by David Moody
`Stop!' he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous building and attracting the attention of the few remaining bodies nearby who hadn't yet noticed him. `Just leave me alone, will you? There's nothing I can do for any of you. Go away!'
In his frightened, confused and misguided state Cox failed to appreciate the stupidity of his actions. With renewed interest the corpses continued to advance towards him. As the nearest few began to reach out and grab at him with cold, numb hands he scrambled back across the row of freezers. One of the freezers � the third or fourth in the line � was open. Cox didn't notice until it was too late. He struggled to keep his balance but was unable to stop himself from falling down into it. He sank deep into a mushy sludge of soaked cardboard boxes and defrosted pizzas and lasagnes and he threw his arms out to steady himself. The sudden unexpected descent had brought him face to face with the dead, eye level with what was left of the people of the borough. The same people who used to use the tennis courts and football pitches that he had responsibility for. The same people whose lives were shaped in the council meetings he used to sleep through. Cox tried to scramble up again but lost his footing and slipped deeper into the mire. Cold, wet and terrified he reached out and grabbed hold of the shoulders of the nearest cadaver and hauled himself up onto his feet using the body for support. Once upright again he climbed out of the freezer and pushed the body away. Cold, soaking wet and covered with foul-smelling, rotting food he pushed through the heaving crowd. The dark mass of bodies turned and followed him as he ran towards the rear of the shop and back out through the loading bay.
Cox arrived back at the council house in a supermarket branded home delivery van. He slammed on the brakes when he reached the civic square and looked anxiously in his mirrors. Already more of the people of the borough were coming his way. Would they never stop? He'd only been stationary for a couple of seconds and already they were swarming around the van, banging and hammering angrily on its sides. He edged the vehicle forward nervously, hoping to nudge the bodies out of the way. They just stood there defiant and stared at him. Stupid bloody things. In temper he slammed his foot down on the accelerator and tore through them.
Into the car park. Down the ramp. Round and round and down until he reached Level 2. He left the van in front of the still open bunker door and ran into the underground shelter. It was still empty, thank God, except for the body in the dormitory, of course. Too scared to stop and think about what he was doing Cox crashed through the bunker rooms and yanked the dormitory door open. Shelly Bright's corpse, now looking particularly grotesque and discoloured, lunged at him at the same time that he lunged at her. The counsellor and the corpse both fell heavily to the ground. Cox scrambled back up onto his feet and then, with an utter contempt and lack of respect, he grabbed hold of the cadaver's hair with one hand and its right arm with the other. Panting heavily he dragged the kicking and squirming corpse out of the bunker and threw it into the car park.
There were other bodies close now. He could see what appeared to be hundreds of them tripping and falling down the concrete ramp towards him. Obviously attracted by the noise he'd made returning to the bunker, more crowds were spilling in from the surface. The steep downwards slope of the car park seemed to be increasing their uncoordinated speed dramatically.
`Bloody hell,' Cox whimpered as Shelly Bright's body lunged for him again. He threw her to one side, not even giving her a second glance as she collapsed to the ground and then stood up again. He'd wanted to check the back of the van to see if there was any salvageable food inside but he knew he didn't have time to do it now. Maybe he'd be able to come back out in a couple of hours time when the excitement had died down and the bodies had disappeared. He remembered the ever-increasing size of the crowd of corpses outside his house and tried to convince himself that this would be different. They wouldn't stay down here in the darkness waiting for him, would they?
Shelly Bright was coming for him again. There was another body almost as close. He had to move.
Ray Cox looked out at the desperate scene around him one more time before scurrying back into the bunker and slamming the door behind him.
No sign of them disappearing yet. Every so often I try and open the door a little bit to see what's going on. It's been a couple of days now and the bloody things are still waiting for me. From down here it looks like the whole car park is full now. How the hell am I supposed to get out? Maybe it's the noise of the generator and the air conditioning pumps that's attracting them, but I can't turn them off, can I? I'll just have to sit here and wait. They'll have to go eventually, won't they?
I don't mind being down here on my own. I've spent years keeping a low profile and trying to keep out of sight. It won't be long now. Just a few more days.
I try not to think too much about what's happened because I don't understand it and I don't think I ever will. All that matters now is making sure that I get through all of this in one piece.
I can finally see the sense of `Duck and Cover' now. It has to work, doesn't it? Stay under cover long enough and you'll be okay. I'll keep my head down until this has all blown over.
PENELOPE STREET
Penelope Street is nearing the end of her life. She's becoming very weak now and it's an effort for her to lift her head, even to keep her eyes open. In many ways its much easier to stay head bowed and eyes shut. She doesn't want to see what's happening around her.
Penelope wants the end to come quickly but every single second seems to take a cruel eternity to pass. She just wants it to be over.
One hundred and thirty-three.
I've been sat here for one hundred and thirty-three hours now. How much longer will I last? Will I reach one hundred and thirty-four or one hundred and thirty-five? Christ, I hope not. I can't take much more of this but there's absolutely nothing I can do. I can't make the end come any faster. I've reached the stage when the frustration is worse than the fear.
