David Moody - Autumn 1 - Autumn

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AUTUMN

DAVID MOODY

INFECTED BOOKS

www.infectedbooks.co.uk

AUTUMN

Published by INFECTED BOOKS

www.infectedbooks.co.uk

This edition published 2005

This book is a work of fiction. The characters and situations

in this story are imaginary. No resemblance is intended between

these characters and any real persons, either living or dead.

Condition of Sale

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by

way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise

circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form or

binding or cover other than that in which it is published and

without a similar condition including this condition being

imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A catalogue record for the paperback edition of

this book is available from the British Library

Paperback ISBN 0-9550051-0-8

2-L3-0505-1

Prologue

Billions died in less than twenty-four hours.

William Price was one of the first.

Price had been out of bed for less than ten minutes when it began. He had been standing in the kitchen

when he’d felt the first pains. By the time he’d reached his wife in the living room he was almost dead.

The virus caused the lining of his throat to dry and then to swell at a remarkable rate. Less than forty

seconds after initial infection the swelling had blocked his windpipe. As he fought for air the swellings

began to split and bleed. He began to choke on the blood running down the inside of his trachea.

Price’s wife tried to help him, but all she could do was catch him when he fell to the ground. For a

fraction of a second she was aware of his body beginning to spasm but by that point she had also been

infected. By that point the volume of oxygen reaching her lungs had reduced to less than ten per cent of

her normal oxygen requirement.

Less than four minutes after Price’s initial infection he was dead. Thirty seconds later and his

wife was dead too. A further minute and the entire street was silent.

Carl Henshawe

I was almost home by the time I knew that it had happened.

It was still early - about half-eight I think - and I’d been out of the house since just after four. Looking

back I was glad I hadn’t been home. It was bad enough seeing Sarah and Gemma lying there after it had

happened to them. Christ, I wouldn’t have coped seeing it get them both. I just couldn’t have stood

seeing them both suffer like that. I couldn’t have done anything for either of them. It hurts too much to

even think about it. Better that they were gone and it was over by the time I got home.

I’d been out on a maintenance call at Carter and Jameson’s factory five miles north of Billhampton. I

usually ended up going there once or twice a month, and usually in the middle of the night. The bastard

that was in charge of the place was too tight to pay for new machinery and too bloody smart to get his

own men repairing the system when he knew that he could call us out. Didn’t matter what went wrong or

when, he always got us out. He knew the maintenance contract better than I did.

I was six miles short of Northwich when I first realised that something was wrong. I’d stopped at the

services to get a cup of coffee and something to eat and I was just coming off the motorway when the

radio started playing up. Nothing unusual about that - the electric's in the van had a mind of their own -

but this was different. One minute there was the usual music and talking, the next nothing but silence. Not

even static. Just silence. I tried to tune in to a couple of other stations but I couldn’t get anything.

Like an idiot I kept driving and trying to sort out the radio at the same time. I only had one eye on the

road, and the sun kept flashing through the tops of the trees. The sky was clear and blue and the morning

sun was huge and blinding. I wanted to get back home so I kept my foot down. I didn’t see the bend in

the road until I was half way round and I didn’t see the other car until it was almost too late.

I slammed my foot on the brake when I saw it. It was a small mustard-yellow coloured car and its

driver was obviously as distracted as I was. He was coming straight at me, and I had to yank the steering

wheel hard to the right to avoid hitting him. I must have missed him by only a couple of feet.

There was something about the way the car was moving that didn’t seem right. I slowed down and

watched it in my rear view mirror. Instead of following the bend that I had just come round, it just kept

going forward in a straight line, still going at the same speed. It left the road and smashed up the kerb.

The passenger-side door scraped against the trunk of a heavy oak tree and then the car stopped dead

when the centre of the bonnet wrapped itself around another tree trunk.

There was no-one else about. I stopped and then turned the van around in the road and drove back

towards the crash. All I could think was the driver was going to blame the way I was driving and it would

be his word against mine and Christ, if he took me to court he’d probably have a good case. I kept

thinking that I was going to lose my job and that I’d have to explain what had happened to the boss

and...and bloody hell, I didn’t even stop to think that the other driver might be hurt until I saw him

slumped over his steering wheel.

