Autumn

by David Moody

  ‘Are we in trouble now?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Only if we wait around here much longer. We need to move.’

  ‘Just drive through them?’

  ‘Exactly. Before they reach critical mass.’

  ‘Critical mass? What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Critical mass, breaking point… it’s all the same thing. We’re safe until we let them get to a certain level. When there’s too many of them, the balance of power shifts and we’re screwed. Until then, we just about stay in control. We just have to keep moving.’

  ‘Breaking point… is that what happened to you on the car park roof?’

  ‘Something like that, I guess. You ready?’

  Emma nodded, and the two of them ran for the back of the Land Rover and scrambled over the supplies they’d collected. Michael dropped into the driver’s seat, started the engine, put his foot down, and careened away. Emma held on tight behind him.

  ‘So what’s the plan now?’ she shouted over the noise of the engine and the relentless thump of the stream of unsteady bodies they ploughed into and through. At first Michael didn’t answer, concentrating instead on mounting the pavement to weave around the back of a truck, then avoiding another clutch of corpses to get back onto the road.

  ‘No plan,’ he told her.

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Plenty of food, though.’

  She couldn’t really argue, but she did. ‘We need to be better organised that this, Mike. We can’t just keep stopping and starting.’

  ‘Why not? I’m beginning to think that’s exactly how we need to be. The same thing’s going to happen wherever we go, isn’t it? Wherever we are, whatever we do, we’re going to have about ten minutes grace before we’re surrounded. Fact is, we’re massively outnumbered, Em. We just have to deal with it.’

  ‘So is this it then? Just drive, loot, drive, sleep, drive, fight…? We’re going to end up spending the rest of our lives stuck in this bloody car.’

  ‘If you can think of a better solution, I’m all ears.’ He gripped the wheel and swerved to avoid a child’s corpse which walked down the white line towards them, arms outstretched in a classic ghoul-like pose. ‘We need to drive out into the middle of nowhere, find somewhere practically inaccessible, then hope there’s a building or something we can use nearby.’

  ‘There’s a café on the top of Snowdon,’ Emma offered.

  ‘That’s not as dumb as it sounds.’

  ‘It wasn’t dumb at all,’ she said, offended. ‘I was being serious.’

  ‘But it’s impractical. Too extreme. There are probably loads of places like that, but less remote. It’s just a question of finding them.’

  ‘Let’s stop and get a map or something. Plan things properly instead of just lurching from crisis to crisis.’

  ‘We’re not lurching from crisis to crisis. It’s all the same bloody crisis, in case you hadn’t noticed. We just need to find somewhere as isolated as the top of Snowdon, then only a handful of them will ever be able to reach us. Christ, it’ll be hard enough for us to get there.’

  ‘Déjà vu. Haven’t we been down this road before? Wasn’t that the big selling point of the farmhouse? Look where that got us.’

  ‘It almost worked,’ he replied, wincing as the Land Rover powered into another corpse.

  ‘Yes, but almost is the same as didn’t. It’s not that simple. There are too many of them.’

  Michael braked as he reached a cross-roads. The Land Rover skidded to an abrupt halt. The dead poured towards them from every conceivable direction.

  ‘This is bloody crazy,’ Emma said under her breath. She ducked instinctively as another corpse lunged for the Land Rover. It tripped in the road and fell forward, its skull cracking against her window with a sickening thump.

  Michael struggled to keep control of both the Land Rover and his temper. ‘I’ll keep driving until we find a bloody light house or something like that, shall I?’

  Emma didn’t bite. She gripped the sides of her seat as he accelerated again. And then she saw it.

  ‘Stop!’

  Michael instinctively reacted, bringing the Land Rover to another juddering stop and wiping out four more straggling cadavers in the process. ‘What?’

  ‘Over there,’ she said, pointing ahead and way over to their left. ‘Look!’

  Michael saw it immediately and sped up again. ‘You’re a bloody genius,’ he told her as he steered them towards an industrial estate. Through the chain-link fence he could see a vast expanse of tarmac covered with caravans and motorhomes of varying shapes and sizes. She’d found a temporary solution to their problems: a way of getting as far as they could from the towns and the cities and the dead without having to resort to living out of the back of this bloody Land Rover any longer.

  ‘That one,’ Emma said as they approached, pointing out the largest, most luxurious, and strongest-looking motorhome she could see.

  DAY SEVENTEEN

  AMY STEADMAN

  Part v

  Amy Steadman’s remarkable physical transformation has continued unabated. It is now more than two weeks since her death. As her body has festered, however, the low level of muted brain activity has continued to increase. Defying all previous understanding of the changes undergone within the human body after death, as Amy’s flesh and bone has deteriorated she has, paradoxically, regained a remarkable degree of self-awareness. The increasing physical limitations of her decomposing body result in much of this mental improvement remaining undetectable.

  Time has taken its toll on the millions of cadavers now walking the streets. They are steadily disintegrating; countless internal and external chemical reactions affecting the composition and strength of their flesh. Amy’s corpse is no different. Her skin has darkened and dried out in places as fluids have drained away. Her body has become a breeding ground for huge numbers of insects. Amy’s corpse is infested. She is riddled with maggots.

