by David Moody
‘Take it easy,’ Ted protested.
‘Next left,’ Paul said for the second time, his voice more definite than before.
‘You sure?’
‘Positive. I can see it. We’re almost directly under the light now.’
Nick slammed on the brakes and swung the bus around the corner into another street which was as difficult to navigate as the last. Huge crowds of lumbering bodies dragged themselves towards the approaching vehicle from all directions. Nick kept his foot down, knowing the quicker they moved, the more chance they had of cutting through the rancid crowds. Scores of corpses were wiped out by the flat-faced frontage of the coach, thumping into it with a relentless bang, bang, bang like hail on a tin roof.
‘How far now?’ Nick asked.
Paul crouched down low and looked up to his right. ‘Almost there.’
John got up and scurried down to the front of the coach, holding onto the seat-backs and struggling to keep his balance. ‘It’s a hotel,’ he said. ‘Look, there’s a name on the side of the building.’
‘So where do I go?’ Nick asked, unable to see anything in the relentless gloom.
‘There must be a car park or something?’ John suggested. ‘Maybe around the back or underground?’
‘Get as close to the main entrance as you can,’ Paul said. ‘We need to minimise the distance we have to cover on foot.’
‘And how am I supposed to do that? I can’t see a fucking thing.’
‘Here!’ Paul shouted. ‘Sharp right! Now!’
With no time to properly consider his actions, Nick turned the wheel as instructed. The dark silhouette of the hotel loomed large in front of him. ‘Where?’ he screamed, desperate for help and guidance.
‘Just keep moving,’ Paul yelled back. ‘Keep going forward until—’
He didn’t get to finish his sentence. The low light and constant criss-crossing movement of hundreds of bodies made the distance between the front of the coach and the front of the hotel impossible to accurately gauge. His foot still down hard on the accelerator, Nick sent the coach over a kerb, then crashed through the glass doors at the front of the building. Their velocity was such that the coach kept moving forward until the twisted metal and rubble dragged under its wheels eventually acted as a brake. Three-quarters inside the building, with its back end jutting out into the street, the bus came to a sudden, undignified halt in the hotel’s imposing, marble-floored reception. The front wheels were wedged over the lip of an ornate and long-since dried up decorative fountain.
No one moved.
‘My back…’ Doreen moaned from somewhere on the floor under a pile of carrier bags full of clothes and other belongings.
‘Is everyone all right?’ John asked. No one answered. ‘Is anyone all right?’ he asked again, slightly revising his original question.
Paul shook his head clear and got back to his feet. He glanced over at Nick who was trying to stem the flow of blood from a gash just above his right eye. ‘Nice driving,’ he sneered.
‘Fuck off,’ Nick spat back at him.
‘Shit,’ Elizabeth said from somewhere in the darkness behind them both. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’ There was sudden fear in her voice which they all picked up on. Without pausing for explanation the survivors grabbed as many of their bags of belongings as they could carry, and ran for the door at the front of the coach which Paul had already opened. He glanced down the side of the long vehicle and immediately saw what Elizabeth had seen. A large part of the hotel entrance had collapsed. Although still partially blocked by the bus, there was now a gaping hole where the main doors had been, and hundreds of bodies were already swarming into the building.
‘Over here,’ a voice yelled at them from the darkness. Barry Bushell stood at the bottom of the main hotel staircase at the other end of the vast, dust-filled lobby, waving a torch and gesturing for them to follow him. The light inside the building was minimal and they struggled to make him out at first. Nick was the first to locate him. He ran across the rubble-strewn room, closely followed by Doreen, Elizabeth and Paul.
‘Come on, Ted,’ John pleaded. ‘Leave your stuff, we have to move.’
Ted was busy collecting his belongings. Loaded up with bags and boxes he tripped, falling into the dried-up fountain.
‘Keep going,’ he wheezed, already out of breath. ‘I’ll catch up.’
John could see he was struggling. ‘Just leave that stuff. We’ll manage without it.’
