by Stevens, GJ
“I saw the news this morning,” he said, then his gaze stopped on my face. He took half a step back as he studied me. He then looked to Cassie in the car and then found Shadow with his nose in the grass and looked back. “Are you the guys from the roof?”
But before I could answer, he peered past Jess to the back seats of the pickup, looking to Mandy and then Cassie with her eyes closed.
He nodded and looked back to Jess. “You broke the story. You broke the story of my life. I’ve been preparing for this forever.”
“Wait,” I said, holding my palms out and glancing between Jess gazing at the stranger. “Where’ve you come from? How far have you travelled? What’s it like out there?” I stopped myself as he nodded at each question.
He took a deep breath as I leaned forward, eager for the answers.
“Chertsey, in Surrey,” he said with a wide smile.
I held back the questions continuing to form in my head, like how he’d got here in such a brief time.
“Everything’s fine until you hit Somerset.”
“Fine? What do you mean fine?” Jess cut in before I could.
“Other than some Foot and Mouth epidemic in the South West, you’d have no idea any of this was going on.”
“What?” Jess said, her brow lowering as she turned to Alex then back to him. “But you saw my broadcast? There’s no Foot and Mouth.”
The bobble on his hat nodded as he replied. “I know. That’s why I’m here.”
The questions kept coming as he spoke, but I held myself back.
“They didn’t show everything. The footage was so disjointed, badly edited, and the feed cut before it seemed like it had finished. We saw you on the roof, but they blurred out most of the rest.”
“What happened after they showed it?” Alex cut in with the same question on my lips.
“The government discredited the report, calling it an act of domestic terrorism to spread mass panic. They said the BBC had been hacked, and they arrested some editor.”
Jess pulled in a sharp breath, her brow bunching with anger at the edge of my vision.
“No one believed me?” she said after a moment.
“Some people did. I did.”
“Why didn’t they believe me?” Jess said, stepping back to let the pickup take her weight.
“They pixilated most of the footage and said you weren’t well. You’d had a breakdown. But the energy, the emotion in your words, it was obvious you believed what you were saying.”
“A breakdown,” Jess said, looking to Alex with a furrowed brow.
“I don’t get why they’re trying to completely cover this up,” Alex said, turning to the guy.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” he said, glancing to Alex then Jess when she shook her head. “Over the last ten years the government has been slowly taken over by the Chinese and now they’re deliberately being slow to react. Yes they’ve cut the power along with the Internet and phone services, and yes they’ve made passing comments about a big outbreak of Foot and Mouth, but other than that…”
“Wait,” I said, stepping in. “I find this very difficult to believe. What would they hope to achieve?”
“Annihilation of our country,” he said, his tone matter of fact.
I turned to Jess, hoping she wasn’t going to back up his theory and was pleased to see her shaking her head with her eyes narrowed.
“Or it could be that they don’t know their arse from their elbow and are just fucking this whole thing up,” she added.
“Or anywhere in between the two,” I added. Alex and Jess nodded as the guy looked back with his eyebrows raised in disbelief.
“The point is,” Jess said, “the people don’t know. They didn’t believe me and they’re going to die.” It was my turn to agree.
I looked to the guy who still had his brow raised.
“Why did you believe the story?” I added.
“I found the full version.”
I watched as Jess’s expression lifted, and she stood up from leaning against the metal.
“I found it on the Internet.”
“Stan,” Jess breathed.
“It was so intense. It looked like CGI, like some film promo. In fact, it was so real looking, I thought for a moment you made it up and I checked the listings to see if you had a film coming out.”
“But surely mine hasn’t been the only report coming out. There must be others telling this story now? There must be millions of people displaced. Thousands missing. Hundreds dead?”
The guy shook his head. “Nothing. Have you seen the roadblocks? They go all the way back to Somerset.”
Jess, Alex and I swapped glances.
“When the commentary started, people questioned what you said and the government’s response. The authorities started talking about something going on, bigging up the Foot and Mouth thing and talking about putting the area in quarantine, using that as a reason why the power had been lost, because essential supplies can’t get in. They’ve been very vague. The news is so sparse and no radio since Yeovil.”
“But they’re telling people to get away at least? To stay indoors? Please tell me that’s what they’re saying? Are they telling people what to do if they come across the... the creatures…?”
“No. Nothing like that,” he said, slowly shaking his head.
Jess turned back to Alex with her mouth slack and gaze unfocused.
“All for nothing,” she said in barely a whisper.
“No. Not for nothing,” the guy said, stepping forward. “There are people that get this. There are people that understand and took notice. They know what’s going on.”
“But not enough people,” Alex said, turning away to look at the horizon.
The guy slowed his nod for the first time.
“I think you might be right.”
Taking a step forward and tilting my head to the side, I spoke again. “So what do you think is happening here?”
He didn’t pause. “It’s the end of civilisation as we know it. It’s the fucking zombie apocalypse.”
