THREE
AMY STEADMAN
Part vi
It is now more than three weeks since infection, and Amy Steadman’s body has been moving away from the site of its death for most of that time. Amy bears little resemblance now to the woman she used to be. Her face, once fresh and clear, is now skeletal and heavily decayed. Her skin is discoloured and waxy. Her once bright eyes are dull, dark and dry. Because of her physical deterioration, Amy moves slowly and forcefully. Movements which had previously appeared random and uncoordinated, however, are beginning to possess an ominous purpose and determination.
This putrefying cadaver has no need to respire, eat, drink or rest and yet Amy continues to struggle across the dead and increasingly grim landscape. As her condition has continued to worsen, she has become increasingly aware of the extent of her decay. She now understands that she is vulnerable. Every unexpected movement or sound she detects is automatically assumed to be a threat and she reacts accordingly.
Now and then, the thing which used to be Amy experiences the faintest flicker of recollection, flashes of memory. She has no concept now of who she used to be, but it is vaguely aware of what she once was. Earlier today she fell in the rubble of a shop-window display blown out into the street by a gas explosion. She inadvertently grabbed a handful of rubbish which included a cup. She held the cup by its handle momentarily and tried to drink before dropping it again and walking on. Yesterday, when she found herself by a car, she attempted to reach for the handle and get in.
There are considerably more bodies around here than in most other places. Throughout this silent, empty world the slightest distraction continues to attract the unwanted attention of disproportionate numbers of these grotesque creatures and here, on the outskirts of the city of Rowley, something is drawing untold numbers of them ever closer.
Amy’s corpse has left the street she’d been staggering along. Whilst making her way across a barren field, she has reached an unexpected blockage. Eleven bodies are pushing forward, trying to force their way through a wooden gate. The gate has a sprung hinge which constantly pushes back against them. Even when moving together they struggle to make progress. Occasionally one or two of them manage to stumble through the gap, but an ever-growing crowd remains stuck. Aware of the movement of the dark shapes around her, as she approaches the gate, Amy’s corpse lifts her hands and begins to grab at the nearest bodies. With twisted, bony fingers she slashes at the other cadavers. Her corpse is stronger and more determined than most. She moves with more purpose. The other bodies are unable to react with anything more than slow, shuffling movements. They do not have the speed or strength to defend themselves.
Amy knows that she must continue to move forward, although she does not understand why. She negotiates the gate (her relative speed and strength forcing it open) and continues towards the disturbance up ahead, unsure whether it’s something that might help her, or a threat she must eliminate. Whatever the reason, whatever it is, the putrefying collection of withered flesh and brittle bone which Amy Steadman has become is driven to move relentlessly towards it.
Amy stumbles through more fields, moving further away from the remains of the city she once called home. Like all of the bodies, every single aspect of her life has now been erased. Virtually every trace of race, gender, social class, wealth and intellect has been wiped from all the dead. Amy’s corpse, like the many hundreds of similarly faceless cadavers around her, is now almost completely featureless and indistinct. Her clothes are ripped, ragged and stained. Her face is emotionless. Only the level of their individual decay distinguishes the bodies from each other. Some – the most severely rotted – stumble around aimlessly, helpless and virtually blind. Those which are deteriorating more slowly, however, are those which present the greatest danger.
Amy has become aware of a dark mass on the horizon. It is a crowd of many thousands of corpses. Oblivious to the implications, she continues to stagger towards the immense gathering. Before long she reaches the edge of the diseased throng. When the massive numbers of cadavers ahead stop her from moving any further forward, she again reacts violently, ripping and tearing at the dead flesh on all sides until her path through is clear.
Deeper into the crowd, the bodies are even more tightly packed. Still more of them continually arrive at the scene, crawling slothfully towards this place from every direction, blocking the way back and preventing the corpses already there from doing anything other than trying to move further forward still. A chain-link fence stops them progressing.
It takes several days for Amy’s body to fight through far enough to finally reach the fence. She is pushed hard against the wire by the advancing crowds behind, and from there she simply watches. On the other side of the fence is a swathe of clear land. Most of the time it is quiet, but occasionally there are deafening noises which whip the diseased hordes into a riotous frenzy. The bodies are surrounding what is possibly the last operational airfield in the country.
Amy’s corpse is just one of a crowd now more than a hundred thousand strong. And thousands more are still approaching.
