It’s a Wednesday in late April and pissing down, so I’m pulled over at the side of the M1 waiting for the rain to die down enough to see whilst driving. I have a huge supply of tobacco and alcohol of every kind imaginable in the front seat of my newly-acquired white Transit van, and am taking the opportunity to consume as much as I can. It’s the middle of the afternoon, and has been raining too much for me to drive for about four hours. I have been continuing my new habit of drinking steadily since I woke up, which was just before sunrise.
It comes as no surprise then that I’m a little confused when I notice the police car that is driving towards me slowly with its lights flashing.
Figuring that I’m either not drunk enough, or far too drunk to care, I select a bottle of tequila from the pile, and take a couple of good mouthfuls from the pale blue bottle. This is far better than that disgusting Jose Cuervo crap, and I make a mental note to loot some more. There’s a half-rolled joint on the dashboard which I don’t remember starting, but all the components are there so I twist it between my fingers, lick the gummed edge of the paper, and tap the tobacco down. A quick twirl seals the end to a taper, and I roll down a window slightly before firing up. I draw long, deep breaths pulling the smoke right back into my lungs, and exhale as slowly as possible. The joint crackles as the lit end creeps back towards my mouth, and the cab fills with smoke which trails gently over the edge of the window.
My head swims in a fog for a while, and I close my eyes and drift in an out of consciousness. The world spins, rocking gently, and I let my head nod with it.
There’s a tapping noise next to my ear. I raise one cautious eyelid to see the source of irritation is a tall, skinny youth wearing a policeman’s helmet. He’s knocking on the window which my head is resting on with the tip of what seems to be a telescoping baton, and seems to be indicating that I should wind the window down.
I pull myself together enough to sit up, both eyes open, and gather my thoughts. I find a bottle of water amongst the booze and empty what’s left. It just about moistens my mouth enough to try speaking. In the rear-view mirror I can see two blood-shot eyes peering out from an unshaven and dishevelled face which is pale and in need of a wash. At first I don’t even recognise my own reflection, and when I do it shocks me.
I turn my attention to the apparition at my window. He’s stopped tapping and is now peering in at me from a distance of about six inches. I wind the window down enough that it’s not between our faces, registering as I do that the rain has finally stopped.
“Alright?” He asks. I puzzle over this for a moment. It seems like an fairly incongruous question.
“Yeah, I guess.” I’m not being deliberately guarded, it’s just my brain;s still getting up to speed and this is the best it’s capable of right now. I spend a moment thinking I should say this, by way of explanation, but what comes out is: “You?”
“Yeah.” He points at the part-smoked joint which is resting in the ashtray on the dashboard. “Can I have some of that?”
I shrug non-comittally but hand him the joint. He produces a zippo from somewhere out of sight and lights it, taking several shallow puffs without exhaling. Removing the joint from his lips he studies it appreciatively for a moment, exhaling with his mouth held in a comical “O’ shape.
“Wicked stuff. Where’d you find it?” He passes the joint back but I shake my head and he takes another hit.
“Brixton. I spent a few days raiding houses and found a couple of dealer’s flats. It’s kept me going for weeks.”
He reaches awkwardly through the window with one arm, and for a moment I’m unsure of his intentions until I realise he’s offering to shake my hand. “I’m Brian,” he says. His accent is broadly scouse.
“Nice one Brian. Where’d you get the car?” I gesture towards the BMW which is parked about twenty yards away, lights still flashing; markings on the side read Merseyside Police.
He looks back at it and grins. “Lovely, innit? I liberated it from the filth last week and I’ve been dragging up and down the M1 for laughs. Topped out at a hundred and ninety.” Brian steps back from the window and appraises my ride. “What you driving this for then?”
I poke the fluffy dice that hang from the mirror and look around the cab. It’s in a real state, and it occurs to me I’ve been living in this sty for more than a three days without a break.
“Irony, mostly.” Brian’s puzzled by my answer, but doesn’t question it. “I’ve always hated white van drivers, so I figured I’d give it a shot and find out what it’s all about.”
“Well, it ain’t about the birds.”
“Yeah,” I laugh and take the joint back from Brian, “you’re right there.”
“Here, you fancy a drink?”
I wave my hand over the supply of cans and bottles piled up on the passenger seat. “I’ve got a decent supply.”
Brian shakes his head. “No mate, a real drink. There’s a local brewery a couple of miles down the road. It should still be good for a few decent pints as long as the pipes are okay.
I perk my ears up a the prospect of a real pint. “All right then, lead on.” I start the engine and Brian jogs back to his car, shouting over the chug of the huge diesel motor.
“Race you!”
