Autumn: The Human Condition (15 page)

Half an hour and already three more bodies have reached the car. Attracted by the animal's noise they crowd around it, leaning heavily against its windows and occasionally banging their numb, clumsy fists against the glass. Their appearance and actions cause the dog to become even more agitated. Amy Steadman's corpse has now become aware of the noise and is moving towards it. It reaches the car and joins the group of cadavers. This section of road is relatively remote. Nevertheless, in the absence of any other constant and distinguishable sounds, just over an hour later and the dog in the car has been surrounded by another seventeen corpses.

By next morning Amy Steadman's corpse is one of a crowd of almost two hundred bodies gravitating around the car.

DUCK AND COVER

Counsellor Ray Cox never wanted this level of responsibility. He'd wanted the title `counsellor' for the social status and financial implications, not for any other reason. Overpaid and underworked, he had sat in the shadows at the back of the council chambers for several years and had tried his best not to be noticed, except when it was unavoidable or in his interest to be seen. It was a sad indication of the apathy amongst his constituents that he had been elected and then re-elected without actually ever having done very much for them at all. It had been different to begin with, of course. Back then in the early days he'd wanted to make an impression. He'd wanted to be somebody. But the novelty of office had quickly worn off and the reality of the job set in. Cox's priorities had changed and his prime concerns became lining his own pockets and claiming back as much food, entertainment, drink and travel costs in expenses as he possibly could. The good of the community had been long forgotten � never completely ignored, but often conveniently overlooked and put to one side. In the space of a single devastating and unimaginable day, however, everything in Cox's world had been turned on its head.

Working with the council leaders had stood Cox in good stead, both personally and on a business level. When he'd made a few very public mistakes (a couple of years ago now) and had got himself mixed up in an ill-considered and wholly inappropriate business deal, his friends in high places had looked after him. They found him a quiet and modest little office at the far end of a particularly long corridor and gave him responsibility for the borough's tennis courts and football pitches and various other public amenities which tended on the whole to pretty much look after themselves. They made sure that there were enough of their people working with him and around him to make sure he made the right decisions and to keep him out of trouble. All things considered, Cox was happy with the arrangement.

Full council meetings were, at the very best of times, long, drawn out and tedious affairs which frequently degenerated into huge, overblown debates about the most trivial of issues. He'd sat there for hour upon hour before now listening to the arguments for and against such issues as the politically-correct renaming of school `blackboards' to `chalkboards' and whether or not the frayed and threadbare chairs in the council chambers should be reupholstered with dark blue or light purple material. Cox switched off whilst these pointless debates raged, writing them off as a total waste of time without even bothering to listen. He never contributed to the discussions and he found it hard to hide his disinterest. He'd always felt the same about the Emergency Planning Committee too although, of course, he'd pricked up his ears and listened intently when they'd explained what the counsellors should do in the event of an emergency. He'd even found a reason to go down and check out the bunker on more than one occasion. The committee � or EPC as they were known � were the butt of many private jokes and whispers. A group of fairly senior council members who regularly got together to assemble and maintain detailed plans to coordinate and run the Borough should the unthinkable ever happen. Well now it had.

Cox had been one of those counsellors who'd thought the EPC an unnecessary and over the top waste of time and money. He just couldn't see the point in it. The council did a pretty bloody poor job of running things at the best of times, how the hell would it cope in the event of a nuclear or chemical attack or similar? And anyway, the cold war was over and, despite the increased number of terrorist threats and attacks that had taken place around the world recently, such an event seemed less likely than ever, certainly here in Taychester anyway. Listening to the committee members discussing the rationing of food, decontamination of the population, the disposal of mass fatalities and the like had seemed pointless and not a little surreal. If the world did come to an end, he thought, then the population would be buggered whatever happened, and no amount of council diplomacy and planning would help. Whenever he thought about the subject he couldn't help remembering an old American public information film he'd seen recently on TV. `Duck and Cover' he thought it was called. In the film a cartoon turtle walked happily though a cartoon forest, only to hide away and cower safely in its shell when a nearby cartoon atomic bomb exploded. What was the point of telling school children to get under their desks in the event of a nuclear strike? As far as Cox was aware very few materials had been discovered that could withstand the pressure, heat and after-effects of a thermonuclear explosion. And he was pretty sure that even if such a material did exist, it wouldn't be the flimsy wood that the desks the children of Taychester sat behind at school were made from. Even if they managed to survive the blast, what was the point? What would be left? Cox believed it would be better not to survive and `Duck and Cover' was an absolute bloody joke as far as he was concerned, as was the Taychester Borough Council EPC and its underground bunker. If it ever did happen, he had long since decided, he wanted to be stood underneath the very first bomb. He didn't particularly want to be around to pick up the pieces afterwards. There'd be one hell of a mess for the council to sort out...

Well now it had happened. Not as he'd ever expected or imagined, but suddenly, from out of nowhere yesterday morning, the end of the world seemed to have arrived. Sitting alone underground in the semi-darkness he struggled to comprehend what had happened around him. He wasn't sure what had taken place on the surface above, but from the little he'd seen it was already clear that it had been an event of unprecedented scale and devastation. It was Wednesday now � more than a day since it had happened � and still he couldn't even begin to come to terms with what he'd witnessed.

Tuesday had begun normally enough. After taking a cup of tea up to his wife Marcia and waking her gently he'd left home at the usual time and had driven across town to the council house. He'd driven down the ramp into the car park below the main building and it was there that the nightmare had begun. He was reversing into his usual space when he caught sight of movement on the ground behind him in his wing mirror. Thomas Jones, one of the finance directors, had collapsed at the side of his car. Cox jumped out and ran round to help the other man but he hadn't been able to do anything for him. He seemed to be suffocating or choking on something. He looked around for help but there was no-one nearby. Cox ran back up the ramp towards the security guard's hut only to find another three people along the way who were suffering in the same way Jones had been. They were writhing and squirming in agony on the dirty concrete floor. Potts, the regular morning car park security guard, was in a similar state also, helplessly thrashing around on the floor of his little square fibreglass hut.

