After the Fall

by Stephen Cross

  The truck’s white lights lit up and it span in the mud then, like a wild animal let loose, raged backwards, its rear swaying to the right and left. Harriet jumped clear as the truck careered past her, the engine revving high.

  A man stood at the end of the thin corridor between the fence and farmhouse. His rifle was lowered, he was pushing bullets into it. He looked up, but it was too late. The truck hit him square on the face. His body flew back with a damp thud. A small burst of something that looked like red smoke.

  The truck stopped and there was crunch of gears. It released forward with the same fury and stopped ten feet away from Harriet. She saw Arthur climb into the back of the pick up. She ran to join him and jumped in the back, Arthur pulling her in, his trademark wide smile lifting her heart.

  She fell onto the raw and cold metal of the flatbed and breathed and cried and laughed all at once.

  Arthur hit the back of the cab, “Go!”, he shouted, and once again the truck roared into life, its wheels spinning in the mud, flinging thick sods of earth into the sky.

  Three figures appeared at the end of the corridor, guns raised. A rattle of cracks filled the air, and simultaneously the sound of bullets bounced of the truck like a crazy bell ringer’s party.

  Arthur and Harriet lay flat. Harriet pushed herself down as far as she could. The flat bed was red with blood. She gasped and looked at herself; her clothes were stained red.

  “It’s both of us”, shouted Arthur above the tumbling diesel engine. “They got you in the shoulder, and they skimmed my leg.” He smiled again, “We are very lucky!”

  They took a sharp turn and Harriet found herself sliding across the back of the truck, straight into Arthur, his huge frame cushioning her from hitting the cold metal of the side walls of the truck. He let out a large puff of air.

  The bullets had stopped.

  Arthur pulled himself up to cautiously look behind.

  “Oh shit, look,” he held out an arm and Harriet used her good arm to pull herself up. Two trucks were pulling out onto the main road behind them, giving chase.

  She scurried to the front of the flat bed and banged on the window, shouting to Adam. “They’re following us!”

  “I know,” he shouted back, keeping his eyes on the road. “Don’t worry, hold on.”

  The engine’s tone increased as Adam put his foot down.

  They turned onto a side road, monetarily hiding them from the pursuing trucks. Adam quickly took another turn into a field, where he pulled the truck in a sharp right so it sat tight against a hedge, obscured from the road. He turned off the engine.

  Everything quiet.

  “What are you doing?” shouted Harriet. She stared at the entrance to the field.

  “It’s ok,” shouted Adam, “I saw this in a film. Just be quiet.”

  Harriet shook her head. She felt Arthur’s hand in her shoulder.

  “Let’s go with it, he got us out of there, didn’t he?” said Arthur quietly.

  She took a deep breath and stared through the hedge to the road beyond, only visible in tiny jigsaw fragments. Birds sang nearby, and in the distance was the chainsaw roar of the pursuing trucks. The sound got closer, louder. Harriet’s heart thumped. It throbbed through her ankle and up to her shoulder, and became a pulse of pain.

  “It sounds like they’ve stopped,” said Arthur.

  “The junction…” said Harriet.

  Another roar, like a primeval beast. Coming closer, louder, terrifyingly close. Fragments of red truck dashed passed on the other side of the hedge, the driver pushing it, hitting it hard. It went straight past.

  The engine droned into the distance.

  Harriet laughed, “It worked!”

  Adam kicked the truck back into life. “Hold on!” he shouted through the window.

  “You did it Adam!” shouted Harriet.

  “I said hold on,” he shook his head.

  Arthur grabbed onto the back the truck, Harriet squeezed in next to him and held in tight with her good arm. The truck bounced backwards over the field, turned, then burst back onto the road. They went back the way they came.

  Back towards the farm.

  It’s ok, thought Harriet, he knows what he’s doing.

  A minute later and they raced past the farm, tucked behind a copse of oak trees. They had only had three trucks, so even if they saw them, they wouldn’t be able to follow.

