‘Hello…’ he tried again. ‘Is someone there?’
A figure appeared from the shadows, partially illuminated by the light from the motorbike. Suddenly elated, Carl took a few steps forward.
‘Thank Christ,’ he mumbled. ‘What happened? How the hell did they manage to get inside?’
The figure inched closer. Every clumsy step it took forward brought it further into the light from the bike. Two more steps and Carl could see that the body was slumped forward with its head hanging heavily on its shoulders. It slowly looked up and gazed at Carl with familiarly cold, emotionless eyes. A diseased and rotting corpse, without warning it lunged towards him.
‘Shit!’ he yelled as he moved to one side. The creature lost its already unsteady footing in a puddle of thick, dark blood and slipped down to the ground.
Carl steadied himself and stared at the wretched corpse as it struggled to drag itself back up.
‘Shit!’ he shouted again in desperation. ‘Bastard thing! You fucking bastard thing!’
He took a step closer and kicked the creature in the face, the full force of his boot catching it square on the jaw. It fell back down to the ground and immediately began to right itself again. Carl unleashed his full fury and frustration on the pathetic carcass, kicking and punching at it until it finally lay still and did not move. It was rapidly decomposing. By the time he’d finished with it very little remained.
Crying with pain, exhaustion and anguish, and unable to come to terms with what he had found, Carl walked back towards the bike. He knew that his options were limited – he could stay in the centre or take his chances outside. After travelling for hours he couldn’t face going back out there again.
Using the dull light from a torch to guide him, he dragged himself back through the community centre and made his way to the small rooms at the far end of the building. Using the last dregs of energy that he could summon from his tired and aching body, he climbed out of the skylight and out onto the flat roof.
Carl sat on the edge of the roof for hours, being buffeted constantly by a familiar strong, cold wind and watching the dead city decaying around him.
The sun was beginning to rise.
The thought of another day dawning filled him with dread.
38
When Michael woke up Emma wasn’t there.
Drugged with sleep, he grabbed a nearby jumper from where he’d thrown it last night and pulled it over his head before shuffling through the living room to look for her. It was a cold, grey morning outside and the house was silent but for the noise of Emma working in the kitchen. She didn’t notice Michael had come into the room until he dragged a chair across the floor and away from the table and sat down.
‘Hello,’ she said quietly. ‘Sleep well?’
He nodded but didn’t say anything. All things considered, he had slept well, but he was too tired to engage in conversation unless he absolutely had to. He knew he’d feel more sociable when he’d had a few minutes to properly wake up.
‘I’ve been up for ages,’ Emma continued. ‘There was a storm a couple of hours ago that woke me. I’ve just been in here sorting through the stuff we got while we were out yesterday.’
Yesterday afternoon’s priority had been to get Carl safely on his way back to the city. Although that in itself hadn’t taken too long to organise and arrange, there had subsequently been much associated thinking, questioning and soul searching which seemed to have prevented Emma and Michael from doing pretty much anything else. The supplies which they had collected from the village had been left in a pile of boxes and bags on the kitchen floor. Emma had worked hard since she’d got up and had sorted most of it away.
Michael cleared his throat and rubbed his eyes.
‘So how you feeling today?’ he asked, his voice quiet, flat and subdued.
She stopped what she was doing and looked up and briefly smiled.
‘I’m okay,’ she replied, giving little away. ‘What about you?’
‘I’m all right.’
Silently and independently they were both still preoccupied with thoughts of Carl, although neither wanted to talk about their missing colleague to the other. Emma found herself wondering what he had found in the city whilst, more pessimistically, Michael was wondering whether he’d got there at all.
‘So what are we going to do today?’ Emma asked unexpectedly.
Strange question, Michael thought. What is there to do?
‘Don’t know,’ he answered. ‘Why, what do you want to do?’
She shrugged her shoulders and returned to her work, wondering what had made her ask such a stupid question in the first place. Perhaps it had just been instinctive? Whatever the reason, the lack of any worthwhile answers was depressing. The complete and utter lack of any positive distraction and interest in their lives, coupled with the constant fear of everything beyond the farmhouse walls, was beginning to grind her down. The relentless boredom, fear and frustration hung over her head like a black storm cloud. And the fact that Carl had left only served to increase her negativity further still.
‘Maybe we should make something,’ Michael suggested, picking up on Emma’s sadness. Not much of a suggestion, granted, but it was all that he could come up with. ‘You know, build something…’
‘Like what?’
He struggled to answer.
‘I don’t know. Bloody hell, there must be something we could do. Christ, we could spring clean or decorate a room or bake a fucking cake…I don’t know.’
‘Maybe we could just sit here and watch the clock until we fall asleep. Then we could get up tomorrow and do the same again…’
Emma’s attitude hurt. Michael knew just how she was feeling, but the fact that they had been able to relax a little last night made her apparent anger and disinterest even more frustrating and harder to swallow. Perhaps it was for that very reason that she was like this? Was she now punishing herself for finally allowing herself to drop a few barriers and reveal her true feelings, thoughts and emotions?
Michael wondered if this was how it was always going to be.
39
I slept for about an hour, curled up in a ball on the roof. It was fucking freezing, but it was better to freeze out there than to go back into the hall. I couldn’t bring myself to go back inside. I knew I’d have to go through it eventually to get to the bike and get out again, but not yet.
The thing I remember most about the morning was that it was grey. Everything was grey. The sky was grey, the buildings looked grey and the streets and bodies were grey. All the colour had gone, drained and rotted away.
I first looked at my watch just after five, and it took me until just before eight to decide that I was going to do it. The longest three hours of my entire bloody life were spent sitting on the roof of the community centre in the wind and rain thinking about everything I’d left behind in the city and whether I should go back to it. I knew that I had to do something. I couldn’t get this close and then just turn around and go back, could I? From the second I’d left my house on the first morning, all I’d thought about was Gemma and Sarah. That was the reason I couldn’t see the point of whatever it was that Emma and Michael were trying to achieve. For me there was no point in going on if I didn’t have Gemma and Sarah with me.
For a while I even thought about suicide, but I’m such a fucking coward that I couldn’t decide how to do it. I didn’t have any pills or drink or drugs with me and I couldn’t get any without crowds of those fucking things surrounding me. And the prospect of a thousand rotting corpses fighting over me was not worth thinking about. Once or twice I actually stood at the edge of the roof and got ready to jump, but it was nowhere near high enough. I’d probably just break an arm or a leg and end up lying there in agony and waiting for them to get me. Christ, the bloody irony of it all. Millions and millions of people lying dead around me and all I wanted to do was join them but I couldn’t. If I’d brought the rifle with me from the farmhouse I reckoned I could have done it that way. Quick and easy. Bloody hell, it had been weeks since anything had been quick and easy.