by Joe McKinney
Her legs buckle and she falls, pulling the shower curtain down with her. Her head hits the faucet with a soft thud that makes me feel sick. Now she’s lying in the bath, shaking and choking, and there’s blood pouring out of a deep gash on the side of her head. It’s washing down the plughole, mixing with the foam and running water like something out of Psycho. I turn off the shower. Christ, there’s blood everywhere. I need to get help.
I run to the bed to get my trousers. My legs are wet from the shower and I can’t get them on. I trip over, then crawl around the room. I grab the phone and ring Reception to get them to call an ambulance but there’s no answer. No one’s picking up.
I’m standing in the bathroom door again now, half-dressed, and Helen’s not moving. I can’t bring myself to touch her. I have to do something, but Christ, I think she might be dead.
‘Helen?’
I must be a real spineless bastard. For a split second I actually feel relieved because I realise now I might have a chance of salvaging something from this mess. I can tell them I was in the room next door and I heard her fall down so I came into help and I found her like this… But hold on, isn’t that going to make things worse? My clothes are in this room. And it’s not just my clothes, there will be hairs and fingerprints and God knows what else all over the bed and probably all over and inside her too. Fuck, what if they say I did it? What if they think I pushed her over in the shower to keep her quiet about what we’d done together?
Got to get out of here.
I grab my things and run to the door. I try to leave the room but then I see her body again and I stop. I have to help her, but I’m too fucking scared. I run out into the corridor, then stop because there’s another body. Jesus Christ, it’s a porter. I don’t want to get any closer to him. I can see his face and it’s all twisted and contorted with pain and there’s blood on the carpet around his mouth.
There’s another body further down, just outside one of the rooms. It’s Steve Jenkins from the Southampton branch. I sat opposite him at dinner last night. And there’s another on the stairs… one of the course tutors, I think.
I can’t handle this. I go back into my room and pace around the bed, trying to make sense of everything that’s happening.
I can’t hear anyone outside.
I try the phone again but no one answers. Same with my mobile. I’m really fucking scared now. I’ll wait for a couple more minutes, then I’ll go and find help.
#
James Harper hid in his hotel room like a frightened child for hours before finally plucking up courage to go out and look for help. The smell of burning forced him to move. The hotel kitchens were on fire and the fire was spreading down the building.
He searched the rest of the hotel but he was the only one left alive.
SHERI NEWTON
Of all the shift patterns I work, this is the one I hate most. I can handle starting early in the morning and working through the day, I don’t even mind starting in the afternoon and working through the evening, but this shift I just can’t stand: sat here from midnight until nine in the morning. It’s not too bad at weekends because there’s usually plenty going on, but mid-week like today the time drags.
The graveyard shift has been worse than usual today. There should always be two of us in on late-lates but Stefan called in sick last night so I’ve been sat here on my own for almost eight hours. There’s been nothing to do and hardly anything to see. Between two and three o’clock the pubs and clubs were clearing out so there was some activity on the streets for a while, but after that everything went quiet until around seven-thirty. That’s when the office-workers started to arrive in dribs and drabs.
This job is arse-backwards: I want to be busy when I first come on duty, not when it’s close to clocking-off and I’m too tired to concentrate. By this time my eyes are starting to get heavy. Okay, so this job’s not physically tiring, but sitting in front of seventeen screens watching CCTV footage of a shopping centre, an office block and the surrounding streets is enough to put anyone to sleep. Still, as I keep reminding myself, it just about pays the bills. It’s easy money really. I don’t have to do anything much. Even if I see something suspicious all I have to do is call the police or security and let them do all the dirty work. I just stay here and watch.
This has been the slowest shift I can remember. Hardly anyone’s out and about on Monday night, fewer still during the early hours of Tuesday morning. I’ve seen absolutely nothing tonight. I watched a drunk get arrested in the high street about two hours ago but bugger-all since then. The only screen I’ve watched with any interest is my phone. I can’t even text anyone, though, ’cause they’re all asleep.
It’s just after eight now, and here we go. At last. First sign of trouble for the day.
The cameras cover all the public parts of the shopping centre, as well as the access roads, main delivery entrances, and the reception area in the office block. There’s a driver unloading around the back of one of the electrical superstores. He’s just fallen out of the cab of his truck, clumsy sod. Bloody hell, what’s the matter with him? He must be drunk. The bloody idiot can’t even get up. Christ, how can these people let themselves get in such a state and then get behind the wheel? Don’t they have a conscience?
Hold on, he’s moving again now. He’s trying to pick himself up, but he’s grabbing at his throat like he’s choking on something. Is this for real? I can’t see anyone else around to help. I’ve got a direct line to the loading bay. I’ll try and get someone to go see to him…
No one’s answering. Come on, someone pick up.
The line’s ringing out but no one’s answering.
Wait, there’s someone else out there with him now. Another man walks out of the shadows, but before he gets anywhere near the guy on the ground, he collapses too. He’s crawling along the ground on his hands and knees, spitting up.
Will someone answer the bloody phone?
