I noticed that our bonfire was still well alight, although some bodies at the edges were only half-burnt.
“Could you help us?” the man asked. “There’s a number of bodies at the other end of Connor Way that also need burning because they’re beginning to smell and attract a wide variety of vermin.”
“Yes, but first … I’m James, and this is my son, John. You’d better come and meet some of our surviving neighbours.”
“Thanks. My name’s Bill. Lead the way.”
The three of us started to walk towards our barricade. Bill explained that he and his wife were the only survivors from Connor Way. He had seen no other unaffected people, and had narrowly escaped the infected with the aid of his shovel. He had two sons who lived in Brentwood, but had heard nothing from them since the infection began.
We made our way through the barricade to see Miles standing at his door. As we approached Miles came towards us and I introduced him to Bill. Mat also appeared on the scene, then Brian, Maria and Lucy. I had not spoken to Lucy since we lost her husband Steve. At once, all the adults were congregating in the middle of the close – I think we were all so pleased to see another survivor, it made us feel that we were not alone after all. The children eventually joined us, even Jack. The teenagers started to talk to each other, even laughing and joking amongst themselves, and commenting about not having any school. Elizabeth seemed to be taking a shine to Martin, judging by the look in her eyes, but then again what do I know. Jack had found himself two new friends in Martin and Jeffrey, and his eyes seemed to light up when he saw Ziggy, Miles’s 12-year-old daughter, although he didn’t say much. Once we had all got accustomed to Bill, it was John who came up with the best idea.
“Bill, why don’t you and your wife move into one of the empty houses in our close? It would be far safer than being by yourselves.”
“Yes, we could look out for each other,” Miles added.
“Yes, it would. I’ll go and speak to the wife,” replied Bill.
Bill said goodbye and began to make his way through our barricade.
“Wait, Bill – John and I will come with you, just in case,” I said. “What’s your wife’s name?”
“Oh, thanks, and it’s Rose.”
John and I cautiously checked around the detached house as usual, and nothing anywhere near human seemed to move. As we approached the bend near the end of our road, John and I went ahead checking for infected, but all was clear apart from the members of the crow family and the occasional rat running between the few bodies that lay on the ground.
“Bill, was this your handiwork?” asked John as we started to move between the fallen bodies.
“Only about half of them,” Bill replied.
“Interesting – who topped the others, then?” wondered John.
“I’ve seen no one else,” said Bill.
Once around the bend, we turned right. Bill was now leading the way as we approached his house.
“So where is it, then?” asked John.
“At the end and to the left.”
His house was also in a small cul-de-sac, in which Bill had also built a barricade made of cars and a couple of tables. He moved one of the tables and John and I went through. Bill approached the house one from the end, extracting keys from his pocket. He opened the door and shouted out Rose’s name.
“Bill! Where have you been? I’ve been so worried.”
Rose sounded very relieved.
“We have some new friends,” said Bill as John and I walked through the front door.
“Hi, Rose,” I said, and John echoed my words.
“This is James and John. They live in the small close at the other end of Connor Way,” Bill confirmed.
“Oh, come in, come in,” said Rose, leading us into the living room, and sounding so happy that other people had survived.
“Would you like some tea?” Rose asked.
I didn’t have to be asked twice.
“Oh, yes please.”
“I will too, please,” said John.
Within five minutes Rose was back with the tea.
“Please sit down and tell us how you are coping and what you have been doing,” she said.
John and I took it in turns to tell Rose and Bill about our trips to the supermarkets and gun shops, and our search for camping equipment. The two of them had not been beyond the confines of Connor Way.
“James and John and the others in their close want us to join them,” said Bill to his wife. “It would be a good idea as there is safety in numbers.”
“But what about our house and things?” asked Rose.
“We would only take what we needed and lock the house up. We would come back when the infection has been cured.”
John interrupted.
“Dad, we have got to go – it’s getting dark.”
“What?” I said, looking through a crack in the curtains. Dusk was fast approaching.
“Right, we’ll be off – we can speak tomorrow,” I said.
John and I jumped to our feet, realising that if we could not see our weapons they would be useless to us.
Bill accompanied us to his barricade, moving the table to let us pass and then closed it behind us. John and I said goodbye very quietly and headed back along Connor Way. The light was fading fast as we entered the main road that would take us back to the close. Visibility was less than 50 yards and getting worse by the minute. The birds had disappeared but we could hear the rustling of rats and other creatures of the night.
We moved slowly forward along the road, trying to look into every shadow. Twice I tripped on a rotting corpse and John managed to step on a detached arm. As we approached the green, the crackling of the fire became louder, and the flames produced a strange flickering orange glow which reflected onto the adjacent houses, making them appear to move. We were now passing the green, and looking towards the fire we could see small black shapes moving across the grass. There was an occasional squeal as a pair of rats fought over the remaining small body parts.
