Autumn: Aftermath (7 page)

Jackson was sitting with another man in front of a paraffin heater which glowed a comforting orange. Even from here Driver could feel the heat it was producing. It was warmer than anything he’d felt in weeks. Jackson looked around, then beckoned him over, pulling up another chair. Driver sat down, still feeling unexpectedly uncomfortable.

“This is Kieran,” Jackson said, introducing the man sitting on Driver’s right. “Kieran, this is Tony.”

“I prefer Driver.”

“How’re you doing?” Kieran asked as they shook hands.

“Been better, been worse,” he replied, giving little away.

“Smoke?” Jackson offered.

“No thanks. Bad for you.”

“Coffee?” Sue asked, leaning between them with a tray.

“Now that I won’t say no to,” Driver said quickly, taking a mug and reveling in its warmth and its bitter taste. He sipped the drink and stared at the glowing heater, trying to work out how he’d managed to get from yesterday’s nightmare to here.

“Something wrong?”

Driver shook his head and glanced over at Jackson.

“Just doesn’t feel right, that’s all.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Sitting in a place like this, with people like you, enjoying a drink in front of the fire like nothing’s happened.”

“If therw he?s somewhere else you’d rather be…”

“No,” Driver said quickly, “of course not.”

He drank more of his coffee—almost hiding behind it—and remembered the people he’d left behind at the hotel. He wondered what state they were in right now. Assuming, of course, they were still alive.

“It takes folks a few days to get used to being here,” Jackson said. “It’s a bit of a culture shock. Thing is, the castle is safer than most other places.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“No, seriously, it is. The dead just can’t get up here, apart from the few that make it up the road. The only downside of being somewhere as good as this, is it gives you time to think.”

“Tell me about it,” Driver said quietly. “I’ve been doing too much of that myself recently.”

“Anything you want to share?”

Driver paused before answering.

“This time yesterday,” he eventually said, feeling like he was confessing, “I was sitting in that bus out there, freezing cold, wondering if there was any point going on. I didn’t have a bloody clue what I was going to do next. The night before that I spent hiding in a café. The night before that I spent sitting in a truck. Before that it was a hotel…”

“So what point are you making?”

“You just get used to running, don’t you? You forget how to stop.”

“Well, maybe it’s time we all got used to stopping again,” Jackson said, putting a reassuring hand on Driver’s shoulder.

“It’s been the best part of two months since all this started,” Kieran said, his tone a little harsher than Jackson’s, abrasive almost. “You’ve told us about the last few days. Where were you before that?”

“Spent most of the time in a block of flats.”

“And why did you leave?”

“Same reason anyone leaves anywhere these days. A few thousand dead folk outside the front door that didn’t want to leave us alone.”

“Us?”

“That’s right.”

“So what happened to the others?”

Kieran’s tone was almost accusatory now, and Jackson reeled him in quickly.

“Take it easy, mate. Driver here’s had a tough day.”

“They’re all tough days now,t="0eieran said, unimpressed. “So what happened? Where are they?”

“We left the flats when the bodies got too close.”

“How many of you?”

Driver paused as he tried to remember. Picturing the faces of each of the people he’d been at the flats with stretched the pause out a little longer still.

“Eight.”

“And you’re all that’s left?”

“So where did you go?” Jackson asked, quickly taking over the questioning. “You said something about a hotel?”

“That’s right. Over in Bromwell. We found more people there.”

“How many more?”

Another endless pause. Jackson rocked back in his chair as he waited for Driver to answer. He was having trouble remembering.
Christ
, Jackson thought
, we’ve all been through a lot, but this is like getting blood out of a stone
.

“Five,” he answered, finally. “And a dog.”

“So that’s thirteen of you altogether.”

“And a dog,” Kieran added sarcastically. Jackson shot him a withering glance.

“So where are they all?”

“Don’t know for sure about all of them,” Driver replied. “Things were getting bad, same as they always do. I knew the situation was most likely about to go shit-shaped, so I shut myself away in one of the rooms. Kept my distance from the rest of them.”

