The front door sounded solid. It looked like wood older than she was, and assumed it would be cut thick. The windows at the front of the house were huge and triple glazed. They would be hard to break through, and they would be good to have intact if she decided it was a place worth staying a few days. Skirting round she dropped her stick and bottle in favour of a rock from the rockery that decorated a corner of the garden. As a weapon it was far closer range than she wanted, but its weight made it feel far more reliable as a means to causing lethal damage. And it was definitely far better suited to breaking a window.
Rummaging behind the house she found that there was no need for the rock or the stick. The back garden was deserted, a rotary airer being the most prominent occupant. The lawn was getting long, and weeds were starting to get a grip on the flower beds, but it was clear that this garden had been well cared for until very recently. The flowers still looked healthy, and there was a clear plan to their arrangement. The fruit trees dotted around looked strong, and were full of unripe fruit. If she had arrived a few months later it would have provided a feast to last her for weeks, but right then it was useless.
Hannah approached the back door slowly holding her rock high, ready to defend herself. She nearly dropped it as the door swung open and the barrel of a gun protruded.
“The fact that you’re obviously scared shitless proves you’re not one of them yet, so I won’t shoot you. Are any of them following you?” It was all said in a whisper designed not to travel far.
“I’m alone.” She whispered back. “Please help me.”
“I’m not here to offer charity. Are you of any use to me?”
She had been proud of all she had achieved before this infection, but none of it seemed relevant in this situation. “I don’t know.” Was all she managed to answer.
There was a pause, then, “Well get inside for now. I don’t want to draw attention while I decide what to do with you.” Another pause, “Don’t get your hopes up. If you’re no use to me you’ll be on your way either willingly, or with a bullet in your skull.”
He walked into the house. She knew that she had nothing to offer, and was ready to leave again as soon as she was told to, but followed the man inside hoping for a little charity, or at least some knowledge to help her on the way. As long as she was inside she was marginally less vulnerable than she was on the outside.
“Put that rock down on your way in,” the man said over his shoulder. “You could have tried all day, but you’d never have got through my windows with it, but you could have attracted more dangerous attention. In here I have some stuff I care about that could be damaged by an ill aimed throw.”
Doing as she was told, Hannah followed him into a room lit only by a couple of candles. It was in the centre of the bungalow, not serviced by any windows.
“We’ll stop here. Most of my home is now underground, but you don’t need to see that. I can hide out for years down there if I need to, but I’m not taking any free loaders. You don’t look like much of a prepper. You don’t look like you could have survived this long without help. Tell me where you’ve come from.”
“Can you give me some water?” she added a cough that was wholly unconvincing. He threw her a bottle anyway.
“Water supplies are safe out here, so I can give you as much as you need.”
She tried to weigh him up while slowly sipping on the water she had been given. It tasted wonderfully clean after her last fluids. He looked like he was in his mid-fifties, but in the flickering light she could have been a decade out in either direction. The top of his head was completely bald, but he had a border of grey hair running over his ears. He wore thick glasses, and his face looked fat over a toned body. The lines on his face suggested someone who spent more time scowling, or in deep concentration than smiling, but his body suggested a fell runner.
“Stop staring and start answering some questions,” he said, starting to sound irritated. She was not convinced that the irritation was genuine. Already she suspected that he was finding the isolation of his situation lonely. She didn’t think that there was anyone else sharing the underground bunker with him.
“I was working at a medical research facility about twenty miles from here,” she said, convinced that maintaining secrecy was no longer an issue.
“It’s more like ten,” he told her. Seeing her surprise he added, “I walk and run a lot to stay in shape. There’s very little within thirty miles of here that I haven’t seen. I assume that your medical facility is the sealed off area guarded by morons around the clock.”
“Well, the security definitely failed. I’m not sure if anyone else got out of there alive.” She wanted to defend the integrity of the facility, but there seemed to be no grounds to justify it.
“I assume that when there’s some kind of virus wiping out all humanity all medical facilities switch their entire focus to curing it. Did you lot manage to come up with anything of use to me before you were overrun?”
“We were working on it.” She didn’t want to admit that they were the epicentre of it, “It’s the rabies virus, merged with some kind of fungus. It’s really complex. We didn’t have enough time to find a cure for it. We were working round the clock, but it would have taken us years to find a treatment that wouldn’t kill the patient.”
“Do you have a treatment that does kill the patient and stop them from killing others, or are you completely useless to me?”
She hesitated at the question. Her next answer felt like her only chance of staying in safety. She had nothing but ignorance to offer, “There are drugs that kill the virus, but only in concentrations well beyond what is fatal for the patient. This thing is tough. We’ve got nothing better than destroying the brain as a preventative measure.”
“So you know no more of use than the rest of us do. Unfortunately for you, I only stocked this refuge for one. If I try to feed both of us I’ll run out of supplies long before it’s safe to bug out. You’re going to have to leave and fend for yourself.”
