by Rich Hawkins
The dead were piled up and dowsed with petrol. A man lit a match and tossed it into the pit. Flame took to life and roared. The smell of burning flesh.
A horrible, corrupting stench slithered into Frank and coiled around his spine, filling his lungs with black vines that would wrap themselves like twine around his organs. He thought of Catherine being thrown into a pit like a dead animal. Like a stray dog put to sleep and dumped. He thought of those men carrying her to the edge of the pit. Maybe the men had joked whilst doing so; maybe they had said a prayer; maybe they hadn’t said a word. He thought of those men counting to three and adding her to a growing heap of cadavers. He thought of her body falling until it came to rest alongside the other dead, her limbs finding the shape of those around her, entwining with other dead limbs, becoming a patchwork of meat and bone and skin. Dead eyes staring at the sky. He thought of her face amongst the other dead faces, and if she had a peaceful look on her face as she was covered with petrol and set alight.
What had been her last thought? What had been the last thing to go through her mind before she died? Did she die wondering if her husband was dead? Did she die mourning him?
All this way to reach her, to find her…
He wondered what she looked like now; a charred, crooked and blistered thing.
Tears struggled down his face; he tasted them, bitter and pathetic. There was an emptiness spreading inside his stomach, gnawing at him with blunt teeth at his soft vulnerable places. A womb of darkness that was poison and anger and all things sickening. His heart was a hammer. His throat tightened until he was sure he would choke. His lungs were heavy and sodden like sacks of water weighed down with stones.
He turned to Anya. She met his gaze.
“How did it happen?” How did she die?”
Anya didn’t look away. Her lips moved. No sound. She wiped at her glistening eyes.
“How did she die?!” Frank screamed. “How did it happen?”
“It was to save her from pain. A mercy.”
“What?”
“It happened on our first day here.” Anya paused, took a deep breath.
“Go on,” said Frank, urging her.
“There was an attack. The monsters got into the camp, somehow. They caught her; two of them. They were…biting her. She was crying. Bleeding. The soldiers shot her to spare her suffering. They didn’t have a choice.”
He wiped his mouth. A vague sense of surrealism overcame him. He was hearing about how his wife died; he couldn’t believe it. It had to be a mistake or a bad joke. A trick. Yeah, it had to be a trick. He eyed Anya, blinking away a dull pain in his eyes. He thought he could hear someone laughing at him.
“So that’s it? That’s how she died? Just like that?”
Anya muttered, “Yes.” She looked away from him.
Frank’s arms fell to his sides. Dead weight. He felt dizzy. His heart was palpitating. Insects crawled up his spine.
And then it all just faded away. Every single feeling. He lowered his head, stared at the ground, and closed his eyes.
Then someone was holding his hand.
He opened his eyes.
Florence was beside him, offering a porcelain, wan smile. Her skin was warm and soft in the cold air. He accepted her hand, tightening his own around her small fingers, and he tried to return her smile with all of his remaining will, but couldn’t. He was exhausted and battered, like something dragged for miles over jagged rocks and sharpened stone.
He wanted to lie down. He wanted to shut everything out and curl up in a dark corner and forget all that had gone before. He was beaten.
There were gunshots.
Frank and the others looked beyond the fence. A small pack of infected was running towards the men working at the pits. Monsters inhabiting barely-human disguises. Men and women, lurching and malformed, hunched and twisted into nightmarish creations from the minds of dark dreamers.
The soldiers shot them down. They sprawled on the ground like beached marine life. Some of the soldiers approached the bodies, inspecting and prodding them with booted feet. They would be taken to the pits and thrown amongst the other bodies.
“More and more infected come each day,” said Anya, her voice quiet. “More of them attack the camp each day. They sense us. They know we are here. They come in packs. Some come alone. Lonely ones who come here to die. But, soon, there will be a swarm of them, I think. Like an army.”
“A swarm,” said Ralph. “Fuck.”
“Are more of them coming?” Joel asked.
Frank watched the soldiers collect the dead infected. “Let them come.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
The next few days passed slowly. Food and water rations were meagre. Every person stank of dirt, sweat and filth. The latrines overflowed, filling the camp with the rotten stench of human waste. More refugees arrived at the camp, exhausted and traumatised people with nowhere else to go. They huddled in small groups waiting for the soldiers and the volunteers to offer them aid. People were waiting to die, or waiting to be saved. Some didn’t care, it seemed. Some of the people were broken, gently fading away without a struggle. They were broken long before they’d reached the camp.
Sparse packs of infected attacked the perimeter each night. The threat of them was constant. Every attack was repelled and the infected shot down like wild dogs.
More were on their way, said the rumours drifting around the stinking shelters and tents.
The refugees were the sheep and the soldiers were the shepherd dogs. The infected were the wolves. It rained every day. Puddles formed into large pools of dirty brown water. The ground became boggy as the camp turned into a mud hole, like Glastonbury Festival in the old days. The fires in the corpse-pits still burned. People still died. Medical supplies were running low. People got sick and spent their days confined to the beds in the medical tent.
