by RR Haywood
The road does feed into the town centre and ends at a junction with the High Street where she stops to stare with her mouth hanging open. A moped lies on its side further down the street. In the opposite direction is an armoured cash in transit van with the doors wide open that looks like it crashed into the front of a building running over and crushing loads of infected at the same time. She can see the right leads out of town and away from the shops. She goes left, reluctant but confident they can go quickly. Besides, whatever happened here was a while ago. It must have stunk to high heaven before the storm and a rancid stench still hangs thick and sweet.
The further they go the more bodies they see. Small groups at first then tens of them. A beaten up old Nissan Micra left with its doors open and the metal sides smeared with blood. The windscreen smashed in. More bodies lead away towards the precinct where loads of corpses lie from being crushed by something heavy ramming them into the solid barrier. More stretch off across the ground so thick in number. The tens become hundreds. Literally hundreds of corpses forming a rotting carpet. She gains an idea that something big hit the barrier to the precinct crushing loads of infected then whoever was in that vehicle got out and fought back. There must have been loads of them. Like that army truck. People like that. Hard people that know what they’re doing. She looks for bullet casings but finds none. That makes her take in the details on the bodies. None of them have been bitten like Paco’s throat and most have had their throats slit in the same way she saw before. She spots a pair of lump hammers bloodied and dropped on the ground. A sledgehammer a bit further away then a chainsaw and other hand tools in a route all leading to the front of a smashed in DIY store.
She frowns at the sight, feeling somewhat proud that someone had a go at fighting back. Whoever it was got loads. There is a whole world still at play with things happening she has no knowledge of and doesn’t want to know about. It isn’t her concern. None of this is her concern.
‘Come on,’ she leads him into the precinct where thankfully the bodies becomes fewer. This town was certainly hit hard. Every shop window is smashed through, every door hangs off hinges or lies broken. The insides of those shops have been ransacked too. Clothes strewn everywhere. Travel brochures from travel agents, once glossy and promising far flung adventures but now a gloopy mess after being saturated by the storm. Debris lies everywhere. Chairs from an outside eatery overturned amongst stainless steel tables and big outside gas heaters. Glasses, cups and plates from the bars and restaurants broken and smashed. This is the apocalypse right here. This is the fall of humanity in all the grot and shit. It’s offensive. She is offended by the sight of it. By the smell and by the cheapness of life and what it was before it all came crashing down.
She shows that distaste too in a scowl that forms to stay. There’s nothing usable here and even if there was she wouldn’t want it. Not from this place. It’s tainted and dirty with corruption that would forever mark them. She moves closer to Paco, to feel his presence and he in turn detects her unease and stands straighter, taller with his head higher. She loops her arm through his, holding him tight. She doesn’t want any of this to touch them. What they have is beyond this. There is no connection, no relativity. Keep moving and get out. She’d rather forage in houses than scavenge like a rat in this filth.
Through that centre they pass to reach the side streets of commercial buildings. Garages, car sales, engineering workshops, carpet and furniture retailers. It’s still tainted. It belongs to this place and not to them. She could take a car and drive away but even that thought is repellent. Walking is their thing. That’s what they do now. They walk.
‘Tesco,’ she whispers at the huge sign standing clear across the vast empty car park. Residential streets at their back and the town centre only a few minutes away and it’s no surprise to find one of the supermarket warehouses situated on the edge. It’s huge too. A monstrosity of glass, metal and shiny white plastic surrounded by a concrete wasteland that disgorged the greed of the masses to take what they could without regard of where it came from.
They need supplies though. She guesses the food will be gone judging by the level of looting in the town but it might still have bandages and other things they need. Paco needs more clothes too. They both do and supermarkets this size normally have a clothing department.
There’s no noise. No signs of life. No sounds of anything. She checks Paco again who stares down at her. His eyes somehow conveying worry. ‘I’m okay,’ she smiles weakly but gives his arm a squeeze. ‘Come on, in and out yeah?’
