Autumn

by David Moody

  Maxwell predicts the alarm will draw hundreds of those things closer from miles around. He makes a mental note to remember how effective it is, because it might be useful. Already there are more than twenty corpses lumbering towards the car. He covers his mouth with his hand when he laughs involuntarily. They’re so bloody dumb and predictable. As soon as the noise stops, they start moving away, spreading out like ink across blotting paper. But the alarm’s not finished yet. It’s silent for about thirty seconds, then it goes off again, and every last one of the dead bodies which has started moving away immediately swivels around and pointlessly trudges back again.

  And it goes on and on and on.

  For hours.

  Stupid fucking creatures.

  #

  Shit. Maxwell has a problem.

  Something’s got into the back yard overnight. A fox or a starving dog must have got over the wall somehow. Thankfully almost all of the perishable stuff is in the house, but the damn vermin has had a go at some of the medical supplies Max left off the ground on a pallet outside because he didn’t have room indoors. He doesn’t think too much damage has been done, but this stuff will need replacing. He can’t afford to take risks and leave himself open to infection. Christ alone knows the air’s going to be full of all kinds of germs from here on in. What’s happened this morning isn’t the end of the world (he smiles to himself when he thinks that – that’s been and gone already) but he does need to do something about it. He’ll probably be okay, but probably isn’t good enough anymore. And the thing is, from what he’s seen, he’s sure that in the short to mid-term, things are going to get far worse out there before they get any better. He needs to sort this out fast. The sooner he gets it done, the less risky it should be.

  Maxwell spends the rest of the day reorganising his stuff and bringing everything inside but he knows there’s no escaping the fact he’s going to have to go out in the morning.

  #

  Maxwell gets up early, just before first light. He knows the dead have no concept of night and day – he’s seen them milling about at all hours – so going out at this time is purely for his benefit. The shadows will help. It’s light enough so that he can see what he’s doing, but still dark enough to remain hidden. On a less practical level, he knows it’s better to get this done now than to spend the whole day thinking too hard about leaving the house and getting worked up unnecessarily.

  He has a specific set of clothing he’s prepared for occasions such as this. He wears a wetsuit as a base-layer. He doesn’t think the dead things outside bite like they did in the movies, but he’s not taking any chances. He reminds himself that this time last month he didn’t think the dead could walk, either. The wetsuit provides protection, yet it enables him to remain mobile too. Over it he wears several warm, loose-fitting layers. He also wears a utility belt – more DIY-expert than Batman-like in its design, but it does the same job. From it he hangs his tools: screwdrivers, pliers, a hammer, a crowbar… they can all double-up as weapons if push comes to shove.

  He moves quietly through the shadows, passing so close to some of the corpses that he can hardly believe they don’t notice him. Their senses have clearly been severely dulled by what happened, and that’s no surprise. The surprise is that they’re still managing to function at all.

  For the first ten minutes, Maxwell intentionally walks in the wrong direction. When he’s a safe distance from his home, well away from his intended destination, he uses the trick he picked up earlier this week and smashes a car window to set off the alarm. He waits out of sight until the noise has done its work and all the dead nearby have been drawn out of hiding.

  This morning, Maxwell is going to the hospital. Although he might be able to get what he needs from a supermarket (and there are several of those between the hospital and home), he’s steering clear of such public places. Let’s face it, if anyone else has survived, that’s where they’ll be heading. Maxwell’s not interested in any other survivors (except one). Other people will present more problems than solutions. It’s a pretty safe bet they’ll be nowhere near as prepared or as able as he is. The last thing he needs – the last thing he wants – in these circumstances is to saddle himself with freeloaders. His provisions have been sourced on the basis of catering for one, and his home/hideout has just enough space for him alone to live comfortably. Harsh as it sounds, anyone else who’s made it this far can go to hell. And anyway, if they’ve lasted ’til today, they obviously don’t need him.

  He waits in the open garage of another house and daydreams, wishing Kathryn could see him now. Imagine if she’d survived, that it was just the two of them… She thought some of the things he did were strange, but he knew all along he was right. The apocalypse has justified his odd behaviours.

  #

  It doesn’t take long to get to the hospital. Obviously the wards and other public spaces are no-go areas full of corpses, but he’d never planned on going there anyway. There are kitchens and supply areas where he can get everything he needs, both today and in the future. He knows his way around the hospital campus. He’s never been here as anything other than a visitor and an A&E patient on a couple of occasions, but he’s spent long enough poring over the plans and Google Earth to know where he’s going.

  Avoid main entrances and obvious doors. Find other ways to get where you need to go. Think about what other survivors would do – less prepared survivors – and do the opposite.