  She allowed herself a breath of relief. She nestled into Arthur. She laughed again - she never knew this was her nervous reaction to life and death situations; she had never been in one until three months ago, and now it seemed like they came every few days.

  Harriet also felt warmth, an unbelievable warmth towards Adam and Arthur. The two who kept her alive, who she helped keep alive. Such closeness, such love, she had never felt that before either. It was most probably just a potent mix of oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine and other neurotransmitter drugs giving her a high to remind her to stick with the winners, but she liked it.

  They were a team, a unit. She was part of something she had never experienced before.

  The relief was short lived, however.

  As the immediate danger faded, along with its adrenaline high, the pain in her arm and ankle suddenly hit.

  Big time.

  She gritted her teeth, they couldn’t stop yet.

  Chapter 8

  After ten minutes they stopped the truck. Arthur and Harriet helped each other into the front of the cab. Adam pumped the accelerator again and they were off, racing though ghost empty roads that suddenly turned to traffic snarled up junctions, before emptying again.

  Harriet felt weak. Arthur had torn apart his shirt, using part to stem the blood flow on his leg, the remainder tied tight round Harriet’s shoulder.

  After forty five minutes of driving they stopped at a petrol station.

  “This should be far enough,” said Arthur through gritted teeth, obviously in more pain than he was letting on. “We need to get these wounds seen to.”

  Adam drove the truck onto the forecourt of the petrol station, parking next to a pump. He turned off the engine. They sat in silence staring at the shop. The window was dusty and hard to see through.

  “It’s got to be me, hasn’t it?” said Adam with a sigh.

  “You can’t go in alone,” said Harriet.

  “We can’t send you cripples in, can we?” he said with a smile. “The deads would think it was christmas.”

  Harriet managed a laugh. The numbness in her shoulder was passing and being replaced with a solid, thumping pain, like simultaneously being on fire and squeezed in a vice.

  “There will be a wheel jack in this truck somewhere,” said Arthur. He was sweating. “Use that.”

  “I don’t need it,” said Adam reaching under the seat. He pulled out his crossbow. “Looks like we got the bonus,” he said with a wide grin.

  Adam opened the door of the cab and slowly moved out into the forecourt. The silence of the world leaked in through the truck’s open door.

  “What’s the prognosis, nurse?” said Harriet. “You treated bullet wounds before?”

  Arthur smiled. “Of course I have. The danger will be infection, if there’s a medical kit in there or some antiseptic, we should be good. It’s going to hurt like hell, for both of us, for a while, but with some clean dressings we should be ok.”

  “Don’t you need to get the bullet out?”

  “Oh, there’s that. That’s gonna hurt.”

  For once Harriet didn’t find Arthur’s wide smile endearing, she found it terrifying.

  Five minutes later, Adam emerged from the shop, holding up one of his arrows, threads of red entrails hanging off the end.

  “It’s clean. Now,” he said.

  Arthur and Harriet got out of the truck. They both hobbled to the shop. Newspapers from three months ago sat in a perspex display. Their yellowed pages decreed a national emergency, the closing of borders, military rule and panic. One paper declared in huge letters tha
t the world had succumb to the Plague of Death, that particular editor obviously lost in biblical mania.

  Sadly, that editor turned out to be the most prophetical of his contemporaries.

  Adam held the door open.

  The shop was large with several aisles stacked with rotting food stuff, car accessories, magazines and large empty spaces where no doubt the tinned and processed food had been.

  A motionless figure lay on the floor by the cash register. A hole in the back of its head leaked a thick black ooze.

  “That the only one?” said Arthur.

  “One more, in the staff room. There’s a vending machine back there too. Has sweets,” Adam smiled.

  “Knock yourself out,” said Harriet.

  Adam ran off and disappeared behind the aisle, the stomp of his footsteps ending with the sound of an opening and closing door. The sound of smashing glass rang out a few seconds later.

  “He be all right?” said Arthur.

  “He’s in a better shape than us.”

