by Frank Tayell
So now I have a goal, the bigger problem is going to be how to get there. You see, I don’t really know this area. I worked on the other side of the river, I lived at the office, slept there too, as often as not. Around here I know where to buy milk, where to catch the bus, which road leads to the park, but as for which road offers the quickest route to the river, your guess is as good as mine.
16:00, 12th April.
The bike looks ready to go. I’ve got a selection of tools, spare clothes, the radio, and rope in bags slung on either side of the rear wheel, with space for the last of the food and water. I’ve strapped a broom handle between the front and rear wheels so they won’t go their separate ways. When I get to the boat I’ll tie the broom handle onto the end of the crutch and can use that to push away from any bridges or floating detritus. I really think this can work.
The laptop and hard drive go into my backpack. It’s a lot of weight, but I promised Sholto, and I think, especially after Sam, that promises should be kept.
17:00, 12th April.
I thought I heard a helicopter. I’m not sure, there was certainly something, it sounded unnatural but in a good way, a mechanical and completely artificial way. I went to the window, to see if I could spot it, but I couldn’t even tell which direction it was coming from. I didn’t look too long, or too hard, as my attention was immediately caught by the sight of a vapour trail.
That truly was a sight to behold, though it affects my plans not one iota. There are still people out there, enough of them to maintain and fly jet planes, and with some purpose that brings them over London.
18:00, 12th April.
Those beautiful white scars have been obscured by clouds. The plane might have been coming from overseas heading to one of our airports. It was weeks since there had been anything except military flights coming into the country, but the runways were all kept clear.
Overseas it was a different story. There it seemed as if half the people who were escaping headed to the airports. Cars were driven onto runways, planes were overloaded and the infection was carried onto the few flights that managed to take off. We retasked the satellites and then sent jets to fly over and check, but other than a few military bases there isn’t a safe landing strip south of Tromso or north of Addis Ababa. Or there wasn’t when the evacuation started. That’s over a month ago now, who knows what state the UK’s airports are in, but if I was a pilot and I managed to get a plane in the air, this is the only place I’d know I might stand a chance of landing it.
I didn’t see the plane, just the vapour trail. Maybe it’s a private jet, maybe a passenger plane, maybe a fighter. The type doesn’t really matter, just that someone out there flew it.
Day 32, eight days until I leave
11:00, 13th April.
Radio Free England stopped for a few hours this morning. A broken substation, a failed transmitter, or maybe they just decided to stop, I don’t know the cause. They gave no explanation when they came back on air.
Clothes ready, pack’s packed. I’m ready to go, but I just don’t want to. This place, it’s not much, but it’s mine. I’ve survived here for thirty-two days. Longer, really, I’ve been on my own since I came back from the hospital. That’s fifty days. Fifty-three since New York. That’s a long time to survive in this new world.
If only I could stay in here longer, but I know that I can’t.
12:00, 13th April.
Would that government car have anything inside worth taking? Perhaps the driver even had a gun. I’m sure he was carrying one in the hospital.
I’ll check the car as I go out. I’ll lean the bike up against the rear door, check the driver for keys, and a weapon. Yes, he’d have a firearm wouldn’t he? They were issuing those to everyone, police included, and it didn’t matter if you were in admin or on the front line, if you wore a uniform then you carried a gun. I’ll check the boot first, and if there’s time, the glove box. Or should I check the glove box first? Wouldn’t he keep a gun close to hand? If he didn’t, if it was in a locked box in the car then I’d never find it. I just wouldn’t have time.
Do I see if the car starts? No, I’ve already decided that, who knows what the roads are like. A bike’s far more sensible.
Day 33, seven days until I leave
06:00, 14th April.
The car is looking very tempting. The more I stare at it the more I wonder what’s inside. Maybe there’s a walkie-talkie or a radio or something.
07:00, 14th April.
