After the Fall

by Stephen Cross

  Footsteps behind him, Allen lowered his gun and glanced to see Lewis.

  His corporal joined him by the window.

  “Jesus,” said the young man. Allen felt sorry for him, for his youth. When Allen had been young he had been fighting real enemies in the desert, real people. He had a chance to build a family. What did Lewis have to look forward to?

  “I don’t think Jesus has anything to do with this clusterfuck, Lewis.”

  Lewis stared over the mass of bodies below. “We can’t get out, can we?”

  “No, Corporal, we can’t.”

  Three months ago, the world had fallen apart; or to be exact, the United Kingdom had fallen apart. The world as a whole fell at different times, in stages, one country after another, dependant on the virus transmission through its airports, seaports, and autobahns. It was never determined who the UK’s patient zero was, although it was accepted that the first case was in London. Most probably arrived at Heathrow or St Pancreas on the Eurostar.

  The first Sergeant Allen knew about it all was one early morning in May, when he was tasked with enforcing the London Barrier, a series of military road blocks and fences meant to stop the virus from leaving the capital. A plan flawed and undermanned from the beginning

  All the London Barrier became was an infamous footnote in the history of the Fall, stored under ‘Innocent Civilian Bloodbaths’.

  Allen and a few of his men broke from the quickly disintegrating army and managed to rescue twenty three civilians from a so-called safe zone, that had, as everything else did in those few short days, gone completely to hell.

  And now, Allen was doing his best to keep everyone alive.

  Back on the fourth floor, their defacto base, Allen looked across the empty open plan office, people waking from their restless slumber. He envied their sleep, having been up most of the night working on securing the building. He was tired.

  Spencer, a man in his late forties and one time owner of a mechanic shop in his previous life, was already up. He stood by the window, shaking his head.

  “What the hell do you call that?” said Spencer.

  Allen said nothing, but waited for the rest of them to get up. A few gasps sped up the process and within a minute, everyone was awake, lining the windows.

  “They’re everywhere!”

  “How the hell do we get out?”

  “We’re trapped.”

  Private Walton joined Allen and Lewis.

  “Is Singh still downstairs by the front doors?” he said.

  Lewis nodded. “He relieved me. Him and Johnson are watching things down there. Keeping it quiet so as not to excite the natives.”

  Johnson was not one of the soldiers, but one of the few civilians that had seemed keen to take on some responsibility. A young lad of nineteen, well built, a public school boy with a rugby background. He got his ribbing for being posh, but he could be trusted.

  The rest seemed happy to pass all responsibility for their survival to Allen and his three soldiers - a last remnant of order to cling to; an imagined belief that the structure of society still survived as long as the army, a symbol of command, still survived.

  Spencer turned to face Allen. “What are we going to do now Sergeant? Looks like we’re trapped.”

  There were worried murmurs of agreement.

  “We’ll find a way out,” said Allen. “Let’s just sit down, have something to eat and drink, and we’ll get to thinking.”

  “‘We’ being yourself and your soldiers? You’re the ones who got us into this mess,” said Spencer.

  “We’re also the ones that got you out of that airfield,” said Lewis, “if you remember.”

  “And we’re grateful for that,” said Spencer quickly, “but that was then. What about now?”

  Allen felt eyes on him. As seemed to be the common rule in life after the Fall, you vaguely remembered what happened yesterday, cared about what was happening today, and tomorrow was a bonus. “We’ll work on it. Like I said, have some breakfast.”

  “Really?” said Spencer. “How do we know it’s safe to eat our supplies, what if we run out? Shouldn’t we be rationing the food?”

  “He’s right,” said Margaret, a woman in her sixties. Allen wasn’t sure on her history, but she was very proper in her speech, and her dress, although tattered and dirty now, looked like it had cost a bob or two. “I would have thought you would consider the supply levels, Sergeant, given our now precarious situation.”

  “They’re right Sarge,” said Walton.

