Nont Sarah

I felt lively and invigorated as I walked yesterday morning. I can only account that to my improving health. It takes a period of illness to remind you how good simply being normal can be. There was still a lingering smell of smoke to everything which soured things slightly, though that may have been on me as much as in the air.  And for the first time in days, I was alone. There wasn't a single walker in sight.

The first dent to my day was finding a house along the road burned to the ground. It had happened quite recently. The fire had gutted the place to a shell. A molten work of modern art was all that was left of a bicycle. I moved on, aware that there were guest houses along the way.

Nont Sarah. A bed and breakfast for those that want to explore the Pennines. There was a building and car park just before on the opposite side of the road that was all burned to a crisp. It's name vanished along with its walls and roof. Two cars left undamaged in the car park directly outside Nont Sarah's. Worth searching later. But the prize was the guest house. It looked intact. And abandoned. There was another row of houses a little further up. I had the rest of my day mapped out already.
There were no bodies anywhere either. In hindsight that proved to be rather important. And something I should always remember to notice. I digress.

My first thought was to go in and look for food. Like a fool I marched straight up to the door before I had the forethought to stop and realise what I was doing. My hand was right on the door handle. I hadn't even peered through a single window or listened at the door for sounds of life. Or what passed for life. My rational mind returned and sent me look around first. 

There had been some hasty looking repairs to the rear and side windows. Looking inside gave nothing away, other than it was quiet and dark. My heart was threatening to beat out of my chest but the only way I was going to find anything was to simply go inside.

Rule for the future. If you think there might be Infected inside a building, knock first. Better to flee before you step inside, potentially with the benefit of a door between you and them.

All the doors were locked or barred. The obvious choice for entry was one of the damaged windows. Repairs are often easy to pull aside. I could have smashed one of the remaining windows, but the the thought of all that noise. A couple of minutes and I had one of the repairs out of the way.  Oh, the smell from inside. Still, in I went.

Dark, dusty, and the air was stifling. I took a chance and quietly opened a couple of the undamaged windows. A bit of light and air helped, though there was nothing to look at inside. I was in a bar area. There were no spirits left, nothing to drink at all. There was a makeshift barricade behind the main door, just a pile of things heaped there. A lot of broken glass all over the floor, drinks glasses by the look of it. The bar area opened into a wider area and what I hoped was a kitchen. Probably my best chance for food, but my mind was being drawn back to the barricaded door. Then it struck me, all the doors were still closed and locked. Whoever was here might still be here.

Fear grasped my insides and I felt sick. I was silent, listening and thinking. I had to go on. I had to find food. The kitchen door taunted me. It was a swing door, had no lock or latch. I pushed it. My paranoia screamed. But still, nothing.

The freezers and fridges were all empty and very clean. The ovens were spotless. Perhaps the place was not open for business. A couple of small function rooms with nothing useful. It was time to check upstairs.

Sounds fill a void. In the quiet, every step on the stairs was like dropping a plate on a stone floor. At the landing, I had a choice of doors, all closed. It felt like the world's worst lucky dip. Either the people who had barricaded this place were all dead, or they were all up here. All the doors had keyholes, so I took advantage.

The very moment I put my eye up to the keyhole the world exploded. There had been an eye staring  from the other side and no sooner had it seen me than its owner went berserk. First came the scream; hoarse and violent. The door frame shuddered and shook with repeated blows. It quickly turned to throwing its whole weight against the door.

I had fallen on my arse at the first scream. I sat there in disbelief, watching the door frame buckle and crack. The doors to two other rooms started to thunder in their frames as well. Arms burst through the wood in front of me. My wits returned and I began to scramble away. A door opened next to me and I saw a face. Terrified, young, but a face full of life. He said nothing, just looked at me with wide, imploring eyes. I understood and rushed through his open door. The boy pushed the door but did not close it. He pointed at a rope leading up to a hole in the ceiling. Cracking sounds beyond the door told me death was in the hallway. I had never been good at climbing ropes, but suddenly I found myself perched carefully on the beams in the roof looking down. The boy climbed past me, pulling the rope with him, and then sat next to me, trying to control his heavy breathing. As I started to speak he put a finger to his lips and pointed down. On cue, limbs flailed against the door and flung it open.
Three emaciated people entered. They were covered in dried blood, at least what I thought was blood. They were so filthy it was hard to tell. Two were male, the other female. There was still a lot of banging coming from beyond the door so there had to be a fourth, perhaps more. Calling these things people was just wrong. Except for being bipedal they had very little to do with being human. They looked wild and feral. Each bore wounds and disfigurement that set them apart from one another, but it was their common traits that were more frightening. Their movements were jerky and  uncoordinated, their jaws hung slack trailing ropes of thick drool, and their fingers were pulled into claws. Their breath was more of a rasp and the only other sound they made was that hoarse scream of theirs. There was nothing human about them at all.

