Autumn: The City (24 page)

‘Are there any vans there now?’

‘How am I supposed to know? There’s a good chance there will be though. Just about every morning you’d see at least one of them pulling up. Logic says that if the courts were going to be in session when all of this started, there would have been prisoners there.’

‘I know the court,’ Baxter whispered secretively. ‘But how are we supposed to get there? It’s halfway across town.’

‘Don’t know,’ Donna admitted.

‘I can’t see how we’re going to get past the crowds out there. And even if we do manage to get through, how are we supposed to get back here again? Christ, imagine what the noise of a load of prison vans will do to them?’

Cooper took a swig from a cup of cold black coffee that he’d made almost an hour earlier. He winced at its bitter aftertaste.

‘Seems to me that whatever we do is going to drive them crazy,’ he said, ‘but there isn’t any alternative. We’ve already decided that we’re going to have to go out at some point.’

‘Any suggestions?’ asked Donna expectantly.

‘I came up through a subway.’

‘That’s going to help us get out there,’ she sighed. ‘Getting back without them seeing or hearing us is going to be impossible if we manage to get our hands on some kind of transport.’

‘We could go out at night,’ Croft offered.

‘Not a good idea,’ Cooper responded. ‘I know what you’re saying, but you’ve got to add up the risks and balance them all out, haven’t you? Whatever we do we’re bound to attract attention to ourselves because of the noise we make if nothing else. If we go out in the dark then we’re just going to make it harder for ourselves. They’ll still react to us so we might as well go out in the daylight and give ourselves the best possible chance.’

‘If we’re really going to do this,’ Donna continued, ‘then we need to think very carefully before we put a single foot outside. From what I’ve seen of those things out there they seem to be getting more and more aggressive each day. We have to get everything we need in one trip.’

‘We can do it,’ Cooper insisted. ‘A few of us need to get out there, get what we need and get back. Once the excitement’s died down again we can get everyone who wants to leave together and we can move.’

Jack Baxter lay down on the cold, hard floor next to Clare and listened as the conversation continued. He agreed with everything that was being suggested, but the fact that it was right didn’t make it any easier to deal with. Within the walls of the university it had to an extent become possible to isolate themselves from events outside. The sudden realisation that they were about to leave the safety of the building and head back out into the unknown was terrifying. Unavoidable, necessary and terrifying.

‘What you doing out here?’

Donna turned round and saw that Nathan Holmes was standing behind her. She was sitting on a wooden bench in a small enclosed courtyard just to the side of the assembly hall. She often sat there to think and be alone, and after the long conversations of the last few hours she craved a change of surroundings. The three meter square area of concrete buried between university buildings was as close as she could safely get to being outside.

She didn’t want anyone’s company, least of all Holmes. She turned her back on him. Unperturbed, he sat down next to her.

‘What do you want?’ she sighed.

‘Nothing,’ he answered. ‘Just thought I’d come and talk to you, that’s all.’

‘Why would you want to do that? It’s three o’clock in the morning for Christs’ sake.’

He shrugged his shoulders and lit a cigarette.

‘Don’t know,’ he replied, leaning back and looking up at a patch of dark and cloudy sky between the tall buildings which stretched up around them.

‘I haven’t got anything to say to you anyway,’she mumbled.

‘You had plenty to say earlier.’

‘You asked for it. You’re a fucking arsehole.’

Holmes shook his head in mock disapproval.

‘Don’t know why you’ve got it in for me,’ he grinned. ‘Just because I stand up for myself and don’t want to risk…

‘Your fucking problem,’ Donna hissed, standing up and moving away from Holmes, ‘is that you don’t think about anyone but yourself. And worse than that, all the things you say and the decisions you make are based on fear. You’re too damn frightened to even think straight.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he snarled. The tone in his voice had suddenly changed. He sounded angry and yet also strangely defensive. Donna had obviously touched a nerve. ‘You haven’t got a bloody clue what you’re talking about.’

‘Let’s be honest,’ she continued, ‘the only reason why you’ve been making such a noise about staying here is that you’re too scared to leave. You can’t face the prospect of…

‘Bullshit,’ he snapped. ‘Are you serious? The reason I’m staying here is…

‘The reason you’re staying here is because you haven’t got the balls to step outside.’

‘I don’t want to be attacked by a thousand bloody dead bodies, that’s why I’m not moving,’ he protested.

‘Rubbish.’

‘You take a single step outside and they’ll swallow you up. There are fucking thousands of them.’

‘So what would you do if they get inside?’

‘They won’t.’

‘They might. They probably will at some point.’

‘I’ll deal with that when it happens. I tell you now, I’m not going out there to risk my neck unless I’ve got no other option.’

‘You haven’t got any other options.’

‘I’ll decide when I’m going to make my move.’

‘You’ll never do it. You’re a bloody coward. You’re just going to sit here and rot……’

‘You shut your fucking mouth or I’ll……’

‘You’ll do what? Come on, big man, what exactly are you going to do? You’ll still be sat in here when the rest of us leave. You’ll die in this fucking place.’

Holmes jumped up from the bench and lurched towards Donna. She stumbled backwards towards the door which led to the assembly hall and collided with Phil Croft. He’d been standing in the doorway for the best part of a minute.

‘Everything okay?’ he asked, grabbing hold of Donna’s shoulders. She steadied herself and turned and pushed her way past him.

‘Fine,’ she mumbled as she disappeared into the darkness.

Holmes and the doctor exchanged glances before Croft turned and followed Donna back into the building.

