Surviving the Fall: How England Died (4 page)

The old man took his arm and guided them into his large chalet. A woman, Marge, assumed Jack, was standing by the door. Her face dropped in sadness when she saw Annie. “Oh my, poor girl.”

“They got her mummy. Amy. My wife.”

“You poor people…” Jack was guided to the couch, where he sat down, still clutching onto Annie.

Mike closed the door and locked it. He turned off the light and they were left with the glow of only a small lamp. “They can get attracted to light.” He turned on the kettle. “We don’t know what they are. They first appeared in the afternoon. We tried to call the police, but there was no answer, the phones all dead, the internet dead. So we’ve just tried to keep them out.”

Marge wiped a tear from her eye. “You must sleep here tonight. You poor people, your poor little girl…”

Sunday 21st May, morning, Cornwall

When Jack woke the next morning he had a few blissful moments of amnesia. His mind hovered in the state between dreams and reality, then the dam holding the awakened world burst and all the memories from the previous day returned.

He swallowed hard to stop himself from crying out. He felt the weight of Annie next to him, he turned to see her asleep, her peaceful face in denial of the horror that would greet her on waking.

How she had got to sleep, he didn’t know.

There were voices outside. Careful not to disturb Annie he slipped out of the bedroom and made his way outside.

Four men stood by the chalet. Mike and the big man who had let them in last night were amongst them. On seeing Jack they stopped talking and turned to him.

Mike said, “Are you ok?”

Jack nodded.

“Good. This is James,” he motioned to the big man. “He’s the manager of the park.”

James said, “Hope you slept well?”

“As well as can be expected.”

There was silence. The sky was clear and deep blue, birds sang and the sun shone. Jack felt the early warmth upon his skin.

He said, “What’s going on?”

James replied, “I don’t know. We managed to lock the park down overnight, everyone helped. We killed over thirty of them. They are still coming.”

“Can I help?”

Mike said, “Everyone can help. Just being here is help. What would you like to do?”

“Keep my daughter safe.”

James walked over to Jack. “They got my son, yesterday afternoon.” He turned and looked out towards the sea, visible from the porch of the chalet. “But we can make it safe, here. I believe we can. There are only two roads in, we have blocked them with mini-buses and we have a healthy amount of barbed wire - used to keep out the little trouble makers from the village. The danger is the beach, the fences there are weak, but so far only a handful have come from there. We’re getting a group out there to work on it.”

“What’s happened to the rest of the world?”

“Who knows. Radio dead, TV dead, no internet. Hell, this holiday park is the rest of the world, for all I know.

“You want to help with the fences?” asked James.

Jack said, “I’ll come along, when Annie wakes up. I need to be there when Annie wakes up.”

James nodded and took Jack’s hand, which he shook. “We’ll see you soon. Good to have you here, Jack. Good to have you.”

Jack turned and headed back to the bedroom.

Jack held Annie as she sobbed. He rubbed her head softly.

“You said there was no monsters,” she said.

“I know. I’m sorry, I was wrong, honey. Daddy was wrong.” He cradled his daughter and rocked back and forth slowly.

There was a knock on the door of the bedroom.

“Hello?” said Jack.

Marge pushed the door open a little, “Hello, I was wondering if you wanted anything?”

Annie looked up at Marge. “Who are you?”

Marge gave her a wide smile. “I’m Marge, and I believe you’re Annie?”

Annie didn’t return the smile. She buried her head back in Jack’s arms.

“I don’t know what to do,” said Jack quietly to Marge.

“Just what you’re doing. I’ll get you a cup of tea.”

Sunday 21st May, afternoon, Cornwall

Jack joined the group standing on top of a sand dune, looking over the beach. There were five men and two women, James and Mike among them.

“Hi Jack,” said James, “Everyone, this is Jack.” James introduced him to the rest of the party, but Jack forgot the names immediately. The events of the previous night were still looping through his mind. There wasn’t room for anything else, especially the names of strangers.

The air and the sea were still. The sand dunes lay between the holiday park and the beach, which stretched for about half a mile in each direction before meeting the headlands.

A few figures wandered on the beach; disparate, apart, aimless. Infected, guessed Jack.

“The fence by the beach isn’t strong, we haven’t really been looking after it for the past year or two,” said James. “The posts need to be hammered in further, and we need to wrap an extra layer of barbed wire around the perimeter.”

“You think that will keep them out?” said an elderly man with a beard and a t-shirt that said ‘Real Ale Club’.

“I don’t know”, replied James. “But it will be better than we’ve got now. We can do more serious improvements later.”

James looked over the group. “We’ll walk the length in pairs. See you’ve all got your weapons handy. One of each pair take a sledgehammer for the fence posts. Look out for each other.” A woman and the elderly man sheepishly picked up a sledgehammer. Jack reached forward and took one.

“Make sure the posts are in tight,” said James. “We’ll do the barbed wire this afternoon.”

Jack was paired with Ian, an accountant from London who appeared to be in his fifties. Jack pounded in the first post they came across as Ian held it tight, both of them continually checking for nearby infected. The ones on the beach walked aimlessly to the sea and back, heading towards the sand dunes, then heading away. Every now and then, one would disappear into the boundary of the sand dunes.

“It’s scary, isn’t it?” said Ian. “Knowing they are close, knowing that we are hunted.”

“Hunted?” said Jack, taking a rest.

“Yes, being hunted.” Ian took off his glasses and wiped them with his shirt tail. He was a thin man with spiny fingers and a long face. “This virus, it’s going to challenge the human race, let us show what we are made of.”

“You think?”

“Yes. We haven’t been hunted for a long time, not since we lived on the savannahs. We are prey again.”

