by Frank Tayell
We took half the water, left the keys and I added a message of my own. I apologised for the theft and broken door and included a note about the Manor and the supplies there. I doubt, after all this time, anyone will ever come looking, but even so, I felt I couldn't do any less.
Day 109, Stonehenge.
20:00 29th June.
I woke as the first light of dawn was playing through the avenue of trees by the edge of the road, causing eldritch shadows to dance along the walls of the bedroom. In that moment of half-sleep, staring at that immaculate white painted ceiling in that strangely quiet house, everything seemed, for one blissful second, to be normal once more.
Then my leg began its morning round of twitching, forcing me to get up. Kim was already awake. I don't know if she slept. Perhaps she can't. I didn't ask.
We breakfasted on pasta with redcurrants, blackcurrants and some not quite ripe blueberries we'd harvested from the gardens of the neighbouring houses. Truly, the breakfast of champions! At least we had some coffee to go with it.
There was a narrow lane at the bottom of the garden that meandered vaguely in the direction we wanted. We followed it for a half or mile or so, sometimes surrounded by trees, occasionally by fences, and sometimes by once cultivated hedges now grown ragged with a season's unchecked growth. We were quiet. We were cautious. We took our time. There was something in the air that made me reluctant to hurry up and leave it behind. I wanted to drink it all in, to saturate myself in this beautifully peaceful English summer's day.
Eventually we did reach the end of the lane, and a small cottage whose garden backed onto Salisbury Plain. There were no signs of life, or the undead, about the house, but out in the rear garden, nestled between a mountain of flower pots and a folded up cold-frame was a chicken coup. The wire was intact, no foxes or cats or anything bigger had come to prey on these animals. They had starved or died from dehydration when no one was left to care for them.
That brought us back to Earth, or at least it did me. Kim had maintained a stolid silence all morning. I stood looking at the dead birds for a moment, thinking about all that they represented. Then, as I turned to Kim, I spotted a gate half buried in the hedgerow. It was an old wooden affair, the supports tinged green with moss, which added an ominous shadow to the faces still visible in the once ornately carved pattern. It was ajar. Through it I could see fields and the wide expanse of the Plain beyond, but between us and the grassland squatted a solitary, stationary zombie.
It hadn't heard us and I don't think Kim had spotted it. I had, I wanted to test my new pike and here was the perfect opportunity. No, that's just an excuse and a weak one at that. I could say that it was some subconscious response to finally finding company and realising that everything, or nothing, had changed, but in truth I don't know what came over me. Perhaps it was just another one of those weird compulsions, something that doesn't have a reason, or if it does, where the reason doesn't matter. I motioned for Kim to stay where she was and, cautiously, stalked through the gate and into the field.
I was bent over, with the pike held parallel to the ground just a few inches above the grass. The zombie had its back to me, the tattered remnants of a red thigh length jacket blowing in the morning breeze. I kept my breathing shallow, as I took step after cautious step toward it.
I was twenty paces away when it's back straightened. I stopped, counted slowly to five, then took another step. The creature didn't move. My eyes fixed upon the back of its head. I took another pace forward. It's head tilted suddenly to one side. I froze, my foot in the air. I couldn't hold the position for long, but I wanted to get closer. I could have attacked, right then, I could have moved quickly and swung the pike and finished it. But I didn't.
I breathed out and lowered my foot, but this time I hadn't checked my footing. As my weight shifted, a branch snapped with a crack that seemed to echo for miles, though probably it only carried a few hundred yards. The zombie heard it, though. It stood and turned in one quick motion. I shifted my stance and brought the pike up. As the blade reached the top of its arc, as sunlight glinted on the blade, as I changed my grip and altered my balance, the creature suddenly collapsed, a bullet through its skull.
“Don't do that again,” Kim said, reloading the rifle.
Even on the bikes we couldn't travel quickly. Rabbit holes, mounds, and dips concealed by the tall grass continually brought us to a jarring halt. We got bogged down in the forests of weeds that made the corrugated earth of the fields beneath seem deceptively flat. Impenetrable hedges, and sturdy chain-link fences denoting the Ministry of Defence training grounds, forced us to detour and double back. It was agonisingly slow progress, and as the sun rose in the sky and the dawn warmth turned to an early-morning simmer, I began to regret this tourist's detour.
Then we would come to some small ridge, clear enough of obstructions that we could pump away at the pedals, whilst all about us we could see nothing but a great open expanse of newly-wild splendour. We'd cover half a mile or so in little more time than it takes to write, but then the ridge would twist and we'd be forced to plunge, once more, into the morass of vegetation. Occasionally we'd stop, pause and look behind us at the flattened path we'd ploughed through the long green and yellow grass. As far as the eye could see, this furrow was the only sign of man in the encroaching wilderness.
It had been my decision to go to Stonehenge, at least I suggested it, and Kim didn't object. Actually, she didn't say anything at all, so we went.
