After the Fall

by Stephen Cross

  “I don’t feel too much sympathy for them,” said Ellie. “No reason for them to scare us like that. They could have done some real damage.” She held Eddy close to her, his wide eyes looking around the room.

  “Well, no need to worry about it anymore. It’s all sorted. And what’s more, we can celebrate tonight.” Mac reached into his backpack and pulled out three rabbits. “One each!”

  They spent the next few hours preparing and cooking the rabbits. Mac agreed that they use some of the gas to get the oven going, so they could roast the rabbits along with some potatoes from the vegetable garden.

  “We need to have celebrations, need to enjoy ourselves, otherwise we’ll end up going crazy in here,” said Mac, finding himself in a philosophical mood after this victory.

  Angie got out the best china and cutlery and set one of the tables up proper, like she used to do for sunday lunch.

  It was early evening by the time the food was ready. The smell of roasting meat and veg filled the pub.

  “Feels just like the old days,” said Angie, enjoying the nostalgia.

  They sat round the table and Mac brought out a bottle of red for them to share. They sipped at the wine delicately. It wouldn’t do to get drunk. Even though their immediate and recent danger had been cleared, there was no telling when the next danger would arrive. Sharpness of mind was a necessity these days.

  Mac had one last surprise.

  “If you remember me saying that we needed a radio to listen out for other folk, well I got hold of this from the farm.” He plonked an old radio cassette player on the table. It was splattered with white paint and covered in dust. The silver buttons had remnants of white writing on them, the old fast forward, rewind, play, pause and stop. “I was right about keeping hold of those tapes, wasn’t I?” said Mac, winking at Angie.

  Mac took out a tape from his pocket and put it in the cassette holder with assorted clicks and clunks. “Got plenty of batteries, so we should be good to go all night!”

  He pressed play. The speaker hissed as the tape ran through the first empty few seconds before the twang of guitar, tinny and distant, played through the speaker.

  “Oh Mac, its David Bowie!” said Angie.

  Ellie smiled. “I’m surprised Mac, I would have thought you liked The Wurzles or Chas N Dave.”

  “Cheeky,” said Mac, smiling back. “You can’t beat a bit of David Bowie. We went to see him once, Me and Ang, you remember?”

  Angie nodded. “In Brighton. What a night that was.”

  They ate their food to the sound of Bowie (not too loud, though, you never know who or what would hear), and sipped at their wine.

  “I think we’ll be ok, you know,” said Mac, feeling surprisingly flush after just one glass of red. Time was it would have taken a full bottle before he even felt it. “Us lot, I think we’ll be ok. As long as we look out for each other.”

  Angie reached out a hand to each side, and Mac and Ellie took one each. “We have to be a family,” said Angie. “We can make a life here, for us and for little Eddy. Most important thing is that we make a world for little Eddy. Let him know that no matter what crazy horror is outside, that in here, he’s loved and protected.”

  Angie wiped a tear away.

  “You alright love?” said Mac.

  “I am. For first time in a good while, I think I’m enjoying myself.”

  Ellie squeezed her hand. “Thanks Angie, and you Mac, for what you’ve done.”

  Mac stood up, “Come on then, this is all getting a bit serious.” He helped Angie up.

  “What’s going on here then?” said Angie.

  “We’re having a dance!”

  Mac held her gently to support her bad leg, moving her in time to the music, his arm round her waist and his face close to hers. “I still love you very much, Angie.”

  “I know you do Mac. I know.”

  Chapter 9

  Ellie put Eddy down in the crib next to her bed. The crib must have been used by numerous babies over the years; how many small families had rented this room and stayed here? Sometimes Ellie wondered what had become of the many little ones that had slept there over the years. Alive, dead, living dead?

  Her head was swimming a little after the wine. It was the fist alcohol she had had in months. She knew it wasn’t recommended to drink when breast feeding, but it was only the once, and it had been a long time since she’d had any fun. It was hard to have fun these days - her husband was dead, and her baby was growing up in a world full of monsters. The old world was gone - forever? Probably. The sooner she got used to it the better. She found herself surprised at how stoic she had taken events, after the initial shock in the first month or so.

