Autumn

Chapter 2

Noah led the remains of the group along the silent M25. He estimated they had about six miles still to walk to get to Brentwood, and whilst he covered that distance each morning in half an hour, safe in his warm motor, they were resigned to a slog through rusting traffic and rotted muck. Close to London, this part of the motorway network had been heavily congested during the morning rush hour grind on the day the world ended. In places it was hard to find a way through the wreckage on foot. There were signs that Piotr and his cronies had managed to get vehicles through, but they’d had fewer people to worry about and had no doubt blitzed through without a care. Sam knew that, for now, this group needed to take it slow and steady. He hoped they’d find the amount of devastation reduced the further they got from the centre of the capital. If things stayed like this, he thought, they’d struggle to get far. At least one thing had gone in their favour. ‘You were right about the number of bodies up here,’ he said to Noah.

‘I’m right about a lot of things. People should listen to me more often.’

‘Who? We listened, didn’t we?’

‘Yeah, but look how many of your lot didn’t. That frigging i***t Piotr didn’t, neither.’ Noah kept his voice to little more than a whisper, conditioned by weeks of living alongside the dead. ‘I was doing alright until that dumb bastard turned up. I mean, it weren’t the height of luxury or nothing, and I had more than my fair share of scrapes, but I was getting by.’

‘Piotr has a habit of f*****g things up for everyone.’

‘I get that impression. I heard plenty from Allison and Mihai. They’re not fans, believe me.’

Sam looked back at the rest of the group behind him. Every time he turned around, they seemed to be more spread out. He was worried they’d start leaving people behind at this rate. They were walking in almost complete silence, bunched up in twos and threes or alone, heads down, shuffling slowly...

Christ. Are we the zombies now?

He stopped and waited for the others to catch up.

Vicky was dropping further and further down the line, almost at the back now, unable to keep up despite their relatively slow speed. Selena and Ruth walked alongside her, but her regular walking partner was nowhere to be seen. ‘Where’s Gary?’ she asked. ‘He’s the only one who can match my pathetic pace.’

Ruth took her arm. ‘He stayed behind, love. He told me he was sick of slowing us down. He promised they’d follow later.’

Vicky shook her head. ‘We both know that’s not happening. He knew it too.’

Omar was behind them. ‘Gary’s gone?’

‘Sorry, love. I thought you knew. I knew you two had a bit of a bond.’

‘I knew him from before, that was all.’

Omar nonchalantly wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, trying to hide that he was crying, but serving only to draw attention to the fact.

‘He told me you used to get on his nerves,’ Vicky said. ‘He told me he couldn’t believe it when you first turned up with Sam.’

‘Whatever.’

‘He also said he thought you’d done well, though. He said you’d surprised him, considering you used to be an irritating little shite.’

‘He said all that?’

‘On the boat this morning, actually.’

Omar said nothing but sped up again, uncomfortable having his emotions on show.

Mid-afternoon. The winter daylight was already fading. Sam and David were waiting in a bubble of space formed between several different high-speed crashes. ‘I can’t keep going at this pace,’ Vicky said, the last to catch up.

‘Looks like we’ve got a way to go yet,’ Sam said unhelpfully.

‘We can do it in bursts,’ David suggested. ‘A mile or so at a time. Reckon you can cope with that?’

‘Maybe,’ Vicky said.

‘We’ll stop between walks. Find some food and shelter.’

‘On the M25?’ Ruth said, aghast. ‘How’s that going to work exactly?’

David gestured towards the inner lane where many of the crashed vehicles were clearly commercial. ‘There’s a Sainsbury’s truck; might be something in there. We can use trucks like that for shelter, as long as we keep a look-out and don’t hang around too long.’