I stopped my car a few feet behind the crash and got out to help. My legs felt heavy - I didn’t want to

look but I knew that I had to. As I got closer I could see the full extent of the damage to the car. It had

hit the tree at such a bloody speed that the bonnet was almost wrapped right around it.

I opened the driver’s door (it was jammed shut and it took me a while to get it open). The driver

looked about thirty-five years old, and I didn’t need to touch him to know that he was dead. His face

had been slammed hard against the steering wheel, crushing his nose. His dead eyes gazed up at me,

giving me a cold stare which made me feel as if he was blaming me for what had just happened. Blood

was pouring from what was left of his nose and from his mouth which hung wide open. It wasn’t dripping;

for the best part of a minute the thick crimson blood was literally pouring from the body and pooling on

the floor around the dead man’s feet.

I didn’t have a fucking clue what to do. For a few seconds I just stood there like a bloody fool, first

looking up and down the silent road and then staring at the jet of steam which was shooting up from the

battered car’s radiator and into the cold morning air. I felt sick to my stomach, and when the hissing

eventually stopped all I could hear was the drip, drip, drip of blood. It had only been a couple of minutes

since I’d eaten. I looked back at the body again and felt myself lose control of my stomach. I dropped

down to my knees and threw up in the grass at the side of the road.

Once the nausea had passed I dragged myself up onto my feet and walked back to the van. I reached

inside for the phone, realising that although there was nothing I could do for the poor bastard in the car, I

had to do something. In a strange way it was easier knowing that he was dead. I could just tell the police

that I’d been driving along and I’d found the car crashed into the tree. No-one needed to know that I’d

been around when the accident took place.

The bloody phone wasn’t working.

There I was, out in the countryside just outside a major town and I couldn’t get a signal. I shook the

phone, waved it in the air and even banged it against the side of the fucking van but I couldn’t get rid of

the ‘No Service’ message on the display. I wasn’t thinking straight. I tried dialling 999 three or four times

but I couldn’t get anything. It didn’t even ring out. The phone just kept bleeping ‘unobtainable’ in my

ear.

So if no-one needed to know that I’d seen the crash, I found myself thinking, no-one needed to know

that I’d been the one who found it. It sickens me now when I think back and remember that the next

thing I did was climb back into the van with the intention of driving home. I decided that I’d call the

police or someone from there and tell them that I’d seen an abandoned car at the side of the road. I

didn’t even need to tell them about the body. I guess that it must have been the effects of shock. I’m not

usually such a spineless bastard.

I was in a daze, almost a trance. I climbed back into the van, started the engine and began to drive

back towards town. I stared at the crashed car in the rear view mirror until it was out of sight, then I put

my foot down on the accelerator.

There were a couple more bends in the road before it straightened and stretched out for a clear half

mile ahead of me. I caught sight of another car in the near distance, and seeing that car made me give

way to my mounting guilt and change my plans. I decided that I’d stop and tell the driver about what I’d

seen. There’s safety in numbers, I thought. I’d get them to come back with me to the crash and we’d

report it to the police together. Everything would be okay.

I was wrong. As I got closer to the car I realised that it had stopped. I slowed down and pulled up

alongside. The driver’s seat was empty. There were three other people in the car and they were all dead

- a mother in the front and her two dead children in the back. Their faces were screwed up with

expressions of agony and panic. Their skin was pale grey and I could see on the body of the child nearest

to me that there was a trickle of blood running from between its lips and down the side of its lifeless face.

I kept the van moving slowly forward and saw that a couple of metres further down the road the body of

the missing driver lay sprawled across the tarmac. I had to drive up onto the grass verge to avoid driving

over him.

I was so fucking scared. I cried like a baby as I drove back towards home.

I can’t be sure, but I must have seen another forty or fifty bodies by the time I’d made it back to

Northwich. The streets were littered with the dead. It was bizarre - people just seemed to have fallen

where they’d been standing. Whatever they’d been doing, wherever they’d been going, they’d just

dropped.

