Autumn

by David Moody

‘She said you struggled with decisions. Wanted everything to stay the same.’

  ‘She was probably right. Thing is, I’ve learnt from my mistakes.’

  ‘And what have you learnt?’

  ‘Have you not been listening? To follow the path of the heart. To stop avoiding problems and start dealing with them. Like I said, that’s why I’m here.’

  ‘You came to see if Cassie was alive, and she’s not.’

  ‘I know. You’re here, though.’

  ‘So? You’re starting to sound like a crank, my friend.’

  ‘I’m not a crank, and I’m not your friend.’

  ‘Calm down,’ he laughs. ‘Don’t take it all so serious. The whole world’s fucked beyond repair. I reckon you’re way off the path of your bloody heart. I reckon we all are.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. It’s starting to make sense again now. I’m ready to do the things I should have done a long time ago.’

  ‘And what’s that?’ he asks, setting things up beautifully. I don’t say anything, I just kill the cunt.

  ROBERT WOOLGRAVE

  I’m starting to think I might have got this all wrong. Really fucking wrong. I’ve gone about it all the wrong way. I thought I was so bloody clever to start with, thought I knew what I was doing. I was too quick off the mark. Think I might have fucked everything up.

  Fuck the lot of them – that was the attitude I had from the start. Didn’t see any point doing anything else. I had to be selfish, didn’t I? When you’re the only one left, how could it be anything other than every man for himself?

  But hindsight is a fucking wonderful thing. If I’m honest, though, I wouldn’t do anything different if I had the time over again. I did what I think pretty much everyone else would have done in the same situation. After it happened I spent some time looking for other survivors, but it was pretty bloody obvious pretty bloody quickly that I was the only one left. I took one of the cars from work and drove around town. I stopped in loads of different places and shouted out, but no one came. I drove right into the middle of the pedestrian area, stopped the car right outside the shopping centre among the corpses and yelled my bloody lungs out, but still no one came. There didn’t seem any point trying after that. If there were other people left alive, surely I’d have found them there.

  When the bodies rose again I decided enough was enough. Scariest fucking thing I’d ever seen that was, watching them pick themselves up and start moving around. Worse than watching everyone dying around me last week. Worse than anything I remember from the movies. Completely fucking terrifying.

  I didn’t know where to start. I made the office my base. It was a choice between the office and my flat. The other flats in the block were filled with corpses, so it was a no-brainer. I got some of my stuff together, then collected as much food as I could carry in the back of the car. I dumped it all in the office and set about trying to fortify the place, to make it better protected. I work at CarLand, which is a bloody stupid name for what is – what was – one of the biggest and busiest second-hand car lots in the country. Now it’s just a bloody big and bloody quiet car park.

  The office was built a couple of years back to replace the wooden shack which used to be here. It’s a two-storey concrete and glass building right in the middle of the lot; a showroom on the ground floor, offices upstairs. I spent time clearing out all the desks and computers and other crap from the first floor and started trying to make myself comfortable. And that was where I made my first mistake. It was too easy to concentrate on comfort at the expense of everything else. I should have stopped to think.

  I took a van and fetched myself some stuff from the furniture store on the other side of the business park: a sofa bed, a couple of easy chairs, a table and some other odds and ends. Nearly crippled myself getting that bloody lot up the stairs. Then I started to get greedy. By the fourth day it was looking more and more likely I was in for the long haul so I made another trip out for food and drink. I stopped at the electrical superstore on the way back and took as much as I could carry, planning to keep myself occupied with phones, movies, music and games. I didn’t feel bad taking the stuff. Anyone would have done the same.

  For a couple of days I was comfortable and I felt safe. Thought I was living a life of bloody luxury, I did. Space, quiet, comfort and nothing to do except eat, drink, listen, watch and play. After a while I stopped watching films. It didn’t feel right. They left me feeling empty and they reminded me of how everything used to be. I tried watching porn, but I couldn’t get turned on looking at women I knew were dead. And music… I stopped listening to music too. I didn’t like wearing headphones, didn’t like not being able to hear what was going on around me even though there was nothing. Playing games, on the other hand, seemed to help. I couldn’t concentrate on anything too taxing, but I got a bigger kick than ever out of fighting games. Taking out my frustrations on the screen really seemed to help.

  Things started to go wrong last Saturday morning. I didn’t think I’d been making much noise, but I obviously had and it was having an effect on the bodies outside the office. The bloody things wouldn’t leave me alone. They hadn’t seemed interested in me at first, but that changed. Christ, they only had to see me moving in the window and they’d turn and start walking towards the building. Bloody things. They were slow moving and weak and it didn’t take much effort to get rid of them, but there were more and more of them coming all the time. It didn’t matter what I did or didn’t do, once they knew I was there they just kept on coming. I had to do something about them. I couldn’t stand them being so close.

  I spent all day Monday trying to make the office even more secure. I went outside with as many sets of keys as I could find and I started moving cars closer to the building. I took my time and planned it right. I parked as many cars as I could right around the outside of the building, then moved another layer up and parked them close to the first, then another layer after that. It took me from ten in the morning until late afternoon to get the job done but it felt worth it to make the place secure. I left myself a way to get in and out if I need it and I also left a couple of cars ready just in case I have to get away quick. Bottom line is, though, none of those fuckers are going to get me while I’m in here.

