Autumn exodus, p.12
Autumn - Exodus, page 12
18
DAY NINETY
As dawn broke, the three trucks remained stuck, wedged together midway along a nondescript suburban street. They were unable to go forward or back, every scrap of space between and around them packed tight with an ever-increasing amount of cold flesh. They’d had no choice but to wait for morning, despite knowing that by the time the sun came up, the crowds might have doubled.
During the night, Chapman had managed to get to David and Ruth, climbing from the back of one truck to the next, clambering over cab roofs and jumping the gaps. Squeezed into the front of the first truck together, the reality of their situation had hit home. The blockage stopping them from going any further forward had been deliberately placed. They’d walked into a trap.
Doing nothing wasn’t an option.
Chapman, Ruth, and young Ollie, volunteered to carry out a recce.
From the roof of the cab of the lead truck, they jumped onto the roof of one of the cars that had been parked across the road. The noise of their heavy landings was enough to cause some of the dead crowd to react, but they were wedged together too tightly to pose any threat. Before climbing down, Chapman looked back. He saw that there were junctions on either side of the street, but only those on one side had been blocked. That, and the fact that the road on the other side of the blockade was almost completely clear of the undead, confirmed their suspicions. ‘Definitely a set-up,’ he said.
The silence of the morning was sobering. The December air was icy cold, and a layer of frost had settled on everything. The crystal sheen gave the decaying world a thin veil of beauty. Even the handful of corpses on this side of the barrier wore glistening masks of ice that partially obscured their decay. Their movements were more stilted than usual, ice crystals in their claggy blood. Chapman was reassured. If the temperature continued to drop far enough, the monsters would be reduced to grotesque, yet harmless mannequins.
The road crossed a railway bridge. The group took cover halfway across. Ruth scanned the scene through a pair of binoculars. ‘Why set a trap out here?’
‘Where even are we?’ Ollie whispered.
‘We’re on the outskirts of Peterborough,’ Chapman told him.
‘Doesn’t look like there’s a lot round here.’
‘Plenty of housing; I can see a few industrial units up ahead, but otherwise it’s a bit of a wasteland.’
‘Exactly,’ Ruth said, handing the binoculars to Chapman. ‘So why set a trap out here?’
‘There’s always a chance whoever was here has taken what they needed and fucked off,’ Ollie suggested. ‘I reckon that’s what it’ll be like now, going from place to place, nicking what we need from whatever’s left, then moving on again.’
‘You might be right,’ Chapman said, ‘but that doesn’t explain what I’m seeing.’
There were fields beyond the buildings, the land opening-up. One of them was filled with bodies; fenced-in and penned-up. Further away, black smoke was rising from another area. He showed the others. ‘That must be the fire we saw last night,’ Ruth said. ‘Didn’t think much of it at the time. What do you reckon’s going on?’
‘I know this might sound crazy, but bear with me. It looks like the dead are being harvested.’
‘Yep, sounds crazy,’ Ollie agreed.
Chapman shook his head. ‘Look at where we are... I think someone’s keeping the dead at a distance, then burning them when their numbers get out of control. Jesus, this is wild. Really smart.’
‘And dangerous,’ Ruth warned. ‘I’m sensing nothing but trouble; I’m proper freaked out. We need to get out of here. Vicky and Sam are still missing... we can’t risk losing anyone else.’
Chapman wasn’t convinced. He shook his head, ‘There’s something we’re not seeing here.’
‘I agree with her,’ Ollie said. ‘We don’t need to see it. We just need to go.’
‘Not yet. There has to be something about this location to make it worth defending.’
Chapman didn’t wait for the others to react, he just started walking. They followed the same road a while longer until, feeling exposed, they climbed through a gap in the hedgerow that Ollie found and walked along the edge of an adjacent expanse of grassland. Ahead of them now were the beginnings of a sprawling housing development. Some homes had been completed, others were roof-less, scaffold-clad shells. On one edge of a large, gravel yard filled with building materials were four portacabin offices, stacked two by two. Chapman climbed the metal steps up and used the open door of one of the top cabins to haul himself onto its flat roof. Still carrying the binoculars, he crawled to the farthest edge and lay down.
