Surviving The Evacuation (Book 1): London (22 page)
I kicked at it, pushing it away with my foot. I managed to stand, then I hit it again and again and again until it finally stopped moving. I slipped and fell to my knees, screaming. I was sure I’d been infected. That's why I didn’t hear the others. Three faces appeared above me from the top of the stairwell. I pushed myself to my feet and limped out of the building and out of the school.
I kept on for the rest of the day and into the night. Sometimes I lost some of Them, sometimes I picked up more. I finally escaped by leading Them up the ramp to the roof of a multi-storey car park, speeding up when I got to the top so They didn't see me when I ducked into the stairwell. When I finally got out of that car park and headed out into the street below the zombies left on the top floor spotted me, and started pushing and shoving until the safety barrier broke and They plunged, one after another, down sixty feet to the pavement.
I was exhausted, tired and convinced I was already dead. I barely had the energy to climb up a ladder to the flat roof of this petrol station. I didn't sleep.
I picked out six fragments of glass from my skin. Six and I didn't get infected. That's not just luck, that's something else. From now on no more risks. All I want is somewhere quiet to hide for a few months. Somewhere where this will all just stop.
Day 52, Woolwich, London.
06:00
Finally. Safety. I’m in a house to the north of Woolwich, a few hundred metres from the Thames.
It's a nice house, a late Victorian family place with five bedrooms, a plethora of bathrooms and a massive open plan downstairs living/kitchen. I've always fancied one of those. There's a working fireplace too. There's only the one left in the house and the Victorian mantelpiece has gone, replaced with something distinctly Scandinavian, but I’m not going to complain about that.
There's lots of houses, here, almost one on top of the other, but there's a lot of greenery too, lots of trees and large gardens. I got in last night, and after I'd checked the house was empty I collapsed on the sofa in the front room.
The fire's lit, and writing in the journal is only delaying the inevitable. It's time for the cast to come off.
09:00
God! What a stench!
I'd boiled some water from the water-butt in the garden. It's a stagnant greenish colour, and there's no way I’m going to drink it. Perhaps washing my leg with it wasn't a good idea either. Still, like the old saying goes, “When the dead walk the Earth...”
As for the leg, well, it's a mix of the disgustingly pale, the rubbed raw and the dirt engrained, but it's still there and it still works. I've strapped it up as best I can, with electrical tape and the supports from a shelving unit. That's the best I can manage for now, but it seems to hold.
10:00
On second inspection there is no way I’m reusing the water-butt. It's caked with a greenish slime that seems to be making a run at becoming humanity's replacement as the dominant life form on this planet. I've chucked out the rest of the water I boiled up, I really don't want to risk getting sick. First order of business I suppose is to find a new water barrel.
12:00
Some pasta for lunch, cooked in wine. I couldn’t find anything else. Makes the pasta almost look like there's a sauce with it. There had been more food here, packets of some kind, but mice must have got in at some point. Anything not in glass or plastic has gone. They've even chewed through the labels on the few tins that remained.
I couldn’t find a proper rain barrel, but then what was I expecting, that there would be a spare, still in its sterilised wrapping hidden in a back room? It would have been nice. The largest of the saucepans is currently doing duty instead. Even that I think is optimistic. When did it last rain? A week ago?
I’m going to need more firewood too, now I think about it. The owners had laid a fire, but I think they only used it for decoration. I filled the house with smoke before I found the lever to open the flue.
I suppose I could always burn the furniture, but I don't like the idea of that. I mean, this is someone's home, someone who may plan on coming back some day. I know, I know, I've already been burning books and furniture, but that was in my house. It was my furniture, and those books, well, they were all mass produced, all replaceable, not dog-eared from years of reading and re-reading. As for the flats above the gym, I know that no one there cared any more.
I've taken down the photographs. I couldn’t stand them looking at me. It was too much seeing the family together, the school portraits, or pictures where they are standing by the Christmas tree. Everyone is always smiling, even when the smile never reaches the eyes. I've not hidden them or anything, just turned the frames down so the faces aren't looking at me, aren't smiling at me, aren't judging me.
I wonder where they are and if they made it. I know they planned their escape, you can tell they'd packed and re-packed going by the mess in the kids room. There was only the one child still at home, the other two, about a decade older, must have left home, or been at University. Maybe they went to collect them. Are they on a ship somewhere? Maybe they're already at work in some field somewhere, turning a grass pitch into farmland. They'll be thinking about this house and all the happy times they had here and about the times they'll have here again, when it's all over.
One day someone will come back to reclaim their possessions. It might not be the parents, by then it might be the children, grown up, or even their children, but someday someone will come, looking for the photographs and that chair that their mother is sitting in, the one by the fire, the one where she's holding the child. There are three different photographs, each taken years apart, her hair slightly different, each time with more lines on her face, but each time with that same look of joy in her eyes. Maybe they won't come back, but if they do I can't have them finding that the house has been ransacked, that there's nothing left. I couldn't live with that. Not now. Not any more.
Yesterday I found a different house, a different family, one which hadn't left. Mother, Father and two children.
It was the first time I'd seen an undead child, seen one properly, I mean. There were some in the crowds outside the house, but I didn’t look, didn't
see
. I mean, I was never that close, and alright, maybe I avoided looking too hard, but there must have been dozens, hundreds, thousands even, in the horde that swept passed the gym. I didn’t notice. I chose not to notice.
