by David Moody
Last Tuesday morning, Janice, Maddy and more than six billion other people were struck down by the most virulent virus ever to blight the face of the planet. Most unexpectedly, Lester Prescott survived.
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Day eight ends and day nine begins. What will this day bring? This last week has been harder than I could ever have imagined. None of it makes any sense. I’ve started coming here at night to Maddy’s room to try and understand. I sit on the end of her bed and remember how things used to be. The room is just as she left it when she went to university. Mother and I didn’t see any point changing anything until she’d got herself married and settled down in her own home. It’ll never happen now, of course. Our home is a little oasis of normality in a world gone completely mad.
The chain of events which began last Tuesday are as inexplicable today as when they first happened. It began like any other Tuesday at the offices of AJH. I arrived at work at ten to eight, got my desk ready and then started on my figures. Bill Ashcroft, the senior partner, was the first person I saw die. He was talking to his secretary Allison when it took him, and I then watched it work its way through the entire office, killing everyone, and I just sat there in the middle of it all, helpless and too afraid to move, waiting for my turn. I still don’t understand why I escaped, but before I knew it I was the only one left alive.
I left the office as quickly as I could, stopping only to put my papers away, lock my desk, pack my briefcase and fetch my newspaper and coat from the cloakroom.
The journey home was harrowing and painfully slow. Outside it was as if someone had simply flicked a switch: everyone seemed to have died at almost exactly the same moment. I saw hundreds of bodies, thousands even. It seemed to take forever to work my way back home through the chaos.
I had been thinking about Janice and Maddy constantly since leaving the office, and I’d hoped to return home to find Janice sitting there waiting for me. After all, I had survived, so why shouldn’t she have too? But it wasn’t to be. I found her in the kitchen, lying on her back on the floor in an inch of water. The tap had been left running and the room was awash. Dear Janice was soaked through. I set to work sorting things out straight away. I dried her off as best I could, then wrapped her in a blanket and covered her with black plastic refuse sacks which I taped up. It wasn’t an easy or pleasant task but I managed to get it done. It seemed a little undignified at the time, but I was acting in accordance with the instructions from the government anti-terror information booklet we received last summer. Janice often used to mock me because, by nature, I am occasionally pedantic and perhaps a little obsessive. She used to say that my attention to detail was infuriating, but thank goodness I am that way is all I can say. As a result of the filing system I use in my study I was able to find the booklet immediately and deal with my wife’s body quickly, humanely and hygienically, just as instructed.
As I worked to move Janice’s body and clean up the mess in the kitchen, I kept a constant eye out for Maddy. I felt sure she’d be home before long and I wanted to make sure that Mother had been properly dealt with before she arrived. My mood darkened with every minute. As if losing my closest companion wasn’t enough, with each second that passed it appeared increasingly likely that my only child was gone too. Eventually, at half-past one that afternoon, I decided I couldn’t sit and wait any longer and so I set out to find her. I took my pedal bike from the garage, but once again my progress was frustratingly slow. I arrived at the hospital after an hour and ten minutes hard cycling, and immediately started to look for her. According to her timetable she should have been on duty but I couldn’t find her there. I had an awful time searching through the bodies on the ward for Maddy. So many poor, innocent people had lost their lives so suddenly and without explanation…
When I couldn’t find her in any of the areas I knew she covered, I worked my way back from the hospital to the house she shared with her friends Jenny and Suzanne. It was there that I found our little girl in her front yard, lying face down in the grass. Such a cruel, undignified end to such a beautiful young life. It broke my heart to see her like that. I packed her things, then used her car to bring her back home so I could deal with her body as I had Mother’s.
I read through the government booklet again that afternoon. It said that the bodies of the deceased should be buried away from the house. I dragged them both the length of the garden to the small area of lawn between the garden shed and Maddy’s old swing. We gave her that swing on her sixth birthday but Mother and I decided we’d keep it even after she’d grown up and stopped using it. It was always there to remind us of her. She used to have so much fun playing on it with her friends. Even now whenever I look at it I see young Maddy swinging in the summer sunshine. We’d hoped we’d have grandchildren to use it one day.
I unlocked the shed and went inside.
The garden shed has always been my escape. As well as being a very practical and convenient storage space, it was also a quiet little haven where I could sit and work or read my paper or listen to sport on the radio without interruption. Maddy and her mother liked their television and their soap operas but I couldn’t abide the constant noise. Quite often – almost daily in the summer months, certainly most weekends – I would shut myself away in the shed and relax in my own company with a cup of tea or a wee glass of something stronger.
