David Moody - Autumn

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.

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.

‘Sit down,’ Philip said as he closed the door behind them and ushered them both into the living room. ‘Please sit down and make yourselves comfortable.’

Emma glanced down at the sofa next to her and decided to remain standing. It was covered with crumpled food wrappers, crumbs and other, less easily identifiable rubbish.

‘Can I get you a drink?’ he asked politely. ‘I’m sorry, I’m just so surprised to see you both. When I heard the noise of your engines I thought that…’

His words faded in volume as he disappeared into the kitchen to fetch drinks (despite neither of the survivors having taken him up on his offer). Glad to be alone for a moment, Michael seized the opportunity to speak privately to Emma.

‘So what do you think?’ he whispered.

‘About what?’ she replied.

‘About him,’ he hissed. ‘What do you think we should do?’

She thought for a moment. She knew what she had to say but didn’t particularly want to say it.

‘He’s a survivor and we should offer to take him with us,’ she said with obvious reluctance.

‘But…?’ he pressed, sensing that she wasn’t telling him everything.

‘But look at the state of this place,’ she continued, gesturing at their cold and stale surroundings. ‘Christ, this house is disgusting. It’s making me feel sick just standing here, and by the look of him he’s bound to be contagious, isn’t he?’

‘We don’t know that for certain, do we?’ Michael argued despite the fact that he agreed with her completely. ‘We’ve got to try and do something for him, haven’t we?’

She nodded dejectedly and then changed the sour expression on her face as Philip returned to the room, still talking.

‘…and after that when we couldn’t find him we decided that something was definitely wrong,’ he babbled, his voice tired. The little man paused and stood still to cough. It was a violent, hacking noise, like a smoker’s rasping early morning cough, and he struggled to catch his breath.

‘You all right?’ Michael asked.

Philip looked up and nodded, his face flushed and red.

‘Fine,’ he wheezed. ‘Just picked up a bit of an infection I think.’

He carried a circular metal tray which he put down on the table after brushing a layer of rubbish down onto the dirty carpet with a single sweep of his arm. He handed Emma a chipped mug and then passed one to Michael. Emma peered into her cup and sniffed it. It was undiluted lemon cordial. She glanced across at Michael who discreetly shook his head and gestured for her to put the mug down.