  Allen gave Walton a sharp look. “Ok, Spencer, decant the water into fewer containers, then take the empty ones up to the roof in case it rains. Margaret, if you can collect the food from everyone, and then split it into rations.”

  They looked satisfied with their orders. Spencer especially. Allen wondered if he had seen a smirk in his direction.

  “Walton,” said Allen, “you stay here and make sure… well, just keep an eye out.”

  Walton nodded.

  “Come on Lewis, let’s have a look around, start thinking about how to get out of here.”

  Chapter 2

  Allen and Lewis descended the dark stairwell to the office reception on the ground floor, where Johnson and Singh were keeping guard. Any light from outside was blocked by the barricade of furniture and office miscellany that covered the main doors.

  As far as Allen could tell on his first reconnaissance of the building, there were two ways in: the main front doors, and the fire exit at the other side of the building. The fire exit doors were solid and sturdy, so the reception doors had been the priority.

  Singh and Johnson were sitting on the third step up. The reception was a spacious room with a large desk, which no doubt used to house a bored secretary who spent most of their time on Facebook, between welcoming clients with indifference.

  Tables, chairs and cupboards now filled most of the reception. No sight of the main doors were left, which was how Allen wanted it. The moaning and rattling from beyond, however, reminded Allen of the danger that lay only a few yards away, behind all the displaced furniture.

  “Good job,” said Allen quietly, almost whispering. A human voice would whip the zeds into a frenzy. That frenzy would then spread to any nearby zeds. Allen didn’t want hundreds of zeds in a frenzy, no matter how much of Ikea’s office range was blocking the door.

  “No problem, sir,” said Singh. “It’s pretty solid.”

  “Ok, but let’s not get too comfortable. I’ll have one person watching it all the time. You up for first shift, Johnson? Four hours?”

  “Yes sir,” said Johnson. He was becoming a soldier not just in action but lexicon too, thought Allen.

  “Good lad. I’ll get someone to bring you down some food and water. Ok, Singh, Lewis, let’s explore this place, figure a way out.”

  When arriving two days ago, Allen had wanted somewhere they could recuperate and rest for a few days. Somewhere easily defended, open view to any approach, and solid. The office building, one of a few in a small industrial estate outside of Cricklesworth, seemed to fit the bill, and it would have done, for a normal enemy. Not a brain dead enemy that didn’t mind being killed indiscriminately.

  He and Walton had broke in, and quickly secured the entrance, before taking the stairs up to the fourth floor, the top of the building, closing all the office doors on the intervening floors as they went. Whether those offices had been teeming with the undead, he had no idea. He hadn’t planned to stay long enough for it to matter.

  Things had changed.

  “We need a full sweep, we’ll start on the first floor and work our way up. If we’re here for a while, then people are going to start wandering. We can’t have them opening up a floor full of zeds.”

  “What about the ground floor?” said Lewis.

  “They’ll see us through the windows. We’ll leave it for now.”

  The first floor landing had one door made of solid wood, and closed. A small landing window let in a decent amount
of light. The white tiled floor was old and tattered, corners of the tiles chipped off in places to reveal dank concrete underneath. Allen couldn’t have imagined the rent on this place being high.

  There was a sign on the door that said “River Catering Ltd”.

  Allen placed his ear against the door and held up his hand to signal silence to Lewis and Singh. Allen carried a sledgehammer, Lewis an axe and Singh a baseball bat. Various melee weapons picked up on the road. They still had their guns, but without ammo they were good for nothing but the sights.

  No sound from beyond the door.

  Allen eased it open.

  An open plan office with the same footprint as the fourth floor, a long L-shape with the bottom of the L disappearing around the corner about fifty feet away. It was filled with the usual furniture of a modern office. Desks and chairs, PC’s. Notice boards on the wall. Health and Safety posters.

  Allen motioned for them to follow him in. They split on entering the room and began to make their way around the desks.

