The Cost of Living (6 page)

I
lift the axe again and bring it down on the back of her head. It wedges into
her skull, splitting the bone like an egg, and this time I lose control. I whip
the facemask off and vomit everywhere, so much gunk flooding out of my body
that, for a few seconds at least, I’m confident nothing’ll get in.

Once
I’ve got the mask back on and the sweats have passed, I check the rest of the
houses, but I figure if no one’s come out to see what’s going on after I’ve
just hacked a woman down in the middle of the street, then there’s no one else
left here, alive or infected.

I
fetch some lighter fuel from home and set fire to the body. She’s still moving
as she burns.

I
leave everything – my clothes, the axe, the goggles and facemask –
in the back garden to be decontaminated later with bleach, and I go inside.

STUART

SUNDAY 14 JUNE – 10:03am

I’ve left it as
long as I can before going outside again, but it’s time. I’ve waited until I’m
sure my activities last week have gone unnoticed. I get Nathan out of bed and
tell him to get dressed. I knew he’d be like this: he’s been moaning non-stop
about wanting to go out but, now he’s about to leave the house, all the macho
bullshit has been dropped. He’s as scared as I am.

‘I’m
not happy about this,’ Gabby says as Nathan gets himself ready. ‘He’s just a
kid, Stuart.’

‘I’m
well aware of that. This needs two of us though.’

‘So
I’ll come out with you.’

‘Don’t
be ridiculous. We’ve been through this already. We can’t take the risk. What if
something happens while we’re out there? How would the kids survive on their
own?’

‘You’re
not making me feel any better.’

‘I’m
not trying to. Look, we’re not going to take any chances. We’ll roll a couple
of cars down the hill to block the road, then use stuff from the building site
to stop them getting through. An hour’s work, tops.’

I
can tell she’s not convinced, but when Nathan appears at the top of the stairs
she stops arguing. He needs this. I could probably do it on my own, but I want
him there as back up. It’ll help him get rid of some of that pent up anger and
frustration. Christ, I remember what I was like at his age – all those
hormones and attitude playing havoc with my head. And my life was easy compared
to his.

I
haven’t told either of them about the woman around the corner. What’s the
point? Gabby will get upset, Nathan will be scared... it’s only going to make
an already difficult situation that much harder still.

#

Ten minutes
later and we’re standing on the green at the front of the development, hiding behind
the trunk of one of the oaks like kids playing some kind of game. Except this
is far from a game. This is as far from a game as you can get. We’re both
trussed up: me in my decorating garb, Nathan in a boiler-suit with the wetsuit
we bought him for that diving break he went on last summer underneath. We’ve
both got our faces covered. I’ve got my axe, he’s got a baseball bat. We won’t
need to use them, I’ve told him, they’re just to make us feel better. We can
see everything from up here on the bank. And Christ, the world looks even worse
than when I last looked out.

The
road stretches away from the development. At first glance it’s like the view I
got that day from Clive and Christine’s bedroom window, but everything’s
covered with an additional layer of dirt and decay. As we’re watching, a single
infected walks into view. ‘Look at him,’ I say, nudging Nathan. ‘They look
pretty docile when they’re like that, don’t they?’

‘Pretty
what?’

‘Docile...
harmless.’

‘Suppose.’

‘Told
you it was bad, though, didn’t I?’

He
just nods, finding it hard to talk.

‘We
need to move fast and stay quiet while we’re out here, right? Don’t want them
finding out we’re here.’

‘Right.’

‘You
follow my lead, and you do exactly what I tell you.’

‘Right.’

‘We’re
going to block the entrance with cars from the development, okay? We’ll wheel
them down. I’ll push, you steer. Then once we’ve got a few of them in place,
we’ll use the machinery from the building site to bring pallets of bricks and
sand and whatever else we can find over here. Got it?’

‘Got
it.’

‘You
ready?’

‘Uh
huh.’

‘You’re
going to have to do better than that, Nath. I need you to be positive. I know
you’d probably rather be anywhere but here right now, but you have to be
focused and ready for anything. Understand?’

