Autumn: The Human Condition (19 page)

Arthur brought me here on Tuesday morning to choose a new sofa. Not that he needed me to come. There wasn't any point in my getting involved in the decision. It was down to him to choose one and try it out and decide whether or not we were going to have it. We got here early so that there wouldn't be many people about. If there are too many people then I just feel like I'm in the way. We'd just got through the front door and round to the sofa section when it happened. It got him and everyone else. I watched them all crumble and fall and I wish that it had taken me too. I kept waiting for it to get me, hoping and praying that it would, hoping and praying that it would soon be over. I can't stand being alone like this. It makes me feel more helpless and vulnerable than ever.

I'm so hungry. And thirsty too. My mouth's dry and I'm so dehydrated that I feel like my tongue's swollen to ten times its normal size. I can't talk properly now, not that there's anyone left here to speak to. I think there must have been a fire near here a couple of days ago. People must have been trapped inside. I smelled the smoke first, then the burning bodies. It was like sitting the middle of a damn barbeque. The whole world stank of roast meat. Every so often I can still smell it. It made the hunger pains immeasurably worse.

The worst part of all of this is the fact that I haven't got any control over anything. I've not had much control for a long time, but now I don't have any. It hurts more than the fear and the not knowing. I can't do a bloody thing about the situation. I can't do anything to help myself or to bring the end any closer. Help might be just around the corner, but I can't even get myself out of this damn building, never mind get anywhere else. An inch might as well be a hundred bloody miles for all the good it'll do me now.

Just trying to look up takes so much energy. There are more bodies outside now, gazing at me with their cold, vacant eyes. I feel like a bloody shop window dummy. People always stared at me. You'd think I would have got used to it by now, but I haven't. I've never been able to handle the sideways looks and the glances and the stares and the whispers behind people's hands. Mostly they didn't say anything at all or they'd go completely over the top and patronise me. They made me feel like a freak. They always saw the wheelchair before they saw me sitting in it. I'm paralysed from the neck down, not up. I can't move my body, but that was the only difference between me and everybody else. My arms and legs might be numb and frozen, but I've always been able to feel pain and get scared and panic like everyone else. Christ knows I'm scared now.

I would have been all right if it hadn't been for him, that stupid bloody husband of mine. If he'd have left me there after the fall I would have been okay. It would have taken time to get well again, but I would have been okay. But no, he knew best, didn't he. It was him trying to move me that did the real damage to my neck. He blamed himself and so did I. And now here I am, trapped in this cold, dark and empty place and starving to death with the rest of the world already dead around me. I can't move an inch, and all I have for company is Arthur's useless corpse. I don't know what I did to deserve this.

Come on death, hurry up. Enough's enough. I want it to be over now.

I'm tired of sitting in this bloody chair just waiting... DAY SEVEN

AMY STEADMAN Part iv

It is now several days since Amy Steadman's corpse took its first unsteady steps away from the shadows of the building where she died. It is a week since infection.

The body continues to move at a painfully slow and lethargic pace. Its movements are still limited and difficult. It has, however, been moving constantly and has now covered a considerable distance since leaving the crowd on the motorway. The dog trapped in the car � the cause of the disturbance which originally attracted the mass of cadavers � became weak and quiet after several hours. Many of the dead, Amy Steadman's corpse included, gradually drifted away from the scene in random, uncoordinated directions. By pure chance Amy's body continued to follow the route of the road forward in the general direction in which it had originally been travelling. Although it has come across numerous blockages and occasional distractions along the wide, rubbish-strewn road, it has been able to keep moving in largely the same direction. It has now covered several miles.

As time has progressed so has the body slowly regained a further degree of control over its movements. It now walks with slightly more fluidity and speed although its muscles, flesh and nerves are continuing to decay. The body's limbs � previously stiff, awkward and largely inflexible � are now able to bend and flex to an extent, although their range of motion is still severely limited. The body is now able to draw its hands into fists and can move its fingers independently. It can also move its head. There has been a substantial increase in the number of voluntary head movements, indicating that the corpse is becoming increasingly aware of the direction of sound.