  They made their way to the car accessories aisle. Foot mats, de-icer, oil, car wax, spare wiper blades, and two medical kits.

  Harriet and Arthur let out a simultaneous sigh of relief.

  “Let’s take a look then,” he said.

  The green boxes were about a foot square with a nice red cross on the front; a universal and pleasing symbology.

  “Ok,” said Arthur as he clicked open one the boxes. It was packed with a wide mix of medical quick fix items that Arthur checked off, “Bandages, scissors, plasters, alcohol wipes, antiseptic cream, ibuprofen, gauze, forceps,” he raised his eyes at that one and glanced at Harriet’s shoulder.

  A door banged and the sound of running footsteps echoed in the empty shop, Adam appeared at the end of the aisle, his pockets packed with chocolate. “Thought you guys might like this.” he held up a bottle of off-brown liquid. “It was in one of the lockers on the staff room.”

  “Whiskey,” said Arthur. “The last ingredient,” he turned to Harriet. “Let’s get started.”

  She suddenly felt very nervous.

  Harriet lay on the table in the staff room, her t-shirt pulled down to reveal the gun shot wound, a small hole surrounded by burnt black flesh. Stained blood, as if she had smeared herself with ketchup, covered the upper half of her body. Blood still seeped from the wound.

  The room was swimming, the ceiling zooming in and out of focus. Having drank most of the whiskey she was as drunk as she could remember. Her limbs tingled and her stomach lurched with every movement. Her eyes tried to close, and she fought to keep them open.

  Adam sat on a chair near her, his eyes wide open, a fearful look across his young face. His mouth was stained with chocolate.

  “It’s ok, Adam my man, my little man, mr man,” said Harriet, smiling. “Arthur’s a surgeon. He’s renowned in the world!”

  Arthur sat next to her, using a lighter to burn a large kitchen knife he had found in the miscellany section of the shop.

  “You sure this will work?” said Harriet in a sudden moment of lucid worry.

  “Of course I am,” said Arthur. He put down the lighter and the blade smoked gently for a few seconds. “Now, close your eyes, and bite this.” He passed her his belt.

  “Saucy,” she said. “Your belt with my teeths, and I hardly know you,” she giggled to herself.

  “Close your eyes.”

  Pressure on her shoulder that turned quickly into a biting tearing pain. She let out a scream and raised her arm, trying to push it away. She opened her eyes and stared at Arthur.

  Adam grabbed her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” said Arthur.

  Another stab of pain, white pain, shattering through her body from her shoulder. Thankfully, she passed out.

  Chapter 9

  The lights were too bright. She squeezed her eyes closed again. Something strange in her shoulder… pain. A dull thud now, not the white hot sharp of before. More manageable.

  Another attempt to open her eyes. They adjusted slowly to the light. Rain pattered on a nearby window.

  She was in the staff room, lying on a sleeping bag with another sleeping bag on top of her. Her neck was stiff. She tried to move her arm, it was stiff too. All of her was stiff.

  “You ok?”

  It was Adam’s voice, she turned her head to see him sitting at a small round table. He looked relieved to see her awake.

  “Yes, I think so. What happened?” Her voice was croak and her throat was dry. “Have you got any water?”

  Adam nodded and brought over a bottle of water. She struggled to sit up, most of her body aching in some way, but especially her shoulder. She leaned against the wall and took the bottle from Adam. She downed it, the taste of water igniting her thirst.

  “Arthur took out the bullet,” said Adam. “It was pretty cool. Loads of blood. Here’s the bullet.” He reached over to the table and handed her a small metal pellet, snub and squashed, the creases in the metal dashed with red. Such a tiny thing, so much pain.

  “Awesome isn’t it?”

  “I guess so,” said Harriet. She smiled at Adam, “come here you.” She gave him a hug with her good arm. He hugged her tightly.

  “I was worried you were going to die too,” he said into the nape of her neck. His warm breath against her neck was wonderful, a reminder she was alive.

  “I’m not going anywhere, not yet. Who would look after you?”

