Autumn

by David Moody

  This one looks older than it probably was. Another bloke, wearing some kind of overalls. He stabs it in the gut with his left-hand blade, hitting it with enough force to shove it back against the wall, then slides the other knife across its throat, virtually decapitating it. The cadaver slumps against him, its innards emptying out through the new holes he’s made in its flesh. He shakes himself clean as he avoids the third corpse. Four, five, six and seven go down easy.

  Checkpoint.

  These short stops are important. They make him feel like he’s still in control. He could run the entire distance in one go, but he thinks that’d be a risk. He needs to be careful. He needs to get this right. There’s too much at stake to fuck this up. Breathing hard, he stands perfectly still and composes himself, doing what he can to blend into his surroundings, wishing he was back inside and that this was done.

  He peers around the corner. Shit. Between here and the store, the next street is swarming. He didn’t expect it to be like this. Something must have drawn them here. He now has three choices. He rules out the first option – taking the long way around, working his way from building to building. It’d be safer for him, but it’d take time he doesn’t have. He’s up against the clock as it is. He needs to get back. Option two is to just give up. That’s never going to happen.

  Okay, option three it is. Straight through the middle of the fucking lot of them. He’s done it before, but it’s hard. Makes him feel like he used to on the start line of races. Nervous anticipation. Adrenalin rush. He can’t believe he used to be able to run for fun. Nothing’s fun anymore. Nothing’s done for pleasure. If it was he wouldn’t be out here now, risking his neck again.

  You’re procrastinating, he yells at himself. Just fucking do it.

  Blades gripped tight, he turns the corner and charges at them. He cuts them down at an astonishing rate, like he’s harvesting a crop that’s been left to go bad. He’s not interested in ‘killing’ them (he still doesn’t know how you’re supposed to kill something that’s already dead), just incapacitating them. He flashes the knives at limbs. He cuts below knees, into necks, across shoulder blades, hacking through muscle, gristle and tendons… anything to slow them down and stop them fighting. He’s gradually becoming covered in the same foul brown soup as always – a mix of blood, bile, shit and decay. He tries not to think about it, though the stench makes it impossible not to. The road is littered with body parts now, covered in gore, and that just makes his mission so much harder. He has to divide his attention equally between his attackers, the carnage all around him, and his objective. And at the same time, he has to do everything he can to stop himself from panicking. It’s hard not to scream out in horror or disgust. It’s equally hard not to just stop and give up. It hurts. It fucking hurts. It all takes too much effort, but he knows he has to keep fighting because there are more important things at stake than him. This isn’t me, he thinks as he shoves a blade between the eyes of a corpse of similar height and build to himself. How long can I keep doing this?

  But he has to. He doesn’t have any choice.

  Checkpoint.

  A staircase. They struggle with stairs. They’re like Daleks in Dr Who. Remember them? Remember TV? They can fall down steps okay, but they can’t easily get up. Can’t control themselves well enough to climb. The sudden height advantage lets him stop for a second and catch his breath again. To focus.

  He looks back down the street he’s just run along, and he’s impressed and appalled by what he’s done in equal measure. It’s a fucking bloodbath.

  Okay. Nearly there. Last push.

  He can see the building he’s been aiming for. Back down to ground level, then straight across at the crossroads and he’s pretty much there. Getting to it shouldn’t be a problem, nor should getting inside. He’s worried about what he’ll find once he gets in there, but he’s probably already had to deal with much worse. Some of the things he had to do during those first few days and weeks… to the bodies of the people he knew, and the girl he’d loved…

  You can cry yourself to sleep again when you get back, he thinks. Get this done first.

  The building he’s heading for is tall and narrow. From memory, he wants the second floor, maybe the third. He hopes he can find what he needs there, he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he can’t. He can see that the door is open slightly, but he hopes it’s shut enough to have kept the bulk of the dead out. If he gets in there and finds the place full of corpses, he’s going to have to look for somewhere else. He can’t go back empty handed. He won’t go back empty handed.

  He runs down the steps, then sprints across the street, focused completely on reaching his objective. There are hardly any bodies here, save for a couple which immediately turn and walk towards him, desperately slow, but filled with unstoppable intent. He flashes his right-hand blade at the nearest of them, slicing open its gas-filled gut, but he keeps running, desperate to get inside as quickly as is humanly possible because he knows the more of them that see him now, the larger the welcoming committee he’ll have to deal with when he emerges from the building later. In some ways that’d be worse – to get what he needs, then be unable to deliver it. That’d kill him.

  Three more, but he runs past them so fast they haven’t even realised he’s there before he’s gone. They look around uselessly, trying to track the sudden blur of movement with tired, empty eyes. And then he’s at the door of the shop. It’s wedged open by a dead woman’s head, and in spite of all his training and all he’s seen and done, the crushed skull and broken, bloodied nose makes him feel nauseous. He screws up his face in disgust as he picks up the corpse and hurls it outside. The door swings slowly shut and he blocks it with a display rack as the first few bodies slam against the glass. Their noise is enough to attract more. He needs to get out of sight, fast. He goes deeper into the dark building and climbs the stairs.

