Years had taken their toll, and we had rowed over boys and clothes, but always we had come back to each other, connected by our past and needing support from each other to face our future.
I thought back to our drunken nights in front of movies we didn’t watch because we were too busy chatting about men, holidays or money.
I thought of how much I’d cried in this kitchen when I had broken up with different boyfriends, how Mary Jane had handed me endless tissues, and got out the chocolate chip ice-cream.
Beautiful Mary, strong Mary, my Mary. Gone. I wanted to run back upstairs and shout at her to stop pretending, to stamp my foot like a petulant child and tell her to stop being stupid. I wanted to scream, but I just cried and cried for all the things she would never do now, all our plans, all our dreams, and for my own bitter loneliness.
I reached out to try the small television on the countertop, but the power was still out, so nothing worked. It was habit taking over and making me do silly things.
This fresh thought of nothing working set me off again, I began sobbing into my hands; I looked around for some tissues and I saw her collection of photos on the fridge. Approaching them, I remembered long-forgotten day trips and short breaks together. Here was a picture of us in waitress outfits, trying out summer in Spain, there was a selfie of the two of us, my blonde hair was covering most of my face and her curls were even crazier than usual, but you could still see our smiles. I sighed sadly to myself as I looked at the words spelt out in magnets ‘Mary and Cat 4 eve.” My tears started to flow again, and the pictures blurred. One of me and Mary Jane on a coach caught my attention, and I thought about the computer games we played on her old hand-held console, on that long coach trip to Cologne last year and the way we had laughed when it started picking up German television, those wacky game shows had made us giggle so much.
Suddenly my heart began to race. The console was battery powered and had an aerial. If it could pick up an analogue signal, I could watch the news and that might tell me what the hell was going on.
I searched the front room until I found the hand-held unit and switched it on. I’d seen Mary Jane do it a hundred times, but I had to fiddle with it for quite a while before I managed to tune it into the news. Seeing the familiar presenters’ faces was quite comforting and at first, I didn’t realise it was an emergency broadcast.
I tuned in just as they said, “Get into your basements; stuff all the cracks around your home with whatever you have to hand. Do not let the gas in. This is not a hoax; we have had confirmation of 3342 gas cylinder locations, they are finding more every minute, moving them seems to set them off, so if you find one do not touch it. The police and fire crews are working to remove the danger. Do not leave your homes. We repeat, stay in your homes. Keep out of the gas. Statements have come in from two separate terrorist groups; both are taking credit for this attack. If you see cylinders, stay low and go inside. We have reports of cylinders in Paris and Rome. There are rumours of many states in America reporting gas fatalities. This is a highly organised and coordinated attack. Please do not leave your homes for any reason and try not to panic”. The screen jumped slightly and then the presenters continued, “We do not want to cause panic and alarm. Please do not try to leave your homes; this is a threat of global proportions. Thousands of cylinders have been placed in hidden locations. They have begun to dispense a toxic gas, do not approach the cylinders if you see them, they are long, thin and metallic with a nozzle on each end. Please do all you can to stay away from the gas, get into your basements, stuff all the cracks around your home with whatever you have to hand, don’t let the gas in. This is not a hoax…….” The message actually played 3 times before I realised it was on a loop. I tried other channels with no success. Most of them seemed to be static, or they had a test signal playing endlessly.
The enormity of what I had just heard had not sunk in. I thought about the metal containers I had seen by the side of the road were they these cylinders that the presenters thought so harmful?
As I switched the console off, I started to become concerned about survival. Was everyone dead, lying in their houses like Mary?
What time did the message start? I’d gone to bed pretty early, taken a sleeping pill, and put in my earplugs. Is that why I had not heard sirens or my phone ringing? Had people run scared? Had anyone tried to contact me? There was no one in the streets, no cars. It must have been late at night and happened whilst everyone slept. Was that why there are no bodies lying in the street? Could it be the reason there were dead birds everywhere? I felt a little sick at the thought of the surrounding houses, possibly all full of corpses. Families in bed, dead and rotting, their flesh beginning to smell as it decomposed. I shook myself, no time to get spooked or start crying, I had to think rationally. I needed to look after myself; if this was a crisis then the government would be trying to fix it. Someone would come, I just needed to be ready when they did, I had to survive. I went into the hall again and found Mary Jane’s backpack. Carefully I put in the console, the contents of my handbag, and all the tins from the cupboard. I took anything that looked edible from the fridge, and finally, I took a picture from the side. It was a favourite of mine, Mary Jane and me in Prague, looking silly with giant cocktails.
The backpack was heavy, but I hefted it onto my shoulders and walked out, remembering to double bolt as I left. Thinking back, there was really no point in locking up, but I could never leave Mary alone in an unsecured house. This seemed like the right thing to do. I couldn’t bury her as I would like to do, but at least she was safe.