  Notepads with various scribblings, pens next to them. Coats hung over some of the chairs. Photos in nearly every cubicle of happy families, smiling children. Glorious colourful reminders of a life that was. Allen tapped his chest pocket to check the photo of his son was still there. Adam. Ten years old. Last seen two weeks before the Fall. He dropped him off at his Mum’s house after a nice afternoon at the bowling alley.

  A strained whisper pulled him from his remembrance. “Sir…”

  Singh was standing at the corner of the L, peering round. He was motioning for Allen.

  Allen stepped quietly over to join him.

  Singh pointed to his eyes, and then round to corner, indicating for Allen where to look.

  Round the corner, at the far end of the office, was a zed. Just the one. In a suit. It was walking mindlessly into the window, again and again, like a fly forever buzzing against glass. The left arm of the suit was ripped and stained a dark black with blood. Its hair was short and had fallen out in clumps. There was a gentle rhythmical tapping sound as the zed bounced off the window with each step.

  Allen nodded at Singh, who carefully creeped from his position to behind the zed.

  He raised his baseball bat and brought it down with force. There was a heavy thump and a crack. The zed’s skull imploded and dry pink fleshy material squirted out and against the window. The zed fell to the ground, still.

  Killing them was a less messy affair these days. Less blood. Must be drying off in the veins, thought Allen.

  There was nothing else on the first floor. They climbed to the second.

  Spencer stood to the side as Walton thumped open the door to the roof with his sledgehammer. Although Spencer had his own weapon, a large crowbar he had rescued from his mechanics, it was only good for splitting heads and useless for opening locked doors. And besides, it seemed more like grunt work.

  “Thanks,” said Spencer. He walked out onto the roof.

  It was a damp, dull, and grey day. The clouds were a thick blanket, not threatening rain, but no danger of any sun either. Spencer breathed in deeply, anticipating clean fresh air. Instead he gagged. The combined stench of the hundreds of dead surrounding the building polluted the air like stinking fish at the docks.

  “Fuck, that stinks,” he said, as much to himself as to Walton and the three others on the roof. “Let’s get this over with,”

  They each carried a number of empty containers, ranging from buckets to bowls, to glasses to bottles.

  “Let’s spread them out, nice and wide,” said Walton, walking out into the middle of the roof with his stack of vessels. He began to rest them on the floor.

  Spencer put down an old apple juice bottle.

  “Hey, Walton,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “What are we doing here?”

  Walton gave Spencer a funny look. “Collecting water.” He shook his head and got back to his task.

  Spencer gave him a few seconds before trying again. “I know, but what I mean is, what are we doinghere, at this place. Cricklesworth. This building.”

  Walton shrugged. “Seems as good a place as any.”

  “But where are we heading? You know what Allen has in mind?”

  “Yeah, we’re going to Cornwall.”

  “I know, but you know why?”

  “The Sarge knows Cornwall, he did a lot of training there. Thinks it’ll be safe.”

  “Well,” said Spencer, “we’re in Devon now, nearly at Cornwall. Doesn’t seem so safe, stuck in this building, does it?”

  Walton stopped putting out his containers. He looked around at the the others, spread out around the roof. “I do what the Sarge says. He’s in command. Kept us alive so far.”

  “Yeah, can’t argue with that. He did a good job getting us here. But what now? Does he have a plan?”

  “I told you, get to Cornwall.”

  “You know why?” Spencer knew the answer, he had heard Allen talk about it to Lewis a month ago, but he wanted Walton to say it.

  “Yeah, he’s looking for his son. Thinks he might be at some holiday camp.”

  Spencer moved closer to Walton, so he could talk without being heard by the others. “Who did you lose?”

  Walton stared at Spencer for a few seconds before answering. “My wife. No idea where she is. My parents. My brother. No idea where they are either.”

  “So why aren’t we looking for them?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Allen, dragging us across the country, like his own personal search party. What about our people, the people we lost?”