“You hid?”

“If you like. You could say that. Thing is, sometimes it’s better just to keep yourself to yourself, don’t you think?”

That comment caught Jackson off-guard momentarily. He happened to agree.

“Okay, cut to the chase,” he said, his patience wearing thin. “Just tell us what happened. What happened to all the others?”

“I’m not entirely sure. They’d been keeping the bodies out of the way for a while, distracting them with music.”

“Smart move.”

“But you probably know what it’s been like. The bloody things started to get smarter and were working out what was what. Someone lost their nerve and screwed up and properly let the cat out of the bag, and the whole place was surrounded.”

“So you just did a runner?” Kieran interrupted. He couldn’t help himself.

“What else wasI supposed to do? It didn’t take a genius to work out what was going to happen next. All the escape routes were blocked. If I hadn’t gone, no one would have got away.”

“So you were just looking out for yourself,” Kieran sneered. “Fuck the rest of them.”

“No, it wasn’t like that. I swear, I was planning to go back. I still am.”

“Like hell.”

“Go easy,” Jackson warned. “Give the guy a break.”

“You’d have done the same,” Driver continued, sounding close to tears. “If I’d have stopped there with them, we’d have all been buggered. I thought I’d leave it a few days, maybe a couple of weeks, then try and get back and get them out. I know how it looks, but I swear I was going back.”

The awkward conversation faltered. Although neither Kieran nor Jackson said as much, they both remained unsure about this strange little man.

“So let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Jackson said. “Back at this hotel, there are potentially as many as twelve people stranded?”

“That’s right.”

“And this is in Bromwell.”

“Yep.”

“I know the place. It’s not too far from here.”

The other people in the room had been eavesdropping.

“Come on, Jackson,” Bob protested, “we agreed. Surely you’re not suggesting we should leave here and—”

“That’s
exactly
what I’m suggesting,” Jackson said, cutting across him. “We said we’d help other folks if we came across them. I’m not saying we should go today or tomorrow or even next week, but as soon as possible we should do all we can to try and reach those people. We can’t afford not to. You know as well as I do, numbers are important now.”

“Well I think it’s a risk too far,” Bob grumbled.

“Bob Hawkins,” Sue Preston sighed. “Sometimes getting out of bed in the morning is a risk too far for you.”

A few laughs punctuated the silence. Driver enjoyed the banter and soaked up the relaxed atmosphere. It had been a long time since he’d seen people getting on with each other like this. He watched Sue as she leaned against the window and sipped her drink.

“For what it’s worth,” she said to him, “I think Jackson’s right. We should try and help your friends. You’ll not find a better place than this, lover. We’ve got food, we’re safe, there’s room for everyone…”

“Well, I’m sold,” Driver said, “but I do want to go back. I meant what I said, I didn’t want to walk out on them like that. I just didn’t have any choice.”

“We understand,” Jackson told him. “And like I said, the more people we have here, the better. Another twelve will take us up to almost thirty folks. As soon as the time’s right we’ll head on out to Bromwell and see what we can find.”

Seventy-Six Days Since Infection

9

Driver had settled quickly into the routine—what little routine there was—of life within the crumbling walls of Cheetham Castle. In comparison to everywhere else he’d been recently, this was bliss. Okay, so he was having to work harder than he was used to, and sometimes Jackson’s “all for the common good” ethos felt a little forced and hard to stomach, but he was safe and his mind was kept occupied and it was a small price to pay. He generally busied himself around the group’s vehicles, particularly the comfortable backseat of his replacement bus. He was tasked with keeping them all in good working order but, as no one had ventured beyond the castle walls in all the time he’d been there, that hadn’t required a huge amount of effort. But, Driver being Driver, he’d done all he could to make a little work last as long as possible. He always managed to make himself look busy when, in fact, none of them actually had very much to do at all.