Jack hoisted the sledgehammer above his head, “Or maybe the army will just kill them all, or they’ll find a cure and in a month we’ll all be back to normal.” He drove the hammer down hard on the pole. The dull thud got carried away by the wind. The post had been quite loose when they first found it, and had wobbled easily under light pressure. It was now tight in the sand, but low. Jack wondered if this would work.

“Ah, here we go,” said Ian, looking past Jack. “Just a teenager, very sad.”

Jack spun round to see what at first glance appeared to be a young, drunk girl. Swaying and stumbling across the sand, barely keeping balance. She was wearing a blood stained blue uniform, some sort of nurse. She nearly tripped over a clump of grass and her head turned to reveal a massive gash in the back of her neck, with what appeared to be brain matter hanging down her back, the uniform stained black.

Jack’s heart raced, and the memory of last night flashed into his head - his daughter screaming as he plunged the jack handle into the old man’s head; his wife disappearing through screams into the darkness of confused limbs and bodies.

“I’ll let you do the honours Jack,” said Ian, smiling.

Jack stared, but couldn’t move. Sweat formed on his palms, on his brow. His breathing became heavy and fast.

“Jack?” said Ian.

Was his wife now one of these things? Stumbling through a field, looking to kill someone. Maybe she had killed someone else already.

“For Pete’s sake Jack, you’ll have to be quicker than this.” Ian walked forward and raised this baseball bat. He waited until the girl reached the fence then raised his bat, and with a speed and strength that belied his thin frame, he smashed the bat hard into the girl’s head. The skull caved in quickly, blood and brain tissue spilling out to land on the sand with a plop.

Ian turned round, “Now, that’s how we need to… Jack!”

Jack spun round, feeling hands on his neck. He stumbled back and fell into the sand, a heavy weight landing on top of him. Hands grabbed his face and pulled at his skin, nails dug into his cheeks.

A face, an old man, covered in blood, teeth covered in blood, only a few inches away, snapped at him.

Jack pulled his arms up and pushed at the head of the man. The opposing force was great and Jack struggled to push him away, his hands slipping on the fresh blood on the man’s forehead.

Panic overcame him and he screamed, as he scrambled against the monster.

There was a crack and the man was gone. A few more cracks and Jack felt warm blood splatter on his face. He turned towards the sound and saw the face of the man - impacted, squashed into the sand, a mix of flesh, skull and blood. Its jaws gnashed once, slowly, then stopped. Ian stood above the mess, blood covered baseball bat in hand.

He pulled Jack up. “Are you ok?”

Jack nodded, not sure if he was.

“Bloody hell” said Ian. “We need to be sharper or we’re finished, Jack. That one came from no where.”

“He was on our side of the fence,” said Jack quietly.

“What?” said Ian, breathing heavily.

“He was on our side of the fence,” said Jack louder, his eyes opening wide. He grabbed Ian by the shoulders. “He was in the barriers!”

Ian stared at Jack. “That means…”

A loud shout rang out from behind, in the direction of the Holiday camp. Another shout, more urgent.

“They’re inside,” said Jack. “Annie…” He picked up the sledgehammer and ran back towards the camp, followed by Ian.

Charging down from the sand dunes into the park, Jack was met by chaos. He stared in dismay at the hoard of dead marauding through the park, on the roads, over the grass, in and out of chalets. Amongst them ran people, at least Jack thought they were people; the ones who were shouting for help, who weren’t covered in blood.

Annie was in Mike and Marge’s chalet, a few hundred metres away.

Jack and Ian looked at each other, nodded and ran off in different directions. Jack held the sledgehammer up ahead of him, and ran into the nearest infected, using the sledgehammer as a battering ram. The target’s head crushed on contact with the weight of the hammer. Jack pushed the body over.

He sensed movement to his left, and swung the hammer on instinct. It connected with the head of an old man covered in blood, his right arm hanging off. The old man collapsed as his skull shattered.

Jack ran forward a few yards and again found himself surrounded by more of the infected. He smashed and swung his way through, blood splattering over his face. He was already out of breath, but he couldn’t stop.

He managed to make good ground, running fast, ducking in and out of outstretched hands. He didn’t have the time or energy to tackle them all. He had to get back to the chalet, to Annie.

Then he fell.

As he tried to run round an old disfigured woman, he bent too far to the side, and caught the kerb, flying forward until he hit the floor hard. He rolled and the sledgehammer slipped out of his hand. There was a pain in his knee, but he forced himself up immediately. Two hands grabbed his shoulder, but he pushed them away, running backwards, looking for the sledgehammer. It was a few feet away from him. An old man stumbled in between Jack and his weapon, but Jack charged forward, shoulder barging the thin frame out of the way, the old man letting out a moan as he fell to the ground. Jack ducked down and grabbed the hammer, which he brought round and down onto the old man’s head.

Jack saw the chalet. He ran again, fighting the pain in his chest as his out of shape lungs fought for air. He ignored the stabbing pain in his knee; his only thought, Annie.

He ran on automatic, swinging the sledgehammer, barging bodies out his way, dodging grasping hands and snapping jaws.

And then he was there.

The chalet was clear, he ran up to the door with a quick look behind him. He was being followed. Jack opened the door with one hand, his other holding the hammer up, facing the body as it approached.

“You in there Annie?”

“Daddy!” Small arms clasped around Jack’s waist.

“Go back inside, Annie,” he shouted, “Go back inside!”

Annie screamed as she saw the approaching corpse, covered in blood.

“Back inside!” shouted Jack again. He felt her arms being pulled from him, and he glanced inside the chalet to see Marge yanking Annie away from the door.

The infected, an old woman with a gaping hole in her chest, her heart visible, was only a few feet away. Perfect distance, thought Jack, as he brought the sledgehammer down hard. Her head collapsed like a cardboard box. He pushed her motionless carcass away and jumped inside the chalet, closing the door behind him.