  Without Mac and Angie she doubted she would have been able to carry on. Even with the baby on the way, she knew that suicide would have been a very tempting offer. She was so glad she had stuck around though. Eddy was everything she needed. It had all become so simple; live and look after Eddy. Give him the best life possible, and protect him.

  She got into bed, tired. She thought about the Demon Writers; just kids.

  Kids used to drink cheap booze and hang around parks. Now they decapitated zombies and terrorised nearby adults. Angie had some sympathy, and Ellie could understand that, intellectually. That’s as far as it went though. Anything that threatened Eddy was going to get no sympathy from her. As far as she was concerned, anything was fair game in this world, once you were threatened. It was all about looking after you and yours now. She didn’t think she would have minded too much if Mac had done more than chase the boys off. Ruthless maybe, but if that was what it was going to take…

  She turned off her light. It was just past ten at night. Late. Although, she wondered why she even bothered with time anymore. There was no boss to keep happy with punctuality. No bus to catch. No TV show to watch. No last orders to catch. The Fall had shown just how flimsy and weak so many human fundamentals were. The clock didn’t exist anymore. Ellie found it refreshing.

  Eddy gurgled in his sleep. She leaned up to check on him. He lay on his back, wrapped up in his swaddling. Tiny and oblivious to the empty world that surrounded him.

  She’d best get to sleep. He would be awake in a few hours for a feed.

  Eddy’s cry was different.

  Not the usual I’m hungry mummy. Instead it was loud and shrill, like he was scared.

  She sat up and put on her bedside lamp.

  Smoke billowed in through the gap between the floor and the bottom of the door. Heavy, thick smoke that tumbled like grey cotton wool into the room, rising to the ceiling where it settled like a thick grey quilt.

  Ellie stifled a scream. She didn’t want to scare Eddy. She scooped him up from the crib and hugged him tight as she climbed out of bed.

  She coughed as the smoke hit the back of her lungs. It hurt, burnt like a bad case of tonsillitis. Eddy let out a loud scream. He was hurting too.

  Ellie put her son on the bed and scrambled to open the window. She fumbled with the lock and pushed it open. Smoke rushed past her into the cold night air. She picked up Eddy and held him by the window.

  “Mac!” she shouted back into the room. There was no answer. A deep rumbling vibrated behind her bedroom door. Paint bubbled on the inside of the door. She felt the temperature rise.

  “Mac!” she shouted again, aware of desperation in her voice.

  She looked out the window, judging the distance. Twenty, thirty, forty feet, she had no idea, but it looked too high.

  That didn’t mean itwas too high though. If she jumped, she could do it in a way to shield Eddy so that he would land on her. It didn’t matter what injuries she got.

  But it did. There would be no ambulance, no fire brigade. No social services to look after Eddy whilst she recovered in hospital.

  She would lie on the ground like an injured animal, maybe paralysed, unable to move, and condemned to listen to Eddy starve beside her, just out of reach as he lay helpless, wondering why his mummy had aban
doned him.

  Ellie felt panic. “Stop it,” she whispered to herself caustically. This type of thinking would not help.

  She shouted again.

  This time there was an answer, from outside.

  Mac appeared at the side of the building with a ladder.

  “Ellie! You ok? Eddy ok?”

  “Yes, hurry Mac, it’s getting hot, so much smoke,” she was surprised to find she was sobbing. The fear had caught up with her unawares.

  “I’m coming,” said Mac. He leaned the ladder against the building. “I’ll come up and get Eddy, then you climb down after me.”

  Mac quickly got to the window and held his hands out for the baby.

  Ellie paused. She knew she should hand Eddy to Mac, but her arms wouldn’t move.

  “Come on Ellie,” said Mac gently, “pass him to me, it’ll be ok.”

  Eddy was crying, his little hands clinging to her pyjama top.

  “I’ll look after him, it’s ok Ellie,” said Mac.

  Ellie passed the baby to Mac. “You’ll be careful?”

  “It’ll just be a minute.” Mac took Eddy and quickly made his way down the ladder.

