Aaron
#NewWorldProblems
That
day in the pub with Nick and Greg was the last of the old world. 28th July, 2024, sat in Aaron's memory like
the final day of a perfect holiday, a snapshot from childhood, a golden era
when nothing was wrong in his life. Of
course, there was plenty wrong; he was bored rigid with being a
financial whizz kid, and adjusting to life after Luisa was taking time—she'd wanted wedding bells and he wasn't ready to commit. Sometimes he felt gloriously free, but other
times bored and lonely, guilty about hurting her, and not sure how long he could go without a regular shag. He had a brick wall of credit card debt, too,
but such irritations were laughable now.
He
missed social media, a lot.
On Twitter
and Private Life there was a popular hashtag: #FirstWorldProblems.
The Bluetooth in my car has stopped
working so now I have to listen to the radio like a peasant.
#FirstWorldProblems
Best last minute holiday deal EVER and
d-bag boss says she can't spare me! #FirstWorldProblems
If
the internet still existed, Aaron would start a new hashtag.
Sell-by date on this tin of sardines is
four months ago.
Should I live
dangerously? #NewWorldProblems.
Back
in the pub on 28th July 2024, they weren't taking bat fever seriously. So there was an outbreak in some one-horse
town in East Anglia, but quarantine conditions were in place, and all news
reports were positive. Holidaymakers
were posting vids on YouTube saying 'Yay!' about getting an extra week off
work. Mind you, as Nick
said, if you were sad enough to go on holiday to Shipden in the first place, it
probably didn't take much to make you get the yays out.
That
was the last day when their world was normal.
On Monday evening, Nick's girlfriend, Evie, phoned to say that Nick was
seriously ill, that she'd looked up his symptoms on the NHS website, and he
appeared to have bat fever.
By
the next evening, Evie was in a similar state.
She'd dragged herself to the unit for her vaccination that morning, and
was turned away.
At gunpoint.
The
weird thing was that Nick had his vaccination early that Sunday morning, but
he still died. So he must have
contracted it before he got the shot, but how?
Where from? Wasn't the only case
supposed to be in Shipden?
A
week later, nobody cared.
Everyone
was dying.
Greg
breathed his last breath the day after Nick, followed by almost all of Aaron's
colleagues. Everyone in his apartment
block. Except him.
He
couldn't work it out.
Londoners
were dropping like lemmings off a cliff.
Each
morning, he expected to face his final countdown. But it didn't happen, and it kept on not
happening. On waking, he would do a
quick check to make sure he didn't feel ill, then luxuriate in the fact that
there was no work to go to and his landlord was probably too dead to notice
that he wasn't paying the rent anymore.
He would make coffee and log onto Private Life and Twitter to see the
latest, check in with his buddies to make sure their hearts were still
beating—sometimes he got no answer—then flop in front of the TV and stick on
YouTube to catch the newest batch of videos showing the downfall of civilised
Britain. UK news maintained that
everything was peachy, so he'd seek out news sites from around the world to get
the truth, only to find a strange silence.
Weird.
Later,
the BBC showed colour coded maps to indicate where in the UK the disease was at
its most virulent. Big mistake. Everyone in the red areas jumped into their
cars and headed for the pale pink.
Result: traffic at standstills, mile long queues at petrol stations,
punch-ups at the pumps. Further spread
of disease as people in the traffic jams became ill.
South
London was one big glob of deepest crimson.
His
mother rang from Cornwall to say that Truro was in the pink zone, urging him to
drive down, but he declined. He hated
driving at the best of times, and if he was going to die he'd rather do so in
his own flat, not in his childhood bed with his mum faffing around, and her
idiot husband vying for her attention.
He
knew he should contact Luisa. It bugged him
every day, but he just couldn't face it.
He remembered Nick saying he thought she'd had the vaccine, so Aaron
told himself she must be okay. He told
himself this several times a day, then drove her from his mind with whichever
bottle was at hand.
Staying
at home alone was the key to staying alive, he deduced, but during Week Two he
ran out of food. Headed out to Tesco
Express to stock up, with a scarf over his face. It was like a war zone down there. Most of the shop windows were smashed, and
half the streets were empty, others a battle between army and civilians. Joyriding kids whooped as they screeched past
burnt out cars. Aaron didn't understand
that. Why did people burn cars, just
because the world was going to hell?
A
burst of panic sent him dashing round to the car park at the back of his
block. No worries; his car was still
there, with its full tank.
Tesco
Express was empty, but he found a tatty corner shop down a side street with
plenty of tins and packets, filled a holdall and a backpack with all he could
carry, and headed home. He locked
himself in and pulled down the blinds, drank more than was good for him,
binge-watched all his favourite series and messaged with the friends that
weren't dying (yet). He slept a lot and
read for hours at a time.