Cox had started to panic. More terrifying than the fact that at least five people around him appeared to have suddenly been attacked by something that he couldn't see or hear, he realised that it might be about to get him too. He continued to run. When he staggered back out into the open and looked across the civic square, however, he stopped and his legs buckled underneath him with nervous fear. It was happening everywhere. For as far as he could see in every direction people were dropping to the ground, unable to breathe, grabbing and clawing desperately at their burning throats. He had to do something. He couldn't help them. The only remaining option was to help himself. Instinctively he turned and ran back underground. Moving faster than he had done for years he forced his unfit and overweight body to keep moving. Level G, Level 1A, past his car on Level 1B and then down to Level 2. There it was, right at the far end of Level 2, a single, inconspicuous grey metal door � the entrance to the council's emergency bunker. He pushed himself towards it, his lungs about to burst but the fear that the invisible killer might be closing in on him kept him moving forward. A figure lurched out of the shadows to his right and stumbled into his path, arms outstretched, desperate for help. Without thinking he grabbed the body and dragged it along with him. He smashed into the bunker door, yanked it open, forced himself and the body inside and then turned back to seal the shelter. He couldn't see anyone else nearby. The Emergency Planning Committee, he decided, were probably already dead. Cox slammed the door shut and sealed and locked it behind him.

The body on the ground was convulsing. Inside the bunker was dark and the only illumination came from dusty yellow emergency lights hanging from the low ceiling. Cox crouched down at the side of the helpless figure and looked it up and down, not knowing how to help or even where to start. Before he could do anything its arms and legs went into a sudden flurry of quick spasms � a fit or a seizure � and then it lay ominously still. His eyes now becoming used to the low light, Cox looked around and took a torch down from a rack on the wall above him. He shined the light into the face of the person now lying motionless at his side. No reaction. The young woman was obviously dead. Her wide, blue eyes stared desperately up into space, as if searching for an explanation as to her sudden demise. Her pale white skin was speckled with spots of dark, crimson blood. Cox wept with fear as he tried to wipe the blood away and as he shook her shoulder to try and get her to move. He had seen the girl around before. He knew that she worked in Payroll (their offices were not far from his own) but he'd never had anything to do with her. The name on her ID card was Shelly Bright. Much as he'd genuinely wanted to help her, Cox wished that she wasn't there. He wished he'd left her outside.

Adrenaline and pure fear kept Cox moving uncharacteristically quickly for the next couple of hours. Like most council members he had a very basic knowledge of what was housed in the bunker and how the generator, lights and air conditioning and filtering systems worked. Relatively basic and foolproof instruction manuals had been left by each piece of machinery and, to his immense relief, he was able to get the bunker operational in a fairly short period of time. It was a dark, depressing place which had been stocked with basic supplies but nothing much of any substance. The EPC had considered it increasingly unlikely that the bunker would ever need to be used as the regional command centre it had originally been designed for. Much of it had been decommissioned over the last decade with just an essential core being preserved. There was sufficient food and water down there to keep a small group alive for a couple of days, perhaps even a week. Alone and preoccupied as usual with thoughts of his own survival, Cox estimated that if he was careful there would probably be enough stored underground to keep him alive for almost a month.

It was a short time later, when the initial shock of the bizarre morning's terrifying events had begun to fade, that Cox truly began to appreciate the potential enormity of what had happened around him. Shelly Bright was dead and so, he assumed, was everyone else that had been affected. Of course he had no way of knowing how widespread this attack or whatever it was had been, but the fact that no-one else had yet tried to gain access to the bunker meant that vast numbers of people in the immediate area had probably been struck down. But surely he couldn't have been the only one who had survived? In an unforgivably selfish moment he found himself hoping that he was. Because, he realised ominously, if the rest of the council were dead, by default he was now in charge of the borough of Taychester! Cox had never wanted this level of responsibility. It wasn't what he'd become a council member for. He didn't dare move. He couldn't risk going back out there. Suddenly `Duck and Cover' seemed like sound advice.

Cox sat alone in the cold, echoing emptiness of the bunker and waited.

Cox rapidly grew to hate the body of Shelly Bright. It frightened him. He couldn't bring himself to touch it or move it. He didn't want to look at it but at the same time he was also too scared to look away. What if she moved when he wasn't looking? What if she wasn't dead? He hated the pained expression on her frozen face. He'd once thought her attractive (Cox found any woman under the age of forty attractive) but her smooth skin and soft, delicate features had been stretched and contorted by the pain of her sudden suffocation and demise. In the wavering dull yellow light the shadows seemed to shift and her expression seemed continually to change. He knew she hadn't moved, but she now seemed to be grinning at him. A second later she was sneering, then smiling, then snarling... He wanted to close her eyes and shut her out but he was too scared not to look. Eventually, in a moment of uncharacteristic strength and conviction, he covered the corpse with a heavy grey fire blanket.

The long day dragged endlessly and Cox's mind span constantly � filled with a thousand and one unanswerable questions and, it seemed, a similar number of nightmarish images and split second recollections of everything he'd seen. An inherently selfish man who had been conditioned by years of nine-to-five working, it was only as six o'clock in the evening � dinnertime � approached that he began to think about his wife. Was she safe? Should he leave the bunker and go and find her? He already hated being underground but he knew that he didn't dare leave. He'd had a lucky escape this morning. If he went outside now, whatever had killed everyone else would surely come for him. He knew that he had no choice but to sit and wait.