by David Moody
Phil Croft took Baxter’s comment as his cue to become involved in the conversation.
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ he said quietly. ‘No-one’s ever seen anything like this before so there’s no point asking me what’s happened. Tell you the truth, there’s no point even trying to work it out.’
‘Do you know what did it?’ asked Paulette, the large and relentlessly effervescent lady who had been hanging on every word of the difficult exchange, hoping for answers. Her normally bright and energetic voice was suddenly quiet and uncharacteristically serious and flat.
Cooper shrugged his shoulders.
‘No,’ he admitted.
‘Bloody hell,’ Heath protested, ‘you must have some idea.
Were we attacked? Was it an accident?’
The soldier shook his weary head.
‘I really don’t know. It can’t have been a missile attack because you’d have seen or heard something. I’d have heard something. We would have known if we were being attacked.
We were trained to deal with that kind of situation.’
‘So what are you saying?’
‘I’m saying that this was different.’
‘What about the speed of it?’ Donna asked. ‘I was nine floors up. I watched it move across the city. How could that have happened?’
‘I’m starting to wonder whether it was already here,’ Croft added. ‘There’s no way a disease or a virus could be carried on the wind that quickly, is there?’
‘I’ve got no idea,’ Cooper sighed. ‘Look, I’ve got no reason to hide anything from you. If I knew anything then I’d tell you.
Like I said, no-one that I was with seemed to know anything.
There might be people somewhere who understand it all, but the officers in our base knew about as much as you do.’
Weary, Cooper collapsed into the nearest chair. Donna handed him a bottle of water and pulled another chair across the floor to sit next to him. There was a look of intense concentration on her face. Much as she was interested in the superficial and relatively unimportant details that Paulette and probably many others wanted to hear from the soldier, she wanted answers to other questions from him. Already her mind was working frantically, analysing what he had so far said and wondering whether this stranger might be able to bring some safety and stability into their bizarre and dangerous world. He had, it seemed, arrived in the city from a protected oasis of relative normality.
‘So how many of you were there?’ she asked.
Cooper drained the bottle of water dry and wiped his mouth and cleared his throat before responding.
‘Where? How many of us were here yesterday or…?’
She shook her head.
‘In the base. How many of you were in the base?’
‘Couple of hundred I think. I’m not completely sure. Three hundred at the most.’
‘Room for any more?’
‘Don’t know. Could be.’
‘And are there more bases?’
He nodded.
‘There were supposed to be more, but I don’t know if anyone managed to get to them. I’m not even sure where they are.
There’s bound to be one close to the capital.’
‘You must have some idea.’
‘Why? I didn’t know where our base was until I was in it.
Look, these are the kind of places you don’t know you’re reached until you’re standing on top of them. I’ve heard that some of these bunkers are in the middle of cities, others are more remote. Christ, you might have lived next door to one for the last ten years and not known anything about it.’
Phil Croft sat down next to Donna.
‘If we could get to your base,’ he began, the tone of his voice tentative and uncertain, ‘would you be able to get us inside?’
‘You’re out of your fucking mind if you think I’m burying myself underground with the fucking army,’ Nathan Holmes hissed from a short distance away. ‘Completely out of your fucking mind.’
Croft shot a quick, disappointed glance in his direction and then turned back to face the solider again.
‘Would they let us in?’ he asked again.
Cooper couldn’t answer with any certainty.
‘They might,’ he said quietly, ‘but on the other hand they might not. They might not let me back in. It depends if the decontamination process works, I suppose. I left the base but I never made it back, did I? The others that left with me might not have been able to get back inside. If they couldn’t remove all traces of the disease then they’d have left them on the surface.
For all I know they might have let it in when we left. The whole bloody base might be dead by now.’
‘What kind of protection did you have?’ Donna asked.
‘Inside or outside?’
‘Outside.’
‘Full body suits and the best breathing kits the government could buy,’ he answered.
‘So,’ she continued, ‘while you were away from the base you couldn’t eat or drink or……?’
‘Theoretically we could,’ he interrupted, finishing her sentence for her. ‘The suits were designed to let you eat and drink and get rid of waste but we didn’t carry much in the way of supplies. We weren’t intending to be above ground for too long.’
‘What if those others can’t get back into the base because their suit or their equipment’s contaminated…?’
‘They’ll have left them on the surface.’
‘To die?’
‘Suppose so.’
‘And did you know that when they ordered you to go outside?’
‘No-one said as much but it doesn’t take a genius to work it out, does it?’
‘No wonder you’re not rushing to get back.’
‘Part of the job,’ Cooper mumbled nonchalantly.
‘And are you still on duty?’ Croft quipped.
The soldier shook his head.
‘I quit,’ he said, deadpan. ‘I quit the moment I found out I could breathe. You don’t have to spend long out here to realise the whole planet’s dead. I figured I might as well try and make the most of the little freedom I’ve got left. They probably think I’m dead anyway.’
‘Might as well be,’ muttered Holmes.