“You can’t send me back out there! It’s murder.” She knew that she wouldn’t sway him to let her stay. Everything about him suggested an inflexibility about his plans to survive any crisis that came his way. Instinct told her that he would bargain. Give her enough that would get her well clear of his refuge if she made a scene. She tried to give the impression that she would draw the dead to him if she was not helped on her way.
“You’re useless to me. I’m not going to keep you when you can offer nothing in return. I can spare some food and water. If you know where you’re going I can give you some directions. Other than that you are on your own.”
“I’m going to Norfolk. To the coast. Can you give me a map?”
“Norfolk? You’re not as dumb as I thought. Not many people there. Not so many infected. You planning on getting on a boat and sailing away from all this.”
“That’s the plan, yes.”
“You know how to sail?” Her face answered the question without her speaking. “Based on that look, I assume you are following someone else’s plan. I’m sorry that person isn’t still with you. I’ll give you a book that explains the basic principles of sailing. I don’t think it will help you, but if you reach the coast it will give you a chance. If I give you a map, will you be able to read it?”
“Yes.”
He pulled a map off the bookshelf next to him, and unfolded it on the coffee table. It was a large coffee table, but the map overflowed on all sides. “Where are we?” he asked.
She stared hopelessly at the map.
“OK. You’re currently here.” He said, stabbing a finger at the map. “How do you get from here to the coast?”
She looked at where his finger had slammed down, and at the blue patch that represented the sea. “I guess I go straight across that way,” she said, drawing the most direct line to the coast from where they were.
“Suicide,” he said. “You’re going straight through Norwich. There’s one significant city, and you�
��re heading straight for it. I’m not wasting my map if you are that stupid.”
“So which way should I go?”
“This way.” He traced a route on the map with his finger. It was all fields and woods, skirting all signs of humanity. “Hold on. Let me get a pencil.”
He disappeared momentarily, but when he returned he was no keener to keep her. Just to release a more educated human being. On the map he drew out the best route for her. He explained the landmarks she should look for to get the route right. He shoved a compass into her hand and described how it should be used to keep her on the right paths. She was quickly lost by his instructions, but listened on, knowing they were important, even if they lacked meaning to her in the short term. She hoped that her subconscious was absorbing all of this to present back to her later when she needed it and could put the theory into context.
The training session dragged on to the point that it started to get dark outside. Once he’d started he seemed to love the sound of his own voice. Hannah guessed that he would be hearing a lot of it before he deemed it safe to go back out and mix with whatever remnants of humanity survived. She assumed that he would be one of the few that survived this, but she feared for his sanity. Nevertheless, she tried to absorb every word he spoke. The country now belonged to people like him, and to the dead.
He let her stay the night. She assumed that it was more for his own security than for her survival, but she was grateful for it. A proper night’s rest feeling safe was a blessing far beyond what she had hoped for wandering the woods alone through the day.
In the morning she was banished from the house. She was given the map that had been drawn on the previous evening, a couple of days’ worth of food and a few of litres of water, and the tablets to sanitize several litres more. Her rucksack felt far too heavy. Everything in it felt essential, but its weight seemed to rule out any quick escape. She knew that the sun rose in the East, so she didn’t have to ask for directions. She just took the path that left her blinded by the sun.
Newcastle
They headed South. The world was peaceful. Quiet. There was no traffic on the backroads they were sticking to. It was too quiet to be a normal day, but there was little evidence of a nationwide catastrophe that morning. It felt that the only tragedy was the personal one they were suffering. The greater danger to the country as a whole felt irrelevant next to their own problems. Their fears about what the future held for them.
The next crisis didn’t take long to reach them. Ruth had taken a turn at driving in the morning, deciding that lacking a licence was no longer relevant, but found a few minutes after taking the wheel that the fuel light came on. She hadn’t looked at the fuel gauge when getting behind the wheel. With so many other dangers to focus on it hadn’t occurred to her to look.
“Guy’s we’re going to need to get some petrol pretty soon. What do we do?” she asked.
“Can’t we just fill up at the next station?”
“I don’t think so. I think the pumps are powered, so they won’t work now. I think we’d need to get into the underground storage tank if we want any fuel.”
“Do you have any idea about how we’d get to the tanks?”
“Even if I did I wouldn’t know which was petrol and which was diesel.”
A silence followed this, as they all acknowledged a similar lack of knowledge. “OK. Said Natalie. “We don’t know how to refuel this car, so let’s just steal another one. Plenty of cars have been abandoned. We just need to take a new one each time we run low on fuel.”
After a silence, Ruth admitted, “That could work… Do we need to know how to hot wire a car?”
“I don’t think people would have been security conscious when the shit hit the fan. It should be easy enough to find a car with the keys inside.”
“If the keys are inside won’t the owner be as well?”
“We’re just going to have to try our luck.” Ruth answered. “This car’s not going to go much further, and I’d rather risk taking on one infected driver than hiking our way across the country.”
