The Days After

by Alistair Ballantine

  16th July

  Our third day brought with it a sight which Rosie found particularly harrowing, an image I can only remember in the form of words.

  We had pottered about the house in the morning, Edwin was pacing like a caged animal, the frustration squeezing his narrow eyes with each passing minute. I contently sat in their well maintained garden, surrounded by yellows, violets and blues amongst countless different shades of green. There were birds above me in the trees calling to one another, it was all very serene. I told Rosie I felt like Adam, hoping she would compare herself to Eve and join me, but she didn't, she stayed inside pandering to Edwin's anguish, and the two of them dragged me from Eden into the streets.

  We all wore only socks on our feet when we left the house, the neighbourhoods paid less attention to us when we softly ambled the warm pavements.

  The streets were a far cry from the garden, the stench of rotting flesh lingered in the air from open windows and cavernous corpses outstretched on pavements and in roads. I saw them now only as unfortunate obstacles in our way, the organs we passed held similar meaning, or lack thereof, something inexplicable to be regarded with detached interest, too horrific to comprehend yet unthreatening, limply pressed against doors or harmlessly basking in the sun on black tarmac and grey pavement. Rosie hated them silently, her eyes brimmed with blame and disgust as she stared down at each one that we past. At one point, the three of us crossed the street at Edwin's request to see a tramp sat hunched over with his back against a wall, both his legs stretched out into the pavement. He had no skin around his right ankle and the white bone was covered only by a thin veil of translucent mucus and dried blood. Edwin lifted the man's head towards us and his face was gaunt and devoid of any colour. None of us spoke, just accepting that it had happened.

  We reached the park with no sight of any living people, to Edwin's disappointment. I was glad however, other people meant competition for Rosie's affections, I feigned disappointment to Edwin. The grass was scorched, an unpleasant mixture of browns and yellows. Edwin and I circled a lonely patch of sour green under a tree, Rosie continued to amble over the scorched grass towards the brightly painted metals of a distant playground.

  “Have you given any thought towards an explanation?” Edwin asked me, removing a bottle of water from his bag.

  “Yes, quite a bit actually.” I lied. “I've got nothing though. You?”

  “If this is a disease.” He said and took a swig of the water. “I cannot fathom why the three of us have survived, and it seems as though it is only the three of us in this area at least, who haven't caught it.”

  I agreed wishing I had something insightful to add. “What do you think about the organs?”

  “At first I thought that, maybe, they were the cause of it all, but we have been exposed to them now for longer than any of those previously infected. I realise it may well be a cycle, but those things, those organs, they seem much more to be the result, a consequence rather than a cause.” He was interrupted by the sound of Rosie in a state of dismay and we both leapt to our feet and rushed over to her.

  She was kneeling on the floor with her head in her hands and in front of her, a woman lay on the wood chip playground floor, half propped up on her side with a dark red cavity where her chest once was. Next to her sat a baby, propped up, sunburnt and motionless, caged in a rubber swing.

  The walk home was in silence, save for a low mummer of sniffs and tears from Rosie and one gut wrenching bout of crying that overtook her and caused us to stop in the street.

  I couldn’t tell what was going through Edwin’s head, whether his pensive appearance was that of a man consumed by the horrors he had just witnessed or whether it was something else entirely, he held it for the entirety of the walk home.

  Their kitchen was uncomfortably modern, every edge was harsh, all the units were matt white, some topped with grey slate. Rosie sat disillusioned and I joined her on the white stools, hunched over a white table watching Edwin pace back and forth in front of us, uttering the beginnings of sentences and stopping, presumably contemplating his words carefully.

  “Stop pacing Edwin!” Rosie despaired. “I want to leave. I don’t think I can bear any more of this,” She was no longer crying, “Let’s leave tomorrow?”

  “I agree, I think it is high time we got going!” Edwin was visibly thrilled.

  Both Rosie and Edwin looked at me for my reaction, Edwin with his hands on his hips and Rosie leant over the kitchen table holding a tissue in her hand. “It's settled then, we go tomorrow.”