I feel so weak. I haven't got my medication with me and I haven't eaten or had anything to drink since first thing on Tuesday morning. That's more than five and a half days ago now. Surely I can't last much longer, can I? I can't do anything but sit here with my head hanging down, looking into my lap. Sometimes I try to look up and look around but it's all so horrific that I can't stand it. Everything has changed and I don't know how or why. Arthur's body is just in front of me (I can see his feet sticking out from behind the sofa we were looking at buying) and they are all around here. Dark, decaying shadows of people who should be lying dead on the ground. Cold and empty bodies. Thank God there are none of them here in the shop with me. When I look up I can see them through the window, constantly moving up and down the street outside. I don't move so they don't see me, but if I make any noise they stop. I screamed and shouted at them to start with because I thought they'd be able to help me but now I know they can't. When they hear me they stop and stare and bang on the glass, and then more of them come. I'm used to being stared at. I don't move. I don't react. After a couple of hours they start to drift away.
Arthur brought me here on Tuesday morning to choose a new sofa. Not that he needed me to come. There wasn't any point in my getting involved in the decision. It was down to him to choose one and try it out and decide whether or not we were going to have it. We got here early so that there wouldn't be many people about. If there are too many people then I just feel like I'm in the way. We'd just got through the front door and round to the sofa section when it happened. It got him and everyone else. I watched them all crumble and fall and I wish that it had taken me too. I kept waiting for it to get me, hoping and praying that it would, hoping and praying that it would soon be over. I can't stand being alone like this. It makes me feel more helpless and vulnerable than ever.
I'm so hungry. And thirsty too. My mouth's dry and I'm so dehydrated that I feel like my tongue's swollen to ten times its normal size. I can't talk properly now, not that there's anyone left here to speak to. I think there must have been a fire near he
re a couple of days ago. People must have been trapped inside. I smelled the smoke first, then the burning bodies. It was like sitting the middle of a damn barbeque. The whole world stank of roast meat. Every so often I can still smell it. It made the hunger pains immeasurably worse.
The worst part of all of this is the fact that I haven't got any control over anything. I've not had much control for a long time, but now I don't have any. It hurts more than the fear and the not knowing. I can't do a bloody thing about the situation. I can't do anything to help myself or to bring the end any closer. Help might be just around the corner, but I can't even get myself out of this damn building, never mind get anywhere else. An inch might as well be a hundred bloody miles for all the good it'll do me now.
Just trying to look up takes so much energy. There are more bodies outside now, gazing at me with their cold, vacant eyes. I feel like a bloody shop window dummy. People always stared at me. You'd think I would have got used to it by now, but I haven't. I've never been able to handle the sideways looks and the glances and the stares and the whispers behind people's hands. Mostly they didn't say anything at all or they'd go completely over the top and patronise me. They made me feel like a freak. They always saw the wheelchair before they saw me sitting in it. I'm paralysed from the neck down, not up. I can't move my body, but that was the only difference between me and everybody else. My arms and legs might be numb and frozen, but I've always been able to feel pain and get scared and panic like everyone else. Christ knows I'm scared now.
I would have been all right if it hadn't been for him, that stupid bloody husband of mine. If he'd have left me there after the fall I would have been okay. It would have taken time to get well again, but I would have been okay. But no, he knew best, didn't he. It was him trying to move me that did the real damage to my neck. He blamed himself and so did I. And now here I am, trapped in this cold, dark and empty place and starving to death with the rest of the world already dead around me. I can't move an inch, and all I have for company is Arthur's useless corpse. I don't know what I did to deserve this.
Come on death, hurry up. Enough's enough. I want it to be over now.
I'm tired of sitting in this bloody chair just waiting... DAY SEVEN
AMY STEADMAN Part iv
It is now several days since Amy Steadman's corpse took its first unsteady steps away from the shadows of the building where she died. It is a week since infection.
The body continues to move at a painfully slow and lethargic pace. Its movements are still limited and difficult. It has, however, been moving constantly and has now covered a considerable distance since leaving the crowd on the motorway. The dog trapped in the car � the cause of the disturbance which originally attracted the mass of cadavers � became weak and quiet after several hours. Many of the dead, Amy Steadman's corpse included, gradually drifted away from the scene in random, uncoordinated directions. By pure chance Amy's body continued to follow the route of the road forward in the general direction in which it had originally been travelling. Although it has come across numerous blockages and occasional distractions along the wide, rubbish-strewn road, it has been able to keep moving in largely the same direction. It has now covered several miles.
As time has progressed so has the body slowly regained a further degree of control over its movements. It now walks with slightly more fluidity and speed although its muscles, flesh and nerves are continuing to decay. The body's limbs � previously stiff, awkward and largely inflexible � are now able to bend and flex to an extent, although their range of motion is still severely limited. The body is now able to draw its hands into fists and can move its fingers independently. It can also move its head. There has been a substantial increase in the number of voluntary head movements, indicating that the corpse is becoming increasingly aware of the direction of sound.
