The Hurst Chronicles (Book 1): Hurst (20 page)

Joe had gotten used to seeing death at close quarters. It no longer bothered him. In fact he had developed a whole vocabulary around death that helped to dehumanize the victims. Jack had once told him it was a coping strategy and that no one ever got used to seeing dead people. They just found a way of dealing with it, so it no longer held the power to shock.

Joe leaned in closer inspecting the corpse. There was no sign of illness, no flecking in the eyes, no dried blood around the nose or ears. This man had died from old age, plain and simple. He had simply sat there and waited to die, an empty mug of tea perched on a nested table beside him. Perhaps he had waited for help, for someone to return. Perhaps he had nowhere else to go, watching the news broadcasts until they went off air. Replaced by the recorded public service announcements that told everyone to stay indoors, avoid contact with others and wait for further instructions. He had died alone, on his own terms. It seemed to Joe a better way to go than the panic and disorder in the cities, the chaos at the hospitals and treatment centres over-run with the sick. In the end the hospitals had simply locked their doors and turned new arrivals away. Fearful of further contamination, poorly resourced to deal with the flood of humanity, they were unable to do anything for them but give them floor space to curl up and die.

He was jolted back to the present by a scream right behind him as Jean wandered in and caught sight of the body. She hid her face against his shoulder, shielding her eyes with her hands. She looked through clenched fingers, a morbid fascination beginning to replace the initial horror. “That’s disgusting,” she said, unable to look away.

“Looks like he died of old age. Pure and simple. No evidence of the virus.”

Seamus appeared behind him and gave the body a cursory look over before turning his back. “Probably right, the rest of the place is deserted.”

Joe was still staring at the old man’s face, studying his features. There was something about him that looked familiar. He clicked his fingers, pleased with himself as the penny finally dropped.

“David Jason.”

Jean looked up at him confused.

“You know, don’t you think he looks a bit like David Jason.” Jean was none the wiser. “You remember? The actor? Played Del Boy off that BBC sitcom 
Only Fools and Horses
?”

Jean looked again but shook her head. She had never heard of ‘
Only Fools and Horses’
though she liked the name.

“Suppose you never had just the four broadcast channels to choose from. Your generation was all reality TV and box sets, YouTube and watching stuff on your phone,” sighed Joe, nostalgic for a forgotten time when families would watch Saturday night live TV together.
Doctor Who
,
X Factor
,
Strictly
.

“You talk funny,” frowned Jean, pushing past him.

Seamus’s voice from the wood panelled corridor outside interrupted their exchange. “Jean. Go make yourself useful and get a fire lit. There’s a whole larder full of cans and pasta in there. We’ve hit gold,” he said laughing, clapping his hands together.

With a sigh, Jean mumbled something under her breath and dutifully headed off to grab some logs from the chopped wood stacked up in the garage together with firelighters and matches Joe had found above the fireplace in the snug.

Together the men carried the old man’s body outside and dumped the frail desiccated corpse head first in a large green recycling bin. Joe rushed out and remonstrated with the men, berating them for their lack of respect, insisting they bury him properly. The other men looked at each other and walked off laughing at Joe’s protestations. “If that’s what you want, then you do it,” one of them said.

Joe rummaged in the shed amongst an assortment of gardening tools before he found what he was looking for. He grabbed the shovel and started digging a shallow grave away from the house under an olive tree. It was the least he could do considering they were taking his house, eating his food and burning his logs. It was a small sign of respect, but an important one. Joe hoped that others would do the same for him when the time came. It was hard work and within minutes his clothes were soaked in sweat. The resulting hole was only a few inches deep, but served its purpose. When he stood back, leaning on the shovel, a half smile formed on his lips. He had done his duty and felt a glow of respectability.

Over dinner, they sat in silence sharing cans of baked beans and chicken curry that Jean had heated up for them over the fire. They washed it down with a full bottle of sherry, the first proper drink the men had had in many months. By way of desert, they passed round a half full bottle of Baileys, listening to more of Seamus’s stories of growing up in Ireland and tall tales of personal triumph and good fortune. Joe was sick of hearing them.

Seamus stood, yawned and stretched: “Think I’ll turn in. I’ll take the master bedroom, the rest of you can fight over the rest. I found this place after all, didn’t I?”

No one argued. He grabbed Jean’s wrist and hauled her up forcefully. She looked confused and tried to snatch back her arm, but he held tight. “Come on.”

She pulled away from him, her hand slipping from his moist palms.

“What are you doing?” For a moment, she looked like a defenceless animal, caught in the headlights, painfully unaware of the danger right in front of her, but paralysed and unable to move. She looked at the others imploring for their help, but they seemed complicit in whatever was happening here.

