by Joe McKinney
Enough of this. I’m wasting time. Daydreaming is dangerous. Hypothesizing pointlessly about what might or might not be happening won’t help. All I can do is respond to the changes day by day and try to stay one step ahead of the game. My comparative strength and my intelligence should see me through. I have to keep control and hold my nerve. Start to get jumpy or twitchy and I’ll make mistakes. Make mistakes and I’m dead. No second chances.
These things don’t communicate with each other, but they’re developing a strange tendency to move together in large groups. It’s almost like they’re herding. Something happens to attract one or two of them, then more and more follow the first until there’s a huge crowd of the fuckers. I can use that behaviour to my advantage, but there are dangers too. The advantages? When they’re together it’s easy to pick them off in bulk. I haven’t yet, but I can imagine being able to take out hundreds of them at a time if I have to. And the dangers? If I’m the one causing the disturbance that’s attracting them, I’m fucked.
Attacking a group of them can be unexpectedly useful. Starting fires also helps. A little heat and light is enough to draw them out from a wide surrounding area. The stupid things can’t help themselves, and they stumble towards the flames without giving me a second glance. I can walk right past them and they won’t notice if there’s something more interesting happening nearby. Their senses are dull and basic. Give them something obvious to focus on and they lose sight of everything else. I've been collecting fireworks. Feels strange to be rooting through toy shops now, wrong almost, but if I'm cornered all I have to do is set off a rocket and wait for them to react. I got the idea from a Romero movie, back when this kind of thing was just fiction.
Darkness is my best friend.
The creatures are still clumsy and slow. Take away their sight and the advantage I have over them is massively increased. That’s why I now travel almost exclusively after nightfall.
So what’s the plan? You have to have a plan, don't you? I'm heading for the coast. I've a hell of a distance to cover still and it’s not going to be easy travelling on foot, but I can’t think of any other option. I tried using a car, but the noise caused more trouble than time saved, and if there's one thing I've got plenty of, it's time. And why the coast? Seems as good a place as any. Nowhere will be completely safe anymore. The coast strikes me as being rough and inhospitable, and with the ocean on one side I’ll have less land to have to watch. Maybe I'll find myself a lighthouse, somewhere strong and remote like that. Somewhere they can’t get to.
I’ll be all right on my own. Maybe I’ll get lonely, maybe I won’t. Whatever happens, I’m just glad I survived. In a strange way I’m almost looking forward to whatever the future brings. The only thing that’s guaranteed is it’ll be free of the countless bullshit trappings of my previous daily life. A future without the drudgery of trying to hold down a job and pay bills. A future without politics, crap TV, religion and who knows what else. I know I sound naïve, because for every problem the infection has solved, it’s created hundreds more, but you have to be positive, don’t you?
I often wonder how many people like me are left out here? Am I the only one, or are there hundreds of us creeping quietly through the shadows, avoiding the bodies and, by default, avoiding each other too.
Doesn’t matter.
Everything will be all right in the end.
More to the point, I’ll be okay.
OFFICE POLITICS
It’s over a week since billions of people died. In that time, millions of them have risen up and are now walking the streets, their bodies rotting. Everything has changed. Almost nothing is as it was. Almost nothing.
There are thirty-seven houses on Marshwood Road. Only one of them has a freshly cut back lawn. Only one has had its dustbins emptied and the rubbish placed neatly in black plastic sacks at the end of the drive, ready for collection. Only one has had its curtains drawn each night and opened again each morning since the infection killed more than ninety-nine per cent of the population.
Different people deal with stress, loss and other emotional pressures in a wide range of ways. Some implode, some explode. Some shrivel up and hide in the quietest, darkest corner they can find, others make as much noise as possible. Some accept what was happened, others deny everything.
Simon Walters is handling the end of the world particularly badly. The arrival of the infection and the subsequent after-shocks have felt like trivial irritations, further complicating his already over-complicated life. One of life’s perennial victims, in his eyes no one has problems big enough to match his. Simon has failed to cope with what has happened, and as a last ditch defence mechanism, he has shut out all other suffering to concentrate fully on his own.
#
The sudden clattering of the battery-powered alarm clock shattered the early morning quiet. Simon groaned, rolled over and switched it off. It sounded louder than ever this morning. How he hated that damn grinding, whining noise. No, he didn’t just hate it, he absolutely loathed it. Especially today. When that unholy clanging began he knew it was time to get up and start another bloody day. The noise was marginally more bearable on Thursdays and Fridays as the weekend neared, but today was Monday, the beginning of yet another week, and the noise was worse than ever.
‘Morning, love,’ he yawned as he rolled over onto his back and looked up at the ceiling. June, his wife, didn’t move. Lazy cow. Okay, so she only had to drop the kids off at school and work and none of them needed to be there until around nine, but she could at least make an effort once in a while and get up with him. She’d been the same all weekend, hadn’t got out of bed once. Perhaps when he came home from work tonight he’d sit her down and force her to talk, try and get to the bottom of what was on her mind. God knows something needed to be said. Her personal hygiene standards were slipping. Her once-silky, chestnut brown hair was greasy and lifeless and she was starting to smell. He wondered whether she’d even been bothering to wash? He’d tried to say something to her about it yesterday afternoon but it was a delicate subject and he found it difficult to find the right words. He’d tried his hardest to be tactful but he’d obviously screwed it up and upset her because she’d not said a word. She’d just stared into space and ignored him. She hadn’t even had the decency to look at him. Late last night he’d brought her up a glass of wine and a slice of cake as a peace offering but she hadn’t touched them.