  He talks to himself constantly, reassures himself he’s doing the right thing, focuses on getting the job done and getting back home. This isn’t as easy as he thought it would be. Being away from the house has added an additional layer of realism to the situation he wasn’t expecting. He wasn’t prepared for the unending scale of the devastation this morning, nor how everything has deteriorated in the two weeks or so since he last ventured out. How things feel, how things smell… Everywhere he looks he sees something worse than before. The corpse of a child in the backseat of a car, pawing the glass constantly with tiny, brittle fingers; imprisoned bodies prowling the rooms of their mausoleum homes, unable to escape; half a woman dragging herself along the middle of the road, tattered stumps where her feet used to be…

  Maxwell stops and presses himself flat against a wall when a cadaver approaches. He stands completely still and studies its decay as it moves past him, oblivious. It has sustained appalling injuries, as if its unprotected face has been smashed into something at force. Its bottom lip is split down to the chin, and there are yellowed teeth protruding from its broken jaw at unnatural angles. Its swollen brown tongue moves constantly around the inside of its mouth. No spit. Too dry to lick. Maxwell stays exactly where he is for a moment longer, feeling faint. It’ll pass, he knows it will. It’s just shock.

  The smells begin to affect him more than the sights. There’s an ever-present fug of death hanging in the air here, a noxious stench which seems to coat everything. He’s wearing a basic facemask as a precaution, but even that’s not enough. Maybe, if the opportunity presents itself, he’ll be able to find something more substantial in the hospital stores for next time. Christ knows he’s probably going to need it. The longer this goes on, the more the bodies will decay. He’s already outnumbered by insects, several million to one. It’s only going to get worse.

  Am I really the only one left alive?

  He wishes Kathryn had given him her address after the party. He could go and check. One way or another, he thinks he’d just prefer to know.

  He’s distracted. He forces himself to find focus. Get a grip. Concentrate.

  Maxwell pushes himself away from the wall and steps on the outstretched hand of a girl who dropped dead and never got up again. The horrible sound of bones breaking under his boot, fingers crunching, threatens to make the nausea return. He takes his time, looks up into the swirling clouds overhead and waits for the sickness to pass. He almost turns and goes back home, but stops himself before his nerves give out. Do this right, he thinks, and I won’t have t
o leave the house again for a long time. Fuck it up, and I could be back here before the month’s out.

  He imagines her watching him from afar. Waiting for him. He imagines doing this for her.

  Up ahead is the large storage building he’s been aiming for. According to the information he accessed online before the Internet died, this is the largest such facility on the campus. There’s a loading bay around the back, and a smaller entrance on the side which he manages to pry open with his crowbar. One last look around, then he disappears inside.

  The building is surprisingly light. Clear Perspex panels in the roof let in a decent amount of early morning illumination. He stands still, waiting for the sound of his forced entry to fade. And when it does, he becomes aware of more noise coming from deeper inside the vast space. There are several corpses in here, and he has to assume they’re all aware of him now. No matter. He thinks he can work around them. They’re not people anymore, just… things.

  There’s a small office up ahead. He goes inside and shuts the door behind him, grateful of the space. A dead woman is slumped facedown over a desk. She’s holding a mobile phone, which he wrenches from her death-grip. Even after all this time it still has a little battery remaining. He spends a few seconds looking through her digital life and remembering his own. Maybe he should spend this time trying to get online? Should he check the major news sites to see if they’re responding or if they’ve been updated? What’s the point? What does it matter if anyone else is left alive out there? If he discovers the whole of the rest of Europe has survived this, so what? What difference will it make? He is where he is. Strange thing is, he thinks he’d actually be disappointed now if he found there were other people still alive. He couldn’t face having to go back to living in the old world. Not now. Not after the taste of freedom that Armageddon has given him.

  The dead woman’s name is Amelia. She partied hard. He flicks casually through her photograph – most taken in various pubs and bars, others taken at home as she relaxed with her boyfriend and parents. There’s a video of her playing with a dog. He watches it over and over, transfixed by the little black and white dog catching the same thrown ball again and again.

  And then the battery gives up the ghost.

  The screen dims and the pictures disappear and no matter how many times he tries to get the phone to come back to life, it doesn’t. All those images are still trapped in there somewhere, but he has no way of accessing them. Digital Amelia has ceased to exist. All that’s left of her now is this rapidly decaying mass of flesh and bone. He knows Kathryn’s like this somewhere, or worse. But he consoles himself with the fact that he’s still thinking about her, and surely that’s keeping her alive in some way?

  He looks at Amelia’s body, and remembers his time with Kathryn. He’d liked her a lot, but she’d barely looked at him before the office party. They’d both got drunk and ended up having a quick, fumbled fuck in the toilets. His first time. His only time. He’s daydreaming again now, imagining what life would have been like if she’d survived too. Christ, she’d have been blown away by what he’d achieved… But he has to accept she’s gone. Truth be told, she was gone long before all this madness started. She was gone by the time the hangovers had cleared.

  He struggled with people. Things, Maxwell could always deal with: plans, preparations, contingencies, supplies, whatever it took. It was people he had trouble with. Couldn’t handle their unpredictability. Didn’t like the fact he was never in complete control when other people were involved.

  There’s a noise.

  Something close behind him, just outside the office door.

