by Rich Hawkins
If they found him, he’d have no longer than a second to shoot himself. He had to be ready.
Sweeping past his hiding place, the dense flock blotted out the sunlight and filled his head with their inhuman sounds.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Minutes after the infected had passed through the jumble of assorted vehicles, Guppy climbed out of the car and swept his rifle around the dual carriageway to check for stragglers.
The area was clear. He felt lucky and stupid, giddy at surviving another encounter. His heart fluttered. He wondered how long his luck would last, especially in the fading day as dusk fell upon this devastated country. A gust of breeze whistled past him. Shifting cloud cover tweaked what remained of the light.
Fifty yards farther on, he claimed an unlocked car at the roadside and got the engine going after several attempts. A quarter tank of petrol left. A nameless corpse in the backseat lolled as if taking a nap. He removed the body with some care due to its bloodied garments and left it crumpled on the road then sat in the driver’s seat with his map laid across the steering wheel, marking the route ahead with a pen. The prospect of driving through the night all the way to Lowestoft left him anxious and twitchy, but it had to be done if he wanted to reach Colleen and Alfie.
Once the car was moving, Guppy rolled down the windows to clear the rot-stink from inside. He switched on the radio, scrolling through frequencies with a hint of resignation, and could only find hissing static and the occasional burst of fragmented voices that quickly degraded into white noise. For a desperate second a lone cry for help had emerged from the garbled cacophony – the wavering voice of a young girl – before it was lost again. The sound of pulsing thunder filled the speakers for a while before Guppy turned the radio off and placed both hands on the wheel, his face set in grim determination. His shoulders sagged from the weight of his burden and fears as he drove on, past the ruined things and signs of desolation.
*
Guppy took the car onto the A282 then the M25, past South Ockenden, North Ockenden and Cranham. The roads were clearer than he had imagined, with only the occasional vehicle impeding him. Some cars lined the roadsides, abandoned and dead. Burnt out wrecks tipped into ditches.
Darkness fell.
Onto the A12, passing south-east of South Weald and Pilgrim’s Hatch, then north of Brentwood, before skirting the village of Mountnessing, which was on fire, as were Heybridge and Ingatestone. He’d heard of these places, seen them on maps, but now they were real and ruined.
Farther on, the road was blocked, and he was forced to take a detour onto a minor road and head into the village of Margaretting. The car’s headlights cleaved the dark, revealing the smashed windows of houses and the shadows beyond.
Darkened, deserted streets welcomed him, until he arrived at a crossroads junction in the middle of the village, where he stopped and stared out at a besieged group of survivors armed with baseball bats, hammers, axes and knives holed up within a defensive square of cars, desperately trying to fight off dozens of attacking infected. The creatures ran from all directions, slowly starting to overwhelm the crude barricades and makeshift defences, launching themselves with abandon and violent movements. Some of the attackers fell, slashed or bludgeoned, but more of them managed to break through and bite at the refugees. It was chaos.
Leaving the engine running, Guppy grabbed his rifle and exited the car. He fired with precision, movements clean and deliberate, until most of the infected outside the barricades had been dropped. The remaining infected were quickly dispatched by the refugees, who then looked out at Guppy. Blood on the tarmac. Children were crying from within the group. There was a groan of pain.
Guppy lowered his rifle and stepped forward.
*
The group consisted of seventeen survivors, and two of them had been bitten during the attack. One of them was a teenage boy, his left arm bloodied and mauled. The other was an old man, who held his hand to the bite mark on one side of his face.
They sat beside each other on the kerb. The virus was blossoming inside them. They both knew what to expect. The boy wiped tears from his eyes while the old man looked up at the rest of the group and nodded. Guppy stood at one corner of the junction and turned away to watch the approaching roads while the infected pair were put out of their misery by one brave soul with a fire axe. The survivors said nothing in the still night. The group had lost five of their number in the attack.
A few spots of rain began to fall.
The man with the fire axe turned out to be the leader of the group. He was tall and knotted with muscle, with greying hair and a full beard that widened his jaw to a spade-like width. In the wash of headlights, his face was strained with exhaustion and the burden of responsibility. The mercy killings he had dealt minutes earlier seemed to weigh upon his broad shoulders, pressing down on him like guilty memories. He shook Guppy’s hand and thanked him for saving the group.
“Not necessary,” said Guppy. “Your people did well to fight them off for long.”
The man wiped sweat from his face. “We’re just trying to survive.” He swigged from a bottle of whiskey then offered it to Guppy, who declined and said he had to drive. The man laughed at that.
“Just keep trying to survive,” Guppy said. “That’s all you can do. Best of luck.”
As the group moved on in their cars, travelling westwards, one of the children, a little boy, looked back at Guppy and waved. He returned the gesture, somewhat solemnly, as the small convoy disappeared into the night.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
He managed to return to the A12 somewhere between Chipping Hill and Little Braxted, but the car ran out of petrol a few miles later and he was forced to continue on foot in the dark. It wasn’t the wisest of actions, yet he had no other choice.