The sound of rotting hands smashing against the side of the motorhome woke Michael. It had happened before
–
maybe three or four times in the last couple of days
–
and he was quickly becoming used to disposing of the sickly, nuisance cadavers. Most times it was just a single body that stumbled upon the vehicle by chance. This morning he could hear at least two of them. Tired and cold he sat on the end of the bed and pulled on his boots.

Through a slight gap in one of the heavy curtains he saw that it was a bright and sunny day outside. That was why the bodies had appeared, he decided. They often seemed to be attracted to the motorhome when the cloud cover was light and the sun was shining. Michael had deduced that the sun reflecting on the metal and glass caught their attention. They were parked at the edge of a large field and there were no other man-made objects to attract or distract the dead.

Emma was shuffling in the bed, the noise having disturbed her also. She covered her head with a pillow to block out the banging as Michael pulled back the nearest curtain and peered outside. He pressed his face hard against the window, trying to locate the bodies. One of them was close to the door (he could just about see it from where he was) and from the direction of the noise he guessed that the other was up towards the front of the motorhome, banging relentlessly on the bonnet. Yawning he got up and walked down towards the door, pausing only to pick up a crowbar which he’d left at the side of the little gas stove in the cramped kitchen area.

‘Be careful,’ Emma said, sitting up quickly when she realised he was about to go outside.

‘I’ll be fine,’ he grunted as he opened the door and stepped out.

The morning air was bracing and fresh. The sky was deep, clear blue and it was relentlessly bright out in the open. Michael covered his eyes to shield them from the sun.

The first body was no more than six feet away and it was already coming towards him, clumsy but moving with an unnerving speed. Michael did little more than stand and look at it for a moment. It seemed to have been relatively young when it had died. A white male (he thought) dressed in the shabby remains of construction site worker’s overalls, its face was cold and vacuous and its skin blue-green and pulled tight over bone.

‘Morning,’ he muttered under his breath as he lifted the crowbar and slammed it down on the crown of the body’s skull. He felt the bone shatter and give way with hardly any resistance. As time marched slowly onwards, Michael thought, so the rotting creatures were definitely becoming physically weaker. Their intent and drive continued to increase ominously, but as each day passed the empty cadavers were showing signs of becoming unsteady and frail.

The body tripped back and then stood motionless for an instant before regaining its balance and lurching forward again. Michael lifted the crowbar for a second time and plunged it down like a spear into the centre of the creature’s head, smashing through the area of skull that he had weakened with his first blow. With what remained of its brain now destroyed, the diseased figure crumbled to the dew-soaked ground, twisted and motionless.

The second body was smaller (it had been a child but Michael forced himself not to think about that). Its unwanted interest aroused by the noises accompanying Michael’s disposal of the other corpse, it moved around the front of the motorhome and dragged itself towards the survivor. He marched quickly towards it and dispatched it with a single swipe of the heavy metal crowbar to the side of the head.

As he dragged the two bodies away to a safe distance from the motorhome, Michael found himself thinking just how easy destroying them had become. He only did it when he absolutely needed to, but the point was that he could now do it. Even as recently as last week it had still been difficult. In spite of their condition, and as dangerous, repulsive and alien as they had become, it had been hard not to keep thinking about them as people. But recently things had begun to change. The life that he had once led
–
the life that these grotesque things had shared in their previous condition
–
was becoming little more than a fading memory. This new and uncomfortable, scavenging existence had somehow become normality. His old life with all its trappings now seemed distant and at times almost incomprehensible. The further away those memories were, the weaker his emotional ties to the bodies became. Now they meant nothing. They were just an inconvenience. Occasionally a threat.

He lay the bodies at the base of a tree on the other side of the field and walked back towards the motorhome. He was about to climb the steps and go back inside when he heard the sound of an engine. Emma heard it too. She appeared in the doorway behind him.

‘I’ll go and check it out,’ he said. Emma nodded.

A quick sprint towards the track they had spent the last few days following and Michael was able to look down and follow the progress of yet another transport full of soldiers. They were heading away from their base. No doubt they would return again later.

He watched them until they had disappeared.

Today’s the day, he decided. Today we’re going to follow them back.

Michael’s plan was simple. Move the motorhome down from the hills and sit and wait somewhere near to the track. As soon as the transport appears again, follow it at a safe distance and find the base.

Simple.

Back inside, Emma was waiting for him.

‘Okay?’ she asked as he closed the door and took off his boots. He nodded and smiled.

‘More of them,’ he said as he walked towards her. She was back in bed. ‘When we’re ready we’ll drive down towards the track and find somewhere to sit and wait for them to come back.’

She nodded and threw back the bedcovers, stretching out her arms and gesturing for him to come closer. He lay down with her and held her tightly. The warmth of her body was soothing and relaxing, despite the fact that they were still both fully dressed to protect them against the autumn cold.

‘Think this is it?’ she asked.

‘Might be,’ he replied. ‘Best chance we’ve had so far.’

‘Think we’re doing the right thing?’

‘Definitely, don’t you?’

‘I’m warming to the idea.’

‘We’ve got to try, haven’t we? We can’t just walk away from these people. Who knows what they might have or what they might be able to tell us?’

‘I trust you,’ she whispered, pulling him closer. ‘I know you wouldn’t do anything if you didn’t think it was right.’

‘I’m not about to take any risks that I don’t think are justified,’ he explained. ‘The only thing I’ve got left is you. You’re my priority. I won’t let us take any chances we don’t need to.’

Emma was about to tell Michael how much she needed him but stopped herself having already told him many times before. She thought about telling him how being with him had made her hellish life almost bearable at times. She thought about telling him how she wished they could have met when everything had been normal and………