by Joe McKinney
‘Her torment, or yours?’
‘Hers. You have to believe me, Ed, she was in such a state. She wasn’t Cassie anymore. I stood out there and looked right into her face and she couldn’t see me. More to the point, I couldn’t see her. She looked like Cass, but it was so obvious she’d gone. She was just a shell, just an empty shell…’
‘Where is she?’
He doesn’t answer. His reluctance is unnerving. What has he done? Finally, he speaks. ‘I had to stop her, you understand? I couldn’t leave her out in the garden, walking round and around like that. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right…’
‘What did you do?’
‘I had to do it.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I cut off her head.’
And he drops to the floor and howls with pain.
#
Martin’s confession appeared to do him good. He’d been racked with guilt, filled with remorse. We didn’t talk for several hours, spent the time in different rooms. I went upstairs and looked through Cassie’s things, the things I remembered from when they were a part of my life and my home. I’m sitting on the end of the bed, smelling one of her dresses, when he comes upstairs.
‘She’s at peace now,’ he says.
‘I know.’
‘I did what I had to.’
‘I know that too.’
‘I couldn’t just leave her out there, exposed to the elements like that.’
‘I understand.’
There’s a long silence, neither of us knowing what to say to the other. What else is left to say? We’ve both lost the only person who mattered to us, though I lost her long before he did.
‘So what happens now?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know. I suppose I’ll just go home.’
‘Shouldn’t we stick together?’
‘Should we?’
‘I think so. It makes sense. You’re the only other living person I’ve seen since this all started. To be honest, Eddie, I don’t want to be on my own anymore.’
‘You get used to it,’ I tell him, feeling empty again.
‘I don’t want to.’
‘I didn’t have any choice. You saw to that.’
‘I know,’ he says, crying again. ‘I’m sorry. You’re a decent bloke. I wish there’d been another way…’
‘Dress it up how you like, Martin, but there is no other way. You did what you did. You killed me that day.’
He drinks from a bottle of vodka. More Dutch courage. ‘So why did you come here?’
‘To see if Cassie was still alive, why d’you think?’
‘But you must have known…?’
‘I suspected. Expected, even. But I couldn’t stand not knowing for sure. I couldn’t sit at home, thinking about what might have been.’
‘She still mattered that much to you?’
‘She did. More than you’ll ever know.’
‘She’d have been touched.’
‘Whatever.’
‘No, seriously. I’m full of admiration for you, friend. She always said you were a decent bloke at heart. I’ve just been sitting here, feeling sorry for myself, crying into my booze, but you’ve actually done something about it. I’m lost without her, Ed. Don’t want to go on without her, if I’m honest. Don’t know if I can.’
#
First light. I’ve had hours of listening to Martin drone on, and I’m tired of it now. What does he want from me? Sympathy? The man who stole Cassie from me, the man who screwed up my life and my health, wants me to feel sorry for him? After what he did? After what he did to her?
The sun starts to come up, filling the garden at the back of the house with orange light and long shadows. There’s a patch of disturbed earth at the side of the lawn. Its shape is simple, yet distinctive. There’s a cross at the head of the grave: two sticks, lashed together with cord.
All night I’ve listened to him grizzle and whine, not knowing what to do but sit and soak it all in. But just now, things have started to make a little more sense. ‘I learnt an important lesson when you took Cassie from me,’ I tell him.
He sounds surprised. ‘You did? What was that?’
‘To follow the path of the heart.’
‘The path of the heart? Sounds a bit wanky and pretentious, if you ask me.’
‘It is, and I didn’t.’
‘So what is it?’
‘A way of thinking, I guess. A philosophy.’
‘Explain.’
So I do. ‘I think it’s the real reason I came here, actually. Way I see it is this: we go through life, and from time to time we come across big issues, hurdles that we need to sort out before we can move any further forward. And if we don’t deal with them, we just end up going around in circles until we do. We keep coming back to the same point. We get faced with the same decision, the same situation, time and time again until we do something about it.’
‘Cassie used to say you had a problem moving forward. She said you went around in circles a lot of the time. Couldn’t let go of things.’
‘Did she?’
‘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 fles
h, 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.
