Autumn - Inferno

2

2THE BATTLE OF WAPPING

They may have looked like an army as they marched along Tower Hill together, but most of them felt woefully underprepared. David Shires was near the back, cursing himself for volunteering but knowing he’d had no alternative. It just wasn’t in his nature to sit back and let others take the risks on his behalf. Also, he’d wanted to see for himself how bad things were out there. But now his nerves were clanging, and he wished he could trade places with someone who’d stayed behind. He was a reluctant combatant at the best of times, and today was far from the best of times. They came to a halt a short distance from the junction of East Smithfield and The Highway. David was sandwiched between Gary Welch on one side and Sanjay on the other, bracing himself against the crisp, icy-cold wind of the dry, mid-November morning. He didn’t think he’d ever felt more out of place in his life.

‘You’re shivering,’ Gary Welch said. ‘Nerves or cold?’

‘Both. You?’

‘Shitting bricks. I don’t know about you, Dave, but when I come up against those dead fuckers and I’m not expecting it, I can cope. It’s the anticipation that gets to me, all this waiting around. Puts the fear of god into me, it really does.’

‘I’m the same,’ Sanjay said. ‘It amplifies the nerves, makes everything feel a thousand times worse. Reacting is one thing, thinking about how you’re going to have to react is something else altogether.’

‘Still, we’ll let that lot take the brunt of it, eh? They’re the pros, apparently.’ Gary gestured towards the large pack of fighters ahead of them, closer to the frontline. Some of them appeared disturbingly keen, chomping at the bit to release weeks of pent-up tension by battering the dead. There was nothing professional about them; many of them just looked the part because they’d taken the initiative and helped themselves to armour and weapons from the relics on display in the Tower of London.

‘They’ve definitely got the kit for it,’ David said, looking down at his own gear. His makeshift protection had been fashioned from reclaimed scrap metal, fastened in position with wire and rope. Gary was wearing a breastplate cut from the bonnet of a green Toyota, held in place by gaffer tape wrapped around the arms of his jacket. Most people wore PPE; everyone was ordered to wear at least one item of fluorescent clothing to distinguish themselves from the decrepit masses they were about to wade into. Some people had hardhats taken from the corpses they’d found near construction sites, but most were going into battle wearing only goggles or safety glasses and facemasks to protect them from the inevitable noxious splashbacks. They were armed with crude but effective weapons. David had a metal railing from a fence, sharpened to a point; Sanjay carried a claw hammer in one hand and a dustbin lid shield in the other.

‘You wouldn’t think it, looking at me now,’ Gary said, ‘but I used to do a lot of running, back in the day. Three London Marathons, I did.’

David was impressed. ‘I watched it on TV, and that was tiring enough. So, what are you saying? You going to make a run for it?’

He laughed. ‘Not at all. I was just gonna say that I feel like I used to on the start line, waiting for the off. Frigging horrible, it was. No matter how much training you’d done, you never felt ready. You knew you had hours of pain ahead of you.’

‘And that’s what you think we’ve got coming?’

‘No, mate, not hours. We’ve got days of pain ahead. Weeks. Months, even. The races I used to do had a finish line, but I can’t see where this one ends.’

Sanjay butted in. ‘And in marathons you didn’t have thousands of people coming the other way, all trying to kill you.’

‘Correct. Anyway, all I’m saying is that once that barrier’s opened, this is gonna hurt.’

‘Great. You’re a real inspiration, Gary,’ David grumbled.

‘I aim to please.’

Marie Hannish, who worked in PR before the world had fallen apart, was standing on the other side of Gary, wearing tin-can armour and wielding a hockey stick. She just looked at him. ‘Have you ever thought about becoming a motivational speaker?’ she asked, deadpan.

‘No.’

‘Good. Don’t.’

In front of David, Holly Wilkins appeared to laugh nervously. She’d been billeted on the same floor of the hotel as he had, and they’d left the building together this morning. When she looked around, he saw that she was crying. ‘It’ll be alright, Hol,’ he told her, resting a hand on her shoulder.

‘You think?’

‘Oh, sure,’ he said, and he pulled her close and squeezed. ‘We’ll look out for each other, okay?’

She just nodded, far from convinced.

Paul Duggan, one of Piotr’s chiefs, climbed onto the roof of one of the two trucks they’d parked back-to-back across the street, blocking the full width of The Highway. The nervous chatter in the ranks was silenced because everyone knew the time had finally come. The floodgates were about to open.