  Ellie watched as Mac got to the floor. Eddy was safe.

  “Come on, you now Ellie,” shouted Mac.

  Ellie climbed onto the ladder, coughing and spluttering as she left the smokey room behind.

  She got to the bottom and Mac passed her Eddy. She hugged her baby tight, crying. His face was smudged with black soot and he had a raspy cough.

  “Come on, get away from the pub,” Mac led her towards the car park. The night was lit with an orange and red glow. It reminded her of bonfires on Guy Fawkes night when she was young. She looked behind her. Fierce tongues of fire burst from the bottom half of the pub. The white walls were darkened and the doors razed to black burnt fingers. Smoke tumbled from the upper windows and gaps in the roof tiling. The night was filled with the crackling and rumbling of the fire. She felt her cheeks burn.

  Where was Angie?

  “Mac, where’s Angie? Where is she?” she was panicking again.

  “Don’t you worry, I’m going to get her now. You stay here, go and sit under that tree,” he motioned towards a large and ambivalent oak in the corner of the car park.

  Mac disappeared round the back of the building with the ladder.

  Ellie ran to the tree, the sound of the burning building filling her ears and head. Eddy was crying. She huddled under the large bough of the tree and stared at the pub; it was beautiful and terrible.

  “It’s ok Eddy, it’s ok,” she said to the baby. Although trying to keep her words gentle, she had to shout to be heard above the fire and the crying.

  Where was Angie?

  That thought didn’t have time to gain traction. A loud moan saved her life. She looked up to where the sound had come from; behind her, in the shadows of the trees, a movement.

  She jumped up and ran a few feet from the tree. A zombie staggered from under the oak. Its dead eyes reflected the dancing yellows and reds of the burning pub. Its deformed mouth hung open, the jaw dislocated, the skin dissolved to reveal tattered tendons and dirty white bone.

  Ellie pulled the knife from her belt. She shifted Eddy so she was holding him in her left arm, his small head cradled by her shoulder. In her right hand she held the knife up. She hadn’t killed many zombies, but Mac had drummed the key rules of undead combat into her; keep calm; move quickly; be sure in attack; watch your surroundings.

  She breathed deeply. The zombie stared blankly as it took short stumpy steps towards her. One arm was held out, the other hung limp by its side, most of the flesh missing.

  Ellie took a deep breath and moved quickly forward, keeping to the side of the zombie with the bad arm. She stabbed the knife into the zombie’s head, aiming for the eye. She missed, instead hitting the forehead. The knife passed through the soft skull. She pulled the knife out quickly, not wanting to lose it. The zombie stumbled and fell.

  “It’s ok Eddy, Mummy got the zombie.”

  Movement in the corner of her eye.

  She turned to the right and saw two, no, three and then four figures emerge from the darkness of the surrounding trees, attracted by the light of the burning building.

  She had to warn Mac. The fire was attracting them, they would be engulfed in minutes.

  She ran to the back of the building. Mac was making his way slowly down the ladder, coughing loudly, with Angie over his shoulder.

  Her body hung limp.

  “Mac, the zombies are coming,” shouted Ellie as she ran towards him.

  Mac ignored Ellie and placed Angie on the ground. He rested his hands on her chest and started to pump.

  “Come on Ang, come on, you can do it.”

  Elie froze and stared as Mac performed a panicked CPR on his wife.

  Shuffling shadows appeared around the corner.

  “Come on Ang,” shouted Mac. He leaned and exhaled into her open mouth, holding her nose. He repeated this a few times, then began pumping her chest again. “Come on Ang,” he said.

  Five zombies were walking towards Mac. He was oblivious to the approaching threat.

  Ellie, still holding Eddy ran past Mac. She stabbed the nearest zombie. She panicked as she struggled to get the knife out, stuck for a second in the zombies face. She pulled it out just as the body fell to the floor.

  Mac’s shouts became louder, more desperate, “Come on Angie, don’t give up on me, not now.”

  Ellie allowed herself a glance behind. Angie still lay motionless, not responding to Mac’s CPR.

