Autumn: The Human Condition (23 page)

Ted Hamilton, a plumber, part-time football coach and full-time compulsive comfort eater, had been on the roof of an office block working on the water pipes when the infection had struck. He'd had an incredible view of the destruction from up there but he'd been too afraid to come down. He'd sat on the roof for hours until he saw Doreen Phillips walking down the high street, shopping bags in hand, stepping gingerly over and around the mass of tangled bodies which covered the pavements. Together they'd wandered around aimlessly and pointlessly in search of help which never came. Their constant shouting and noise had eventually attracted the attention of Paul Jones, a sullen and quiet man who kept himself to himself but who recognised the importance of sticking with these people, no matter who they were or how stupid they appeared.

Jones had suggested building themselves a base from where they could explore the dead land around them and, hopefully, find more survivors. As obvious and sensible as his plan had been, it also proved to be unnecessary. As they struggled to establish themselves in a deserted guest house on the edge of a small town, more survivors had found them. Three days ago the eerie silence of the first post-infection Friday morning had been disturbed by the unexpected arrival of a fifty-three-seater single-deck passenger bus driven by Nick Wilcox. Wilcox � who had previously driven such buses for a living � had ploughed through the town with a nervous disregard for anything and everything. Jones and Hamilton flagged him down and it was only the quick reactions of Elizabeth Ferry (who, with John Proctor, was already travelling with Wilcox) that stopped him from gleefully running them down in the same way he'd destroyed several hundred rotting bodies already that morning.

The motley collection of survivors made the bus their travelling home. It was relatively strong, comfortable and spacious and there was more than enough room inside for them, their belongings, and as many boxes of provisions and supplies as they could lay their hands on. And the bus had a huge advantage over everywhere else they'd previously tried to shelter because it moved. When things got too dangerous or there were suddenly too many bodies around they just started the engine and drove somewhere else.

`Just keep driving, Nick,' Proctor said, his calm and deceptively relaxed tone helping to settle the group and diffuse the mounting hysteria within the bus. `Just keep going until we reach a major road then follow it back out of the city.'

`I can't see the bloody road,' Wilcox cursed anxiously through gritted teeth, `never mind follow it.' Even with his headlights on full-beam he could see very little. The streets were teeming with movement as the dead continually staggered into the path of the huge, bulky vehicle. His vision already severely limited, he was forced to frequently flick on his wipers to clear blood, gore and other splattered remains from the wide windscreen in front of him.

`Does anyone know where we are?' Elizabeth asked hopefully. `Anyone been here before?'

Her question was met with silence from the others. `We could just stop,' Ted Hamilton suggested, his mouth still full of food. `We've done it before, haven't we? Sit still and shut up and they'll leave us alone after a while.'

`Come on, Ted,' Elizabeth sighed, `there's got to be a better way. They'll take hours to go, you know that as well as I do, and there are hundreds of them around here. I don't want to spend another night lying on the floor.'

`I'm not sleeping on the floor again,' Doreen immediately protested in her grating, high-pitched voice. `It's bad for my back. When we did...'

`Doreen,' Hamilton interrupted, `with all due respect, love, would you please shut your fucking mouth. You couldn't keep quiet if you tried.'

Wilcox managed half a smile as he steered the bus around a sharp bend in the road and powered into another group of shuffling corpses. He knew as well as the rest of them that several hours of absolute stillness and silence would be necessary if they wanted to try and fool the bodies into leaving them alone. With Doreen on board it was impossible to have even five minutes of silence, never mind anything longer.

`Bloody hell,' Hamilton said suddenly, swallowing his last mouthful of food and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. `Look at that.'

`Look at what?' Paul Jones asked, quickly moving forward along the length of the bus towards the others and surprising them with his sudden involvement. Hamilton pressed his face up against the window and pointed up.

`There,' he mumbled.

`What is it?' demanded Elizabeth anxiously. Apart from Wilcox (who was craning his neck to see what was going on from behind the wheel) the rest of the survivors stared out into the unending darkness on the left hand side of the bus, not knowing what they were looking for but desperate to see whatever it was that Hamilton thought he'd seen.

`A light,' he said quietly, not quite believing himself, `up there.'

Visible fleetingly between the tall, dark buildings which lined the streets along which they drove, the light � although relatively dull � appeared to burn brightly through the otherwise total blackness.

`Head towards it,' Doreen demanded.

`Where is it?' Wilcox yelled.

`Over to the left,' Proctor replied. `You watch the road and we'll keep an eye on the light.'

High above the disease-ridden streets Bushell's quiet and solitary life seemed now to be filled with a series of infuriating contradictions. He wanted to be surrounded by light, but the brightness made him feel vulnerable and exposed. Likewise darkness made him feel safe but it was also unsettling and cold and he was scared of the shadows that filled the hotel at night. He wanted to hear some noise to end the eerie silence but, at the same time, he wanted the quiet to remain so that he could hear everything that was happening in the dead world around him. He wanted to sit out of sight in the relative comfort of his suite but he also felt compelled to check each window and stare outside almost constantly. He knew that he was alone in the building and that it was secure (he'd checked every one of the rooms and had kicked out every moving body himself over the last week) but an uneasy combination of nerves and paranoia convinced him almost constantly that there were bodies on the staircases and walking the halls. He felt sure that rotting hands would reach out of the shadows for him whenever he opened a door. Whatever he was doing he felt uncomfortable and unsafe. It was far easier to handle the situation in daylight. Each night he found the darkness harder to cope with, and that led to the cruellest paradox of all. Bushell's fear would keep him awake through almost the entire night. Only when the morning (and the light) came was he finally able to relax enough to sleep. Invariably he would drift and doze through the morning and early afternoon and miss almost all of the precious daylight.

