‘OK, Sam, think,’ he whispered to himself. ‘What do you do now?’
His options were limited. Jess wasn’t going anywhere right at this moment, but there was no way of knowing when the people around him might get back on their feet and start walking once more. If he wasn’t there when that happened, he knew he’d probably never see Jess again. He decided to check what was going on outside. Only then would he know if it was even possible for him to try to get his sister out. There were no windows on this floor of the building, but a door on the far side of the room had a ‘Stairs’ sign on the wall beside it. He stood up and carefully picked his way between the dormant bodies, heading for the exit. Looking back across the room, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle at the sight of the dozens of unconscious but strangely stiff bodies, all lying in neatly ordered rows. He shuddered involuntarily and stepped through the door, creeping quietly up the stairs, ears straining for any sign of the return of the sinister silver machines.
The upper floor was filled with empty offices and the only light in the gloomy space was coming from the monitors on the desks displaying the open documents and web pages that had been suddenly abandoned. Sam walked into one of the offices and looked out of the window. It was getting dark outside and the rain was heavier. The streets below were empty; there were no signs of life, either human or alien.
‘You’re certainly not from around here, are you?’ Sam whispered to himself as he looked at the giant vessel that hovered over central London, clearly visible from here, despite the fading light. As he watched, he saw several smaller shapes, illuminated by green light, drop from the underside of the larger ship and then shoot off, flashing through the sky above the city rooftops. It felt ludicrous, but the more he looked at the huge floating object and thought about the bizarre events of that day, the more he was forced to admit to himself that the most likely explanation was that it was the work of an extraterrestrial intelligence. That still did nothing to explain what it was that these visitors had done to the people downstairs or what their future intentions might be. Sam feared that whatever they were planning it was nothing good.
He walked back to the desk in the room and sat down in front of the keyboard. He clicked the icon on the computer’s desktop and opened the browser. He was half expecting an error message, but the internet connection still seemed to be working. He spent nearly an hour looking for signs of life online, but there was nothing. The last posts on any of the forums or blogs he visited were startled reactions to the arrival of the alien vessels all over the planet, but then there was silence. It confirmed one thing, Sam realised as a chill ran down his spine: whatever had happened to everyone, it hadn’t just happened here in London. It was the same everywhere – this was global.
He put his head in his hands, rubbing his temples, fighting to control the rising tide of panic that he could feel in his gut. He told himself to stay calm, that everyone might wake up in the morning and that the intentions of the extraterrestrial visitors might not be as sinister as they appeared. Or it could be just as bad as it seems, said a nagging voice in the back of his mind, and you’re going to die, frightened and alone.
‘Stop it!’ Sam said to himself, standing up and slamming his hands down on the desk. He couldn’t afford to panic; he had to think. Not just for his sake, but for his sister as well. He had to come up with a plan and hope that if he could get Jess far enough away from the city then whatever influence the aliens were exerting over her would fade and perhaps she might wake up.
‘Great, so all I’ve got to do now is work out how exactly I’m going to get an unconscious fifteen-year-old zombie girl out of London,’ Sam said with a sigh. He couldn’t carry her any distance and even if he could figure out how to drive a car the roads were all blocked with abandoned vehicles. He realised that, unless she woke up from her current brainwashed state, he really only had two options. Either he stayed with Jess and waited for her to wake up or he left her here and tried to find somewhere safe to hole up on his own. It was an impossible choice.
Sam suddenly became aware of a low throbbing rumble that seemed to be getting gradually louder and louder. He hurried to the office window and saw that one of the smaller objects that had dropped from the bottom of the main alien vessel was heading in his general direction. He watched as the dark triangular object grew larger and realised with a growing sense of horror that it wasn’t just heading in his general direction – it was heading straight towards him! He ducked below the window, just as a bright, white light flooded the office. He crawled across the carpet, towards the door, as the building’s windows rattled and the white light swept back and forth across the offices. At the top of the stairs leading down to the warehouse area, he looked back over his shoulder just as the window exploded inwards in a shower of glass. Now he could hear another sound: the high-pitched whine of the silver jellyfish-like creatures that had shepherded them into the building earlier. Three of the creatures floated in through the broken window and glided towards the desk, their writhing tentacles reaching out and gently caressing the computer keyboard and monitor. Sam realised now what he’d done. Somehow, his attempts to find signs of life on the internet must have attracted the creatures’ attention and they had traced the network activity back to this location – which meant that now they knew that somebody here wasn’t really quite as asleep as they were supposed to be.
He hurried down the stairs as the three drones spread out, searching the offices for their prey. He reached the bottom of the stairwell and was just about to open the door that led back into the warehouse area when a noise from the other side made him freeze in his tracks. There were more of the creatures in there! He risked a quick glance through the glass panel in the centre of the door and saw several more creatures gliding between the rows of sleeping people, illuminating each of them in turn with a single burst of bright green light. He glanced back up the stairwell and felt a chill as he realised that he was trapped.