I turned back to speak to the boy when, with a moment's panic, I saw he was gone. A moment and my eyes were able to see into the darkness of the roof space. He was further over laying down and calling down into one of the rooms. The turmoil in the room below me stopped and I looked back just in time to see the last of the Infected leaving.

The boy lead me over to a different corner of the roof and pointed to a loft trap. He said one word, 'safe' and lowered the rope for us to climb down. This room was larger than the first, and the door had everything bar a mattress piled up against it. My hopes rose when I saw a pile of food by the mattress; the very worst of packaged, processed junk. The boy could see it was what I needed and offered me a wrapped pack of soft sponge cakes. I all but snatched them and crammed them into my mouth as fast as I could tear them open. Thinking about it now, I probably looked as bad as the ghouls in the other rooms. The boy's relief was visible when I finally spoke, a  broken, croaked thanks. My voice was barely there, I had not spoken for days.

His name is Craig. He told me the people in the other rooms are his parents and a couple of their friends. They were on a hiking holiday and had permission to stay at Nont Sarah's for a few days - his father knew the owners. Otherwise the place was closed to the public. They had followed the troubles in Manchester on a radio, and on hearing how it was spreading to the surrounding towns, decided to head back to their place in York. They got as far as the junction for Bradford on the M62 before they were forced to stop at a police road block. That's when they were attacked. One of the coppers was just getting angrier and angrier then went nuts. His colleagues stopped him before anybody was injured. Their way was still barred, so they decided to return to Nont Sarah's. Power was gone the next morning. Battery powered radios were their link with the outside world. The news from the rest of the country just got worse and worse. They saw people fighting in the car park of the other guest house across the road. That's when they barricaded the doors. Later that day someone broke a load of windows, but nobody went to look in case they managed to break in. Fear dominated.

I could sympathise. Hiding was my best tactic so far.

Craig continued, telling me how it was one of his father's friend's that was the first to fall ill with the flu. They had heard enough from the radio to link the flu with the violence. They did not know how exactly, but there was an obvious connection. They decided to quarantine Phillip in one of the upstairs bedrooms. His wife volunteered to bring him food and water. She fell ill the day he started to turn violent. Expecting the violent turn, they had tied him up. Everybody just wanted to wait and see when the fever broke. It did not though. He got worse and worse, and soon his wife was delirious with fever and was expected to turn the same way.

His parents were good people. When they felt the first touch of fever, they bade their son make a nest for himself in one room, lock the door, barricade himself in, and only return to them if they looked and sounded well again. I cannot fathom how difficult it must have been to hear his parents turn into monsters. He has been waiting ever since for a sign of their recovery. He broke down and told me he knows it will never come.

I did not mention it to him, but I am surprised he did not catch it. Then again, it fills me with some small hope that I have already found someone unaffected by this flu. I can only hope that it means this infection is not as deadly as it appears.

The food he has consists of catering packs of cakes and biscuits. He explained that there were a few boxes left in the store room. It was what they had all been eating, and this was all that remained. It was enough to last for a few more days. I wouldn't like to survive on it indefinitely. He had a pallet of plastic water bottles as well. He said there were another couple of those in his parent's car. The keys of which were probably in his father's coat pocket.

Those words hit me like a brick. Get the keys, get the car. We would be in Leeds in no time.

There were three problems. He did not know exactly where the keys were, but thought that they would be in his father's jacket which was probably hanging on the coat stand by the main door.  Secondly, there were now three or four Infected roaming free somewhere inside the guesthouse. Finally, and most importantly, Craig did not want to leave.