30
Ignorant to the potential dangers of being out alone, and with a sense of smug satisfaction warming him against the cold late autumn wind, Michael stood on top of a bleak hillside and watched as another truck full of soldiers clattered down the overgrown track back, he presumed, towards their base. He’d found the track again earlier and had followed it as far as he’d dared to go on foot before heading back to the relative safety of the motorhome. He and Emma had then driven to the point where he’d stopped walking. Michael sensed that they were near to finding the base and the return now of more troops in their transport was proof that they were close. Feeling more positive than he had been for days he turned around and put his thumbs up as a salute to what felt like a small but significant victory. The afternoon light was fading and cold rain was beginning to spit down. From the comparative warmth and comfort of the motorhome a short distance away Emma watched and waved back, acknowledging his achievement.
Before turning and going back inside, Michael looked down at the track for a little longer. There was a body walking along it now. A single pathetic, rotting, disease-ridden cadaver that pointlessly dragged itself along after the long gone transport.
Even now after so many days and weeks had passed Michael found it hard to accept what had happened. He watched the lone figure with equal amounts of fear, hatred, pity and pain.
Although they had intentionally stayed as far away from the rest of the remains of the world as possible, coming into contact with the corpses was inevitable. As they had earlier watched the behaviour of the creatures change from the shelter of their farmhouse hideout, so they had since seen that change continue unabated. Whereas originally these reanimated bodies had been empty shells, now emotion, control and directio
n was undeniably beginning to return. It was almost as if their brains had been anaesthetised by the disease and the numbness was gradually fading. Originally hollow and unfeeling, the bodies now seemed to be gaining a purpose. First the ability to interpret and respond to basic stimuli had returned, then something resembling base emotion - the need to protect themselves and find an answer to their pain perhaps? More recently Michael had sensed a vicious inquizitiveness about the bodies which was quickly mutating into anger and hate.
It was cold. The wind, rain and low temperature reminded him that he wasn’t safe. He ran to the motorhome.
‘Well?’ Emma asked as he let himself inside and closed, locked, barred and blacked-out the door behind him.
‘More of them,’ he answered, quietly and breathlessly.
‘We’re close, aren’t we?’
He nodded and wiped the rain from his face and hair.
‘We must be.’
A moment of silence followed. Michael took off his wet outdoor jacket and kicked off his muddy boots. Now that he was safely indoors Emma busied herself with what had become a nightly ritual - covering every window, vent and door with wooden boards and heavy black material. They knew that even the smallest pinprick of escaping light might be enough to attract the bodies. Emma didn’t mind the gloom. It helped her to forget the cramped and squalid conditions that they found themselves living in.
‘Tomorrow morning we should try and get closer again,’
Michael whispered as he sat down opposite Emma at the small table. ‘It doesn’t matter how long it takes, does it? We’ll take things one step at a time. I’ll walk a little further down the track then we’ll drive the van down when we know what’s there.’
‘Are you sure this is the right thing to do?’
‘Of course it is, why?’ Michael was surprised by her comment.
‘Because this is the army we’re dealing with here,’ she explained. ‘Do you think we’re going to be welcome? They might not have come across any survivors yet. And look at the state of us. They’ll probably think that we’re dead and that we’ve just…’
‘Do you really believe that?’ he interrupted. He sighed and shook his head and looked down at the table.
‘I don’t know,’ she stammered, unsure. ‘We’re the odd ones out around here, aren’t we? They’re not going to be expecting…’
‘They’re not going to be expecting fucking corpses to turn up in a camper van, are they?’
‘No, but…’
‘But what? They’ll see the van, they’ll see us and we’ll be okay.’
‘What if they see you when you’re walking?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Sounds like you’re just trying to find reasons not to do this.’
‘Come on, that’s not fair. I’m just worried that this won’t work out.’
‘It’ll work out.’
‘There are a hundred reasons why it might not. Christ, you told me they were wearing suits. They can’t even walk out in the open. They can’t breathe the air because it’ll do to them what it did to the rest of the population.’
‘Yes, and that’s our get out, isn’t it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If things don’t work out the way we want, we’ll walk.’
‘You think they’ll let us?’
‘You think they’ll have a choice?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Emma sighed, holding her head in her hands.
‘I’m not trying to be negative. I just think we need to play this whole situation very carefully.’ She knew that she was going to have trouble trying to contain Michael’s eagerness and excitement. She knew where he was coming from, but his cavalier approach and lack of concern worried her. They both knew what the risks were. They had already lost just about everything they had. At the farmhouse they had fought to build themselves some kind of shelter and protection from the rest of the world, and despite their huge physical and mental advantage over the countless scores of plague victims they had lost it all in the blinking of an eye. One mistake was all that it had taken.
And although sitting in a cold motorhome in the middle of a field was far from ideal, at least they now had some degree of control again. Emma had an unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach that they were dangerously close tò.