Silently heading back up the stairs Sam saw a small window, but wasn’t sure if he’d even be able to squeeze through it. He unlatched it and opened it, wincing at the loud creak from the hinges. He leant out and looked down. It was quite a long drop to the alley below, but there was a drainpipe within arm’s reach that he should be able to climb down, assuming he could first get through the window. He turned round and sat on the narrow ledge before pulling himself backwards through the window with a grunt. He reached out and had just managed to get one hand round the pipe when the door at the top of the stairwell exploded in a flash of green light.
Sam dragged himself further through the window, trying desperately to free one of his legs so that he could get a foothold on the pipe without falling. He glanced inside, just in time to see one of the creatures floating through the smouldering remains of the door at the top of the stairs and then turning slowly towards him. The creature let out a high-pitched shriek and a dark orifice set in its shining carapace flared with green light. Sam grunted as he dragged himself free of the frame and swung away from the window, clinging desperately to the drainpipe, feet scrabbling for purchase on the wall. A second later the entire window disappeared in an explosion of green light and a wave of concussive force smashed into him, swatting him off the pipe and sending him flying. Sam felt a stomach-wrenching instant of free fall before he slammed down into a pile of abandoned cardboard boxes and rubbish sacks in the alley below. The impact knocked the air out of his lungs and he lay there for a couple of seconds completely winded before rolling over on to his knees and forcing himself to his feet with a pained gasp. He looked up at the hole in the wall above. There was another screech from inside and the creature floated out through the smoke. Sam felt a surge of energy as adrenalin flooded his body. Ignoring the pain he turned and ran, his animal instinct to flee now fully in control. He sprinted out on to the main road and turned left, with no clue where he was going other than away from those silver creatures. He ran on to the bridge over the river that he and Jess h
ad crossed earlier, suddenly feeling horribly exposed. He felt his blood run cold as the air was filled with a deep throbbing roar and a huge black, triangular shape passed low overhead.
Sam looked up and the last thing he saw was a blindingly bright green flash somewhere above him. Then he felt a sensation, like a giant hand picking him up and flinging him spinning through the air, then a sudden impact with freezing cold water and, finally, nothing.
Sam dreamt of his family. They were sitting with their backs towards him on a white wooden bench in the middle of a field of green grass. He walked towards them, but with each step his feet felt heavier and heavier until finally he could not move at all. He stood and watched as Jess and his mum and dad slowly got to their feet and turned to face him. He felt a surge of terror when he realised that they had no faces, just smooth featureless sheets of skin where their familiar features should have been. He tried to turn, to run, as these faceless creatures walked towards him, but it was no good; he was frozen in place. They moved to surround him on three sides, each standing just a metre away. In perfect unison they each reached up with both hands and grabbed the skin below their jawbones, pulling the featureless skin of their faces up like someone removing a mask. Beneath was a void filled with green light that intensified as they each began to make a high-pitched shrieking sound. Sam began to scream as they stepped towards him.
He woke with a start, the scream dying in his throat, replaced with short, ragged breaths as he felt a dizzying moment of disorientation. He was dimly aware that his legs felt cold and that everything hurt, as if his entire body was just one giant bruise. He slowly opened his eyes and lifted his face out of the dirt. He was lying on the mudflats beneath a bridge, his legs still in the river. There was a low throbbing rumble coming from somewhere nearby. A tiny but urgent voice in his head told him he had to move, had to find somewhere to hide, but all that Sam wanted to do was lie there and rest for a while. He tried to fight through the cotton wool inside his head and remember where exactly he was and how he’d got there. He had a vague feeling that there was something really important he had to do. He frowned as the pieces slowly started to reassemble themselves until his memory of the past day came flooding back in one overwhelming burst. He dragged himself out of the water and across the mud before pulling himself up into a sitting position, his back against the crumbling masonry of the bridge. He sat there in silence as the roar of the alien vessel’s engines faded away into the distance. He stretched his legs and arms, relieved that, although he was bruised and battered, at least he didn’t seem to have broken any bones. The right-hand side of his face and his right arm were quite badly burnt, the skin blistered in places and he could feel exposed patches of skin on his scalp where some of his hair had singed away. He had a long gash in his right thigh and his ribs on that side hurt when he took a deep breath. His T-shirt was shredded and he’d lost one of his trainers, but he didn’t really care because, against all the odds, he was still alive. He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. The pale grey light of dawn lit up the sky now and, given that it had been night-time when he had escaped from the creatures in the warehouse, he knew that he must have been out for several hours at least.
He slowly climbed to his feet before trudging through the sticky mud and up the riverbank to the pavement. He examined the surrounding buildings, trying to get a sense of where he was. There were no familiar landmarks to help him orient himself so he set off along the path, following the river upstream. It was slow-going, his burnt and battered body protesting at every step. All the while he listened out for any sign of the silver creatures or alien aircraft that had attacked him the previous night. It was clear now that whoever the mysterious invaders were they were extremely hostile and he suspected that he would not have such a lucky escape if they found him again.
