David Moody - Autumn

‘Last couple of boxes,’ Michael yelled as he crammed more and more into the back of the van. He’d left just enough space for him to be able to climb inside and pull the tailgate shut.

‘Forget the rest of it,’ Emma shouted. ‘Just get yourself inside.’

Carl managed to force the key into the ignition. He looked up and to his right. One of the closest bodies in the wretched throng lifted a clumsy hand into the air above its head. It slowly drew its weak and diseased fingers together to form an emaciated fist which, without warning, it brought crashing down on the driver’s door window.

‘Michael,’ he shouted, his voice wavering with strained emotion. ‘Are you in yet?’

‘Almost,’ the other man replied. ‘Last box.’

Carl watched as a second body lifted its hand and smashed the side of the van. Then another and another. The reaction spread through the ragged bodies like fire through a tinder-dry forest. Within seconds the inside of the van was ringing with a deafening crescendo of dull thumps and relentless crashes. He turned the key and started the engine.

‘I’m in,’ Michael yelled as he hauled himself into the van. He reached out and grabbed hold of the tailgate which he pulled shut. ‘Go!’

Carl pushed down on the accelerator and cautiously lifted his foot off the clutch. For a second there was no response then a slow, jerking movement as the van inched forward, shackled by the twisted metal remains of the supermarket entrance doors. Another lurch forward and they were free from the door but still progress was difficult, the sheer volume of bodies surrounding the front and sides of the vehicle preventing them from moving away at speed. Terrified, Carl pushed harder on the accelerator and lifted his foot completely off the clutch and this time the van moved away freely. The bulk of the bodies were brushed away to the sides but many others were dragged down under the wheels.

‘Bloody hell,’ Michael mumbled, watching events behind them through a small gap between boxes and bags of food.

‘What’s the matter?’ Emma asked.

‘They won’t lie down,’ he said. ‘The bastards just won’t lie down.’

He stared in horror and total disbelief as the crowd surged after them. Although their slow stagger was obviously no match for that of the van, the relentlessness and pointless persistence of the rotting gathering caused an icy chill to run the entire length of his spine. There was no point in them following the van, but still they came.

‘Almost there,’ Carl said under his breath as he steered towards the car park exit.

‘Keep going,’ Emma yelled, her voice hoarse with emotion. ‘For Christ’s sake don’t stop.’

A single solitary figure stumbled out in front of the van and, rather than waste precious seconds trying to avoid the woman’s body, Carl instead ploughed straight into it. The momentum of the van carried the corpse along for a few meters before it slipped down under the front bumper and was crushed beneath the wheels. As they left the car park and turned onto the road, Michael continued to watch the battered body on the ground. Its legs were smashed and shattered – that much was clear – and yet it still tried to move. The surging crowd tripped and stumbled over it ignorantly but still it continued to move oblivious. Reaching out with twisting, broken fingers, it dragged itself along the ground, inch by inch by inch.

I didn’t know the true meaning of the word fear until we were on our way back to the farm. It was only then that the reality of our situation came crashing down around me. For the last few days life had begun to feel almost bearable – we had lived with our incredible situation for almost a week and the initial shock and desperation had, for a while, begun to subside and had been replaced by something resembling a sense of purpose. We had found ourselves somewhere safe where we could hide together and sit out the storm that had destroyed the rest of the world around us. But the bodies in the field and the visit to the supermarket had changed all that. Suddenly, having found some protection, we were exposed and vulnerable again. And the situation seemed to be deteriorating with each passing hour, practically each minute. As we drove back along roads strewn with rotting human remains and other wrecked remnants of society, I began to wonder what was next. How could things get any worse? The bodies were becoming more violent and unpredictable with each passing hour. If they were ready to tear us apart today, what would they be like tomorrow?

Once we’d made it back to the farm we quickly unpacked the van. We literally threw the boxes and bags into the house. I watched Emma and Carl as we worked and I could see that they were obviously as terrified as I was. The fear was impossible to hide. Every unexpected movement caused us to freeze and catch our breath and every sudden sound made our hearts miss a collective beat. Even the rustle of the wind through the bushes was no longer just an innocent background noise. Instead it had become a whispered warning and reminder to be constantly on our guard.

A few long hours later and the three of us found ourselves sitting around the kitchen table.

‘So what are we going to do?’ I asked. I couldn’t just sit there and wait any longer.

Carl shrugged his shoulders and Emma did the same. To her credit she did at least answer me.

‘Don’t know,’ she mumbled.

I had been thinking about our situation constantly, but I hadn’t yet managed to come up with any constructive ideas other than to lock all the doors and sit and hide in the dark and wait. It wouldn’t achieve anything, but at that moment it seemed to be the easiest option.

‘We’ll be all right if we can keep them away from the house,’ Emma said a short while later.

‘And how are we going to do that?’ I instinctively asked.

‘Build a wall or a fence?’ she offered.

We had discussed building some kind of barrier before, and it still seemed sensible.

‘I don’t want to go out there again today,’ Carl grumbled pathetically.

‘Neither do I but if we don’t do something,’ I said, ‘then we really are going to be trapped here. We won’t be able to risk making a sound.’

‘So how are we supposed to build a fence without making any noise?’ Emma asked. A valid question to which I didn’t have an answer.

‘And what are we going to use to build this barrier?’ Carl added.

Another question that I couldn’t answer.

‘I don’t know,’ I replied honestly. ‘I suppose we’ll just have to use whatever we can find lying around. This is a farm for Christ’s sake. There’s bound to be plenty of stuff if we look for it…’

Emma picked up a pen and a scrap of paper from the table. She began to sketch a very simple outline of the house.

‘You know,’ she mumbled as she drew, ‘there wouldn’t be as much work to do as you’d think. Look, we could build something from the wall of the house down the length of the yard, then take it straight across to the stream.’

It took a couple of seconds for me to understand what she was saying. From her rough sketch nothing was immediately apparent until she turned it around. As soon as I had my bearings and could associate the drawing with the house, the forest, the generator and the stream and bridge, it started to make sense. By using the barriers that we already had, we could cut down the amount of work we had to do virtually by half. At the moment the bodies still had trouble walking and moving with any co-ordination – there was no way that they’d be able to cross the stream. It wasn’t particularly deep or wide but it was difficult enough for them to keep their balance on dry, solid ground.