Autumn: The Human Condition (27 page)

I ran to the back of the house, thinking that if I did have to leave quickly I could use the hardware store truck which I'd left parked on the track behind the fence at the end of the garden. It was no good, the truck was surrounded. Those bloody things had somehow found the entrance to the track and had filled it for as far as I could see in both directions. There were bloody hundreds of them out there, wedged in so tight that they could hardly move.

The front of the house was cut off, as was the back. Increasingly concerned and unsettled I fetched my binoculars from the study and tried to make a full assessment of the situation. The news wasn't good. My house � number 47 � is two-thirds of the way down Baker Road West which is a fairly straight road. Looking out of the back of my property there are more houses behind and to the right. To the left, two hundred and fifty yards (ten houses) away, is a large pub, The Highway. To my horror this morning I saw from the bedroom window that the pub car park was full of more of the dark, shuffling people. The crowd was immense, and it dwarfed the gathering at the front of my house. And, worst of all, all that separated them from my garden and my house was eleven wooden fences. The fences around my property are all in relatively good repair, but the same couldn't be said for those belonging to some of my neighbours. I would frequently see their fences wobbling in strong winds and I doubted whether they'd be able to withstand much force. I had an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach that the mass of bodies in the car park would be able to exert more than enough collective pressure to bring them down.

At the other end of the road, almost out of sight from where I watched, was another crowd of similar proportions to the one outside the house. What had I done? What an idiot I had been. I knew that I was responsible for bringing the people here. In my haste and enthusiasm to protect the house and make it secure the noise I had made had inadvertently revealed my position to untold thousands of the damn things. Did I sit and wait this out or take my chances and run? My two original choices seemed suddenly to have been slashed to one. There was no obvious way of getting out.

I read through the government booklet again and again, hoping that I would find a page I'd somehow missed previously that might give me some idea of how to deal with my situation. No matter how hard I stared at the pages there was nothing. There was information on dealing with bomb threats, hostage situations, flu epidemics and terrorist attacks, basic first aid advice and a list of emergency telephone numbers (useless as the phone had been dead all week) but nothing to help me with the sudden and very real threat that I was facing. Apart from me the entire population had fallen and died, and now most of them seemed to have returned from the grave and were gravitating around my house. What the hell was I supposed to do?

During the course of the day now ending I have watched the crowds slowly draw closer. Just before one o'clock this afternoon the fence around the pub car park finally gave way under the weight of the countless bodies pushing against it. With the barrier down the people pushed, shoved and surged into the first garden only to stop when they slammed into the fence on the other side. It began to wobble and shake precariously but, for a time, it stayed intact, finally falling about an hour and a half later when it could no longer withstand the pressure being exerted from behind. The size of the crowd was incredible. As each fence collapsed it was as if a dam had burst its banks and the people poured through like an unstoppable wave.

Bill Peters, who lived at number 55, had a good, sturdy fence with concrete posts and a strong base which held up their progress for a while. Even Bill's fence wasn't good enough to stop them. They finally broke through at a quarter past four, leaving them just three gardens away from my home.

Day eight ends and day nine begins.

It's a little before one now and I'm sitting in Maddy's room watching them. I can see them from the end of the bed. I can see hundreds, probably thousands of shifting, bobbing heads moving in the cold moonlight. The recent nights have been overcast and dark but tonight the sky is clear and the moon is full and I can see everything. I wish it would disappear back behind the clouds. I'd rather see nothing.

I can't get out of here now. Even if I could, I'm not sure that I'd want to. This is my home. Everything I've ever worked for is here. The people I did all the work for are here too, buried at the bottom of the garden. This small plot of land is my world. I have nowhere else to go and there is no-one else to go to. I will not give up what is mine. I would rather die here than anywhere else, and as the clock ticks tonight the end of my life seems strangely inevitable.