That was met with silence. No one had any other option to offer. They continued to drive along country roads that would not see much traffic at the best of times. No abandoned cars presented themselves.
“Shouldn’t there be more people out here fleeing from the cities?” Natalie asked.
“Maybe the ones who knew what they were doing have got well clear of the roads and are out deep in the wilderness. Maybe they were the only ones who got out of the cities.” Lucy suggested.
“Plenty of people were out of the cities to start with. Would rural communities have been hit as hard as the cities?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so. They shouldn’t have been hit so quickly anyway.”
“If you knew what was going on would you make yourself visible? Living or dead, anyone approaching could be a danger now. I reckon there are plenty of people alive in the villages, but they’re bunkered down protecting themselves and their loved ones. It’s the same as what we were doing until the fire hit. And the rural communities were probably far better equipped to start with.”
“It’s pretty irrelevant isn’t it?” Natalie asked. “It’s not like anyone is rushing out to help us. Other survivors or not, we’re on our own. Unless someone tries to stop us taking a new car there’s no reason to act as if anyone’s alive. If the locals are alive or dead, we’re still on our own.”
“If they’re there why wouldn’t they help us?” Lucy responded.
“It’s not like we were actively seeking out neighbours back when we were in Newcastle. We avoided all contact as we dug through the attics. Why would the people out here be any different?” Ruth responded.
As they followed the road around a bend they nearly drove straight into the back of another car. There were several more queued up in front of it blocking up both sides of the road. A makeshift road block stood in all of their way. The scene was littered with bodies, dried blood smeared across the cars, the road, and the farm vehicles and hay bales that had been used to block the road. There were no signs that anyone had survived the carnage.
“What the fuck happened here?” Lucy whispered.
“I think we need to turn the car around and get out of here right now.” Paul added.
Ruth did not appear to hear them, “These people weren’t infected,” she whispered. “Most of them don’t have head wounds. If they were infected they’d be attacking us by now.”
“That means that there’s someone on the other side of that barrier who isn’t too keen on welcoming new arrivals.”
“They don’t seem to be there anymore. I think this might be our best chance to get a new car.”
“Are you crazy? The people out there have been shot, and the people with the guns are probably watching us, waiting for us to make a move.”
“I’m not so sure. Look at the top of the barricade. It’s broken and bloody. I think someone made it over the top, and as they haven’t come back and emptied the cars, I think it must have been someone infected. The village tried to stop the outsiders getting in, but the fight drew the dead to them and they were overrun.”
“You’re basing a lot on very little evidence. And still, dead or alive the people on the other side of that barrier are dangerous.”
“All the more reason to get a working car and get out of here quickly then.” Further discussion was stopped as Ruth got out of the car, telling Lucy, who was sat in the passenger seat, “Keep the engine running. We might need to make a quick getaway.”
She moved slowly and quietly at first, trying to skirt the bodies as much as possible, but soon the density of corpses forced her to abandon any squeamishness and accept that she would have to step on a few arms and legs to get anywhere. Looking in the window of the nearest car she could see that there was no key in the ignition. It was too hard to tell which car belonged to which body, so she didn’t want to start searching pockets. She tried the car sat alongside the first. If she had to
move onto the next row of cars it would get more difficult to get the vehicle out of the queue. There was a small grass verge to the right that might give enough space, but it soon gave way to a thick hedgerow that would at least put a few scratches into the paintwork.
Her luck was in. The other car at the back of the queue had been left with a set of keys in the ignition, made extra conspicuous by a pink fluffy key ring. It was a little white three door Fiesta. Nothing glamourous, but it would fit the four of them and their meagre belongings. She walked round to the driver side, and, shoving aside a body leant against the door, climbed in.
She adjusted the seat and the mirrors before realizing that it would be better to make sure the car worked before wasting time on the fine tuning. It was hard to tell how long the car had been sat there. It was long enough for blood to dry, but she didn’t know how long that was in the kind of volumes surrounding her. It took three attempts before the engine sprung into life. The process was uncomfortably slow and noisy, but there was no movement on the other side of the barricade to threaten her. She looked down at the fuel gauge. It had lifted to barely more than quarter of a tank. It was better than the car she had left, but not by enough.
The other three had started moving to the new car as soon as they saw the engine kick in to life. Natalie came straight to the door next to Ruth, while the other two started grabbing bags out of the boot of their car. “Open up the boot. Let’s get this loaded and get the fuck out of here. No one’s shooting yet, but I still don’t feel safe.”
“There’s not much fuel in the tank. We’re going to have to find another car.”
Natalie looked down at the fuel gauge, “It’s enough to get us away from here and to somewhere safer. We’ve made enough noise now to alert the living or the dead.”
“We just need some sort of pipe and a container, then we can syphon off fuel from some of the other cars.”
“Are you fucking listening? We’re going to get killed if we stay here.” It was a whisper. But lifted to a dangerous volume. “We don’t have either of those things anyway. We don’t even know which cars are petrol and which are diesel.”
The Farm Page 20