The long and wide motorway, which had remained relatively straight for a considerable distance, eventually curved round to the right as it merged with another major road which skirted around the centre of the city of Rowley . Amy's body, however, did not change direction. Instead it continued to move forward and straight ahead, leaving the tarmac and tumbling down a grassy embankment. After managing to stand up again, the corpse crossed the width of a field, stumbled through an open gate and then found itself following a narrow gravel path which ran alongside an isolated bungalow. After dragging itself along the length of the gravel path the body then reached another narrow tarmac road. The steep banks on either side of the road channelled the corpse and prevented it from moving in any other direction but forward.

The physical effort of the distance travelled has caused the condition of the body to deteriorate further. The process of decay has continued unabated. Its skin is now extremely discoloured. The chemical reactions continuing to occur throughout the cadaver have manifested themselves as numerous weeping sores and lesions. In the fall down the embankment the corpse sustained a number of cuts and lacerations to its right hand, its arm, its upper torso and its face. Thick, congealed blood has slowly seeped (rather than poured) from these cuts. There is no pulse. The body's circulatory and respiratory systems no longer operate. Blood and oxygen is no longer being pumped around the body.

The self-awareness of the corpse has steadily increased. Although still at an extremely low and rudimentary level, it is now aware of its own general shape and size and compensates for its bulk whilst moving. It can now use its hands to push and grab with limited success. Its balance has also improved although it is still occasionally unsteady on its feet and has difficulty coping with uneven ground.

A sudden heavy downpour of rain has drenched the body which is now struggling to cope with a steep gradient of descent down a hillside. It is still following the road. There is now a canopy of trees hanging overhead which, coupled with the increased cloud cover, has substantially reduced the available light. The loud, echoing sound of the rain hitting the ground and the leaves overhead is confusing the creature. It is now surrounded by noise. It moves its head around constantly, looking for the source of the directionless sound. It eventually emerges from beneath the canopy and the volume of the noise subsides.

Both of the body's feet are bare and the exposed flesh is rapidly wearing away. It leaves a greasy, bloody residue on the ground with virtually every footstep. Already there are insects feeding off this residue and also off the many other corpses scattered around the countryside. Amy's body has just passed another cadaver which died as the result of a car crash. The body is trapped in the wreckage of the car and it appears, over the course of the last seven days subsequent to its death, to have been picked at and ravaged by various scavenging animals. The sheer amount of dead meat which is now easily found almost everywhere is proving to be an unexpected benefit to many millions of predators and parasites. It is likely that over the coming months the population of these creatures will increase massively. The lack of any form of pest control will further allow their numbers to multiply unchecked. It is still very early days, but it is already clear that the removal of almost all of the human population will have an unprecedented effect on the ecosystem.

A brief moment of sunlight bathes the scene with unexpected brightness and warmth. Although unable to detect or understand the change in temperature, Amy's corpse does notice the increased light levels. The quality of its eyesight is still rudimentary and poor � it sees shapes and is aware of movement but has so far been unable to make out any level of finer detail. The sudden illumination allows it to see slightly more, but nothing of any significance. The control the body has over its eyes and its ability to absorb and interpret what it sees is improving, but at the same time its physical condition continues to deteriorate. The eyeballs and the associated nerves and muscles are rotting.

