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The Visitor | A Post-Apocalyptic Murder Mystery Page 3
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Chaos. Utter chaos, within a week.
Back in 2020, there were daily government announcements, press conferences as the situation was assessed, an orderly closing of schools, businesses, shops―this time, they weren't so much shut down as abandoned, because everyone was dead or dying.
On that first Tuesday―July 30th, only six days ago―I arrived at Northampton General Hospital to find armed police officers stopping a mob from stampeding the entrance, shouting for the vaccine.
Crazy fuckers, I thought. How many times did they need to be told that hospitals didn't carry it? Then again, if I hadn't 'been done', if I didn't work in a hospital, would I have been standing outside in hope? I can't say.
I slipped through a staff-only side door to see everyone rushing around, preparing for an influx of patients.
"Don't know why they're bothering," said Phil. "'Cause you just die, don't you? This ain't no coronavirus. Don't matter how many ventilators they've got, they won't be able to save anyone."
"I agree, but I wouldn't say that too loudly."
Everywhere I went, people were scrolling through their phones, watching the panic escalate, as more and more people all over the country fell ill.
Already shops were being boarded up. Already there were riots and protests. Looting.
When I got home I spoke to Sarah, who said that they were going up to Hincham as soon as she could get Greg to agree.
"He's refusing point blank at the moment. Evidently his property deals are more important than staying alive."
"Why don't you go without him?"
She was silent for a moment. "I can't, that's all. It's not that simple."
As with Rexy, I felt that she wasn't telling me something. "Does he not realise how dangerous this is?"
"You know Greg. He assumes he's immune."
I could imagine. He was that much of an arrogant bastard. "Sarah, if he gets it, so will you."
"I know that, you know that, but Greg thinks the universe operates according to his rules."
"You've got to keep yourself safe."
"I know. I know."
She sounded particularly nervy, talking too fast; I hoped the coke hadn't made a comeback. She was a total party animal when she first started modelling, but claimed that these days she only took it now and again to keep her weight down, or on 'special occasions'. When she met Greg I disliked him on the spot but he seemed fairly smitten, and I thought marriage might at least calm her down a little. Alas, being Greg's wife meant one long round of socialising, and he used coke as a pick-me-up in the way that I would drink a cup of coffee.
Three years back, the four of us spent a weekend in rural Kent because Daisy wanted to see Hever Castle, and Sarah acted strangely, throughout. Brittle, showy; I remember thinking that if I'd only just met her, I wouldn't like her at all. She kept bragging about her ritzy lifestyle, though she must have known none of us were impressed by her name-dropping. Rexy actually told her so, at one point.
"I reckon she's septum-deep in Charlie again," he said, when she went to the loo in a huff.
I said, "I wonder if she gets so used to acting up with Greg's crowd that she's forgotten how not to."
"I think she's unhappy," said Daisy. "I tried to get her to talk last night but she told me to stop psychoanalysing her."
She'd calmed down by the next time we met, but I heard the same harsh quality in her voice when I spoke to her that Tuesday night.
Maybe she was just scared, and trying not to let it show.
After we'd ended the call I spoke to Daisy, in Surrey, who said her mother was ill; she'd been up to London the day before, before the announcements started.
"It's okay, you don't have to think of something to say that won't sound trite," she said. "There's nothing you can say; she's got all the symptoms."
I spoke to Rexy, interrupting him from his video game, about which I could tell he wasn't too pleased. And what he said worried me intensely.
"It's weird, you know; those three were supposed to be isolated cases, but other people are getting ill."
"How? Because it's airborne?"
"Haven't a clue. I got my vaccine this morning, though, so no worries. Oh yeah, and since you didn't ask, Avalon's doing fine at her mate's; it hasn't got to Fakenham yet."
"You're okay, though?"
He yawned. "Yeah. Just knackered. Don't know why, I'm not doing anything."