This really was an unusual area. He could see the grey blur of Peterborough to the north now. The suburb where the trucks had become trapped was over to the west, and to the east he saw green spaces, small lakes, more houses, and then the fields of captive corpses further beyond.
And then he looked north again and picked out a couple of large white warehouses he’d simply looked past before. They were relatively nondescript, but when he studied them, he saw fleets of trucks sitting in loading bays along the longest side of one of them, and the sheer scale of the buildings came into focus. The vehicles looked like a kid’s toys.
These days, most every surface was covered in a layer of dust and grime. Muck and mould clung to walls and floors. Nothing was clean anymore, and even the monolithic buildings up ahead looked grubby, windows and walls left uncleaned. Nevertheless, Chapman couldn’t believe he’d overlooked the massive Amazon signs. He was looking at a vast distribution centre for the online marketplace. Now he understood. Everything we could possibly need is likely stored in one of those buildings. Fuck Ledsey Cross... this place could be the holy grail of self-sufficiency.
Ruth and Ollie were becoming impatient. Ollie threw a stone that clanged off the portacabin wall. Chapman ignored the noise. He could see movement around one of the warehouses now, a handful of people emerging from a side door. What kind of folks were they dealing with here? They hadn’t been outwardly aggressive so far... the trap the convoy had become ensnared in, if they’d set it, was defensive more than anything. They hadn’t attacked, they’d just done what they’d needed to try and keep people away. Perhaps they’d be willing to talk? But how might they react when upwards of eighty new arrivals turned up on their doorstep unannounced? Would they welcome them with open arms or—?
His train of thought was derailed.
Another figure had followed the group outside. Chapman immediately recognised his shape and demeanour.
Piotr.
19
They left the farmhouse early and got straight back on the road. Sam drove the van today, Vicky with him up front. Stan had baulked at the fact they’d left the keys in the ignition all night. ‘Safest option,’ Sam had explained. ‘Means that whoever gets to the vehicles first can drive. Gives us the best chance of getting away quick if things get shitty.’
‘Yes, but what if someone takes it?’ Stan protested, aghast.
‘Who? Vehicle theft is on the decline, I heard. Anyway, if it does happen, we just find another. Everything is replaceable these days except us.’
The pointless bickering annoyed Vicky. She’d almost decided to stay behind, not just because Stan and Dominic wound her up beyond belief, but also because, despite looking like a horror movie trope made real, the dust-ridden farmhouse had temporarily felt like the safest, most comfortable place on earth. They’d eaten reasonably well last night from the various tins and packets they’d found in the kitchen and had shared a bottle of wine Sam found on a shelf in the pantry. It had gone straight to their heads. Most importantly, once they’d drawn all the curtains and lit a few candles, the evening had remained blissfully corpse-free. She’d even played a little Monopoly with Sam, Joanne, and April; the game taking on a whole new resonance after their time spent in the centre of London. She’d slept on a proper, if allergy-inducing, bed, snug under a fresh duvet she’d found still in its plastic wrapper in a wardrobe. It had felt like something out of a dream, like she’d been catapulted back in time. At dinner they’d talked about how a small group of survivors like them might do well in an isolated place like this, away from the city sprawl and other centres of population.
When Vicky had opened her bedroom curtains first thing, she’d expected to see an army of the undead waiting for her outside. But the land around the house remained empty.
Back on the road, and back to the grind.
Barely metres from the front door of the farmhouse and they were surrounded by death and destruction again. Sam found his first taste of driving along the A14 exhausting, constantly having to weave around and between odd-shaped ruins. No wonder Orla had been so keen to swap. He wanted to drive faster but was afraid of missing signs that the others might have left for them along the road. ‘What if you’re wrong?’ Rafe asked from the back. ‘What if they went a different way? Or if we’ve already passed them?’
