Autumn: The Human Condition (14 page)

Before going down Dean returned to his bedroom and stared at his mother's body outside again. Why hadn't she moved? What was wrong with her? He decided that he'd go out and see her in a few minutes, once he'd had some breakfast. He didn't much feel like eating but his stomach was rumbling and he knew he'd have to eat something soon. He hadn't eaten much yesterday and he hadn't had anything hot to eat since dinner the night before. He couldn't ever remember feeling so hungry.

Down in the kitchen he fetched himself some cereal with warm milk (the fridge wasn't as cold as it usually was), some bread and a few biscuits. He couldn't find anything else. He didn't know how to use the oven and he couldn't get the kettle, the microwave or the toaster to work. Mum had shown him how to make a pizza in the microwave before now. He decided he wouldn't use any of the food from the freezer. Everything in there was warm and wet and the ice had melted leaving a puddle of water in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Dean put on his school coat and, clutching his food and a half-full bottle of lemonade, walked out of the front door and made his way over to where his mum still lay. All day he sat on the pavement next to her. He didn't know what else to do. He didn't feel safe anywhere else. During the course of the day he tried again to drag her back closer to home. He managed to move her a couple more meters, almost to the edge of their drive, but that was all. As the darkness drew closer again he stumbled dejectedly back indoors.

I couldn't help it. I didn't mean to do it, it just happened. Mum's going to be mad at me.

I'd been sitting outside with her for ages and it started to get dark again so I came back in. I'd been thinking about using my torch under the covers to read or trying to get the telly to work but when I got inside the house was all dark and quiet and empty again and I got really scared. I could hear loads of noises and I knew what they all were but they still scared me. There was dripping water coming from the freezer in the kitchen and I could hear the blind at the window in Mum and Dad's room being blown by the wind. It kept hitting the window and making a tapping noise. And every so often the wind made the letter box in the front door flap. Mum's been nagging at Dad for ages to get it fixed. It sounded like someone coming to the house and, the first few times, I ran to the door because I thought it was going to be Mum or Dad. I got upset when there was no-one there.

I didn't want to go upstairs. I wanted to hide away out of sight so I crawled under the dining room table. I only came out a couple of times, first to get some more food from the kitchen and then to try and find my torch. I got myself another packet of crisps and the last bar of chocolate from the cupboard. I wanted some bread and butter but I must have left the bread open because it had gone all hard and it tasted horrible. All of the lemonade and cans of Coke had gone. I had to drink orange juice straight from the bottle because there wasn't any water to make it properly with. It made me feel a bit sick but I was really thirsty so I kept drinking it.

It didn't feel like home anymore. Everything felt different and strange without Mum and Dad and it seemed to be getting colder and colder. I didn't want to go upstairs so I put my coat back on and my dirty school jumper that I'd thrown downstairs that morning for Mum to wash. Thinking about Mum and Dad made me upset again. I was starting to think I was never going to see Dad again and that he wasn't coming home. I was glad I'd missed two days of school but I would have rather gone there and have everything back how it used to be.

I've made a real mess in here. They're going to be mad at me. The dark frightens me so I tried to light the big yellow candle that Mum keeps on the sideboard. I took it under the table with me and used a match from the box out of the kitchen. Anyway I lit the candle and I must have had it too close to the tablecloth because it started to burn. It burned really, really quickly. I crawled out from under the table and used the bottle of orange juice to put out the fire. I tried to pull the tablecloth off. I didn't know that there were plates and things on the table. I pulled it and they fell on the carpet and most of them smashed. That made me upset again because the noise made me jump and because I knew that Mum would be cross that I'd broken her plates. She always got cross if I broke a plate or a dish or a cup. I didn't want to move because was scared I might cut myself on some of the broken pieces.

I think I fell asleep soon after that. When I woke up I was wet. I thought it was just orange juice at first but then I realised it was all over my trousers and all over the floor and I knew that I'd wet myself. I haven't wet myself since I was four. It was all over the carpet and I tried to clean it up with the burnt tablecloth but all that did was make things worse. My trousers were soaked so I took them off. I didn't want to go upstairs so I put my coat over the top of me and tried to keep warm but I couldn't stop shivering.

Exhausted and suffering from shock and mild exposure, Dean slept intermittently for a further few hours. The morning finally arrived, bringing with it some welcome light and warmth. Tired and aching, he crawled back upstairs and got himself dressed in some clean clothes. He smelled from the accident he'd had in the night but he couldn't wash because he couldn't get any water to come out of the taps. He used some of Dad's deodorant spray to try and cover up the smell.

Dean was finding it harder and harder to come upstairs on his own. Dad had recently decorated the spare room ready as a nursery ready for the birth of Dean's baby brother. He'd painted teddy bears and cartoon characters on the walls. When Dean walked past the open door of the room he felt like their eyes were moving, watching him as he crept around the house.

While Dean was up in his bedroom getting changed he noticed that his mum had gone. For a second he was excited and relieved and he ran back downstairs to find her, expecting that she'd be back inside, cleaning up the mess in the kitchen or sitting on the sofa waiting for him. When he discovered that she wasn't there he slumped down at the bottom of the stairs and began to sob. Where had she gone? Why had she gone? Why had she left him and why hadn't she come back to the house? The pain of this sudden, unexpected rejection was in many ways worse than the unexplained loss and confusion he'd been trying to deal with for the last two days.

He had to go and find her.

Dean grabbed his coat from where he'd left it at the bottom of the banister and put on his trainers. He filled his school bag with all the food he could find in the kitchen, swung it onto his back and stepped out into the open. He shut the door behind him, locked it (he was pretty sure he'd done it properly) and then put Mum's keys in his trouser pocket.