The refugees were told that the Royal Navy were sending ships to evacuate them. Devonport, the home of the navy’s amphibious fleet, was overrun with infected. Gone. Wiped out.
The ships would arrive soon. Salvation was close, it seemed. It was hard to believe, and no one did believe except for the few still hoping and praying for deliverance.
Joel was one of those people.
Four days had passed. It was raining again, great droves of it lashing down, turning the ground into slurry. There was thunder far away. The wind blew cold and sharp. The wind had claws. Joel was hungry. He had only eaten half a chocolate bar all day. The light was already fading. He held Anya’s hand as they walked back to their tent. He would never leave her again.
Joel pulled back the canvas flap.
The others were in the tent. Ralph and Florence were playing an improvised game of Snap. A married couple, Ross and Michelle, were huddled in one corner, silent with heads bowed. Stuart Lenkman, a professor of biology before the outbreak, was sitting on the ground staring at his hands. A single mother called Donna cradled her baby son in her arms, cooing to him as he cried. The baby always cried. Joel had forgotten the boy’s name. And if he was honest he didn’t care. There were other people here, and he didn’t know their names. He didn’t want to know.
He was so tired he could sleep standing up. His eyelids were drooping. He hadn’t slept properly since they had left the holiday cottage. How long ago was that? Six days? A week? Ten days? Two weeks? Could have been a year and he wouldn’t have been sure.
The inside of the tent was cramped. The constant poke of elbows and knees against his body. The smell of bad breath, farts, baby shit and body odour. Stale sweat and old socks. He could hear people whispering in the adjacent tent, even above the pattering drizzle, so close were the tents crammed together. More refugees arrived every day. Joel wondered when the soldiers would start turning people away.
“Where’s Frank?” Joel asked.
Only Florence looked up. “He’s gone for a walk.”
“Again?”
“Yes.”
He turned to Anya. “I’m going
to find him, see if he’s okay.”
Anya nodded. “I’ll stay here. I’m going to try to get some sleep.” She kissed him.
Joel went back out into the rain.
* * *
Joel found Frank at the northern perimeter staring at the plague pits. His hood was raised over his head. He was statuesque. The rain was coming down harder, and the wind picked it up and blasted it into Joel’s face. He wiped his face dry, tasted the rain in his mouth, on his tongue.
He looked at the sky and wondered if one of the giant sky-things was up there, watching the camp, waiting for the right time to descend and crush it and the poor bastards sheltering here.
Joel spat. Whatever those things were, they were not gods. They were not even fit to be compared to his God. His God was all-loving and merciful and kind.
But does He exist, Joel? asked a little voice secreted at the back of his head like an entrenched parasite. Are you sure that He exists? Do you still believe in Him? I’m not sure you still do.
“Piss off,” he muttered.
Maybe your faith is wearing thin.
“Go fuck yourself.”
We’ll see about that.
He shook his head. The voice didn’t go away, only faded in volume. He walked over to Frank, clearing his throat to let him know he was there. Frank didn’t react.
Joel stood beside him, looking out through the fence as the breeze picked up drifts of ash and soot from the mass graves and made them into swarms that tainted the sky. It was desolation. No one was at the pits.
It was a wasteland, scorched and ruined. Poisoned.
“Hey, mate,” said Joel.
“Hey.” Frank’s voice was quiet. His hands were in his pockets. Overhead, gulls and crows performed aerial duels over scraps of food and rubbish. If Joel closed his eyes and listened very, very carefully, he could hear the sea. He had always loved the sea, ever since his parents had taken him on daytrips to Weymouth and Seaton when he was a boy.
His parents were with God now. No suffering for them. No pain. For the first time since they had died, he was glad they were dead. He was glad for that maniac in the stolen Porsche who had run them off the road. He was glad they had died together.
He almost envied them.
“You alright, mate?” asked Joel.
“Yeah.”
“We’re worried about you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“I don’t care if you believe me.”
Joel didn’t reply. He hugged himself against the cold.
Frank said, “I want to go out there and see if I can find her.”
Joel turned to him. Frank was staring at the pits.
“The soldiers won’t let you go out there unless you’re on grave-digging detail. You know that.”
“I’ll do that, then.”
“I’m sorry about Catherine. I can’t pretend to know what you’re going through, but you’ve still got us. You’ve still got your mates. And Florence.”
“Florence,” Frank muttered.
“I remember you said to me that you promised to take care of Florence. You said to me that you would look after her.”
“So what?”
“So, are you going to break your promise to her? I know what it’s like to lose parents. Imagine what it’s been like for her being a young girl. She needs you, Frank. You’re her guardian.”
Frank looked at Joel, shallow creases and lines in his face. A darkening beard. “When we left for your stag weekend, I didn’t think I’d never see my wife again. She didn’t even get a decent burial. She deserves to be honoured.”
Joel said nothing.
Then Ralph appeared alongside Joel. He was shivering against the cold and rain.
The three men looked out towards the plague pits, and beyond that, the hills and fields.