Seamus smiled a lascivious smile, his movements were slow and imprecise from the booze. He was staring at one of the other men sat on an upturned wooden crate. Hunched over in the semi-darkness he grinned back, enjoying the drama. His teeth were a dull yellow, several were missing, the bottle still in his hand as he took another long swig, never taking his eyes off the girl. Seamus turned back to face Jean. His smile was gone. “You’re coming with me. Let’s go.”

His tone towards her was different, more insistent. Gone was the charming, affable Seamus who looked out for her, cared for her, the man she had a secret crush on. The person in front of her wanted one thing only. She suddenly saw him properly for the first time and was very afraid. How could she have been so blind? He looked like a predator circling his prey.

She backed towards the door, her eyes darting between Joe and Seamus, panic building. She still had time to run if she was quick. She tried to stall. “But I’m not tired.”

“Neither am I.” Seamus shook his head, emboldened by the others.

Joe started to intervene: “Listen Seamus, I don’t think…” Seamus whipped his head round and silenced him before he could finish. “I don’t give a monkey’s what you think, fat boy. Stay out of this.”

Jean suddenly grasped what was happening and started to cry. “Please, I don’t…I don’t want to. Joe, please, don’t let him.”

Joe rose quickly and stood between them, blocking his path. He raised his hands in front of him to try to defuse the situation, appealing for Seamus to be sensible. Seamus shook his head. “Don’t be a mug. We all know what this is, what’s going to happen here. Don’t try and get in my way Joe. I’m warning you.”

“No, I’m warning you Seamus. This has gone far enough. If you do anything to that girl you’ll have me to answer for,” cautioned Joe.

“I’m disappointed in you. I thought you were one of us.” Seamus looked around the others, making eye contact with each of them.

“I’m nothing like you Seamus.”

“Locking us up in that place, for all that time, they treated us like animals. Sure, you were only there a few days, but us, we were there for weeks on end. It ain’t right, and someone has to pay.”

“But it doesn’t mean we have to behave like animals. Come on, we’re better than that aren’t we?”

“You may be Joe, but I’m not. Treat me like an animal and sooner or later that’s what I become. I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time.”

Jean’s terror was mounting, she felt trapped. Her chest was heaving as she tried to gulp down breaths, adrenaline pumping through her veins, her fists clenched. She made a break for the open doorway, but one of the men grabbed her wrist and pushed her back into the middle of the room.

Seamus nodded at his former cellmate. Joe never heard or saw it coming, and was only vaguely conscious of movement behind him and a severe blow to the back of his head, just behind the ear. He collapsed on to the floor and the world went dark. He was dimly aware of voices and snatched fragments of conversations. A strangled scream, hurried footsteps going up the stairs, then nothing.

When he woke, it was dark with only the flickering light of a candle in a saucer. His hands and feet were tied with what felt like bungee cord, lying on a cold limestone floor. Jean and the others were nowhere to be seen.

Chapter thirty-nine

Joe squinted up into the beam of sunlight that struck the paving stone next to his head. There was a dirty J-cloth in his mouth to stop him shouting out and made breathing difficult. There was a metallic taste to the cloth as if it had once been used to clean paint brushes.

He’d been down here for two days now in a state of squalor that made him gag each time he woke. His underwear was heavily soiled and despite his best efforts to wriggle clear of the wet patch on the floor, he had been unable to get any real sleep for the last few hours. He was dangerously dehydrated and exhausted. Conserving his remaining energy, he listened helplessly to the shouting and intermittent screams from above. In part as a subconscious defence mechanism, his mind was miles away. He had been filling the interminable hours reflecting on a happier time before the outbreak, escaping from the hopelessness of his current predicament. The smell of paint and the unpleasant taste in his mouth reminded him of his old neighbour, Howard. On the weekend, Howard had done some part-time work for a decorating business run by a friend of his. That’s the smell he remembered him for, white spirit. Paint brushes left to soak on his window sill over night. How he wished his best mate was here with him right now. He could have done with his company.

Before coming to Hurst, he had spent several months holed up in a tower block in Shirley, on the outskirts of Southampton. The two friends had first met at their local pub, The Trafalgar, thrown together on the same quiz team by a mutual friend. He had warmed to Howard immediately. They shared a passion for bad sci-fi, Southampton football club, Britpop and video games, the more gore and violence the better. They took it in turns to car share into town to the same multi-story car park down near the docks. Howard was a crane operator unloading large shipping containers on tight schedules, rewarded for hitting daily targets. It was dull work, but paid well and it meant he got to spend the day listening to music or daydreaming, with a window on the commercial world, overlooking the port. By comparison, Joe’s days were more mundane, working in the kiosk at the local cinema in Ocean Village. After work, they would both sneak in and catch the latest releases and enjoy unlimited refills of coke and popcorn till their bellies were full, belching on the front row in the darkness, laughing together.