My feet took me home. My little maisonette wasn’t much, but it was where I felt safest. As I opened the door, I looked down and saw another cylinder near my feet. Angrily I kicked it into the street and listened to the echo of the metallic clanging as it bounced down the kerb. I wondered how it could have happened. The cylinders had to come from somewhere, someone or maybe many people had to get them in position, but how they could have put them everywhere with no one noticing was beyond me. It wasn’t something I should be worried about, I just had to think about survival for now. I was not dead; I had to cling to that thought and just keep going. Glancing down the small street of houses I found the silence and stillness awful, I stepped inside my doorway and shut my heavy, thick door against that quiet world I no longer knew.
I think I stayed in my little cocoon of denial for about two weeks. The water stopped running, but I had collected as much as possible in my sink and bath. I quickly used up all the bottled water I had stored in readiness for the frequent droughts. The tins of food began to run out and I think my sanity was wearing thin.
At one point the pain of losing everything I knew got to be too much for me and I half-heartedly tried to kill myself, I grabbed all my sleeping pills and the bottle of vodka I had brought to give to my boss on her birthday. I took the lot and climbed into bed, just wanting to be with Mary Jane, wanting the fear and loneliness to end. I remember phasing in and out of consciousness and I think at one point I heard smashing glass, but my head was so heavy I didn’t care anymore. The first time I woke up and was aware of my surroundings, the house was dark, and I smelled rank. I have no idea if I had slept for a day or three, but I was hungry and filthy. I used my overfull toilet, gagging at the stench and ate two tins of vegetables, feeling sick as I drank the juice, they floated in but knowing I needed to hydrate myself somehow. I was ashamed for what I had tried to do, Mary Jane was gone, but I was still here. Who would remember her? If I died, then it was as though she had never lived. Suicide was not the solution; it was a quick end, but what would it solve? I knew I was better than that, I’m a fighter, I would not give up.
I put on the console to watch the recorded news message play just to hear a voice speaking to me and to see a familiar face but I assume the news stations generator had given up as even that had stopped playing and all I got was static.
I opened a window and prayed for the thousandth time for rain; I had buckets on
the windowsills, ready to collect any droplets. But the sky was blue and cloudless.
I had begun to talk to my collection of stuffed toys as though they were real companions. Crazy? Sure.
I smelt terrible, my house smelt terrible, and my sanity was hanging by a thread.
At long last I snapped out of it, I’m not even sure how, but I sat alone in my empty house and realised that if I was still alive, there might be others out there like me. They could need food and water but be afraid to leave their safe havens, like me. Maybe I could find them.
I needed to go outside; I needed food, and I really needed company.
It was the hardest decision of my life; I did not want to leave my little sanctuary, but I had to do something, I had to fight; I had to be more than just alive; I needed to live. The thought of other people spurred me on. Maybe the Army had taken over or help was coming from another country. Maybe I was all alone, but I would never know if I sat here in my own filth and died of dehydration. It was time to leave and to start planning a future for myself in the silent world outside.
Chapter 2 – Outside
I carefully packed up most of what I had left, my tinned goods, some hydrated packs of meat strips, defrosted ice pops that I had been trying to save as treats for myself, a tin opener and a fork. Then I packed some clothes and other essentials, a small medical kit, my wind-up torch, and the hand-held console with a few batteries. I also had a little money, soap, my toothbrush, sanitary items, and the picture of Mary and me.
I had given myself a haircut a few days beforehand so that there wasn’t as much to clean and get in the way; it was short and uneven, but it stopped me having to worry about it. I washed myself down with the last of the dirty water in my bathroom sink. I dry brushed my teeth and used some air freshener as a deodorant. I said goodbye to the dolls and teddies and ran a comb through my newly butchered hair.
I descended slowly to the lower level of my maisonette. Each step brought higher levels of anxiety and fear. Opening the door with a shaking hand I smelt the fresh air, it smelt wonderful after the stench that had crept into every corner of my house. I noticed quite a few windows smashed across the street from me, and my downstairs neighbour’s curtains were flapping in the breeze. ‘Looters’ I thought, and my hopes rose, looters meant people. I wondered why they had not tried to get into my place. Perhaps the lack of ground-level windows had put them off, I couldn’t say. I had trepidations about the kind of people who looted and if they would be the kind of people I wanted to meet, but no matter what, they would be someone to talk to. With a renewed hope of finding civilisation or a facsimile of, I adjusted my backpack and began the lonely walk away from my safe but stale home and out towards the unknown.
The first place I headed was the local shops, these too had broken windows, I stepped carefully over nuggets of safety glass and around large shards of the cheaper sort. Things had been smashed and thrown about and I got much more nervous about the people I might meet, I noticed tins of food scattered and it surprised me that the looters had not taken these. I picked up a few noticing how dented they were, some had what looked like teeth marks, but I dismissed this as my imagination. Maybe they couldn’t find a tin opener. I grabbed some much-needed supplies and with my backpack feeling ever heavier; I headed into the town centre; it wasn’t a long walk, but I noticed a few dead birds, a dead cat, and what looked like a badger on the opposite side of the road. In some places, the grass looked ripped up or burnt. Now and then I spied another canister, and it reminded me of the horror all around me. There seemed to be a lot of the canisters as I wasn’t looking very hard for them and had seen many protruding from bushes or lying in the gutters.
