Purification

by David Moody

  He’d left the eight other survivors celebrating their day’s work and drinking themselves stupid in the dank, dusty and shadow-filled lounge of The Fox, Cormansey’s only public house.

  The sound of the ocean filled the evening air. It was still refreshingly different to actually be able to hear something instead of the heavy, enforced silence he’d endured during pretty much all of the last eight weeks. The constant crashing of the waves on the beach just ahead of him was a welcome and relaxing sound.

  He felt safe being out on his own tonight. Last night he wouldn’t have risked being out in the open like this but today the group had worked hard to clear the village and a large number of bodies had been slaughtered and accounted for. From where he was sitting he could still see the bright glow of the huge pyre they’d lit just outside the main part of Danvers Lye. If there were any other bodies nearby tonight (and he guessed that there probably would be) then he knew they would most likely be few and far between and he’d be able to deal with them quickly and easily. In readiness his trusty crowbar remained slung at his side.

  Keen to escape from the dead village, Michael had chosen to walk down the twisting coastal road which led back towards the other end of the island. Getting cold, he jumped up from the stone wall where he’d been sitting for the last ten minutes and ambled down towards the sea, his feet grinding noisily into the shingle shore as he neared the ocean. The crashing waves were soon loud enough to drown out the sound of his heavy footsteps.

  He’d been busy and preoccupied all day but, now that he’d finally stopped working, he’d again found himself plagued by dark and painful thoughts. Most prevalent in his mind was Emma and the sudden physical gulf which remained between the two of them. Why the hell had he left her on the mainland? Couldn’t she have come over to Cormansey with him? She would have been more use than bloody Danny Talbot. Michael had nothing against Talbot but he was young and immature and he’d been of very little help when the group had been clearing the village earlier.

  Emma, on the other hand, was far more experienced. She had guts and she had strength and when it came to the crunch she wasn’t afraid to do whatever she had to do to survive. Looking back now and thinking about some of the survivors sitting in the pub down the road, he decided that some of them seemed to have been chosen to come to the island just because they fitted the stereotypical impression of the kind of person who should have been prepared to fight and clear the land; young, fit and male. A tragic shame, thought Michael, that even now after all that had happened, he and his fellow survivors seemed content to measure themselves and each other according to standards which were once given importance in a society that was long gone.

  Michael walked further along the beach. Unlike most of the coastline of Cormansey that he’d seen so far, the shingle here was even and flat and was interrupted by only the occasional large rock. The wreck of a fishing boat had been washed up onto the shore near to where he was walking. He had no way of knowing whether this was a vessel which had originally set sail from Cormansey or whether it had simply drifted and crashed into the rocks here by chance. Wherever it had come from, it had ended its days stranded here on the beach, lying over on one side like a dead whale. As he approached Michael saw that the captain of the boat (if that was who it had been) was still trapped on board. Caught up in rusted winch machinery, the body was particularly badly deteriorated, almost skeletal, no doubt because of its exposure to the harsh and relentless ocean conditions. Almost all of the visible flesh had been stripped away, washed away by the salty sea water and leaving yellow-white bone exposed beneath.

  Months ago the discovery of a body such as the one Michael had found would have mattered and the lives of many people would have been affected by the repercussions of the death and the wreck. Today it didn’t mean anything to anyone. Michael pitied the poor sod who had died. It again made him realise just how most of what he had once considered important now counted for nothing.

  A dead body washing up on a beach would have been headline news in the days before the world had been turned upside down. Now Michael casually walked past it as if it was nothing more than an unimportant piece of driftwood.

  It was getting harder to remember that all of these bodies had each been someone once. Someone with a life, a name, a history and a personality.

  Having previously been forced by circumstance to forget about the past, the change of surroundings and the events of the day now ending had unexpectedly revealed a weakness in Michael’s armour. He wasn’t alone - most of the others had felt it too. A subconscious refusal to think about the past had until today remained a key defence for many of the survivors. The unprepared men and women on the island, however, had suddenly been given an opportunity to look back and remember what had gone and what they had lost. As a result uneasy comparisons between the past and what remained today were now being made with unhealthy regularity. Looking back was a bloody hard and painful experience. As Michael ambled further down the beach, the driving wind whipping up off the ocean and gusting furiously into his face, he thought about the life he had lived before this nightmare had begun. He thought about the casual approach he had taken to his life and how nothing much had ever seemed to bother him. He thought about how, like everyone else, he’d always taken pretty much everything for granted. He thought about his family and friends. He thought about his home. He pictured his house in his mind as he’d left it, and then tried to drag that image into the present. He pictured the street where he used to live, now overrun with mould, weeds and decay, the pavements littered with the remains of people he used to know.

  As the shingle gave way to larger, jagged and more dangerous rocks, Michael found himself turning his attention to the more immediate past. He remembered the early days and finding the farmhouse with Emma and Carl.