Paul kept his back to the others and looked out over the dead hordes. Directly below, a couple of them lifted their ravaged faces and glared up at him with rheumy eyes. Most remained slumped forward against those in front, an immobile plug of diseased flesh, just waiting. The brightness of the morning allowed him to see everything in detail. He thought a little autumn fog might have made the view a bit more palatable. As it was, the queue of death stretched so far into the distance that he couldn’t see the end. The most disconcerting thing was the movement. Whereas they frequently wandered the desolate streets, today they were all moving in this direction, filling in the gaps.

The sound of approaching engines.

The crowd of fighters on the street parted to allow the well-used backhoe loader through. It had proved equally adept at moving rot as rubble. It rumbled into position, flanked by a tractor and a pick-up truck, both of which had seen better days.

David kept hold of Holly, but he found himself on the opposite side of the road to Gary and Sanjay now. He watched them across the gap and wondered if they felt as absolutely f*****g terrified as he did. It was the uncertainty, as well as the apprehension, he decided. What were they about to face? How aggressive would the dead be after all this time? This was going to be their first direct confrontation since... well, since forever. He realised this was the first time he’d gone out into the wilds with the sole aim of wiping out as many of those diseased fuckers as possible. Individually, he knew they were nothing, but collectively... well, that was a different matter altogether. He started doing a few pointless back-of-a-fag-packet calculations in his head as a distraction. If we can get rid of an average of fifty each, and if the backhoe loader can wipe out several hundred, then maybe we have half a chance . It was only ever going to be half a chance because he knew that even if they hacked down around a thousand of them today, the same number would be lining up to take them on tomorrow. He tried every tactic he could think of to remain positive. Don’t think about them in individual numbers. Think about it in terms of ground gained. Reclaim a few metres every day, that’s all it’s going to take. Step by step by small, incremental step.

The moment had arrived.

Alfonso Morterero was an HGV driver from Bilbao who’d found himself stuck in central London on the day the world ended. His English was limited (but rapidly improving), but Alf, as he’d inevitably become known, didn’t shy away from taking responsibility. Any opportunity to drive and he was there, volunteering before most people had even heard the call. He climbed up into the cab of one of the blocking trucks then hung out of the open door, looking up at Paul and waiting for the signal.

Thumbs up.

Alfonso had kept the truck well maintained; he’d always known it would need to be moved at some point. The engine started first time, and he glanced across and saw the corpses immediately reacting to the noise. A wave of excited movement rippled through the mindless swarm. Alfonso turned the wheel sharp and drove along Dock Street, opening up The Highway.

For a moment that seemed to last an eternity, nothing happened. The first few rows of dead creatures, for so long pressed up against the side of the truck and compacted in place by the ceaseless weight of thousands more behind, initially remained rigid. They were stuck in place, brittle bones interlocked, glued together with dried out decay. From his position, David noticed signs of movement along the fleshy dam. A few slight wobbles and vibrations, then parts of it began to rock back and forth, the pressure increasing. A couple of seconds longer and it gave way, sending a lumpy tide of once human slurry gushing across the street. The fighters who were furthest forward scrambled back. Still on top of the other truck, Paul Duggan yelled at them to hold their positions.

After the initial flood had subsided, the dead began to advance.

The first of them appeared barely human, deformed by the pressures being exerted on the front of the pack. Everything was wrong about the horrific, dripping monsters that lurched forward. One was a barrel shaped torso on spindly legs, both arms torn off, long gone. The next appeared to have its head on sideways; its neck was broken, but decapitation had been averted by the few stubborn sinews that had refused to tear. Another one had originally been two. With a pair of ribcages intertwined like latticework, the combined monstrosity walked crablike with two heads, four arms, four legs, and a single intent.

A guy standing behind David ripped off his facemask and vomited over his boots. The acidic smell was barely perceptible over the stench of everything else.

Paul signalled for the backhoe loader to move up. Kevin Greatrex was the only one who ever drove the machine. He’d got hold of the keys when they’d first found it and had refused to let them go. Now he carried them with him everywhere, even slept with them in his hand because the digger was his protection, his suit of armour. It enabled him to exact long overdue revenge on the dead without too much personal risk. He usually found the destruction therapeutic, but right now he’d have happily given up his seat to anyone who asked.

Here goes everything .