The situation was so unexpected and inexplicable that it was only at that point that I thought about the

safety of my family. I put my foot down flat on the accelerator and was outside my house in seconds. I

jumped out of the van and ran to the door. My hands were shaking and I couldn’t get the key in the lock.

Eventually I opened it and immediately wished that I hadn’t. The house was silent.

I ran up to the bedroom and that’s where I found them both. Sarah and our beautiful little girl both

dead. Gemma’s face was frozen in the middle of a silent scream and there was blood all around her

mouth and on Sarah’s white night dress and the sheets. They were both still warm and I shook them and

screamed at them to wake up and talk to me. Sarah looked terrified. I tried to close her frightened eyes

to make believe she was just sleeping but I couldn’t. They wouldn’t stay shut.

I couldn’t stand to leave them but I couldn’t stand to stay there either. I had to get out. I put Gemma

into bed with her mum, kissed them both goodbye and pulled the sheets up over their heads. I left the

house, locked the door behind me and then walked.

I spent hours stepping through the bodies just shouting out for help.

Michael Collins

So there I was, standing at the front of a class of thirty-three sixteen year olds, tongue-tied and terrified.

The boss had volunteered me for one of those ‘Industry into Schools’ days. One of those days where

instead of sitting listening to their teacher drone on for hours, children were made to listen to sacrificial

lambs like me telling them how wonderful the job they really despised was. I hated it. I hated speaking in

public. I hated compromising myself and not being honest. I hated knowing that if I didn’t do this and I

didn’t do it well, my end of month bonus would be reduced. My boss believed that his middle-managers

were the figureheads of his company. In reality we were just there for him to hide behind.

My talk didn’t last long.

I’d made some notes which I held in front of me like a shield. I felt quite calm inside, but the way that

the end of my papers shook seemed to give the class the impression that I was paralysed with nerves.

The sadistic sixteen year olds quickly seized on my apparent weakness. When I coughed and tripped on

a word I was history.

‘The work we do at Caradine Computers is extremely varied and interesting,’ I began, lying through

my teeth. ‘We’re responsible for...’

‘Sir,’ a lad said from the middle of the room. He was waving his hand in the air.

‘What?’

‘Why don’t you just give up now,’ he sighed. ‘We’re not interested.’

That stopped me dead. I’d never have dared speak out like that at school. I looked to the teacher at

the back of the class for support but as soon as we’d made eye contact she turned to look out of the

window.

‘As I was saying,’ I continued, ‘we look after a wide range of clients, from small one-man firms to

multinational corporations. We advise them on the software to use, the systems to buy and...’

Another interruption, this time more physical. A fight was breaking out in the corner of the room. One

boy had another in a headlock.

‘James Clyde,’ the teacher yelled across the classroom, ‘cut it out. Anyone would think you didn’t

want to listen to Mr Collins.’

As if the behaviour of the students wasn’t bad enough, now even the teacher was being sarcastic. I

didn’t know whether she’d meant her words to sound that way, but that was definitely how the rest of

the class had taken them. Suddenly there was stifled laughter coming from all sides, hidden by hands over

mouths and pierced by the occasional splutter from those who couldn’t keep their hilarity in check.

Within seconds the whole room was out of control.

I was about to give up and walk out when it happened. A girl in the far right corner of the room was

coughing. Far more than any ordinary splutter, this was a foul, rasping and hacking scream of a cough

which sounded as if it was tearing the very insides of her throat apart with each painful convulsion. I took

a few steps towards the girl and then stopped. Other than her painful choking the rest of the room had

become silent. I watched as her head dropped down and thick sticky strings of blood and spit dripped

and trailed into her cupped hands and over her desk. For a second she looked up at me with huge

terrified eyes. She couldn’t breath. She was suffocating.

I looked towards the teacher again. This time she stared straight back at me, fear and confusion

written clearly across her face.

On the other side of the room a boy began to cough. He too was suddenly gripped with unexpected

terror and excruciating pain. He too could no longer breathe.

A girl just behind and to the right of me began to cry and then to cough. The teacher tried to stand up

and walk towards me but then stopped as she also began to cough and splutter. Within no more than a

minute of the first girl’s agony beginning, every single person in the room was tearing at their throats and

fighting to breathe. Every single person, that was, except me.