Before I picked up my tools I sat down in my chair in the corner of the shed and tried to take stock of all that had happened. Sitting there it was hard to comprehend the enormity and finality of events and I could scarcely believe that my wife and daughter’s bodies lay just inches away. With tears in my eyes I looked around the little wooden hut and remembered all I had lost. On the wall opposite I stored the summer things that Maddy and her mother used to use; plastic patio furniture, sun-loungers and deck chairs, garden games and the like. In a small wooden box tucked away in one corner I found a collection of brightly coloured buckets and spades which I had again kept for those grandchildren we’d now never have. They reminded me of summer holidays long gone where Maddy, Mother and I would play on the beach in the blistering sun. Distant memories now…
With a heavy heart I stood, picked up my spade and the garden edging tool, and set to work. I took a rough measurement of the length and width of Maddy’s body (she was slightly taller and thicker set than her mother) and marked out the shape of the two graves in the turf close together. I carefully lifted the turf and then spent the next two hours digging before placing them both in their plots. Although we used to go to church most Sundays I wasn’t quite sure what I should say before I buried their bodies. It was difficult to think of the right words. I loved them both very much but I’ve always found it hard to properly express my feelings. Being gushing, emotional and romantic is something I’ve always struggled with, much to Janice’s chagrin. In any event I thanked God for their lives as I thought I should, and I asked that they would now find peace. I was confident they would, but I was less sure about what the future held in store for me.
I’m not the kind of man to sit there feeling sorry for himself. I wouldn’t have been doing anyone any favours if I’d done nothing. I spent a lot of time during the first two days of the crisis trying to understand what had happened, but I soon realised it was impossible. I read through the government booklet again but it was of little use. It kept talking about how the authorities would help and how I should wait for further instructions. I was ready to wait, but I was pretty certain that no instructions would ever be forthcoming. As far as I could tell (and I didn’t do anything to verify the validity of my supposition) I was the only man left alive.
I started to plan. It’s in my nature. I had plenty of food in the house, but I knew I needed more. I needed to be ready to fend for myself for a long, long time. With that in mind I took the car around to the shops and started to collect supplies: food, cleaning materials, clothing, bedding, medicines… even books, paper and pens. I had already realised how important it would be to keep myself occ
upied, both physically and mentally. I had written a comprehensive list of things I needed, several pages long, and I managed to get just about everything on it. It didn’t feel right taking goods without paying, but I had no means of making payment and no one to make payment to. I made a duplicate list – a ledger if you like – of what I’d taken and noted the cost of each individual item. When some semblance of normality finally returned, I decided, I would go back and settle my debts. The proprietors of the various shops I visited, if any had survived, would undoubtedly understand.
The third morning was as disorientating as the previous two. Just when I was beginning to get used to my situation, it changed again. On the third morning many of the bodies suddenly got back up onto their feet again. When I saw the first of them I hoped that was the end of it, that this was the first indication of an impending return to normality. It quickly became clear that was not going to be the case. The bodies which moved were uniformly unresponsive and slow. I stood out in the middle of the road in front of the house and stopped Judith Springer from number nineteen as she staggered past the end of the drive. I had known both Judith and her husband Roy for many years. She looked the same as always (save for a few unpleasant signs of deterioration) but she failed to react as a normal human being should. For goodness sake, she wasn’t even breathing!
I shut my door on the rest of the world again and went through to the back of the house. What about Maddy and her mother? Had their condition changed also? I found myself faced with the bizarre and repulsive, yet still very real possibility, that the wife and daughter I had buried two days earlier might now be trying to escape from their graves, digging their way back out through the dirt I’d shovelled over them. I crouched down next to the two slightly raised humps in the turf. There had been no change as far as I could see. I didn’t know what to do for the best. I lay there and put my ear to the ground and listened but I couldn’t hear anything and I couldn’t feel any movement. I reassured myself that not all of the bodies outside had moved. Had I just buried Maddy and her mother too deep for them to get out? In the terror of the moment I seriously contemplated exhuming their bodies, but what would that have achieved? What difference would it have made if they could move? Judith Springer was most certainly dead, despite the fact that she was somehow mobile again. I decided it was kinder both to Maddy and her mother to leave them both where they were and preserve what remained of their dignity.
I sat out in the garden shed again that afternoon and read a book and occasionally dozed. My sleep was punctuated with desperate dreams; twisted nightmares about my dead daughter and wife. It was almost dark when I woke and went back inside. The low light increased my unease. I regretted having slept and I tossed and turned all night in bed.
As the situation outside continued to change, I made a conscious effort to try and keep myself positive and motivated. I had left the car parked on the drive and had stored the provisions I’d collected at the far end of the garage. In fact, I had amassed such an impressive mountain of supplies that it filled almost the entire length of the cold, rectangular room. On the morning of the fourth day I sat at my desk in the study and made a list of my daily dietary requirements. I used reference books, our family medical dictionary and an encyclopaedia to calculate the minimum I would need to eat each day to survive. I then spent the entire day in the garage, dividing the tins, boxes and bags of food into equal-sized daily allowances, making sure there were sufficient levels of the various vitamins, proteins and whatever other chemicals I needed for each day. I also allowed myself a daily luxury – a can of beer or a packet of sweets for example. It quickly became apparent that I wouldn’t be able to get quite everything I needed from my provisions. I decided I would have to look at fetching vitamin and mineral supplements when I next went out, if they proved necessary. During the day it also occurred to me that none of the food I had was fresh. Perhaps, I thought to myself, I could start trying to grow my own vegetables if my situation remained unchanged for any length of time. Janice and I had always maintained a small vegetable plot, but I would probably need to expand the operation over the coming year. Sitting there on the garage floor surrounded by packages of food rations, I found the idea of having to fend for myself on such a basic level strangely exciting.
