Autumn

The bare wooden floor of the community centre was carpeted with human remains.

Moving without thinking, he stood up and took a few stumbling steps forward. Blood and bone mixed beneath his feet as he picked his way through a macabre maze of cold, grey flesh and crimson red gore. He began to think at speed – searching for explanations which he could neither prove or disprove. Perhaps the corpses were the remains of creatures from outside? Maybe they had somehow found a way into the community centre and the survivors had been forced to leave? There was a body on the ground in front of him. Half-dressed, its exposed skin had been ripped and torn to shreds. Fighting to keep control of his stomach, he reached down and grabbed hold of one exposed shoulder, pulling the body over onto its back. Although it was no-one he recognised, he could see immediately that this had not been one of the sickly, emaciated bastards from outside. What flesh remained on the face was clear and relatively unmarked and, apart from the countless horrific mutilations, the cadaver seemed to have been otherwise healthy and normal. There was no doubt that this was the body of one of the survivors.

Carl began to sob. He stood in the centre of the room and gradually became aware of sounds coming from the darkness in front of him.

‘Is anyone there?’ he called out hopefully.

No response.

‘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 begi

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 begi

‘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.