  Operating on a basic level, the bodies are driven by an instinctive desire to continue to exist. Self-preservation is each corpse’s only concern. Because of their worsening physical state, however, their ability to defend and protect themselves is severely limited. As a result their reactions now appear clumsy and overly aggressive. The bodies will fight to protect themselves at all costs even if, perversely, this results in them sustaining physical damage. It’s not uncommon to see a body attack another corpse in self-defence, and sustain substantial damage in the process. This is the norm with those bodies that are particularly badly decayed. Where the process has been slowed – as with Amy Steadman who died indoors, shielded from the elements for several days – the actions of the dead are slightly more reserved and controlled.

  It is now early on Thursday morning and a light, misty rain has been falling since dawn. Amy’s body is shuffling along the side of a warehoused-sized furniture store. There are a large number of corpses nearby, although the reason for their swollen numbers is not immediately apparent. It may be that there has previously been an incident here which initially attracted their attention, and that this is simply the residue of that crowd gradually disappearing. The fact that many of these bodies seem to be moving in the same overall direction, however, indicates that this could be the beginning of such an incident, not the end.

  Amy’s corpse continues to drag itself around the building and the surrounding streets until a single noise in the near distance attracts its attention. It is the sound of a survivor preparing to leave his shelter to search for essential supplies. Amy, along with all the other corpses in the immediate vicinity, immediately begins to gravitate towards the source of the sound.

  The young male survivor is based in an office building in the centre of a sprawling car lot. Over the last few days he has attempted to fortify and strengthen his hideout with limited success, but as the behaviour of the bodies has changed, so he has been forced to change his priorities. Failing dismally to prepare for the potential long-term problems caused by the infection
, he is struggling to stay sane and stay alive. The survivor failed to anticipate the herding behaviour of the dead, nor did he consider the potential duration of his incarceration. Initially naïvely believing that he could continue to enjoy something resembling a pre-infection standard of living, he is now dangerously ill-equipped, having focused his early efforts on comfort rather than practical necessities.

  His health is deteriorating. As a result both of the increased number of bodies in the locality and the fortifications he made to his shelter, he is unable to easily venture out for supplies. He has been trapped for days without access to clean water, sanitation, medicine, and food of any real nutritional value. He is dehydrated and malnourished. After an aborted attempt to fetch supplies three days ago, his mental state has also deteriorated. At this point in time the differences between this survivor and the corpses which surround him are remarkably slim. Because of their vast numbers and their emotionless state, the bodies now have a clear advantage.

  The survivor has emerged from the office building in the middle of the car lot where he has hidden for the last two weeks. He moves slowly in a futile attempt to avoid detection. Because of his poor physical condition, his movements are uncharacteristically clumsy. He plans to take a car and drive to a supermarket and he is confident that once he is in the car he will be relatively safe. His activity, however, has not gone unnoticed. His pained, awkward movements and rasping breathing have already attracted the attention of several of the nearest cadavers. An inevitable chain reaction is spreading throughout the crowd as more bodies gravitate towards him.

  Amy Steadman’s body is close. She has crossed the main road between the furniture store and the car lot and is heading towards the office building, focussing on the increased levels of movement all around it. The dead are closing in from every direction.

  Some of the bodies are distracted by the movement of other corpses around them. Amy, however, is able to differentiate between the dead and other distractions. She will not hesitate to attack anything that threatens her, but she no longer wantonly attacks other bodies. She concentrates on moving towards the source of the disruption, although she does not fully understand why. She likely assumes it represents a threat.

  The lone survivor is weak and, after a long period of frightened inactivity, he finds the sudden effort of moving at speed unexpectedly difficult. Just leaving the building has left him breathless and light-headed. Overcome with nerves, he has stopped in the shadows at the side of the building and is trying to summon up the strength to make a run for the car he previously left ready for an occasion such as this.

  Amy’s corpse – along with more than fifty others – is less than ten metres away from the front of the office building. The survivor is now aware of the sudden movement all around him, but he is being dangerously indecisive. He knows he can either retreat (as he did a week ago) or continue with this attempt to fetch supplies. He knows that either option is equally dangerous: if he turns back he will starve and his sickness will worsen, yet if he leaves he risks attack from the advancing hordes. He also knows that he will have to leave eventually and that going back inside will only delay the inevitable. He decides to run for the car.

  Indecision has ultimately proved to be this survivor’s undoing. The brief but unnecessary delay has given sufficient numbers of bodies enough time to drag themselves into the narrow space between him and the car. He attempts to run towards the vehicle, managing to avoid the first few corpses which attack. Within another few metres, however, there are too many of them. He tries to double-back, but once the first of the dead has caught hold of him he is trapped. He easily releases the first corpse’s grip, but wastes precious seconds fighting it. By the time he’s free and the first body is down, another eight are on him.

  Amy Steadman’s corpse is at the front of the crowd which swallows up and kills this survivor.