I worked long and hard that day, and by eight o’clock when the light had begun to fade, I was finished. On the garage floor lay forty-three separate food parcels, one for each of the next forty-three days. I tried not to think of them as rations but that, in effect, was what they were. Talk of rationing made it sound like wartime, but it most certainly wasn’t. For me to have been at war I needed an enemy, and at that moment in time I was very definitely alone and unchallenged, despite the ghoulish creatures drifting along the streets outside in ever increasing numbers. I locked the side garage door, and let myself back into the house.
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Things changed again on the morning of day five.
When I threw back the curtains I found myself looking down upon a street scene very different to the previous evening. Outside my house a vast crowd of people had gathered. Initially elated, I dressed and readied myself to go out and see what they wanted. These people – although similar in appearance to the empty souls I’d seen previously – behaved differently. They were definitely gravitating around my home with a purpose, not just drifting by. I stood outside, separated from the crowd by the metal gate across the end of the drive, and for what felt like an eternity nothing happened. I didn’t know what to say. The faces of the people were vacant, and they seemed to look through me as if I wasn’t there. The nearest few figures were being continually jostled and pushed against the gate by those immediately behind, and yet they didn’t protest or stand their ground. I tried to speak to them but they didn’t acknowledge my words. Every time I opened my mouth there was a ripple of sudden movement (bordering on muted excitement) throughout the crowd, but not one of them seemed capable of responding properly. I lost my temper. Perhaps it was just my frustration getting the better of me? Whatever the reason, I ended up shouting and screaming at them like a madman, desperate for someone to answer or even just acknowledge me. It was an embarrassing show of uncontrolled emotion which I immediately regretted.
I returned to the house and stood at the bedroom window and continued to watch. Although the behaviour of the bodies outside had changed somewhat, it occurred to me that my overall situation had not. Ultimately, what the sick people on the other side of the gate did or didn’t do had no bearing on my survival. There had been no substantial change in either my situation or my priorities: I had to continue to fend for myself. As the government booklet said, I needed to sit and wait for help to arrive.
I could see more and more of the bodies approaching from various directions, perhaps drawn to the house as a result of my undignified rant in the street earlier. Whatever the reason, with little else happening in the neighbourhood it seemed that my home was rapidly becoming the centre of attention. It dawned on me that with everything else dead and silent around me, there was nothing else to distract them, and more and more of them would undoubtedly keep coming. I decided that I had few options: I could lock the doors, close the curtains and sit and wait until they disappeared again, or I could pack up now and run. After having worked so long and so hard for everything I owned I knew there was no way I could bring myself to leave home, especially not now that my beloved family were buried in the back garden. I was going to stay.
Although accountancy was my chosen vocation, I have always had a talent for working with my hands and am immensely proud of some of the improvements I have made around the house over the years. I made furniture for Maddy’s room, I decorated throughout (several times), I re-glazed a few windows and I laid the patio and built a low brick wall around it. On top of that I devised and constructed practical storage solutions in the attic, the garage, the study, the utility room and the shed. There was much that could be done to make my property more secure.
I appro
ached the strengthening of the house with real relish and planned it meticulously. If nothing else, the project would keep me occupied for a few days at least and being occupied would help the dragging hours pass more quickly.
I needed to go out to the hardware store and get materials – timber, fixings, tools and various other bits and pieces – but I couldn’t get the car off the drive. The crowd around the front of the house was more than fifty bodies deep in places now. Even if I had been able to get the car onto the road, in doing so I would inevitably have allowed the crowd to get closer to my property. I didn’t relish the prospect of trying to herd the uncooperative throng back onto the street.
When we first moved into Baker Road West there had been a large expanse of grassland beyond the fence at the bottom of our garden. Five and a half years ago the council sold the land to a housing developer who built more than double the sensible number of houses there they should have. I certainly would never have considered buying a plot there. They were packed together and the gardens were virtually non-existent. I had an acquaintance who lived there and I dropped him back home after golf on a couple of occasions. The estate was like a rabbit warren, a twisting maze of cul-de-sacs, groves and crescents which all looked the same. To squeeze more homes in, many of the later phases were built with garages at the bottom of their gardens with access from a communal road leading across the back of several properties. By chance, one of the roads led across the back of my property also. Although I hadn’t yet solved the problem of getting to the hardware store, this provided me with a convenient means of getting everything back to the house when I returned.
I decided to walk. As potentially dangerous as it might have sounded, it also seemed the most sensible option. I climbed over the back fence, crept down the road, then quietly made my way down to the hardware centre at the bottom of the hill. The store catered for trade as well as the general public. There were trucks and vans which could be hired to help transport bulky loads (I’d hired one previously when I built the patio) and I decided I would use one again to move the equipment and materials.