Walking without the use of torchlight, he kept to the middle of the road, disappointed at the complete absence of abandoned vehicles he could have possibly commandeered. Empty and forlorn in the shadows of the night and the pure silence. No people. Just the low treading of his boots on the tarmac and tired thoughts swimming inside his mind.
Above him the constellations burned white-hot in the void beyond the sky. The moon aglow and swollen, casting silvery light upon the features of the land. A shooting star arrowed across the heavens before falling past the horizon.
This was how it felt to be the last man on earth. The final survivor.
The last soldier in a world of plague monsters.
*
After walking for two hours or so without incident, he found an unclaimed car at the roadside and hotwired it despite the unsteadiness of his hands. It was a relief to get going, especially when a pack of infected emerged from the fields and bolted towards the car. And now he continued northwards, driving faster than was advisable on cluttered roads, but still having to slow down to negotiate areas clogged with derelict traffic snarls unmoved since the first day of the outbreak.
He saw some sights along the way:
A farmhouse on fire, consumed by flame and streaming smoke.
A fox scurrying across the road, a human hand in its mouth.
Wild dogs in the night, running in packs, their eyes gleaming in the headlights as they roamed the barren backroads and lanes.
The country was lost to ruin and damnation.
*
On the last stretch of the A12, he saw signs for Southwold and Dunwich. Now he was counting down the miles to Lowestoft.
On a road past Kessingland and Carlton Colville, he stopped the car and looked up at the sky, where drifts of cloud cover wreathed the moon. Tentacled shapes of immense size – things the size of mountains – writhed and coiled within the clouds, infesting them. Guppy climbed out of the car and stood on the road with his hands at his sides and his heart fluttering in some kind of awe and primal terror that trembled in his heart. Strange thunder filled the sky, echoing down to the hills and fields, where vague moonlight revealed the statuesque forms of several dozen infected in the mea
dow adjacent to the slope leading down from the roadside.
Remembering he had left his rifle left in the car, Guppy fumbled for his sidearm but thought better of it when he realised the infected were completely unaware of him. They were motionless, their faces turned towards the titans in the sky. They filled the meadow like effigies made of thin sticks and charity shop clothes, their mouths and chins darkened with blood.
A possibility wormed into Guppy’s brain, leaving him disturbed and dumbstruck: the infected were paying tribute to the new gods of a devastated world.
Their gods.
He hurried back to the car and drove on.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
He entered the outskirts of Lowestoft not long before dawn, and it was like coming home. A mixture of relief and trepidation filled him and made his hands shake, as he guided the car around wreckage in the road. He was struck dumb by the deserted streets, gutted buildings, and the corpses piled in driveways and gardens. The sight of dead soldiers, mutilated and broken, angered and saddened him beyond measure. His guts squirmed with nervous gases and acidic fluids. He shook his head to clear his fuzzy vision then ground his teeth until they hurt.
More bodies, rotting amongst the flurries of trash and aftermath of violent conflict.
He watched for signs of active infected, but he’d missed what had happened here. It was impossible not to think of Colleen and Alfie amongst the corpse heaps, mangled and withered.
Lowestoft was a dead place after the vicious battle that had been waged across the town. It must have been a terrible sight to behold at the time. Pure chaos and panic. Gunfire in the streets. The ground shaking from explosions.
He thought he could still smell gunpowder and phosphorous grenades. He shook his head, glanced at the scars in the road. Faint smoke stained the air. Shattered windows. Craters from ordnance fire. Charred houses. Walls perforated by bullet holes.
The sound of the car’s engine echoed through the desolate streets.
He parked on a pavement’s kerb fifty yards down the road from Colleen’s house then walked the rest of the way, leaving his backpack behind. A bittersweet pang creased his heart as he recognised parts of the street. He cradled his rifle, trying to remember how many rounds he had left. Should have checked before getting out of the car, but he was distracted by the thought of reaching Colleen’s house after his long journey and the things he’d been through.
The house was intact, like most of the others on the street, with no visible damage. Guppy stood before the front gate, suddenly unsteady on his feet as he glanced at the windows hoping to see a familiar face looking out at him. Even if Colleen was angry at him for coming here, he didn’t care, because he had arrived to save them and that was all that mattered. He would take all the nagging she could muster at him just to know his family was safe. He would give anything. Give everything, if he had to.
Guppy opened the gate and walked up the gravel pathway towards the front door.
*
After finding the front door locked, he peered through the ground floor windows in a futile attempt to see inside. His heart was sinking. When he found the spare key beneath a pot plant below one of the windows, it inspired some hope in him, only to see it dashed once he entered the house and realised it was abandoned. He shouldn’t have been surprised. He should have known. Maybe he had known, deep down, but had preferred to remain oblivious and hopeful, even in such a dark time.