“You know what, Dad,” John whispered in my ear, “the rats may be more dangerous than the dogs. Both could bite and infect you, but there are a lot more rats than dogs – plus, you might not see them coming.”
“Thanks, but I really didn’t need to know that just now, John.”
Suddenly a low, menacing growling sound filled the air, coming from the direction of the fire. As we stared into the flickering shadows, two very large black shapes seemed to raise themselves from the corpses at the edge of the fire.
“Oh shit,” John hissed.
They came at us slowly at first, and then built up speed. As I raised the shotgun to fire, I realised that it was impossible to see the sights in the fading light, so I just fired and hoped. The first shot missed completely and, making a calculated guess, I fired another three shots in quick succession. A very large Dobermann dropped dead at my feet. At the same time, I could hear the crack, crack, crack! of the Ruger as John fired as many .22 rounds as possible at the approaching second dog, without success. At the last moment, it leaped for John’s throat, but John moved sideways causing the animal to pass him and it landed on the ground three yards behind us. John managed to put two more shots into the dog while it was turning for a second attack, but the small .22 bullets seemed to have little effect. By now I had brought the shotgun to bear and fired two quick shots. The animal was bowled over by the first, and the second finished the job as the dog lay still in a pool of its own blood. I could now see it was another Dobermann.
The night then fell silent apart from the crackling of the fire. All the rats had stopped moving.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” said John breathlessly.
We didn’t bother being cautious over the last hundred yards of our journey, mainly because we could not see very clearly as we left the glow of the f
ire behind us. We found our way through the barricade with a few bumps and bruises and arrived at our house. John tapped on the front door, just as we heard more growling behind us. He banged on the door this time, and another growl sounded across the close but it was much nearer than before. I turned towards the sound as John struck the door again. A dark shape was coming straight at us, followed by another. Firing my last two shots at the nearest moving object, it appeared to stop.
“John, I’m out!”
John turned towards the other fast-approaching shape and fired four shots in quick succession. The animal did a complete somersault. I had managed to feed two more SG rounds into the shotgun as the approaching animal came back to its senses and continued to come for us. I fired my two shots at the now slowly approaching object and it slumped to the ground, and after a few twitches it lay still. Finally, the door open and Mary appeared.
“God, what are you two doing?” she asked.
“Trying to keep alive,” John replied.
As we both pushed our way into the house and shut the door behind us, something hit it with considerable force.
“Mum, whatever you do, don’t go out at night,” said John, remarkably calmly.
“Why are you so late, John?” asked Josephine as she appeared at the doorway to the living room.
“Let’s say we had a long chat with Bill and Rose,” replied John.
“What we need is a cup of tea,” I said.
“Make mine a whisky,” John requested.
Going into the living room, John and I sat in the armchairs and Mary chose the sofa, while Josephine went into the kitchen to organise the drinks.
“So, what happened and what were you shooting at?” asked Mary.
We waited for Josephine to return with our drinks and join Mary on the sofa, then John and I took it in turns to tell our story.
During the rest of the evening, John and I topped up the guns with ammo and then we tried to relax. John tried the radio at 10.00 pm but all he got was static. Mary went upstairs to use the phone in the hope she could contact one of her brothers or sisters, but only after five minutes she returned.
“The phone is completely dead and the mobiles are not working either, so we can’t contact anybody now,” she said.
Mary always liked her chat on the phone. She probably feels she has just lost her right arm, I thought.
We eventually went to bed at midnight. Mary always kept the small window open in our bedroom because she felt a bit claustrophobic, and this allowed us to hear any noise outside. In normal times this would be the traffic on the A12 with the occasional police car and ambulance siren, but these had been replaced by regular screams and shouts as the infection spread a few days ago, and now a menacing silence broken only by distant cries in the night. That night was completely different, as the steady crackling of the fire – more noticeable in the stillness – was often broken by the squeal of rats and other small rodents and the growling of larger animals. It was beginning to dawn on us that the infected were not going to be the only problem in our fight for survival.
Day Six
Saturday 17 May 2014
I could hear voices in the distance as I slowly awoke from a deep sleep.
“Mum, Dad, you getting up today?” John shouted through the bedroom door.
“What time is it?” asked Mary.
“Nearly half past seven. Josephine is making tea and coffee.”
“James, it’s time to get up. You have to collect Ruth today,” said Mary, starting to shake me vigorously.
“OK, OK, I’m awake,” I said, pretending to be fully conscious.
“Well, move yourself, then,” said Mary, getting out of bed.
We got dressed and after visiting the bathroom went downstairs, to find our drinks waiting for us.
“Dad, what’s the plan, then?” asked John.
“Let’s ask Brian if he wants to come. You take the Ruger, I’ll take the 3.5-inch magnum shotgun and we can give the tactical shotgun to Brian, together with the last of the SG shells.”
Just after 8.00 am, John and I made our way over to Linda and Brian’s new accommodation, checking first within the close and then beyond for any infected. Our fire on the green appeared to have died down, as there was no smoke or crackling noise coming from that direction.
