by Frank Tayell
One day someone will come back to reclaim their possessions. It might not be the parents, by then it might be the children, grown up, or even their children, but someday someone will come, looking for the photographs and that chair that their mother is sitting in, the one by the fire, the one where she’s holding the child. There are three different photographs, each taken years apart. Though her hair changes and there are more lines on her face, in each picture she has the same look of joy in her eyes.
Perhaps they won’t come back, but if they do I can’t have them finding that the house has been ransacked, that there’s no trace left of their old lives. I couldn’t live with that. Not now. Not anymore.
Yesterday I found a different house, a different family, one which hadn’t left. Mother, Father and two children.
It was the first time I’d seen an undead child, seen one properly, I mean. There were some in the crowds outside my house, but I didn’t look, didn’t see. I mean, I was never that close, and alright, maybe I avoided looking too hard, but there must have been dozens, hundreds, thousands even, in the horde that swept by the gym. I didn’t notice. I chose not to notice.
I lost my bag, one of the crutches and the hammer in that house. It’s only around the corner, just a couple of blocks from here, but I’m not going back.
By midday, yesterday, I had reached Greenwich, that’s a distance of a mile or so west as the crow flies, but I’d travelled a lot further. I kept circling around by the river, checking all the likely spots, looking for anywhere there might be something afloat. I’d scaled my dreams back from houseboat to launch to dinghy to anything that might take me out with the tide. There was nothing but broken wood and plastic. The spots where the river taxis used to dock had been broken down, the piers now stubs of broken timber against the banks. Anything that could float had long ago been taken.
It wasn’t easy. There were still scores of the undead on the streets. Sometimes I could sneak by unseen, sometimes I had to double back, sometimes I had to run, sometimes I had to kill. After I had to break through the plate glass of an estate agent’s window and escape down the alley behind the shop to evade fifteen of Them, I finally abandoned the idea of escaping by river. Instead I set my sights on somewhere to hide up for a day or three. I turned away from the Thames and wandered the side roads, my route determined by where the undead were least concentrated. That’s when I saw the house. It wasn’t hard to spot, it was the only house I’d seen with the windows newly boarded up. Someone had been there and, I thought, may have been there still.
I knocked on the door. There was no answer. I knocked again, this time more rhythmically, trying to make it clear that I was one of the living. Still, there was no answer. I thought that they’d either left, or perhaps gone foraging. The door was locked but not barred which suggested the latter. Carefully, not wanting to cause too much damage, I levered the door open. It’d be easy to repair, I thought, and I didn’t want to wait out on the street, not where I could be spotted.
I stepped inside. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. The noise of my knocking must have woken her. The mother was standing right inside the door, and was almost on top of me when I opened it. I pushed her away, and without any more thought brought the hammer down on her skull.
I closed the door behind me and pushed the body out of the way. I could have left then, but thought if she was the only one, then that house might make a good place to hide up for a few days. The father appeared at the end of the hallway, the remains of a bandage visible on his neck. He must have been the first one infected, he’d come home and turned. I killed him quickly, too quickly, too easily. It’s becoming too easy.
The rest of the house was silent. I walked through the hall, towards the kitchen. I was maybe halfway there when I realised there was something behind me. Maybe it was a sound, maybe a sixth sense, I mean, something has got me through this so far, right?
The two girls stood there. One was maybe six, the other a few years older. Mouths agape, clothing stained with their own dried blood, they walked slowly towards me. I couldn't do it. For each of us there’s a line we just will not cross, and for me that was it.
Why didn’t we just tell everyone to stay inside and wait for the vaccine? That makes far more sense than some trek into the middle of nowhere. Those children would have lived.
I pushed through them and ran out the front door.
They might have died anyway, but they would have had a chance.
They followed me out of the house. I lost them in the next block when, once more, I hid in the bushes of an overgrown front garden. I lay there for hours, not thinking, not doing anything. When it started to get dark I crawled round to the back of the property. I couldn’t face going inside, couldn’t face the idea of having to deal with anything else that night, so I lay there, under the stars, trying to forget their faces.
Finally, I got up. The road was empty. I walked stiffly across the street, broke the side gate and made my way through the back garden where I made a hole in the fence. I had enough energy to get inside this house and check it was empty before I fell asleep.
17:00
I’m feeling tired. It’s been a long couple of days. I think I’ll give up on any plans more long term than waking up tomorrow morning.
There were twelve bottles of mineral water in the cellar. That’s more than enough for now. Never made tea with mineral water before.
Day 53, Woolwich, London
Sick.
Day 59, Woolwich, London
09:00
Something I ate, something I drank, too much stress or something worse, who knows? Maybe it was something in the air. Whatever it was, it resulted in vomiting and diarrhoea, and I’ll leave the descriptions there. I’m slightly better today though I feel weaker than ever.
I heard bird song this morning, louder than I’ve ever heard it before. I can’t see outside. I covered all the windows to stop any light escaping out to the street.
Where are the cats and the dogs and the foxes? Do the zombies attack and kill them? Did the birds only survive because they could fly to safety?