Every night felt like an eternity. The dark hours dragged endlessly. With no distractions or entertainment it was all that Michael and Emma could do not to dwell on the problems outside their door. Occasionally the situation became slightly lighter and more bearable. Most of the time, however, the musty atmosphere in the cramped motorhome was tense and overbearing.
Conversation had continued to be sparse and difficult throughout the evening. As the couple had discovered on many occasions recently, there was very little they could talk about that didn’t somehow lead them back to discussing everything that they had been doing their best to forget about and ignore. Going to bed sometimes brought temporarily relief, but much of the time it was of little help. The survivors would either lie there, unable to sleep, or they would manage to lose consciousness only to be jolted back into their bizarre reality by a dark nightmare or a sudden noise from the other side of the motorhome’s paper-thin metal walls.
The only true comfort that Michael had found in the days and nights since his life had been turned upside down was Emma. As they lay in bed together, holding each other tightly, keeping each other warm, he relaxed in the comfort of her closeness. He loved the sound of her voice whispering in his ear late at night, and the gentle tickle of her breath on the side of his face somehow managed to remind him that, no matter how it often felt, he was still very much alive. The smell of her, the feel of her body against his, the warmth that she brought to the long, cold nights, all helped reassure him that the effort of survival had been worthwhile and that, despite the considerable odds stacked against them both, there remained a faint glimmer of hope that their situation would eventually improve. He clung to the thought that, one day, the two of them might be free to walk out in the open again without fear. He knew that it might happen someday. The rotting bodies were deteriorating and couldn’t continue to function indefinitely, could they?
It was twenty past two in the morning. The wind was buffeting the side of the motorhome, rain was driving down and crashing onto the metal roof above them and they could hear a solitary body tripping and sliding randomly through the mud outside. It didn’t seem to matter. For a few precious moments none of it seemed to matter to Michael. He was close to Emma and, for a couple of relaxing, refreshing and unexpected minutes he was somehow able to forget the hell outside.
31
‘We should get out of here now,’ Donna said, her mouth half-full of food. ‘We’re not going to gain anything from staying here. We should get out and head back to the base with Cooper.’
‘What’s there for us?’ Bernard Heath asked anxiously.
‘More than there is here,’ she replied before returning her full attention to the scraps of food on her plate.
‘Who says I’m going back to the bloody base?’Cooper muttered to himself, just loud enough for the others to hear.
Nine survivors sat together in semi-darkness and ate a scraped together meal in one of the university lecture rooms. The atmosphere throughout the building had changed noticeably since the soldier had arrived there earlier in the day. To many of the desperately frightened people gathered in the accommodation block his appearance had brought a faint glimmer of unexpected hope into their dark lives. To an equal number of others, however, his presence in the building had increased their unease and anxiety. Claustrophobic, monotonous and uncomfortable their world may well have become, but with the rest of the country lying in ruins around them, this was all they had left.
The soldier’s sudden unannounced and unexpected interference in their fragile existence was disproportionately unsettling. To make matters worse (if they possibly could get any worse) the noise and commotion that had acc
ompanied Cooper’s arrival had whipped the crowds of disease-ridden bodies outside into an unprecedented frenzy. Even now, many hours later, the creatures still fought to get closer to the building, banging hopelessly against exposed windows and doors with their rotting fists.
‘Isn’t it about time we started trying to make some decisions here?’ Jack Baxter said suddenly, pushing away his plate of cold food and taking a swig from a can of drink. ‘I mean,’ he continued, ‘we can’t just sit here and wait indefinitely, can we?’
‘We can if we want to,’ Heath disagreed. ‘It makes sense to sit tight and wait for…’
‘Wait for what?’ Donna wondered.
Sitting in the chair next to Donna, Clare looked from face to face in the low light. First Heath, then Baxter, then Cooper, then Donna and then back to Heath again. She waited for him to say something. In the gloom he looked haggard, old and weary as if he was carrying the weight of everyone’s problems on his shoulders. She sensed that he was struggling to keep himself calm and controlled. She could see fear in his eyes.
‘What I mean is…’ he stammered. It was obvious that he didn’t know what he meant.
‘What are you planning to wait for?’ Donna asked again.
‘What exactly are you expecting to happen?’
Obviously uncomfortable and wishing he’d stayed quiet, Heath played with his food and picked up a paper towel which he screwed into a tight ball before throwing it into a nearby waste bin. He sank back in his chair and looked up for inspiration but nothing came.
‘Don’t know…’ he finally admitted.
‘Something’s got to give eventually, hasn’t it?’ Baxter said.
‘Like what?’ asked Cooper.
‘Well, things can’t stay like this forever, can they? Nothing ever stays the same for too long. I mean, you turned up here today, didn’t you? There will be more like you and…
‘There are more like me,’ Cooper explained, ‘but don’t assume they’re going to come back here. As far as they’re concerned this is a dead place.’
‘They might.’
‘Yes, they might, but on balance they probably won’t. As far as I was aware we were sent out on a reconnaissance mission and that was all. If the others made it back to the base and reported what they’d found then…’