When the first news reports of isolated outbreaks of the virus began in earnest and panic gripped the nation, people left the cities in their droves, carrying what they could. Those that remained took full advantage of unprotected stores and shopping centres. When the numbers of rioters swelled, sweeping away the thin blue line of law and order, large segments of the urban population formed ant-trails to electronics and clothing stores for the latest gear. They had staggered home happy with wide-screen televisions and DVD players, unaware that the days of the national grid and widely available electricity were coming to an end. Blackouts swiftly ensued leaving displays lifeless and obsolete.

Meanwhile Joe had the foresight to borrow a Transit van from his downstairs neighbour and drove to the local ‘cash-and-carry’ a few blocks away. They had avoided the supermarkets. By then larger stores were surrounded by private security guards equipped with riot shields and batons to deter the hungry crowds. With Howard’s help, he loaded up on multipacks of fruit juice and mineral water, boxes of biscuits, nuts and crisps, dried fruit and Biltong, sacks of rice and pasta, and anything else that would last without refrigeration. By the time they were done, they had ferried seventeen brim-full shopping trolleys to the van parked in a side alley. It took them the best part of a day to manhandle box after box up the eleven floors to their bedsits, with the lift broken down for the third time that month. It was a small block and they shared the floor with two larger flats, both of whose occupants were away on holiday or business, they weren’t sure which.

Later that week, the police were reinforced by the arrival of a whole convoy of army trucks. Hundreds of armed men in military fatigues did their best to wrestle back control with tear gas and rubber bullets, before they too were surrounded and overwhelmed. Those who were left, pulled out, leaving gangs of youths to rule the streets. Joe watched running battles from above as slowly but surely the police retreated. The gangs were left to slaughter each other in a war of attrition, a mad scramble for what little food and water remained.

Joe and Howard, along with a family from downstairs, watched with increasing alarm. They decided to take matters into their own hands. They barricaded shut the ground-floor door to the stairwell, securing two heavy looking curtain rods top and bottom to reinforce the metal doors. They hurled two sofas and a kitchen table over the first floor rail down into the stairwell to block access and prevent the door from opening. It was good enough for now and should keep away the more curious scavengers, but unlikely to stop any concerted effort with tools and brute force. If the gangs thought there was anything of value inside, they would find a way. It was just a matter of time.

The family downstairs got sick first. There was nothing Joe and Howard could do for them. They could hear the children coughing through the night through the floorboards. The next day when they knocked on their front door to check on them, there was no response. Everything was silent.

They spent their days reading fiction, sometimes aloud to each other. They tried at first to stay fit, doing press-ups and sit-ups, running relays up and down the stairs. Hours passed slowly, lost in conversation, chewing the fat, arguing about the most pointless stuff, like you did when you no longer had TV, work or social media to occupy your every waking thought. Who was the best 007 villain? Whether there really was extra-terrestrial life? Who was the best English striker of all time? Which members of the latest boy-band sensation could actually carry a tune without the help of a mixing deck?

Joe kept a hand-written diary in an old exercise book. He thought it was important to record what they saw from their eleventh story window and their panoramic view of the city. He tracked the movement of police vehicles. Counted the helicopters ferrying personnel in and out. The day the army arrived and started knocking on doors evacuating whoever remained out of the city. The day they first noticed that passenger jets had stopped taking off and landing at Southampton airport a few miles away. The unrelenting silence, broken only by car alarms set off by the last of the looters. Each event noted with times and approximate locations.

They debated whether to leave the city, but decided against it. Afraid of contracting the sickness from contact with others. Howard talked of other dangers. Cholera and worse. Too many bodies left unburied, he said. Rats would spread disease. It was only a question of time before things got worse.

In the bedsit, they were safe and if they were careful, they could stretch the food and water out as long as possible. In a few weeks, they hoped the virus would die out, along with most of those infected, giving them safe passage out of the city. They would head southwest towards Lymington where his aunt lived and try to find a boat to take them to France.

The nights were long and spent in total darkness. They conserved their candles and torch batteries for when they were preparing meals or making notes in the diary. When it got dark, there was nothing to do but sleep. They watched the stars out of their balcony window on the eleventh floor. They told stories, reminiscing about their childhood and school days.

After fifty-five days the food ran out. They searched the other deserted flats and bedsits for tinned goods, cereal, biscuits, anything that was still edible, exhausting all that remained. Hungry and thirsty, they decided that they would wait a few more days before setting out and making for the coast.