On Wednesday, the Prime Minister applauded the British people for 'pulling together', as more cases were reported up and down the UK. The people of Shipden were told that the whole country's thoughts were with them; cue film of candlelit vigils in places not yet affected too badly, which were mocked online for being as pointless as clapping for the NHS.
That night, Rexy told me he'd started to feel exceptionally tired after I spoke to him, and today he felt kind of sick, with a bastard of a headache.
"Look, it can't be that―it's not logical; I haven't been out of the flat since Monday morning, and I had my vaccine on Tuesday. Even if it fucking is, which it can't be, I'll fight it. It's mind over matter, this illness shit, isn't it?" He managed a wry laugh. "Probably just allergies 'cause of all the dust in here."
He told me about a plan that he and Avalon had made, to get him out and drive up to Hincham, but he had to wait until he was better.
"You've got to," I said, though even as I did so I was aware of a bad, bad feeling in my gut. "You don't want Avalon to get ill, too."
"She won't. She got the vaccine―oh, Jesus―" He tailed off.
"Rexy?"
"Sorry, man, I gotta go. Gonna puke."
When he rang off, the bad feeling got much, much worse.
Elle showed me more videos on YouTube; in the big cities, looting was out of control, made worse because, one user claimed, not all police had received the vaccine yet; they were getting ill too, and manpower was severely stretched.
More riots at the vaccination units, fights at petrol stations.
Panic spreads quicker than any virus.
On main roads and motorways, the army were setting up barricades, denying passage to those not wearing a wristband; they had scanners to check whether they were genuine. Fakes had been for sale on the internet since the programme began, of course. Not that anything was getting delivered any more.
My days at the hospital were one big blur of charging around, trying to find the right words to say to people terrified they would die. I stopped watching or listening to the news; the government was not prepared for a catastrophe such as this, and I knew they wouldn't have anything useful to say.
On Thursday the police outside the hospital had acquired riot shields. Some staff had stayed at home because, like the police, not all had received the vaccine before the outbreak. Others just wanted to be with their loved ones. Sick people lay around on trolleys, patients who were in the hospital before all this were not getting their regular checks, staff were fraught with exhaustion.
I was sent down to the kitchens to take the meals round; hardly any of the auxiliary staff had turned up. One old git had the nerve to complain because his dinner wasn't hot enough; others were crying out for medication that hadn't arrived, because all the doctors and nurses were busy in A&E and ICU.
That evening I came home to find Elle in tears because she was worried about her parents down in North London, where the situation was getting worse on an hourly basis.
"Mum doesn't want me to go," she wailed, "but I've got to!"
"Elle, no." I sat down, put my arms around her. "The roads are horrendous, and even if you get past the barricades―which you won't―it's not like the coronavirus. It's airborne, so it's far, far easier to contract. You understand that, don't you?"
I don't know if she did, not really.
"Well, I'll stay in the car with the windows up; I'll keep my mask on and go straight into their house―"
"But you won't be able to get there. You won't be let through."
"Well, you can give me your wri
stband, can't you?"
I refused, because the idea of the mission was crazy. She called me selfish, and got herself into a worse state as the evening went on, so I rang her mother, and put her on speakerphone.
"We'll be okay," she said. "You two stay there―wait till Elle's had her shot, and then if you want to you can both come down. We've got plenty of food in, and we're not leaving the house; it's just like before, we know what to do. It's a bit chaotic right now, but it'll calm down, and then we'll get supermarket deliveries. The food industry people will be key workers, won't they? So they'll have had the shot."
Poor woman, she didn't understand. Earlier, Phil showed me a video at a major frozen food plant. The manager said that only a handful of his staff had been vaccinated, most were staying at home, and he'd heard that the same went for the farms that supplied much of the produce.
I took a look at the Tesco website. There was nothing, just a notice saying that all online services were suspended.
But we had Sarah's bunker. A tiny village in the middle of nowhere. Stocked with enough supplies for four people, for a year.
I phoned my parents, as I had every day since this began. They were fine. The virus had yet to reach Guernsey.
"Well, go out tomorrow, buy all the food you can, then don't move out of the house."