The bird song is a good sign. I think it shows the infection can’t cross species. Or at least not to birds. I’m probably reading too much into it, I mean, what do I know about how infections spread? If bird flu can mutate to humans, then why not the other way around? Perhaps it’s just a matter of time. Perhaps I should just enjoy the sound of something living while I can.
13:00
It’s definitely not my reduced mobility. Nor is it boredom or even loneliness. No, it’s that I’ve become more systematic in my looting methodology, more experienced if you like, more professional. That’s what I’ve been telling myself as I’ve gone through the house room-by-room, drawer-by-drawer. Whatever it is, it isn’t nosiness. Honestly, it’s not.
Okay, who am I trying to fool? I mean, I don’t even believe it myself. The jury’s still out on whether I’m lonely, but I am definitely bored and confined to moving around very, very slowly. Whatever the reason, my prying has paid off. You won’t guess what I found. No, you have to guess. Go on, try. Three guesses. Give up? See, I knew you wouldn’t get it.
Easter eggs. Small ones, but bone fide, honest to goodness, thirty-percent cocoa, milk chocolate Easter eggs. You remember the kind, the ones they marketed to kids, the small hollow eggs in the big cardboard boxes with mazes on the back and the tips on the side about how to organise your own Easter egg hunt? Well I found six of them. And no, before you ask they weren’t hidden. They were in a carrier bag in the dresser in the front room.
Chocolate. Say it again. Chocolate. Oh, is there anything so wonderful? I’ve only had a very small piece, I don’t know how good chocolate is on an empty and seriously upset stomach, but I just had to taste it. It’s been, what? A month since I had any. Maybe longer, I can’t remember, I couldn’t even remember how it tasted.
I wonder which one it was who bought them, whether it was John or May. I know it�
�s John and May, that’s what their friends called them. The gas and electric people knew them as James and Mai Embery. I like how they had two sets of names, one for people they knew and one for those they didn’t. It’s like a code, a secret password to their own private club. I’ve always approved of nicknames, people without them struck me as less honest somehow. I wonder which one of them planned that far ahead? I know the supermarkets used to put the Easter displays out around Boxing Day, but I didn’t think anyone actually bought them that early.
Or maybe it was Chuck, whose teachers called him Ronald. His real name, at least the name on his NHS card, is Charleston. That must be some kind of family name so Chuck makes sense, but the Ronald thing? His English teacher, a text-book underachiever, with a serious chip on his shoulder going by the letter of complaint May wrote, apparently decided to call him Ronald on account of ‘Chuck’ not being appropriate for the school. Seriously? What kind of school in this day and age employs a teacher like that? Poor kid, he’s only ten. Maybe those were his Easter eggs, maybe he’s the one who planned ahead and bought them with his Christmas money the moment they went on sale.
No, on second thought that doesn’t seem like him, not going by the mess in his room. When he was packing, he must have emptied every drawer and cupboard, then, when he’d either found everything he wanted or, more likely, filled his meagre bag allowance, he tried stuffing things back in. May must have been furious with the mess. Or maybe it was John who did the housework.
They couldn’t take much with them, only what they could fit in the car. They must have been planning a long trip before it happened, because they had at least some petrol. They headed out by car, but they weren’t planning on taking it the whole way. On the roof, or maybe strapped to the back, they had their bikes.
In the garage next to a workbench is a photo of the family, all five of them, all bedecked in seriously hard-core cycling gear. Well, all save the daughter. She’s wearing strategically ripped jeans and far too much make-up for a cycling holiday. It’s quite funny really, I mean, she must have spent hours working on ‘a look’ but didn’t consider that a few hours cycling up a mountain would make her look like a throwback to the eighties.
I’m not sure where the photo was taken but judging by Chuck’s height, it can’t have been more than a year or two ago. Maybe that was their first proper cycling tour together as a family. I bet that was the year that Chuck had his first new proper bike, and he was finally old enough to go along with them.
It’s nice.
There’s no car in the garage, no car outside either. Five bikes are missing from the rack in the garage. There are some spare saddles and tyres, all thin ones designed for speed, but none of the thicker cross country ones. They must have taken those with them.
I don’t know where they’ve gone, not exactly. They didn’t leave a note. Why would they? Well, if they were expecting either of their kids to come here looking for them, they would. Which means they’ve either gone to Exeter where their son’s a second-year undergrad, or Dundee where their daughter’s in her fourth year. It’s term time, and I’m assuming that’s where they are, based on the copies of the course schedules pinned on the kitchen notice board.
The plan must be to meet up with their son first. Exeter’s about 160 miles from here. Would they have enough petrol to get there? Probably, but that would run the tank dry. Certainly, there’s no way they could have found more once they’d left, not with the rationing. So after Exeter they’d be on their bikes. The numbers don’t add up though, four of them, but five bikes. Maybe Douglas, that’s the son’s name, has a friend. Or perhaps John and May are planning on picking someone up along their way. They’ve taken an extra bike, that’s the important point, it’s for someone else, I’m sure. They’re going out of their way to help someone else. I like that about them. The Emberys. Nice people.
