Autumn exodus, p.26
Autumn - Exodus, page 26
‘No fuel,’ he said when he returned. ‘Tank’s empty. They’ve just left it.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ Selena asked. ‘The less equipment they’ve got, the better.’
‘Logically, yes, but this is Piotr we’re talking about,’ David said. ‘I don’t trust anything that fucker does. It could be a trap.’
Vicky wasn’t convinced. ‘Seriously? He’s already taken everything we had, and I’m sure he wouldn’t imagine us coming up on him so soon anyway. He’ll be long gone by now. Get going, Sanj. The only thing this is telling us for certain is that Piotr’s closer to Ledsey Cross than we are.’
Sanjay drove on. A river ran through the fields over to their left. In places its route was hard to make out, its banks having burst, drowning the land around it. There were bodies here also. More than they’d seen herding together since they’d left Knottingley. ‘Where have this lot come from?’ he asked.
‘Market day, apparently.’ Sanjay smirked at him. ‘Doesn’t matter where they came from,’ Sam said, ‘it’s where they’re going that we need to worry about.’
The dead here looked like they were migrating, all of them moving in the same direction, wearily walking the same well-trod path, all heads bowed. They no longer had the physical strength to keep looking up, but it looked for all the world like they were miserable sods, plodding towards homes destroyed by war. None of them reacted when the coach approached. Perhaps the sound of the engine was drowned out by the noise of the river, but it seemed, as they passed even the nearest ones, that they simply couldn’t be bothered.
‘It could be other survivors,’ David said.
‘Attracting them? The people from Ledsey Cross?’ Selena said hopefully.
‘Maybe. My money’s on our friend Piotr drawing them deliberately. Just take it easy, Sanj. And keep your eyes open.’
#
Several miles further down the road, a once-impressive looking manor house came into view. It was a huge, ornate building, no doubt originally the home of some long-forgotten lord and lady, subsequently passed down to generation after generation, each less deserving than the one before, each pounds and acres poorer. Sam had always hated all aspects of the gentry, despised the privilege. He couldn’t deny feeling a certain degree of smug satisfaction today because here he was, on his way to what could prove to be one of the best places left in the country to survive and live a reasonably fulfilled life, while the owners of the estate were likely shoeless now, dragging their feet along with the rest of the faceless undead masses. When all was said and done, all the wealth in the world had counted for nothing. He’d had barely a couple of pennies to rub together for years, yet he’d outlived and outlasted them all.
Sam was so consumed with his pointless self-congratulations that he almost missed the significance of what he was looking at. The vast grounds of the country estate were enclosed within a high stone wall which should have been impenetrable, and yet scores of the dead were traipsing aimlessly across the once well-tended gardens like sheep. ‘Slow up, Sanj,’ he said as they approached the estate’s open gates.
‘That would have made a cracking hideout,’ Joanne said.
‘Yeah. I think it did.’
From here they could see all the way along the curving, unfeasibly long and sweeping driveway to the house’s grand main entrance. Sam started hunting in his backpack for his binoculars. It reminded him of some of the exclusive gated developments he’d seen in London, not the grandeur, but they too were places that the undead had wandered into in large numbers and had then been unable to reach the exits or even comprehend that they needed to.
‘We’re wasting time here,’ David said, conscious that there were bodies beginning to gravitate towards the road. ‘Keep going, Sanjay.’
‘No, wait,’ Sam said as he focused the binoculars, trying to get a clear view of the area around the front of the building where a number of vehicles had been parked. They were out of keeping with their surroundings: dirty and battered; functional, not flash. ‘There was definitely a group living here.’
David was losing his patience. ‘So, what? Look at the number of bodies in the grounds, Sam. Whoever was here fucked up. They didn’t make it. End of story.’
Sam shook his head. ‘No, there’s more to it than that. A lot of them have been massacred. There are bits of them all over the place.’
‘So?’
Sam sighed and put the glasses down. ‘So, I think the bears are still here, alright, Goldilocks? There are too many of the dead loitering around the house. Why would there be so many of them out here in the middle of nowhere?’ He lifted the binoculars again.
‘Maybe it’s because we’re right between the power station that exploded and Leeds and Bradford, they came for tea, nobody home, now they’re stuck. It makes complete sense.’
‘David’s right,’ Joanne said. ‘The dead marched this way because of the explosion, and this poor bunch of bastards happened to have set-up camp mid-route.’
‘What a shitty way to go,’ Ruth agreed. ‘This could have been us.’
‘We’re wasting time. Let’s go,’ David said.
Sam went to put down his glasses but stopped. ‘Jesus. David, that’s our truck. The one Piotr stole.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘One hundred per cent. The plough’s a dead giveaway.’
‘What kind of state is it in? Can you see anyone?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Sanjay said. ‘If Piotr’s here we need to get moving.’
The door of the manor house flew open. A man came racing out, pushing into the swollen group of corpses still jostling for position near the entrance to the building. He burst through, then sprinted along the drive towards them.
‘Son of a bitch. We’ve got a live one coming.’
‘Who?’
Sam didn’t recognise him. ‘No idea. It’s not Piotr.’
