Autumn

by David Moody

  Skin stood on the veranda and fired another thirty-two times, managing to down another nineteen bodies. He became more used to the noise and recoil of the rifle with each shot, learning how to ride the kick. He learnt how to load and reload fast. Most importantly, he learnt how to get rid of those fucking things below him.

  #

  Unchecked and unrestricted, Skin’s confidence soared. No one was laughing at him now or trying to tell him what to do, were they? No one was on his back to do this or do that or be home by a certain time or not to wear certain clothes or not to speak in a certain way or not to drink or smoke… Christ, he felt like he could do anything.

  He began by getting himself more comfortable. The school had two gymnasiums, housed in a single two-storey building. He moved from his previous classroom hideout and made his home in Gym B on the first floor. Using an old, battery-powered machine, he filled the vast room with music from when he first woke to when he finally fell asleep at night. Fully aware of the effect the noise had on the dead population outside but arrogantly indifferent, he drank and smoked his way through each day. His height above the crowds seemed somehow to camouflage the direction and source of the sound. Although it continued to attract many more bodies to the school, they wandered aimlessly around the campus rather than gravitating around his building.

  Skin kicked a football around the gym. He threw empty beer bottles out of the window and watched them hit the bodies below. He spray-painted the bland grey-brick walls. Now and then he took pot-shots into the festering crowd with one of the guns. He slept, he ate, he got bored. The novelty of his situation began to wear dangerously thin. A person of sound mind and average intelligence might well have been able to rise above the boredom, or put up with it in view of the potential danger outside. Skin, however, although not stupid, was driven by a hormone, alcohol and drug-induced anger. The power he had now was incredible, and yet he wanted more. In spite of all this freedom, he still felt incomplete.

  It was late one night when the way forward became clear. Revenge. That was what was missing. It was the ultimate expression of his superiority, wasn’t it? Hell, why hadn’t he thought of it before? Here he was in this incredible position of power, and he hadn’t once used it properly. Sure, he’d fired a few shots and got rid of a pile of bodies, but he’d not yet taken out his anger on the people who deserved it most, had he? Christ, he had a string of people he needed to get even with. His parents topped the list, then his ex-girlfriend, then the so-called friends she’d slept with after she’d dumped him, then his teachers… Fucking hell, he thought, what a fucking idiot. All that time he’d been stuck here in the gym, and those fuckers had been wandering about free.

  This was his time. He was in control. Time for retribution.

  There would be little satisfaction in just finding these people and destroying what was left of them, he decided next morning as he walked back towards his parents’ house through the dawn shadows. What I need to do is make them suffer. I have to make things as unpleasant for them as they did for me. I have to hurt them.

  His mother and father were still in the kitchen of the house where he’d left them on the first morning. His mother still lay on the ground where she’d fallen, slumped between the now defrosted fridge-freezer and the dishwasher. Her soggy body stank. She was going nowhere, but a whack to the back of her head with a rolling pin removed any uncertainty. Skin’s dead father, though, followed him around the kitchen, occasionally lashing out at him with sharp, twisted hands. Skin brushed aside his pathetic attacks and slipped a dog collar and lead from the dead family pet around his neck. He tied his father’s hands together with washing line and half-led, half-dragged him the quarter-mile or so back to school. He threw the body into the empty ground floor gym below his den, and watched what was left of Dad scramble around aimlessly for a while. He spat and threw stones at it, then lit a cigarette and blew smoke into the damn thing’s face before stubbing it out on its forehead. ‘Bet you wish you hadn’t been such an uptight fucker now, eh Dad?’ he shouted as the corpse came at him again. ‘Who’s laughing now?’

  Skin found Dawn in her bedroom at her mother’s house. He slipped the lead around her neck, then tied her to the bed. Before leaving he spent some time going through her belongings. He wasn’t sure whether that made him feel better or worse. In her underwear drawer he found the kind of things he’d hoped she’d wear for him, but which she’d obviously saved for his friends. To humiliate the dead bitch he stripped her bare before dragging her back through the streets and dumping her in the gym too.