The journey across the openness of the car park begins. Early evening and the sky overhead is still blue and deep. The air is still warm but it’s not pleasant. Not here. Not now. Her eyes scan the sides. She turns to check behind them. All empty. All quiet. The doors are reached without incident but the smell coming from within stops her dead. The smell is beyond anything she ever thought possible. A richly sweet stench of decaying meat mixed with blood, faeces and God only knows what else. From the entrance she spots the thick lines of blood lying like wakes across the once highly polished floor. Drag lines clear and obvious.
She holds still, edging forward with an attempt to withstand the smell but it repels her back like an invisible wall. She can taste it on her tongue.
‘God,’ she backs away covering her mouth with the back of her arm. She goes to turn away, to leave and forget this town ever existed but her eyes clock goods still on shelves. She moves out down the front to peer through the windows seeing aisles of shelves still filled with things. There’s been looting here but nothing on the scale there was in the town. It’s that smell. It would drive anyone away. She hesitates, thinking hard. They can get loads from here. Enough to last days.
She slides the bag off, opens the flap and pulls out a clean top that she wraps round the lower half of her face and tucks into her t shirt. Sod it. The shop has what they need. In and out.
‘Come on…’ she takes his hand to lead him inside then stops, goes back and takes another of her tops that she wraps round his face. Both of them become bandits. Robbers intent on mischief and at any other time she’d find the humour and laugh but not now and not here.
The smell gets through the material and makes her eyes water within a few steps. She tries breathing through her mouth instead but it makes no difference. The customer service counter lies ahead with a row of knives left on the top. Butchers knives, meat slicers, carving blades from big to small. Macabre and sinister. She clings to Paco, pushing into his side to feel his warmth with her hand unknowingly kneading his bicep. She aims up the first wider access aisle, past the newspaper and magazine stands still filled with smiling faces of perfect white teeth. She spots Paco. His broad handsome face so tanned and alive on the cover of some glossy magazine promoting a new workout to get arms like Paco Maguire and make women swoon! She tuts and shoots him a dark look. She’d say something about women swooning and his absurdly high numbers that’s got to be like six thousand at least, but she doesn’t say anything. Speaking means breathing which isn’t going to happen unless she’s desperate.
A noise reaches her ears. A weird solid buzzing like an electric machine but far off that’s rising and dropping in pitch and tone. She recognises it but can’t place it. No other noises though. The further down the aisle they go the louder the buzzing becomes. Like one of those new drones but, no…more than one. It sounds organic, like natural. The blood trails go this way too. Up this aisle to the middle section that runs the width of the store. They reach the corner and see. They see it all in one glimpse of a sight that can never now be taken away. Her heart jack hammers as her stomach heaves to drop and twist. The back of her throat tugs as the precursor to vomiting. At least she knows where the buzzing is coming from now.
Flies. Thousands, hundreds of thousands that rise in clouds to drop and feast on the mound of bodies stacked in the middle aisle like a wall. Human beings and each with their throats slit so they bled out as they were dragged up to be take
n round the corner and stacked. Arms hang down, legs poke out between the bricks of human cadavers. Heads hanging down from necks cut open. Red bloodshot eyes dead and lifeless. Pale bodies drained of blood. The ones at the bottom are just meat. Squished and sunken from the weight bearing down. Those on the top and sides writhe with maggots. Thousands upon thousands of fat little maggots that make the whole thing seem alive. The first thing she notices is the neatness of it which instantly makes her think of the farmhouse and the two bodies in the kitchen. The way they’re stacked on top like bricks but overlapping so the mass supports the weight. A mop and bucket at the side on a patch of floor that was cleaned but now has bloodied footprints going through it. She can see the spreading pool of goo being pushed out the bottom of the mound will soon cover the entire width of the aisle.
In the horror of the view she spots the cut necks, the same as she’s seen time and again now. The knives on the customer service desk. Lots of knives. Lots of slit throats but all of them are infected. This is days old though. More than that. This was done at the start. The decay is clear even to her untrained eyes.