‘I’ve
got it.’

Even
though his eyes are hidden behind his goggles, I can see how scared he is. Even
up until last night he was giving it the
big I am
... telling me how
nothing was going to bother him, how he’d be the one looking after me when we
got out of the house. The wind’s been well and truly knocked out of his sails.

It
starts to spit with rain. The sky’s a heavy grey overhead, and it’s only going
to get worse. It’s like the clouds are giving up and falling, covering
everything in their murk. Uncollected litter blows along the streets like
leaves, an artificial, out of season autumn. There are bodies. Many bodies,
most in differing stages of decomposition, some lying together but most lying
alone. ‘Don’t look at them,’ I tell him, because I know he already is. ‘And
whatever you do, don’t touch anything. Not a bloody thing. If one of them comes
towards you, don’t do anything stupid. You don’t try and fight because you
can’t win... just get the hell away from it fast. You understand?’

‘I
understand.’

‘Good.
Let’s do it.’

There
are three cars parked near the first houses up the hill. I take a chance and
find the keys to two of them. I won’t risk starting the engine, but it’ll be
easier to do this if the steering lock is off. I get Nathan to sit in the
driver’s seat, make sure he knows what he’s doing and where to put the car,
then I lean in, take off the handbrake, then go around to the back and push.

And
it works. Beautifully.

The
car glides down the hill, picking up speed and running away from me, and he slots
it into position perfectly, blocking more than half the road. He gets out
carefully – quietly – like I told him, and runs back up.

We
do the same with the second car.

Third
time, with the width of the road fully blocked, he steers too hard and too
late, and instead of coming to a halt alongside the first two vehicles, he
ploughs nose first into the side of one of them. He gets out, keen to let me
know he’s okay. But it’s not him I’m worried about.

‘I’m
fine,’ he says as we meet near the bottom of the hill. I grab his arm and spin
him around to show him what I’ve seen. Infected. Only a handful of them, but we
both know one is too many.

‘I’m
going over to the building site,’ I tell him.

‘What
do you want me to do?’

‘Keep
out of the way. Stay at the top of the hill. You’ve done your bit, son.’

‘But,
Dad...’

‘But
nothing. Do as I say.’

He
doesn’t argue, he just turns and walks away, shoulders dropped and head down.

I
have to move fast now. The nearest edge of the part of the development that’s
still a building site is some fifty metres away. There’s a digger-like machine
with an extendable crane – I think it’s called a tele-handler or
something similar – that I’m going to use to finish the barricade. I
fetched the key from the site office earlier.

The
machine starts first time, a deep, belly-shaking grumble that’s more
intimidating than I expect. It’s not that the tele-handler’s too powerful, it’s
just so bloody loud. I used one of these at college once and it all comes back
to me quickly. I manage to pick up a pallet of bricks and get it down to where
the cars are, but I lose it as I’m trying to place it, and instead of laying it
on top of the first car we moved, I drop it.

The
noise is deafening.

When
I look up, the road on the other side of the blockade is filled with infected.

No
time to piss around. I drive back again and fetch another pallet, but by the
time I get it into place a couple of the infected are already trying to get
across. I manage to drop the bricks on one of them, and it’s sickening and
exciting in equal measure.

Third
and fourth loads go without a hitch. As I’m trying to manoeuvre the fifth
pallet, though, I see that two of the infected have managed to get through. I
jump out of the cab and grab my axe, then have to get out of the way fast when
a car comes rolling past. Nathan’s behind the wheel. Silly little fucker. I’ll
berate him later, though, because right now there’s more work to be done. More through
luck than judgement he’s managed to steer into the path of the infected
stragglers and has wiped them out. He gets out of the car and I grab his arm.
‘Don’t get anywhere near the blood, remember?’

He
pulls his arm away. ‘I know what I’m doing, Dad.’

‘We’ll
see about that.’