  Straight up to the second floor. It’s deathly quiet in here, and the space is filled with shadows. The shelves make it difficult to see anything much. He checks the dust-covered signs. This is it. His heart sinks when he detects movement nearby. There’s at least one of them up here with him, maybe more. He stands his ground and waits for it to come to him this time, tapping the tip of his blade on the frame of a metal trolley to make a little noise and make the creature move faster. It lumbers into the light and, once again, he’s doing all he can now not to look at the person this thing used to be. Much shorter than him, overweight, long dark hair falling in greasy curls around its yellowed jowls, it used to be a teenage girl. Its bulging eyes and black, gaping mouth give the impression of madness, though he knows it’s incapable of anything other than the most rudimentary of controlling thoughts. Its tongue rolls sickeningly around its swollen lips, looking bizarrely like it’s puckering up to kiss him. He used to get a lot of attention from girls this age. It was part of the job, he thinks. It was because he cared. Because he made them feel better.

  The body of the horrific thing in front of him has ballooned with the juices and gases produced by decay. She’s still wearing a dark blue store uniform polo shirt, but it’s too tight now, and he can’t see where her breasts end and her gut begins. She has a badge pinned to her top. It says ‘My name’s Joanne, how can I help you?’, and he thinks sorry, Joanne, there’s nothing you can do. I think it’s my turn to help you now…

  She comes at him with arms outstretched, a classic pose, he thinks, and he slices across the top of her head like a hard-boiled egg. She stops – looks hurt – then drops to her knees, dead eyes still fixed on him. She falls forward, face-plant, and the liquefying contents of her open skull spill out over his feet. He jumps back, straight into a wall of shelves, and the noise startles him. He holds completely still, listening to the rest of the building. Some movement on another floor, nothing else on level two.

  He’s clear. Time to get to work.

  He slips the rucksack off his shoulder as he paces the floor, working through the department, looking for the right sect
ion. And when he reaches it, he fills the bag.

  #

  Made it back. Thank fuck for that. It’ll be a while now before he needs to go out again. The relief is immense.

  Still on the ground floor, he peels off his blood, gore and sweat-soaked clothes and disposes of most of them. The trainers and socks he can re-use. A couple of the undershirts should be okay after a quick rinse with rainwater. The rest he’ll chuck away.

  He dresses quickly, keen to get back upstairs. He’s hungry, and he wants to see if she’s okay. He puts on his other uniform, his old uniform, wishing it was cleaner, but knowing it’ll have to do. It feels comfortable; as reassuring for him as it is for her. He picks up the rucksack and begins the slow climb up to the top floor.

  More tired now than ever, soaked with sweat again, he stops off in the small kitchen and turns on the gas ring to heat dinner. Then he goes onto the ward. ‘Hey, Jen, you okay?’

  She looks up, and grins that toothy grin. ‘You took your time.’

  ‘Sorry about that. It was busy out there today,’ he tells her.

  ‘Did you get anything?’

  ‘I got loads.’

  He empties the rucksack onto the end of the bed. Jenny grabs at the books with eyes like saucers. ‘Oh wow, I really wanted to read this one!’

  ‘Well now you can.’

  ‘Thank you!’

  ‘My pleasure. You start reading, I’ll get dinner sorted.’

  He watches her, and all the effort of the last hour is rewarded. Jenny is eleven, but she won’t make twelve. She’s terminal, doesn’t have long, and there’s no medicine that can help her, save for some pain relief when things get really bad. The best thing he can do – the only thing – is keep her busy and keep her shielded from the hell outside until her time comes. He’s the last nurse left in this hospital, and she’s his final patient, and as long as she needs him, he’ll stay on duty.

  DAY ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEEN

  UNDERGROUND

  John Carlton is a twenty-four year old army mechanic who, for the last one hundred and nineteen days, has lived in a military bunker buried deep underground. Trapped down there with him are another one hundred and sixteen soldiers, less than half the base’s original compliment. A pale shadow of the highly trained fighting force they used to be, these men and women are desperate and terrified. Backed into a corner with no hope of escape, their command structure has broken down. All order and control is gone. Supplies are running low. Time is running out.

  For these people, the bunker has become a tomb. They have no means of escape or salvation, and each one of them is painfully aware just how precarious their situation now is. The alternatives are all equally hopeless: it won’t be long before their lack of equipment and supplies renders the bunker uninhabitable, and yet they are unable to leave. The infected air outside will kill them seconds. Furthermore, the dead remains of the population on the surface have, over time, already gravitated towards the base, burying it under literally thousands of tonnes of rotting human flesh.

  Inside the bunker, the situation continues to deteriorate day by day, almost by the hour. Law and order is non-existent and every man and woman has to fend for themselves. Rank and position are long-forgotten. Everyone is equal now: all at the bottom of the pile. Self-preservation is all that matters, and comrades are rapidly becoming enemies. The next breath of air that the person alongside you takes, or the mouthful of water they swallow means, ultimately, that there is now less for you.

