I read through the government booklet again and again, hoping that I would find a page I'd somehow missed previously that might give me some idea of how to deal with my situation. No matter how hard I stared at the pages there was nothing. There was information on dealing with bomb threats, hostage situations, flu epidemics and terrorist attacks, basic first aid advice and a list of emergency telephone numbers (useless as the phone had been dead all week) but nothing to help me with the sudden and very real threat that I was facing. Apart from me the entire population had fallen and died, and now most of them seemed to have returned from the grave and were gravitating around my house. What the hell was I supposed to do?
During the course of the day now ending I have watched the crowds slowly draw closer. Just before one o'clock this afternoon the fence around the pub car park finally gave way under the weight of the countless bodies pushing against it. With the barrier down the people pushed, shoved and surged into the first garden only to stop when they slammed into the fence on the other side. It began to wobble and shake precariously but, for a time, it stayed intact, finally falling about an hour and a half later when it could no longer withstand the pressure being exerted from behind. The size of the crowd was incredible. As each fence collapsed it was as if a dam had burst its banks and the people poured through like an unstoppable wave.
Bill Peters, who lived at number 55, had a good, sturdy fence with concrete posts and a strong base which held up their progress for a while. Even Bill's fence wasn't good enough to stop them. They finally broke through at a quarter past four, leaving them just three gardens away from my home.
Day eight ends and day nine begins.
It's a little before one now and I'm sitting in Maddy's room watching them. I can see them from the end of the bed. I can see hundreds, probably thousands of shifting, bobbing heads moving in the cold moonlight. The recent nights have been overcast and dark but tonight the sky is clear and the moon is full and I can see everything. I wish it would disappear back behind the clouds. I'd rather see nothing.
I can't get out of here now. Even if I could, I'm not sure that I'd want to. This is my home. Everything I've ever worked for is here. The people I did all the work for are here too, buried at the bottom of the garden. This small plot of land is my world. I have nowhere else to go and there is no-one else to go to. I will not give up what is mine. I would rather die here than anywhere else, and as the clock ticks tonight the end of my life seems strangely inevitable.
I'm calm. I feel nervous and unsure and I don't want to face them, but I'm calm and I'm keeping my head. I will maintain my dignity and pride and I will continue to defend what's mine. There will be no kicking and screaming and no shame.
Oh, Christ... The splinter and crack of wood and another fence goes down. I move to the window and I can see that the crowd is closer than ever now, surging awkwardly across Pauline and Geoff Smart's lawn and slamming against the fence on the other side of their garden. They are now just two gardens away from me. It won't be long now.
Three-fifteen. I've sat here uselessly and watched them move closer. The penultimate fence is down now and a few thin wooden panels are all that separates the crowd from my property. I'm standing at the window now, looking directly at them. There doesn't seem to be any point trying to keep out of sight. It won't make any difference. Even if they don't know I'm here, their progress is unstoppable. They're coming here whatever.
I don't feel right. Something's missing. I know what it is � I shouldn't be stood up here watching them and waiting to mount my final defence, I should be down there. More to the point, I should be with Maddy and her mother when it happens. It's not the house I should be defending, it's my family.
If I'm out there then everything will happen as soon as the fence comes down. If I stay up here I'll be watching and waiting for God knows how long until they get into the house, and I'm not entirely sure they'll be able to get inside, no matter how many hundreds of them there are. They don't seem capable of doing anything that requires thought or concentration, they just blunder about continually. I doubt if any of them would even be able to open a bloody door. My provisions are stored out in the garage. I don't think I've got time to bring them all into the house now and even if I did I'd just be sat here with my memories, waiting for them to get in or for the end to finally arrive. Imagine starving to death in your own home. It's not right. That's not how I want to go...
I'll go outside.
Couple of hours and it'll all be over.
Lester Prescott quietly and tearfully left his daughter's room and shuffled across the landing to the bedroom he and Janice had shared for the last twenty-five years. Tired, dejected and with his heart heavy and full of resignation, sorrow and grief, he opened the wardrobe and took out his favourite jumper. Threadbare and tattered, it was the jumper he always used to wear when he was out in the garden at weekends. He pulled it on over his head and then sat down on the edge of the bed to tighten his shoe laces and pull up his socks.
Pausing only to take four cans of beer from his next week's rations, he took one last long look around his home and then went outside. He walked the length of the garden, looking around with pride and even now stopping to pick a weed from between the slabs on the patio and to tidy the edge of a flower-bed where the uncut grass has started to tumble towards Janice's prized plants. He stopped when he reached the garden shed and looked down at the two uneven mounds in the lawn where he'd buried his wife and only child.
Seems a shame that it all has to finish like this, he thought as he disappeared into the shed and fetched a spade and garden fork with which he could defend himself when the fence came down. He then squeezed his backside onto the seat of Maddy's swing and sat and looked back at the house. All that work for nothing. All those years of relentless number-crunching, day after day, week after week. Maybe he should have taken more time off? Perhaps he should have spent more time at home. And when he'd been at home, should he have spent more time sitting doing nothing with his family instead of working on his projects or hiding himself away in the garden shed? Lester opened his first can of beer and drank half of it in a series of quick, gassy gulps. He'd never been much of a drinker and the beer made him feel slightly sick. He belched and wiped his mouth and looked at the fence which was now rocking and shaking with the force of untold numbers of bodies behind it. Hope I can get through enough of these to take the edge off the fear, he thought, shaking his half-full can and stifling another belch. Bloody hell, Lester sighed sadly, this is like waiting to see the dentist. Just wish we could get it over with.
Lester had just started his final can of beer when it finally began. For the briefest of moments he'd actually managed to become distracted with pointless, random thoughts about nothing in particular and he'd almost forgotten what was about to happen. The sudden sharp crack of splintering wood brought him crashing back to reality. He jumped to his feet and grabbed the garden fork, holding it out in front of him like a four-pronged bayonet.
The fence had given way at the other end of the garden, nearer to the house. It was difficult to see much from his present position, but he was vaguely aware of dark, swarming movement around the building close to the garage door. It was frighteningly indistinct and random, but something was definitely happening. The fence � already weakened close to the house � now began to bow and buckle about halfway up the garden. Lester watched as it dipped further and further down, finally dropping so low that he could see the heads and shoulders of the dark, relentlessly advancing bodies on the other side. Their direction, although to a large degree random and uncoordinated, was obvious and inevitable.