In the beam of his torchlight, the signs of a quick departure were plain to see. Scattered clothes and cupboard drawers left open. Colleen liked to keep photo albums, but there were none in the house. A half-packed suitcase left behind on Colleen’s bed was the most obvious clue. No blood or signs of violence.
Alfie’s bedroom bought Guppy to tears as he stood in the doorway, looking around at the posters of football players and WWE superstars. The wallpaper featured various superheroes in valiant poses. A framed photo of Alfie and Guppy on some fishing trip several years ago offered bittersweet reminders of what had once been.
He sat on the edge of the bed and said he was sorry.
*
The letter must have fallen from the dining table to the floor during Colleen and Alfie’s swift departure from the house. Guppy bent and picked it up, studied it with damp eyes and desperate intentions. Of course, it was meant for him. Of course. Fuck’s sake. Colleen knew him better than anyone else in the entire world, a list of people much depleted since the start of the outbreak.
John,
I know you’ll come here. I know you’ll try to find us. But don’t bother. We’re being evacuated with everyone else who survived the Battle of Lowestoft. We’re leaving Britain, and you won’t find us, so don’t come looking. Please. You won’t see us again, once we’re on the Navy ships. Alfie is fine, so don’t worry about him. We’re both safe. We’ll be long gone by the time you arrive.
Goodbye, John. Take care of yourself.
Guppy’s heart broke and his stomach hollowed out as he slumped onto a chair in the dim living room. The letter fell from his hands, which he then put to his face to stifle the scream borne of rage and pain. He was trembling, whimpering in his throat, his eyes brimming with tears. A strangled murmur escaped through his gritted teeth as he was hit by the realisation he would never see Alfie again.
But what had he expected? Did he expect a happy ending? A joyous reunion? Hugs and kisses, along with forgiveness and reconciliation? He was delusional. A fool. He had come all this way for nothing.
Anger frothed in his stomach, rising into his chest, spreading to his limbs before he rose from the chair and set to the room with his fists and feet. He went away from the world, lost in a fugue of white hot fury and seething injustice.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Guppy sat on the floor in the trashed room with his head in his hands, muttering his son’s name to the shadows around him. He was wasted, despondent, beyond sorrow.
The sounds of infected gradually grew louder outside until they were in the street. Inhuman shrieks and gibbering. Scuffling feet and plaintive cries.
He rose on unsteady legs and went to the window facing the street and looked out at the creatures gathered in the road and amidst the cars and gardens. He counted seventeen. Awful things with appalling mouths within pallid faces. Stained with blood and serous fluids dried black or dark brown. Twisted caricatures of human beings excited at the proximity of fresh meat.
He turned away from the window and picked up his rifle.
*
When he stepped outside the infected snapped their heads towards him, and their limbs began twitching in excitement and hunger. He chambered a round. He sighted the nearest infected – a curly-haired woman in a torn nightdress – who opened her mouth to scream at the same time that a bullet pierced her skull and sent her stumbling back against a car. She slid down the side of the car and slumped on her backside, mouth still open.
The other infected bolted towards him.
He shot a man with palsied arms and a face blooming with cilia. He shot a little girl in pigtails. He shot a woman whose stomach exploded with black tendrils.
More poured forward, intent upon him, shrieking and wailing.
With little sense of self-preservation, Guppy moved into the street and downed two more infected with gut shots. A skeletal thing with sagging, almost transparent skin, leapt at him, its hands raised. He put a round into its chest then another through its ghoulish face.
Others swarmed through the gaps between vehicles, fighting to reach him first. He kept his finger pressed on the trigger and swept the street with lead, screaming nonsense and wordless rage, his face streaked with tears and stretched taut, his eyes wide and crazed.
The rifle stopped firing as his last magazine ran dry. But he was beyond panic, beyond the fear of death, and he let the rifle swing loose from the strap over his shoulders so he could grab his sidearm.
In one swift movement he raised the pistol and centred it on the approaching targets, acting
without thought, his head spinning with images of his boy. He remembered the joyous smell of Alfie’s hair. He remembered Alfie’s little hands, when he was a baby, wrapped around his finger. He remembered all the love and pride and sheer delight of fatherhood, only for it to fade away into the horror and death around him.
Aim and fire. Repeat. Do it again. Reload. Repeat until all hostiles are eliminated.
So, he did.
When it was all done, Guppy stood amongst the fallen bodies of the infected and loaded the last magazine into his pistol. How many had he killed? How many infected had he killed since the start of it all? Countless lives. He breathed hard, blinked to clear the vision in his bulging eyes, and bit down on his tongue to smother the cries welling inside him. He pressed the knuckles of one hand to his face as the street spun and wavered like the inside of a fever dream.
Rage and pain were the only things left in this world.
CHAPTER NINETEEN