Mum promised, but it was the sort of promise I knew she wouldn't keep.
At one point that evening, Elle sank into wine-induced hysteria, declaring that she didn't believe the hospital didn't carry the vaccine. Took me half an hour to convince her otherwise. Becoming unreasonable when intoxicated was, alas, one of her less appealing traits. She rarely drank enough for this to happen, but these circumstances were so exceptional that the word 'exceptional' hardly covered it.
"All you've got to do is stay inside until Tuesday, then you can get the shot, and we can go anywhere you want―down to your parents, up to Sarah's place in Norfolk, wherever."
Which led to another tirade―"I'm not getting locked up in that bunker for a year, watching you making eyes at each other!" Oh, how I regretted telling her that Sarah and I had been more than just friends. I did so at the beginning, when you're telling each other your life stories. I’d showed her photos of the four of us, which poured petrol on flames that were already flickering; being a bloke, I hadn't noticed. Sarah's a successful model because the camera loves her; even when caught unawares she still looks great. She's striking rather than pretty, with fabulous, angular bone structure, and long, thick, hair like something out of a shampoo ad.
I remember Elle saying, in rather a small voice, "You were with her?"
She had nothing to feel insecure about back then. I was really keen at the beginning, and thought she might replace Sarah in my heart. By the time the shine began to dim we'd made joint financial commitments, so we settled into one of those 'this isn't ideal but we get on okay and what about the house' sort of relationships.
I wasn't Elle's perfect man, either. She would've been happier with someone who cared about career ladders and what sort of car he drove.
That night I was nothing but patient with her, whatever she threw at me; I couldn't begin to imagine how terrifying it must be not to have had the vaccine.
She passed out about eleven-thirty, when it was too late to call Sarah or Daisy, and I was uncomfortably aware that Rexy hadn't called me, despite promising he would.
Friday brought a new hell. Those who had come into the hospital ill, earlier in the week, were dying. I spent the morning cleaning, because none of the hygiene ops had turned up, and in the afternoon we closed the canteen down so it could be used to lay out the bodies; Meena, the chief staff administrator, gave Phil and me the job of wrapping them. In sheets. We'd run out of body bags.
"They're sending round vans to collect the dead, but I don't know how soon or how often." Her voice reeked of hopelessness; greasy hair framed a sweaty face, and her eyes were heavy with shadows. "No funerals; they've dug pits for them, and they'll be cremated to prevent the spread of disease. Open the windows, they must be getting whiffy." She pushed back a strand of lank hair. "I can't smell it any more; I feel like it's become a part of me."
At least the crowds outside were thinning out. I suppose most of them were ill, too. Inside, chaos reigned. People rushed everywhere, shouting, the corridors were lined with the dying on trolleys, queueing up outside ICU for a vacant bed once a body was removed, and the traffic was brisk. In the confusion, safety protocols lapsed―the door to the stores was left open and I nipped in and helped myself to as many vials of morphine and syringes as I could get in my pockets. I was sure I would know people in need of it over the days to come.
I was supposed to knock off at four, but I stayed on; there were hardly any of us there to do the work. At about six I stopped for a break, to eat a day-old sandwich and drink a pint of coffee. I'd only just sat down in the empty staffroom when my phone rang. Elle. Begging me to come home.
"I can't. There's hardly anyone here."
"No, because they're putting their families before a load of strangers!"
I shut my eyes. My head ached. The stench of sickness and death permeated my entire body, like Meena said. It was in my nostrils, my hair, my mouth. "I'll leave by eight. I promise."
I rang my parents. They were both well, but the virus had reached the island.
"We'll be alright, darling," said Mum. "We're staying put, like you told us, but if we get it, we get it."
Terror struck my heart. "I'll drive down to the coast, I must be able to get a boat, somehow." I knew that was a crazy notion even as I expressed it, but at that moment I wasn't thinking of my friends, of Elle, of the hospital; I just wanted to see my mum and dad.
