by Joe McKinney
Such a shame about all those people in the community centre. Such a waste. You don’t have to make a noise and fight and scream all the time to survive. Look at me. I’m doing perfectly well down here on my own, thank you very much. I’ve lived through wars, terrorist attacks, flu epidemics, water shortages and much, much worse. I’ve been mugged twice and I got over that, didn’t I? The problem with most people is they don’t have enough experience of life. I’m eighty-four, and I’ve seen just about all there is to see. Nothing shocks me anymore.
The trouble with most folk is they want their problems sorted out today, not tomorrow. They’ve had it too easy with their computers and the Internet and mobile phones and the like. They expect to just flick a switch and make all their troubles disappear, but that’s not going to happen, is it? Not anymore. What’s happened isn’t going to get better overnight. It’s going to take time. It’s going to take patience. Be quiet and keep yourself to yourself and everything will be all right in the end.
It’s very cold today. It’s the middle of October by my reckoning. Not sure what the exact date is. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m sure I used to have a little oil heater somewhere. Maybe I’ll nip upstairs and try and find it later if there aren’t any of them about. It might be in the bedroom. I think that’s where I last saw it. I need to do something though because it’s going to get much colder yet. And the cold and damp won’t do my cough any good. I hate it when I cough. When I cough I think they can hear me and work out where I am. I don’t want them to know I’m down here.
I keep thinking someone’s going to come for me eventually. They’ll have to, won’t they? They’ll have a long list that tells them who lives where and they’ll tick everyone off and realise I’m missing. Someone from the government or the army will come and help us sort this bloody mess out.
I hope it’s soon. Don’t fancy the idea of spending Christmas on my own down here.
I’m doing less and less every day, but I’m getting more and more tired. It don’t make any sense. Everything’s a real effort. I’ve got to go out and get some food soon but I can’t face it. I keep putting it off.
Keep your chin up. That’s what I keep saying to myself. You’ve done all right so far, Annie.
I’ll get by. I’ll survive.
ANGEL
It’s been over a month now, and the situation shows no sign of improving. It’s getting worse out there if anything. He expected that, really. Each day it’s getting harder to do this, but he has no choice. If he could, he’d find somewhere safer and lock himself down, sit out the storm, but that’s not going to happen. He has no option. For now, it’s out of his hands. He has responsibilities.
He readies himself to face hell again. He’d already seen more than his fair share of trouble before the end of everything – the sick, the injured, the dying and the desperate – but never anything on this scale. He’s doing all he can, but he’s known since that first morning it was never going to be enough.
There’s no sign the infection is contagious, and that’s something of a comfort. It means he can think more about practicality than protection. He dresses himself like he used to when he went out running in the winter: lots of thin layers, breathable, keep the heat in and the cold out.
He swings the empty rucksack onto his back and stares into space, going over the route he’s going to take in his head, making sure he remembers the twists and turns he needs to follow to get there. His route has been planned to avoid the areas where the dead still mass in large numbers, to take advantage of the short-cuts he’s discovered over the last thirty-or-so days of scavenging. But even though he always does what he can to avoid them, he knows some contact will be inevitable. It always is. There’s always some foul, rotting fucker that manages to get in the way somewhere along the line and, for that reason, he doesn’t go anywhere without weapons. Quiet, efficient, deadly weapons. Several blades hang in their sheathes from his belt. He runs with a machete-like knife in each hand, taken from a butcher’s shop early on. He’s so used to carrying them, they’ve almost become extensions of himself. He doesn’t have to think, he just cuts. He hates what he has become. This endless brutality goes against everything he’s ever believed in, but he has no choice.
He’s ready.
Time to do this.
He’s on the ground floor of the building. It’s surrounded as it always is, huge crowds, but there are more of them to the south and east today. The west exit is his best option. He psychs himself up then lets himself out and secures the door from the outside. He can see seven of them. Seven is good. He’s had to get through many times that number before now. The longer he waits, the worse he knows his nerves are going to get. He starts running, and it begins again.
His footsteps pounding the road are loud enough to give him away. The first corpse comes at him hard. Despite the fear and the need for speed, he still instinctively tries to look beyond the decay to see who these people were before it happened. This one was a professional man in a business suit. His face is blackened by decay, ruptures and pustules around one eye swelling the skin until it’s almost shut, dribbling yellow, pus-filled tears. When he lurches at him he anticipates the dead man’s awkward movements and chops down at his neck, slicing through the cold flesh and doing enough damage to his spinal cord to stop him. He kicks the corpse away, yanks the blade free, then runs on.
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 everythin
g 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 section. 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.