‘I need it,’ Ted said, groaning with effort.
‘But they’re coming! Drop the bags and get your backside over here!’
Ted was oblivious to the number of approaching bodies which were now dangerously close. They seemed to move as one, like a thick liquid slowly seeping out over the ground floor of the hotel, a slow-motion flood. Most of the coach had already been surrounded. John looked around to see that the rest of his group had all but disappeared. Just Elizabeth remained, standing at the bottom of the staircase, waiting for him.
‘Move, Ted! Don’t be a bloody idiot!’ John screamed. Ted, now on his feet again, tried to speed up but, if anything, he was slowing down. He was desperately unfit and overloaded with food. He glanced back and, seeing how close the nearest bodies were, he tried unsuccessfully to increase his speed. But he couldn’t make his short, pudgy legs move any faster. It was hopeless. ‘Move!’ John yelled at him again, nervously backing away towards Elizabeth.
Most people would have dug deep and done everything possible to cover the remaining distance to get to safety, but Ted did the opposite. He’d had enough. He was already exhausted and the staircase ahead of him seemed to stretch up into the darkness forever. He knew he’d never make it. An eternal pessimist, he’d already decided his number was up. He made one last pathetic attempt to move a little quicker but it was nowhere near enough and the distance still seemed impossible. Ted stopped and John watched helplessly as the mass of bodies engulfed him.
Elizabeth was already on her way up the stairs. John turned and ran after her. He couldn’t see where he was going, but as long as he kept going up, he thought he’d be okay. He could soon hear voices up ahead.
‘So what the fucking hell have you come as?’ Nick asked the stocky, six foot tall transvestite who’d saved them. They’d briefly stopped to regroup on a landing a few flights up. Barry used his torch to check who was with him. It was the first time any of them had seen him clearly, and he could see the puzzled expressions on their faces. Suddenly self-conscious, he didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t needed to explain his bizarre dress-code to anyone else yet, and in the chaos of the last few minutes, he’d forgotten what he was wearing. For a moment he felt foolish before remembering how good these clothes made him feel. What he was wearing was of absolutely no consequence to anyone else. He’d saved their lives. Fuck ’em.
‘I’m Barry,’ he answered. ‘Barry Bushell.’
‘So why are you wearing a dress?’
‘Because I want to.’
‘Well I think you look lovely, dear,’ Doreen said as she passed him on the landing. In dire need of a cigarette, she patted him on the shoulder and pointed upwards. ‘This way, is it?’
‘Just keep going,’ he replied. ‘Top floor.’
Doreen nodded and kept climbing, her nerves negating her tiredness. Nick waited on the landing for John to catch up. ‘Where’s Ted?’ he asked. John shook his head.
‘Didn’t make it,’ he said, panting with effort. ‘Silly bugger got caught.’
‘Shit,’ Nick mumbled, genuinely saddened for a moment. Then he shook his head and carried on up the stairs.
#
The climb up to the top floor seemed to take forever. Even though their appreciation of material possessions and the value of property had been massively reduced by the events of the last seven days, the opulence and scale of the vast penthouse apartment Barry had claimed as his own still impressed all of them.
‘Nice place she’s got here,’ Nick said as he looked around the low-lit r
ooms. Some of the group were sitting around a rectangular dining table, others were sprawled on a nearby sofa.
‘Shh…’ Elizabeth scowled. ‘Leave him alone. He’s obviously got problems.’
‘We’ve all got problems, but we don’t all feel the need to cross-dress, do we?’
‘Lovely place, though,’ Doreen agreed. ‘Just think of all the famous people who must have stayed here. Royalty? Film stars?’
‘Why?’ Paul said. Doreen looked puzzled. How could he not be excited by the prospect of sleeping in a hotel room that might have been used by millionaires and mega-stars?
‘Just imagine who might have sat around this table…’ she continued.
‘Why waste your time thinking about empty people like that? The people who could afford to stay here had too much money and not enough sense. You shouldn’t look up to them. The only difference between you and them was the size of their bank accounts compared to yours. Anyway, they’re all dead now. You’re not.’