Kevin accelerated and dropped the digger scoop. It scraped along the road, filling the air with ugly noise, making him the focus of everything. He levelled off his speed slightly, aiming for the sweet spot between control and c*****e, then ploughed into the hordes head-on.

The tractor and pick-up truck followed in the wake of the powerful digger, veering off in either direction to obliterate even more of the dead on either side. Between them, they covered almost the entire width of the road and drove forward in a line, substantially reducing the flow of corpses that might otherwise have broken through.

Behind the three vehicles, the first of the troops were dispatched into the chaos. The undead proved frustratingly difficult to deal with because of their unpredictability and miserable physical state. Hardly any of this first wave had enough strength to stay standing. Similarly, it was hard for many of the fighters to remain upright as they waded through the semi-liquid filth. It was slippery as a slick out there, and they had only the remains of corpses and each other to hold onto for support.

David was holding back, watching the madness unfold. Christ, all they’d done was open one side of a road junction, but from where he was standing, it was as if they’d prised open the gates of Hell.

Standing above them, Paul was far from impressed. ‘Fight, you fuckers!’ he yelled, as if there was an alternative.

As the people all around him began to move, David too started to run forward. The first body came at him and he skewered it with his railing, effortlessly driving the spike into its chest then flipping it over and slamming it down onto the road. He stamped hard on its upturned face then yanked free his spear. It had been weeks since he’d seen the dead up close like this, and the degree to which they’d deteriorated was astonishing. The creature under his boot was unrecognisable. He couldn’t tell if it had been male or female, young or old... hell, he was having trouble believing the damn thing had ever been human.

No time to waste. Straight onto the next.

David lunged at the next cadaver but slipped in the mire and went over. He struggled to get back up, the treads of his boots already clogged with filth. Someone smacked the corpse he’d been aiming for over the head with a baseball bat, then grabbed his arm and hauled him upright. It was Holly.

‘You’re not allowed to get hurt; you’ve got my back, remember?’ she said, managing half a smile.

‘Got it. Thanks, Hol.’

They both selected their next targets and lashed out. Holly split another skull with a hollow-sounding thunk while David forced the tip of his railing up through the chin of another ghoul and scrambled what was left of its brain.

Then the next.

And the next.

And the next.

The backhoe loader and its entourage continued to roll forward, their speed now substantially reduced. Agile dead were crawling all over the machines, others were crushed under wheels and caterpillar tracks, ground into the tarmac. David and Holly fought as a pair behind the tractor, back-to-back, defending the bubble of space around them. David tried to concentrate on each individual corpse that stumbled into range, but it was hard not to be distracted by the madness unfolding in his periphery. The brutality of what he was witnessing, what he was a part of, was sobering. Beheadings. Disembowelments. Amputations. The slicing, hacking, ripping, tearing, shredding of flesh. As deserving as the dead surely were of all of this, the savagery of the fighters was astonishing. He remembered what Piotr had said about these undead monsters being no longer human, but from where he was standing, no one on the battlefield appeared civilised today.

He sensed that Holly was struggling. Poor kid. He booted away a half-height corpse that was crawling towards him then turned to check if she was okay. She’d been wearing a hardhat and glasses but had discarded both. Her eyes were wide and filled with fear, her pale face streaked with grubby blood. ‘Can’t do this,’ she said.

‘You can,’ he told her. ‘We have to.’

She shook her head. She was breathing too fast. Panic attack. David held her upright when her legs threatened to buckle and locked his eyes on hers. ‘You’ve got this, Hol. Breathe slowly.’

‘I’m okay,’ she said, but she wasn’t.

‘You will be. Just take your time. It’s the sudden start that’s done it. Weeks of doing nothing, now everything’s gone batshit crazy.’

She nodded.

‘Keep fighting!’ Paul Duggan yelled. David looked back and saw he was still up on the roof of the truck.

‘Hark at him, telling us what to do. Here’s us up to our necks in shite, and he hasn’t even got his boots dirty yet. Cheeky fucker.’

Holly smiled. That was progress.

As the fighting continued, so the first attacking wave moved deeper into the dead. Consequently, the area around David and Holly was now relatively clear, though the ground remained covered with body parts and oily gore. A second tranche of people had arrived to mop up the remains. These folks were equally keen to do their bit, but generally older or carrying an injury or otherwise less physically able. They scoured the filth on their hands and knees and used kitchen knives, garden trowels, screwdrivers, and all manner of other implements to put the twitching dead out of their misery. A swift stab to the temple usually did it; enough trauma to inflict sufficient damage on what was left of the creatures’ mushy brains and stop them functioning. Their arrival was a welcome distraction. It gave Holly time to compose herself.