KILGORE
Kilgore sat alone at a metal table in the furthest, darkest corner of the bunker mess hall, trying not to be noticed. The wide, low-ceilinged room was largely empty. Only the occasional noise from the kitchen and the constant electrical hum of the strip lights and air-con disturbed the silence.
Spence ambled into the hall and fetch
ed himself a tray of food. With only a couple of other people eating, none of whom he knew well, he walked over towards Kilgore. ‘Mind if I sit here?’
Kilgore jumped with surprise. He looked up at Spence with tired eyes and shook his head. ‘Go for it,’ he said, then he quickly looked down again. He played with his fork, stirring the lukewarm, piss-weak stew, pushing lumps of meat-substitute around and making tracks in the watery gravy, but not actually eating anything. Spence sat on the bench directly opposite.
He’d encountered Kilgore on a number of occasions before they’d been ordered underground. He’d always had a reputation for being a moaner: the kind of person who instinctively complained and whinged pointlessly about everything he was ordered to do. The kind of person who made the simplest of routine tasks sound like some impossible undertaking. An incessant talker and compulsive liar, he wound the officers up and he wound his fellow soldiers up. Kilgore wound everyone up.
He was crying.
Spence shuffled in his seat and started to eat, wishing that he’d chosen another table. Kilgore’s show of emotion made him uneasy. He hated it when he heard people crying down here. It reminded him of the emptiness he felt. The three hundred or so people he’d been buried underground with were, on the whole, professional and well-trained, battle-hardened soldiers; men and women who’d been conditioned to suppress their emotions and just get on with doing whatever it was they’d been ordered to do. But that was getting increasingly difficult with every passing day, almost every hour. The fact some of them were showing emotion at all indicated just how uncertain their situation had become. And the longer they spent down here, the worse it got. No one seemed to know what they were doing or why. No one knew what had happened or what was going to happen next. By now they’d all heard rumours about the dire state of the infected world aboveground from the few advance parties which had ventured outside, and that only served to make their time buried underground even more difficult. What did the future hold for the millions of people left on the surface, scarred by plague? More importantly, Spence thought, what did the future hold for him and the rest of them underground?
The tap, tap, tap of metal on plastic disturbed his train of thought. He looked at Kilgore again. His hand was shaking. He could hardly hold his fork still.
‘You okay, mate?’
Kilgore shook his head. More tears. He wiped them away on the back of his sleeve. ‘No,’ he said quietly.
‘Want to talk about it?’
‘What’s there to talk about? What good’s it gonna do? We’re stuck down here, you know. There’s no fucking way we’re getting out.’
‘Why d’you say that?’
Kilgore dropped his fork and took a swig from his mug of cold coffee. He leant back in his chair and ran his fingers through his wiry hair. For the briefest of moments he made eye contact with Spence, but he looked away quick. Eventually he cleared his throat and tried to talk.
‘You been up there yet?’ he asked, looking up.
‘Not yet.’
‘It was my first time out today,’ Kilgore explained. ‘I was shitting myself. I’ve never seen anything like it. I tell you, man, you can’t even begin to imagine what’s going on up there until you see it…’ He stopped, took another deep breath and tried again. ‘Fucking hell, I can’t even…’
‘Take your time,’ Spence said quietly, figuring he needed to know. Kilgore tried to compose himself.
‘Sarge says we’re going aboveground. He tells us we’re going on a walkabout looking for survivors in Ansall. You know Ansall? Little town just outside Hemmington? Anyway, we’re ready and outside in minutes, before we’ve even had chance to think about it. I put the mask on and I’m standing there in the suit and that’s when it hits me. I’m standing there thinking about what I’ve heard it’s like and I start thinking Christ, get a fucking hole in this suit while we’re outside and I’m a dead man. I’m thinking, catch the suit on a nail or a door handle or whatever and I’ve fucking had it. We’re all feeling it. No one says a bloody word. Then Sarge gives the nod. We get into the transport and he gives the order to open the doors.
‘Those bloody doors slide open and Christ, for a minute it looks fucking beautiful out there. You don’t realise how much you miss daylight until you see it again. I tell you, the world never looked so good as it did this afternoon. It’s about one o’clock and it’s properly gorgeous. The sky’s blue, the sun’s burning down and there’s not a fucking cloud in the sky. We roll up to the top of the ramp and for a few seconds everything’s all right. For a couple of seconds it feels good and you start to think everything’s going to be okay. It feels good just to be getting out of this fucking place for a while. Even though we’ve all got our masks on it feels good to see trees and grass and hills instead of fucking concrete walls and metal doors.