Okay. You’ve seen it now. Move on. Get what you need and leave. She looks at Paco who stares at the mound but shows no signs of alarm or aggression. Where first? Bandages and medical supplies. She leads him back to the use another narrower aisle to circumvent the mound to reach the health and beauty aisles. She gets the bag open and starts loading with dressings, antiseptic creams and sprays, bottles of anti-bac, she grabs multivitamins and anything she thinks might be of use. Razors too. Her legs and armpits have never been so hairy. One aisle leads to another in the genius but sickening design perfected by years of money grabbing corporations desperate to prise the last bit of money from your dying hands. She loads as she goes, tinned food, packet food, high energy, protein bars, nuts and muesli. She spots signs of looting and empty wrappers lying strewn across the floor as though someone was in here eating as they browsed. A big packet of dried pasta. Tins of tomatoes and loads of tuna. The stench is nauseating. Her head swims and she has to blink to clear the mist in her eyes. On they go, side by side with Heather filling the bag.
‘Ssshhhh…’
‘FUCK,’ she drops the bag to spin with fright. Her eyes wide and strobing every direction. ‘Did you hear that?’ she demands to Paco. ‘What…who was that…’
Snatched words hushed and quiet. A rustle of fabric, feet running then silence until that small voice comes again. ‘Ssshhhh.’
Heather swallows, her hand reaching for Paco to pull him close. ‘WHO IS THAT?’ She yells out, her voice cracking with fear. Paco tenses, detecting her fear which makes her heart hammer even more.
The voices come again. Quiet and hushed then feet running fast and light on a hard surface. She spins to look down to the end of the aisle then to other. One of voices was that way but the running was the other end. ‘WE’RE LEAVING,’ Heather calls out. ‘WE’LL GO…’
‘Say something…’
‘No! Be quiet.’
‘It’s a woman and a man…say some…’
‘Ssshhhh.’
Children. It’s children. A boy and a girl. Heather grabs the bag, closes the flap and hefts it up onto her back. ‘WE’RE GOING…WE JUST NEEDED FOOD…’
‘Say something, Subi.’ she hears the boy whispering urgently.
‘Er…’ the girl calls out, fear and uncertainty in her voice. ‘You can help yourself,’ she adds politely.
Heather starts walking. Her hand holding Paco to keep him close. ‘THANKS…WE’RE GOING NOW…’
‘Is it mummy?’
Heather stops in her tracks at the third much younger voice.
‘No. I told you, mummy’s dead. Ssshhh,’ the girl says.
Don’t do it. Keep going. She starts off again going faster with her hand tightly grasping Paco’s.
‘Ask her about the fort,’ the boy urges.
‘They just wanted food…they’re going now,’ the girl replies.
‘Ask them about the fort…’
‘Maybe mummy has come back now.’
Oh God no. Keep going. Don’t stop. They reach the clothing section they so desperately needed and keep going to get past until Heather glimpses a bright pink pop up tent between the rails. Chocolate wrappers all over the floor. Biscuits, crisps and snack food. Empty soda cans, bottles of coke, cherryade and lemonade. Don’t do it. Not your problem.
‘Er…’ the girl speaks out, her voice floating from a location unseen but definitely coming from somewhere within the rails of clothes. ‘Do you know where the fort is?’
‘No,’ Heather’s reply is instant, almost brutal. Other people are not your problem.
‘See, I asked her,’ the girl’s whispering voice comes clear.
‘Okay,’ the boy replies, dejected and quiet with a tone that makes Heather wince and scowl and hate herself and the whole bloody pissing world and all that’s in it. She stops. Furious with herself and wanting only to leave.
‘Is mummy at the thought?’
Heather stares daggers at the ceiling, her fingers tightening to squeeze Paco’s hand who looks down at it in surprise.
‘Fort and no, mummy is dead. I told you now stop asking…’
‘Fuck it,’ Heather mutters, ‘where are your parents?’ She calls out without knowing she was going to call and instantly chastises herself. The girl already said their mother is dead.
