The Cost of Living (3 page)

STUART

WEDNESDAY 27 MAY – 11:52pm

And so it
begins. The mainstream media has finally woken up to reality.

I’ve
been following this story since late afternoon. A hospital in Manchester had to
close their doors to new admissions. I’m not sure why, because there’s no
information coming out of the place. I presume it’s overcrowded. Either that or
it’s damage limitation, something like that? Maybe they’re trying to preserve
the place because they know what’s coming?

But
people kept arriving. More and more people are getting sick, and huge numbers
of them are obviously trying to get medical attention, even though from what I
can tell, there’s nothing any doctor can do for the infected. So crowds have
been building up all around the place all evening.

Trouble
threatened to break out several times, but it was about four hours ago that it
really kicked off. The news cameramen filmed from a distance, not wanting to
get close, but long-shots were good enough to show what was happening. The
infected who’d been brought to the hospital were turning, immediately trying to
infect those who were still free from the germ. It was like watching a riot:
pockets of sporadic violence breaking out in the midst of this massive crowd of
desperate people. It didn’t take long for the whole area to be consumed by
panic. People were breaking into the hospital, others were breaking out... it
was absolute carnage. The cameraman abandoned his camera and left it filming
the chaos – an unbroken long-shot of Manchester tearing itself apart.

Now,
hours later, the streets are quieter. There are just infected left out there
now. They wander around with their heads bowed, like they’re in some kind of
trance. Now and then something attracts their attention – someone
unaffected, perhaps – and they chase after them in huge numbers.

And
now the TV has cut to Downing Street. There’s an old guy on screen, talking
about the COBRA meeting he’s just chaired, and I’m thinking,
who the hell
are you?
He’s not the Prime Minister or his deputy... I reckon this is some
deputy’s deputy’s deputy, and I reckon he’s probably all that’s left.

We’re
well and truly fucked.

STUART

THURSDAY 28 MAY – 5:50am

This is the
hardest thing I’ve ever had to do; the toughest decision I’ve ever had to make.
I knew it was coming – I was ready for it – but that didn’t make it
any easier to do. It’s time to seal us in. I just hope I’m not too late.

I
sat up all night watching the news, watching the world continue to fall to
pieces, and watching dumb fucking substitute politicians spinning the same old
bullshit about how things would soon be brought under control, and that lessons
would be learned and so on. All just empty words, empty promises. No substance.
No facts. Just a smokescreen: a way of hiding the truth because everyone’s finally
beginning to realise the truth here is going to be fucking awful.

And
then, about half an hour ago, the crisis outside got a lot closer to home. The
sickness has reached our development. It was the family diagonally opposite,
the ones with all the dogs in one of the smaller houses. I sat in the baby’s
room upstairs and watched from the window, one eye on Hannah, the other across
the street. Fuck, I could taste their fear even from a distance. They’re never
coming home. I could tell from the way they bundled a few bags and their kid
and the dogs into the back of their car and drove them away that they were
evacuating. They’re as good as dead.

And
so will we be if I don’t do this.

It
hurts.

As
I make my way around the house, trying not to wake the others while I check all
the locks and cover the windows, I can’t help thinking about our extended
family and all the other people I’d love to help. Mum and Dad, Gabby’s folks,
Phil and his family, Sandy and her kids... the list goes on and on but I know I
have to focus all my efforts on the five people in this house, and I have to
believe the others will be doing the same thing, wherever they are. Dad’ll be
okay, I’m sure of that, and Phil should be all right too if he gets his head
out of his arse in time. I sent him a message last night, but he hasn’t
replied.

I
keep telling myself they’ll all look after their own the same way I’m looking
after mine. When I feel any doubt, guilt or remorse, I just turn it around. I
ask myself,
who else is going to look after Gabby and the kids?
And the
answer’s simple. There’s no one. It’s all down to me.

I
bolt and padlock all the doors. I keep all the keys locked away apart from one
set that I’ll carry with me. As soon as the others are awake I’ll tell them
what’s happening. The kids will be scared but they’ll soon realise that what
we’re shutting ourselves away from is far more frightening than anything else.