‘Then for now we’re on our own,’ Vicky said, matter of fact.
Sam agreed. ‘We have to keep going. I’m sure the others will have done the same. Second guessing would be a mistake. We stick to the route we agreed because if we end up going one way and they go another, the distance between us could get pretty bloody huge, pretty bloody quickly.’
‘You’re doing nothing to inspire confidence,’ Dominic said. Sam stopped the van, got out, then stormed around to the back and dragged the wiry ex-politician out. He slammed him up against the side of a rusting 4x4.
‘I don’t want to hear another fucking peep out of you, Dominic, understand?’
‘I don’t know what you’re getting so tetchy about.’
‘Seriously? All of this is your fault.’
There was a lone corpse approaching, zeroing in on the noise. Dominic squirmed. ‘I made a mistake sticking with Piotr. How long are you going to punish me?’
‘I haven’t decided.’
‘It was his idea. You should blame him.’
‘He’s not here, so I’m blaming you.’
Little fucker just couldn’t keep his mouth shut. ‘Seriously, though, I get that you’re not impressed with me, but what are you going to do? What’s throwing your weight around like this going to achieve? That’s the kind of thing I expect from Piotr.’
Sam pulled him forward then slammed him back again. Dominic winced with pain. The approaching corpse collided with them. Dominic recoiled but Sam held his ground. He straightened his arms, giving the ghoul plenty of space to get in Dominic’s face. The more he reacted, the more interested in him the corpse became. When he’d had enough of Dominic’s whining, Sam smashed the dead man’s face into the 4x4.
‘Thing is, Dominic, you need us a lot more than we need you. In fact, we don’t need you at all. I’m keeping you close because it’s convenient and because I’ve one less thing to worry about knowing where you are and what you’re up to. But if you push me too far... if you keep making dumbass comments and stirring things up, you’re gone. Understand?’
‘I understand. There’s no need to make such a song and dance about it.’
Vicky leant out of the window of the van. ‘Sam, either get rid of him or get back in. We need to get going.’
He let Dominic go and pushed him back towards the van. He was about to follow but stopped and looked down at the road. There was another corpse on the ground nearby. One of the minority who had died and stayed dead when the infection (or whatever it was) had decimated the population. The woman’s body was stuck to the tarmac with rot. There were several sets of tyre tracks where vehicles had driven over her deflated chest.
Someone else has been this way.
He hoped it was David and the others, but he knew it could equally have been Piotr.
20
Ruth and Ollie had gone back to warn the others. Chapman broke ranks, telling them he’d return in under an hour, then disappearing before either of them could argue. He knew Piotr better than most. To have set up camp here was out of character, too smart and too sensible, and the herding and harvesting of corpses was an initiative that was way out of Piotr’s league. In comparison to the utter chaos Piotr had caused in London and at Lakeside, what Chapman had seen here was too organised and quiet. It made him feel uneasy. There had to be more to it. Right now, the convoy was prone and the people he was travelling with were vulnerable. He was sure they were missing something. They weren’t yet seeing the full picture.
The warehouses had piqued his interest, and not just because of the potential treasure stockpiled inside. For them to have been built here they’d have needed excellent transport links and a plentiful supply of staff. He’d done a little research in the building site office. The neighbourhood where the trucks were stranded was called Yaxley, and this development covered a vast swathe of land between Yaxley and the outskirts of Peterborough. There was a fishing lake nearby, and ample farmland, all in close proximity to a city with a pre-apocalypse population of around two hundred thousand. No wonder traps had been set up to keep scavengers at bay. This was prime territory for survival – all the things they’d hoped to find in London, but with much more long-term potential and only a fraction of the undead to contend with. The distribution centres were the icing on the cake, and the more Chapman thought about it, the more certain he felt that this location had been carefully selected for survival. And the more he thought about that, the more certain he was that whoever had been living here, Piotr had come and torn their world apart.