  Edwin had clearly been thinking strategically about an exit and launched into his desire to leave London for the countryside. I told him about the cottage in Devon, and thankfully, he was enthusiastic about it, especially when he learnt about the well and the generator, and Rosie was politely excited about it, saying that it sounded wonderful and that she couldn't wait to see it. Both Edwin and Rosie talked about how the motorways according to the news were impassable and we decided that we would have to use motorbikes and play it by ear.

  Edwin's narrow eyes widening with the thought of action. “Once we’ve made it, we are going to need to set up defences there. I am not yet aware of how those buggers out there operate but I don’t much fancy having them follow us.” He was kicking into gear. “Perfect, we have a destination and a mode of transport. Tomorrow we should gather a few basic supplies and find our motorbikes.”

  “What about Mum?” Rosie asked.

  “We will open the doors before we leave.”

  “What do you mean? You want to just leave her here.” She said trying to understand how cold Edwin was being. “We need to bury her.”

  Edwin agreed and the three of us morbidly set about digging her grave in the middle of the garden. We used two rusty shovels and a pick axe to tear apart the green grass and dump pile upon pile of dry earth next to the grave. Dusk came and we stopped short of six feet. Edwin brought the body down, wrapped in a sheet and I helped him place her into the grave. The smell caught in my throat and I tried not to wince. Rosie sobbed and sobbed, holding onto her brother's arm as she tried to spill a few words, I looked away, it was too difficult to see someone in that much pain.

  17th July

  I was woken by Edwin; it was early, I didn't have a clock but the thin veil of sleep behind my eyes told me so. I stumbled into the kitchen and found Rosie sitting bleary eyed at the table and we both almost smiled to each other in acknowledgement of Edwin's enthusiasm. She made coffee, it was perfect, and we had a normal conversation and the smell of coffee beans enveloped us. Rosie held her white mug with two hands, her fingertips just touching and she cupped it all the way to her mouth and tipped it gently towards her so that the rim of the mug touched the bridge of her nose.

  Edwin interrupted and I was summoned to gather supplies for our journey. Rosie was left in charge of the house, and set herself the task of gathering family photographs along with a list of other mementoes to which I was unaware of the sentimental value they held let alone what they were in some cases, an ash tray, a multicoloured ceramic three legged animal, a faded patchwork quilt were all carefully placed into a black back pack among a litter of other oddities.

  Edwin took two bikes from the old coal shed at the bottom of their house and we set off.

  The bikes gave out a low buzzing noise as the wheels whipped around and carried us through the streets. The organs would gesture towards us for a second as we past and would then resume their business, either the sound was not loud enough or the vibrations through the tarmac strong enough to warrant their attention.

  The supermarket car park was empty, there were a few cars near the entrance but neither sign of movement nor any sound of life. We propped up the bikes against one of the glass windows. It was dark inside and two organs lurked near one of the tills, not moving, just beating like a heart ripped from a body and left on the floor. We used a shopping trolley to smash open the automatic doors that were locked. Once inside Edwin and I split
up, Edwin went to the pharmacy and I struggled up and down aisles looking for nutritious food that hadn't gone off and required little to no cooking. The supermarket felt alien, there was no hum from the refrigerators in the background, it was warm and dark and the smell of rotting fruit, rotting vegetables, rotting meat and rotting fish all mixed together, the stench was almost visible and it flooded my nose and I could taste it on the back of my tongue. A number of trolleys, half full, stood eerily in the middle of various aisles. Packets of all different colours littered the floor, a pair of legs in blue jeans lay lifelessly at the end of the pasta section, the rest of the presumably mutilated body was hidden by fallen bags of yellow shapes. A white hand with fingers rigidly curled was just about visible under a packet of penne.

  More organs appeared around the corners of the aisles and from behind the tills at the front, sneaking into view. when two crawled side by side up the aisle, I decided to wheel the trolley over them, which wasn't easy as it wedged into their outer flesh and so I had to angle the trolley up and over them, and the flesh squelched as the wheels turned through them and afterwards the grey rubber wheels left a dull snail trail along the lino floor.

