by Hall, Thomas
“I’m looking for my daughter,” I say.
“She’s not back here.”
I nod. “I know. She’s out there.”
He shakes his head. I look at the gun he’s holding, aimed at the floor. Would he shoot me?
“I need to ask you to get back to the warehouse sir,” he says. His voice has grown old since we last spoke.
“I can’t do that.”
He raises the gun, even if he wouldn’t shoot me, it is an effective threat.
“I need to leave.”
“I can’t let you do that sir,” he says.
I swallow. My mouth and throat are dry and I suppress a choking cough.
“I’m not asking permission,” I say. “My daughter is out there and I intend to go and find her.”
He stares at me and I stare back. I know nothing except that this is my only option.
I stare down the barrel of a gun for the first time in my life. I don’t yet know how common this will become for me.
Rob lowers his gun.
I breathe a sigh of relief.
The expression on his face doesn’t change but at least he isn’t going to shoot me.
“The evacuation isn’t finished yet,” he says.
I look at him with the confusion of a man who has had a question answered which he hasn’t asked.
“There are relief workers in the city for people who need help getting out.”
I nod.
He can see my confusion. “If you’re going to find your daughter then you don’t want to get stuck in London,” he explains.
Rob reaches into his pocket and takes out a small, leather bound, notebook. It is the kind of thing I used to carry when I had ambitions of becoming a novelist. Before I met Cassie and we got married and started a family. Before real life caught up with me. Do Rob and I share a common interest?
I watch him scribble in his notebook. I try to trust him, despite the fact that he was pointing a gun at my face no more than five minutes ago.
When he’s done he rips out the piece of paper and hands it to me.
“What is it?” I say, but I can see exactly what it is; an address on the South Bank.
“It’s an evacuation point,” he says. “They’re going to be one of the last to leave.”
“With the support workers?” I say, wondering whether they will take me with them.
“And anyone else who’s left. We’re not leaving people behind.”
This isn’t strictly true, I know. We are leaving plenty of people behind, but that isn’t what he means.
“If you can get there by September 14th then they’ll take you with them.”
I nod, fold the piece of paper and put it into my trouser pocket. Rob is still standing in front of the door and doesn’t show any sign of moving.
“You need to be careful out there,” he says.
“I will,” I say, anything now to get him to move so I can go and find Harriet.
“No listen,” he says. “It’s dangerous. There are… people…”
“I understand.”
He shakes his head.
Rob reaches behind him and for a moment it appears that he is going to take out another gun. Instead he withdraws a knife and holds it towards me, handle first. “Take this,” he says.
I look at the knife but don’t reach for it.
“You might need it.”
I shake my head. Of course I’ve held knives before, but never like this. It is twelve inches long, with a serrated edge on one side, a sharpened point and a razor edge on the other side. There is no denying that it is a weapon and I’m not comfortable with it.
Rob leans towards me, the knife getting closer. He is insistent. “Take it man,” he says. “Trust me.”
I do trust him. What I don’t trust is myself with a weapon like this. What if I trip and stab myself? What if I trip and stab Harriet? There are so many things that could go wrong.
“I’m not letting you leave without it,” he says.
I look at him. His face is serious and I know that he’s telling the truth. I wouldn’t be able to force my way past him and I doubt I could convince anyone else to let me leave.
I reach out and take the handle.
The knife is surprisingly light and that makes it feel even more deadly.
“Put this on your belt,” Rob says and when I look up at him he’s handing me a sheath. I take it from him but I don’t have the first clue how to put it on so he does it for me.
I feel like a fraud standing there with a deadly knife strapped to my leg.
Rob stands back, looks at me and nods.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he says.
“I’m sure,” I say.
“You know she still might turn up. We’ve had some stragglers.”
I shake my head. It would be nice to believe that Harriet was going to arrive at the warehouse, but I know she won’t. Either she has gotten lost on the way or… I don’t even want to contemplate the other possibilities.
“I need to find my daughter,” I say.
“Okay,” he says. “Remember, be at The London Heliport before 14th September and they’ll take you with them. That’s thirty-three days. If you’re not there by then, no one’s coming to look for you.”
“I understand,” I say.
“Even if you don’t find your daughter, make sure you’re there. She might have gone straight to one of the other depots.”
I nod, but I know that if I don’t have Harriet with me then I won’t be going anywhere. I will search until the end of time to find her.
“Okay then,” he says. “You ready?”
“I’m ready.”
Rob finally steps aside and there is the door behind him. The words FIRE EXIT are visible. He pushes the metal bar and I brace myself for the whaling alarm, but it doesn’t come. Instead all I am aware of is the cool night air, the smell of smoke and autumn. I realise that I haven’t been outside for more than a week.
“Go straight for the fence,” Rob says. “There’s a door but it isn’t locked.”
“Thank you,” I say.