The long and wide motorway, which had remained relatively straight for a considerable distance, eventually curved round to the right as it merged with another major road which skirted around the centre of the city of Rowley . Amy's body, however, did not change direction. Instead it continued to move forward and straight ahead, leaving the tarmac and tumbling down a grassy embankment. After managing to stand up again, the corpse crossed the width of a field, stumbled through an open gate and then found itself following a narrow gravel path which ran alongside an isolated bungalow. After dragging itself along the length of the gravel path the body then reached another narrow tarmac road. The steep banks on either side of the road channelled the corpse and prevented it from moving in any other direction but forward.
The physical effort of the distance travelled has caused the condition of the body to deteriorate further. The process of decay has continued unabated. Its skin is now extremely discoloured. The chemical reactions continuing to occur throughout the cadaver have manifested themselves as numerous weeping sores and lesions. In the fall down the embankment the corpse sustained a number of cuts and lacerations to its right hand, its arm, its upper torso and its face. Thick, congealed blood has slowly seeped (rather than poured) from these cuts. There is no pulse. The body's circulatory and respiratory systems no longer operate. Blood and oxygen is no longer being pumped around the body.
The self-awareness of the corpse has steadily increased. Although still at an extremely low and rudimentary level, it is now aware of its own general shape and size and compensates for its bulk whilst moving. It can now use its hands to push and grab with limited success. Its balance has also improved although it is still occasionally unsteady on its feet and has difficulty coping with uneven ground.
A sudden heavy downpour of rain has drenched the body which is now struggling to cope with a steep gradient of descent down a hillside. It is still following the road. There is now a canopy of trees hanging overhead which, coupled with the increased cloud cover, has substantially reduced the available light. The loud, echoing sound of the rain hitting the ground and the leaves overhead is confusing the creature. It is now surrounded by noise. It moves its head around constantly, looking for the source of the directionless sound. It eventually emerges from beneath the canopy and the volume of the noise subsides.
Both of the body's feet are bare and the exposed flesh is rapidly wearing away. It leaves a greasy, bloody residue on the ground with virtually every footstep. Already there are insects feeding off this residue and also off the many other corpses scattered around the countryside. Amy's body has just passed another cadaver which died as the result of a car crash. The body is trapped in the wreckage of the car and it appears, over the course of the last seven days subsequent to its death, to have been picked at and ravaged by various scavenging animals. The sheer amount of dead meat which is now easily found almost everywhere is proving to be an unexpected benefit to many millions of predators and parasites. It is likely that over the coming months the population of these creatures will increase massively. The lack of any form of pest control will further allow their numbers to multiply unchecked. It is still very early days, but it is already clear that the removal of almost all of the human population will have an unprecedented effect on the ecosystem.
A brief moment of sunlight bathes the scene with unexpected brightness and warmth. Although unable to detect or understand the change in temperature, Amy's corpse does notice the increased light levels. The quality of its eyesight is still rudimentary and poor � it sees shapes and is aware of movement but has so far been unable to make out any level of finer detail. The sudden illumination allows it to see slightly more, but nothing of any significance. The control the body has over its eyes and its ability to absorb and interpret what it sees is improving, but at the same time its physical condition continues to deteriorate. The eyeballs and the associated nerves and muscles are rotting.
The body has reached a junction where the road it has been following joins a more major route. Here a crowd of bodies has gathered around a young survivor. Caught out in the open looking for food, a ten year old girl has become lost and has f
ound herself dangerously exposed. With nowhere else to shelter she has shut herself in a telephone box. She is on the ground with her back pressed up against the door to prevent it from opening. There are already seven bodies surrounding the girl with a further three approaching. Amy Steadman's corpse is now also close. Whilst the young survivor has learnt that by keeping still and silent she can evade detection by the corpses, her situation is so unexpected and unnerving that she is finding it impossible to contain her fear and emotion. She is sobbing uncontrollably, and the bodies on the other side of the glass are reacting to every sound. Although they don't understand why, they are driven to try and get closer to her. One of them begins to bang on the glass, and this new sound attracts the attention of even more nearby cadavers.
Steadman's corpse has now reached the telephone box. Although it does not understand what it is doing, the body has an instinctive, insatiable desire to reach the source of the disturbance at all costs. It reaches out and grabs hold of the nearest corpse and awkwardly attempts to pull itself nearer to the survivor. Less decayed than some of the surrounding cadavers, it clumsily rips at them and pulls and pushes them out of the way. Their rotting flesh is weak and is literally torn from the bone. Steadman's body keeps moving until it is standing directly in front of the telephone box. It leans forward and presses its decaying face against the glass. The girl inside is now face down, covering her head in fear. Steadman's corpse stares down at it with dry, cold and unblinking eyes.
As long as the girl continues to move or make any noise the bodies will remain.
JACKSON
You can learn a lot about them by watching.
I'm not a biologist or a doctor. I don't know what's happened to them or why it hasn't happened to me. I don't know if I'm immune or whether it will get me eventually. I might only have a day left, I might live for another twenty years. I know hardly anything, except how to survive.