He rounded a bend in the river and saw a small row of shops on the other side of the road. He walked across the street and headed into the sporting goods shop halfway down the parade. The lights were still on inside the store and he made his way down the aisles searching for new clothes and shoes. He found some tracksuit trousers, a T-shirt and a hooded top and began to take off his filthy, damp clothes. As he pulled off his mud-encrusted T-shirt, he caught a glimpse of himself in one of the full-length mirrors that were dotted around the store. It was not a pretty sight. He was covered in cuts and bruises and the right-hand side of his body was an angry red colour where the heat of the blast from the alien ship’s weapon had scorched his skin. He put his hand to his head and ran his fingers over the patches of wiry burnt stubble that were all that remained of his hair in places.
‘Great,’ Sam said with a tiny smile. ‘I didn’t think it would be possible, but I actually do look worse than I feel.’
He carefully pulled on his new clean clothes and was surprised by how much better it made him feel. He walked to the back of the store and looked at the display of trainers covering the back wall. The single shoes on display were no use to him and so he headed through the door with the sign reading ‘Staff Only’. Shelves stacked with boxes filled the room on the other side and Sam quickly found a new pair of trainers in his size. He headed back through the shop, looking for anything else that might come in useful. He picked up a lightweight backpack and slung it over his shoulder and then stuffed half a dozen packs of sports socks and a water bottle inside. He did a quick search of the store, but there wasn’t much else that was going to be of use to him. He was just about to leave when he spotted a rack on the far wall. He walked over and took down one of the baseball bats from the display and swung it experimentally through the air.
‘Better than nothing,’ he said with a nod.
As he walked out of the store, bat in hand, he smiled at the sign telling him that all shoplifters would be prosecuted.
He spent the next half an hour checking out the various shops on the street and helping himself to anything that he thought might come in handy. A portable radio, a torch and a dozen packs of batteries from a hardware store. Painkillers and dressings for the gash in his leg from a chemist. Bottled water, sandwiches and biscuits from a convenience store. By the time he continued his journey upriver, the painkillers were kicking in, the food he’d found had silenced his growling belly and he was actually starting to feel slightly better. Now all he had to do was find his sister.
Sam walked for an hour before spotting the bridge that he and Jess had crossed the day before. He crouched down behind a low wall and waited for several minutes, watching and listening for any sign of the creatures. Once he was satisfied that the coast seemed clear he made his way cautiously over the bridge towards the storage depot. Halfway across, he found the impact crater from the blast that had thrown him into the river. A two-metre section of stone wall was missing and there was a massive tear in the pavement through which he could see the water of the river below. Sam realised just how lucky he’d been. If he had been caught in the direct blast he would probably have been vaporised where he stood. He continued across the bridge, moving as quickly and quietly as possible. A minute or so later he was outside the door to the warehouse. He waited for a moment, ears straining, before taking a deep breath and turning the handle. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness inside, but then he saw the one thing that he had been silently praying he would not. The cavernous warehouse was completely empty. Where once there had been dozens of people lying in neatly ordered rows, there was now just a bare concrete floor. His sister was gone.
Over the weeks and months that followed, Sam learned the hard way what it was going to take to survive in this new world. The first time he had seen a group of Walkers he had approached them in broad daylight, hoping in vain that he might spot his mother or sister. He hadn’t spotted the silvery Drone that was accompanying the group until it was almost too late. He soon realised that any group of Walkers working on dismantling or stripping buildings of anything useful invariably had a Drone watching over them. For months, he would find a place to hid
e, from which he could scan the faces of the enslaved people with the pair of compact binoculars he’d found. He never saw anyone he even recognised, let alone any members of his family. After a while, he gave up looking. It was risky getting that close to a Drone and he knew his luck would run out at some point. Eventually, he started going out of his way to avoid Walkers altogether. More and more Drones seemed to be patrolling the empty streets and it was getting harder and harder to avoid detection. That was when he discovered the sewer network. It wasn’t the most pleasant way to travel around, but it was at least safer than walking the streets. In all that time, he’d never seen a single person who wasn’t a brainwashed zombie. He’d once heard what he thought was gunfire in the distance, but that was it. It had given him some hope that he might not be the only person left with free will. He never heard it again.
Over time, he became adept at moving around the city undetected, as he learned the layout of the sewers and started to only venture out on the streets at night. He even made a more permanent home for himself in a maintenance room next to one of the giant sewer cisterns. His focus shifted from daily scavenging to longer-term survival and he began to read any book that he could loot from abandoned bookshops or libraries that might contain useful information. It was the books that kept him from going crazy with loneliness; it wasn’t the same as having people to talk to, but it was the next best thing. His life became a never-ending cycle of furtive looting and foraging, always hungry, always scared, but still alive. There were times when he teetered on the brink of despair, but he never gave in to it. Instead he just got smarter and faster, managed to stay just one step ahead of the Drones. There was no alternative really; it was that or simply curl up and die.