She hadn't taken her bag. Strange that she'd left it there in the middle of the street. And her phone too.

He picked up the phone and held it tightly in his hand. He picked up the bag too but then stopped and put it down again at the end of the road because it was quite big and heavy and because he didn't think there was anything that important in it. Mum always carried her purse and her money in her coat pocket because it was safer. Dean tucked the bag out of sight at the end of someone's drive.

Where was she? Where would she have gone?

Strange that there were other people moving around now. Strange that none of them seemed to respond, even when he got up close to them. Strange that all their faces looked so cold and empty and that none of them answered when he asked them for help.

I remembered the way to Dad's work because Mum took me there on the bus loads of times when we went to meet him in the holidays. I thought I'd try and walk there even though I knew it was quite a long way.

I'm going to go and find Dad and then the two of us will go and find Mum.

DAY FIVE AMY STEADMAN Part iii

A further two days have passed since Amy Steadman's corpse began to move. It is now five days since first infection and death.

Amy's body has continued to move constantly around its immediate surroundings. Until now its movements have been automatic and spontaneous and any changes to direction have occurred purely as a result of the corpse reaching a physical obstruction and being unable to keep moving forward. The corpse is little more than an empty collection of bones, rotting tissue and dead flesh. At this stage it does not have any conscious control or decision making capabilities. The body moves until it is stopped and then alters direction and continues to move again.

Although animated, the cadaver remains otherwise lifeless and oblivious to its surroundings. It is ignorant to its physical limitations. The body is continuing to decay and the lack of a functioning circulatory system is beginning to cause movement problems. Gravity has steadily pulled the body's internal contents downwards. Blood has swollen its already clumsy hands and feet. It's bowels are slowly and involuntarily evacuating. The face, already tinged with the blue-green hue of decay, is otherwise drained of colour.

Until now the body's nervous system has been operating at a massively reduced level, and the corpse is oblivious to changes in its surroundings such as temperature, humidity and light levels. Several hours ago its clothing became snagged and torn after becoming entangled with the wheel of an upturned shopping trolley. The body's once smart black skirt is now just a rag wrapped around its right foot. It has also lost one of its shoes which causes its awkward gait to become even more clumsy and unsteady.

The corpse does not respire, nor does it have any need to eat or drink or seek shelter or protection. There is, however, still some activity in the centre of the brain which facilitates some basic functionality. The eyes and ears operate at a massively reduced level. It can see and hear, although it is presently unable to interpret and understand the information it absorbs. As the rest of the body continues to deteriorate, however, the part of the brain least affected by the infection is beginning to re-establish itself, albeit at a desperately slow rate.

Less than three hundred meters away from the corpse's present location the front of another building has collapsed. Initially damaged by a truck which plunged off an elevated section of road when its driver became infected, the weakened structure has now crumbled and caved in on itself, producing huge amounts of dust and substantial vibrations and noise. Amy Steadman's body, although not understanding what the disturbance is, has instinctively altered direction and is beginning to move towards it.

It is just before eight o'clock in the morning and the building where Amy died has now been in almost total darkness for more than twelve hours. With no electricity, almost all of the visible light comes from the windows in and around the main entrance doors which the body is now moving towards. It does not realise that this is an exit, but it gravitates towards the doors because of the comparative level of brightness there and also the fact that the sound and vibrations from the building collapse emanated from that general direction. Three of the four main doors are blocked. Still drawn to the brightness outside, instead of turning and moving away when it reaches the glass, Amy's body now shuffles clumsily from side to side until it finally reaches the single open door and trips outside.

The body is ignorant to the sudden change in its surroundings. It is noticeably cooler outside and it has been raining steadily for the last two hours. A strong westerly wind is gusting across the front of the building that the corpse has just emerged from, and the sudden strength of the wind is sufficient to knock the comparatively weak body off course. The cloud of dust which was thrown up by the collapse of the second building is steadily being washed down by the rain, causing the entire scene to become covered in a light layer of grey dirt and mud. The noise and vibrations have faded now and there remains no noticeable indication of the previous disturbance. Without any obvious visual or auditory distractions, Amy Steadman's corpse begins to move randomly again, shuffling slowly forward until it can go no further and then turning and moving away.

Several hours have now passed.

The corpse has now moved more than half a mile from the building where it was infected and killed. It has continued to make constant but slow and directionless progress. Its dulled eyes have gradually become accustomed to the light levels outdoors. Additionally the rain has now stopped and the scene has brightened. Previously only able to see clear, obvious movements and stark differences in light levels, the sodden corpse is now able to distinguish a finer level of detail and is aware of more subtle changes around its immediate vicinity. There are other bodies nearby. Amy's cadaver is now able to see their movements from a distance of around ten meters away.

As a result of the immense devastation caused by the infection, the ground outside is littered with debris and human remains. The streets are uneven and the corpse frequently loses its footing and falls, its slow reactions preventing it from taking any corrective action until it is too late. As the day has progressed, however, the body has been able to move with slightly more freedom and control.

The environment through which the body is now moving is largely silent. It has reached a wide and straight road which leads out of town and it has been moving along this road in the same general direction for some time. There are numerous crashed cars and other vehicles nearby. Just ahead, straddling half of the width of the carriageway, is a family-sized estate car containing three corpses. In the back is a dead child, in the front passenger seat its dead mother. The third corpse � that of an overweight man in his late thirties � moves continually but is restrained and held in place by its safety belt. In the boot of the car, trapped behind a protective wire-mesh grille, is a dog. It has no means of escape and is becoming increasingly angry and scared. For some time the hungry and confused animal has been quiet but the movement from the body in the front of the car and the close proximity of another random corpse outside has suddenly excited it again. It has begun to bark and howl and its cries can be heard from a considerable distance away.