Autumn: The City (23 page)
Authors: David Moody
Bernard too was watching the behaviour of the bodies. They were changing, and he found himself wondering why they were reacting in this way. He was an intelligent man and, much as confusing emotions such as fear and despair had tainted and distorted his view of the world, he knew that the rapidly changing behaviour of the creatures must have been following a logical pattern. As he peered down into the disease-ridden sea of shuffling figures below, he considered the chronology of their decline. He’d thought about this countless times before. Since they had risen after their bodies had died on the first morning there had been a gradual but marked change in their condition. The corpses were rotting. Even from the distance the survivors were observing from, that much was obvious and undeniable. It seemed that the virus or disease or whatever had initially killed the bodies outright, but that something inside them had somehow survived. It was almost as if parts of the brain had been
anaesthetised
, and that the effects of the
anaesthetic
were gradually wearing off. The ability to move again had been the first sign, soon followed by the unwelcome ability to again react to external stimulation. And for a long time that was as far as the creature’s limited recovery seemed to have progressed. Other basic needs remained unfulfilled
–
they apparently had no desire to eat or drink or rest
–
they seemed just to exist in a permanent state of constant and pointless animation. Heath concluded (as he had done numerous times before) that the only part of the creature’s brains to have survived was that area which governed base, primordial instinct.
But there was another change now manifesting itself.
Heath had noticed it beginning to develop over the last few days, perhaps even as long ago as last week. The bodies were now more aggressive than before. There was a new determination and energy about them. Physically they continued to deteriorate, but mentally they had changed. He looked down into the area of the immense crowd where the bodies were struggling with each other again. Some of these creatures were beginning to fight.
‘See what they’re doing?’ he said quietly. ‘Just watch them.’
Heath looked up and saw that Yvonne had gone. He hadn’t heard her leave. Unconcerned, he looked out of the window again and returned his attention to the dead. Where a cold and emotionless apathy had previously prevailed, new energies were beginning to show. The bodies were exhibiting signs of rage and anger. Whereas they had so far swarmed around the survivors because, he’d presumed, there were no other distractions, he now wondered whether they wanted more? Could these bodies now be gathered around the university looking for answers from the living, or were they blaming them for what had happened? Did the bodies now see the survivors as the enemy?
As dawn approached
and the morning light increased r
evealing
more and more of the scarred world, the university lecturer’s thoughts gradually became darker and more sinister. He found himself dwelling on thoughts of the pain the figures below must be enduring. Their bodies were rotting around them.
In his former life Heath had lectured in English Literature. He often considered the emotions of the characters he had studied and about which he had taught. Pain so often seemed to go hand in hand with any number of other emotions. Heath remembered experiencing pain himself. Not a particularly practical man, he’d frequently hit his thumb with a hammer when trying to hang pictures, and he often caught his head on one particularly badly placed shelf in his office. His first reaction to sudden pain had often been to curse
–
sometimes even to lash out and punch a wall or throw something in anger. Perhaps that was what was happening to the decomposing bodies traipsing constantly through the city streets? Perhaps their increasing anger and violence were direct reactions to their suffering?
His line of thinking continued down into even darker territories. The displays of violence he’d noticed recently may well have been the first signs of further changes. With decay and disintegration tearing apart the remains of the corpses, their pain and, logically, their anger, hate and frustration would be likely to increase rapidly. If the anger and hate he had witnessed was connected to pain, then it was likely things were going to get much, much worse before they started to get any better.
There were more than ten thousand of the damn things out
there.
The long day dragged unbearably. After many hours of arguments, counter-arguments and frustration, the atmosphere in the assembly hall was deteriorating rapidly. By early evening tempers were wearing dangerously thin.
‘Have you looked out of the bloody window recently?’ Baxter spat angrily. ‘Do you know what’s out there?’
‘More to the point,’ Donna interrupted angrily, ‘have you seen what’s still in here? Have you seen the level of our supplies? I tell you, we won’t last long if we don’t do something soon…’
‘She’s right,’ Cooper added from across the room. ‘Staying here isn’t going to be an option for much longer.’
‘And what the fuck do you know?’ Nathan Holmes yelled, his voice hoarse and strained with emotion. This argument had been raging for the best part of an hour with, it seemed, much of the venom directed towards him personally. ‘I’m sure you know a hell of a lot more than you’re letting on,’ he snapped. ‘I bet you know exactly what caused all of this fucking mess to happen.’
‘I wish I did,’ the soldier sighed. ‘Then at least I might know what to do.’
Frightened faces peered out from every corner of the hall, illuminated by numerous candles, torches and lamps. The light in the room was dull and uneven leaving even more people hidden in darkness. For once almost all the survivors sheltering in the building were gathered together
–
even the most reclusive of them having been drawn out of hiding by the events surrounding the soldier’s recent arrival. For many others the hall had become the only room they used. Being alone in the individual rooms they had previously occupied had become too unsettling for most. Better to snatch a few moments of sleep in the company of others than to spend endless hours alone, wide awake and on edge.
‘Look,’ Donna continued, ‘Phil reckons that in six months time the bodies will have rotted away to just about nothing. Isn’t that right, Phil?’
She peered round in the darkness, trying to find the doctor. He was sitting on the floor just a few meters from where she was standing. He’d been trying to avoid getting dragged into the conversation. Instead he’d been busying himself by trying to keep a seven year old boy interested in a jigsaw puzzle and hoping that he’d be able to stop him crying.
‘Something like that,’ he grunted, ‘give or take a few weeks either way.’
‘So we’ll wait here for six months,’ Holmes announced.