  He’d had a feeling that he’d already seen the bodies of Mr McKenzie, Mr Miller and Miss Charles wandering around the school, though it was getting harder to distinguish between individual corpses. It was while he was searching for them that he came across what was left of an ex-friend (and one of Dawn’s recent conquests) Glenn Tranter. Tranter’s face was pretty badly eaten away, but he knew it was him. Although his skin was a blotchy blue-grey, he could still see the tip of a tattoo Glenn had recently had done on his neck, just below the loose collar of his blood-stained school shirt. Another one for the gym.

  There was no sign of Mr Miller. Damn, if there was one fucker who deserved a little dismemberment and torture, it was him. It was of some consolation when he found what remained of Mr McKenzie, his dictatorial modern languages teacher, crawling along the corridor outside the main assembly hall. Stupid fucking thing was still wearing the same damn tweed jacket it had worn to school every bloody day for as long as he could remember. He took great pleasure in wrapping the dog collar around the dead teacher’s neck and dragging the body twice round the school before throwing it into the gym.

  Miss Charles, his twisted, sadistic, sour-faced ex-head of year, had been trapped in the stock cupboard next to her office when she’d died. Skin found her still crashing around the room, half-buried beneath text books and papers. He’d hated this bitch, and she’d hated him too. He tried to drag her to the gym by her long grey hair, but it wasn’t strong enough. It kept coming away from her scalp in sickly clumps. Skin resorted to the dog lead again.

  Over the course of the next day and a half he gathered together another fifteen bodies. Some of the rapidly putrefying corpses had been people who had wronged him in one way or another. Others were just poor unfortunates who just happened to have been in the wrong place at the right time, plucked from the obscurity of the faceless masses and flung into the gym.

  So what do I do with them now?

  He pondered the question as he lay on his makeshift bed at the far end of Gym B. Music blared out of the player which he’d now hung from a basketball hoop with skipping ropes. He thought it sounded better like that, although the volume was so loud that getting the right acoustic settings didn’t really matter anymore. The room was filled with a haze of smoke. It helped disguise the increasingly noxious stench of death which filled his world.

  Tomorrow I’ll make those fuckers suffer, Skin decided as he drifted into a nauseous, drink-fuelled sleep. One by one I’ll take each of them apart.

  #

  He didn’t move until early afternoon. He woke with a hangover of epic proportions which, he decided, could only be eased by drinking more alcohol. Damn, he was getting low on booze. He’d need to go out and get more soon, but not today. He had more important things to do today.

  After he’d taken a piss out of a first floor window onto the heads of the crowd below (and thrown up too – he was feeling particularly bad today) he ambled down to the ground floor gym and opened the door. The twenty bodies he’d shut in there immediately began to move towards him. He pushed his way through them with contempt, shoving them away whenever they came at him. Keen to spend a reasonable amount of time with each body and not be rushed, he built a corral in one corner of the gym with benches and various other pieces of apparatus. The bodies, although still very animated, were also clumsy and their coordination was desperately poor. It didn’t take very much to keep them restrained behind vault
ing horses, trampolines, crash mats, weight training equipment and anything else he could lay his hands on.

  Who first?

  He’d had a late start, and getting the gym ready had taken longer than expected. The sun was already beginning to set as he looked across the room at his motley collection of corpses. Which one of these fuckers has caused me most pain? Which one hurt me most? Which one showed the most complete disregard for me and for everything I ever stood for or believed in or wanted? It was a close call between two of them. It was either Dad or Dawn. Just because he preferred the idea of messing with Dawn’s body (it made him feel slightly excited in an uneasy, perverted kind of way) he chose her. He grabbed hold of his ex-girlfriend’s corpse and hauled it over the barrier.