Of course there’s a radio, whoever it is that Jen detailed to pick me up is going to have a way of communicating with the rest of the squad or platoon or whatever. Perhaps even with Jen herself. If I’d taken the chance back when this started I could have been rescued long ago!
A working radio, and emergency supplies. I’d be able to stay here until someone came. But what if they didn’t come? What if the Radio Free England people were right, and there’s no longer any government? No. I don’t believe that. I’ve no reason to trust those people. I mean, what about the Royal Navy? It’s not as if the undead could sink a submarine. But what if, wherever they are now, the range is too great for the radio? What if they don’t answer? What then?
Well, then I’d have the extra supplies from the car, wouldn’t I? There’s got to be enough for at least another month. Enough until it’s safe to take off the cast and I could leave here actually peddling a bike rather than just pulling it along. I’d be far faster than any zombie. It would be safer. Much safer.
17:00, 14th April.
I went downstairs. I was going to go outside, see if I could get to the car, but there’s one in the back garden. It’s sort of squatting there, right in front of the door. I couldn’t see it from the window, it’s hidden by the angle of the house. I’ll need to kill it.
Sam probably noticed it. That’s why he didn’t come any closer. He’d seen it and it’d seen him. It wasn’t Sam’s fault, he’d committed to helping me, but after he’d been spotted he had to escape. It wasn’t like he had any choice. Now I feel bad for him. Maybe we’ll meet up when this is over, perhaps on some ship out in the Channel, and we'll talk and laugh and he’ll apologise and it’ll all be cool.
I don’t know if the creature was drawn there by the noise I’ve been making over the past weeks, but it was within two paces of the door, so close that if I’d been unaware of it, I’d surely have walked right into it. It’s old, well over sixty, male, and wearing a suit and tie. Sort of dressed in its Sunday best. I wonder if he always dressed like that or if he’d dressed up for the evacuation. No, that doesn’t make sense, who wears a tie to go on a hike? So not an evacuee. Who was he?
It’s impossible to tell the quality of the suit. The sleeves are tattered, it’s torn at the knee and covered in blood, dirt and stains I don’t want to identify. There’s a story, a long terrible story, behind the man and how his life brought him here to my door, a story that will have to end tomorrow morning because I need to get that radio.
Day 34, six days until I leave
06:15, 15th April.
I’m going outside now, to get the radio, grab whatever else I can and then I’ll come back inside. But I’m going to be cautious. I’m going to be clever. The undead can’t be clever, you see, that’s where I can beat Them. This house has two doors, see, that’s the clever bit, I’ll go out the front, and try and get to the car without any of Them noticing.
Maybe They are so far gone by now, They won’t be able to smell or hear me or whatever They do, so I’ll go slow, but if I am spotted I’ll lead Them around the block, away from the house, then I’ll sneak back in from the other side.
I’m going to take the bike with me. This will be good practice in case my plans change and I have to use it in my escape. See, I’m planning now, planning ahead.
06:30, 15th April.
Damn. There’s one out the front, it’s not moving fast, but it is moving. Killing two of Them is not part of the plan. I’ll just wait.
11:00, 15th
April.
Damn, Damn, Damn. It’s just sniffing around the door. Did it hear me? It must have done.
12:00, 15th April.
It’s gone. Not sure where. Can’t see it from any of the windows. Too late now. Going to wait until tomorrow.
16:00, 15th April.
One of the last videos I watched before the power went out was of a group in a compound in Colombia. My Spanish isn’t very good and I couldn't tell if they were FARC, a drug gang, or just some group of like-minded citizens whom fate had trapped together. There were thirty-six men and women, all well-armed, with the oldest being about sixty, the youngest not yet old enough to shave.
The footage, which had been uploaded live, started with each one saying a few words to the camera. These weren’t goodbyes, I could understand enough to tell that, they were exhortations to the people of the world, a call to rise up and make a stand. As each person said their piece, you could see the others behind them, nodding, psyching themselves up. By the time it got to the last one, the youngest, the crowd was chanting along, waving those oh-so-recognisable AK-47s in the air.