He’d taken to living on the bus. It was as good a place as any: better than most parts of the castle itself—windproof and relatively warm—and as spacious as most of the caravans the others used (less crowded, too). This morning, however, it was particularly cold. Driver opened one eye, then quickly closed it. It was still dark, and he was nowhere near ready to start another day just yet. He snuggled down deeper into his sleeping bag and wrapped his arms around himself to try and retain as much precious heat as possible. He was on the verge of drifting off again when something slammed against the back end of the bus, close to where he was lying. He sat upright in an instant, heart pounding, expecting to see bodies surrounding him. He relaxed when he saw that it was just Jackson, wrapped up like an Arctic explorer. He gestured for Driver to let him in. Still in his sleeping bag, he grudgingly shuffled, jumped, and tripped the length of the bus to open the door.

“Bloody hell,” he said, “do you know what time it is?”

“Do I look like I care what time it is?” Jackson replied, irritated. “Get yourself ready, Driver, we’re going out.”

“Out? Where?”

“Bromwell.”

*   *   *

Within the hour, Driver found himself standing inside the prefabricated museum with a small team of volunteers. He looked around at them. Most people (himself included, if he was honest about it) did as little as they could to get by, content to leave the much of the work to the minority of folks. And here they were: the usual suspects—the same faces which tended to appear whenever anything important needed doing. Bob Wilkins was there, despite his frequent protestations about staying inside the castle walls and not taking risks, and next to him, wearing a grubby hazmat suit, was Steve Morecombe, another man who seemed to talk a lot but who said very little worth listening to.

Next to them, leaning up against the nearest wall, was Zoe, a tall, athletic-looking student. Driver liked Zoe, not that he’d had much to do with her so far. She was different from the others, and liked to keep herself to herself. He could identify with that. She was what Driver’s ex-wife Sandra would have called “an individual.” Much to the bemusement of the rest of the group, Zoe referred to herself as a student because that, technically, was what she still was. She could often be found alone in the corner of the classroom or the caravan where she lived, continuing to pore over the books and other texts she’d kept with her from university.
What good’s all that going to do you now?
people asked her with infuriating regularity. Where was the point in studying a now-defunct subject such as criminal law, or in studying anything else for that matter? Driver knew they were missing the point entirely. He didn’t need to ask Zoe why she studied, because he already knew. It was obvious. Like the newspaper he had read over and over, Zoe’s studies were her coping mechanism. They were both a distraction and an occupation; a link to the past she wasn’t yet ready to lose. “Just because you’ve all forgotten who you used to be,” she’d sometimes tell them when she was feeling particularly frustrated, “doesn’t mean I have to.”

Kieran and Jackson marched across the courtyard toward the classroom, feet crunching through the gravel and frost. They’d barely got through the door before Bob was at them.

“Well?”

“Well what?” Jackson asked.

“Is it safe?”

“No way of knowing that for sure until we get out there, is there, Bob?”

“That’s reassuring,” Steve grumbled. Driver said nothing, but he shared their concern. This seemed like the most tenuous of plans.

“All I can tell you,” Jackson said, “is that they’re all pretty much frozen solid right now. The frost last night was particularly severe. I tried digging a hole just now, and I could barely get the spade to break the surface of the soil, so those things outside shouldn’t be much more than chunks of ice. As long as we’re back before they start to thaw out, we should be fine.”

“
Should
be fine?” Bob said.

“
Will
be fine. Now, are we ready?”

There was a muted, barely audible response.

“I’m ready,” Zoe said, keen to show she was willing and to kick the others up the backside a little.

Nothing.

“Kieran’s going out there first in the digger to clear those icy bastards off the road, Driver follows with the rest of us. He’ll get us to the hotel, then it’s in and out and back again as quick as we can. No messing around. Got it?”

“You make it sound so easy,” Steve said.

“It
will
be easy,” Jackson replied. “Trust me.”

“Oh, we trust you, all right,” Bob said, following Zoe as she walked out of the classroom. “It’s what’s left of the rest of the world we have a problem with.”