Simon rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock again. Five past seven. There was no avoiding it, he had to get up. He wanted just to curl up and pretend the day wasn’t happening, but he couldn’t. He had responsibilities. He kicked off the covers then yawned and stretched and stumbled into the bathroom.
This country is going to hell in a hand-basket, he decided as he stared at himself in the mirror. No water again. The taps had been dry for almost two days now. There really was no excuse. He paid his bills and he expected better than this. The bloody water company hadn’t even had the decency to answer the phone when he’d called the emergency number.
God, he thought, I look awful. He was bloody tired: tired of his job, tired of his family and their attitude, tired of being taken for granted, and tired of himself. Forty-seven years of age and stuck in a rut with no obvious way of getting out. The only way he could see himself getting back in his family’s good books would be to pander to them, and the only way he could afford to do that would be to get promoted at work or find himself a better job. Bloody hell, how he hated his job. He’d worked for the bank for thirty years and in that time he’d seen huge changes. It was no longer the same job he’d walked into after leaving school at age sixteen. Back then it had been a career to be proud of, and working for a bank had given him some kind of status and standing in the community. These days his association with the financial industry made him a social leper. People had once looked up to him but now it was as if he was personally being blamed for all the grief the banks had caused. In reality he was little more than a glorified salesman, left
at the counter all day to sell loans, accounts and insurance policies to people who either already had enough loans, accounts and policies or who had only come into the branch to pay a bill. Maybe it was his own fault, he wondered as he began shaving with his old electric razor. He’d seen plenty of people join the bank after him, only to overtake him and be promoted up through the ranks at speed. In fact, he’d trained three of the last five managers he’d worked for, teaching them how to cashier when they’d first joined the company.
The bank needs people like me, Simon told himself as he tugged and pulled at a weekend’s worth of stubble with his razor. If it wasn’t for the folk at the bottom, the high-flyers and the people at the top wouldn’t be able to do their jobs and make their massive profits. Some of his colleagues laughed at him because he’d been in charge of the stationery cupboard at his branch for longer than most of them had been in the bank, but they’d be laughing on the other side of their faces if he didn’t put in a stationery order, wouldn’t they? How could they sell their loans and their accounts and their insurance policies without the right brochures and forms? And how could they fill them out without any pens? He did more for his branch and the company overall than any of them ever gave him credit for.
The batteries in his razor ran out mid-shave. The left side of his face was mostly clean shaven, the right still covered with stubble. Bloody typical.
#
They were going to have to go shopping. The kitchen cupboards were practically empty. He should have gone to the supermarket at the weekend. More to the point, June should have. Why was everything left to him all of a sudden? As he sat munching dry cereal, Simon scribbled out a grocery list. He’d leave it on the table for June. Hopefully she’d get the message and go out later and get everything they needed so he could eat properly tonight.
Simon shook his head dejectedly. He wished he understood what was going on. He’d never known anything like it. He was struggling to get on with his family, the house was in a state, and the water, gas and electricity supplies had all failed or become intermittent. To lose one would have been bad enough, but all three at the same time? How could these utility companies be allowed to operate so shoddily? Imagine the grief if I didn’t do my job properly, he thought. There’d be hell to pay.
As ready for work as he was ever going to be, Simon got up and packed his lunch away into his briefcase. It wasn’t really very much of a lunch, just a few dry crackers, some biscuits, a packet of crisps he’d found at the back of the cupboard, and a rubbery apple. He jammed his food in amongst the hundreds of old circulars, leaflets, handwritten notes and photocopied procedures that he carried to and from work every day. He never looked at any of it (most of it was probably out of date) but he felt safe when he carried a case full of papers to the office. It was a security blanket, something to hide behind.
‘Are any of you out of bed yet?’ he called up from the bottom of the stairs. Was he really the only one who could be bothered anymore? Agitated and nervous (he always felt that way before work) Simon left his briefcase at the foot of the stairs and stormed back up to try and motivate his lazy family. He could hear something happening in Jamie’s bedroom. At least he was making an effort.
‘Ready for school, Jim?’
What was left of Jamie was on the other side of the door, trying to claw his way out, reacting to his father’s voice. Simon shoved the door open and sent his son’s wasted body tripping backwards. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said, watching the corpse regain its footing and lurch forward again. The dead boy crashed into him. ‘Steady on,’ Simon laughed, ‘take it easy!’ Jamie grabbed at him with barely coordinated hands. ‘I haven’t got time to muck about now,’ Simon said. ‘I’ve got to get to work. I’ll see you tonight, okay?’