He looks away. Uncomfortable accepting part of the responsibility for what he considers a fool's errand.
My legs are beginning to shake and I know that I need to leave now before I change my mind. A mild case of agoraphobia seems to have set it.
“Look after yourself,” Rob says as I make my way past him. “And remember London Heliport by September 14th. Thirty-three days. Be there.”
“I will,” I say and then I am outside, the dark sky impossibly far away and everything so much bigger than I remember. A part of me wants to turn back, to tell Rob that I’ve changed my mind. But I feel guilty just thinking like that; my daughter is out here somewhere and I intend to find her.
CHAPTER 12
A GUNSHOT RINGS OUT AND IT TAKES ME a moment to realise that they are shooting at me.
I am still in the warehouse car park and there is nowhere to seek shelter. I look back at the building and see a dozen or more shapes on the roof. The door that Rob let me out through has gone.
“Stay where you are,” a voice says over a loudspeaker. “We’re coming to get you.”
I realise that the shot I heard must have been a warning. They don’t intend to kill me but they aren’t going to let me leave.
The car park is empty. I see a chain link fence in the distance.
There isn’t time to think. I start to run. After a moment, I hear boots on the ground behind me.
“Stay where you are!” the voice says again.
I brace myself to hear another warning shot, but it doesn’t come. They don’t want to kill me and that is to my advantage. I have a decent head start and better motivation than them.
“Stay away from the fence,” a different voice says. It comes from close behind me and I realise that hesitating will mean failure.
I hit the fence and for a moment I am unable to find the door which Rob told me was there. I hope he doe
sn’t get in trouble for letting me out, but it is too late to do anything about it now.
My hand finds the door slider as the soldiers catch up.
I slide it and the door swings open. A hand brushes my arm but I am already moving and it fails to gain purchase.
“You can’t go out there,” the second voice says. I hear a desperation in his tone. “It’s not safe.”
“I have to,” I say. I close the door behind me and slide the lock back into place. It appears unnecessary now. The men are not planning to follow me out. This gives me a pang of concern.
What is so terrible that they want to stop me leaving, and makes them unwilling to step out themselves?
I don’t know and I can’t afford to dwell on it.
I walk away and they don’t try to call me back again.
When I reach the city it is dark. Abandoned skyscrapers stand like monuments to a world which no longer exists.
I walk along a street which I don’t recognise, still trying to come to terms with what I have done. There is debris from the evacuation everywhere.
My planning extended as far as getting out of the warehouse and, now that I have done that, I am unsure what to do. If Harriet is out here then where would she be?
I keep walking. Although there is no sign of danger, standing still feels like it would be a mistake.
There is no wind now. Everything seems frozen. The trees are missing half their leaves but the rest cling to the branches. Those which have fallen lay as soggy mush on the ground.
CHAPTER 13
I AM NOT SURE HOW LONG I HAVE been walking for when I reach Trent Park. It lays ahead of me like an abyss. I can’t see more than a few metres in any direction.
I don’t go through the gate.
I turn away from the park and keep walking along the street.
The shops that line the road are empty. Glass covers the ground like snow. It crunches under my shoes.
Desperation has become the default state and I don’t blame anyone for taking food or water, even clothing. But there are ways to get into a building which are less destructive. I shiver despite the mildness of the evening. This doesn’t look like survival to me, this is wanton destruction, rioting. This is anger and rage.
I keep walking.
There are cars parked along the side of the road. I pass one which has had all its windows broken. Another which is on its side so I can see the pipes running underneath it.
There is a church in the distance. I can see the bell tower and wonder if I will find anyone inside. I am an atheist but I feel a sense of security emanating from the place. It seems as if I would be safe there and find myself walking towards it.
When I am a street away from the church I see the first sign of human life.
A man stands in the middle of the road, hunched over something that I can’t see. I stop and look at him, my hand resting on the handle of the knife strapped to my leg.
He doesn’t notice me at first and continues doing whatever he’s doing. If he’s infected then it isn't safe for me to get close.I don’t want to call out to him, don’t want to hear the sound of my voice in the empty world.
The man looks up at me.
The world stands still while we look at one another. I don’t sense any danger from him, but I have little experience of being under threat and I keep my distance.
He shouts out: “It’s mine! You can’t have it!” His voice sounds cracked and broken, as if he has been gargling sand.
I want to reassure him that I don’t want whatever it is he’s got, but I can’t make a sound. Instead I stay where I am and do nothing.
“It’s mine!” he screams. He holds something against his chest, bent over as if it’s a precious item. Who knows what is precious now. “Mine!”
He turns so quickly that my mind interprets it as an attack. I lower my hands at once and turn to protect myself. I don’t even think to reach for the knife.
When I look again, I see the man running away in the opposite direction. After a moment I can no longer see him at all.