John knocked on the front door and Brian answered.
“Good morning, James, John. Come inside.”
Entering the living room, the two teenagers were sitting in the armchairs, and noises were coming from the back garden, produced by the two younger children. Linda appeared in the kitchen doorway.
“Hi Dad, John,” she said.
“You settling in OK?” I asked.
“Yeah, we’re doing fine,” Brian replied.
“Would you like a trip, Brian?” asked John. “We could do with some help.”
“Where to?”
“To pick up Ruth, Tom and the two children and bring them back here.”
“We also hope to get further supplies from the shop near them and visit the gun shop in Great Baddow, hopefully getting a firearm of some kind for them and all of you,” I added.
“Now that would be something useful – I’ll come. When are you thinking of leaving?” said Brian.
“How about nine o’clock, or is that too soon?” I replied.
“That’s fine with me,” said Brian.
“OK. John and I will get ourselves organised, and we’ll give you the semi-auto shotgun to use.”
“See you later, then,” said John.
We made our way back to our house, where we managed to obtain another cup of tea from Josephine as we loaded magazines and checked the guns over. It was now 8.50 am, so I stocked up with 3.5-inch shells and collected about 40 of the SG shells for Brian, while John took six of the 25-round magazines for the Ruger and some spare boxes of .22LR ammo. Now fully tooled up, we made our way to Brian’s house. At least he was keen – we found him waiting at his front door. After John and I had given him a quick demonstration of the tactical shotgun, we climbed into John’s truck. Mary came out to move the Micra out of the barricade just as John started the engine in the driveway.
We were on our way, and it was nice to be doing something. Although we were apprehensive, we found it exciting at the same time. A feeling of anticipation was in the air.
Miles showed himself and waved at us as we started to move towards the barricade. John opened his window.
“Another trip?” Miles shouted.
“Going to collect my sister,” replied John.
“Where would that be?”
“Maldon – see you in a couple of hours.”
“See you later, Miles,” I called as we made our way through the barricade.
As we approached the green, it was difficult to distinguish the carcases of the dogs we had shot the previous night beneath the crows that now covered them. The fire was still smouldering, but there were still a number of partially burnt bodies at the edges. These were not covered in birds like the dead dogs, mainly due to six very alive dogs feeding off them. John managed to avoid the remains of the Dobermann lying in the centre of the road by driving directly over it, in between the wheels of the truck, at the same time causing a feeding crow to take to the air, squawking in anger as we disturbed its new meal. John successfully negotiated the bodies near the end of our road, although he did squash a rat which ran under the truck in its panic to escape.
Turning left into the main road, we headed for Hatfield Peverel. Apart from the occasional body and abandoned car, the trip was uneventful until we were climbing up the hill approaching the 30 mph speed limit sign which indicated we were entering the village.
The road was littered with abandoned cars and a number of bodies lay in the road and on the pavements. There were an unbelievable number of crows, and I wondered
where they had all come from. There were also a number of dogs feeding off them, together with rats that appeared randomly as they popped their heads out of the more mutilated bodies as we passed to see who or what was creating this mechanical sound. We had slowed down now, doing no more than 10 mph as John tried to avoid the obstacles in the road. As we progressed further into the village, three foxes were feeding from the corpses. Eventually we turned right onto the main Maldon Road.
As we approached some local shops on our left, I discovered the answer to one question I had at the back of my mind: how could the infected survive if they didn’t eat? Seven infected people were consuming the remains of three corpses and a dead dog in the small parking area in front of the shops. They were ripping out the internal organs from the carcases and chewing on them. As we passed, they looked at us with various fluids dripping from their mouths and large pieces of flesh hanging down that appeared to be stuck between their teeth.
“Well, that’s something new, Dad,” John commented as we passed.
“I think I’m going to throw up,” said Brian.
“We’re not stopping yet, so just hold on to it,” I said.
“If you must, make sure it’s not in my truck,” added John.
Fortunately, Brian managed to get over his nausea as we left Hatfield Peverel behind. There were now far fewer obstacles in the road as we passed through farmland. On our left was Countryside Leisure, which sold caravans.
“Now one of those caravans could be useful,” Brian commented, “because they have cooking, a toilet and electricity, and the batteries can be charged from a vehicle.”
On our right was Ernest Doe, which sold farm machinery, tools and outdoor clothing. In the longer term that would also become vital to our survival if we had to grow our own food.
We now made good progress, passing through Langford and soon negotiating the main Maldon bypass roundabout, and, continuing straight on, we were on the outskirts of Maldon. John had to slow down as more and more cars and bodies were blocking our path. The vermin were increasing in numbers too, feeding off the decomposing corpses. Apart from the usual members of the crow family and the occasional rat trying to avoid the truck, there were also herring gulls and great black-backed gulls in their hundreds – not surprisingly, really, as Maldon was on the coast.
Infected- The Beginning Page 18