‘It was more than that,’ Elizabeth continued, siding with Doreen for once. ‘It’s about glamour and watching them do the things that you always dreamed about doing and…’
‘So did you two used to read all the celebrity gossip and buy all the glossy magazines?’
‘Absolutely,’ Elizabeth said quickly.
‘And I bet you used to watch soap operas and reality TV shows?’
‘Never missed my soaps,’ Doreen told him with something resembling a bizarre sense of pride in her voice.
‘Pathetic,’ Paul said. ‘Bloody pathetic. It’s got nothing to do with glamour or anything like that. You both used to swallow all that crap because your own lives were pointless and empty.’
‘Thanks a lot,’ Elizabeth said angrily. ‘Let us know when it’s our turn to tear you to pieces.’
‘Where are all your celebrities now?’
‘Dead, probably,’ Nick interjected. ‘Face down in the fucking gutter.’
‘You know what I think?’ Paul continued, even though he knew neither of them cared. ‘I think that if by some strange twist of fate one of your precious celebrities had survived and was sat here now instead of one of us, you’d still be treating them like some kind of fucking god.’
‘As long as it was you they were here instead of, I wouldn’t care,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Sometimes you’re so far up your own backside that—’
‘I’ve got more food than this,’ Barry said, dropping a tray onto the table, deliberately interrupting the conversation. ‘I’m just trying to make it last. I’m trying to avoid going outside.’
‘I’d be trying to avoid going outside if I looked like that,’ Nick said, smirking.
‘Leave it, Nick,’ John sighed. ‘Christ, what’s the matter with you lot? We’ve just lost our transport and poor old Ted, and all you can do is argue and mock each other.’
‘Honestly,’ Nick continued, not listening to a word John had said, ‘we wait all this time to find someone else alive, and they turn out to be a fucking faggot!’
Barry grabbed Nick by the throat, dragged him off his chair and slammed him down onto the floor. He tightened his grip, painted nails digging into his skin.
‘Let’s just get this over and done with, shall we?’ He paused for an answer which Nick was in no position to give. ‘Listen, mate, I might be wearing a dress, but I’m not a fucking faggot, and it wouldn’t matter if I was. I’m not surprised you’ve got a problem with what I’m wearing. Fact is, I like it. I don’t know why, but dressing like this is helping me come to terms with the fact that all my friends and family and probably everyone else I’ve ever known is dead. I’m not a pervert, I’m just a normal bloke who’s decided to try wearing dresses for a while, okay?’
Barry let Nick go. Subdued, he slowly got up. ‘Okay, okay… Keep your hair on.’
Barry let the obvious reference to his shoulder-length wig go. ‘It doesn’t matter what any of us is wearing, does it? It’s not going to make any difference. Same as the colour of our eyes won’t make any difference either, or whether we’re right or left handed. Fact is we’re all in this mess together and we’ll need to work with each other to get ourselves sorted.’
‘Well said,’ John agreed.
‘So tell me,’ Barry continued, his voice louder and more confident, ‘who exactly have we got here and what the hell are we going to do about the fucking big hole you’ve made in the front of my hotel?’
#
Introductions and pointless discussions about what had happened to the rest of the world took the group through the final hours of day seven and well into day eight. Spirits were temporarily high: Barry had the company he’d craved and the others had found a safer, far more comfortable hideout than the back of Nick’s coach.
John pulled up a chair and sat in front of the widest window in the suite for hours, watching the night melt away and be overtaken by the first light of day. As the sun began to climb, more and more of the shattered world was revealed. Down at street level it had been difficult to fully appreciate the enormity of what had happened. From twenty-eight floors up, however, the extent of the devastation was clear.
‘You okay, John?’ Elizabeth asked, disturbing him.
‘I’m fine,’ he replied, almost managing a smile. ‘I was just looking out there. Look at it, Liz. The whole bloody world’s in ruins.’
