Autumn

‘Of course we are,’ he answered defensively. ‘Why, are you starting to have doubts?’

‘What is there to have doubts about?’

‘Whether we should ever have left the city? Whether Carl was the one who was right to go back there?’

‘I’m not having doubts…’

‘So what is it then? Don’t you think we can make anything of what’s left?’

‘I’m not sure. Do you?’

‘We might be able to. The bodies are rotting, aren’t they? They should disappear over time and if we could…’

‘What about disease?’

‘There are a thousand hospitals up and down the country full of drugs.’

‘But we don’t know which drugs to use.’

‘We can find out.’

‘But if we’re sick and we need to get drugs, we’ll need to know what disease we’ve got, won’t we? How do we diagnose that? Do you know the difference between malaria, typhoid and gout for God’s sake?’

‘No, but there are books…’

‘So what chance have we got?’

Michael stood up and walked over to Emma. Although she still tried to avoid eye contact, he positioned himself directly in front of her so that she had no choice but to look up into his face.

‘We’ve got a chance,’ he said, his voice sounding quiet and strangely hurt. ‘Okay, I accept that it might not be much of a chance, but to me it’s a fucking chance all the same and I’m going to take it.’

‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘I’m sorry…’

The couple were silent for a few seconds. Both stared into the eyes of the other, their minds full of confused thoughts.

‘Look, let’s get back,’ Michael said eventually. ‘It’s not safe to be out here.’

With that he turned away and looked around the car park. About a hundred yards away from them was a car. Nothing special – just an ordinary family-sized saloon – but it was the biggest car in the field. With Emma following close by, he walked over to it and opened the door. The remains of the driver and his female passenger sat motionless in their seats. They were both dressed in business clothes and Michael wondered what they had been doing sitting in this exposed and isolated place so early on a Tuesday morning when the catastrophe had first struck. An illicit office affair perhaps, or a married couple passing the time and spending a few precious minutes together before heading off to work? Regardless of the reason, he carefully leant inside the car and undid both seat belts. Cautiously (and with a look of disgust and concentration on his face) he took hold of the driver and dragged his corpse across the grass, leaving it on the ground alongside another car. He then returned and did the same with the passenger. The least he could do for them, he thought, was leave them together.

The keys were still in the ignition. He started the engine and gestured for Emma to get inside.

‘Follow me back,’ he said, suddenly anxious and feeling uncomfortably vulnerable now that they were making a noise which might alert any nearby bodies to their presence. ‘Okay?’

She nodded and sat behind the wheel. Michael ran over to the Landrover, started it up and pulled away.

In convoy the two cars drove out of the car park and back towards the farm.

41

Michael’s earlier disorientation worsened as they drove back home. The roads which they’d followed earlier looked even more unfamiliar when he tried to navigate his way back again. The journey was made more difficult by the fact that he kept glancing back in the rear view mirror to check that Emma was still following. He felt surprisingly uncomfortable without her in the seat next to him. He had come to rely on having her around much more than he’d realised. He still felt like he hardly knew her, but the truth of the matter was that he had shared more pain, despair and raw emotion with her than with any other person in the twenty-nine years of his life so far.

He threw the Landrover around a sharp bend in the road and then slammed on the brakes to avoid the back end of a milk float which was jutting out into the road, the front of the float having smashed into a low stone wall. He missed it by inches, and the closeness of a collision shocked him back into concentrating on safely returning to the farm house. Another quick glance in the mirror revealed that Emma was still close behind.

The winding road gradually opened out and became straighter. In the near distance he could see a row of three isolated grey cottages. From one of the buildings (it seemed to be the middle one) a single figure emerged and staggered into the middle of the road. It stopped and turned to face him.

‘Fucking hell,’ Michael said under his breath to himself as he stared at the pathetic body in front of him. ‘Just look at that stupid fucking thing.’

He pushed his foot down harder on the accelerator, the Landrover quickly gaining more and more speed. At that precise moment Michael focussed all his pent up anger, fears and frustrations on that one pitiful creature. For a few seconds he felt that destroying it would somehow make amends for the loss of just about everything and anything that had ever mattered to him.

As Michael raced ahead the distance between the two cars increased. Concerned and confused and certain that something was wrong, Emma accelerated to try and keep up with him.

The body in the middle of the road lifted its tired arms into the air above its head and began to wave Michael down.

‘Jesus Christ,’ he muttered. It took a full few seconds for the true importance of what he was seeing to sink in, and by that time he was almost upon the body. It was moving with more direction, purpose and intent than he’d seen from any of the corpses before. Instinctively he slammed his foot down on the brake and brought the Landrover to a sudden juddering halt. He knew before he’d stopped that it was a survivor that stood in the road ahead of him. Even from a few meters away he could tell from the expression on the man’s face and by the way he carried himself and reacted that he was still alive.

‘Thank God,’ the diminutive man gasped as he approached Michael. He looked up as Emma stopped the car a short distance behind the Landrover. ‘Thank God,’ he said again, ‘you’re the first people I’ve seen in weeks…’

‘Are you all right?’ Emma asked. She was already out of her car and walking towards the man.

‘I’m okay,’ he replied quickly, chattering like a nervous child. ‘I’m better now I’ve seen you two. I thought I was the only one left around here. I was going to…’

‘What’s your name?’ Michael asked abruptly, cutting across him.

'Philip, Philip Evans,’ he answered.

‘And where do you live?’

The little man gestured towards his house.

‘Here,’ he said, simply.

‘Then let’s get inside,’ Michael suggested. ‘It’s not a good idea for us to be standing out here like this.’

Philip obediently turned and led the others back towards his cottage. Emma looked him up and down as she followed him indoors. He was short and shabbily dressed. A noticeable stoop made him appear much shorter than he actually was and his grubby clothes were worn and had obviously not been cleaned or even changed for several days, maybe a week. His tired face was ruddy, pockmarked and unshaven and his hair greasy, ruffled and unkempt. Philip itched and scratched at himself continually.

They stepped through the low front door and found that inside the house was as vile, odious and squalid as its owner. Dark, dank and musty, it was the perfect breeding ground for countless deadly germs and diseases. Michael immediately wanted to turn around and leave but he knew that he couldn’t. No matter what his first impressions of Philip Evans were he was a survivor and, as such, he felt duty bound to try and do something for him. He was the first survivor they had seen since they’d left the city. More to the point, he was the first survivor they’d found since that first night in the community centre back in Northwich.