Sam approached a tall-sided vehicle that straddled the hard shoulder, its nose buried in the embankment. The sides of the lorry were slatted. He peered in and wished she hadn’t. Livestock, a misnomer. It was impossible to be sure what kind of animals the truck had been transporting, but they’d died cooped up. He imagined the horror of their frightened death throes; had they taken to eating each other? Joanne checked he was okay. ‘Just when you think you’ve seen it all, there’s something like this waiting for you around the next corner.’

‘Makes you realise how much we’ve lost,’ she said. ‘There’s absolutely nothing that’s escaped this.’

A little further down the road, Chapman forced open the door of an empty trailer that was on lying its side. He herded everyone inside. Ruth, Orla, and Liz cleared out the contents of the supermarket delivery van they’d seen and shared the food around.

‘We stop for an hour,’ David announced, ‘long enough to get our breath and our bearings. We need to keep moving. Keep looking forward, don’t look back.’

#

A routine was quickly established: walk a mile or two in silence, pause and regroup, then repeat. Georgie kept herself busy each time they stopped, checking and double-checking who was here and who hadn’t made it, noting names. They were about a mile and a half out of Brentwood now, ready for the final push.

They came upon an empty coach. After Sanjay tussled with the husk of its long dead driver who, even now, appeared loath to surrender his post, people climbed onboard and sank into relatively comfortable seats.

David stood at the door and looked along the length of the coach. It looked like a very large group - people were sitting on top of each other, and there were folks in the aisles and sitting on the steps - but it was an illusion. There was just about room for everyone who was left; the truth was, there wouldn’t have been, just earlier that morning. They’d lost so many today.

Georgie did a headcount. ‘I might as well give up with this. It’s pointless now.’

‘Don’t,’ David said. ‘Please. Your records are important. It’s the only way we have of keeping track of who we’ve got and what they’re capable of.’

‘And who and what we’ve lost. I just don’t know if I’ve got it in me anymore, Dave. It hurts too much. When this all started,’ she held up her worn notebook, ‘people were continually arriving at the Monument. I kept myself crazy busy keeping everything up to date; felt like a real purpose, an important step to rebuilding. Now all I’m doing is crossing out the names of those who’ve gone. I’m sick of it.’

‘How many of us are there?’

Georgie swallowed hard. ‘Seventy-six.’

The numbers were sobering, confirmation of David’s worst fears. It took a moment before he could respond. ‘So we left around a hundred and fifty behind at Lakeside?’

‘No, around a hundred and fifty people chose to stay behind,’ Chapman said quickly, correcting David. ‘There’s a difference.’

‘You think? Looks the same from where I’m standing. I should have done more to get them to leave.’

Chapman shook his head. ‘No, absolutely not. I know it’s s**t, but they all did what they did for a reason. None of it was your fault.’

‘I don’t buy that.’

‘And I don’t care, mate. You take too much on yourself. If we hadn’t left when we did, we’d have lost a lot more. We might have all died.’

Georgie agreed. ‘And most of them wouldn’t have made it this far even if you had forced them to leave. We’d never have got away.’

‘She’s right,’ Chapman said. ‘Stay positive.’

‘Stay positive?’ David repeated, incredulous.

‘Yes. People take their lead from you, Dave.’

‘I don’t want the pressure.’

‘Tough s**t, you’ve got it.’

‘You’re like the group dad,’ Georgie said.

‘Is that supposed to be a compliment?’

‘Why, yes, actually.’

Sam and Noah shuffled down the coach to where David and the others were talking. ‘We need to decide where we’re going when we get into Brentwood.’

‘Any suggestions?’ David asked.

‘There’s a decommissioned nuclear bunker,’ Noah said.

Chapman scoffed. ‘You think I’m sealing myself underground in the dark? No frigging way. Any alternatives?’

‘There was a TA base not far from my place. How about that?’

‘TA?’ Georgie asked.

‘Territorial Army. Reservists. It’s well outside the centre of town, off the beaten track, strong fence around it. Maybe we should try there? Assuming they didn’t leave the gates wide open, it’s almost certainly going to be secure.’