  Maxwell holds his breath and stands perfectly still, cursing himself for being a dumb fucking idiot and getting distracted. And then he sees it. Another one of them. He knows he needs to get moving, that every second he spends here now is a second too long. He waits until the corpse has gone, then lets himself back out and starts looking for the stuff he needs. He finds it quickly enough – the store is well-organised and labelled – and loads up his rucksack.

  And now one of them has seen him. It’s at the end of this aisle, and there’s no other way out. Shit, he’s cornered. Maxwell’s going to have to get past it to get home.

  He hasn’t had to kill any of them yet, but how difficult can this be, right? He’s seen enough films, read enough books… and it’s not even like this is going to be a fair fight. These creatures are already dead.

  Nervous. Mouth dry.

  He gets his crowbar ready, passes it from hand to hand. It’s his weapon of choice, though he’s not yet had to use it. Quick, quiet and effective.

  The corpse is getting closer. He tries to visualise what he knows he has to do. These things still have some degree of control, and the only place that control can emanate from is the brain. So it’s the old horror movie cliché, isn’t it? He’s going to have to aim for the head. He visualises again, tries to prepare himself for the crunch of breaking bone, the blood splattering, the softness of decayed brain… If he gets this right, one strike should do it. Get the angle right, get the amount of force right, and he’ll be okay. He knows he can do this…

  Another deep breath. Pulse racing.

  Crowbar held high, he walks closer to the creature. It’s directly ahead of him, and it has locked onto him with clouded, unfocused eyes.

  And now Maxwell can’t move.

  She’s a little shorter than he is. In the half-light she still looks quite pretty, a little like Kathryn, in fact, though he knows that’s just his mind playing tricks. Her hair is white-blonde. Her body, though distended by decay, is still clearly feminine. Her blouse is tight across her chest. She’s wearing glasses. That takes him by surprise… after all she’s been through, he thinks, how can she still be wearing glasses? The dark, narrow frames suited her face, he can tell. What would she have been like before she’d died? Would she have liked him? Would she have wanted to talk to him? Listened to him? He’s transfixed both by what she is now and the thought of what she used to be.

  And Maxwell can’t do it.

  It’s not like the movies. This is real. So far he’s done whatever he’s needed to do to survive, but this feels like a step too far. What has she done to him? What’s she done to deserve this or, in fact, to deserve any of what’s happened to her since the world ended? It’s not fair. It’s not right.

  And she moves ever closer. Does she want him to help her?

  He lowers the crowbar.

  ‘Please…’ he says, not sure what he’s trying to say or why he’s even bothering. ‘Just go. Leave me alone. I don’t want to hurt you…’

  But she won’t listen. She keeps walking towards him. Unsteady. One leg weaker than the other, almost a cripple’s gait. One shoe on and one shoe off. She’s too close now and he reaches out to stop her. Holds her. Looks into her face. The touch of a woman. It’s been a long time. Three years since that night with Kathryn. He pushes her away and, as his grip tightens, he feels her decaying flesh give way under the pressure of his fingers. It’s sobering. Like wet putty. Reminds him what he’s dealing with. He pushes her back and she comes at him again. And again. And again. And she won’t stop and all he wants is for her to go and for him to be out of here and he wishes he’d never left the house because this is harder than he imagined and he curses himself for leaving that stuff out in the yard at home and… and another corpse is close now, also blocking his way out. This one is much larger, wearing gore-streaked overalls. It lumbers awkwardly into an overloaded shelf, sending supplies scattering in all directions and filling this cavernous room with noise. And when the noise of the crashing supplies fades to nothing, Maxwell realises he can hear other sounds now too. More of the dead. Awakened. Closing in on him.

  The dead woman lunges again. Maxwell shoves her back and looks into her face. He wants to see an enemy, something he can hate, but all he sees is her.

  More bodies visible through the racking, heading for this aisle.

  It felt like a game before
. He never thought it would be like this. All that Prepper training… that was all about practicalities, not realities, and definitely not emotions.

  It all boils down to this moment, he realises. I have to do it.

  She comes at him once more, dead arms flailing.

  Fight or flight.

  Maxwell raises the crowbar, screws his eyes shut, and does it.

  The first cut’s the deepest.

  Once she’s down, he does what he has to do to get rid of the others. There are five in total. It gets easier with each one he cuts down, but it’s not as painless as it looked in the movies.

  #

  Maxwell’s made it home. All supplies replaced. Everything as it should be.

  Things feel different tonight. Tonight he’s not feeling so self-assured. His confidence has taken a knock. Things have changed. He realises now there’s more to survival than bottles of water and ration-packs. He realises tonight that there’s stuff you need to know to survive that you can’t read in books or pick up online.

  And when Maxwell lies in bed and tries to sleep tonight, it’s a different girl’s face he can’t get out of his head.

  THE HUMAN CONDITION

  Part ii – GOING DOWN

  John Proctor slumped against the wall, his head in his hands, and watched the others through the gaps between his fingers. Christ, how he’d grown to despise these people over the last week and a half. Ten days, he thought. Ten fucking days. That’s how long we’ve been here now. That’s how long we’ve been sitting here doing nothing but shout, argue and fight with each other. This can’t go on much longer.