Still laughing, Simon picked up his son’s emaciated body, carried him across the room and dumped him on the bed. Jamie immediately rolled off again and staggered back towards the door.
‘Make sure you change your sweatshirt before you go to school, okay?’ Simon pointed a disapproving finger at the dribbles of blood and other emissions which had seeped down the front of his dead son’s crusty beige jumper. He left the room and shut the door behind him, holding onto the handle for a moment as the remains of his child clattered against the other side.
He knocked on the next door then went inside. She’s just like her mother, Simon thought as he peeled back the bedclothes to reveal his daughter Hannah’s decaying face. She’d just turned seventeen when she’d died last week. He shook her shoulder, trying to wake her. She’d been working in a hairdresser’s salon for just over a month and he didn’t want her being late. Jobs were hard enough to come by as it was. She needed to make a good impression. Her dead eyes stared through him unblinking.
‘Make sure you’re not late,’ he told her. No response. Simon leant down and kissed his daughter’s discoloured, room-temperature cheek. There was a spider crawling in her hair, spinning a web between her ear lobe and her skull. He flicked it across the room. ‘I’ll see you tonight, love. Have a good day.’
Having checked the children, Simon took a deep breath before going back into the bedroom he shared with June. ‘I’m off to work now, love,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll see you tonight. Maybe we could talk later? I’d like to know what it is I’m supposed to have done to upset you.’
For a second longer he stood and stared sadly at the body in the bed. June didn’t move. Eighteen years of marriage (a few of them had been pretty good years too) and yet she couldn’t even bring herself to look at him. How had everything gone so wrong, so quickly?
#
Simon pushed through the growing crowd of rotting bodies at his front gate and began the short walk to work. He didn’t know what these people wanted, but they’d been loitering here for days now. Didn’t they have homes to go to? More to the point, didn’t they have jobs? Was he solely responsible for keeping the country running? It was beginning to feel that way. There wasn’t a single car out on the roads again and he couldn’t see any of the usual faces he used to see heading off to work or taking the children to school or walking the dog. All he could see today were more of these dirty, ragged people. Some of them tried to grab at him and pull his clothes, and he couldn’t understand why. What did they want from him? What had he done to them? He ran to the end of the road, hoping they’d be gone by the time he got back tonight.
His first port of call (as it was every morning) was the newsagents on the corner of Marshwood Road and Hampton Street. The shop was quiet. Simon picked up his paper (last Tuesday’s again – bloody annoying – he’d bought the same paper seven times now) and dug deep in his pocket for change. There was no one about to serve him, and in temper he slammed the coins down on the counter (next to the coins he’d left there on Friday) and stormed out of the shop, cursing.
More bodies up ahead. He asked them to move but they ignored him. Sick of being treated like a second class citizen, he pushed them out of the way and marched on towards the high street, a man on a mission.
#
Simon hated his job. He felt his guts churn and his bowels loosen as he neared the bank. A traditional and imposing, late-nineteenth century building, its architectural beauty had been compromised by the ever-expanding array of Perspex signs hung above and around its solid wooden doors, and the gaudy advertising hoardings plastered across the inside of its large, arched windows. An ATM had been crow-barred into what had once been a street-level window. Ignoring the unwanted attentions of yet another rancid, dribbling man who came at him repeatedly, he checked the screen of the machine. Bloody thing was down again, and no doubt he’d get the blame. Nothing short of 99.85% uptime was good enough for the bank. Another target missed, and he hadn’t even made it through the front door yet.
The staff door at the side of the building was already open, completely against policy. Which idiot had left it like that? Didn’t they know there was a strict security procedure to be followed each morning before anyone could go inside
? He entered the building and slammed and bolted the door shut behind him. He’d let himself out last thing on Friday evening and he’d assumed that one of the others would have locked up after him. Christ, could the bank have been left open all weekend?
#
By quarter past nine only three other members of staff had arrived for work. The branch manager (Brian Statham, ten years Simon’s junior) had already been in his office when Simon had arrived. Statham obviously wasn’t happy. He was pacing about the room furiously, slamming into the door and occasionally banging against the glass, making a heck of a din. Two clerks – Janice Phelps and Tom Compton – were dead at their desks. Janice was slumped over her computer whilst Tom had fallen off his chair and lay spread-eagled on the carpet. Simon was appalled by the lack of work being done in the branch. He knocked on Statham’s door to voice his concerns but his manager wasn’t interested. He was only marginally more responsive than the others and Simon took it upon himself to address the situation because there was no way the branch could run with a skeleton staff like this. He dug out the telephone numbers of some of the missing staff from their personnel files and tried to call them to find out where they were, but none of the phones were working. The damn lines were still down.
Let’s just get on with it, Simon decided. It was half-past nine, time to open to the public, and it was all down to him. He walked the length of the banking hall, unlocked the heavy wooden doors and pulled them open.
Nothing happened. A few random figures in the street stopped and turned to see what the noise was but, other than that, nothing. Simon remembered a time when the banking hall would have been filled with an endless queue of customers all day every Monday, and how that queue would have been hanging out of the door first thing. How things had changed.
He wandered back behind the security screen and took up his position behind his till.