  #

  Half an hour later and the scene has changed again. With the survivor now dead and the area silent, the bulk of the crowd of bodies has begun drifting away. Amy Steadman’s body limps alone through the early mist along a wide road strewn with death.

  DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME?

  In the seventeen days since it happened, Maxwell has rarely needed to leave his home. In the last fourteen days, in fact, he hasn’t had to go outside at all. He’s what people used to call a ‘Prepper’: someone who planned for the worst, because they knew it was going to happen someday. And Maxwell was right. All the effort he put into stockpiling and planning his survival before the event has definitely paid off now. The fact he’s alive was all down to chance at the end of the day, though he doesn’t know that. Or if he does, he doesn’t care. Maxwell is convinced the reason he’s still here after millions of others were wiped out is because he knows what he’s doing. In a world where all reason appears to have gone out of the window, it’s hard to argue with his logic.

  Flood, fire, earthquake, flu epidemic, alien invasion, terrorism, war… he’d got all bases covered. When you take things down to base level, the requirements for survival are largely the same whatever the shade of shit being hurled at the fan. Food, water, medicinal supplies… all generic entries on any self-respecting Prepper’s standard tick-list.

  People who didn’t know Maxwell called him a loner. Some avoided him, thought he was a bit strange. Very few understood him. She did. They hadn’t been together for long, but she’d seemed to instinctively understand what he was doing and where he was at. Sometimes, when he’s lying in bed at night, listening to the silence, he can still hear her voice and feel her lips on his. Kathryn was special. Everything his first time should have been and so much more besides. He can’t get her face out of his head.

  Who’s laughing now? When he thinks about all his detractors, he can’t help but feel a little smug. There’s a part of him wishes they could see him. Maybe they can? Maybe some of the corpses outside remember more than he’s given them credit for? Maybe they’re looking at him, thinking we’re sorry, Max, you were right… we shouldn’t have taken the piss…

  He knows that none of this matters now, because he’s won. If this was a film and he was the star, they’d call it King of the Dead.

  Externally, Maxwell’s modest house is indistinguishable from pretty much every other house on the street. It’s all part of the plan. A small, run-of-the-mill terraced house with a door at the front, one at the back, and a side-passage giving access to a small, walled backyard. A small backyard that’s full of equipment and supplies. He had most of it already, but in the two day’s grace between the fall and the resurrection of the rest of the population, he went into town and scavenged everything he was missing and more besides. Maxwell has so much stuff in his home now that he’s struggling for living space. He could have set-up somewhere else, but the familiarity was important. Loading up and clearing out would have taken too much effort and risk. He knows there’ll be plenty of time for all that. When this is over, he tells himself regularly, he’ll get out of town and find himself somewhere perfect. It’ll be like all the best post-apocalyptic dreams he ever had. Bloody hell, he hadn’t realised how much he’d been looking forward to these days. The only downside is the loneliness, but he’ll cope. The freedom is more than enough of a trade-off. The dead world is his oyster…

  But he really does miss her.

  #

  Maxwell spends his days checking and rechecking his provisions, then checking them again. The undeniable buzz of all this preparation is still enough of a distraction from the monotony of keeping his head down and staying quiet. He knows that’s what it’s going to take to stay alive.

  He’s a smart kid. He watched from the window and worked out the rules of the dead quickly enough, figured out how they were becoming increasingly self-aware and, therefore, increasingly dangerous. He also knows that the danger will continue to increase for as long as the dead remain mobile. Their decaying bodies will inevitably fail them in time. It’ll be another six months, he reckons, someth
ing like that. He knows he can hold out that long.

  Maxwell has always felt different to everyone else, but now that difference is stark. When he’s watching the dead, he can’t make up his mind whether they’ve undergone a radical transformation or if they’ve barely changed at all? They look completely different, of course, but they still hang around in packs and follow the herd, fitting in and trying not to be noticed, just like they used to.

  Maxwell never tried to fit in, never subscribed to the same bland shite as everyone else. The mainstream was too mediocre for his liking, constantly exploiting the mundane for profit and gain. Shit, it had come to something when even geeks and nerds had become cool. Didn’t anyone understand how wrong that was? When a minority is accepted and swallowed up by the mainstream, he’d told Kathryn that night, it gets diluted and sanitized until it eventually becomes the majority. When they saw some of the clothes he wore and learnt about the things he enjoyed, people thought he was being ironic. But he wasn’t. He was just being Maxwell.

  He’s distracted watching a pack of them now. They’re regressing, he thinks, becoming more animal-like. Their humanity is being stripped away in layers, and now what he’s seeing is base-level instinct. Guttural. Clumsy. Unrefined. Brutal. He studies them with a confident superiority, predicting their movements. One of them – a man in his early fifties when he died, perhaps, judging from his clothing and shabby appearance – has lost his balance. He trips down the kerb and clatters into the side of a parked car. The dead man is an awkward mass of barely-controlled flesh now, struggling with his own substantial weight. The impact with the car is enough to set off the vehicle’s alarm, and the sudden noise and flashing headlights disturb the eerie stillness of everything else. The sound is ugly. It makes Maxwell feel nervous and he wants it to stop. These days, silence is his friend.