Driven by curiosity, I cross the street and see what he was standing over. A plastic bin with the top pulled off. I can smell putrid rotten food. If he was willing to root through that, he is more than welcome to take whatever he found.
I back away a few steps and look around.
The bin man has spooked me. Before I risk trying to go into the church, I take a walk around and make sure that there is no one else there. A new sense of the danger I am in makes me cautious. No one I found would want to hurt me, but it seems wrong to take the risk.
When I am sure that there is no one waiting to attack me, I go to the church door. I don’t expect it to be locked but it is. It is made out of heavy wood and when I push it I don’t feel any give in the hinges. If I am going to get inside it won’t be through here.
I walk through the graveyard. The grass has grown long.
There is another door at the back of the building but it is also locked. There is no other way to get in.
I leave the churchyard and start walking.
As I get closer to the city centre I begin to hear noises and slow down. In the distance I am aware of things moving. Dark shapes dart across the endless horizon. I do not know what they are, but in the otherwise deserted city, they seem like ghosts.
Half an hour later I am walking past blocks of flats which were only built five years ago. I can see, without needing to get any closer, that the security on the doors in strong enough to keep me out. But the glass doors give me a view of tempting lobbies where it would be warm and safe.
I think about Harriet, and find the strength keep going.
She has survived for a week in the city. I haven't even been here for a few hours. I can’t stop until I find her.
The night gets colder and I keep walking. The streets are quiet but every now and again I hear something in the distance which reminds me I am not alone. Somebody shouts, or a motor revs. Not everyone left is Infected.
The rules of the evacuation were created by the countries willing to take us in. They explained them to us all many times on the radio. It wasn’t our government's fault that people were being left behind.
They wouldn’t take anyone with a criminal conviction. They wouldn’t take anyone who was awaiting trial. Some of the countries didn't want to take homosexuals. Our government had the sense to refuse a deal with those places.
What it means to me is that the people I can hear in the distance, are likely to be criminals.
I keep walking, because I have nothing else to do, but also because I am afraid of what will happen if I stop.
The sun is beginning to rise by the time exhaustion claims me.
I have to keep stopping and sometimes I jump up and down to keep the blood flowing. Otherwise I’m afraid that I will fall asleep while I’m walking.
There is a park to my right. I can see trees and not much else.
A fragile mist hangs in the air as I walk across the street. I know that I am not efficient. Now would be as good a time as any for someone to sneak up on me, but that is as far as that train of thought goes. If anyone is waiting to attack me, I don’t see them.
I climb the low fence that surrounds the park because it seems easier than walking around to find the gate. On the other side there is long grass which holds enough morning dew to soak through my trouser legs.
I walk up the hill towards the trees.
I don’t even wait to clear a space amongst the fallen leaves. They will make as good a blanket as anything else I am likely to find.
A single thought crosses my mind as I lay down my head to rest: I am woefully unprepared for this. Then there is nothing except dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER 14
WHEN I WAKE UP THE SUNLIGHT HAS OBLITERATED the mist. My back is stiff and it takes several minutes of stretching before I am able to stand. At least I am unlikely to fall asleep on my feet. I am hungry but unconcerned about finding food.
My res
t is useful in more ways than one.
Although I didn’t dream, I have still woken with a plan. Well 'plan' is too grand a word for it. What I have woken with is an idea which gives me hope for the first time in days.
I have no bag to pack so leaving is as simple as making sure nothing has fallen out of my pockets. I have nothing valuable except for the knife, which I strapped to my leg, where I expect it to remain.
I start back down the hill, past the children’s playground and onwards towards my house.
I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me sooner. It is the obvious place for Harriet to have gone when we became separated. She know’s the area and she know’s that there was food left behind, because we hadn’t been able to carry it all. I am convinced that she would have gone there to wait for me.
Walking through an empty London is eerie. Until now I had never realised how much people made the city. The feeling grows stronger as I pass more places I recognise.
No one in the marketplace shouts about fruits and vegetables and cuts of meat. There are no trains rattling past on the bridge overhead. The are still some vehicles on the road, but they are crashed or abandoned, and the engines don’t make any sounds.
The air is silent. A million conversations not happening. Are they happening somewhere else now?
It is a sobering thing to think how quickly it all went away.
I find myself reminiscing about silly things. Buying milk, meeting clients, walking Harriet to the bus stop and meeting her at the end of the day. Those moments seemed so mundane at the time.
The nostalgia is so strong that I don’t notice the boy until he is almost upon me. Although it is clear from his position that he has been walking along the street for some time.
He looks young enough to have been at school with Harriet. He has a stripy hat on his head and clothes with cartoon characters on. He is coming towards me and I stop, unsure whether I want to engage him or pretend he doesn’t exist.
Without thinking about it, my hand goes to the knife at my side, but I don’t pick it up.