I'm calm. I feel nervous and unsure and I don't want to face them, but I'm calm and I'm keeping my head. I will maintain my dignity and pride and I will continue to defend what's mine. There will be no kicking and screaming and no shame.

Oh, Christ... The splinter and crack of wood and another fence goes down. I move to the window and I can see that the crowd is closer than ever now, surging awkwardly across Pauline and Geoff Smart's lawn and slamming against the fence on the other side of their garden. They are now just two gardens away from me. It won't be long now.

Three-fifteen. I've sat here uselessly and watched them move closer. The penultimate fence is down now and a few thin wooden panels are all that separates the crowd from my property. I'm standing at the window now, looking directly at them. There doesn't seem to be any point trying to keep out of sight. It won't make any difference. Even if they don't know I'm here, their progress is unstoppable. They're coming here whatever.

I don't feel right. Something's missing. I know what it is � I shouldn't be stood up here watching them and waiting to mount my final defence, I should be down there. More to the point, I should be with Maddy and her mother when it happens. It's not the house I should be defending, it's my family.

If I'm out there then everything will happen as soon as the fence comes down. If I stay up here I'll be watching and waiting for God knows how long until they get into the house, and I'm not entirely sure they'll be able to get inside, no matter how many hundreds of them there are. They don't seem capable of doing anything that requires thought or concentration, they just blunder about continually. I doubt if any of them would even be able to open a bloody door. My provisions are stored out in the garage. I don't think I've got time to bring them all into the house now and even if I did I'd just be sat here with my memories, waiting for them to get in or for the end to finally arrive. Imagine starving to death in your own home. It's not right. That's not how I want to go...

I'll go outside.

Couple of hours and it'll all be over.

Lester Prescott quietly and tearfully left his daughter's room and shuffled across the landing to the bedroom he and Janice had shared for the last twenty-five years. Tired, dejected and with his heart heavy and full of resignation, sorrow and grief, he opened the wardrobe and took out his favourite jumper. Threadbare and tattered, it was the jumper he always used to wear when he was out in the garden at weekends. He pulled it on over his head and then sat down on the edge of the bed to tighten his shoe laces and pull up his socks.

Pausing only to take four cans of beer from his next week's rations, he took one last long look around his home and then went outside. He walked the length of the garden, looking around with pride and even now stopping to pick a weed from between the slabs on the patio and to tidy the edge of a flower-bed where the uncut grass has started to tumble towards Janice's prized plants. He stopped when he reached the garden shed and looked down at the two uneven mounds in the lawn where he'd buried his wife and only child.

Seems a shame that it all has to finish like this, he thought as he disappeared into the shed and fetched a spade and garden fork with which he could defend himself when the fence came down. He then squeezed his backside onto the seat of Maddy's swing and sat and looked back at the house. All that work for nothing. All those years of relentless number-crunching, day after day, week after week. Maybe he should have taken more time off? Perhaps he should have spent more time at home. And when he'd been at home, should he have spent more time sitting doing nothing with his family instead of working on his projects or hiding himself away in the garden shed? Lester opened his first can of beer and drank half of it in a series of quick, gassy gulps. He'd never been much of a drinker and the beer made him feel slightly sick. He belched and wiped his mouth and looked at the fence which was now rocking and shaking with the force of untold numbers of bodies behind it. Hope I can get through enough of these to take the edge off the fear, he thought, shaking his half-full can and stifling another belch. Bloody hell, Lester sighed sadly, this is like waiting to see the dentist. Just wish we could get it over with.

Lester had just started his final can of beer when it finally began. For the briefest of moments he'd actually managed to become distracted with pointless, random thoughts about nothing in particular and he'd almost forgotten what was about to happen. The sudden sharp crack of splintering wood brought him crashing back to reality. He jumped to his feet and grabbed the garden fork, holding it out in front of him like a four-pronged bayonet.