If God exists, Joel, said the voice in his mind, how come everything’s falling apart? How come your friends’ loved ones are dead? What did they do to deserve death? What did they do to endure such suffering? Where was God when they were suffering and dying? Shouldn’t He have saved them? Shouldn’t He save us all?
Joel sighed.
If your God does exist, Joel, He’s an utter cunt. And, deep down, you know this.
Joel looked out across the fields and thought he saw distant figures flitting between trees and hedgerows. Could have been his imagination; he was tired and his eyes ached.
“I haven’t seen a plane or a helicopter for a while,” said Ralph.
“That’s a bad sign,” Frank murmured.
“Is it?”
Ralph grimaced against the breeze pushing at his face. “Frank’s right. Yesterday I heard from a bloke that Salisbury’s been lost. The army were overrun. Don’t know where he heard it from.”
Frank closed his eyes. “The centre cannot hold.”
Ralph looked at them. “Is this the end of the human race? Stuck here at this shitty camp? Maybe we’re the last ones left, waiting for the monsters to close in. Maybe we’re just treading water, getting tired, until we get swallowed up.”
“Will the ships arrive?” asked Joel. “What do you think?”
Ralph grunted. “I think we’re waiting to die here. I think we’re alone. Nobody’s coming to save us.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
The days and nights clouded together and it was cold all the time. Hunger was something that kept Ralph awake at night. He thought of his parents often, especially his mother. Her face, her awful mouth and her nightmare eyes, made a nest in his mind. He considered leaving the camp and travelling beyond the perimeter, past the soldiers and into the ruined country to find something to kill. Despite his quick temper, he had never felt the urge to kill anyone or anything, but now he was being consumed by it. The urge made his heart palpitate and his mouth go dry. Made his teeth itch until he could barely sit still.
Maybe he’d go home, where he belonged, and give his parents a decent burial. Put them in the ground. Maybe he’d just build a funeral pyre for them. Yeah. Burn the dead. Fire purifies.
He wondered if he would be buried or cremated or left to rot as sustenance for the rodents, the insects and the birds.
Ralph was huddled in one corner of the tent, his arms wrapped around his chest. The cold air he pulled into his mouth made his gums ache and thrum. His breath stank of sewage. He tongued the gap where one of his front teeth had once been. It was spongy and raw, tasted of copper.
There were gunshots at the perimeter. The wailing cries of the infected. Guttural sounds echoing through the night. Strangled, insane shrills scraped from bleeding throats. It was enough to send a man insane. He shivered. It was a cosmic terror; something alien that didn’t care for him or any other human. Something beyond the understanding of humanity. Something that couldn’t be reasoned with, because the plague only wished to infect and multiply.
And when there was nobody left to infect...
The gunfire stopped. Raised voices. Then silence again.
Ralph decided to stay. He would help his mates. Help them survive.
He would stay with them until the end.
* * *
Morning. No colour in the world. Everything bleached and drained.
“The ships are coming!” Joel and Anya burst into the tent, hope and exhaustion across their faces.
“What?” asked Frank. He and Florence were playing Snap. Florence had won the last five games.
Joel got his breath back. “One of the soldiers said the ships are coming.”
“To Sidmouth,” said Anya. “Very soon.”
“How soon?” Ralph was watching from his claimed corner, chewing on a stale granola bar. It had the texture of cardboard.
Joel smiled, showing dirty teeth. “Today.”
* * *
Word of the ships’ arrival spread around the camp. The ships were waiting just off the coast. The refugees were told that requisitioned buses were coming to transport them to Sidmouth, which had finall
y been cleared of most of its infected population.
For the first time in a while people spoke with a renewed sense of hope and purpose. Some couples even rutted in their tents in celebration.
An old man and his elderly wife wept and embraced.
Some started to sing songs in celebration.
People began to talk about salvation.
Ralph thought they were fools.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
The refugees massed at the front of the camp. The large gates were kept closed and the soldiers manned the perimeter as they had done before. The air was cloying and turgid. So many different and terrible smells. The ground was sticky, clinging onto those standing upon it. Some people were caked in mud. Children sniffled and watched the adults with glassy, expectant eyes. They were so close to being rescued from this diseased isle. No one wanted to be left behind. Apprehension and anxiety flitted through the crowd like the creeping arms of a silent mist.
Some people stood in silence, but a few outspoken men, determined and a little too proud, advocated walking the few miles to Sidmouth. But they were overruled by the soldiers; it would be too dangerous on foot.
Some people complained, but quickly fell silent when a coach crested the hill and started down the road towards the camp.
Then people were cheering.
* * *
Frank was jostled by the warm, musty bodies around him. He kept hold of Florence.
There were only five coaches. Each coach could hold probably fifty to sixty people. Not enough to carry all of the refugees. The rest of the crowd realised this just as he did.
The crowd surged. Bodies pressed him on all sides. Joel was hugging Anya, keeping her close to him. Florence whimpered and then she was drowned out by the collective roar of the crowd. A man was asking if they’d be left behind. A woman asked if more coaches were coming. The pulse of the crowd quickened, people slipping in the mud, and some were knocked down, battered by errant legs and feet. Someone screamed.