by Rich Hawkins
“What do you mean?”
“Driving through the chaos and slaughter to find them.”
“I have to do it. What else can I do?”
“Very true,” Delores said. “By the way, you need petrol.”
*
The next petrol station on the M20 was no more than a burnt-out ruin, the pumps and store still smoking as the smell of ash lingered in the air.
“Fuck’s sake,” Guppy said, shaking his head.
With one hand at her mouth, Delores stared out her window, at the charred shapes of the cars and the blackened forms within them. The roof over the scorched forecourt had collapsed at one end. Crows and seagulls flapped around, cawing and snapping at each other, picking through the wreckage for scraps. Ash and soot drifted on the breeze.
“What happened here?” asked Delores.
Guppy eyed the fuel gauge then looked back at the remains of the petrol station. A few deformed limbs and tendrils protruded from the rubble and detritus. A glimpse of bones beneath fluttering blackened rags. The ashen mask of a dead face riddled with monstrous cilia. “Panic happened. People were trying to find a safe place. Families. Cars in line for fuel. Not enough fuel. Maybe a fight broke out…and then the infected arrived. Something bad happened.” He exhaled, rubbed his eyes. “The whole place must have gone up like a tinderbox. It burned fast and strong, an inferno. A fireball.”
“Jesus.”
“Not even Jesus could have survived that.”
“Those poor people.”
Guppy put the car back into gear. “We’ll have to find somewhere else.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
They left the M20 through a slip road two miles farther on when Guppy sighted a convoy of army vehicles approaching on the other side of the motorway. Delores looked at him but said nothing. When he glanced over his shoulder to see the convoy roll past, his face warmed with shame and he gripped the steering wheel tighter than before.
Ten minutes later they arrived at another petrol station, and Guppy pulled up at one of the pumps. Trash skittered in the breeze. Shattered glass from the store’s smashed front windows caught the light. No sign of the staff, unsurprisingly.
At the other side of the forecourt a thin man was filling his car from another pump. A woman and two young boys waited inside their car, peering back at Guppy and Delores. The boys looked similar enough to be twins.
Guppy switched off the engine and climbed out, keeping the keys in his hand. The other man eyed him, face pale and gaunt and dusted with freckles. He was wearing a Manchester United shirt and khaki shorts. He finished putting fuel in the car then crouched and began filling the petrol can by his feet. Once he was finished, he stood and put the can in the boot of his car. He turned back to Guppy, keeping his hands at his sides and in view. Offered a wary smile.
“There’s still plenty of petrol,” the man said. “But make sure you fill up; most other places have been either looted, destroyed or drained dry by the army. And there’s still some food in the store. The looters left some behind.”
“Thanks,” Guppy replied, trying to keep the conversation to a minimum.
The man eyed Guppy’s fatigues, and the rifle in the back of the car, but to his credit he said nothing about them. “Have you seen any infected nearby?”
“Not lately.” Guppy opened the fuel cap on the car and inserted the nozzle. Petrol flowed as he pressed the trigger.
“We’re heading north, but just not sure where north. But there has to be some place, right? A safe place. We only barely managed to escape Tonbridge. Those fucking things are everywhere. What do you think?”
The man’s family was still looking at Guppy, as though they expected something of him. He was ashamed of the pang of annoyance it inspired. “Just try to look after your family. That’s all you can do.”
The man frowned. “I’m trying.”
“You’ve kept them alive so far.”
“Should I kill them if they get infected?”
“What?”
The man hands worried at each other. “I mean, if one of them gets bitten, should I kill them before they turn? What happens if I get bitten? Should I kill myself? Or should I kill my family and then myself, because I couldn’t be able to protect them anymore?”
Guppy breathed out, glanced over at the man’s family. “Like I said, just try to protect your family. Fight for them. We’re all just trying to survive.”
“Okay,” the man said, nodding slowly as he looked at the ground. “That makes sense. It’s funny how it’s all changed. Do you think it’ll get back to normal at some point? Is it too far gone?”
Petrol spilled out from the filling inlet, splashing his boots. Guppy withdrew the nozzle and returned it to its cradle in the unit. “I don’t know.”
“You mean you don’t want to say? You think it’s all fucked?”
Guppy looked away from the man and towards the sky. Black clouds were approaching from the south, bringing with it the faint detonations of thunder. He couldn’t answer the man, who seemed to understand and nodded again with a wan smile.
“My dad supported United,” Guppy said. “They would have won the league this year.”
“Damn right!” The man tapped the club badge on the chest of his shirt. “Glory, glory Man United, innit? It’s a shame we won’t see any football for a while. Anyway, good to talk to you. Best of luck.”
“You too.”
The man hurried back to his car and climbed inside, talking to his family. Guppy watched them leave, then took out his sidearm and walked over to the shop. He pushed the door open and waited for a few seconds, watching the aisles and listening for the sound of movement, before he grabbed a basket and picked through what remained. A few minutes later he’d gathered a small stash of soft drinks, snacks and odds and ends that might come in handy on the journey ahead. Then he picked up the last petrol can on the shelf and returned to the forecourt and filled it at the pump.