It had started raining again and the clouds were black, but that was a good thing. The foul weather gave Chapman cover as he skirted wide of the warehouses to continue his reconnaissance. The biggest risk this morning, he realised, was being recognised. If Piotr, Harjinder, Paul Duggan or any of the thugs saw him, they’d realise people had survived the inferno and escaped from London. Knowing how their Neanderthal brains worked, they’d likely assume they’d come here for revenge.
He was out in the wilds now. There were corpses in the adjacent field, and it looked like they’d recently been held here too. The ground under his feet was churned up and waterlogged, reminding him of a festival site after everyone had gone home: scraps of discarded clothing and endless lines of muddy footprints. There was a rumble of thunder that caught him by surprise. His heart thumping, he looked across and saw he wasn’t the only one who’d been startled by the ground-shaking noise. The dead next-door appeared to have momentarily lost all control. They were staggering aimlessly, colliding constantly, unfocussed eyes scanning the heavens. They almost seem... are they afraid? He told himself to get a grip and kept walking.
Through the criss-crossing corpses, something caught his eye. There were lights in the windows of a house in the distance. The quickest way to get there was straight across the corpse-filled field and, before the undead regained control, he vaulted over a metal gate and jogged between them. It was easy when they were distracted, less so when he was the distraction. He cursed with pain when he skidded in the mud and wrenched his knee, and they immediately lowered their gaze and surged towards him in uncomfortable numbers. He kept running until one caught his arm and another one of his legs, and he lost his balance and was on his back in the mud before he even realised what was happening. Another ominous thunder growl came to his rescue and the corpses scattered again, bewildered. The cadaver nearest to him began pawing at the air, as if trying to defend itself from Zeus.
Chapman ran on, more of a skate than a sprint, then crashed into the hedgerow and fell out the other side into a long and overrun, jungle-like back garden.
The modest house he was now approaching looked busy. He could see a group of people crowded into a conservatory. Perhaps because of the dark of the storm, they didn’t yet appear to have noticed him. The coating of mud and grime from his dash across the field was convenient camouflage.
It wasn’t a new house, this. Probably built in the thirties or forties, he thought, certainly no later than the fifties, unremarkably ordinary. He inched slowly along the edge of the garden, trying to work out his plan of attack on the fly. He couldn’t go back to the others yet. He needed to know more about these people and why they‑
The side door of the house flew open.
Chapman tried to run again, but the man who came at him was drier and faster and he was rugby tackled to the ground. Chapman panicked, thinking that in his bedraggled, mud-covered state, the man would assume he was one of the undead. On his knees, face down in the grass, he tried to raise his hands in submission. ‘Don’t! I’m alive.’
‘Not for much longer if you’re not careful,’ his assailant said, and he grabbed Chapman by the scruff of his neck, picked him up, then span him around. ‘Yeah, I thought it was you.’
Chapman wiped rainwater from his eyes and tried to focus. He recognised the voice. More to the point, he recognised the accent. Liverpudlian. He’d only met one Scouser since the end of the world. ‘Tony? Is that you?’
‘It’s me lad, yeah.’
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘I was about to ask you the same thing. Come inside, yeah? Let’s talk.’
Chapman followed him, then stopped. He was so taken aback at being confronted by a familiar face that, for a moment, he’d forgotten what David Shires had told him about this man. This was the man who’d deceived everyone and ensconced himself deep within the group at the Monument that he’d also tried hard to destroy. This bastard was Taylor, a cold-blooded killer. Chapman went for his knife, but Taylor was one step ahead of him. A quick, stinging jab to the face, and Chapman was out cold.
#
When Chapman came around, he was sitting on a kitchen chair, his hands tied behind his back. He’d only been out for a matter of minutes, but his head was full of wool. ‘Fucker,’ he said, looking up at Taylor. He noticed that there were two men in the doorway behind. He didn’t recognise either of them.