"The army are patrolling all entrance points; no one can leave, either, and I've heard they're actually shooting people who try to. One warning, then bang, you're dead. Can you imagine that? I can't believe it."
I clutched my phone. "I love you, Mum." I had no other words, but at the same time there was too much to say.
"And we love you, sweetheart. Don't worry about us; we've got each other, and what happens, happens. Just look after yourself, and take care of Elle."
I spoke to Dad, too, and after they'd hung up, I cried. I was alone in the room, and I sat and wept, and prayed to all those gods I don't believe in to keep them safe.
When I got back to the canteen, Phil was sitting on the floor, surrounded by corpses.
He was smoking.
I gave a half-amused, half-horrified laugh. "The fuck are you doing?"
He looked up at me and shrugged. "Dude. They're dead."
"Phil, you can't smoke in here! It's a bloody hospital!"
He stood up and stretched, the fag hanging from his lips, then pulled it from his mouth; ash fell on a sheet-wrapped body. "Don't see why not. It's all going to hell in a handcart―my guess is that in a few days' time there won't be any more hospital. Or any more anything, much. So what's it matter? What's Meena going to do, give me the sack?"
"Yes, but when this is all over―"
"I don't think there's going to be any 'when it's all over' for a long, long time." He got out his phone. "Here." He showed me instructions from the Virus Hotline about what to do if a person in your household died. "You wrap it in bin liners and leave it in the garden to be picked up. Look. Mass graves, like Meena said." He did a bit more swiping. "And this." YouTube. Hospitals with piles of bodies, just like ours. All businesses had closed down, apart from those newly established in empty garages and warehouses, selling looted goods to the desperate. Rubbish was supposed to be collected by the army―the bin men being AWOL, ill or dead―but they didn't have the manpower; residential roads were lined with piles of bin bags, rotting food festering in the early August warmth. "It's all fucked." He did a couple more swipes. "News about the rest of the world seems to be limited, for some reason, but it's getting to be the same everywhere. US is at the stage we were at on Tuesday. France is as bad as us. Turkey's worse."
r /> I'd been so absorbed in my little world of hospital, home, friends and family that I hadn't paid much attention to what was going on in the rest of the world. I thought about Elle's mum, and her belief that she'd be able to get supermarket deliveries.
When I got back to Dowthorpe at about eight-thirty on that beautiful summer evening, I couldn't face going straight home. Selfish, I know, but I needed a breather between piling up dead bodies and Elle's tears. Not only that, but my right knee was playing up after haring around the place all week. A cartilage problem that flares up from time to time; I've had a couple of minor ops.
What would I do it if happened again? If Phil was right, nobody was going to be getting ops for anything.
I thought of the Friday before, when I'd gone to the pub and heard the first news of the outbreak in Shipden. When we thought everything was going to be okay. One week, that was all.
Like so many do when a crisis occurs, I went for a drink.
There was just a handful of people in the Stag, sitting at one table drinking and, oddly, chatting in a merry fashion. Laughing. No one behind the bar.
The group looked up as I walked in. Shelley, one of the barmaids, raised a glass to me.
"Jacky! Come to have a drink with us before the world ends, have you?"
"Chrissie died yesterday, and Mick's ill," Angus said. Chrissie was Mick the landlord's wife.
"Bloody hell." I flopped onto a stool.
"Get yourself a beer before it runs out," said Davey, another seasoned barfly with whom I occasionally exchanged mild chatter about general government ineptitude. "Mick's girl is upstairs looking after him. He said to help ourselves, it's on the house."
I did as he suggested, taking a much-needed double shot of Scotch to go with it. As I sat down, Shelley lifted my band from my wrist.
"Lucky bastard. Is it real?"
"Hospital worker, aren't I?" I drank half my pint in one.
"What's it like there, then?" asked Davey.
"Hell." I drank some more, and some more, then went back behind the bar for a refill. As I was doing so, I heard the familiar sound of my phone ringing, from where I'd left it on the table. Yeah, it was Elle.