  Walton frowned. “Careful what you say, Spencer. He’s a good man.”

  Spencer held up his hands and smiled. “Hey, I know that. I’m just saying, that’s all. Just wondering when we can look for our people. That’s all.”

  Spencer backed off and began putting down his containers, watching Walton out of the corner of his eye. It was a while before Walton moved again.

  Chapter 3

  The second and third floors where clear. No zeds in suits. Looked like the office workers had got out in time, spurred into action by a particularly terrifying news report, or a zombie sighting in the car park. Whatever, Allen had noticed the empty office phenomena common to all places so far. Seemed like no one wanted to be sat filing their TPS reports at the end of the world. No overtime in an apocalypse.

  “Ok, let’s do the ground floor,” said Allen.

  They made their way down the stairs. Johnson was still sitting on the bottom couple of stairs, staring at the jumble sale of office furniture piled up against the the front door.

  “Anything?” said Allen.

  “Nothing sir,” said Johnson. “I can hear them though. Freaks me out a bit.”

  The group stood silent and listened. Pervasive, ubiquitous, continuous. A drone of varying intensity that didn’t cease.

  “You think they ever get tired?” said Singh.

  “No,” said Lewis. “They don’t.”

  Allen walked to the door that led into the ground floor offices. “You hear anything from here?”

  Johnson shook his head.

  “I’ll go in on my own,” said Allen. “As little to excite them as possible.”

  “You sure?” said Lewis.

  Allen didn’t answer, but opened the door and stepped into the ground floor office.

  The office followed the same L-shape footprint as the others, with waist high windows round the whole of its perimeter. The windows had no tint, and his arrival had an immediate effect.

  The zeds as one, or so it seemed, let out an excited moan and pushed against the window. Half rotten faces squeezed against the glass; red, green, white and black trails of thick liquid spread on the glass as zed’s innards were squeezed out by the weight of the mob behind; rotten hands clawed, tapping with exposed finger bone.

  It took a few seconds before a new sound entered the fray, that chilling clicking they did. Their teeth clacking in unison. Th
e noise spread like a wave.

  “You ok sir?” shouted Lewis from beyond the door.

  “Fine, just keep an eye on that front door.”

  Allen would have to make quick work of this.

  Empty office. Desks covered in post-it notes. Forgotten PCs dead through want of power. Photos - so many photos, mainly children.

  A new sound alerted Allen. He turned to look at the window. Thin spider cracks appeared suddenly in the glass as if a magic trick. White tributaries flashed into existence and covered the bottom right of the nearest window.

  He didn’t have long. Allen ran to the far end of the L-shape, took a quick glance. Nothing but a gallery full of gawking zeds and empty desks.

  Another cracking sound. Another window ready to go.

  Allen turned to run, but stopped.

  A door with a red no entry sign sat in the middle of the office wall. Closed, no window.

  He quickly ran to the door and tried the handle, it opened.

  He entered and closed the door behind him. He was in darkness. He pressed his ear up against the door listening to the office outside. It sounded like the party was chilling out a bit.

  In the gloom, a lonely flight of concrete steps led into complete blackness.

  Allen took out his torch and turned it on, shining the beam down. A flight of about 10 steps led to a room, steeped in shadow.

  He held the torch in his left hand and his sledgehammer in his right, high up against the hammer so he wouldn’t have to swing; no telling what surprises were below.

  He moved quickly down the stairs and paused at the corner, peering round.

  Four rows of large metal shelves filled will black boxes, inert and still. Cascades of wires tumbled from the back of the boxes like spilled veins.

  Some sort of server room.

  Looked small, but worth a sweep.

  He moved slowly around the server room, round the outside of the shelves, shining his torch down each row.

  He reached the far corner of the room, and turned to leave. His feet didn’t swivel freely as he would have expected on concrete, but instead felt resistance. He looked down to see he was standing on a circular, metal grate, the sort you would normally see on a road.