I lost my bag, one of the crutches and the hammer in that house. It's only around the corner, just a couple of blocks from here but I’m not going back.
By midday, yesterday, I had reached Greenwich, that's a distance of a mile or so west as the crow flies, but I'd travelled a lot further. I kept circling around by the river, checking all the likely spots, looking for anywhere there might be something afloat. I'd scaled my dreams back from houseboat to launch to dingy to anything that might take me out with the tide. There was nothing but broken wood and plastic. The spots where the river taxis used to dock had been broken down, the piers now stubs of broken timber against the banks. Anything that could float had long ago been taken it seemed.
It wasn't easy. There were still dozens on the streets. Sometimes I could sneak
past
, sometimes I had to double back, sometimes I had to run, sometimes I had to kill. After I had to break through the plate glass of an estate agents window and escape down the alley behind the shop to evade fifteen of the undead, I finally abandoned the idea of escaping by river. Instead I set my sights on somewhere to hide up for a day or three. I turned away from the Thames and wandered the side roads, my route determined by where the undead were least concentrated. That's when I saw the house. It wasn't hard to spot, it was the only house I'd seen with the windows newly boarded up. Someone had been there and, I thought, may have been there still.
I knocked on the door. There was no answer. I knocked again, this time more rhythmically, trying to make it clear that I was one of the living. Still there was no answer. I thought that they'd either left, or perhaps gone foraging. The door was locked but not barred which suggested the latter. Carefully, not wanting to cause too much damage, I levered the door open. It'd be easy to repair, I thought, and I didn’t want to wait out on the street, not where I could be spotted.
I stepped inside. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. The noise of my knocking must have woken her. The mother was standing right inside the door, almost on top of me when I opened it. I pushed her away, and without any more thought brought the hammer down on her skull.
I closed the door behind me and pushed the body out of the way. I could have left then, but thought if she was the only one then this house might make a good place to hide up for a few days. The father appeared at the end of the hallway, the remains of a bandage visible on his neck. He must have been the first one infected, he'd come home and turned. I killed him quickly, too quickly, too easily. It's becoming too easy.
The rest of the house was silent. I walked through the hall, towards the kitchen. I was maybe halfway there when I realised there was something behind me. Maybe it was a sound, maybe a sixth sense, I mean, something has got me through this so far, right?
The two girls stood there. One was maybe six, the other a few years older. Mouths agape, clothing stained with their own dried blood, they walked slowly towards me.
I couldn't do it. For each of us there's a line we just will not cross, and for me that was it.
Why didn't we just tell everyone to stay inside and wait for the vaccine? That makes far more sense than some trek into the middle of nowhere. Those children would have lived.
I pushed passed them and ran out the front door.
They might have died anyway but they would have had a chance.
They followed me out of the house. I lost them in the next block when I hid once more in the bushes of an overgrown front garden. I lay there for hours, not thinking, not doing anything. When it started to get dark I crawled round to the back of the house. I couldn’t face going in, couldn’t face the idea of having to deal with anything else that night, so I lay there, outside, under the stars trying to forget their faces.
Finally, I got up. The road was empty. I walked stiffly across the street, broke the side gate and made my way through the back garden where I made a hole in the fence. I had enough energy to get inside this house and check it was empty before I fell asleep.
17:00
I'm feeling tired. It's been a long couple of days. I think I'll give up on any plans more long term than waking up tomorrow morning.
There were twelve bottles of mineral water in the cellar. That's more than enough for now. Never made tea with mineral water before.
Day 53, Woolwich, London.
Sick.
09:00
Something I ate, something I drank, too much stress or something worse, who knows. Maybe it was something in the air. Vomiting and diarrhoea and I'll leave the descriptions there. I’m slightly better today though I feel weaker than ever.
I heard bird song this morning, louder than I've ever heard it before. I can't see outside though. I covered all the windows to stop any light from escaping out to the street.
Where are the cats and the dogs and the foxes? Do the zombies attack and kill them? Did the birds only survive because they could fly to safety?
The bird song is a good sign. I think it shows the infection can't cross species. Or at least not to birds. I’m probably reading too much into it, I mean, what do I know about how infections spread? If bird flu can mutate to humans, then why not the other way around, perhaps it's just a matter of time. Perhaps I should just enjoy the sound of something living while I can.
13:00
It's definitely not my reduced mobility. Nor is it boredom or even loneliness. No, it's that I've become more systematic in my looting methodology, more experienced, if you like, more professional. That's what I've been telling myself as I've gone through the house room by room, drawer by drawer. Whatever it is, it isn't
nosiness
. Honestly, it's not.
OK, who am I trying to fool, I mean, I don't even believe it myself. The jury's still out on whether I’m lonely, but I am definitely bored and confined to moving around very, very slowly, but whatever the reason my
prying
has paid off. You won't guess what I found. No, you have to guess. Go on, try. Three guesses. Give up? See, I said you wouldn't get it.
Easter eggs. Small ones, but bone fide, honest to goodness, genuine, thirty percent cocoa, milk chocolate Easter eggs. You remember the kind, the ones they marketed to kids, the small hollow eggs in the big cardboard boxes with mazes on the back and the tips on the side about how to organise your own Easter egg hunt. Well I found six of them. And no, before you ask they weren't hidden. They were in a carrier bag in the dresser in the front room.