I didn’t know what to do or where to go to get help. Numb with shock, I staggered back towards the

classroom door. I stumbled and tripped over a school bag and grabbed hold of the nearest desk to

steady myself. A girl’s hand slammed down on mine. I stared into her face. She was deathly white save

for a crimson trickle of blood which spilled down her chin and onto the books on her desk. Her head

kept lurching back on her shoulders as she tried desperately to breathe in precious molecules of oxygen.

Each uncontrolled spasm of her body forced much more air out of her lungs than was allowed in.

I wrenched my hand away and threw the door open. The noise inside the room was appalling. A

deafening, echoing cacophony of desperate cries which pierced right through me, but even out in the

hallway there was no escape. The pitiful noises which came from my classroom were only a small fraction

of the screaming confusion which rang through the entire school. From places as remote as assembly

halls, gymnasiums, workshops, kitchens and offices, the cold morning air was filled with the terrified

screams of hundreds of desperate children and adults, all of them suffocating and choking to death.

By the time I’d reached the end of the corridor it was over. The school was silent.

I instinctively walked down the stairs towards the main entrance doors. Sprawled on the ground at the

foot of the staircase was the body of a boy. He must have been only eleven or twelve. I crouched down

next to him and cautiously reached out to touch him. I pulled my hand away as soon as it made contact

with his dead flesh. It felt cold, clammy and unnatural, almost like wet leather. Forcing myself to try and

take control of my fear and disgust, I pushed his shoulder and rolled him over onto his back. Like the

others I had seen his face was ghostly white and was smeared with blood and spittle. I leant down as

close as I dare and put my ear next to his mouth. I held my breath and waited to hear even the slightest

sounds of breathing. I wished that the suddenly silent world would become quieter still so that I could

hear something. It was hopeless. There was nothing.

I walked out into the cool September sunlight and crossed the empty playground. Just one glance at

the devastated scene outside the school gates was enough for me to realise that whatever it was that had

happened inside the building had happened outside too. Random bodies littered the streets for as far as I

could see.

In seven hours since it happened I’ve seen no-one else.

My house is cold and secure but it doesn’t feel safe. I can’t stay there. I have to keep looking. I can’t

be the only one left.

The phones aren’t working.

There’s no electricity.

There’s nothing but static on the radio.

I’ve never been so fucking frightened.

Emma Mitchell

Sick, cold and tired.

I felt bad. I decided to skip my lecture and stay at home. I had one of those fevers where I was too

hot to stay in bed and too cold to get up. I felt too sick to do anything but too guilty to sit still and do

nothing. I had tried to do some studying for a while. I gave up when I realised that I’d had five attempts

at reading the same paragraph but had never made it past the middle of the third line.

Kayleigh, my flat mate, hadn’t been home for almost two days. She’d phoned so she knew I felt bad

and she’d promised to pick up some milk and a loaf of bread. I cursed her as I searched through the

kitchen cupboards for something to eat. They were empty, and I was forced to accept that I’d have to

pull myself together and go shopping.

Wrapped up in my thickest coat I tripped and sniffed to the shop at the end of Maple Street feeling

drained, pathetic and thoroughly sorry for myself.

There were three customers (including me) in Mr Rashid’s shop. I didn’t pay any of them any

attention at first. I was stood there haggling with myself, trying to justify spending a few pence more on

my favourite brand of spaghetti sauce, when an old bloke lurched at me. For the fraction of a second

before he touched me I was half-aware that he was coming. He reached out and grabbed hold of my

arm. He was fighting for breath. It looked like he was having an asthma attack or something. I was only

five terms into my five years of medical study and I didn’t have a clue what was happening to him.

His face was ashen white and the grip he had on my sleeve tightened. I started to try and squirm away

from him but I couldn’t get free. I dropped my shopping basket and tried to prise his bony fingers off my

arm.

There was a sudden noise behind me and I looked back over my shoulder to see that the other

shopper had collapsed into a display rack, sending jars, tins and packets of food crashing to the ground.

He lay on his back amongst them, coughing, holding his throat and writhing around in agony.