They were in a courtyard of some kind, with big thick wooden doors, double the height of a man. By the time the kid finished, two of them were standing by the doors. Everyone else stood in two lines facing the doorway. Some were standing patiently, others were jogging nervously from foot to foot, or gripping their rifles, pointing them straight forward.
Then one who hadn’t spoken before stepped forward. He was dressed as a priest, though like the others he carried a gun. He gave a short speech, as much to the camera as to his comrades, his flock. I couldn’t work out much of what he was saying, not until the last few words. “Though there is a lot to fear, what we should fear most is fear itself. Walk with God and we shall restore this Garden of Eden.” Then he blessed them all and took up a place at the front.
He counted down, “Tres,” and the others joined in, “Dos. Uno.” The doors were thrown open and they started firing. Slowly they advanced, one step, two, the ones at the front firing until they’d emptied a magazine, then one in the rank behind would step forward and take their place.
They advanced as far as the door before the first of them was killed. One of the zombies who’d been shot, but not in the head, rose up and tore at the legs of a woman in the front rank, pulling her to the ground. Her screams were cut short by that kid, now in the second rank, who fired a single shot into his comrade’s head before shooting the zombie and stepping into the gap.
The boy died less than a minute later. When the priest saw the child fall, something in him must have snapped. He fired until his gun was empty then he rushed forward swinging it like a club. That’s when the camera was dropped. It still recorded and uploaded the footage, but from its position on the floor all that could be made out were the bodies dropping one by one as the sound of gunfire slowly faded.
That is the fear of going outside, the fear of an uncertain death, set against the almost certain death that awaits me if I stay here and risk nothing. But I will go. I have to go if I want to live, and above all I do want to live.
Day 35
05:30, 16th April.
This is it.
Part 2:
An Empty England
16th April - 13th June
Day 35, The Walworth Road, London
19:15
Killing the zombie in the garden wasn’t hard. I opened the door, swung myself forward two paces, let the crutch dangle from the loop I’d attached to my arm, and took a firmer hold of the hammer I’d been awkwardly gripping with my right hand. As the zombie started to rise, I adjusted my stance. Better balanced, I swung down just as the creature turned towards me, the blow landing just above its right ear.
The noise is something I won’t forget, a cracking sucking sound as the skull shattered and a brown sludge-like ooze sprayed out. I don’t know what a brain should look like, but I’m pretty sure it’s not that. It collapsed onto the path, and that was that. It was over in a matter of seconds. I didn’t even have to see its face.
Everything was going to plan. I took a moment to look around, to make sure everything was clear, then I pulled the bike out, closed the door and began making my way down the path.
The bike didn’t work, not like I’d hoped, perhaps if I’d been able to practice… but I’m glad I brought it because there was another zombie, invisible from the house, hidden behind the low front wall. I didn’t notice it until it lunged at me. Its legs were gone, along with half of its jaw, it couldn’t move far, couldn’t move fast, but if the bike hadn’t been between me and it, I’d be one of Them now.
Reflexively I let go of the bike, letting it fall. As the creature tried to claw at me, its arms became tangled in the frame. I froze. I just stood staring at it for I don’t know how long. I tried to lift my arm, but it was like moving through water. All I could hear was my own silent scream. All I could see were its crazed eyes flecked with grey, vacant but still very human. I brought my arm down, but there was barely any force to the blow, the hammer glanced off the side of its head, bringing away a chunk of hair and flesh and brown pus, exposing the white skull beneath. I struck again and again and again. It stopped moving after the fifth blow.
I was in shock, I guess. I left the bike there, I didn’t even try to disentangle it. Time didn’t slow down, I wish it had, if anything it sped up as I slowed down. Every step seemed to take an age as I limped over to the car. I told myself to focus, to stay on task, that I’d get the radio and then get back inside, call for help and a helicopter with an extraction team would be here before nightfall. Foolish!