#

Gabby gets it.
She stays in bed, Sally lying next to her, Hannah alongside in her crib. She
looks beat. For a second I’m worried it might be the sickness, but I know it’s
not. She had all her jabs and I kept her from those friends who might have been
exposed. She’s barely seen anyone this last couple of weeks, and that was the
right thing to do. She’s just tired now, emotionally drained. We both are, but
I make myself keep going.

Nathan’s
a different kettle of fish. He doesn’t have a problem with not going to school,
but when I tell him he can’t go and visit his girlfriend half a mile away, he
gets nasty. They’re just kids. It’s his first crush, nothing serious. ‘You’re
not going anywhere,’ I tell him. Bloody kid’s at the front door with his jacket
and trainers on, trying to force the padlock. ‘Do you know what’s happening out
there?’

‘No,’
he says. ‘You’ve stopped us watching the TV, remember? You unplugged the
satellite. I can’t watch shit.’

‘Don’t
use that kind of language with me, son.’

He
kicks the door again, and mumbles something under his breath about me being
fucking stupid or something similar. I let it go. He’s scared. He’s upset. We
both are. We
all
are.

I
need to make him understand. I’d planned to leave it a while longer, but we’ll
have no front door left at this rate. ‘How much do you know, Nathan?’

‘Not
enough. Like I said, you censored the TV and I can’t get anything online. Half
my friends have stopped answering my texts.’

‘There’s
every possibility your friends are dead.’

He
stops fighting for a second and just looks at me. He laughs, then sneers, then
turns back and starts booting the bottom of the door again. I pull him away, he
shrugs me off. ‘Leave me alone,’ he says, doing what he can to not let me see
the tears.

‘Listen,
son, I know it’s never cool to do what your dad says, but this is one occasion
you really need to.’

‘But
I need to go and see Jen. I need to know she’s okay.’

It’s
just puppy love. He’ll get over her. I don’t care what happens to anyone else,
but I humour him just the same. ‘We have to believe that her family are doing
the same as us, and if they do, in a few weeks time, I’m sure you’ll be able to
see her again.’

‘I’m
not waiting a few weeks. I’m going now. She’s only just down the road. I’ll be
back in an hour or so. I just need to know she’s all right...’

‘It’s
not happening.’

‘But,
Dad...’

‘Listen
to me, son, and listen very, very carefully. The disease that’s doing all the
damage out there is highly contagious and—’

‘I’ll
stay away from everyone else. I’ll run there and I’ll run back. Jen’s brother’s
cool with me going and I—’

‘Her
brother? Where are her parents?’

‘Her
dad moved out a couple of years back.’

‘And
her mother?’

He
pauses before answering, and the hesitation speaks volumes. ‘She’s sick,’ he
eventually admits. ‘She’s in the hospital. I have to go and see Jen, Dad. She
needs me...’

‘You
have to understand just how serious this is now, Nathan.’

He
stops fighting and slumps back against the wall, barely managing to suppress
his anger. ‘I know, but—’

‘I’m
not sure you do. You see, I can’t let you go anywhere, Nathan, because if you
leave this house, I won’t be able to let you back in again.’ I can see that my
words have shocked him. He looks at me, then looks away again. ‘That’s not an
idle threat, son, it’s a fact. If one of us gets sick, we all get sick, and I
can’t let that happen.’

‘She’s
only round the corner...’

‘No.’

His
head drops. He finally lets go of the door handle. I put my arm around his
shoulder and take him into the lounge. He sits on the sofa, deflated –
beat, and I plug the satellite back in to show him what’s happening out there.

‘You
need to see this, son,’ I tell him. ‘You need to understand.’

The
first thing I see on the TV takes me by surprise. It hits us both hard. At some
point during the last few hours, the BBC has disappeared. What we’re seeing now
is some kind of emergency broadcast, as terrifying as it is clichéd. Just a
list of instructions on a loop, dos and don’ts, ten times more
don’ts
than
dos
. My mouth’s gone dry, and Nathan’s just staring at the screen.
‘Is this for real?’ he asks. I clear my throat and try to answer.