I felt the grip on my arm loosen and I turned back to look at the old man. Tears of inexplicable pain

and fear ran freely down his weathered cheeks as he fought to catch his breath. His throat was obviously

blocked, but I couldn’t tell by what. My brain slowly began to click into gear and I started thinking about

loosening his collar and laying him down. Before I could do anything he opened his wide, toothless mouth

and I saw that there was blood inside. The thick crimson blood trickled down his chin and began to drip

on the floor in front of me. He dropped to the ground at my feet and I watched helplessly as his body

convulsed and shook.

I turned back to look at the other man who also lay on the marble floor, thrashing his arms and legs

desperately around him.

I ran to the back of the shop to try and find Mr Rashid. The shop led directly into their home. By the

time I found him and his wife they were both dead. Mrs Rashid had fallen in the kitchen and lay next to

an upturned chair. The tap was still running. The sink had overfilled and water was spilling down the units

and collecting in a pool around the dead lady’s legs. Mr Rashid lay in the middle of the living room

carpet. His face was screwed up in agony. He looked terrified.

I ran back through to the front of the shop. Both of the men I’d left fighting for breath were dead.

I walked back outside. The sun was incredibly bright and I had to shield my eyes. There were bodies

everywhere - even through the brightness the dark shapes on the ground were unmistakable. Hundreds

of people seemed to have died. I looked at the few closest to me. Whatever it was that had killed the

people inside the shop had killed everyone outside too. They had all suffocated. Every face I looked into

was ashen white and the mouth of every body was bloodied and red.

I looked up towards the junction of Maple Street and High Street. Three cars had crashed in the

middle of the box junction. No-one was moving. Everything was still. The only thing that changed was the

colour of the traffic lights as they steadily worked their way through red, amber and green.

There were hundreds, maybe even thousands of bodies around me. I was numb, cold and sick and I

walked home, picking my way through the corpses as if they were just litter that had been dropped on

the streets. I didn’t allow myself to think about what had happened. I guess I knew that I wouldn’t be

able to find any answers. I didn’t want to know what had killed the rest of the world around me and I

didn’t want to know why I was the only one left.

I let myself into the flat and locked the door behind me. I went into my room, drew the curtains and

climbed back into bed. I lay there, curled up as tightly as I could, until it was dark.

By eleven o’clock on a cold, bright and otherwise ordinary Tuesday morning in September over

ninety-five percent of the population were dead.

Stuart Jeffries had been on his way home from a conference when it had begun. He’d left the hotel on

the Scottish borders at first light with the intention of being home by mid-afternoon. He had the next three

days off and had been looking forward to sitting on his backside doing as little as possible for as long as

he could.

Driving virtually the full length of the country meant stopping to fill up the car with petrol on more than

one occasion. Having passed several service stations on the motorway he decided that he would wait

until he reached the next town to get fuel. A smart man, Jeffries knew that the cheaper he could buy his

petrol, the more profit he’d make when it came to claiming his expenses back when he returned to work

on Friday. Northwich was the nearest town, and it was there that a relatively normal morning became

extraordinary in seconds. The busy but fairly well ordered lines of traffic were thrown into chaos and

disarray as the infection tore through the cool air. Desperate to avoid being hit, as the first few cars

around him had lost control he had taken the nearest turning he could find off the main road and had then

taken an immediate right into an empty car park. He had stopped his car, got out and ran up the side of a

muddy bank. Through metal railings he had helplessly watched the world around him fall apart in the

space of a few minutes. He saw countless people drop to the ground without warning and die the most

hideous choking death imaginable.

Jeffries spent the next three hours sitting terrified in his hire car with the doors locked and the

windows wound up tight. The car had only been delivered to his hotel late the previous evening but in the

sudden disorientation it immediately became the safest place in the world.

The car radio was dead and his phone was useless. He was two hundred and fifty miles away from

home with an empty petrol tank and he was completely alone. Paralysed with fear and uncertainty, in

those first few hours he’d been more scared than at any other point in the forty-two years of his life so

far. What had happened around him was so unexpected and inexplicable that he couldn’t even begin to

accept the horrors that he’d seen, never mind try and comprehend any of it.