He was packing everything away when an infected woman appeared on the road, hobbling towards him on a leg swollen and discoloured with gangrene. Her mouth gaped with crooked insectile pincers and appendages. A choking sound rose from her throat, and she stumbled forward with one hand reaching for him, her eyes brimming with hunger and what might have been pleading. The meat of her left shoulder tore and split, ripping the ragged remains of her blouse, which became soaked with blood. Spikes of red flesh emerged from within the gaping rent, pulsing and twitching, distorting her ailing body.
She made a muffled groan as she trembled.
Guppy drew his pistol and shot her in the face.
CHAPTER NINE
Guppy drove with one hand while eating a chocolate bar with the other, the sugar rush keeping him alert as he guided the car along the motorway. Delores sat with her hands not moving from the casket on her lap. He had offered her some food, but all she’d accepted was a small bottle of water, which she took a sip from then placed beside her seat.
A group of attack helicopters flew over in formation, high above, unburdened of their missiles. They’d finished their mission and were returning home, wherever that was.
He manoeuvred through the tangled arrangements of dead vehicles and desolate car wrecks. At one point he took the hard shoulder to go around a bus lying on its side. He glanced back at the bus to see an infected creature in torn rags climb out from a shattered window and bare its sharp teeth as it shrieked down the road at the car.
He tried not to look too closely at the other infected wandering the dismal motorway, although sometimes it was difficult to ignore defining characteristics, especially in the few children who appeared. He kept clear of them, speeding up when they came within touching distance of the car. Delores kept staring straight ahead, ignoring the trampled luggage and scattered human remains in the road.
*
They passed the village of Farningham in Kent’s Sevenoaks District. Glimpsed from the motorway, the village appeared undamaged, with cars parked in orderly line
s at the sides of the visible roads and cul-de-sacs, as though it was just another day in the old world and all was well. The stillness was haunting.
They moved onto the M25, which encircled almost all of Greater London, negotiating the scenes of traffic accidents, stalled cars and snarl-ups clogging the junctions and slip-roads, until the way ahead cleared enough for him to go a little faster.
“Neville and I used to drive this way,” Delores muttered. It was the first time she had spoken in over half an hour. “I recognise this road. But it has changed a bit.”
Guppy ran his eyes across the ambulance left derelict in the middle lane. Red handprints and smears spoiled one side of the vehicle, and a dead paramedic sprawled limp and broken in the cab. “We’re lucky the road is fairly clear. I wouldn’t like to walk through here, even with a flamethrower and a load of frag grenades.”
A few moments of silence passed. Guppy watched the way ahead. Sunlight glinted through the boughs of roadside trees. Birds lifted from an adjacent meadow. Something on all fours, its head thrust forward, clothes hanging in tatters, skittered through tangles of long grass and hawthorn.
“Who owned this car before you took it?” Delores asked him. He wasn’t prepared for her question, stammering for a second before shaking his head.
“I haven’t looked; I don’t want to know.”
Delores opened the glove compartment and picked through paper documents and empty sweet wrappers. She retrieved the insurance certificate and ran her eyes over the print.
“His name was Sean Hargreaves. He lived at 24 Wayford Drive, Maidstone. I expect he’s dead or infected by now.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Guppy.
“I wonder if he had a family.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Now he’s just another name lost to the thresher. Swallowed up. So many names will never be spoken again. Don’t you find that sad?”
Guppy wiped beads of sweat from his face and made sure to stare directly down the road. The gnawing urge to shout at her, tell her to shut up, was unbearable, and only restrained by stoicism tempered during his hard years in service. He’d managed to suppress the realisation that thousands of families were already wiped out, but the thought of countless dead children left parts of him hollow and aching. He was slowly weakening to the horror of this new world. His numbness was wearing off, and soon he’d be just another traumatised wreck of a human.
But, still, better than infected. Better than death, for now.
“Yes, it is sad,” he said, and drove on. He said nothing more.
*
To the distant west, a wall of smoke several miles high and wide climbed from the husk of abandoned London. It poisoned the sky, and the sun became a grubby disc through its veil. Smaller plumes of grey and black rose from the surrounding suburbs and boroughs. Shimmers of flame waned like dying beacons.
London was lost.
CHAPTER TEN
The car moved through the overpass above the A2 at the Darenth Interchange. Junctions were blocked with dead vehicles and the remains of traffic accidents from the first days of the outbreak. Flies and insects buzzed around rotting corpses, while crows wheeled through the sky.
They took the A282 through the desolation of Dartford, not far from the Thames. More flyover bridges crossed above them. Trees, grass verges and scraggly bushes at the flanks soon became walls and fences and factory buildings. Nothing moved. More dead places.
The dual carriageway kept them away from the small roads and streets of the town, and was clear of abandoned cars. They made good time and soon passed the first signs notifying them of the Dartford Crossing, which consisted of the Queen Elizabeth Bridge and the tunnel, both of which would take them across the river. Guppy was surprised at the lack of dead traffic impeding their way. Then he thought that the army or emergency services might have cleared much of it, judging by the cars shoved to one side of the road.
