Autumn by David Moody Read Free Book Online Page A

watched from the gutter as the figure staggered off again, still moving desperately slowly as if it had lead in its shoes.
    ‘Michael,’ Jeffries yelled from the entrance to the car park. ‘Get back inside now, we’re closing the door.’
    Michael dragged himself back up to his feet and sprinted towards the others. As he approached he could see more figures moving in the distance. It was obvious by their slow, forced movements that, like the first man he’d seen, these people weren’t survivors either.
    By the time he reached the car park the others had already disappeared back into the community hall. He was vaguely aware of them yelling at him to come inside but in his disbelief, confusion and bewilderment their fear and panic failed to register. He stood staring out towards the main road, preoccupied by the impossible sight he now saw in front of him.
    About a third of the bodies were moving. Roughly one in three of the corpses that had littered the streets around the community centre had become mobile again. Had they not been dead to start with? Had they just been in a coma or something similar? A thousand unanswerable questions began flooding into his mind.
    ‘For Christ’s sake, get inside!’ yelled another one of the survivors from the hall, their voice hoarse with fear.
    As if to prove a point, the corpse on the ground nearest to Michael began to move. Beginning at the outermost tip of the fingers on one outstretched hand, the body started to stretch and to tremble. As he stared in silent incredulity, the fingers began to claw at the ground and then, seconds later, the entire hand was moving. The movement spread steadily along one arm and then, with an almighty shudder, the body lifted itself up from the ground. It tripped and stumbled as it raised itself up onto its unsteady feet. Once upright it simply staggered away, passing within a metre of where Michael stood. The bloody thing didn’t even seem to realise that he was there.
    Terrified, he turned and ran back inside.
    It took less than thirty seconds for the news to spread to all the survivors. Carl Henshawe, refusing to believe what he’d heard, clambered out onto the area of flat roof that he’d stood on last night.
    It was true. As incredible as it seemed, some of the bodies were moving.
    Carl stood and surveyed the same desperate scene he’d witnessed less than twelve hours earlier and saw that many of the cold and twisted corpses he’d seen had disappeared. He looked down at the place on the cold ground where the boy with the broken neck had died.
    There was nothing. He had gone.

9

    Almost an hour passed before anyone dared to move.
    The survivors, already shell-shocked and beaten by all that they had been through, stood together in terror and disbelief and tried to come to terms with the morning’s events. Surprisingly it was Ralph, the solicitor who had seemed so authoritative and keen to take control last night, who appeared to be having the most trouble accepting what he had seen and heard today. He stood in the centre of the room alongside Paul Garner (an overweight and middle-aged estate agent), struggling to persuade Emma, Carl, Michael and Kate James (a thirty-nine year old primary school teacher) not to open the door and go back outside.
    ‘But we have to go out, Ralph,’ Emma said, calmly and quietly. ‘We’ve got to try and find out what’s going on.’
    ‘I’m not interested,’ the flustered and frightened man snapped. ‘I don’t care what’s happening. There’s no way I’m going to go out there and risk...’
    ‘Risk what?’ Michael interrupted. ‘No-one’s asking you to go outside, are they?’
    ‘Opening that door is enough of a bloody risk in itself,’ Garner muttered anxiously. He chewed on the fingers of his left hand as he spoke. ‘Keep it shut and keep them out.’
    ‘We can’t take any chances by exposing ourselves to those things...’ Ralph protested.
    ‘Things?’ Emma repeated, her tone suddenly