  I found Edwin sitting on a counter, his feet dangling a few inches above a lone organ. In his hand he had a large bottle of water and was periodically pouring it between his legs.

  "Do you think he cares" I asked.

  "Not sure it is a he. This one is smaller than some of the others. I think this one probably used to be a woman or a child." Edwin said as he screwed the lid back onto the bottle. "I don't think she likes the water, but it must be reminding her that I am so close and yet she can't quite get to me."

  "We should try something else, give me a second." I said and jogged towards the alcohol section, occasionally jumping over the organs that were now making their way towards the tills. I returned with as many bottles of different types of alcohol that I could carry and also a bag of salt.

  "Try these." I handed all of it to Edwin then checked around to make sure no organs were near my feet.

  Edwin placed the bottles to his side onto the static rubber belt and poured the bag of salt between his legs onto the organ, but nothing happened and so he proceeded to try the bottles one by one unscrewing each one with his teeth and pouring them between his legs.

  "No effect, what a shame, I thought for a minute you could be on to something. This isn't doing anything, whether it hurts or not, I don't know, but it feels like I’m just torturing the poor bugger."

  We squeezed all the supplies into the four backpacks, mostly cans of soup and bottles of water. Hunched over by the weight of them we crunched across the broken glass out of the supermarket to our bikes and cycled out of the quiet car park. We pedalled across the roundabout at the top of Ladbroke grove and cycled down the middle of the street. The air was so still and humid, there was no litter floating about the streets and the trees were dead still. It felt as though I had stumbled into a play after the fall of the curtain, surrounded by props awaiting interaction. As we continued to cycle through the empty streets I couldn't shake the expectation of a red bus taking me off guard and slamming into me, knocking me off my bike, my head crunching into the floor and my teeth shattering into each other. Some newsagents had their doors open but there were no lights on and there was no shiver or shake to any of their peeling outdoor advertising boards. The restaurants were all closed, the Red Dragon where I used to go with my family stood silently with its jade green paint, black windows and sagging white curtains resembled the old costume shop in Hammersmith that had closed down years ago. A pang of melancholy blinded me and reached into my stomach and I chased the thought out.

  We found the motorbikes with much less hassle than I had presumed would be necessary. Edwin and Rosie had a family friend with a collection of old and new bikes stored in an oversized garage attached to an oversized mansion on Addison Road. Embassy flags hung from poles over high green hedges that were perfectly rectangular. A sign next to the house read 'This street is under private guard'. Edwin climbed over a black gate with golden spikes and dropped down on the other side onto the crescent driveway. I waited on the pavement as he smashed windows and stole into the mansion. When he eventually reappeared, he was in the middle of the open garage door, looking composed.

  Rosie was sitting solemnly on the steps in front of the house and managed a half smile as we approached on our bikes. I sat next to her, but she wasn't talkative, she was lost in a sea of memories and I tried to picture her in a wooden boat in the middle of a stormy sea, grey and black all around her and the occasional splash of white, but I couldn't see her, I could only just make out the boat, rising and falling. I hugged her from the side which was uncomfortable and felt forced. Edwin looked at me with his narrow eyes and I thought he might be angry but it could have been jealousy, and in a moment the look was over and he continued to pack. I kissed her on the head for some reason and rubbed her arm, then I left, back to my house in St James's Gardens to gather whatever, if anything, to take with me.

  There were more organs about than ever before sitting without purpose in the streets. Each one I walked past would begin their slow crawl in my wake but I did not feel threatened and I was not overcome with a sense of relief when I closed the front door behind me, locking them out.