He wandered listlessly along the long west wall of the suite, the stiletto heels of his boots clicking on the marble floor. Where was this going to end, he wondered? Would he stay here at the top of the hotel indefinitely? It wasn't a bad option, in fact he struggled to think of anywhere else that would be safer or more comfortable. The height of the building meant that it was unlikely the corpses down below would ever see or hear him. The only problem would come when his supplies started to dwindle as they inevitably would. Okay, so he appeared to have the entire city at his disposal, but even if he managed to find everything he needed, there then remained the problem of dragging it up literally hundreds of steps to his new home. Maybe he could set up some kind of winch or pulley system? Perhaps he could use the window-cleaner's cradle that he'd seen hanging halfway down the side of the building?

His mind full of questions and half-considered answers, Bushell reached the corner of the room and stopped walking. He turned round and was about to begin retracing his steps back along the wall when he happened to glance down into the dark streets hundreds of feet below. In silent disbelief he watched the bizarre sight of a fairly ordinary looking bus ploughing through the rotting crowds, sending whole and dismembered bodies flying in all directions and hurtling at speed towards the hotel. He waited for a fraction of a second � just long enough to convince himself that what he was seeing was real � before sprinting out of the suite and down the hallway to the staircase.

`Next left,' Paul Jones instructed. He'd moved to the front of the bus and was now standing next to the driver's cab, doing his best to guide Wilcox through the mayhem and towards the light. `No, sorry, not this one. Take the next one.'

Wilcox grunted and pulled the steering wheel back round to his right. Uneasy, Jones glanced down and across at the various dials in front of the driver. The bus was travelling at a furious speed along the debris-strewn streets and its passengers were being buffeted from side to side. The breakneck journey was so unsteady and turbulent that even Doreen Phillips had become uncharacteristically quiet and subdued.

`Can you see where it's coming from?' Wilcox asked, glancing up for a second to try and catch sight of the light again.

`Not sure,' Jones admitted. `It's bloody high up though.'

Wilcox braced himself as he forced the bus up and over a mound of rubble and mangled metal at the side of the road. The passengers behind him � not expecting the sudden jolt � were thrown up in their seats as the huge machine clattered up and then back down onto the road.

`Take it easy,' protested Hamilton.

`Next left,' Jones said for the second time, his voice now a little more definite than before.

`You sure?' `Positive,' he snapped, annoyed that he was being doubted. `I can see it. We're almost directly under the light now.'

Wilcox slammed on his brakes and swung the bus around to the left. The second street was as difficult to navigate as the first. Huge crowds of lumbering, rotting bodies turned and dragged themselves towards the approaching vehicle. Wilcox increased his already precarious speed, knowing that the quicker they were moving, the more chance they had of continuing to make progress through the rancid crowds. Countless corpses were obliterated by the flat-faced front of the heavy vehicle. They smashed into the bonnet with a relentless bang, bang, bang which sounded like rain clattering down onto a flat tin roof.

`How far now?' he asked breathlessly.

Jones crouched down low and looked up to his right.

`Almost there.'

Proctor got up from his seat and scurried towards the two men at the front of the bus, holding onto the passenger rails and supports and struggling to keep his balance as the vehicle tipped from side to side.

`It's a hotel,' he said, panting with excitement and nerves. `There's a sign on the side of the building.'

Wilcox nodded.

`So where do I go?' he asked, peering hopelessly into the relentless gloom.

`There must be a car park or something?' Proctor suggested. `Maybe it's around the back...?'

`Fancy walking out in the open carrying all our stuff, do you?' Jones immediately snapped. `Forget that, it's too dangerous. We need to get as close to the main entrance as we can. We need to minimise the distance we have to cover on foot.'

`How am I supposed to do that?' grumbled Wilcox. `I can't see a fucking thing.'

`Here it is,' Jones interrupted. `Sharp right now!'

With no time to properly consider his actions Wilcox turned the bus as instructed. The dark silhouette of the hotel loomed large in front of him.

`Where?' he screamed, desperate for some help and guidance.

`Just keep moving,' Jones yelled back. `Keep going forward until...'

He didn't have chance to finish his sentence. The low light and the constant criss-crossing movement of hundreds of bodies made the distance between the bus and the front of the hotel impossible to accurately gauge. Tired and terrified, Wilcox jammed his foot down on the accelerator and sent the bus crashing through the front of the building. Their velocity was such that the bus continued to move until the twisted metal and rubble trapped under its wheels eventually acted as a brake. Eighty percent inside the building with only the last twenty percent of its rear end sticking out into the cold night, the bus came to a sudden, juddering halt in the middle of the hotel's wide and imposing marble-floored reception, its front wheel wedged hopelessly in an ornate and long-since dried up decorative fountain. No-one moved.

`My back...' Doreen eventually wailed from somewhere on the floor under a pile of carrier bags full of clothes and other belongings.

`Is everyone all right?' Proctor asked. No-one answered. `Is anyone all right?' he asked again, slightly revising his original question.

Paul Jones shook his head and dragged himself back up onto his feet. He looked across at Wilcox who was trying to stem the flow of blood from a gash just above his right eye.

`Nice driving,' he sneered.

`Fuck off,' Wilcox spat.

`Shit,' Elizabeth cursed from somewhere in the darkness behind them. `Get out of here. We've got to get out of here.'

The sudden fear and desperation in her voice was clear for all to hear. Without pausing for explanation the six survivors picked themselves up, grabbed as many of their belongings as they could carry, and moved towards the door at the front of the bus which Jones had already forced open. He glanced down the side of the long vehicle and immediately saw what Elizabeth had seen. A large part of the hotel entrance had collapsed. Although still partially blocked by the bus, there was now a huge, gaping hole in the side of the hotel where the main doors had once been. Hundreds of bodies were already swarming into the building from outside.