Donna shook her head. Once full of macho pretense, the odious man was now letting his true colours show. His plans to get out of the building and take what he wanted from the dead city had been forgotten. He was as scared as the rest of the survivors, but he didn’t have the intelligence to deal with his feelings. His fear displayed itself as antagonism and anger.
‘Which part of this don’t you understand, Nathan,’ she sighed. ‘We haven’t got enough supplies here to last for six more days, never mind six months. We’ve got to go out into the city now, whether you like it or not.’
Holmes didn’t respond. He’d never admit as much, but he was intimidated by Donna. He didn’t have the ability to able to reply to her words with anything that resembled a sensible and coherent argument as to why they should lock themselves down and stay put until the countless bodies outside had finally fallen again.
‘She’s right,’ Baxter said, stepping forward out of the shadows into which he’d subconsciously retreated as the argument had become more heated. ‘We don’t have an option really. If you stop and…’
‘What the fuck do you know?’ Holmes spat, suddenly feeling more confident. He knew that he could handle Jack Baxter.
Refusing to rise to the other man’s anger, Jack ran his fingers through his hair and stared at him through the darkness.
‘I know as much as you do, Nathan,’ he said, pointing his finger accusingly and shaking his head. ‘But if you forget about how you’re feeling and take a look at the whole picture, it seems we don’t have any choice.’
Several hours later and the anger and raised voices that had filled the hall had been long forgotten by many of the survivors. Nathan Holmes had disappeared into the depths of the building and with him much of the conflict and hostility seemed to have gone too. Apart from a few mumbled conversations and the low and dull but ever-present noise of the bodies outside the assembly room was largely silent. Jack Baxter sat with his back against the wall doing his best to fade into the already drab and inconspicuous background. The benefit of darkness, he thought to himself, was that he could hide without having to move. He could observe things happening nearby whilst still managing to feel like he was a safe distance away.
Baxter was sitting in a corner of the room near to Cooper, Croft and Donna. Clare lay next to him on a makeshift bed made from folded blankets. She was sleeping relatively soundly. He frequently watched her when she was asleep, feeling as if he had a responsibility to protect her because he was the one who had been with her the longest. She was a pretty girl with soft, delicate features which, for once, looked untroubled and relaxed. It wasn’t often that…
‘What do you think, Jack?’ he heard Phil Croft ask. At the mention of his name he looked up.
‘What?’ he mumbled.
‘You’re not with us, are you?’ smiled Donna.
‘Nothing against any of you,’ he smiled, looking deeper into the darkness and trying to focus on the others, ‘but I wish I was anywhere but here.’
Cooper kept the conversation on track.
‘We were talking about getting out of here,’ he began.
‘What, still?’ he moaned. ‘Christ, haven’t you got anything better to talk about?’
‘No,’ Donna replied abruptly. ‘Bloody hell, what else is there to talk about?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Decided where we’re going yet then?’
Silence. It was one thing talking about what they should do, but when it came to actually making decisions it was difficult to get any of the survivors to speak out with any conviction.
‘We’re not completely sure whether……’ muttered Croft before Cooper interrupted.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ he sighed.
‘There’s only one place we can go, isn’t there?’ Donna added.
‘Your base?’ ventured Baxter.
‘Much as I don’t like the thought of going back there, we don’t seem to have much choice at the moment.’
‘So will your people let us inside?’ he asked.
‘They might. I don’t know.’
‘I don’t think they will.’
Everyone looked at Jack.
‘Why not?’ Donna asked.
‘I know we seem to be immune to whatever’s done all this,’ he explained, his voice tired and low, ‘but I bet we’re still carrying it. If it’s a disease then we’re going to be full of it, aren’t we? It’ll be in our lungs and in our blood. There’s no way they’re going to let us inside if we’re going to bring it in with us.’
‘We’ve just got to hope the decontamination process is good enough to clean us up properly then, haven’t we?’Cooper said.
‘Do you think it will be?’
‘Don’t know,’ he admitted after a moment of careful consideration.
‘There’s another problem of course,’ yawned Croft. The doctor was incredibly tired but he knew it wasn’t worth trying to sleep.
‘What’s that?’ Cooper asked.
‘How the hell are we going to get there?’
‘How many people are here?’
‘Between forty and fifty,’ he replied.
‘And how many will leave with us?’
‘No idea. Probably not that many. Say half.’
‘Theoretically we can take our pick of just about anything we can find in the city,’ said Donna.
‘If we can get to it,’ interrupted Baxter.
‘So what do you suggest?’ Cooper asked. ‘We need to be sensible about this. We’re not going to be able to just drive out of here in a convoy of cars, are we?’
‘What did you arrive in? We heard it but we didn’t see it.’
‘Armoured patrol carrier. I could probably drive one of those if we had one, but I don’t expect we’ll find anything like that round here…’
Baxter managed half a smile.
‘You might be surprised,’ Donna said quietly. The other faces turned to look at her.
‘What have you got in mind?’
‘There’s a courthouse near here,’ she replied.
‘And?’
‘And round the back there’s a loading bay.’
‘A loading bay?’ Croft mumbled. He wasn’t at all sure where her logic was leading.
‘We could see it from the office where I worked. We used to watch them unloading when there was a big trial on,’ she explained. ‘The prison vans used to pull up around the back and reverse inside to deliver and collect the prisoners.’
‘So?’
‘Think about it. Prison vans are designed to carry people. More than that, they’re strong and they’re safe. They’re as close to a bloody armoured patrol carrier as we’re going to get.’