I ignored the odd parked car and hoped that they had no occupants; I passed a bus with the windows smashed and the driver was gone. Maybe he had survived, I peered between the cracks in the safety glass and could see the seats were ripped but no people had been on board, or at least they were not on board now. When I arrived in town, I knew exactly where I wanted to go, and I headed straight for the army surplus store on the high street.
The place looked intact which surprised me; I smashed the smallest, lowest window possible and crawled in; it was very dark inside, but I knew what I was looking for.
Behind the counter was a collection of hunting knives, I picked up two small ones and strapped them to my ankle and my waist. Then I put a few in my pack.
I also wanted the crossbow I had admired many times in the window, I wasn’t any kind of expert, but Mary Jane and I had been having lessons for a few years and we had often come into town to admire the fine bows and arrows that the surplus store held. I crossed back to the front of the store being careful in the gloom and began packing the arrows in my bag and adjusting the bows strap to fit me; I felt a pang of fear and shame at the thought that I was stealing these items from the nice old bloke who ran the store, so I counted some money out to leave on the counter. It was then out of the corner of my eye that I saw movement.
It was outside the store.
Quickly I shouldered the bow and crawled back out, but it seemed to take such a long time to squeeze myself out of the shop.
“Hello” I shouted as I hit the air, my voice trembled, I was terrified of missing them. “Hello” I shouted again, standing up and looking around. That was when I saw a fantastic sight, a person, a real live person there down the main street about 20 meters away to my right, and at the sound of my voice they turned and slowly started towards me. It was a woman, and she was smiling. “Thank god” I called out, my heart was racing and my brain seeming to fuzz over in excitement.
“Hello,” I said again, just wanting to hear her reply. She didn’t reply but kept walking towards me, I put my hand up to shield my eyes from the sun and that’s when; even at a distance; I noticed her eyes, they looked pearly white, like two marbles. I stepped back a little into the shade.
“Are you ok?” I asked loudly. Was she blind? The woman kept coming, a sweet smile on her face, and I got a little scared, thinking of the looters and the burnt grass.
“Stop where you are!” Hearing the quiver in my voice, I slowly brought the bow around, so the woman would see it. “I’m armed, please don’t make me hurt you, I just want you to stop or answer me.”
As the woman got closer, I noticed other things. Her hair was matted, and her face was stained with red. She looked vacant, spaced out, I considered my options. I didn’t feel I had it in me to shoot her as she wasn’t threatening, just odd looking. I looked all around; I wasn’t fit enough to fight hand to hand after my weeks of hunger, so I lowered the bow, turned on my heels, and ran.
I raced towards the alleyway leading into the town’s centre; past a local church trying not to trip on the uneven dirt path. As I reached the front of the church, I turned my head to see if the woman was following and almost tripped over my own feet. “Never look back,” I huffed, scolding myself, but it had given me the chance to see that the woman was following; she was running in long strides, her skirt flying and the same sweet smile on her blank face. I doubled my pace, but the woman had no backpack to carry. She was gaining. I ran into the church graveyard as I tried to get my sweaty hands to grip the bow and load an arrow, whilst running. I was doing too much at once and it was lucky that when I heard someone shout “Get down.” My overloaded brain just made my body drop, I felt something graze my head and then I was staring up at the cloudless sky, feeling my pack digging into my back.
A face appeared in my line of vision, a young guy in his early twenties with dirty, wavy, blonde hair, and a stubbly chin.
“That was close.” I heard him say as he stood looking down at me.
He held out his hand, so I took it, and as he helped me up, I realised he wasn’t alone. There were two other young guys stood by the trees with a girl about my age or younger; all of them were armed, but they didn’t seem to be menacing. One guy looked Italian or Spanish, handsome with wavy black hair, and in his late teens, he had a sword, or som
ething, strapped to his back; the other was tanned and muscled with close-cropped hair. He had a longbow over his shoulder. The girl had her blonde hair braided tight to her head, and she had a small dagger in each hand.
I dusted myself off and ran my hand through my hair, realising I probably looked a sight and heard Mary Jane’s voice laughing in my head. ‘The end of the world and you’re looking for a date!’ It made me smile a little.
I rearranged my pack, held out my hand, and said awkwardly, “I’m Cathy.” My eyes travelled around the small group as the blonde guy who had helped me up, moved his mechanical looking bow from one arm to the other, and shook my hand.
“I’m Mark,” He said, a smile playing on his lips. “It’s nice to meet you; sorry I had to waste your friend.” I looked behind me and saw the strange woman that had chased me lying on the floor, an arrow in her chest; she looked so serene, her eyes still misted over. I guessed she was in her thirties; she was covered in what looked like blood and grass stains.
Quietly I muttered, “Oh, right, Erm… thanks? I guess.” As I spoke the large, burly guy dressed in a ripped combat jacket strode over.
Surviving The Ravenous Page 2
