Aftermath

54

The group was standing at the side of the road, sheltering under a tree and watching Michael and Kieran trying to get a dark blue Volkswagen van started. The wind whipped through the branches, giving them little protection and seeming to almost increase the ferocity of the rain, but they were past caring now. They were all soaked and numb with cold, every layer of clothing drenched.

The van refused to turn over.

“This is bloody stupid,” Howard moaned. “Give it up and try another car. Or let’s just keep walking. Anything but stand out here like this.”

Michael kicked the wheel of the Volkswagen with frustration.

“Howard’s right,” Lorna said. “We should keep moving. This isn’t helping anyone.”

Michael kicked the car again.

“How am I supposed to get back home when I can’t even get a bloody car started?”

Howard emerged from under the tree, covering his head with the map. He pointed farther down the road. “Look, there are some buildings up ahead. We could stop there for a while. Warm up. Get some food inside us. Try and dry out a little…”

Michael reluctantly accepted he was right. This wasn’t doing them any good. At least getting under cover for a short while would allow them to take stock and build up a little much needed energy for the final push toward Chadwick later today. Howard had checked the map just before they’d tried to get the van started, and had given them all the bad news that they’d probably covered less than half the distance they needed to. As desperate as Michael was to reach the port, the thought of walking as far again made his heart sink. And that was before they’d even thought about what they were going to do when they got there. No boat. No means of getting back to the island. No fucking point.

Michael was too tired and dejected to discuss the situation any farther. He looked down at the ground, irrationally angry both with himself and everybody else, doing all he could to avoid making eye contact with anyone. In the undergrowth just ahead of him was a skull. It was yellow-white, every trace of flesh worn away, and as he watched a large, well-gorged, glistening worm crawled out of one eye socket, then slithered down and disappeared into its gaping mouth, like something off the cover of the cheap horror novels he used to keep hidden under his bed when he was a kid. His mom used to try and stop him reading them, concerned that he was too young and that they were a bad influence. If only she could see him now. In comparison to the world he’d been living in since last September, nothing he’d ever read or seen in any horror film felt even remotely frightening anymore. Just behind the skull was another one, lying on its side. And ahead of that, an arm or a leg, he couldn’t immediately tell which. And there was the distinctive curved shape of a spine and a butterfly-like pelvis, then the upright parallel bones of a rib cage … the closer he looked, the more it seemed the entire world had become one vast, never-ending graveyard. Did he and the others even have any place here any more?

“Come on, mate,” Howard said, gripping his shoulder, trying to sound enthusiastic but failing miserably. “Not far now.”

* * *

The factory had produced car parts back in the day. There was a smattering of cars parked outside the gray, warehouse-like building, but none of the group had enough energy left to even think about trying to get any of them started. For now all they wanted was a little shelter and warmth. Getting inside was easy. Everyone here had died toward the end of the early shift, and the main doors were closed but unlocked.

They stood there together, dripping wet, in a small reception area. To their left a dead receptionist still sat at her desk, her skeletal face resting peacefully on her keyboard. Hollis pushed the door shut behind them, and as it closed it finally shut out the noise of the howling gale and driving rain outside. The silence was welcome, but short-lived.

“What’s that?” Caron asked, although she already knew full well what it was. There were noises coming from elsewhere in the building—the sounds of the dead. What remained of the early shift had been stirred up by the unexpected arrival of the living.

“What do we do?”

Michael looked at her. Stupid bloody question, he thought. “We get rid of them, I guess.”

He dumped most of his stuff by the reception desk—his sodden overcoat and a small bag of supplies he’d managed to loot along the way—and then walked deeper into the factory. Kieran and Harte followed close behind.

Before going through the main door which led out onto the factory floor, they came upon a small office. Harte looked inside and saw that it was empty. He beckoned for the other two to follow him. No doubt an office which had once belonged to a foreman or shift manager, it had a wide safety-glass window which afforded them a full view over the entire shop floor. The office itself was dark, but the rest of the factory was illuminated by the light which trickled in through dirty Perspex panes in the corrugated roof above.

“Fuck,” Kieran said under his breath.

There were numerous large machines and workbenches dotted all around the working area: lathes and presses and other less immediately recognizable things. On the ground around them were bodies, withered away, wrapped in raglike clothes which appeared several sizes too big. And then, from all sides, other corpses which could still move and which had been trapped in the factory since the very beginning, started to drag themselves toward the faces watching them from the office window. Michael felt like he was watching these creatures in some kind of bizarre zoo, as if they’d been held in captivity here. The three men were transfixed, unable to look away as the dead drew closer and closer. They behaved in much the same way they always had done, staggering awkwardly on legs powered by muscles which were now brittle and wasted away, occasionally lurching into the path of others and being pushed back. The farthest forward of them slammed up against the glass and began clawing it with numb, slow-moving fingers. And yet, for all the familiarity, there was something undeniably different about this encounter.

“Look at them, poor fuckers,” Harte said quietly. “I know we’ve had it bad, but they must have been going through hell, stuck here all this time.”

Kieran said nothing, but he knew that Harte was right. “All they want is for it to be over,” he said. “They’ve changed. They just want us to end it for them, don’t they?”

“I don’t think they’ve changed,” Michael said. “There’s nothing to say they haven’t been like this all along, they just couldn’t control themselves enough to show it. If anyone’s changed, it’s us.”

“What are you on about?” Harte sneered.

“It’s our attitude to them that’s different now. I’ve hated these things since day one and I’ve done all I could to get rid of as many of them as possible. And it makes me feel bad that all this time, all they wanted was to die.”

“So you helped them. Nothing to feel bad about. We had no way of knowing.”

“Suppose. Doesn’t make me feel any better, though.”

“Get a grip. You’re talking crap.”

“Maybe I am,” he said, looking at the mass of constantly shifting, horrifically disfigured creatures which crowded in front of the office window now, blocking out the light. They slid from side to side, covering the glass with stains of their decay. They each wore matching overalls, originally dark blue and marked with patches of gease and oil, now also covered in the remains of themselves. “They just came to work one day and never went home again,” he said under his breath. “They’re just people. Just people like us. We’ve all lost everything.”

Kieran left the office and went out onto the shop floor. The bodies around the window reacted, immediately trying to move closer toward him. Michael watched Kieran as he walked into a central area of relatively clear space and waited. One by one, those corpses which could still move gradually made their way toward him. And, one by one, he destroyed them.

* * *

Howard found a van in a dry shelter around the back of the building, half-loaded with car parts, ready for a delivery run which never happened. He carefully removed the driver—who had died half-in and half-out of his vehicle—then turned the key in the ignition, expecting nothing. When the engine burst into life he yelled out with delight, surprising even himself with the uninhibited volume of his voice after so many weeks of enforced silence. The beautiful mechanical sound had an immediate revitalising effect on the others.

“There’s still a few hours before dark,” Lorna said as they grouped around the van. “We could be at the port and away before long.”

No one replied. No one needed to. Within minutes they were ready to leave.