He did not truly believe his parents were going to recover. Not anymore. Not the way they looked and acted. But leaving meant facing up to and accepting that. It took me a while to convince him to leave with me. I did not lie, and told him everything I had seen, the end of Manchester, my journey so far, and my next destination. I could see his determination and anguish, but once his mind was made up, he told me exactly how we could get downstairs, get the keys and make a break for the car. The problem was keeping the Infected distracted long enough to find what we needed.

First we needed a way to get downstairs. The easiest route was straight down through the floor. It made a bit too much noise and the banging on the door started swiftly with my first mistake; yelling out when I caught my hand on a nail. The door and the barricade held, and remaining as quiet as possible we managed to open the floor through to the downstairs restaurant area. Now we wanted them to concentrate on the door to give me the time I needed to search for the keys. We lowered the rope and left it down for my escape route. Craig remained in the room to make distracting noises.

The keys were easy to find. What happened next was so stupid I can hardly write it. I was so pleased, I tossed the keys up to catch them and actually missed, dropping them. In the silence the sound of them hitting the floor was like a pair of cymbals clashing together. I remember my heart thudding so hard as I stood like a statue, listening. The pounding on the door upstairs ceased. Footsteps on wood, and then Infected were hurling themselves down the stairs.

I was off like a hare the moment I realised they were on the stairs. I had a few meters head start to get to the rope. I heard something fall behind me. Then I was climbing. My mind is blank then. I just remember looking down at the three of them, their burning hunger staring back. They scrabbled at the rope but climbing is not something they can do. I would have left the rope to keep them there, but we needed it to climb down the outside of the building. Without the rope they just hissed and screeched and milled about below the hole.

Craig had packed the food and water in his backpack. I guess everything else he wanted was in there too, I haven't asked him yet. Out the window and across the road, we made it to the car. It was a Honda Civic. Key in the ignition and anything with ears heard me try to start the car. One of the windows at Nont Sarah's exploded outwards, and an Infected tumbled out with it. The other two fell over on their way through the broken frame. I tried the car again. This time all three of them were on their feet and coming towards us. They must have injured themselves as they were loping along, not running anymore. Still, we were stationary, and doomed if we remained so.

Third time lucky. With Craig sobbing uncontrollably, we sped off, clipping his mother with the front corner of the bumper.  Then we were clear, with a beautiful empty road before us.

My euphoria was short lived. I kept our speed low to conserve fuel and avoid accidents. Though the houses were few, almost everywhere we went past, something came out. I have to say something as some were so disfigured and grievously injured, that they could not still be alive.  In the mirror, I could see them turn and come after us. We were leaving a trail of Infected behind us.

Some conventions are hard to shake, but as soon as I realised I did not have to keep to any lane nor any direction, the road opened up for us. Getting onto the motorway, we made easy progress. There were no houses by the roadside and very few cars. Between the flu and curfews, most people must have remained at home.  We saw a few walkers, but they were clearly Infected. No stopping for them. Lots of smoke rising in the distance. Definitely looked like it was coming up from Halifax,  Huddersfield, and Brighouse. I hadn't really thought about it but if the fire services were out there was nobody around to stop a fire, so once they started that was that. I had to realise that Leeds and Bradford would be full of fires. Towns and cities were beginning to sound more and more dangerous.

The M62 turned into the M621 and we were bound for Leeds at last. There was some smoke rising, but not as much as I feared. A few more miles then we came to some of the out of town shopping centers, warehouses and industrial units. And a lot more walkers. A hell of a lot more.

Coming off the motorway and around the back of Leeds Football Club, there were hundreds of Infected. Most were slow to react, though there were enough that were still able to put on a worrying burst of speed. Worried me into pumping the accelerator. That in turn attracted more attention. There was no way I could stop the car and get out. We turned into Wesley Street and drove past my sister's house.  Quiet and undamaged, but I have to know. How to get there without attracting a few thousand of the ghouls though. With a quarter of a tank of fuel, I drove through and back onto the motorway. Craig didn't say a word the whole time.

We went back as far as the first lay by. Parking there, I told Craig that we needed a way to get to my sister's house without being seen or at least caught. He nodded, then went back to brooding or whatever it is he's been doing this whole time. With darkness falling we set the car alarm so that if anything tried to break in we would be rudely woken. Sleep came easily.

That's where we are now. The sun is rising. Craig is still asleep.. I have an idea to get into my sister's house unseen. It's stupid. It will get us killed and this will be the last entry I write.