  Something happened when I was moving the cars on Monday that really bothered me. I had to start getting aggressive with some of the bodies. It worked both ways, because those fucking things started getting aggressive with me first. I couldn’t believe it – one of the fuckers just went for me. No provocation or anything. If it had been any stronger then I’d have been in real trouble, but as it was I just threw it to the ground and carried on. When I was in the cars they were less of a problem. When I was on foot, though, things got a little nastier. By the end of the day I had to start getting violent to keep them under control and I didn’t enjoy that at all. I had to do things I really wasn’t comfortable with. I mean, I had kids and old ladies coming at me for Christ’s sake. Fucking hell, at one point I was battering a little kid around the head with a jack from the boot of one of the cars and I thought, what the fuck am I doing? I had to do it, though. I had no choice. It was get them before they get me – kill them or be killed by them. After a while I gave up trying to manhandle them and I started wiping them out with the cars. I feel bad about it now, but there was a part of me that actually enjoyed it at the time. Fucking hell, by the end of the day I was chasing the fucking things round the car lot, running them down and giving myself points for killing them with style or at speed, better than any game. Crazy really. It was only when I got up next morning and saw what I’d done that I realised how dumb I’d been. I must have killed more than fifty of the damn things. There was blood, guts and bits of bodies everywhere.

  But there were still more coming.

  #

  I don’t feel so good today. I’m scared. It’s late on Wednesday night and there are hundreds of them outside again. You’d think they’d have seen what happened here and given up. There’s no
way they can get to me, but they’re just relentless. They stand outside, edging ever closer, watching and waiting for me to come out. I’ve tried blocking up the windows, but it doesn’t make any difference because I know they’re still there, and they know I’m here. I’ve started thinking some bloody crazy thoughts too. Are they here for revenge?

  Christ I feel sick.

  Don’t know whether it’s something I’ve eaten or just nerves, but my guts are bad. I’ve lived on crap since this started – mostly chocolate, crisps, biscuits and other snacks because that’s easiest. I haven’t had bread or anything fresh for days. It’s probably nothing, just adrenalin, but it’s made me think. I stuck my head out of the door for a second this afternoon and all I could hear was thousands of flies buzzing and I started thinking about the germs and diseases that are out there. I’ve probably been breathing them in for days now. For Christ’s sake, the whole fucking car lot is packed with human remains.

  This building is starting to smell. It’s starting to smell worse than outside. I can’t stand it any longer. I’ve had diarrhoea since yesterday morning and I can’t flush any of the toilets now. They’re all backed-up with shit and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t have any spare water or bleach. I should have been better prepared.

  It’s dark now, and there’s nothing to do but sit here and wait for morning. I’m scared. I don’t want to play games anymore. I don’t want to be distracted. I want to know what’s happening around me so that I’m ready for anything but, at the same time, I don’t want to look. I don’t want to see the dead outside. I can’t sleep. I can’t even bring myself to shut my eyes now, and even if I could, the pain in my guts would keep me awake.

  Those fucking things just won’t go. They’re waiting for me. They try to climb over the cars to get closer to me but they can’t do it. They don’t have the coordination or the strength today, but tomorrow they might.

  I’ll stay here for as long as I can but I know I’ll have to try and find some medicine and proper food soon. Maybe I’ll try and get away in the morning. Maybe I’ll wait another couple of days. Maybe I’ll never get out.

  I’ve gone and built myself a fucking prison.

  DAY FOURTEEN

  BREAKING POINT

  The farmhouse was lost, and with it all security, comfort and certainty. The two of them sat together in the back of the Land Rover, locked in a desperate embrace, afraid to let go because all they had left now was each other.

  Why are we even bothering when the odds are stacked so high against us? What’s the point? When everything’s gone, why are we still trying to survive? They both asked the same questions individually, but kept their answers private, maintaining the pretence, refusing to dwell on the hopelessness of their situation for the sake of the other. Both Michael and Emma knew their situation was dire.

  Their desperate flight from Penn Farm, overrun with dead flesh, had been unplanned, unexpected and terrifying. It had all happened so quickly: a long, drawn out wait and then, finally, suddenly, they’d reached breaking point. The number of bodies converging on their isolated hideout had reached unmanageable levels, and then Carl had… well, Carl had reached breaking point too. In many ways the final loss of the farmhouse had come about as a direct result of his actions, and yet neither Michael or Emma felt any anger towards him. The fragility of his state of mind was wholly understandable in the circumstances. Michael wondered if he too might go the same way before long. He even wondered if that might be for the best. Could insanity possibly be any worse than this reality? Might it even make things easier?

  They’d waited in this desolate, windswept car park on the edge of one side of a steep valley for as long as they’d been able. Times past, people had come to this isolated place to admire its beauty. Today all that Emma and Michael were interested in was its remoteness. From their high vantage point they looked down over a landscape which felt eternally empty now, and their microscopic size amidst the vastness of this place was humbling. The world should have been theirs for the taking. Christ, as far as they knew, they were the only ones left alive, surely they should have inherited everything by default? And yet here they were with nothing.