  ‘Okay, Dawn?’ he asked, surprising himself with the sound of his own voice. Dawn’s dead body lumbered towards him, twisted arms outstretched. For a moment he almost lost his nerve. What was he actually going to do? He hadn’t thought this through. He squinted as she came at him, remembering her as she used to be. More specifically, he remembered what it was she’d done to him. Even more specifically, he remembered what it was she hadn’t let him do to her. Bitch.

  Christ, just look at the state of her, he thought as his dead ex-girlfriend slipped in a puddle of blood or vomit or something equally unpleasant. Over the course of the last twenty-four hours the floor of the gym had become covered with various noxious spillages, both from the corpses and from Skin himself. The corpse dropped to its knees in front of him and then managed to pick itself up again, clumsy feet skidding like a new-born animal. Dawn was an appalling sight but, knowing her strange tastes, he thought she might have approved of the look. Her eyes were hollow and sunken, her skin green-hued and ruptured in places. She had a deep cut on her right shoulder and, in the low light, Skin was sure he could see squirming movement in and around the wound. Was it just blood or decay glistening, or was it something more foul? Maggots, flies or larvae feeding off her dead flesh? Whatever it was, the thought of it was disgusting, too much even for the twisted mind of Skin to handle. The sight of her standing there, naked and practically falling to pieces as he watched her, was too intense. He pushed her back over the barrier and grabbed another body from the other side of the divide. Change of tactics. He’d have to build himself up to his headline acts.

  Mr Read! Bloody hell, it was Mr Read, the head of music at the school. He’d almost forgotten that he’d found Read’s body. He hadn’t set out to get this particular teacher, but he was glad he had him. Now this bastard really deserved to suffer. He was the one who made kids sing on their own in front of the class and play endless bloody glockenspiel solos in his lessons.

  Skin hadn’t got on with Read, but he had no specific issues with him either, just a generic dislike. He felt sure he could deal with his body without giving it a moment’s thought. Maybe the strength of his hate for Dawn, his dad and certain other ex-teachers made it harder for him to do their corpses justice? He just needed practice, that was all. Mr Read’s body was the ideal candidate.

  What could he do to him? He glanced around the gloomy gym and his eyes settled on a pile of weight-training equipment in the corner. As the body dragged itself after him, moving pathetically slowly, he took a short bar (the kind he’d seen used for single arm exercises) and stripped the weights off it. He was left with a bloody heavy, fourteen inch, chrome plated metal rod. He turned back around to face the body of the dead teacher and swung the bar at its head. He’d expected to feel the impact but he hardly felt anything. It seemed to cut through the flesh like a hot knife through butter, such was the level of the creature’s decay. And Christ, look what he’d done! The damn thing’s jaw had been ripped right off its bloody face!

  Now feeling more confident and in control again, Skin circled the helpless corpse. He was moving at several times its miserable speed, and it had no idea where he was. It staggered around, desperately trying to find him, spinning circles, and he hacked at its legs. He hit the right knee cap, shattering it, and the body crumbled to the ground. This was too bloody easy! He smashed the bar down again, this time coming down hard on its pelvis, feeling bone splinter under the force of the metal.

  Whatever tensions, frustrations and fears had been building up inside Skin were released by the therapeutic destruction of the school teacher’s body. By the time he’d finished with Mr Read he had all but disappeared, spread around virtually the entire gym. This was really firing him up. It felt good, and he wanted more.

  Dad was next.

  #

  Hungry, tired and cold, Jackson approached the school.

  More bodies.

  Something must be happening around here.

  What’s the attraction? Why this place? I need to rest and I need food. Think I’ll take a look around.

  #

  Skin dragged his father’s body through the creamy, barely recognisable remains of the music teacher. Using skipping ropes which he’d found alongside the weight training equipment, he lashed the corpse’s thrashing arms and legs to a wooden climbing frame bolted to the gym wall. His knots weren’t particularly good but Dad was weak and couldn’t escape.