After three hours cooped up in the car the physical pressure on him gradually matched and then

overtook the mental stress. He stumbled out into the car park and was immediately struck by the bitter

cold of the late September day. Almost as if he was subconsciously trying to convince himself of what

he’d seen earlier, he silently walked back towards the main road and surveyed the devastation in front of

him. Nothing was moving. The remains of wrecked and twisted cars were strewn all around. The dirty

grey pavements were littered with cold, lifeless bodies and the only sound came from the biting autumn

wind as it ripped through the trees and chilled him to the bone. Other than the corpses that were trapped

in what was left of their cars there didn’t seem any immediately obvious reason for any of the deaths. The

closest body to Jeffries was that of an elderly woman. She had simply dropped to the ground where

she’d been standing. She still had the handle of her shopping trolley gripped tightly in one of her gloved

hands.

He thought about shouting out for help. He raised his hands up to his mouth but then stopped. The

world was so icily silent and he felt so exposed and out of place that he didn’t dare make a sound. In the

back of his mind was the very real fear that, if he was to call out, his voice might draw attention to his

location. Although there didn’t seem to be anyone else left to hear him, in his vulnerable and increasingly

nervous state he began to convince himself that making a noise might bring whatever it was that had

destroyed the rest of the population back to destroy him. Paranoid perhaps, but what had happened was

so illogical and unexpected that he just wasn’t prepared to take any chances. Frustrated and afraid, he

turned around and walked back towards the car.

At the far end of the car park, hidden from view at first by overhanging trees, stood the Whitchurch

Community Hall. Named after a long forgotten local dignitary it was a dull, dilapidated building which had

been built (and, it seemed, last maintained) in the late 1950’s. Jeffries cautiously walked up to the front of

the hall and peered in through a half-open door. Nervously he pushed the door fully open and took a few

tentative steps inside. This time he did call out, quietly and warily at first, but there was no reply.

The cold and draughty building took only a minute or two to explore because it consisted of only a

few rooms, most of which led off a main hall. There was a very basic kitchen, two storerooms (one at

either end of the building) and male and female toilets. At the far end of the main hall was a second, much

smaller hall, off which led the second storeroom. This room had obviously been added as an extension to

the original building. Its paint work and decoration, although still faded and peeling, was slightly less

faded and peeling than that of the rest of the rooms.

Other than two bodies in the main hall the building was empty. Jeffries found it surprisingly easy to

move the two corpses and to drag them outside. In the hand of a grey-haired man who looked to have

been in his early sixties he found a bunch of keys which, he discovered, fitted the building locks. This, he

decided, must have been the caretaker. And the equally grey-haired lady who had died next to him was

probably a prospective tenant, looking to hire the hall for a Women’s Institute meeting or something

similar. He heaved the stiff and awkward bodies through the doorway and placed them carefully in the

undergrowth at the side of the building.

It was while he was outside that he decided he would shelter in the hall until morning. It seemed to be

as safe a place as any in which to hide. It was isolated and although not in the best of repair, it looked

strong enough and seemed warmer than the car. Jeffries decided that there didn’t seem to be any point in

trying to get anywhere else. The only place he wanted to be was back home, but that was a few hours

drive away. He quickly convinced himself that it would be safer to stay put for now and then to try and

get petrol in the morning. He’d siphon it from one of the wrecked cars outside.

As the light began to fade he discovered that there was no electricity in the hall. A quick run to the

end of the car park revealed that it wasn’t just the hall that was without power. The entire city for as far

as he could see was rapidly darkening. Other than a few flickering fires he couldn’t see any light - not

even a single street lamp - and as he watched it seemed that the world around him was being steadily

consumed by the thick shroud of night.

Being a hire car, there was nothing to help inside Stuart’s vehicle. He cursed the irony of the situation

- he kept a blanket, a shovel, a toolbox, a first-aid kit and a torch in the back of his own car. If he’d only

made the journey in his own car then he would at least have had some light. All that he had now was the

hire car itself. He toyed with the idea of leaving the front door of the hall open and shining the headlamps

into the room but he quickly decided against it. Although he seemed to be the last person alive in the city,

shutting the door made him feel marginally safer and less exposed. With the door shut and locked he

could at least pretend for a while that nothing had happened.