The body has reached a junction where the road it has been following joins a more major route. Here a crowd of bodies has gathered around a young survivor. Caught out in the open looking for food, a ten year old girl has become lost and has found herself dangerously exposed. With nowhere else to shelter she has shut herself in a telephone box. She is on the ground with her back pressed up against the door to prevent it from opening. There are already seven bodies surrounding the girl with a further three approaching. Amy Steadman's corpse is now also close. Whilst the young survivor has learnt that by keeping still and silent she can evade detection by the corpses, her situation is so unexpected and unnerving that she is finding it impossible to contain her fear and emotion. She is sobbing uncontrollably, and the bodies on the other side of the glass are reacting to every sound. Although they don't understand why, they are driven to try and get closer to her. One of them begins to bang on the glass, and this new sound attracts the attention of even more nearby cadavers.

Steadman's corpse has now reached the telephone box. Although it does not understand what it is doing, the body has an instinctive, insatiable desire to reach the source of the disturbance at all costs. It reaches out and grabs hold of the nearest corpse and awkwardly attempts to pull itself nearer to the survivor. Less decayed than some of the surrounding cadavers, it clumsily rips at them and pulls and pushes them out of the way. Their rotting flesh is weak and is literally torn from the bone. Steadman's body keeps moving until it is standing directly in front of the telephone box. It leans forward and presses its decaying face against the glass. The girl inside is now face down, covering her head in fear. Steadman's corpse stares down at it with dry, cold and unblinking eyes.

As long as the girl continues to move or make any noise the bodies will remain.

JACKSON

You can learn a lot about them by watching.

I'm not a biologist or a doctor. I don't know what's happened to them or why it hasn't happened to me. I don't know if I'm immune or whether it will get me eventually. I might only have a day left, I might live for another twenty years. I know hardly anything, except how to survive.

I never had any training for this kind of thing. I did a couple of years in the Boy Scouts but that was the limit of my experience. I could have done with a stretch in the forces, but it wasn't for me. I couldn't stand the shouting and the discipline. I've never been able to handle being told what to do. I work better on my own and I always have done. I get on with other people (not that there are many other people left) but if I'm given the choice I prefer my own company. Especially now. I wouldn't be able to trust anyone else to be quiet enough or still enough when the bodies are about. The world is dead and everything I do is exaggerated by the stillness.

If I move they see me. If I make a sound they hear me. Hear me breathe and they want to kill me.

So what have I learned about them? Well, forgetting about what they used to be before it happened, they're pretty simple and easy to read. There's not a lot of conscious thought going on inside those empty skulls. Actually I've got no idea what's happening inside their festering brains and their rotting bodies, but I have noticed more and more of them following certain behaviours. And those behaviours seem to be changing. What they're doing today isn't necessarily what they're going to be doing tomorrow.

It's almost a week now since it happened. They lay still for a while, and I checked enough of them to know that they were dead. Well their bodies certainly were, but I think that something inside must have survived. And whatever part of them has resisted the disease, it seems to have been growing steadily stronger ever since. It began when they picked themselves up and started to move again, and then they were able to hear and see. Over the last day I've noticed that they've become even more animated and controlled. They're beginning to show some rudimentary emotions too. They're showing anger, although it could actually be frustration and pain. No doubt that's going to make things more complicated for me in the long run.

Enough of this. Thinking like this is a waste of time. Hypothesizing pointlessly about what might and might not be happening to them isn't going to help me. All I can do is respond to the changes day by day and hope that I can stay one step ahead of the game. My comparative strength and my intelligence should be enough to see me through. I just have to keep control and hold my nerve. Start to get jumpy or twitchy and I'll start to make mistakes. Make mistakes and I've had it.

These things don't communicate with each other, in fact they're fiercely independent and I've seen them tearing each other apart. That said, they do also have a strange tendency to move together in large groups. It's almost like they're herding. If something happens which attracts the attention of one or two of them, more and more seem to follow until there's a huge crowd around whatever it was that caused the disturbance. I can use that behaviour to my advantage, but there are disadvantages too. The advantages? When they're together it's easy to pick them off. I haven't yet, but I can imagine being able to take hundreds of them out at a time if I have to. The disadvantages? Pretty obvious really. If I'm the one making the noise and causing the disturbance, I'm screwed.