  Christ, they should have done better there. He should have been stronger. They’d let themselves down and had made themselves vulnerable. But then, he thought, if the farmhouse hadn’t been surrounded and lost when it had been, surely it would have happened eventually? He thought about the military base and what had happened there, how somewhere which had apparently been so safe, strong and secure could also have been exposed and compromised so quickly and disastrously. Would the island prove to be any safer? He had to believe that it would be. In principle the dangers here were less, but these days the gulf between predictions and reality often proved to be unexpected and immense.

  All he wanted was security and shelter. A quiet, simple life with his basic needs satisfied. A roof over his head and Emma by his side was all that it boiled down to.

  35

  Just after six o’clock the following morning, Gary Keele stood between two of the smaller buildings on the airfield, out of sight of the numerous survivors who were now moving between the observation tower, the office building and the helicopter and plane. This time he wasn’t hiding from them, he just didn’t want the others to see him. He was literally sick with nerves. He’d already thrown up twice and the sudden cramps in his gut seemed to indicate that he was about to vomit for a third time. He hadn’t eaten anything since late yesterday evening and his stomach was empty, but the thought of flying the plane instantly made the bile rise in his throat again.

  His legs shaking, Keele crouched down and spat into the overgrown grass and weeds at his feet, trying to clear the sour, stinging taste of vomit from his mouth. This was stupid, he thought to himself. He had literally hundreds of flying hours under his belt, so why was he so worked up about making this flight now? If anything, flying to the island should have been easier than most of his previous flights - apart from the helicopter piloted by Lawrence the skies were otherwise empty. Was it the responsibility of carrying so many passengers and having them relying completely on him that was causing his nerves? That could well have been the reason. In his job as a tug plane pilot at a gliding centre he’d previously almost always flown alone and had no-one’s safety to worry about but his own. Or was it because h
e’d been in the air when the disease had first struck that he now found the thought of flying so hard? On the first morning he’d been tugging the fourth out of five gliders into the air when they’d started falling out of the sky around him.

  Get a fucking grip, he thought to himself, forcing himself to stand upright again. Suddenly determined he took a deep breath and marched to the edge of the building but then stopped the moment the plane came back into view. He pushed himself flat against the nearest wall, a cold, nervous sweat prickling his brow once again. He had to do this. He had to make himself do this. He knew he didn’t have any choice. Never mind the rest of them, if he didn’t get in that bloody plane and fly it then he was stuck at the airfield too.

  ‘Finally, here he is,’ Richard Lawrence grinned as Keele walked purposefully past him and towards the plane. ‘You feeling all right, Tuggie?’

  Keele didn’t hear him, concentrating instead on trying to rise above his fear and focussing on the task ahead.

  Lawrence looked over at Cooper and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Don’t knock it,’ Cooper whispered, ‘at least he’s here.

  As long as he gets that bloody plane up in the air I don’t care what state he’s in.’

  The two men stood and watched as Keele climbed into the cockpit of the plane and began to nervously run through his series of pre-take-off checks. In the back of the aircraft twelve equally nervous survivors sat strapped in their seats, surrounded (as they had been for more than half an hour now) by all the bags and boxes of useful supplies the group had been able to safely cram inside. Five more people, Donna and Clare included, emerged from the office building. With her arm wrapped around the shoulder of Dean McFarlane, the youngest survivor at only eight years of age, Clare made her way over to the plane.

  ‘You make sure you don’t do anything stupid when you get there,’ Jack Baxter shouted to her from where he stood next to Cooper at the edge of the runway.

  ‘I won’t, don’t worry,’ she smiled as she buckled up her safety belt. She glanced across at him nervously. ‘I’ll send you a postcard. Let you know what the place is like!’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Baxter grinned, taking a couple of steps forward so that he could be sure she was safely strapped in.

  ‘We’re all planning on being over there with you in a few days time. I’ll be with you before the postcard gets here!’

  Keele emerged from the cockpit of the plane. He climbed out onto the runway again and looked up and down the length of the aircraft and then up into the sky, obviously psyching himself up for the flight. Richard Lawrence turned and spoke to Donna who was stood nearby, watching anxiously.

  ‘Looks like we’re ready,’ he said, taking hold of her arm and gently ushering her forward. ‘Go get yourself on board.’

  Donna nodded and made her way over to the helicopter where three other survivors were waiting. Cooper watched her as she walked away.

  ‘Think this lot are going to be okay?’ he asked.

  Lawrence

  nodded.

  ‘Should be,’ he replied. ‘I reckon as soon as Keele’s up there he’ll start to get his nerve back.’

  ‘Either that or he’ll go to pieces. What if he loses it?’

  ‘Then it’ll be a short flight, won’t it? And I’ll end up spending the next week flying backwards and forwards between this hole and the frigging island.’

  Keele was walking towards them.

  ‘Ready?’ Cooper asked.

  ‘Suppose so,’ he replied, his voice sounding less than certain.

  ‘You know the route, don’t you, Keele?’ Lawrence checked. Better to be safe than sorry.

  ‘Think

  so.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have any trouble finding the place. If the worst comes to the worst just head for the east coast and then follow it up north until you find the island. You’ll see the smoke and the people and they’ll see you before you can…’

  ‘I know,’ Keele interrupted, ‘you already told me.’