It seemed like an hour had gone by before I got to the far side of the car, but it can't have been more than a minute. That’s when I saw the driver properly. His head, lolling forward, was hanging on by a few inches of grey sinew. His eyes, unseeing, stared at nothing. As I nudged his body with the crutch, trying to move it aside to see if the keys were underneath, his mouth gaped open. I jumped, and nearly fell over as I stumbled sideways. From the safety of my home, through the illusory security of my window the idea of moving him, searching him for his keys and radio, it all seemed so simple, but this…
He was dead. Properly dead, I mean. It took me a long while to realise that. I guess I’d known it at some level since, in all this time, he'd never moved. Why didn’t he turn? Perhaps it was because he’d been almost decapitated. Or maybe it’s something else, something to do with the way he died, I don’t know.
I began searching. There was nothing on the ground, which meant I had to check the body. The insides were already putrefying, held in by nothing more than his clothes. There was a radio, tucked onto his belt near his back. That went into a pocket, and was zipped closed. After all I’d been through, I didn’t want to lose it.
That’s when I should have gone back inside. I’d found what I wanted, but I guess my success had made me complacent. I kept searching. His pockets contained nothing except a lighter, a pack of cigarettes and a couple of ID swipe cards. No gun, no holster, no keys. I scanned the ground again and spotted the keys near the rear tyre. They must have been kicked there when he was attacked.
I hobbled over, bent, picked them up, and since I was there, took two steps round to the back of the car and unlocked the boot. It was empty. At least it looked empty. Maybe the emergency supplies were in a hidden compartment or maybe there's a special lever you have to pull. It’s more likely that, from wherever he brought the car, they were so low on supplies that the emergency gear had been removed and used up. I looked briefly at the back seat, but it too was empty.
That left the glove box. I decided to go around to the passenger side rather than try and move the corpse out of the way. I was nearly there, my hand almost at the handle, when I saw two things, the silenced pistol lying in the driver-side footwell and the third zombie, the one who’d stopped me leaving yesterday.
I stared at it, and it glared back with those unblinking grey-flecked eyes as it shuffled closer.
Its mouth opened and it let out… not a moan, not like in the movies, it was more a hissing guttural grunt of escaping air as its lungs were compressed whilst it moved. It was a far more inhuman sound than anything I was expecting. What made it worse was that it was coming from a fire-fighter. She was wearing the protective jacket, the thick boots, and trousers. I doubt she'd donned them to tackle a blaze, but those thick clothes must be practically bite proof.
Maybe I should have killed it, hindsight’s a wonderful thing. I think I could have, and made it back inside afterwards. I might even have had time to check the glove box and to make a proper search of the boot, perhaps even to remove the driver’s body and see if the engine worked.
I just didn’t have time. It was twenty feet away and getting closer whilst I was still gripped by fear-laden indecision. The gun was only four feet away, but on the wrong side of the car. There was no way I could reach it without getting into the car on the passenger side and twisting forward. I don’t know if it was loaded, but all that was running around in my head were scenes from movies where someone tries to fire and the gun just clicks because the safety catch is still on. The only guns I’ve fired have been shotguns on pheasant shoots where the gun is handed to you already loaded. I’ve no idea what a safety catch even looks like.
What I needed was distance between me and it, enough distance I could retrieve the gun, get out of the car, and kill it without risking my life if I couldn’t get it to work. What I needed was not to panic, to stick to the plan. Instead I just turned and fled.
I limped as fast as I could to the end of the street, turning left because I was on that side of the road. Then I ducked down the cycle path running down the back of the next block. I didn’t even think to check it was clear before I started down it. It was empty, but by the time I got to the end and back onto a main road, there were two of the undead following, and keeping pace with me. I went down roads, doubling back on myself, trying to head back towards the house, sobbing all the time.