Delores glanced at an abandoned fire engine. Its doors hung open. She sniffed, dabbing at her nose with her tissue. “Are we taking the bridge or the tunnel?”
“The bridge, if we can,” Guppy replied. “I don’t fancy going underground. And they removed the toll booths a few years back, so at least we don’t have to pay.”
Delores didn’t laugh.
Neither did Guppy.
*
He managed to get the car onto the road that led to the bridge. Only southbound traffic was supposed to use the bridge, but the old rules were gone now and the thought of taking one of the tunnels stirred a fluttering panic inside him.
The car weaved through traffic snarls, and moments later they were high above the dark water of the Thames. No boats on the river, just driftwood and floating trash.
Parts of the road surface were scarred, pitted and blackened. Small pieces of metal debris strewn around.
They were nearly halfway across the bridge when Guppy brought the car to a sudden stop at the sight that blocked the way ahead. He ground his teeth and clenched his hands around the steering wheel. His heart crumpled.
“Oh God,” said Delores, her eyes wide. She put one hand to her open mouth.
“Wait here,” Guppy said as he switched off the engine and got out. The top layer of tarmac crumbled beneath his boots. A terrible heat had cooked this part of the road. He took his rifle with him and walked up to the first of the burnt out wrecks. Hundreds of vehicles filled the entire width of the road. He looked past the first rows and saw that the devastation stretched to the other end of the bridge and beyond. Charred shapes and twisted hulks of cars, vans, and trucks all riddled with holes from large calibre rounds. Some of the vehicles were little more than warped metal frames and barely-recognisable features. Skeletal bodies seared by fire sagged in their seats on upon the road.
The barriers at either side of the bridge were barely standing, devastated by ordnance. Through more bullet holes he viewed the river below.
He remembered the group of attack helicopters he’d seen earlier that day and tried to deny the possibility. Why would they have done this? Which motherfucker had given the order? Some high-up, rear-echelon dickhead with no chin? Perhaps there had been infected amidst the stalled traffic. Maybe things had gone too far, leaving no other choice.
How many dead here? How many families?
“No,” he whispered, screwing his eyes shut for several seconds before opening them to the sky. The back of his mouth loosened with something like nausea.
Then he turned and went back to the car.
Delores’s eyes brimmed with tears when she looked at him.
“We’re taking the tunnel,” he said, making sure not to glance back at the devastation upon the bridge.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They had turned back, and now the Dartford tunnel awaited them with sheer darkness and silence. Guppy switched on the headlights and exhaled a breath that shivered in his chest, before taking the car forward. The dark enveloped them like a black sea full of unknown terrors. Raised walkways with metal handrails flanked the road on either side.
Soon enough, the route was blocked by several cars, forcing them to stop. Guppy pulled up the handbrake, but kept the engine running as he climbed out with his sidearm and a torch. He looked back at Delores, who gripped the casket of her husband’s remains much tighter than before.
“I’m going to try and push these cars out of the way. If anything happens to me, reverse the car out of here and get outside.”
She blinked. “I can’t drive.”
He told her to lock the car doors behind him. She nodded. He closed his door and raised both his sidearm and torch, watching his flanks. Safety off. Breathing low, troubled by the shadows that seemed to congregate and lengthen, he moved to the first car blocking the way and glanced through dirt-smeared windows to check for flesh-hungry occupants. Nothing. Just a few belongings scattered across the backseat, and some fast food packaging in the front passenger footwell.
Carefully he opened the driver’s door
and reached in and released the handbrake, listening for anything creeping up on him. With one hand on the steering wheel, the other holding the doorframe, he pushed the car to one side. When he was finished, he glanced back at his car and raised a thumb to Delores – but he regretted it immediately, leaving him embarrassed.
He shifted the next car with similar ease, then moved on to the final car in the way, but halted when he heard a mewling sound from the boot. He stood motionless for several moments until he aimed his pistol at the boot and opened it with his other hand. Slowly. Very slowly.
The mewling ceased when he shone his torch into the boot. His mouth fell open with incredulity and a numbing horror. His eyes stung. He didn’t move.
The thing in the boot was curled in a foetal position, its pale naked body twitching as it wheezed through a severe mouth of needle teeth. It was emaciated and hairless, with clawed hands at the end of spindly arms. Its eyelids fluttered. A diseased dreamer abandoned by the world.
Had it been human once? Had it been a person?
Guppy tried not to think of an answer as he shot the little beast in the head and put it to sleep forever.
*
They drove on, edging through the thick darkness. Guppy barely managed to scrape the car between abandoned vehicles. And as the road began to clear he put his foot down on the accelerator, his heartbeat slowing to something akin to normal. The car picked up speed, pushing forty-five mph.
He even indulged in some hope and relief before something large, pale and arachnid-like descended into the headlight beams and lunged at the windscreen with vicious force.
Delores cried out. Acting on instinct and spiking adrenaline, Guppy wrenched the steering wheel to the left. No time to do anything else. The thing’s shadow enlarged and flailed. The car juddered. Something like claws scraped over the roof. Tyres screeched as Guppy hit the brakes. Too late.