  They ended their embrace and Adam laughed, “I’ve been the one looking after you.”

  “Yes you have,” she ruffled his hair. “Where’s Arthur?”

  “He found a village nearby, that’s were he got all the stuff, the sleeping bags and that. That reminds me…” Adam went back to the table and took out a few bottles of pills. “Arthur says you should take one of these, one of these, and this one.” He handed her the pills.

  “I’m going to be rattling with this lot,” she said.

  “Arthur says they’ll keep the germs away.”

  She looked at her shoulder, wrapped up tight in a clean white bandage. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “About two days,” said Adam. “We were worried.”

  “No need to worry now, big man,” she took his hand. “Now let’s get these tablets down.”

  Arthur filled his bag with the noodles. The small village shop was remarkably well stocked. Most places had been cleaned of anything useful or edible. Whether that had happened in the panic before the Fall, or in the aftermath by survivors like himself, he didn’t know, or care. It was just how it was.

  It made rare gems such as this shop, this whole village, a real find. The pharmacy had been well stocked; he had found all the antibiotics he needed for Harriet, and got some good supplies from a small camping and caving shop. There had only been a handful of zombies to take care of. Maybe they find a house here, settle until Harriet was better.

  He could do with the rest, too. He squeezed his leg. A half-inch deep chunk of flesh had been scathed out by the bullet. He had doused it in antibiotics, alcohol and anything else the pharmacy had to offer. It would heal, but keeping infection at bay was vital for now. If he got infected, he would likely die. He had it wrapped tight, and a healthy rivulet of thick white pus had formed over the cut. If he could just keep it dry and not tax it too much, he would have a chance.

  This had been a good search. He counted through the loot in his mind: some thermal underwear for them all, gloves, head torches, bags of noodles, condensed milk, gas cooking stove, matches, hunting knife, and a four man tent in a nice dull green colour.

  He stepped out of the shop into the empty village street. Small cottages in old stone sat next to shop fronts. The start and end of the village could be seen from where he was standing, only a hundred yards apart. The rain was dying off to an annoying spit. He pulled up his hood. He was looking forward to getting the thermals on. It was one thing he’d never got used to in England, the weather. Nigeria was always sunny and hot, or it was raining and hot. En
gland could be anything and everything in the space of an hour. He chuckled to himself thinking of his wife, Daisy -It’s like a pick and mix here, thrown in the air. Every weather every day! she used to say.

  His smile faltered as the simple memory expanded to a memory of his family, to the realisation they were probably dead and he would never see them again. His wonderful kids, so smiling and full of life and ready for the world. It was the cruellest thing, the number of children who were gone, who no longer lived to bring happiness to he world.

  He understood how Harriet had come to love Adam so quickly. He had too. Feeling love was needed for hope, and hope was needed to survive.

  A sound cut into this thoughts.

  He stopped walking and listened carefully, the noise blowing in and out with the wind.

  Engines. Vehicles of some sort.

  His insides gripped into a tight ball - was it Kyle’s gang, had they found them?

  He ducked into a side street and crouched behind a car, peering down the gap between it and a wall towards the main road.

  The noise got louder. Throbbing, humming engines; so dirty in this silent world.

  He held his breath and made sure he was well hidden. The first vehicle raced passed the side road. A flash of green.

  Army green.

  Another one followed quickly - it was an army jeep.

  A third and then a fourth. Heading in the direction of the petrol station, only half a mile away. They would be there in minutes, but it would take Arthur at least twenty to get there, still hobbled by his injured leg.

  He got out from behind the car and headed as fast as he could onto the main road, and back towards the petrol station, his heart pumping with fear for his new family.

  Chapter 10

  Harriet watched as Adam busied himself, going through the goods Arthur had collected the previous day. He frowned in concentration as he moved the items into three different piles.

  “What are you up to Adam?

  “I’m separating the stuff, one pile for each of us to carry.”

  “Who’s got the big pile?”

  “Arthur of course.”

  Adam picked up a thermal blanket and put it in Arthur’s pile.