  Just look at the state of you, he thought as he stared at what was left of his father. The thing squirmed on the wooden frame like it had been crucified. You used to tell me you were somebody I should look up to, and now look at you. You used to tell me that I should aspire to be like you, to do the things you did and to believe in the things that you believed in. Now look at you. A pathetic lump of rotting meat that’s about to be destroyed. Now you look at me. I took so much shit from you because of how I dressed, what I did and who I did it with. And why? What was so good about doing things your way? What made your values any better than mine? If you were so fucking clever, why aren’t you the one who’s stood here now? If I was so got it so wrong, how come I’m in control?

  Skin had edged closer and closer so that he was now just inches away from his dead father’s face. He stared deep into the corpse’s cold, black eyes and he hoped, bizarrely, to see a flicker of recognition or emotion. He wanted his father to know what was happening. He wanted him to see and feel everything he was about to do to him. He wanted him to understand and to be able to admit that Skin was right and he’d been wrong.

  Nothing.

  Stupid fucking thing.

  In a fit of temper Skin picked up a metal-framed chair and swung it at his father’s remains. Two of the chair’s metal legs scraped across the rotting flesh covering the creature’s abdomen and ripped it open, practically disembowelling it. Partially decomposed organs began to slip, slide and ooze from the open body cavity and dripped onto the floor under its thrashing feet.

  Skin dropped to his knees and watched as what was left of his dad began to slowly fall apart.

  #

  It must be somewhere around here. This is where the bodies are heading. Was this a school or a college or something?

  Jackson crept around the outskirts of the school campus. Something had definitely happened here. There were far too many bodies for it to just be coincidence. It couldn’t have been looters because there’d be nothing worth taking here. Most likely survivors had been using it for shelter. Interesting. He’d only come across a handful of other people in all the time he’d been travelling. He’d found evidence of them having been around and he’d come across their remains when the bodies had got to them before he had, but he’d seen very few actually managing to survive. He’d done his best to keep out of their way. The more of you there are, he’d decided, the more noise you’ll make and the more chance you’ll have of being caught and killed. Stay alone and stay alive was rapidly becoming his motto.

  A door nearby was open. Jackson went inside then stopped and listened carefully to the sounds echoing around the vast, stinking building. He heard the odd distant shuffle and crash of bodies but nothing too ominous. He decided to risk spending a little more time looking around.

  Whenever Jackson found a staircas
e in a place like this, he climbed it. Stairs give you an advantage over the dead, he’d long since decided. The bodies had trouble climbing (although they’d manage it if you gave them long enough and if they had enough of an incentive). Also, the higher you go, the better view you had of whatever’s going on around you.

  What Jackson saw from the top of this particular staircase confused him. There was a grassy courtyard in the middle of the campus directly below, and it was filled with bodies. In the dark, however, he couldn’t immediately see what was drawing them there. He’d come across huge gatherings before, some which had been caused by the most ridiculous of things: a squeaky hinge or rainwater dripping from a broken gutter, for example. Were these bodies trapped? He’d found large numbers of corpses which had managed to get themselves stuck, usually when there was only one way in and out, and those still coming in were preventing the rest from getting back out. He watched the crowd for a little while longer, trying to analyse their movements.

  Then he saw it.

  There were bodies trapped in a gym on the other side of the grass-covered quadrant. Perhaps the noise of them moving around in there was creating enough of a disturbance to keep the hundreds of surrounding corpses close. It was possible, but unlikely. Whatever the reason, he decided that was where he was going to make his attack. Just a very quick run in and out. Enough to cause a little damage and get a decent fire going. And once the building was properly alight he could concentrate on getting himself sorted out. He was starving. He hadn’t eaten for more than a day. There’d be shops nearby. The fire would distract the bodies and when enough of them had come here he’d go scavenging through the shadows they’d left behind.