  Ellie danced around the four remaining zombies, trying to find another vector of attack that wouldn’t put her in danger. She leant forward, stabbing a woman wearing what looked like the remains of a nurse’s uniform in the back of the head.

  More undead appeared at the other side of the pub. Mac was still pumping at his wife’s chest, his shouts now tinged with sobs.

  Ellie ran to Mac.

  Angie was on the floor lifeless, no movement.

  “We have to go Mac,” she shouted, “We can’t stay here, there’s too many of them.”

  Mac ignored her and continued to push on his wives chest.

  “Mac!” shouted Ellie. She tried to pull on his shoulders, but he was too big, too strong, and he shrugged her off. “We will all die if we don’t go now. Pick her up and take her with us.”

  “I have to get her breathing!” Mac’s eyes were red with tears. His skin was burnt. Black soot melted with sweat on his face.

  “We can, we just have to get away from here, look.”

  Mac saw the zombies for the first time.

  “Do you want them to get Eddy?”

  A switch seemed to go off in Mac’s head. He picked Angie up and put her over his shoulder. She was light, carrying her was no problem for him.

  “This way,” said Ellie.

  They ran past the approaching zombies and round the side of the pub to the front drive. Several figures were limping in from the road.

  “Keep in the shadows,” said Ellie.

  Keeping to the edges of the pub’s grounds, they managed to avoid the attention of the hoard - the pub was too bright, too loud for them to notice a few slight figures in the darkness. Even Eddy’s crying was drowned by the crackle and roar of the fire.

  They got onto the road and ran, Ellie’s bare feet hurting as they struck the hard tarmac with its stones and grit. But she kept running.

  Chapter 10

  They spent the night in an old outhouse. They had stumbled along the road for a good five minutes before Mac broke off into a field and tried and resuscitate Angie again. Ellie had sat by him as he tried, hugging Eddy tight, her eyes straying between Macs flailing and desperate attempts to bring his dead wife back to life, and the orange glow on the horizon of the pyre of the pub; so bright, given there were no other lights anywhere. It was like a beacon. All the zombies for miles must have been heading towards it.

  It was thirty minu
tes before Mac accepted that Angie was dead. He had crumpled in a heap beside her, hugging her empty vessel of a body, mumbling unintelligible words through his sobs.

  Ellie herself cried. She knew how he felt; but when Edward had died, she had taken comfort in him living on in Eddy.

  Mac had no such comfort.

  Ellie persuaded Mac that it would be safer if they sheltered in the outhouse at the end of the field. He agreed, seeming ambivalent to wherever he spent his grief; but he insisted on bringing Angie’s body with him.

  When Ellie awoke, her neck was stiff having slept in a tumble of rags that had been lying in the outhouse. She was cold; in the panic of the previous night she had left the pub in nothing but her nightgown and knife belt; paranoia had led her to never be without it. She gave a gentle pray of thanks to God, whom she didn’t believe in, that the Demon Writers had made their assault at the tail end of summer, when warmth still lingered. She doubted her and Eddy would have lasted the night had they been in the depths of winter.

  She shivered as she sat up, stretched and began to feed Eddy.

  Mac lay in the opposite corner, his arms around Angie. Her dead eyes stared at the ceiling, unmoving. Her face was black with soot and her hair was singed in places back to her scalp. Her mouth was frozen open - it didn’t look like the peaceful death she had so deserved.

  Mac must have left Angie to come and rescue her and Eddy. Ellie felt a shape pang of guilt and sorrow. She quickly quelled it. She knew that Angie would have insisted on Mac helping her and Eddy first. It would have been Eddy. Angie had loved Eddy. A symbol of hope, new life and all that.

  Mac sat up, his face also stained black. Blisters around the corner of his scalp.

  “She’s gone,” he said simply.

  “I’m sorry Mac,” said Ellie. She got up and wobbled over to him, still with Eddy latched onto her, and sat down next to Mac. She put one arm around him.

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  A mouse scurried across the dirt covered floor and disappeared into some rotting vegetation in the corner of the outhouse.

  “We need to carry on. Angie would want that. She would want you to look after me and Eddy. Especially Eddy.”