Autumn: The Human Condition (28 page)

Warmth, he thought to himself as blood from the puncture wounds seeped down his back. The heat from the blood was strangely comforting. Unable to move or help himself, Lester's legs gave way underneath him and he crashed to the ground, taking several bodies down with him. The rake dislodged itself in the fall, and Lester was able somehow to roll over onto his back. He closed his eyes and screwed up his face as an unknown number of rotting feet trampled down on him.

Lying in parallel with the bodies of Maddy and her mother outside, Lester looked up at the roof of the garden shed for as long as he could keep his eyes open.

ROBERT WOOLGRAVE

I'm starting to think I might have got this all wrong. I've gone about it all the wrong way. I thought I was so bloody clever to start with, thought I knew what I was doing. I was too quick off the mark. Think I might have fucked it all up for myself.

Fuck the lot of them. That was the attitude I took from the minute all of this started. Didn't seem to be much point doing anything else. I had to be selfish, didn't I? If I'd have spent all my time looking out for the thousands of fuckers lying dead on the ground then I might as well have just given up and laid down with them. I had to try and give myself a fighting chance. It's pretty bloody obvious that it's every man for himself now. How could it not be when I'm the only man left?

Hindsight is a fucking great thing. If I'm honest though, I probably wouldn't have done anything any different if I'd had the chance to do it again. I did what pretty much everyone else would have done in the same situation. After I'd got my head around what had happened I spent some time looking for other survivors and trying to find help. It was pretty bloody obvious pretty bloody quickly that I was the only one left. I took one of the cars from work and drove round the city. I tried stopping in different places and shouting out for a while. I drove right into the middle of the pedestrian area and stopped the car in the shopping centre and yelled my bloody lungs out but no-one came. After that there didn't seem to be any point trying. If I was going to find other people, that was where they'd have been. And even if they were hiding in other places, everywhere was so damn quiet that the sound of the car's engine should have been enough to let anyone who was still alive know where I was. It didn't take long for me to come to the conclusion that, for some bloody ridiculous reason, there wasn't anyone else. When the bodies started to pick themselves up off the ground and walk again I decided that enough was enough. I had to start thinking about my safety and nothing else. Scariest fucking thing I'd ever seen, that was, seeing them dragging themselves up and moving around. Worse than watching the rest of the world dying around me last week. Completely fucking terrifying.

I didn't know where to start. I made the office my base. It was a choice between my flat and the office and as the other flats were filled with corpses it was a pretty simple decision to make. I went back home to fetch clothes and a few of my things, then I collected as much food as I could carry in the back of the car. I dumped it all in the office and set about trying to make the place a little safer and better protected. I work at CarLand, which is a bloody stupid name for what is � what was � one of the biggest and busiest second-hand car lots in the country. Now it's nothing more than a bloody big and bloody quiet car park.

The office was built a couple of years back. It's a two-storey concrete and glass building right in the middle of the car lot. It seemed as good a place as any to hide because CarLand's on a business park just off the motorway, it's not actually in the city. I spent some time clearing out all the desks and computers and other crap from the first floor and started trying to make myself comfortable. And that was where I made my first mistake. It was too bloody easy to concentrate on comfort at the expense of everything else. I should have stopped to think.

I took a van and fetched myself some stuff from the furniture store on the other side of the road. I got a bed and a mattress, a couple of easy chairs, a sofa and a table. Nearly crippled myself getting that bloody lot up the stairs. Then I started to get greedy. By the fourth day it was looking more and more likely that I was going to be on my own here for a long stretch so I made another trip out for food and drink and I stopped at the electrical superstore on the other side of the business park on the way back. I took as many battery powered things as I could find � CD players, portable DVD players, hand-held games consoles and the like � and as many packets of batteries as I could lay my hands on. I had to have something to keep myself occupied, didn't I? I didn't feel bad taking the stuff. There was nothing I could do, was there? It wasn't my fault that the rest of the world had dropped dead around me.

For a couple of days I was comfortable and I felt safe. Thought I was living a life of bloody luxury, I did. Space, quiet, comfort and nothing to do except eat food, drink, listen to music, watch films and play games. After a while I stopped watching films. It just didn't feel right. They left me feeling empty and sad and they reminded me of how everything used to be. I found myself some porn (nothing hardcore or extreme) but I couldn't even bring myself to watch it. I couldn't get turned on watching women who I knew were most probably dead, lying rotting somewhere. And music... I stopped listening to music too. I didn't like wearing headphones. I couldn't stand not being able to hear what was going on around me. Playing video games, on the other hand, seemed to help. I couldn't concentrate on puzzles or adventures, but I got a bigger kick than ever out of action and fighting games. They passed the time and it helped to be able to take out some of my frustrations on the screen.

Things started to go wrong last Saturday morning. I didn't think I'd been making much noise, but the little sound I did make was starting to have an effect on the bodies outside the office. The bloody things wouldn't leave me alone. They hadn't been interested in me before, but they suddenly changed. Christ, they only had to see me moving in the window and they'd turn and start walking towards the building. Bloody things. They were slow moving and weak and it didn't take much effort to get rid of them, but there seemed to be more and more of them. The way they moved scared me, and the way they just kept coming. It didn't matter what I did or didn't do, once they knew where I was they'd just keep dragging themselves towards me and they wouldn't fucking give up. I had to do something about them. I couldn't stand having them so close.