Elizabeth leant against the window. He was right. For as far as she could see the world was dead, drained of all colour and life. Apart from the bodies in the streets, nothing moved. From this height they could see for miles into the distance, and the scale of what had happened around them was humbling. It was soul-destroying.
‘Much happening out there?’ Nick asked as he joined them. He’d been sitting on his own but preferred the company of others.
‘Not a lot,’ John answered.
‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ Elizabeth said, her face still pressed hard against the glass. She’d diverted her attention away from the horizon to the more immediate area directly below. ‘Have you seen what we’ve done?’
Nick peered down. The largest crowd of bodies that any of them had yet seen had gathered around the entrance to the building and were pushing their way in through the huge hole the survivors had made with the bus last night. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said.
Concerned, John stood up and looked down. The sight of the massive gathering made his legs weaken. His mouth suddenly dry, he swallowed hard and looked around for Barry.
‘What’s the problem?’ Barry asked, walking over to the others. John pointed and Barry looked down. ‘Christ almighty.’
‘They can’t get up here, can they?’ Nick asked.
‘Of course not,’ Elizabeth said quickly. Barry was less confident.
‘I can’t see why not,’ he said. ‘If enough of them keep pushing forward from behind, my guess is the furthest forward will start climbing eventually.’
‘But they won’t get up here. We struggled to get up, so surely they won’t be able to…’
‘This place has one main staircase right in the middle of the building,’ he explained, still staring deep into the vast crowd below. ‘There are a couple of fire escapes, but they’re blocked off as far as I know. To be honest, I didn’t look into security too deeply when I got here. There didn’t seem to be any need when the place still had a front door.’
‘So what are you saying?’ Elizabeth pressed.
‘I’m saying that if there’s enough of them and they keep coming, who knows what they’ll be able to do. Give them enough time and there’s every chance they’ll manage to get up here.’
‘But we can get out if we need to?’
‘Well, I think we’ll be able to get down no problem,’ Barry said, ‘but what we do once we’re down there is anyone’s guess. Thanks to you lot the building’s surrounded and I can’t see an obvious way out.’
‘Let’s all keep calm and try and get things into perspective,’ John said quietly, doing his best to prevent panic from
spreading. ‘The chances of them getting to us are slim and we’re so high up here that they’ll probably disappear long before they even get close.’
‘You reckon?’ Nick said. ‘There doesn’t seem to be much else going on in town this morning, does there? Looks like we’re the main attraction.’
Barry, Elizabeth, Nick and John stood side by side at the window and stared down. The streets below were filled with grey, staggering bodies and in the absence of any other distraction, the whole damn rotting mass seemed to be converging on the hotel. There were already thousands of them down there, and thousands more were dangerously close.
DAY NINE
THE GARDEN SHED
Lester Prescott thrives on order and uniformity. His pristine home is situated in a relatively well-to-do residential area. He is well respected socially and is the most accurate and productive accountant ever to have been employed by Ashcroft, Jenkins and Harman. Lester Prescott thinks in black and white. Show a child a cardboard box and they’ll turn it into a spaceship, a plane, a car, a robot suit or whatever else their uninhibited imaginations can create. As far as Lester Prescott is concerned, however, a cardboard box is, was and only ever could be a cardboard box.
Lester often finds it difficult to connect with people. Although he tries hard, over the years he has proved himself to be a boring and dull husband, an unimaginative lover and, perhaps worst of all, a disappointment as a father. People’s emotions and reactions cannot be governed by procedures, and that frustrates him. Their lives are never as clear cut and predictable as the columns of figures he can interpret with ease. He struggles with spontaneity.
Lester and his long-suffering wife, Janice, have been married for twenty-seven years. For twenty-five of those years they’ve lived in the same semi-detached house a third of the way down Baker Road West. Twenty-three years ago next month their daughter Madeline was born. An only child, Maddy left home at the age of eighteen to study. She loves her parents dearly but only sees them when she absolutely has to. She recently qualified as a nurse and now works in a large hospital on the other side of town.