Dumbfounded at his words, I stared back. He’d got it. Simple. He knew the truth we’d experienced for the last week, or however long it had been. But why the hell was he grinning from ear to ear?
“The funny thing is,” he said, as he moved to look back to Jess. “If they hadn’t tried to discredit you, fewer people would have believed you. Then when they said you’d died...”
“Died?” Jess stepped back, her mouth wide.
“They said you’d died in an accident. That you were reckless.”
I turned to Jess, watching as the blood seemed to drain from her face.
“Now that was a big mistake,” she said, with the first hint of a smile rising in the corner of her mouth. “They’ve just made it easy to prove they’re lying. But Stan...”
“Stan Fraser?” the guy said, and Jess nodded, her eyes widening. “They arrested him.”
Jess turned as a thought seemed to come to mind. She stared with a great intent, first to me and then to Alex. “The helicopters over the ruins of the hospital.”
My eyes widened when I realised what she was thinking. The guy spoke before I could give my thoughts voice.
“They showed the wreckage of the hospital. They showed a destroyed and burnt out news van.”
“How did they explain that?” I said.
“The whole thing was filmed in a demolition site and she got crushed when a building collapsed.”
“No. That’s not right,” Alex added, shaking her head. “They bombed that place to get rid of the evidence of the tests.”
I watched Jess’s eyes narrow and teeth grit together.
“They wanted to make sure I’d died and I think we all know what they’d do if they found me alive.”
37
“We’ve got to do this,” Jess shouted, the words echoing out to send each of us scouring the horizon.
“What?” I said, seeing her eyes wide with the excitement.
“I need to get in front of the camera again. I need to show them I’m not dead. I need to show the country I’m alive and more of what we’ve seen. Then they’ll have to believe what’s going on.”
Alex turned to face Jess, putting her hand on her shoulder.
“Even if somehow we can get more footage, if Stan’s not there to show it...” Alex said. “And won’t they come looking for you if they find out you’re alive?”
We all turned to Mandy coming around the side of the car.
“Filming? Are you mad? We need to find somewhere safe. We need to get out of here and find the authorities,” she said, looking at each of us in turn as her voice rose.
We turned away from her, much to her annoyance.
“They’ll probably figure out where you are from the footage,” I added.
Jess nodded, her excitement still rising as she spoke.
“So we need to get to Exeter. We have an office there with all the kit I need. Cameras and generators and batteries,” she said, turning to the guy. “I don’t care who knows where I am. They have to see I’m still alive, then the people will have no choice but to believe and it won’t matter what the government says. They can protect themselves by keeping their doors locked.”
I swapped a glance with Alex who hadn’t reacted in the same way, her brow fixed low.
“We can’t stay here,” she said, breaking the look.
I turned away, peering through the window to Cassie, watching her sitting up but with her head tilted back and mouth open as if asleep.
I nodded. “Alex is right. We have to get going. Jump in the back,” I said, turning to the guy. “No room up front.”
He shook his head as I was about to pull open the pickup door.
“No thanks,” he said with his smile fixed.
I looked at the van again, reminding myself it faced the opposite way to where we headed.
“Where are you going?” I asked, furrowing my brow. “Why did you come here?” I added, when at first all I got was a widening of his smile.
Pulling the pick from his belt, I took a step back as he did the same, raising it over his head with the pointed end in my general direction. “I’m going hunting.”
“Have you seen any of these things?” I said, dumbfounded and flashing a look at Alex and then Jess still at my side.
Nodding, somehow his smile had grown even wider. “There were loads heading the way you’re going. It’s like they’re lining up for dinner. The slow ones and the crazy motherfuckers, too. My guess is going south will be the best place to wait this thing out. Once I clear out the last of them, I get to do my own I am Legend thing on the Lizard Peninsula. Cool or what?”
I ignored the question and the flash of his eyebrows, forcing down the feelings of anger at the flippancy of the words, but the anger soon drained as I realised he didn’t know who we’d lost since this started. Instead, raising an eyebrow, I shook my head.
About to turn away and wish him luck, I stopped.
“How did you get in? Isn’t there a front line?”
Alex leaned forward.
The guy nodded as he pulled his pack from the road, shuffling his shoulders to settle its weight on his back.
“There’re loads of soldiers moving around, but no real restrictions, until you get to Salisbury. But it’s only the roads that are closed.”
“How did you get through?”
“I just moved the cones to the side and drove in. It wasn’t until a few miles out of Yeovil that I had to leave the car. I couldn’t have gone much further even if it wasn’t for the blocks of concrete. I’ve done a bit of walking. This thing’s only got me twenty miles,” he said, tapping the roof of the van, then thinking better of the bass report.
“So you’ve walked most of the way from Yeovil?”
He laughed, and I remembered Jess only made the broadcast this morning. How early had it been when we’d seen her from the roof of the hospital?
“No. I borrowed cars from the back of the roadblocks. Most still had keys in the ignition.”
“You should head north,” Jess said. As she spoke, I heard less of an edge to her voice. “Get as far away as possible.”