‘Mum died,’ the girl calls back which just makes Heather hate herself even for more for the girl clearly trying to sound grown up and use the word mum instead of mummy.
‘Your dad?’ Heather asks, her tone still hard.
‘He killed mummy...’
Oh you had to ask. You had to bloody ask. Just leave. Go. Walk on. Walk out.
‘Why are you here?’ She asks instead, refusing to turn and look but staring at the route ahead as though wishing she could just run down it and be away from here.
‘They don’t come here,’ the girl calls back. ‘The things…they…they can’t smell us in here…’
‘Okay,’ Heather snaps. See, they’re fine. The things don’t come here. They’re safe. Plenty of food here, plenty to drink. Nice and dry too. She closes her eyes, willing herself to go and leave with Paco so they can find a barn and have a fire and she can feed him tuna and wipe the brine from his beard. ‘Where are you?’ she asks.
‘Don’t tell her,’ the boy urges. The girl hesitates, about to speak then stopping.
‘It’s okay,’ Heather forces a softer tone to her voice. ‘I won’t hurt you.’
‘In here,’ the girl replies instantly. ‘In the clothes section.’
‘Don’t tell her that!’ The boy whispers frantically with terror in his voice.
‘I’m coming in…don’t run off,’ Heather turns and walks in, snatching a pair of mirrored sunglasses from a stand that she shoves on Paco who flinches and tries to pull away. ‘Leave them on,’ she whispers, pushing his hand away. ‘I said no, leave them on…stop it…oh don’t act blind they’re only sunglasses. Right give me your hands. Hands. Both hands…good, now leave them on.’
She walks him on with one hand holding both of his to stop him plucking the sunglasses off that he tries to shake free instead. She aims for the pink pop up tent, tracking a route through rails of clothes that have been moved about to form an inner circle.
‘Christ,’ she mutters at the mess, staring down at a sea of food wrappers and drink containers. ‘Where are you?’
The flap on the pop up tent lifts to reveal a young female face blinking out in wide eyed fear at the sight of the two bandits. One of whom is wearing sunglasses while swinging his head side to side. A boy appears next to the girl, his own face scared witless with tears welling in his eyes.
‘Why are you crying?’ Heather asks bluntly, she follows the direction of their gazes to Paco with his face covered by the t shirt and his glasses now dislodged as he tries to rave on the spot. ‘Stop,’ Heather tuts, pulling him straight to adjust his glasses.
She tugs his bandit mask down too. ‘You are scaring the children now stop it. You’re fine. They’re just glasses….oh come on now,’ she reaches up to smooth his face with her yellow gloved hands. Stroking his cheeks gently as he calms and relaxes on the spot. ‘See, just glasses,’ she says gently. She turns back to the children. ‘You can’t stay here,’ she adds bluntly then remembers her own bandit mask is still up. She pulls it down and blanches at the smell. ‘Phew that stinks…you can’t stay here.’
The girl waves her hand to swat the flies buzzing her face as hundreds more crawl over the surface of the tent and more still feast on the remnants of food on the floor amongst the maggots. The girl hesitates, her eyes darting from the man to the woman, her matted hair hangs down to her shoulders leaving grease marks on her once pink top. Her hands filthy but not as bad as the boy who looks like he just crawled from a sewer. Heather takes it all in with a sense of creeping horror that children have been left to live like this. Surviving in a supermarket filled with rotting corpses. ‘You have to leave,’ she says, pursing her lips at the smell now wafting stronger for the lack of cover on her face.
‘But…’ the girl shows panic, snatching a glance at her brother then over her shoulder to look deeper in the tent. She says something quiet and low.
‘Someone else in there?’ Heather asks, she heard three voices. The third must be behind the girl and boy. ‘Let me see,’ she goes forward too fast. The boy and girl shy back afraid and fearful. ‘It’s okay,’ Heather says, slowing her motion. ‘Who’s in there?’