Autumn

Blissfully unaware, Carl opened the door fully and, for a single second which seemed to last longer than ten, nothing happened. A moment of stillness and unexpected calm which was suddenly shattered by a tidal wave of rotting flesh and bone which powered into the house. The force of the surge was such that Carl was lifted clean off his feet and smashed against the nearest wall. In seconds the hallway was filled and Carl had completely disappeared from view, swallowed up and destroyed by the vast and unstoppable crowd.

Turning quickly, Michael ran up the stairs after Emma. She was hiding in Carl’s attic bedroom. He slammed the door shut behind him.

‘Get the fucking bed!’ he screamed. ‘Help me push it in front of the door.’

Taking one end each, the two of them shunted the heavy wooden bed down the length of the room and turned it sideways so that it completely blocked the door.

‘Where’s Carl?’ Emma asked, although she already knew the answer. Michael didn’t bother to reply. He ran over to the window and looked out. The bedroom was at the front of the house. It was dark but he could make out their Landrover and car in the yard below.

‘We’ve got to get out,’ he said, his voice trembling with emotion. ‘I’ve still got the keys to the Landrover…’

‘But what about our stuff? Christ, all our stuff’s…’

‘Forget it,’ he snapped.

‘But how are we going to get out? We can’t just…’

Michael ignored Emma’s questions. He opened the window and leant outside. A few of the bodies below caught sight of him and their ferocity seemed to increase when he stepped out onto the roof.

‘Follow me,’ he said, turning back momentarily to face Emma.

She walked over to the window and looked down.

‘I can’t…’ she whined.

‘You’ve got to. You haven’t got any choice.’

Fighting to stay calm and in control of her body and emotions, she watched as Michael carefully shuffled around and lowered himself down along the slanted roof until his feet were resting in the guttering. Lying flat with his stomach pressed against the tiles, he shuffled sideways until he was directly above the porch. Once there he stopped and looked up at the bedroom window again.

‘Come on,’ he hissed. Emma looked at him and then looked down at the mass of bodies in the yard. More and more of them were reacting to Michael’s voice. Unsure, she climbed up onto the windowsill and tentatively put one foot outside. Moving painfully slowly, she then lowered herself down until she was hanging out of the window. She stopped again, paralysed with fear.

‘You can do it!’ Michael yelled, sensing her unease. He prayed that she couldn’t sense his.

He lowered himself down the last few feet onto the roof of the porch and then stood still for a moment to regain his balance. He glanced down at the shifting sea of figures below and saw that he was now close enough to be able to see the faces of the hundreds of corpses gathered around the house. Just meters away from his feet an endless column of creatures struggled to force themselves into the building.

Emma still clung tightly onto the windowsill for dear life, too afraid to move. A sound from inside the house distracted her and she looked back through the open bedroom window to see that the bed blocking the door was being shoved out of the way. The volume of bodies that had entered the house was astonishing. It was the sheer mass of cadavers that was forcing the door open. As she watched a thick and constant stream of featureless figures began to pour into the room.

‘Move!’ Michael screamed, distracting her. She looked down and watched as he dropped from the roof of the porch onto the yard below. It was a drop of some ten feet and he landed awkwardly amongst the bodies, twisting his ankle. Ignoring the pain and the clumsy, grabbing hands which reached out for him, he forced his way over to the Landrover and unlocked the door. Kicking and punching at the corpses holding onto him, he fought his way inside and started the engine.

Another new sound meant another surge of bodies, this time all heading towards Michael.

Emma looked up. The bodies in the bedroom were close. She had to move. She stretched her legs out behind and lay on the sloping roof, moving her toes constantly, hoping to feel the guttering and use it for support. She followed Michael’s route across the roof and then stopped when she was above the porch. Distracted by the light in the yard coming from the Landrover’s headlamps which Michael had just switched on, she watched in horror and disbelief as he began to drive away.

‘Michael!’ she screamed.

She watched the Landrover as it moved away from the house. Michael slowly steered it back round in a wide arc, finally stopping when he was as close as he could get to the front of the house and the porch. For a fraction of a second Emma thought that he was going to leave her behind.

She dropped down onto the roof of the porch and caught her foot on a loose slate which crashed to the ground beneath her. Unsteadied, she struggled to regain her balance and lurched forward. As she desperately fought to grab hold of something solid to hang onto, more slates worked free under her weight and she fell down to the yard, the mass of bodies breaking her fall. Within seconds she was completely engulfed.

Michael jumped out of the Landrover and dived into the crowd surrounding Emma. He grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and yanked her free, pushing her towards the Landrover which she dived into. She slid across to the passenger seat and then reached out for him. She took hold of his right hand which he held out and pulled him towards her. But the collective strength of the creatures was too much and they took him from her, dragging him down onto the ground.

Michael sensed that he was about to die.

But fucking hell, he thought, he’d survived so much, why the hell should he give up now? And even more importantly perhaps, he knew that he couldn’t leave Emma to suffer alone. With the very last dregs of energy that he could summon from his frightened and exhausted body, he scrambled to his feet and kicked and punched at the figures around him. He reached inside the van, grabbed hold of the steering wheel and pulled himself in. He yanked the door shut behind him, leaving countless carcasses to smash their decaying fists against the metal and glass.

‘Ready?’ he asked breathlessly.

Emma nodded and swallowed hard.

Michael forced the van into gear and lifted his foot off the clutch. For one desperate moment it seemed that the volume of bodies surrounding the Landrover might prove too much for it to overcome. The engine roared but it did not move. He accelerated again, this time increasing the power steadily until the engine screamed to be released. With one sudden, juddering movement they began to edge forward, carving a bloody passage away from their home and out through the rotting masses.

Emma glanced back over her shoulder at what remained of Pe