‘You good now?’ David asked, and he could see that she was.

‘I’m good.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yep.’

‘Ready for more?’

‘I’m ready,’ she said, and they marched on together.

It felt like they’d walked miles, but the backhoe loader had only managed to advance some fifty metres from the junction with East Smithfield, where the battle had begun. David found the gruff noise it made strangely cathartic, a huge f**k you to the undead. He could hear another sound now, yet more vehicles were approaching, blasting their horns to alert those clearing the streets. David and Holly shifted out of the way as two industrial-sized lawnmowers drove forward. They’d been cannibalised and modified by the petrolheads and mechanics in the group’s makeshift chop shop. Mowing blades were replaced with sheets of metal that acted as rudimentary ploughs, churning up tonnes of flesh and offal and dumping the resultant gunk into the gutters.

The frontages of buildings, metal railings, and the hoardings around never-to-be-completed construction sites had largely kept the bulk of the dead channelled forward, but there were junctions being uncovered now which needed to be blocked. More cars were driven out along The Highway – expendable, battered old wrecks that barely limped along but which were useful as mobile blockades. The driver of a wrecked Ford Focus overtook one of the lawnmower-ploughs then accelerated into the writhing chaos at the mouth of Virginia Street. He abandoned his car at an angle, straddling the gap, then scrambled out with hardly a second to spare before another Ford drove into the back of his, completely blocking the side-street. As the way ahead was secured, the trucks that had originally been used to block the width of The Highway were moved up, ready to take up new positions further east.

After a month of enforced inactivity, the frantic movement all around was overwhelming. David was also struggling to take it all in, and now it was Holly keeping him moving in the right direction. It was the intense physicality of battle that had caught him so off-guard. He was sweating profusely under many protective layers, and his arms felt heavy as lead. He couldn’t stop fighting, not even for a second, because, despite destroying a swathe of corpses already, they hadn’t made the slightest dent in their numbers. The dead were uniform in both their grotesqueness and their limitless aggression. There was barely anything left of some of them – hardly any meat left on their bones – and yet they continued to attack as if the battle had only just begun.

David swung around and skewered one through the eye then drove the metal spike through the throat of another that Holly had tackled to the ground. He twisted the spike, moving it back and forth, back and forth, until he'd separated the dead thing’s skull from its spinal cord with a sickening pop. He looked around, trying to orientate himself, but didn’t have time to focus before yet another staggering, stick-man cadaver came straight at him, arms outstretched. He lanced it on the tip of his spike, hefted it up, then smashed it against a building site hoarding.

Then, finally, another few seconds of space. Holly caught up with him and they leant against each other, exhausted. The fighting continued up ahead. ‘Look at them, Dave,’ she said. ‘They’re actually enjoying this.’

She was right. There were cheers, shouts of encouragement, and whoops of delight as bodies were battered and broken. Two men were keeping score against each other, racing first to fifty. David watched Lisa Kaur and her partner Richard Finnegan fighting ferociously alongside each other. They were both in their mid-twenties and in good shape. He often saw them exercising together around the grounds of the Tower, and he envied their physicality. The lack of food and the group’s desperate situation apart, they were otherwise at their peak, and they made the killing look effortless. It made him feel double his age. It also made him wonder what kind of a future these people had. Christ, at their age he’d still been spending much of his time in the pub, avoiding any responsibility for as long he could get away with it. The contrast with these kids was sobering.

His thoughts were interrupted by more movement. A third wave of people had been sent out from the base. These folks were cleaning up, trying to make each metre of reclaimed land useable again. Wrapped up in many layers of protective gear, they shovelled slurry from the surface of the road and loaded body parts into barrows. The remains of the dead were piled up in immense, foul-smelling heaps, where they would be left to dry out then incinerated. It was a technique that had proved useful previously: mass cremation on an industrial scale. The bodies were so much easier to deal with once they’d been reduced to ash. Less bulk. Less risk of disease.

David was conscious that he and Holly were the only ones standing still in a sea of movement. ‘We should get back to it,’ he told her.

‘I guess so.’

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

‘I’m not sure any of us are okay anymore.’

‘Fair point,’ he agreed, and they waded back into battle.