  That was because they were here too. The relentless, tireless dead. Millions of slowly decaying bodies which hounded them incessantly, never stopping, and never giving up.

  As it was, they’d only seen one body since they’d been up here. Who had it once been? How had the dead man managed to get this far on foot? Surely he couldn’t have followed them all this way, so how had he ended up out here in the middle of nowhere at the same time as Michael and Emma? They couldn’t help asking these and other unanswerable, irrelevant questions when the hideous creature first lumbered into view. The gnarled corpse had been horrific: all grubby skin and bone, the gusting wind blowing its ragged, flapping clothing against its skeletal frame, highlighting its brutal emaciation. Its grotesque face, deformed by decay, had appeared both expressionless and impossibly furious at the same time.

  The two of them had remained perfectly still, waiting for the monstrosity to disappear again, too afraid to go out and confront it, despite knowing full well that either of them working alone could have taken it down in seconds. They chose instead to wait, sitting motionless in the back of the Land Rover until the dead man had gone. It seemed to take forever for him to disappear, but neither of them moved even a muscle until he was completely out of sight, both fearing there might be more of the dead nearby. The damn things followed the herd. If they’d attracted the attention of just this one, countless more might soon follow.

  ‘We need food,’ Emma said after they’d been sitting in their wind-beaten, blood-splattered Land Rover for what felt like weeks, continually watching the road ahead and behind should other corpses appear. Michael didn’t answer. She was right, of course, but why bother? ‘We can’t just sit here indefinitely, can we?’

  ‘Why not? You got any better ideas?’

  She looked across at him. He stared out through the rain-lashed window, doing all he could to avoid making eye contact.

  ‘I can’t take this anymore. I’m hungry,’ she said, and she scrambled over into the front and sat down behind the wheel. She started the engine, and the sudden noise and movement forced Michael into life.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he protested as she pulled out onto the road. He climbed over into the front and collapsed into the seat next to her.

  ‘What does it look like I’m doing? I can’t stand this.’

  He wanted to argue and make her turn back but he knew he couldn’t. He had no counter.

  #

  Another unplanned drive through the heavy-skied gloom of a cold late-September afternoon came to a sudden end outside a lone house, as far away from everything else as Penn Farm had initially seemed. Michael silently thanked Emma for forcing his hand. For a while he’d begun to genuinely believe they might die up on that rocky outcrop, too scared to ever move.

  ‘So what do you reckon?’ she asked. Michael looked around. The house stood alone at the roadside, no other buildings in sight. He could see a solitary corpse in the distance, too far away to be of any real concern.

  ‘I’ll go in and check it out,’ he replied, and before she could say anything else he was gone. He checked the front door – locked – then walked around the side of the building. He peered around each corner, checking the garden was empty, before trying the back door. It was open, and he slipped through into a small, square kitchen where a rustic-looking table and chairs filled almost the entire floor. He stared at the never-finished remains of someone’s last breakfast until a sudden noise behind disturbed him and he spun around to see Emma standing in the doorway. She hadn’t wanted to wait outside alone.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Don’t know yet,’ he said. ‘Haven’t got any further than here.’

  He walked around the edge of the table and down a short hallway towards the front door. Something grabbed at his leg and he recoiled, jumpi
ng back with shock and tripping over the corner of a rug. He was flat on his backside before he knew what was happening, face to face with a woman’s corpse lying on its belly. He scrambled back away from the hideous thing, unable to take his eyes off its repulsive, disease-ravaged face. One of its legs was badly broken: horrifically swollen in all the wrong places. A sharp point of broken bone had torn through the skin and was now scraping along the wooden floorboards as the creature tried to move closer to him. It reached out but its grasping fingers fell short every time. It tried to grip the rug and pull itself closer, but its weight was too much for its weakened muscles to shift.

  Emma was standing in the kitchen doorway, unable to move. Michael was still sitting on the ground. He drew his feet up closer, keeping out of range of the dead woman’s thrashing arms, moving back as she inched forward.

  ‘Get rid of it,’ Emma said, but Michael couldn’t. This was the first of the dead he’d been this close to since their escape from the farm house, and it terrified him with its undeniable, vicious intent. And yet, physically, he knew it was nothing. It appeared so pathetically weak that he couldn’t understand why he, Carl and Emma hadn’t been able to defend their home in the woods from these pathetic things. Their flesh was weak. They were rotting. Hollow. This one had been an elderly woman – no match for him in life, let alone death – and yet he still couldn’t bring himself to fight. He pictured himself booting her face, caving it in until just a bloody mess remained, but he couldn’t do it. Patchy white hair. Dribbles of decay staining her cardigan and her floral print dress. Slippers.

  For fuck’s sake…

  Forcing himself to get a grip and move, Michael stood up, grabbed the corpse by the scruff of the neck, and half-dragged, half-threw it back into the room it had been slowly crawling out of. He pulled the door shut, safe in the knowledge it couldn’t reach the handle from the floor, and that even if it did, it would probably only be able to push, not pull.