We speed along the motorway, weaving around the occasional stopped or crashed car, carefully avoiding the stream of wrecked trucks in the slow lane or mangled across the hard shoulder. After a dozen miles Brian pulls out onto an off-ramp and a few more minutes of meandering Yorkshire country road brings us to the Rising Sun pub. The afternoon sun is peeking out from behind a mass of slowly vanishing clouds, causing the grey slate roof to shine with dazzling intensity. Brian drives right up to the door and tries the handle. It doesn’t budge, so he tries a couple of good hard kicks. On the third attempt the lock gives way and the door explodes inwards with a crash of breaking glass. Brian looks back at me sheepishly and walks inside. I pull out a torch from my pocket and twist the lamp to switch it on, then follow him.
We’re both relieved to find the place empty, and not stinking of rotting corpses. The main bar is in pristine condition, and I swing a torch through the gloom picking out details. Red velvet benches, mullioned windows, gas lamps. I wander over and experimentally unscrew the valve on the nearest. It hisses with the noise of escaping gas, and I pull out my lighter and flick it across the tamped, blackened wick. The flame catches immediately and settles into a bright, steady burn. Brian lights another lamp close to the bar, and soon the whole room is aglow.
“What will it be, sir?” I’m stood behind the bar doing my best impression of a yorkshire drawl. Brian seats himself on a stool and peers at the labels in the yellow light. He points out a Timothy Taylor.
“A pint of Landlord mate. And a packet of cheese and onion crisps.”
I yank the arm of the pump down and nothing comes out. A couple more attempts produces a thin stream of dark brown liquid that doesn’t much resemble beer. Brian jumps up off his seat and starts around the back of the bar.
“I’ll try changing the barrel and give the pipes a flush. Should be okay, just give us a minute, yeah?” He disappears through a door and downstairs, and I find myself wondering how well he knows this place. There’s a loud crash from below, and a muffled curse.
“Basement door.” He calls up, by way of explanation. I go back to searching through the wines above the bar and uncork a Shiraz. It’s settled out a bit, so I leave it to breathe for a while and pour myself a whisky instead. There’s a bell above the bar and I give it tap. The noise rings out in the silence.
Brian shouts that he’s hooked up water to the line and I pull out a few jugs, tipping them into the sink. The line clears quickly, and a few minutes later we’re both sipping warm but perfectly acceptable ale.
“So,” Brian turns to me raises his eyebrows, and puts his beer on the bar, “where where you when it happened?”
I take a gulp of my beer, and gaze into it thoughtfully, and begin to tell him my story. He nods and mumbles the odd “uh huh”, but otherwise doesn’t interrupt whilst I talk.
When I’m finished he still doesn’t say anything for a couple of minutes, and I pour us both another beer. When I sit back down all he says is “Wow, that sucks”.
“So what about you?” I ask.
“Well, that’s the rub. I was looking at a night in lock-up for affray, and causing a bit of a ruckus in the back of the van. Must have been about five in the morning I guess, me and lads had been out on a right bender Saturday night. Well, I figure they got tired of me because the van stops and I hear one of them get out the front door. He’s fiddling with his keys to open up, and I know that he’s gonna give me a good kicking, so I’m getting ready to jump him and give as good as I get.
“Well, the door opens and he’s looking like he’s gonna pop a blood vessel or something, and I get myself shoved back as far as I can so he’ll have to get in the cage with me. There’s not a lot of room in the back of those vans so if I’m lucky I can scarper and they’re going to have a bastard of a time catchin’ me. Well, this rozzer just about manages to get the key in the lock and then he just keels over. Like you see in the movies, sorta just folds over.
“So there I am thinking his mate is gonna clock to it any second, fiddling with the keys trying to get it turned so I can leg it, when the van just starts rolling forward. The engine’s still ticking over, but the driver must have it in neutral. Now I’m proper fucking freaking because I can hear a car crash just down the road, and then another one. The van sorta bumps into something, and stops, and behind us I can see the copper lying on the floor, his face is a mess like he’s fallen flat on it, and then I clock that he’s carked it.
“So I stop fucking with the keys and get to making some noise, trying to get his mate’s attention, because I don’t want him to come round and see me standing there with the keys in one hand and his dead friend lying on the floor. I do anything I can to get his attention, jumping up and down and yelling, screaming that he needs to come help his mate.
“Then I stop, because across the road I can see the window of this all-night cafe. And in the window there’s a fella who’s fallen off his chair and hasn’t got up.
“That’s when I grab the keys and open up the cage sharpish, dead copper or not. I can see another one on the floor of the cafe, so I run round to the front of the van, and sure enough the driver’s face-first in the steering wheel, his eyes all bugging out.
“I sorta lost it then, and scarpered. All I could see were people who had just fallen down dead on the spot, like. There was hundreds of them, and I leg it past them all without even looking, headed for me Mam’s place, trying to call her on the mobile.
“I get there, and don’t even bother with the keys, just the door just sorta bounces of me as I go through it, and then I’m there in the living room.