He handed the binoculars to David, who took a few seconds to locate the man then bring his face into focus. ‘It’s Alf Morterero.’
‘Alf who now?’
‘Scum that worked for Piotr.’
Before anyone could say anything else, Sanjay hit the gas. The wheels of the coach skidded, but the weight of the vehicle, embarrassingly, stopped them moving away with any speed. Behind, Alfonso came bursting out of the gates. He thudded into the side of the coach. Sanjay kept going, leaving him grasping at the air where the coach had just been. ‘Fuck him,’ Sanjay said. ‘Fuck him and Piotr and all the rest of them.’
Alfonso kept running for as long as he was able, then pulled up, hands on his knees.
At the back of the coach, Marcus pressed his face against the glass, watching until the desperate lone figure disappeared with the curve of the road. ‘I hope him and the rest of those cunts rot in hell.’
49
Sanjay drove as fast as he could, desperate to get them to Ledsey Cross. ‘Slow down or we might not make it at all,’ Selena said.
‘We’ll make it.’
They almost missed the turning to Heddlewick. Since passing the manor house the road had climbed again along one side of a steep, wooded valley. Sanjay braked hard and stopped the coach, then reversed back. Selena shook Vicky’s shoulder. ‘Look, Vic. This is it.’
Tantalising glimpses of tightly packed slate roofs appeared below them, visible through the trees. ‘I can’t believe it. We’ve done it,’ Ruth said.
‘Not yet we haven’t,’ Vicky reminded her.
‘I know, I know. I’m trying not to get ahead of myself, but it’s hard.’
‘You sound nervous, Ruth,’ David said.
‘You don’t say. I’m more nervous than I’ve felt in a long, long time. There’s a lot at stake here.’
He nodded.
‘It’s only now that I’m starting to allow myself to believe we might actually do it. The distance seemed impossible when we first left London. All along the way we’ve had setbacks; I didn’t know if we’d get here.’
‘I always knew we would,’ Selena said (even though she didn’t). ‘I think when I meet Annalise I’ll just start crying. She’ll be gutted that Kath’s not with us. We didn’t get to tell her what happened before the networks went down. She knew we were coming though, didn’t she, Vic? She said she’d be waiting for us, no matter how long it took. Hard to believe she’s so close.’
‘Just on the other side of the valley,’ Ruth said.
David nonchalantly wiped a tear from the corner of his eye, hoping no one had noticed. ‘Take us home, Sanj,’ he managed. He was overcome with emotion, daring at last to believe they’d almost reached their journey’s end, that they were on the verge of joining that wonderful, welcoming community of people he’d heard so much about. They still had a way to go, of course, but since they’d worked out the route, he’d subconsciously envisaged the river Wharfe to be the finishing line. He’d tried to visualise this part of the route so many times, had tried to imagine how it would feel when they were finally driving over the bridge that would take them to the promised land... His heart raced as Sanjay followed the slope of the gently descending route through the trees, carefully coaxing the boxy coach around each twist and tight turn.
He braked hard.
‘What the fuck?’
Immediately ahead of them, the road had disappeared. Part of the hillside had collapsed, taking with it almost all of the tarmac. The coach’s front wheels skirted the edge, half of the driver’s side tyre gripping thin air. He’d reacted in barely enough time to stop them dropping over into the abyss. Sanjay reversed up until they were completely on solid ground again. ‘Looks like we’ll be walking the rest of the way,’ he announced. ‘I’m not going off-road in this thing.’
‘How far do you suppose?’ David asked.
‘About four miles I think,’ Selena replied. ‘We can walk it.’
‘Looks like we’re going to have to.’
‘Wait and see what’s in Heddlewick first,’ Sam said. ‘We might be able to get a couple of vehicles going.’
‘Let’s just keep moving,’ David said. ‘Sooner we get this done, the better.’
They unloaded everything out of the coach, spreading the weight of their meagre belongings fairly between them.
‘We’ll go and scout ahead,’ Sam said, and with David’s agreement, he and Joanne clambered down the forested bank then worked their way around to the point at which the road was accessible again.
‘Was this definitely the only route into the village?’ Joanne asked as they walked down. ‘Piotr couldn’t have come through another way?’
‘I don’t think so.’
The road was becoming progressively steeper. ‘Christ, imagine if we’d been here a few days earlier, trying to get up and down here in the snow.’
‘We never would have made it. The floods were bad enough in Knottingley, but the river runs right through the heart of this place. As long as we can get to the bridge, I reckon we’ll be okay.’
They were level with the first few buildings now. They were traditional grey stone cottages, rugged and weathered. Joanne couldn’t resist peeking in through a ground floor window. Everything inside was as it had been left on the day everyone had died, a snapshot of a life frozen in time.
‘You okay?’ Sam asked.
She shrugged. ‘Guess so.’
‘Tell me what you’re thinking?’
‘It’s just, I’ve always felt sad looking at places like this, you know? Like longing for something you’d think anyone could have, whilst knowing I never would. But for the first time, I’m thinking that maybe there’s something like this waiting for us over that hill.’
‘We could come back here if it comes to it,’ Sam said. ‘I’d be quite happy living in a nice little pad like that. Would you?’