‘I had Smith sitting next to me. You know Smith? The big guy with the crooked nose? Anyway, we start moving away from the base and he suddenly sits up and starts staring out of the window. He’s cursing and pointing and we all crowd around to look at whatever it is he’s seen. And that’s when we see them. People. I was thinking we should stop and try and help them but then I remembered what I’d heard from the others who’d already been out there. Sarge stops the transport for a second and we watch as they keep coming towards us, all slow and awkward like their legs are stiff. I could only see a couple of them at first, but they kept coming and then there was more and more of them. They’re coming out of the trees and from around the side of the entrance door and I counted at least thirty before we started moving again. I could see even more in the fields around us. From a distance they looked normal, just slow moving, but when they got close you could see that they were sick. Fucking hell, they looked like they were rotting. Their skin was all discoloured – grey and green – and it looked like it was hanging off their bones like it was a few sizes too big. Some looked like bloody skeletons, all shrivelled up and dry. Jesus, you’ve never seen anything like it. Sarge screams at the driver to ignore them and keep moving and she puts her foot down. She drives into a couple of them – there was nothing she could do, they just walked out in front of us. I watched one of them go down. We hit it so hard it virtually snapped in half. Its legs were all fucked up. But then I look behind and watch as it tries to get up again. Fucking thing’s lying there with both its legs smashed to fuck and it’s trying to get up again…
‘So we just sit there in silence for a fucking age. No one says anything. No one knows what to fucking say, you know? Anyway, we follow the track away from here and we see more and more of them everywhere. Christ alone knows how they know where to go, but it’s like they’re all moving towards the base. They stop and turn around when they see us, then start following. I mean, we’ve got to be doing about thirty or forty miles an hour and these things are following us like they think they’re gonna catch up. We get onto the main road and start heading for Ansall and I’m thinking about what we’re gonna find there. I’m thinking fuck, if there are this many people out here in the middle of nowhere, what the hell are we gonna find in town?’
Kilgore paused to finish his drink. Spence said nothing. He just stared into the other soldier’s face. He didn’t want to hear anything else, but at the same time he had to know.
‘The roads were an absolute fucking nightmare,’ Kilgore continued. ‘It was like someone had flicked a switch and everything just stopped. I tell you man, everywhere you looked all you could see were bodies and crashed cars. Christ, I saw some fucking horrible sights out there. Anyway, because we’re on the road now the driver puts her foot down and speeds up. Our truck’s heavy enough to just smash through most of the wreckage. I started getting freaked out by it all, and I could see it was getting to the others too. It’s the sheer bloody scale of it. Everything’s been wiped out up there, you know, there’s nothing that ain’t been touched. I thought I was gonna have a fucking freak-out. It was so bloody hot in the suit, and the truck was like a fucking sun-trap, and all I c
ould think about was the taste of fresh air and all I wanted to do was take off the mask and feel the sun and the wind on my face and… and then it occurs to me that none of us are ever going to feel that ever again. And then I start getting really fucking frightened thinking about whatever’s in the air that’s done all this. I’m thinking again about my suit getting ripped and not knowing until it’s too late. I can see Fraser’s face opposite me. His eyes are darting all round the place like a bloody mad man.
‘So we get to Ansall, and I don’t mind telling you I was scared shitless. I’ve never been so fucking frightened. I mean, you’re like me, mate, you’ve seen plenty of service, but I tell you, you ain’t seen nothing like what’s up there. Remember last winter when we were stuck in that school in the middle of that fucking gunfight that went on for days? Well this was worse. At least back then we knew who the enemy was and we could shoot back at them.
‘It was still bright, but between the buildings the streets were dark and it was bloody cold. Coming into the shadow from the sun made it hard to see what was happening. We stopped on the edge of this little market and Sarge tells us to get out and start having a look around. We were supposed to be looking for survivors but all I could see was people in the same state as those we’d seen around here. The first one I saw up close was this little old lady. She’s half-dressed and her tits were hanging out and they’re all cut up but not bleeding, and I’m just stood there thinking this is probably someone’s mom and that my mom could be like this somewhere, and the rest of my family and probably yours too. And when you start thinking about home you get this urge to just get in a car and try and get back there to find out what’s happened to your folks and your girl and… and then you think, there’s no fucking point.