  Whatever decisions these men and women take, they know the end result will be the same. But worst of all, each of them now understands that death no longer carries with it any certainty. The end of their natural lives may just be the beginning of something far, far worse.

  John Carlton is hiding in one of the most inaccessible parts of the bunker. His home for the last two weeks has been a narrow service tunnel. He has only a pistol, a few rounds of ammunition, some meagre supplies and his standard issue protective suit.

  Sound is easily carried along the twisting maze of tunnels at the heart of the bunker. Though its precise source is unclear, Carlton knows that trouble is uncomfortably near. He suspects the sounds he’s now hearing are almost certainly the beginning of the end. Somewhere in the underground base, intense fighting has broken out.

  #

  That’s it, I guess. The supplies must have finally run out. It had to happen sooner or later. This base was only ever stocked for around seventy days, and we’re way over that deadline. The fact we lost so many men and women in the battle meant that we’ve lasted a little longer, but I reckon our number’s up.

  The day of the battle was when I knew there was no hope for any of us. I’d suspected as much since we arrived down here, but until then I’d done my best to stay positive. It was the lack of information that unnerved me to begin with: no hard facts, no definite instructions. I mean, I’d heard stories about the casualties on the surface and what might have killed them, but while we were safe down here with the doors locked, none of it felt real. I half expected to finally go up top and find that nothing had changed, that we’d been part of some fucked-up psychological experiment, something like that. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

  The battle had already been raging for several hours when we were ordered to get suited up to fight. There was no tactical briefing, because there were no fucking tactics. We’d heard that the enemy numbered hundreds of thousands, and we were told to go out there and get rid of as many of them as we could. If it’s not military, we were told, destroy it.

  We’d made it as far as the airlock when the retreat began. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I pray to God I never do again. I only managed to get a faint glimpse outside before the doors were closed for good, but it was like hell on Earth out there. Our boys were trying to get back to base but it wasn’t a controlled fall-back. Blokes were just running for their lives. And behind them… Christ, following them into the bunker were thousands of those fucking things. Huge swarms of these bloody monsters that looked like corpses. They were falling apart, barely able to keep going, but you could see that they knew what they were doing. I watched them ripping our people to shreds, trampling them underfoot and tearing at their suits. There was nothing we could do against their numbers. It was like an infinite army, and its soldiers couldn’t be stopped because they were already dead.

  The commander gave the order to lock-down the base and all we could do was watch as the chambers were sealed. It was fucking heart-breaking to see men and women that I’d stood alongside and fought with being left out there to die. They’d have kept on fighting for as long as possible, I know they would, but the bodies would have got all of them in the end. I heard there were so many of them that they couldn’t get the main bunker doors closed. There was too much dead meat in the way to get them shut.

  I went back up to the decontamination chambers about a week later with a handful of others to do some maintenance checks. We tried to look outside but it was dark and we couldn’t see anything much. We thought the electrics were fucked, but they were still working. It was just that the hangar was full of rotting flesh. The dead things were packed so tight against the doors that the damn things couldn’t even move. There were so many of them they blocked out the light.

  All that was sixty-five days ago now. Since then I’ve counted every frigging hour and watched every minute tick past. Hard to believe I’ve lasted this long. Truth be told, it feels like I’ve been here ten times longer.

  #

  10:17 am.

  I just heard gunfire again. Part of me wants to go and find out what’s happening, but I’m not going anywhere. Maybe when it quietens down again I’ll try. I’m going to have to move sooner or later. I’ve run out of food.

  #

  1:35 pm.

  More fighting. More gunshots and more yelling. Bloody hell, I wonder how many others are left alive now? I can still hear their screams in the distance. I keep thinking I recognise their voices but it�
��s just my mind playing tricks again. Can’t take much more of this. I’m going to try and get closer. See if I can find out what’s happening.

  #

  Carlton crawled out of the low tunnel where he’d been hiding for what felt like forever, his joints stiff and aching. He tried to move quietly but after being inactive for so long, his movements were clumsy and awkward. His protective suit further reduced his manoeuvrability. He kept it on because it gave him an extra layer of warmth and also because he was too scared to take it off. What if the base was contaminated? He had to take a chance and do without the breathing apparatus, though. It was too bulky and it slowed him down. He held his loaded pistol tightly in his hand.

  The service tunnel opened out into a second tunnel which was slightly wider. That tunnel, in turn, eventually connected with an arterial corridor which led to the centre of the base. Carlton decided to see how far he could get.

  The lighting around him was virtually non-existent – a dull yellow glow from intermittent emergency lamps, that was all – but it was enough. The darkness was helpful. Any brighter and it would have been difficult to remain hidden.

  Carlton paused for a moment to get his bearings. The bunker was a large, sprawling construction which seemed to meander aimlessly underground in every direction. Long, empty tunnels connected storerooms, mess halls and dormitories which were a surprising distance apart. If he was where he thought he was, the next door on his left would be the entrance to the kitchens. He crept further along the corridor, pressed tight against the grubby wall, then stopped when he reached the door. It was half-open. He peered inside. No one there.