Shit, on screen seven one of the cleaners working outside the main department store has just collapsed. What the hell is happening here? The two screens I’m watching are showing feeds from cameras at opposite ends of the complex. I was starting to think it might have been exhaust fumes or something like that causing the problems in the loading bay, but how could the same thing affect three people so far apart, all at the same time?
Wait, there are more…
Camera twelve is fixed on the public walkway between Alldays and Brothers Furniture. Oh Jesus, what’s going on? I think that’s Jim Runton, the assistant manager of Alldays. He’s throwing up in the middle of the walkway. That’s too dark to be vomit. Is that blood?
No one’s answering this damn phone. I hang up and try one of the emergency lines linked direct to the police.
There’s Mark Prentiss, the head of mall security. He’s running back towards the offices. He’ll know what’s happening.
Oh no. Christ, now Mark’s slowing down. He’s not going to make it back here. Bloody hell, his legs just went from under him and he’s gone down like all the others.
No one’s answering the emergency phone either. That’s not right: the emergency phone should always be answered. There has to be someone there… I’ll try and get one of the security team on their radio. One of them will answer me…
The truck driver around the back of the superstore isn’t moving now. He’s just lying there, facedown on the tarmac next to his truck. It looks like he’s dead but he can’t be, can he? The other man near him isn’t moving either. The cleaner outside the department store has stopped moving too.
All I can hear is static on the radios.
Jim Runton’s body has been shaking since I first saw him go down, constantly convulsing, but now he’s still. Mark Prentiss isn’t moving either. There’s a pool of blood spreading out around his face. It looks black on the CCTV screen.
I can move camera fifteen. That’s the camera covering the main entrance and the pedestrian approach. I use the joystick to turn it almost a full circle. There sho
uld be crowds of people moving towards the mall from the station now, but bloody hell… all I can see are bodies. Dead bodies everywhere. The streets outside are filled with them. Hundreds and hundreds of them… It’s like they’ve all just fallen where they were standing…
Nothing’s moving on any of the screens now.
#
Sheri Newton got up from her seat behind the control desk and ran out into the small security office. There she found the body of Jason Reynolds, her colleague who’d been due to relieve her, sprawled across the floor in front of her, his wild, frightened eyes staring hopelessly into space. Further down the corridor, Adam, a security guard, was slumped dead in a half-open doorway. She stepped over him, tripping over his outstretched leg, then ran through the ghostly quiet building until she was out on the street.
Sheri walked another few metres before fear and shock overwhelmed her. She fell back against the wall of the nearest building, then slid to the ground. For more than an hour she remained sitting on the pavement, as still as the huge crowds of dead bodies which surrounded her.
SONYA FARLEY
Her pregnant belly wedged tight behind the steering wheel of her car, Sonya Farley stared at the never-ending queue of barely-moving traffic stretching out in front of her and yawned. This was the third time in two weeks that she’d driven this nightmare journey for Christian. Generally she didn’t mind; he worked damn hard and he was doing all he could to get everything ready for the imminent birth of their baby. It wasn’t his fault he’d been needed at the firm’s Scottish office, and she didn’t blame him for any of this. He’d finally finished the last design at the weekend and she’d agreed to deliver them to the central branch to save him the inconvenience. Each design had taken many, many hours to complete and she fully understood why he wasn’t prepared to leave it to some two-bit courier firm to deliver them. But regardless of the reasons why and the logical explanations for her being stuck out on the road for hours on end, she was struggling. At this stage of their pregnancies, all of Sonya’s friends were at home with their feet up, being pampered and getting ready for the birth. And where was she? Going nowhere fast in the middle lane of one of the busiest motorways in the country during the peak of the morning rush hour. And where did she want to be? Just about anywhere else.
Focus on tomorrow night, she told herself. Tomorrow night Chris will be home and we can finally spend some time together. No more work. No more Scotland. It would probably be their last chance to relax together before the baby came. They’d planned to go out for a meal then catch a movie, making the most of their freedom, well aware of the massive upheaval they were about to experience. The last few weeks had been hard. Sonya just wanted a few calm days before the birth. A nice warm bath and an early night tonight is what I need, she thought. She’d really missed Chris. She hated it when he wasn’t there, especially now. She couldn’t wait to see him again.
Something was happening up ahead.
Struggling to move her cumbersome bulk and still keep control of the car, Sonya peered into the near distance where she could see the relatively uniform movement of the traffic becoming suddenly more random. Brake lights flashed bright red up ahead and her heart sank. An accident. Shit, that was all she needed. She was miles from the nearest exit and if the traffic backed-up she’d be stuck. She couldn’t face sitting her for hours on end, with her swollen belly and swollen ankles. She’d been joking with Chris on the phone last night that if he kept making her do this drive, she’d end up giving birth in the back of the car on the hard shoulder. That didn’t seem so funny now…
More brake lights, burning bright against the grey gloom of early morning. Noises too now. Even over the sound of her own car’s engine she could hear strained mechanical whines and squeals as drivers struggled to avoid sudden collisions. Shit, she thought, this is serious. Almost immediately the screaming brakes and straining engines were replaced with grinding thuds, violent smashes and heavy groans as vehicle after vehicle after vehicle slammed and crashed into the one in front, literally hundreds of them forming a vast, motionless, tangled carpet of twisted metal in just a few bewildering seconds.