I spent all day Monday trying to make the office even more secure. I went outside with as many sets of keys as I could carry and I started moving cars closer to the building. I took my time and planned it properly. I parked as many cars as I could right around the outside walls of the building and then moved another layer up and parked them close to the first, and then another layer after that. It took me from ten in the morning until late afternoon to get the job done but it was worth it. The place is secure now. I left myself a way to get in and out if I have to and I also left a couple of cars ready just in case I have to get away quickly. Bottom line is, though, none of those fuckers are going to get me while I'm in here.

Something happened when I was moving the cars on Monday that really bothered me. I had to start getting aggressive with some of the bodies. It worked both ways, because those fucking things started getting aggressive with me first. I couldn't believe it � one of the fuckers just went for me completely out of the blue. No provocation or anything. If it had been any stronger then I might have been in real trouble. As it was I just threw it to the side and carried on. When I was inside the cars they were less of a problem. When I was on foot, though, things got a little nastier. By the end of the day I had to get violent with them to keep them out of my way and I didn't enjoy that at all. It wasn't my fault and I didn't have any choice, but I had to do some things that I really wasn't comfortable with. I mean, I had kids and old ladies coming at me for Christ's sake. Fucking hell, at one point I found myself battering a little kid around the head with a jack from the boot of one of the cars. I had to do it. I had no choice. It was get them before they get me � kill them or be killed. After a while I gave up trying to fight and manhandle them and I started wiping them out with the cars. I feel bad about it now, but there was a part of me that actually enjoyed it at the time. Fucking hell, by the end of the day I was chasing the fucking things round the car park, ploughing them down and giving myself points for killing them with style or at speed. Crazy really. It was only when I woke up the next morning and saw what I'd done that I realised how stupid I'd been. I must have killed more than fifty of the damn things. There was blood, guts and bits of bodies everywhere.

I don't feel so good today. I'm scared. It's late on Wednesday night and there are hundreds of those bloody things outside again. There's no way they can get to me in here but the damn things won't give up. They just stand there, watching and waiting for me. I've started trying to black out the windows because I don't want to see them and I don't want them to see me. I've started thinking some bloody crazy thoughts too. I'm starting to wonder whether they're here for revenge. Are they coming to get me because I wiped out so many of them? Am I a threat to them?

Christ I feel sick.

Don't know whether it's something I've eaten or something else that's making me feel like this. I've lived on crap since this started � mostly chocolate, crisps, biscuits and other snacks � because that's been the easiest kind of food to find. I haven't eaten bread or anything fresh for days. My stomach is bad. It might just be nerves. Jesus, I hope that's all it is. I stuck my head out of the door for a second this afternoon and all I could hear was the buzzing of thousands of fucking flies and I started thinking about the millions of fucking germs and diseases that are going to be filling the air soon, if they're not already there. I've probably been breathing them in for days now. For Christ's sake, the whole of the fucking car lot is packed solid with human remains.

This building is starting to smell. It's getting so bad in here that it smells worse than outside. It's getting to the point where I can't stand it any longer. I'm not helping. I've had diarrhoea since yesterday morning and I can't flush any of the toilets. They're all backed-up with shit and there's nothing I can do about it. I don't have any water or bleach to clean them with. I wish I'd been better prepared. Wish I'd thought more about what I'd need and spent more time getting food and water than fucking DVD players and games machines.

It's dark now. There's nothing to do but sit here and wait for morning. I'm frightened. I don't want to listen to music or play bloody games anymore. I don't want to be distracted. I want to know everything that's happening around me so that I'm ready for them, but at the same time I don't want to look. I don't want to see them.

I'm tired but I can't sleep. I slept for a little while this afternoon but it wasn't enough. I can't even bring myself to shut my eyes now, and even if I could the pain in my guts would keep me awake.

Those fucking things still won't leave. They just stand there waiting for me. They try to climb over the cars but they can't do it. They don't have the coordination or the strength. I don't know why they don't just go. They know I'm here, I'm sure of it, but I don't know what they want from me. I don't think they know.

I'll stay here for as long as I can but I'll have to try and find some medicine and proper food soon.

Maybe I'll try and get away in the morning. Maybe I'll wait another couple of days.

I've built myself a fucking prison.

KATE JAMES

They've been gone for days now. I'm not exactly sure how long it's been. I've lost all track of time. I've lost track of everything.

Things seemed to change when Michael, Carl and Emma left here. I should have gone with them. I wish I'd had the strength to go with them. I wanted to at the time but I just couldn't bring myself to leave. My head was telling me that what they were doing was right but when it came down to it nerves got the better of me. When it came to the crunch I couldn't move. Like everyone else here I was too scared. I was born in Northwich and I've lived here all my life, give or take a couple of years. Might as well finish it here. Might as well stay here now and end my days surrounded by the things and places that I know and used to know and...

Come on. Got to stop it. Got to try and stop thinking like this.

The rest of the people here are as frightened as I am. I can sense it coming off them. You can almost taste the fear in the air. No-one looks into anyone else's face anymore. People just stare at the ground. Because if you start trying to communicate with anyone else then you know you're going to end up talking about the mess we're in. When you do that you realise just how bad things are and you start thinking about how hopeless the situation really is. You start to realise that this is never going to get any better, and that this is as good as it's going to get. Talk to other people and you start to remember everything that you've lost.

The building is deathly silent, and has been for days.

This morning four of them went out to get supplies. It wasn't through choice, they did it because there's nothing left here and we were thankful that they agreed to go. We had absolutely nothing. No food, no water, no fresh clothes, no medicine, nothing. They went out in one of the cars that had been left in the car park outside the building. The noise of the engine sounded so loud and we just sat there in fear because it made us feel more vulnerable and exposed than we already were. The sudden noise made me realise just how quiet and dead the world has become. Hardly anyone speaks. People don't even argue or cry anymore. There isn't any point.