It wasn't much of a detour, being only a few miles off our direct route to the Abbey. The stones may have stood for over five thousand years, and with the decline of our species, they are likely to stand for five thousand years to come, but I felt this might well be the last chance I ever have to see Stonehenge. The world has become much smaller now, stretching no further than the horizon, and often not nearly as far as that. Who knows if I will ever pass this way again? That, and without any barriers or by-laws preventing me, I'd finally be able to get close enough to see the graffiti Christopher Wren carved into the ancient monument a few centuries ago.
There aren't many undead on the Plain. There are a few who have drifted onto the grassland, but until we got closer to Stonehenge we'd seen only a few dozen, and usually from miles away. At first, I was concerned that with all this open space, with no brick walls and shrubberies to hide behind, They would be able to see us from further away, that as soon as one did, we would slowly become surrounded. Images of a last stand on some hill whilst They came staggering towards us in numbers too great to count played across my mind. It turns out we had little to fear. Over distances of more than a few hundred yards They are effectively blind.
Now I've seen it for myself, I should have realised this earlier. Their bodies become desiccated with time, drying up as the virus absorbs, or converts or burns off or whatever, the fluids within it. Without tears, grit and dirt would build up and scratch corneas, blinding Them.
In London, when I climbed to the roof of that office block and stood and saw the barricades along the river bank, and the sea of ghoulish turning to stare at me, I was wrong. They weren't staring. They hadn't seen me. They'd heard me.
I can't really stress how important a discovery this is to us. Knowing that, as long as we keep the bicycle oiled, our gear wrapped and a safe distance from Them, we can pass by unseen, unheard and undetected, is a great relief, but this discovery means so much more than that. It's another part of the reason I need to go to Lenham Hill. What else don't we know that could help us do more than just exist in this world, and where else can we find the answers?
We reached Stonehenge at around ten am. We missed the dawn, and this close to mid-summer it would be tempting to throw caution to the wind and camp out just to see the stones at sunrise. But even without the undead it would be too dangerous to stay here. The stones have a new guardian, one that has long been a danger to man and, judging by the evidence about us, and one that is even more dangerous than the undead.
We
knew something was wrong from a couple of miles away when we saw the first body. It was definitely that of a zombie, but it had been mauled. The face had been torn off, the skull crushed and most of a hand had been chewed away. Chewed but not eaten. We found the discarded fingers a few yards from the body, where they had evidently been spat out. We stared at those remains, we looked around, wondering what new monster we faced, what horrific abomination the undead might have mutated into, and, more importantly, in which direction it lay.
We couldn't tell and, since one direction was as good as any other, we headed on, faster now, until we crested a ridge and saw the animals, there amongst the ancient stones. There are lions at Stonehenge.
I always used to hate lions. Not just lions, I had a rule that anything that could, and often did, kill humans should be exterminated, not conserved. Polar bears, sharks, Grizzly's, pretty much everything that lived in Australia. As for lions, to me they were nothing more than tigers with better press.
We watched them for a while, taking it in turns to use the rifle's scope. There's a male, a female and at least one cub. They must have come from the safari park, but whether they escaped or whether they were purposefully released, I can't tell. It doesn't matter. That they are there, that is enough.
I watched the lioness disembowel one of the undead with its claws. I saw the male pounce from one of the stones, knocking a zombie down then crush its skull between its jaws. I watched as the cub darted out between the two adults to nip at a zombie's ragged legs. I saw the female swat it back towards the ring of stones, before turning on the undead creature and ripping its throat out.
Again and again, the zombies came, in ones and twos, drifting in from the countryside. Again and again the lions dispatched Them. They didn't rush, they took it in turns, they could have run at any time, but I think, no, I’m certain, they had decided that this was their territory, that they were in no danger, and that they were not going to flee. And that is why I am terrified of lions.
“The lions aren't infected,” I said, handing the scope back to Kim. “They're not eating the zombies. They're biting Them, and they're not getting infected. So if lions have survived, why not goats and sheep and cattle and who knows what else.”
Then we heard the lioness roar. That truly echoed for miles.
“We should go,” Kim said.
“Sure,” I said, making no move to leave.
“That noise travelled for miles,” She said.
“Yep.”
“We didn't hear it before. The lioness didn't roar until we arrived. We should go. Now.”
After that we had to head further south than I would have liked, leaving the Plain and returning to the roads. We've stopped for the night a few miles from the city of Salisbury. Tomorrow we'll have to go even further south just to avoid going through the city itself, but then, we'll be able to head back the Abbey, and perhaps just a few days after that, I will be at Lenham Hill.
Day 110, Raysbury, Hampshire.
09:00, 30th June.
We're about twenty miles north of Southampton, and even from here I can tell the city is nothing but ruins. Smoke, drifting thinly into the sky, speaks of some great conflagration, perhaps one that engulfed the entire coast.
The main enclave for the south of England was meant to stretch from there all the way along to the nuclear power station at Dungeness in Kent. I've not thought much about the enclaves and the fate of those living there. After I saw the mass murder of the evacuees at the muster point a few weeks ago, I assumed that those in the enclaves must have faced a similar fate. Nowhere have I seen any signs that even the merest fragment of our old civilisation remains. I've seen no helicopters, no planes, no evidence of any gangs clearing roads or organised in state sponsored looting. If I needed it, then those few wisps of oily black smoke are all the proof I needed that if there is some bastion of humanity left on this planet, it is not in southern England. That isn't to say there is no life at all.