Sonya had no time to react. Forced to slam on her own brakes as the vehicles immediately ahead of her ploughed into those ahead of them, she braced herself for the inevitable impact. She didn’t know what she was going to hit, what was going to hit her or even from which direction the first impact would come. All around her every vehicle seemed to be going out of control as if their drivers had simply disappeared. Just ahead, in the rapidly disappearing void between her car and the mayhem filling the road, countless cars, vans and lorries were swerving and crisscrossing the carriageway. The first collision came from the right as a solid, four-wheel drive vehicle smashed into the rear wing of her car, its buffalo bars caving in the metalwork and shattering glass, the force of the violent impact sending her car spinning round through almost one hundred and eighty degrees so that she now found herself facing the rest of the traffic. Shock immediately gave way to terror.
An expensive-looking executive’s car was heading straight for her. Unable to do anything, Sonya watched the driver of the car thrashing about wildly. He was clawing at his neck with one hand, scratching and scraping at it desperately as he struggled unsuccessfully to hold onto the steering wheel with the other. His face was red and his eyes wide with pain. He looked like he was being asphyxiated.
Thrown to the side as her car was rocked by another collision from the left, she shielded her face from flying glass then looked through what was left of her passenger window. A tanker had smashed into a van which had, in turn, smashed into her. The driver of the van had been hurled through his windscreen and was sprawled facedown over the crumpled bonnet of his vehicle, stopping just a short distance from her. She looked away in disgust, inadvertently staring straight into the tanker driver’s face, which bore an expression of absolute agony. Dark red blood dribbled down his chin.
The executive’s car ploughed into Sonya’s at speed, sending her flying back in her seat and then lurching forward with equal force. Consumed by a sudden wave of nauseating pain as her distended belly and her baby were momentarily crushed again, she lost consciousness.
#
In the brief time Sonya was unconscious, the world around her changed almost beyond all recognition. She cautiously half-opened her eyes. Slumped forward with her face pressed hard against the steering wheel, she pushed herself back and struggled for a moment with the weight of her unborn child. Her own safety was of no concern. She remained still and closed her eyes again, running her hands over her bruised and tender belly, concentrating hard until she was sure she felt the reassuring movements of the baby inside. Her split-second feelings of relief were immediately forgotten when she lifted her head again and looked around.
Apart from the occasional hissing jet of steam and the smoke and flames coming from several vehicles which were burning, the world was completely silent and still. Nothing moved. Where she had expected to hear the cries and moans of the injured, or the approaching sirens of the emergency services rushing to the scene along the hard shoulder, there was nothing.
Sonya tried to open the door to get out but it was wedged shut and she was unable to open it more than a couple of centimetres. Every exit was similarly blocked, the sunroof her only safe escape route. Shivering with shock and feeling ice-cold, she lifted a hand and opened the sunroof. Every noise she made sounded disproportionately loud in the oppressively silent vacuum that the morning had become. The tinted window above her slid open then stopped with a heavy thud. Slowly lifting herself up, she guided her head and shoulders out through the restrictive rectangular opening. She cautiously stood up, one foot on either of the front seats, then wriggled her toes, water retention having swollen her feet and ankles. She lifted her arms up out of the car and then eased and squeezed her pregnant stomach through the rubber-lined gap. Her arms weak with nerves, she put the palms of her hands flat on the roof of the car and slowly pushed
herself up and out. A few seconds more grunting and straining and she was sitting on the roof of her wrecked vehicle. For a while she just sat there in silence and surveyed the devastation. The carnage appeared endless, the motorway completely dead in both directions. Sonya shuffled around so that she was looking back towards the city she had driven through less than an hour earlier. For as far as she could see the traffic on the motorway was motionless. She deliberately tried not to look too closely at any of the wrecked vehicles although it was hard not to stare. Their drivers were dead. Some remained in their seats like blood-streaked shop window dummies. Some were burning. Many other corpses were on the road, lying in the gaps between the wrecks of their cars, tankers, lorries, bikes and vans.
A cold autumnal wind blew along the length of the road, prompting Sonya to get down from her exposed position. Overcome by the incomprehensible scale and speed of what had happened, and unable to think about anything but the safety of her unborn child, she carefully pulled her feet out of the car then slid down the windscreen and onto the crumpled bonnet. Using the wrecks of other vehicles as stepping stones, she crossed to the hard shoulder. It was a little clearer at the very edge of the road, and she began to walk back towards the city. Dark thoughts filled her mind: How far has this spread? Is Christian okay? I need to call him. Need to let him know I’m all right and the baby’s safe. Don’t want him worrying if he hears about this on TV.
The city, more than four miles away, was dying too. She could clearly see it beginning, even from this distance. Random explosions ripped through buildings. Fires began to spread and quickly take hold. She could see smoke pouring into the early morning air in thick, steady palls; a dirty, grey smog.
With her swollen feet already sore, and the birth of her baby ominously close, Sonya dragged herself back towards the city in search of someone – anyone – who could help her.