  Cooper and Lawrence exchanged quick glances. Both were still dubious about the pilot’s mental condition and his ability to fly.

  ‘Get going,’ Cooper urged. Keele jogged back to the plane.

  ‘We should be back later today,’ Lawrence shouted over his shoulder as he walked towards the helicopter. He stopped and turned around to face Cooper and Baxter. ‘I’m aiming to be back here by mid-afternoon. Just do me a favour and make sure that everyone’s ready to do this again first thing tomorrow. I want to get this done quickly, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ he replied.

  Baxter and Cooper, suddenly the only two survivors remaining out in the open, moved away from the runway as first Lawrence and then Keele started the engines of their respective aircraft. A sudden increase in wind and noise accompanied the take-off of the helicopter which rose up and then gently circled the airfield, driving the rotting masses beyond the perimeter fence into a violent frenzy.

  Keele began to taxi down the runway and then increased his speed. Lawrence hovered high above the ground and watched as the other pilot cautiously coaxed the plane off the ground and lifted it into the air. A few nervous rabbit hops and then it climbed quickly and powerfully towards the grey cloud.

  At the edge of the airfield the body of Kelly Harcourt began to move.

  The dead soldier had lain motionless where she’d fallen for two days through the wind and rain and darkness. Now, beginning deep inside the paralysed brain of the corpse, and showing itself first at the very tips of its cold and lifeless fingers, the change was starting to happen.

  It spread along the body, the movement building gradually until its dead, clouded eyes flickered slowly open and its torso and clumsy arms and legs became animated again. With awkward, involuntary and uncoordinated movements the body hauled itself up onto all fours and then stood and began to stumble forward and then to walk.

  Gravity and the uneven lie of the land were the only factors which affected the random direction which the dead soldier took. It tripped through the long grass and kept moving until it clattered into the border fence.

  In common with the basic reactions of the thousands upon thousands of other bodies which had previously dragged themselves up from the ground and begun to move in this way, the shell that had once been Harcourt turned and tried to walk away. But it couldn’t move. It was trapped, held tightly from behind by the grabbing hands of numerous rotting bodies on the other side of the fence.

  Already agitated by the noise of the plane and the helicopter flying low overhead minutes earlier, the resurrection of the dead soldier had provoked more basic, brutal reactions. The most dexterous of the vicious creatures managed to poke their decaying fingers through the wire mesh and held onto the cadaver’s hair, clothing and whatever else they could grab onto. The bodies pulled relentlessly at Harcourt’s remains, trying hopelessly to drag them back through the fence, not understanding that the wire barrier was stopping them. Eventually the numb fingers lost their grip and slipped away, allowing the corpse to stumble off again in the opposite direction.

  On the other side of the fence, just to the right of where Harcourt’s body had been momentarily trapped, another body was reacting in a different way. Eight weeks ago this creature had been a young, intelligent and attractive clothing store manager with a bright future ahead of it.

  Now it was a mud-splattered, half-naked, emaciated collection of brittle bone and rotting flesh. Unlike the majority of the huge, seething crowd, however, this one was beginning to exhibit signs of real control and determination. Unlike those which simply stood there vacantly or those which ripped and tore at the other corpses immediately around them, this body was beginning to think. Pressed hard against the fence and surrounded by many thousands of creatures on either side and a similar number behind, it knew that it needed to move to survive.

  On the other side of the mesh it could just about make out the dark blur of Harcourt’s body tripping away with relative freedom and it dec
ided that was what it needed to do. It grabbed the wire with cold, bony hands and began to shake it. Other bodies began to do the same.

  36

  With Danvers Lye now almost completely cleared and the majority of Cormansey’s dead population destroyed, the group on the island set about moving from building to building, removing the last remaining corpses and beginning to try and clean and disinfect the various isolated houses and other buildings which were dotted around the bleak landscape.

  Michael, Danny Talbot and Bruce Fry had taken the jeep down to the southernmost tip of the island and were beginning to slowly make their way back north along the simple road network. They had cleared and emptied one house already and were now getting ready to start work on the second. In comparison to the gloom of the previous day this morning was bright, dry and relatively warm.

  Conditions were good and they could see the next building from a fair distance away as they approached. Its red-bricked frontage contrasted obviously and starkly with the rest of the predominantly green, brown and grey land surrounding.

  Michael stopped the jeep outside the house. The three men crossed the road and walked the short length of the garden path up to the front door. They paused, partly because they wanted to assess the situation before they barged inside, partly because they were apprehensive about what they might find there. It didn’t matter how many corpses they had previously found and disposed of, each new discovery was different to the last and was almost always unsettling. Michael found it especially difficult dealing with those bodies he found in their own homes.

  Perhaps it was because the corpses they came across in the streets had a peculiar anonymity and detachment from their surroundings. Conversely, when he came across a body which had died in its own environment and surrounded by its own belongings, he instinctively tried to piece together the details of their lives before they had been so brutally cut down. Seeing what these people had once been made it immeasurably more difficult to think of them just as lumps of cold, dead flesh. Whatever the reason for his feelings, they left him uncomfortable and nervous.