Joe’s aunt Harriet was a wealthy widow. She had lived alone for two years since her husband died tragically early, in a head-on collision with a lorry. She had a large town house on one of the roads that led off from the high street, looking down over the estuary with glimpses of the sea in the distance. Joe wasn’t sure if his aunt would still be there, but it was as good a place as any to head for. If she had already left, or God forbid, had already died, they could use the house as a base. Try and find a fishing boat or yacht that could get them off the mainland.

On the fifty-ninth day, they reluctantly left their homes for the last time, lowered their kit down on a rope from a second floor window before clambering after it. They loaded the Transit van in silence with what remained of their supplies. They set out along back streets and alleyways, trying to avoid the main roads, which were mostly impassable, choked with abandoned vehicles. After several miles of slow progress heading out of the city, they swung south towards Hythe, hugging the coastline avoiding the main roads through the New Forest. Rounding two vehicles locked together in a head on collision, they got the van stuck in a deep ditch, its front wheels spinning uselessly in muddy water. Without a winch and a truck, there was no way of getting it out again, so they continued the rest of their journey to Lymington on foot.

It was further than they realized. They had no map and only a toy compass with a mind of its own, but figured that if they stayed close to the coast, they would get there eventually. It took them the best part of two days. Keeping to footpaths that sometimes ran deep into the forest, crossing fields left to grow wild, sleeping at night in farmhouses, long-since deserted. They avoided towns as much as possible, but followed the path of a B-road, checking road signs with binoculars. They encountered the Beaulieu River at Bucklers Hard and crossed to the other side in a small rowing boat. When they finally reached the Lymington river and the outskirts of the town itself, they stopped to drink from their canteens. They found themselves opposite the ferry port and single-track railway station that led to it. Walking into town, they caught sight of other survivors. Small organized groups, scavenging for food, looked warily at the two men. Their appearance was dishevelled and dirty from sleeping rough in the forest and farm buildings. Joe and Howard were unarmed and kept their distance. Their large backpacks caught the attention of those they passed who chased them into nearby fields. They gave them the slip, hiding frightened and out of breath behind a hedgerow.

Joe’s memory jumped forward to the fateful night of the attack and shivered involuntarily, a stab of pain shooting up his right arm. He shifted his weight again to take the pressure off his painful wrist. It had taken a rain of blows earlier in the day, defending his head and chest from the latest beating.

That night, Howard had been woken by raised voices outside his aunt’s house, banging relentlessly on the door. They had had the good sense to barricade the front and back entrances. Somehow they had found a way in, smashing down a ground-floor window to gain entry, even though the windows were shuttered and padlocked.

He had replayed the next few minutes again and again in his mind. It had been his fault he remembered. He had been careless, falling asleep with the candle still burning. The curtain open barely a crack, but enough to be visible to a passer-by. They didn’t stand a chance, there were too many of them, torches flashed in faces. Howard had fought back and was stabbed in the stomach by a boy who looked no older than twelve. The others set upon Joe before he could react and beat him badly, taking their rucksacks and other precious items, tools and torches. They had left Joe with two broken ribs and a fractured jaw, barely alive, clutching Howard’s hand as the colour drained from his face. His pulse grew fainter and gradually faded altogether. He kept holding on to him, gripping his friend’s hand, sobbing quietly until the touch of his skin grew cold and his body stiffened. He must have finally given in to the overwhelming sense of exhaustion, passing out until the next morning.

Zed had found him. Pulled him out, cleaned him up. Carried him to the Land Rover, laid him on the back seat as Riley tended to his wounds, whispering soothing words to keep him conscious. They had saved his life, there was no question. He pictured Riley’s face, her long brown hair, her even smile, her green eyes. He felt he could reach out and touch her, but the image of her was temporary. They were most probably back at Hurst by now, wondering where he was, surprised he hadn’t made it back there after escaping from the hotel. He shuddered, remembering that no one knew where he was. There was no chance of rescue this time. He was on his own.

He looked deep within himself, wondering whether he had the courage and strength to carry on. His second incarceration in a week. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Was this his punishment for finally giving in to carnal pleasure at the hotel? His first time, after so much anticipation, had been purely functional. No talking. Watched by the guard. Then his first was quickly followed by several more. Each partner different and exciting, yet devoid of any affection. An exchange of services. Few words. The guard had called him a breeder. An underclass to the women who used him. He was no better than an animal to them. He wondered what real love would feel like and whether he would live that long to taste it. Mila. He thought of his beautiful Mila. A smile forming on his lips.