‘Yeah,
it’s for real. You understand now, Nath? Look, I recorded a few news bulletins
because I thought this might happen. I want you to see some of the things I’ve
been seeing.’

‘Why
didn’t you just leave the TV plugged in and let me see them anyway?’

‘Because
I care, that’s why. Because I wanted to make this as easy as I could. If we do
the right thing here, son, we’ll get through this. You, me, Sally, Hannah and
Mum... we’ll be okay.’

I
show him some clips from Manchester last night that I recorded. ‘Why did you
save this stuff?’ he asks.

‘So
that we don’t forget. It’s important. We need to remember why we’re having to
do this.’

He
just stares at the screen, open mouthed. I’m not stupid, I know he’s probably
seen some of this on his phone, but these are the edited highlights, for want
of a better word.

I
show him some stuff on the laptop. I swear I could have written the script for
this next clip weeks ago. It’s a report from outside a supermarket. Cut to
inside, and the camera pans along empty shelves, then swings over to one corner
of the strangely echoing store where people are fighting over the little food
which remains. ‘Have you looked in the garage recently?’ I ask him.

‘Tried
to a couple of days back,’ he answers. ‘Couldn’t get in. Too much stuff.’

‘You
see all those gaps on the shelves on the screen? That food’s here. I saw this
coming, Nath. I’ve got enough for all of us, and it’ll last for a couple of
months if we’re smart and ration ourselves properly.’

‘Rations?’

‘It’s
got to be done. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but I don’t see we have
any other option. But if we can get through this, we’ll get through anything.’

On
screen now is a camp that sprung up the day before yesterday. It’s somewhere
just outside London, I think, thrown together to cope with hospital overspill.
‘Looks like Afghanistan,’ he says.

‘You’re
thinking of Syria, son.’

‘Same
difference.’

‘Not
really.’

It’s
pointless arguing about geography at a time like this, so I let it go and let
him watch. He’s right, though, this looks like the kind of thing we used to see
on the TV news, endless reports from the war-torn Middle East. But this is
somewhere in the Home Counties.

‘Remember
when we went camping a couple of years back and we stayed on that farm near all
the wind turbines?’

‘I
remember.’

‘This
is just down the road from there.’

His
silence speaks volumes.

This
next clip makes me go cold every time I see it. I must have watched it a
hundred times since I found it yesterday morning. It’s like something out of a
horror movie. It’s an abandoned factory, I think, a massive concrete space in
between a number of obviously derelict buildings, endless empty windows and
doors. It’s a morgue now, a disposal site. The entire space – and it must
be a hundred metres square – is filled with dead bodies in bags, all laid
out in lines. The camera operator is filming from on high. Smoke drifts, and
the cameraman shifts focus to find the source. There’s a bonfire. A fucking
huge bonfire with searing orange flames. The dirtiest black smoke I’ve ever
seen billows up. They change position and zoom in tight, the picture getting
shakier the closer they get, pixelating and going in and out of focus. And
then, in amongst the flames, there are faces. Fingers. Arms and legs. Hair
curling up and burning away. Skin being peeled. Black holes where eyes used to
be.

Nathan
doesn’t say anything. What’s left to say?

Final
recording.

‘This
is why we can’t go out, son. This is what it’s like out there now.’

The
centre of London in chaos, footage taken from a helicopter circling overhead.
Uncontrolled panic in the streets. A handful of soldiers try to maintain order,
but they’re fighting a losing battle. There are bodies everywhere, lives ended
without warning, people’s last moments spent in utter terror, face down in the
stinking gutters. Buildings burning, fire spreading. Some still run for cover,
but few reach their destinations. The entire world is dying.

And
throughout it all, snaking through the carnage, hunting out those frightened
few who remain somehow untouched, are the infected. Their movements are
chillingly alien: staccato and unpredictable, stop then start, watch then
attack. Unexpected jerks and sudden changes in direction, dead but for the germ
which drives them on.