Next
time he went to check on his car, it was gone.
Which was inconvenient, but he was surprised to find that he didn't
care. Never been a car fiend, not like
Nick and Greg. Perhaps he could nick
another one from somewhere. A car
showroom. Wasn't sure what he'd do about
fuel. Maybe get a bicycle, instead. Or a motorbike. Yee-hah.
Before
the TV, phones and internet stopped working, he had a call from his mother to say
that she was ill, along with her idiot husband.
He
spoke to her before she died, and offered, reluctantly, to find a way of
getting down to Cornwall.
"Don't
come," she said. "It's bad
here now. They're breaking into shops,
turning those units over, raiding hospitals.
We're okay; we've got each other."
By
the time he ran out of food again, the electricity had fizzled its final spark.
Tablet ran out of juice when I was half
way through a ten book
zombie apocalypse series. Bummer.
#NewWorldProblems.
Now,
his biggest worry was boredom. What were
you supposed to do, when there was no
power, and most of your friends had snuffed it?
Luisa.
Stop thinking about Luisa.
After
establishing that nobody was answering the doors of the other six flats in his
block, he broke into the janitor's office to nick the keys. Found bodies in two of them. Gross as hell. With scarves wrapped tightly around his nose
and mouth and two pairs of rubber gloves, he dragged the bodies out into the
car park and set fire to them.
And
still he didn't get ill.
Now
he had five more kitchens with food cupboards and alcohol. He cleaned out the fridges and freezers,
which was a pretty disgusting task, but it was something to do.
Logic—and
the first few chapters of the unfinished zombie apocalypse series—told him the
water would go next, so he filled all the baths, every available vessel, with
water.
Much
of the time, he felt kind of okay. He
meandered between flats, helping himself to food, examining his dead neighbours' possessions, getting drunk and listening to music on an old Sony
Discman. Found one of those solar
powered chargers for his tablet and stuck it on a window sill; he could finish
that series after all.
He
slept in beds that were more luxurious than his, and he bloomed with health.
He
hardly dared to hope, but he couldn't help wondering if nature had been kind
enough to make him immune.
On
his birthday, in the middle of September, he helped himself to a bottle of
champagne from flat number six, relaxed on the L-shaped sofa, and raised
a glass to his mother, to Greg, and the rest of his friends who'd died. Then he stuck two fingers up to Nick, who, to
be honest, had always been a smug prick.
Always had to know about the latest whatever,
and get it before anyone else. Shagged
the prettiest girls. The bigheaded,
handsome bastard.
"And
you're now a dead bigheaded, handsome
bastard," he said, out loud.
"Who's the daddy now, eh, Nicky?" he said. A moment later, out of nowhere, he
plummeted. He stood up, took his glass
over to the window, looked out on the devastation in the streets below, and
wondered what the hell he was supposed to do next.
*****
Fast
forward six months.
Holed up with my ex, 'cause she's the
only person I know
who's still alive.
Sucks. #NewWorldProblems.
For a
while, Aaron didn't fancy his chances outside (too many lunatics around), but
as the weather grew colder the streets cleared, leaving only a silence so
complete it rang in his ears. Even in
London. When he was down to his last
bath tub of water, though, he knew it was time to go.
He shivered his way through a cold one, shaved, put on sensible
clothes—the former resident of number two had been a keen hiker, and had some
excellent walking boots—and filled a backpack with provisions and basic
survival gear.
Aaron
was going out into the world, to see if anyone he knew, anywhere, was still
alive. If they weren't, he would find
some other people.
There
were two cars left in the car park; one was trashed, the other out of fuel.
Okay,
so he'd walk. He didn't mind; quite
fancied it, actually. Walking the
streets of London was something you never did, normally.
He
tried flat after house after flat, and found no one. Didn't want to kick any doors down in case he
found bodies, like in his own block; they'd be in a pretty gruesome state by
now. Two friends who'd had the vaccine
had left doors on the latch, and notes, saying where they'd gone.
'Mum and Dad. Meet us at Auntie Linda's. Be safe x.'
'Erin.
Heading for refugee camp in Richmond Park. They got food & water. C u there?'
He
left Luisa's place, in Cricklewood, until last.
He
wanted to know but he didn't, at the same time. If there was no answer at her house he would
have to break in, because he still cared for her. Didn't love her anymore, just cared for
her. But the feeling ran deep enough for
him to baulk at the thought of seeing her decomposing body.
Luisa
was alive, and hunkered down with Ginny, one of the friends with whom she
shared her house; the other had died.
She'd given house room to two girls he didn't know, too. One vaccinated, the other not.
"You
found me," she said, when he walked through the door, and the look on her
face made him feel like her saviour.