“Mam’s asleep on the sofa, and I try waking her, but she doesn’t move, and I can’t feel a pulse and she’s not breathing. I try calling 999, but there’s no answer. I saw this first aid video at school once, so I try to give it a go, but I can’t remember it properly, and I’m worried about hurting her, you know?
“Well, I didn’t know what else to do, so I took her car and drove around to all my mates’ places, but it was the same thing everywhere. I buried Mam, but the others there was too much to do it all, so I took as much stuff as I could and left when, well you know, when the smell started after about a week. Been driving around and exploring ever since.”
I’ve been waiting for him to finish with as much patience as I can muster, but I have barely heard a word in the past couple of minutes. Instead I want to know how people died, what happened to them.
I bombard Brian with questions, trying to glean from what little he saw some kind of clue as to what happened, but he was so absorbed in his own situation that there’s little more he can offer. He didn’t see anything that could explain what happened, and hasn’t seen any sign of life since.
“I only saw the one copper, and he looked like he was going to blow his top. I wasn’t really paying much attention, you know. I was half-cut anyways.”
I pull another pint, but Brian’s not in the mood for drinking any more, and he gets up to go for a walk. I sit alone in the darkness, listening for his footsteps on the gravel outside. It’s amazing how I’ve become accustomed to the silence, how I can pick out any little sound that I would never have noticed before. I can hear him taking a piss against the wall outside, sighing when he’s finished, and continuing his circuit of the pub. His clomping Doc Marten’s are heavy on the tile steps on the way in, and he slumps down onto the stool with the force of a much heavier man.
“So, what do we do now then?”
Its a question that throws me completely. Not that I haven’t considered it; it’s been the subject of most of my waking hours for the past few weeks. It’s just that the question has been “what do I do now?” After spending so long adjusting to a world view without anyone else in it, the plural is confusing, even threatening.
“I don’t know.” It’s not an honest reply. Right now I want to be left alone again, to stretch out in a real bed and sleep and not have to think about anyone else. Tomorrow I want to drive away as fast as I can. Brian’s not part of my world. I’d never have given him a second thought other than as a violent, lower-class thug until this afternoon, and in spite of the alcohol I’m slowly sobering up enough to realise that I’m sat talking to someone that I would have crossed the street to avoid in my previous life. The question is, how to walk away from the only other living person I’ve met in the past two months?
“Well how about we head down to London? I was going that way anyhow when I saw you.” He’s full of enthusiasm, as if London is full of warm, living people that are going to welcome him with open arms.
“I came from London, there’s not much there apart from flies and corpses right now.” Maybe in a few more months, when the city’s been picked clean, I’ll consider returning. Until then I’m keeping as far from civilisation as possible. “Besides,” I add, hoping this will deter him, “it was burning to the ground when I left.”
“You what?”
“It was on fire, or at least most everything west of Hyde Park was.” I recall the columns of flame pouring over Knightsbridge, of running through department stores setting fire to mile after mile of ridiculous designer clothing, watching from a distance when the blaze ran out of control and the first petrol station went up. I remember sitting drunk at the top of an office block singing songs that I’d learned around campfires as a cub scout.
I must be smiling, because the look on Brian’s face is one of pure dismay. I light a cigarette, then stub it out on the bar.
“Look, there was nobody else left. I spent a week driving around in a bloody truck with a compressed-air horn going. If there was anyone alive within twenty bloody miles they’d have heard me. Christ, I could hear birds singing in fucking Essex, let alone anyone who wanted to make a noise.”
He looks at me with an incredulous expression.
“You burned it?” The question chokes in his throat, and it occurs to me that he’s really upset about this.
“There was nobody left for fuck’s sake. Gone. Finito. In case you didn’t notice, the world ended. It’s not like anyone else was going to show up and need accommodation for ten million.”
The punch comes out of nowhere. I wasn’t wrong when I decided that Brian was a violent thug. Fortunately for me he’s also not much of an alcoholic, and whilst the blow connects solidly with my cheek, he loses his balance and tips off his stool. I sit in stunned silence for a moment whilst he staggers upright and comes in for a second blow, but the punch has served to sober me up enough to grab his arm and pull it in close. He struggles, but now I’ve got an arm around his neck and am squeezing good and tight. If I’ve got this right I’m compressing his carotid artery, starving his brain of oxygen. If I’ve got it wrong I’m just pissing him off.
I lean right next to his ear and say in a slow, deliberate voice:
“Look, I’m leaving now. Head down to London if you like, I honestly couldn’t care less. But leave me the fuck alone.”
I keep hold of him until he stops thrashing around, and then count to thirty just to be sure, before lowering him to the floor gently. He’s still breathing and has a shallow pulse, and I figure he’ll be okay. As I walk out of the pub an idea hits me, and I rummage through his pockets until I find what I’m looking for.
It takes a little effort to get sorted, and I leave him a black bag full of weed on the driver’s seat when I’m done, but at least Brian was right about one thing.
The BMW is much better than the Transit.