Grabbing hold of a nearby wooden bench with his outstretched right hand, he hauled himself up onto his unsteady feet. For a few seconds he did nothing except stand still and try to get his balance. He shivered in the cold and then took a few tentative stumbling steps through the half-light towards the toilets. He would be twenty-nine in three weeks time. This morning he felt at least eighty-nine.
Outside the toilet he paused and took a deep breath before opening the door. He glanced to his right and, through a small square window to the side of the main entrance door, he was sure that he could see something outside.
For a moment he froze.
He could definitely see movement.
Ignoring the nagging pain in his bladder, Michael pressed his face hard against the dirty glass and peered out through the layers of spray paint and mesh. He squinted into the light.
There it was again.
Instantly forgetting about the temperature, his aching bones and his full bladder, he unlocked the door and wrenched it open. He burst out into the cold morning and sprinted the length of the car park, stopping at the edge of the road. There, on the other side of the street, he saw a man walking slowly away from the community centre.
‘What’s the matter?’ a voice asked suddenly, startling Michael. It was Stuart Jeffries. He and another three survivors had heard Michael open the door and, naturally concerned, had followed him outside.
‘Over there,’ Michael replied, pointing towards the figure in the near distance and taking a few slow steps forward. ‘Hey,’ he shouted, hoping to attract his attention before he disappeared from view. ‘Hey you!’
No response.
Michael glanced at the other four survivors before turning back and running after the unknown man. Within a few seconds he had caught up as the solitary figure was moving at a very slow and deliberate pace.
‘Hey, mate,’ he shouted cheerfully, ‘didn’t you hear me?’
Still no response.
The man continued walking away.
‘Hey,’ Michael said again, this time a little louder, ‘are you all right? I saw you walking past and…’
As he spoke he reached out and grabbed hold of the man’s arm. As soon as he applied any force the figure stopped walking instantly. Other than that it didn’t move. It simply stopped and stood still, seeming to not even be aware that Michael was there. Perhaps the lack of any response was as a result of shock. Maybe what had happened to the rest of the world had been too much for this poor soul to take.
‘Leave him,’ shouted one of the other survivors. ‘Get back inside.’
Michael wasn’t listening. Instead he slowly turned the man around until he was looking directly into his face.
‘Fuck…’ was all he could say as he stared deep into the cold, glazed eyes of a corpse. It defied all logic, but there was absolutely no doubt in his suddenly terrified mind that the man standing in front of him was dead. His skin was taut and yellowed and, like all the others, he had traces of dark, dried blood around his mouth, chin and throat.
Repulsed and in shock, Michael let go of the man’s arm and stumbled backwards. He tripped and fell and then watched from the gutter as the figure staggered off again, still moving desperately slowly as if it had lead in its shoes.
‘Michael,’ Jeffries yelled from the entrance to the car park. ‘Get back inside now, we’re closing the door.’
Michael dragged himself back up to his feet and sprinted towards the others. As he approached he could see more figures moving in the distance. It was obvious by their slow, forced movements that, like the first man he’d seen, these people weren’t survivors either.
By the time he reached the car park the others had already disappeared back into the community hall. He was vaguely aware of them yelling at him to come inside but in his disbelief, confusion and bewilderment their fear and panic failed to register. He stood staring out towards the main road, preoccupied by the impossible sight he now saw in front of him.
About a third of the bodies were moving. Roughly one in three of the corpses that had littered the streets around the community centre had become mobile again. Had they not been dead to start with? Had they just been in a coma or something similar? A thousand unanswerable questions began flooding into his mind.
‘For Christ’s sake, get inside!’ yelled another one of the survivors from the hall, their voice hoarse with fear.
As if to prove a point, the corpse on the ground nearest to Michael began to move. Beginning at the outermost tip of the fingers on one outstretched hand, the body started to stretch and to tremble. As he stared in silent incredulity, the fingers began to claw at the ground and then, seconds later, the entire hand was moving. The movement spread steadily along one arm and then, with an almighty shudder, the body lifted itself up from the ground. It tripped and stumbled as it raised itself up onto its unsteady feet. Once upright it simply staggered away, passing within a metre of where Michael stood. The bloody thing didn’t even seem to realise that he was there.
Terrified, he turned and ran back inside.
It took less than thirty seconds for the news to spread to all the survivors. Carl Henshawe, refusing to believe what he’d heard, clambered out onto area of flat roof that he’d stood on last night.
It was true. As incredible as it seemed, some of the bodies were moving.
Carl stood and surveyed the same desperate scene he’d witnessed less than twelve hours earlier and saw that many of the cold and twisted corpses he’d seen had disappeared. He looked down at the place on the cold ground where the boy with the broken neck had died.
There was nothing. He had gone.
9
Almost an hour passed before anyone dared to move.
The survivors, already shell-shocked and beaten by all that they had been through, stood together in terror and disbelief and tried to come to terms with the morning’s events. Surprisingly it was Ralph, the solicitor who had seemed so authoritative and keen to take control last night, who appeared to be having the most trouble accepting what he had seen and heard today. He stood in the centre of the room alongside Paul Garner (an overweight and middle-aged estate agent), struggling to persuade Emma, Carl, Michael and Kate James (a thirty-nine year old primary school teacher) not to open the door and go back outside.
‘But we have to go out, Ralph,’ Emma said, calmly and quietly. ‘We’ve got to try and find out what’s going on.’
‘I’m not interested,’ the flustered and frightened man snapped. ‘I don’t care what’s happening. There’s no way I’m going to go out there and risk…’
‘Risk what?’ Michael interrupted. ‘No-one’s asking you to go outside, are they?’
‘Opening that door is enough of a bloody risk in itself,’ Garner muttered anxiously. He chewed on the fingers of his left hand as he spoke. ‘Keep it shut and keep them out.’
‘We can’t take any chances by exposing ourselves to those things…’ Ralph protested.
‘Things?’ Emma repeated, her tone suddenly venomous and agitated. ‘Those things are people you selfish shit. Bloody hell, your friends and family could be out there…’
‘Those bodies have been lying dead on the ground for days!’ he yelled, his face suddenly just inches from hers.
‘How do you know they were dead?’ Michael asked, perfectly seriously and calmly. ‘Did you check them all? Did you check any of them for a pulse before you shut yourself away in here?’
‘You know as well as I do that…’
‘Did you?’ he asked again. Ralph shook his head. ‘And have you ever seen a dead body walk before?’
This time Ralph didn’t answer. He turned away and leant against the nearest wall.