"I knew if you were alive you'd get here, eventually." She turned to Ginny, her eyes shining. "Didn't I say he'd come and find
me?"
The once
cute house was dark, cold, and smelled a bit rancid. Luisa was thinner, her hair was dirty, and
Aaron's eyes watered when she fell into his arms.
"I'm
so glad you're safe," he whispered, and he was, but when she took his hand
and introduced him, proudly, to the strangers, he felt a tiny twinge of
unease. The memories crowded back into
his brain. How badly she'd taken the
break-up. She'd sobbed, begged, told him
she felt like 'ending it all'. For a
while she phoned him on a daily basis, until, about a month before bat fever,
he'd managed to make her understand that the relationship really was over.
That,
despite all they'd been to each other, he didn't see himself spending the rest
of his life with her.
"You
said you'd die for me!" she'd
cried, during that last conversation.
"Do you remember? You said, I never want to be without you. I'd do
anything for you, I'd die for you. Why would you say that if you didn't mean
it?"
Being
reminded of such over-emotional sentiments embarrassed him. Yes, he'd felt that way, meant every word,
during their first few, passionate months, but times changed, and he hated that
she couldn't see this.
Now,
Luisa boiled water on her aga, made him a welcome cup of coffee, fussed around
him. He had to admit it was rather nice. He'd had no company of any sort for three
months, let alone of the female variety, and he hadn't had sex since a few
weeks before the outbreak, either.
That
night, he shared her bed.
In
the morning, in her chilly bedroom, she wound her cold, thin arms around his
body and gazed into his eyes.
"I
knew you'd come back," she said, and gave a little giggle, the one he used
to find so attractive. "So it's
taken the end of the world to bring us back together; I can deal with
that!"
And
somehow he couldn't find the will to hurt her all over again. Not now, when both of them had lost everyone.
Soon
afterwards, the non-vaccinated girl died, and her friend drifted away.
Luisa
thought Aaron's immunity was a sign that they were 'meant to be'.
Aaron
thought smiling and saying nothing was the best course of action.
Tempers
frayed between Luisa and Ginny. Ginny
said she was scavenging most of the food, but only eating a third of it. Luisa was reluctant to go out onto the
streets, where gangs roamed and you never knew who or what might be waiting for
you round a corner, and she didn't like Aaron to go out, either, in case
anything happened to him.
In
private, she told him she thought Ginny was jealous about his presence in the
house.
"Three's a crowd, isn't
it?"
Aaron
disagreed, in fact he wished there were more of them, there being greater
safety in numbers, but they woke up one morning in January to find Ginny gone,
along with Luisa's car and most of the supplies.
The
sight of her empty bedroom filled him with gloom. He'd never meant to be with Luisa again, as a couple; he was not sure what his intention
had been, but it wasn't this.
The
days moved slowly. Aaron wanted to up
sticks, find one of those refugee camps he'd heard about, but she wanted to
stay put.
"You
and my house are the only stability I have left," she said,
often. "I hate the thought of
someone breaking in, ransacking the place.
It's my home!"
She
seemed happy, muddling through their humdrum days, laying fires, boiling water
and cooking, reading, listening to talking books and snuggling up to him. She washed clothes, cleaned and tidied, even
painted the spare bedroom.
Aaron
was less content. Every few days he went
out scavenging, and each time he was tempted to keep on walking. Find a car somewhere, and just drive.
Then
she became ill. They didn't know what it
was; she had pains in her stomach and felt nauseous and thirsty all the time.
She'd
cling to him, and reminisce, obsessively, about the good times they'd shared.
"Don't,"
he'd say to her. "You're
talking as if everything's over. It's
not. You're just weak and ill, that's
all."
She
retreated into the past. When her pain
receded, she would get out photos of the two of them in happier times, show him
mementoes of random evenings of which he had little recollection. A ticket from a gig, a napkin from a
restaurant.
And,
over and over, she would remind him of the things he used to say.
"You
told me you'd love me forever. Do you
remember, that night in Barcelona, on the hotel balcony?"
He
didn't, but he stroked her hair and told her he did.
"You
never want to be without me, and you'd die for me," she said, often, with
a dreamy smile on her face. One day,
when the stomach pains were particularly bad, she clung onto him, and asked him
to say it again.
"Tell
me now," she said. "Tell me
that again. Let me hear you say it,
now."
Aaron
felt foolish, and didn't want to say it because he didn't mean it, didn't feel
that way about her, was only with her because he felt sorry for her and there
was nothing else.
"Say
it to me," she said. "Make me
happy."
So he
did. "I never want to be without
you," he lied. "I'd die for
you."
They
had so little in the house, and he told her he must go out and find food, and,
most importantly, fresh drinking water.