Back
to the tele-handler. I drop the bricks then turn around and head back for more.
Nathan’s already pushing another car down the hill, right over the grass this
time, not even bothering with the road. The steep slope works to our advantage
and the car picks up a huge amount of speed with minimal effort. I wait for it
to thump into the back of the others, then lower a massive bag of sand onto the
roof of one of the first cars we shifted.

There
are no other accessible cars on this side of our blockade, so I concentrate on
using the tele-handler to build things up, shoving the metal fork at the end of
the long hydraulic arm and lifting the end of different vehicles up to try and
flip them over. It works well, and with a few more minutes of noisy effort, the
barricade has been massively strengthened.

I
look around for Nathan. Can’t see him. Must be back on the hill.

I
reverse back, then drive forward again at speed, faster than this thing should
probably be driven. With the arm down I slam straight into the side of one of
the vehicles we moved, shunting it further into the others, but when I try to
reverse back out again, I’m stuck. I can drive the tele-handler away, but if I
do, I’m worried I’ll pull the blockade open and give the infected a way
through. I get out and run around to the front to try and release the arm.

Shit.

It’s
properly stuck here.

The
arm’s smashed through the side of the first car, but in doing so I’ve disturbed
another car on top, and that one has dropped down, trapping the arm good and
proper.

I
sense a flash of movement behind me. Must be Nathan. I spin around to ask him
to help, but it’s not him. It’s one of the infected. I try to run but I trip
and now I’m on my back, looking up. It’s on me before I can get up.

The
infected drops down onto my chest, surprising me more than hurting me, and I
instinctively grab its wrists but I know it’s not going to be enough. I try to
wrench its arms around so it can’t get its face close enough to infect me, but
it just keeps fighting. Its eyes are vacant... dead... no emotion, no sign of
life. It pulls its head back on its shoulders like it’s going to butt me, and
when it throws its neck forward all I can do is roll over to one side. I feel
– but I don’t see – its face smack into the ground with a soft, wet
thud. And straightaway it’s up again! Fucking thing is up again... blood and
broken teeth mixing with the deadly drool flooding from its mouth. And I can
see another figure close behind now, with more of them getting even closer...
what have I done?

The
infected bastard on top of me lifts what’s left of its head again, ready to
strike—

—and
a swipe from a baseball bat virtually decapitates it.

There’s
germ-filled blood everywhere. My suit is covered and I start to panic but the gaffer
tape seals have held.

And
it takes me a couple of seconds to realise I’m no longer under attack. The few
infected close enough to be a problem have been hacked down. Is there someone
else here? Another survivor like us? I get up and look around and see Nathan
swinging his baseball bat wildly. There are several fallen infected around his
feet. Can’t tell how many, it’s just a tangled mass of body parts, broken limbs
overlapping.

What
the hell does he think he’s doing?

‘I
told you to stay out of the way,’ I shout at him, grabbing his shoulder and
spinning him around. He lifts the baseball bat again, thinking that I’m another
one of them.

‘You’d
be dead if I’d done what you told me.’

No
time to argue – there’ll be plenty of that when we get back to the house.
For now we need to just finish the job we came out here to do. The few infected
that made it over the mass of cars and building materials have been dealt with.
It seems that even though I got it stuck, I blocked the flow with the
tele-handler after all.

I
grab Nathan’s arm and drag him back up onto the green. I turn around to get a
better view, and immediately wish I hadn’t. There are huge crowds coming our
way.

‘Why
so many, Dad?’

‘Because
there’s nothing else. No one else out there. I think we’re all that’s left
now.’

We
stand and watch as the diseased crowd on the other side of the blockade grows.
And I can hear them now. I hadn’t noticed it before, but they all moan. It’s a
horrible, sad noise – it sounds like the last gasp of the people they used
to be, trying to escape. Individually it’s nothing, but the more of them there
are, the louder it’ll get. It’s a ghastly, unnatural noise, and it fills the
air.

‘They’re
calling to the others,’ Nathan says, and I just look at him.

‘Bollocks.’