I don’t care what you say. What I say is that they cycled up mountain, through valley and across dale, all the way to Scotland where they collected Simone, and then they headed off into the highlands where, right now, they’re happily eating porridge and shortbread. They’ll survive this, the five of them and whoever that extra bike was for. They’ll thrive up there, safe, secure, until one day they decide to come back.
17:00
Dinner time and it’s da, da, da, daa! More pasta. This time, for a change of pace, I’m having the sea shell ones. Same as breakfast, same as dinner last night and the same as dinner tomorrow and the next, roughly, eleven days after that. These guys seriously liked the stuff. I’m guessing that this isn’t the ordinary shop stuff, not the stuff I’d buy anyway. It must have been organic or handmade by Italian grannies in some remote hillside village. Why else would they have put it on display on the island in the middle of the kitchen? Today’s special has been cooked in orange juice, and it isn’t bad. At least, it’s no worse than anything else I’ve had lately.
Which brings me to the birds. “Four and Twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie…” People did eat them, then, long ago. I’m not there yet, but soon I’ll have to stop scavenging from the remains of the old world and learn anew the skills of an even older one. But not yet. It’s one more step on the road leading away from civilisation, a step I’m not quite ready to take.
But I did take another. The dustbin they were storing the inner tubes in has now been reassigned and is doing duty as a water-butt. Now I’ve got to hope it rains.
19:00
I found Lenham Hill on the map. I knew I’d recognised the name. It was an old cold war broadcasting substation. It wasn’t one that had ever been used, it was just part of a chain of relay stations in case London was destroyed in a nuclear attack. All of those were mothballed in the early seventies when it became apparent that nowhere in the UK would survive World War Three. The equipment had been removed long ago, though this was never made public. It was Jen’s father who’d told me about this, he’d been the Minister responsible.
I’m certain I’ve seen the name more recently than that though. It doesn’t matter, wherever Radio Free England was transmitting from, it wasn’t Lenham Hill. Whatever the purpose in those broadcasts might have been, it wasn’t what they claimed it to be.
Day 60, Woolwich, London
07:15
Rice cooked in orange juice works well. Rice Krispies with orange juice doesn’t.
I found a hatchet in a box in the garage and a mountaineering axe in a box in John and May’s bedroom. It looks deadly.
I had second thoughts during the night about the guttering. I’ve no idea what state it’s in. Come to that, I’ve no idea what's in the rainwater, but I can’t do much about that. I’ve tied one end of a groundsheet to the washing line, the other end to a camping pole and trailed it so that any rain that falls on it will be funnelled into the bin.
Now I just need the rain. There was none last night, and not a cloud in the sky this morning.
The high fences make the garden reasonably secluded. I’ve checked the houses to either side and they’re both empty. As long as I’m quiet, I can sit outside and watch the birds. There are far more than I ever remember seeing before, flocks of twenty or thirty of them. This must be the result of fewer predators for the hatchlings and no humans accidentally destroying their nests.
They treat the zombies the same way they used to treat cats, dogs and any other predator, humans included, they just fly up and away to some safe roost.
I remember reading about passenger pigeons and how, before they were wiped out at the beginning of the twentieth century, their flocks could be hundreds of miles wide and billions of birds deep. I’m not saying I’m expecting that next year, but just imagine what a sight it would be.
Fish too, they’ll do well out of this. Not sure that will help me much. Can I trust the fish in the rivers? I have no idea, but I’ve no idea how to fish, so it’s all academic.
Chickens? No, they’ll all be dead from dehydration by now, the ones that weren’t eaten by hungry refugees. Goats, though,
there’s no reason they couldn’t have survived this, but where are there goat farms? There have to be some, I mean, where there’s British goat’s cheese there has to be British goats. But where? I vaguely remember that the type I liked came from Wales, but there surely has to be some nearer than that.
It’s just another dream, isn’t it? I picture myself searching for a goat farm and the next image my brain throws up is of a joint roasting merrily on a spit. All the steps in between, the difficult ones like catching and butchering, or perhaps even breeding the animals, the impossible like getting from here to some remote farm in Wales or Somerset or Lancashire, or even the simplest ones like finding the address of a goat farm, are, in my mind, nothing. They’re just some trivial irritation that can, of course, be solved.
A few months ago it would have been simple enough. I’d have just gone online, found a map, directions, and a video entitled ‘Ten Easy Steps To Slaughtering A Goat’. I bet there was one.
08:30
Whenever I get maudlin, I find looting is the best tonic and if I’m to stay here much longer I’ll need more food, but four of Them have turned up in the night. They’re not quite outside the house, but scattered across the street, a few houses down. I could go out the back, breaking through the fences again, but that might attract Them. I’ll just sit, wait, and read.
15:00
Just finished Great Expectations. David Copperfield next. Still no rain.
19:00
I’ve been sitting up in Chuck’s bedroom, staring through his skylight at the clouds as the sun set. It’s a great view. He’s got glow in the dark stars and planets on his ceiling, posters of the solar system on the walls and a telescope in the corner. No prizes for guessing what he wanted to be when he grows up.