‘What, be happy with a place like that or be happy living with you?’
‘Either,’ he said quickly. ‘Both.’
‘Yeah, I could live with that. As long as you keep your hair cut. It looks so much better short.’
Sam shook his head and carried on walking. A short distance further, he stopped again. This time he was silent, staring ahead. He didn’t know what to say.
Apart from the few outlying buildings they’d already passed, much of the rest of the village had all but completely disappeared. Where they’d expected to see a river winding gently through the heart of the place, there was now a thunderous, fast-moving torrent of mud-brown water more than fifty metres wide. Along the way, vast amounts of debris had been collected and had now built up against one side of the bridge like a colossal dam. It was only when Sam looked closer at the rubbish that had been accumulated that the scale of it truly came into focus. There were cars that had been thrown around like toys. The water was almost level with the road across the bridge. Wedged under one of its outer arches was a double-decker bus, just its top windows and roof now visible above the raging torrent, looking like it was fighting for air. An incalculable number of corpses filled the gaps like a logjam. The scene looked like a flooded scrapyard built atop a burial ground. Some of the buildings down by where the banks of the river had originally been had collapsed. Parts of their ruins stood resolute against the flood; others had all but completely submerged, just partial walls and odd corners remaining.
‘We can still get over there, right?’ Joanne said. ‘I mean, I can just about still see the road.’
‘That’s the way our path lies. No going around, that’s for sure.’
‘Aren’t there other crossing points?’
‘Inevitably, but chances are they’ll all look like this.’
‘We need to get closer, then. Get a proper idea of what we’re dealing with. See if we can work out a safe route over.’ She took another couple of steps then stopped again. Further down the road there was a very visible muddy tidemark. ‘Jesus, look how high the water got! What must it have been like here last night? The scale of this is just unthinkable.’
A noise like boulders crashing together silenced their conversation. Down below, the bridge was taking a continual battering. Frequent plumes of fast-moving, dirty water jetted up like waves crashing against a seawall.
‘I’m really not sure about this,’ Sam said. ‘Apart from the fact we’ll almost certainly be killed if we end up in the water, we don’t have a clue what’s going on under the surface. The bridge could be about to collapse, there could be sinkholes, unstable pillars... anything.’
‘But like you said, we have to get over.’
The others were slowly coming down the road towards them. Sam was conscious that he hadn’t yet achieved what he’d set out to do. From up here on the side of the valley, the view of what was happening on the other bank of the river was limited to the part of the village nearest the water and this end of the bridge, everything else obscured by trees. He shouted back to David. ‘It doesn’t look completely impassable. See the cars in the road down there? The water’s below the windows. It’s waist height, tops.’
Sam carried on walking, emerging from the trees, and the other side of the grossly swollen river gradually came into view. On the far side the land remained relatively level for a while before it climbed up into the hills. There had been sports pitches over there and more homes, along with fields, parkland, and other open spaces. But little of that was visible because, beyond the sunken village, between the water and the hills, for as far as they could see along the opposite bank in either direction, the land was packed solid with thousands upon thousands of swarming corpses.
‘Fuck me,’ Ruth said, catching up. ‘I know we saw stuff like this in London, but I didn’t expect it out here. Jesus Christ, there are so many of them. Where the hell did they all come from?’
‘The power station,’ Sam said. ‘Has to be.’
‘But you said yourself, that’s still miles from here.’
‘I know, but think about it... Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield... this might sound extreme, but with nothing else happening up here and nothing but open countryside between those places and the power station, it was kind of inevitable. It explains what we saw on the way here. A mass migration along the river, triggered by the explosion at the power station. They follow each other like lemmings. When there’s nothing else to distract them, they just keep coming.’
‘Yes, but that doesn’t explain why they’re here, does it?’
‘Well, that’s just down to shit luck. The power station is upriver, so if thousands of them had already reached it, the flood would have swept loads of them up and dumped them back this way. Also, we saw something similar in London, remember? It’s the topography. Because of the slope, loads of the dead ended up lining the banks of the Thames. For the record, I doubt this has just happened here. I bet there are crowds like this all along the river, filling every dell. Problem is just that this is the point where we need to get across.’
The group had bunched up together, all of them looking for routes through the utter chaos up ahead. ‘You can see the road to Ledsey Cross,’ Sanjay said, pointing across the valley. It snaked over the landscape, tormentingly free from obstructions. ‘We’ll be fine once we get onto it.’
‘Just the small matter of a raging torrent, a flood, and a massive population of dead bodies to get through first,’ Noah reminded him. ‘You really couldn’t make this shit up.’
‘Maybe we should wait,’ Callum said. ‘Unless it pisses down again, the river level should keep going down, yeah? There’s nothing stopping us holing-up in one of these tidy little cottages, is there? Then we try again later.’
Noah was quick to respond. ‘Yeah, right, dumbass. Nothing stopping us apart from Piotr and however many more of his mates are holed-up in that bloody great house with him.’
‘What if just a few of us went across first?’ Sanjay suggested. ‘If a few of us can get to Ledsey Cross, we might be able to bring back people to help. They might have equipment we can use. Transport.’