  The hallway was dark and untouched, but smelt like home. I walked around the house and nothing inspired me, I took a photo album but I did not open it. I replaced the accountancy text books that were still in my bag from almost a week ago with the album and left out of the back door, through the garden and onto the street. When I looked back, which I had told myself I wasn't the type of person who needed to, I felt sad, and a shiver spiralled from my feet all the way up through my body, I felt young and old all in that moment, a continuum of my past and future, and I smiled and laughed, shaking my head, and reflected upon nothing, consumed by thoughts about how I felt now and what I should be feeling. A picture of my mother holding me in her arms flashed into my mind, I am a baby in a red mickey mouse jumper trying to blow out the candles on a birthday cake, I smiled again and pushed the image straight back out. Jessica's blushing face passed through me, her blue eyes smiling to me and I slid the image under my cheeks so that I couldn't see her, but I knew she was there. Charles' voice spoke to me, words without comprehension, no syntax or meaning, the comforting base, but that went too, drowned out by a conversation between Edwin and Rosie, and they are squirrels, and Rosie is holding a chestnut. The image made me laugh again and I held onto it until I made it back to their house.

  Edwin was hunched over a map on the seat of one of the bikes with a pen in his mouth, Rosie was trying to fix the zip on her bag, her eyes were red and looked uncomfortably dry. A car alarm was howling in the distance and a trail of organs were marching towards it in force.

  “Did you do that?” I asked.

  “Yes. They were getting close.”

  “Ahh, very clever.” I said and Edwin nodded in acknowledgement.

  “Best brother ever!” Rosie said, she then got up and hugged him and kissed him on the cheek.

  It was time to leave. I clumsily mounted the bike and turned the key and the bike began to vibrate between my legs. Rosie sat on the back of Edwin's bike, and the pair of them looked back at me and Edwin switched their bike on and the two engines muttered between one another and I couldn't hear what Rosie was saying but she was waving to the house and to the street, crying.

  We kept to the pavements where we could and drove down Holland park avenue then through Shepherds Bush towards Hammersmith where we went around the roundabout in the wrong direction and weaved in-between bodies, organs, postal trolleys, crashed cars, parked cars, black bin bags spewing rubbish, traffic cones, suit cases and more bodies. The roads were a solid block of painted metal for miles and every now and again Edwin would have to climb off his bike and drag a body to one side or slam shut an open car door that was blocking our way, but before we knew it the rotting city was behind
us.

  Near Bath, where there was another block of traffic in the distance, we stopped our bikes and walked into a field and ate crisps and chocolate bars with warm cokes. Edwin drank water.

  “Let's play a game.” Rosie said. “If you could only have 5 vegetables for the rest of your life, which ones would you have?”

  The game proceeded and the three of us laughed a lot. When I made Edwin laugh, Rosie would watch him and then smile towards me and her eyes would widen as if she was trying to thank me, and I would nod to her to let her know that I understood and that the two of us secretly held an esoteric bond.

  Rosie insisted we take our rubbish with us, and we packed up our picnic and returned to the sweaty road. Once we were past Exeter, which was unpleasant, I took the lead. The roads were generally clear and the hard shoulder was always empty. The country lanes were different however, the small traffic jams were often so encased in hedges left to right, that we would need to move the cars in order to pass. A lot of the cars had been abandoned but some still contained the driver and an organ in the foot bay. Edwin or I, taking turns, would have to lean into the abandoned cars to release the hand brakes, our ears next to the open mouths of the dead. Their gaunt faces with yellowing eyes, dark flesh and torn shirts haunted me in quick flashes during spells of dappled sunlight through the overhanging trees which lead down the village road towards the cottage and I was relieved when we finally made it and the engines were silenced.

  “It is so beautiful here. This is yours?”

  “Yes.” I stopped. “Well, my family's.”

  “Lovely, just really lovely.”

  “That's not all, follow me.” I said and walked across the driveway and through the open door of the thick stone barn wall. I stepped over the sunken concrete troughs and bent under a rusty metal pipe, out through another open doorway and onto the wooden decking. In front were two green hills rolling into each other joined by a glimmering silver sea on the horizon above where the hills crossed. Just in front were wild bushes lining the stream at the foot of the garden and the sun stood half hiding behind the hill to the west and the sky looked as though it was on fire.