Raysbury Gardens is a building site that up until a year or so ago was the Raysbury Park House Hotel, and was in the midst of a conversion into the “Raysbury Gardens Assisted Living Facility”.
It's a U-shaped building, with four storeys at the front, three on either side and a partly finished enclosed conservatory area connecting the two. Even if it wasn't for the brochure, or rather the seven unopened boxes of brochures, stacked in one of the downstairs rooms, it would have been easy to guess at the building's intended purpose. It's full of panic buttons, sit-down showers and stair lifts. There was no food here, but we're four meals away from hungry and two litres of water away from being thirsty.
Outside the house is a stretch of would-be gardens. String squares, rectangles and circles litter the ground mapping where future flower beds and lawns now will never be. On the far side, ringing the grounds, is a twelve foot high brick wall, covered in moss and ivy. It looks deceptively fragile, but in that way that only bricks that have stood for a century and will stand for a century more, can.
We came in through the main gates, to the south west, on the other side of the wall, to the east, the road meanders along for about six hundred yards until it comes to a junction. The road continues east and south, until it eventually meets an A-road heading to the sea. But if you were to turn left at the junction, you would drive into Raysbury, with its award winning High Street, and its pack of the undead.
We were cycling along the road when we saw the gates. We stopped. With a high wall on one side of the narrow road, and impenetrable scrub encroaching from the other, we were both getting a little nervous. Or at least I was. Kim's expression was as blank as ever. The gates were padlocked, but with the appearance of disuse that suggested it had been done before the outbreak. We broke in and re-secured the gates. The house looked empty, there were no odd footprints in the loose earth and none of the windows or doors had been broken.
We were about to go inside when the wind shifted, bringing with it the unmistakable susurrus of the undead, and with it something far more chilling.
They weren't close, but if we could hear Them, then the undead were far closer than I would have liked. We broke into the house and made our way to the top floor. We went from room to room, looking out the windows until we saw the undead.
The High Street is bracketed by a pub at each end. In between are a smattering of barbers, hairdressers, bridal shops, florists, tweed outfitters and a fish restaurant. Even from this distance I could tell it was a restaurant, not a fish and chip shop. It looks like the type that had pressed linen table clothes, squid ink risotto on the menu, and if they did do takeaways, they would very definitely not be served wrapped in paper. It's outside that restaurant that the zombies are most densely gathered. It's against that door that They are pawing and clawing, trying to get in.
“How many? A hundred?” I asked, handing Kim back the scope.
“Closer to a hundred and fifty. Factor in those we can't see, and I'd say two hundred. Probably more.”
The wind shifted. Through the open window we again heard the unmistakable sound of a baby crying.
11:00, 30th June.
“Two, maybe three survivors. No more,” Kim said, still peering out the window. She'd barely moved from there. I had walked the grounds, found a rusted gate on the village side of the wall, searched the house and taken the time to update my journal. She just stood and watched, and, I assume, thought. What of, she didn't say.
“How do you know? Can you see them?” I asked, standing up and peering into the distance.
“Someone's comforting the child. That's why the crying is intermittent. That makes two. Any more than three and some of them would have tried to escape. Maybe they did. Either way, now there's two of them, maybe three, no more. And that's counting the baby.” She emphasised the last word.
I followed her gaze to the High Street. The pack wasn't moving much, some were clawing at the door to the restaurant, some at the walls and doors to either side. There was some heaving and shoving as those a
t the back tried to push through the others, but broadly speaking, They were static. No more seemed to be coming in from the countryside, and, of course, none that were there had any intention of leaving.
“We have to do something,” Kim said flatly, her eyes still fixed on the High Street.
If it wasn't for the baby, if it had been an adult's cry of pain then I honestly can't say what I would do. But it was a child. Even if Kim wasn't here, with her clear determination to act, I would have done something, but standing there looking at the great mass of the undead, I just couldn't think what.
“There's nothing in the house. Nothing in the grounds,” I said. “No car, no truck, no tractors.” I had an idea that if we could find a heavy enough vehicle, a front-loading digger, perhaps, we could just drive through, crushing any zombies who got in our way. It was a disturbingly pleasing image, but there was no vehicle. “No. Nothing here,” I repeated. “No chemicals for fire.”
“Fire's too risky. Have you seen what happens when a zombie catches fire?”
I thought for a moment “No,” I admitted.
“Neither have I,” she said. “Probably They just stand and burn. You can't control fire. You can't stop it spreading to the restaurant.”
“What about shooting Them?” I suggested, “There's enough ammo isn't there?”
“Maybe. If we had time. If I could see Them all. If I got Them with one shot each. Maybe. But probably not.”
“You take out as many as you can, then I'll go in and kill the rest,” I suggested.
“You'd be facing at least a hundred,” she said. “So, no.”
“Then,” I said slowly, as an idea was beginning to form, “what if we could lure Them all away?”