“Many people in the community did just that, but no. I’m true to my convictions. The others were full of shit. Posting memes on Facebook from their comfy armchairs, telling everyone how great they’d be when the shit hit the fan. But when it came to it, they just ran away like little children.”
“There’s a community?” I said, unable to turn myself away, despite knowing we should run too.
He grinned.
“Hell yeah. All over the world there are people who love this shit. Or say they do, at least.”
I looked at Jess, raising my brow, but she shrugged back, showing no surprise.
“Sorry. I can’t stand around gassing all day,” the guy said. Raising his hand to his forehead, he nodded then walked in the opposite direction.
I looked back to Jess and then to Alex. Maybe he was right. If those things were going north to the population centres, perhaps the safest place to go would be back down south. But we couldn’t do that. I had to get Cassie to her sister. To Jack and Tish before that woman could do anything to them.
And I agreed with Jess. She had to make it known she was alive to stop the lies that would get people killed.
Tapping my thigh, Shadow came to heel. Pride rushed through me, taking me by surprise when he jumped through the open passenger door as everyone settled back into their places.
No. I couldn’t take the painless way out and hide away. We had to head on, no matter the danger. No matter how much the thought scared me shitless.
Without looking back, we drove in the opposite direction of the stranger.
As the miles passed the window, we watched the settlements gradually lose their picture postcard appeal, with the outskirts of a town called Newlyn coming into view and its spread of buildings marked by smoke rising high to a great cloud.
Slowing, despite the deserted roads, I took care, checking along each empty driveway to the wide-open front doors for any sign of what might linger.
When nothing made itself known, I let the pickup stop at the crest of a hill and took in the town, with its buildings bunched together to fill the view right to the edge of the expanse of blue water.
With Jess and Mandy leaning between the seats, and Alex alongside peering down, we stared to the harbour in the distance with its water empty of boats and a lengthy line of cars jamming the approaching roads. The excitement of escaping by sea drained before taking root.
As we sat back in our seats, I let the pickup freewheel down the hill, only slipping into gear when I first saw the litter of belongings discarded across the road and I guided the wheels to slalom around the open suitcases, their contents spread amongst the pools of dried blood.
On seeing a spray of scarlet against a white wall to the side and the centre of the mess potted with what I guessed to be a bullet hole, I sped us away.
Concentrating back on the road, we descended further into the town, passing guest houses and B&Bs blocking the view of the sea as we reached the centre. A darkened chip shop marked the corner of a T junction where the road widened to the right with white signs and black letters pointing along a disorderly line of abandoned cars toward the seafront and harbour.
I built speed in the opposite direction, blinkering myself from the buildings on either side; the pubs, the shops, the restaurants and trinket store with smashed windows whose glass covered the paths and bodies at rest.
Relenting, I looked to each door standing ajar and the flames rising from the roofs from what seemed like every other. The wind must have changed, filling the cab with smoke and covering our path as we fiddled with the air vents. Hacking at the fumes, we wound down our windows to find the smoke across the road gone with a gust, leaving the sight of a pub ablaze to the left and a school with flames climbing high and black smoke billowing from every window opposite. An ex
plosion sent glass across the road.
I stomped on the accelerator and charged through the heat radiating from both sides. Cassie moaned from the back until we were out the other side as cool air flooded in, leaving just the stench of smoke.
We raced through darkened traffic lights with the buildings thinning. Without talking, I slowed, searching out the road signs for our direction, but the adrenaline faded when I saw our route ahead clogged with abandoned cars right through it.
38
Not slowing, I tensed to the sound of the body panels squealing with branches scratching down our right and metal scraping away the paint on the other side. Pushing us on despite the pickup’s complaint, we squeezed between the cars and the hedgerow at the side of the roundabout with a hope I could keep this up all the way beyond the horizon and to the main road.
I remembered travelling from the other direction with the road clear a few days before. It had seemed so much wider when were excited to head to the secluded destination near the sea.
Squeezing through the corner, the road stretched out ahead filled with three jumbled lanes of cars, vans, minibuses and so much more; each had jostled for position before they’d had to give up, leaving doors wide and possessions littering the gaps. To the right I steered us along a short grass verge lined with thick bushes before trees took over to block the view of what could be on the other side.
“Where are all the people?” I said, watching as everyone in the back shook their heads.
Cassie opened her eyes. “There’s not even any bodies,” she added.
“Let’s hope they all made it away,” Alex added and all but Mandy nodded.
“At least it looks like the creatures have moved on,” I said, but no one replied as if afraid to tempt fate.
I pushed us on and after a few seconds more, the left-wing mirror ripped clean off and disappeared below the view with an impact against a plumber’s van. Moving us as far to the right as I dared, I’d take the scrape of wooden fingers over the scratch of metal any day.
Searching ahead, I peered at a lamppost standing tall in the middle of the space we needed to get through. I thought of ramming it down, but I ignored the temptation as visions of head wounds and steam rising from the engine sprung to mind.