The fence had given way at the other end of the garden, nearer to the house. It was difficult to see much from his present position, but he was vaguely aware of dark, swarming movement around the building close to the garage door. It was frighteningly indistinct and random, but something was definitely happening. The fence � already weakened close to the house � now began to bow and buckle about halfway up the garden. Lester watched as it dipped further and further down, finally dropping so low that he could see the heads and shoulders of the dark, relentlessly advancing bodies on the other side. Their direction, although to a large degree random and uncoordinated, was obvious and inevitable.

As the first few bodies began their stilted, awkward walk towards him, Lester took up position in front of the graves of his family. His heart began to thump angrily in his chest. What would they do to him? Were they capable of an attack or would they just trample him down? He couldn't look away. His gut-wrenching fear made it impossible for him to do anything but stare directly at the dark advancing shapes. He wanted to stop them. He didn't care what they did to him, but he wanted to stop them from trampling the graves of his wife and daughter. I might not have been able to tell you how I felt about you when you were alive, he thought, picturing Maddy and Janice in his head, but I can show you now...

As the closest bodies lifted their weak, emaciated arms out for him, Lester lunged forward with the garden fork. He smashed into the chest cavity of the nearest cadaver, skewering it and sending it crashing to the ground. He wrenched the fork back out and swung it around at other shadowy shapes, catching one of them on the side of the head and practically decapitating it. Fuelled by adrenaline and fear he attacked again, diving deeper into the crowd, desperate to defend his family's honour. The final section of fence that had remained standing suddenly came down with a tremendous groan and an ominous heavy thump. Hundreds more bodies dragged themselves into Lester's garden. He wanted to keep fighting but he didn't have room to move. They surrounded him on every side now, reaching for him and grabbing at him tirelessly. With tears of panic in his eyes he span around, terrified and disorientated. Out of the corner of his eye he spied the dark silhouette of the garden shed and he ran towards it, pushing and kicking bodies out of the way. He reached out for the door handle, knowing that the end of his life was close but too scared to let it happen. He knew that he was doing nothing but prolonging the inevitable (perhaps only by a few minutes) when he flung the door open and crashed inside. The door flapped shut in the wind behind him, the sudden noise leaving the mass of bodies in no doubt as to where he was hiding. Now sobbing uncontrollably, Lester collapsed into his deckchair in the corner and waited.

So many memories. The garden shed, the coldest, weakest and most exposed part of his property, suddenly felt reassuringly strong and warm. In the half-light he looked around and remembered all that he was about to lose. The tools with which he and Janice had lovingly tended their small plot of land. The battered wooden tea-chest on which he used to leave his paper or his book and his drink when he dozed in the shed on long, relaxing Saturday afternoons. The plastic table and chairs which had been dragged out onto the patio each year when they'd entertained family and friends. And finally the box of garden games and the buckets and spades and all those memories of being with Janice and Maddy. All about to be lost forever. Most of it already gone. Lester knew that not long remained now.

More through luck than judgement a single skeletal hand managed to wedge itself between the flapping door and the door frame and threw it open. The first body dragged itself into the shed, followed by an apparently endless queue of others. Do I know you? Lester stared at the rotting shadow which lurched towards him. Were you once a friend or someone I used to work with, he wondered? Have I passed you on the street or did I work on your accounts? The creature's face, repellent in the cold moonlight and shadow, was vacant and unrecognisable.

Lester stood up to try and push the bodies away but their numbers now were too great. Forced onto his back foot, he struggled to stop himself moving back further into the shed. One of the bodies trying to get inside tripped and fell, pushing those in front of it forward with surprising force and speed. Like dominoes they fell, crashing into Lester and knocking him back. He slammed against the back wall of the shed unexpectedly, feeling a sudden stinging pain between his shoulders as the ten steel prongs of his garden rake punctured his skin. It was more a disorientating discomfort than pain as such. Lester lifted his arms and shielded his face from the rotting bodies which continued to advance, pushing him back onto the wall and forcing the spikes deeper and deeper into his back.