Just before nine o’clock Jeffries’ solitary confinement was ended. He was sat on a cold plastic chair in

the kitchen of the hall listening to the silence of the dead world and trying hard to think of anything other

than what had happened today and what might happen to him tomorrow. A sudden crash from outside

caused him to jump to his feet and run to the front door. He waited for a second or two, almost too

afraid to see what it was that had made the noise. Sensing that help and explanations might be at hand he

took a deep breath, opened the door and ran out into the car park. To his left he could see movement.

Someone was walking along the main road. Desperate not to let them go, he sprinted up the bank to the

railings and yelled out. The shadowy figure stopped, turned around and ran back to where Jeffries stood.

Jeffries reached out and grabbed hold of Jack Baynham - a thirty-six year old bricklayer. Neither man

said a word.

The arrival of the second survivor brought a sudden hope and energy to Jeffries. Between them they

could find no answers as to what had happened earlier, but for the first time they did at least begin to

consider what they should do next. If there were two survivors it followed that there could be a hundred

and two, or even a thousand and two. They had to let other people know where they were.

Using rubbish from three dustbins at the side of the hall and the remains of a smashed up wooden

bench they built a bonfire in the centre of the car park, well away from the hall, the hire car and any

overhanging trees. Petrol from the mangled wreck of a sports car was used as fuel. Baynham set the fire

burning by flicking a smouldering cigarette butt through the cold night air. Within seconds the car park

was filled with welcome light and warmth. Jeffries found a compact disc in another car and put it into the

player in his. He turned the key in the ignition and started the disc. Soon the air was filled with classical

music. Sweeping, soaring strings shattered the ominous silence that had been so prevalent all day.

The fire had been burning and the music playing for just under an hour when the third and fourth

survivors arrived at the hall. By four o’clock the following morning the population of the Whitchurch

Community Hall stood at more than twenty dazed and confused individuals.

Emma Mitchell had spent almost the entire day curled up in the corner of her bed. She’d first heard

the music shortly after ten o’clock but for a while had convinced herself that she was hearing things. It

was only when she finally plucked up the courage to get out of bed and opened her bedroom window

that it became clear that someone really was playing music. Desperate to see and to speak to someone

else, she threw a few belongings into a rucksack and locked and left her home. She ran along the silent

streets using the feeble illumination from a dying torch to guide her safely through the bloody mass of

fallen bodies, terrified that the music might stop and leave her stranded before she could reach its source.

Thirty-five minutes later she arrived at the Community Hall.

Carl Henshawe was the twenty-fourth survivor to arrive.

Having left the bodies of his family behind, he had spent most of the day hiding in the back of a

builder’s van. After a few hours he had decided to try and find help. He’d driven the van around

aimlessly until it had run out of fuel and spluttered and died. Rather than try and refuel the van he decided

to simply take another vehicle. It was while he was changing cars that he heard the music.

Having quickly disposed of its dead driver, Carl arrived at the hall at day break in a luxury company

car.

Michael Collins had just about given up. Too afraid to go back home or indeed to go anywhere that

he recognised, he was sat in the freezing cold in the middle of a park. He had decided that it was easier

to be alone and deny what had happened than face returning to familiar surroundings and risk seeing the

bodies of people he’d known. He lay on his back on the wet grass and listened to the gentle babbling of

a nearby brook. He was cold, wet, uncomfortable and terrified, but the noise of the running water

disguised the deathly silence of the rest of the world and made it fractionally easier to forget for a while.

The wind blew across the field where he lay, rustling through the grass and bushes and causing the

tops of trees to thrash about almost constantly. Soaked through and shivering, Michael eventually

clambered to his feet and stretched. Without any real plan or direction, he slowly walked further away

from the stream and towards the edge of the park. As the sound of running water faded into the distance,

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AUTUMN DAVIDMOODY INFECTEDBOOKSwww.infectedbooks.co.ukAUTUMN PublishedbyINFECTEDBOOKSwww.infectedbooks.co.uk Thiseditionpublished2005CopyrightDavidMoody2002 AllrightsreservedThisbookisaworkoffiction.Thecharactersandsituationsinthisstoryareimaginary.Noresemblanceisintendedbetw...

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