Even when she couldn't eat, he knew she must drink.
"I
don't want you to go out," she said.
"Stay with me."
He
stroked her head, kissed her forehead.
"I have to. I'm hungry,
Lu. And we've got to have water, haven't
we? If I let you dehydrate, you could
get seriously ill."
"We
have lucozade! That's better, because
it's got glucose in it."
"You
know fizzy drinks give you guts ache."
The sight of her lying there, so frail, made him want to repeat the
lies, just to make her happy.
"Rainwater,
then!"
"No. I don't want to risk it, not with your
stomach. Don't worry. Suck some mints; they help, don't they? I won't be long. I'll go to a chemist, too, see if I can find
something."
When
he closed the front door, the weight lifted from his shoulders. Oh, to be alone, without her cloying
attention; he remembered why he left her in the first place. He zipped along the silent streets, kicking
up the rubbish that lay across the pavements, the dirty, empty bottles. The odd dead rodent. He wondered what was the matter with
her. Gallstones, maybe. His mother had them. Painful, but easily dealt with in the old
world.
Not
so much, now.
Whaddya do 'bout gallstones? Can you die from them if they're not treated? #NewWorldProblems.
He
hoped it was nothing worse. He should
find a medical encyclopaedia. If he
could make her better, she might be persuaded to leave. Being in that house, just the two of them,
never seeing anyone else, made him feel as though he didn't exist. He wanted air, movement, the sky, roads,
space. He longed for other people. Just someone different to talk to.
I never want to be without you. I'd die for you.
But
he didn't want to die. He wanted to
live.
In a
pharmacy he found a large, white bottle of chalky medicine that looked as
though it might be good for stomachs. He
passed a corner shop. Plenty of useless
cordial, bottles of fizzy drinks, but no water.
He took four Dr Peppers for himself.
A Sainsbury's Local: no water. A
pub: no water. A garage: no water.
He
walked. Shop after shop, no water
anywhere. Other stuff, though. One tin of chilli and three of potatoes,
soup, yogurt covered flapjacks, toilet paper, biscuits, batteries, a carton of
orange juice. Sod it. He'd just decided to
go back, boil the rainwater and hope for the best, when he spied an small
Indian supermarket that must have been on its knees even before the fall.
Worth
a try.
The
door hung off its hinges and the windows were smashed, which was good, because
it let a little light into the store, but he flicked on his torch as he walked
slowly up and down the three dingy, narrow aisles. Picked up the last packet of noodles as he
aimed light onto the almost empty shelves—which was when he saw them. Three of them. Litre bottles of beautiful, perfect, crystal
clear, still mineral water.
The
relief spread over his face in a bright smile, and it was an alien
sensation. He put his torch in his
mouth, heaved his backpack from his shoulders and unzipped it, resting it on
the empty shelf below the water. As he
did so, he was vaguely aware of a shuffling noise behind him, but he allowed it
to pass into his subconscious. Probably
a cat, a dog or a rat; he'd seen nobody.
No worries. He reached for the
first bottle, and was just placing it in his pack when a thump on his back sent
the torch flying out of his mouth, rolling down the aisle into the darkness.
"Water's
ours."
There
were two of them. One grabbed him by the
arms, the other, smaller, wrestled away his backpack.
Aaron
could scarcely see them, but he could smell them. Unwashed bodies, cigarette smoke. Youngsters, he thought.
"Fuck
you!" he yelled, and kicked out at the one holding the pack. He thrust his elbow into the lad behind him,
heard him gasp as he staggered back, and wrenched the pack out of the other
boy's hands, hurled it over his shoulder.
One bottle, that was all he'd managed to stow away; he reached for one
off the shelf, and pushed at the smaller boy.
The bigger one grabbed at him, and Aaron flung his arm out, wildly, surging
towards the daylight at the front of the shop, but somehow everything turned
upside down, and the floor came up to meet his face.
Thump!
As his forehead slammed onto the lino, he cried out; he couldn't move.
Hands
gripped his ankles.
Aaron
summoned all his strength, kicked, caught the ankle-holder in the face, heard
him yell, kicked again, felt him lose his grip—but the other hands were
grabbing at the strap of his pack, still hanging off his shoulder.
"I
said, the water's ours," said that voice again, the big boy, and his hands
tightened around his ankles once more.
"I
need it," Aaron gasped, reaching out, blindly. "My friend—she's ill, she needs water,
she can't drink anything else, just let me take one bottle—"
With
a mighty effort he kicked out again, lurched up, swung round and punched the
little 'un in the face, grabbed the straps from him, but as he did so he felt
an acute pain in his side, so sharp, so intense that he shouted out, fell back,
and somewhere in a blurry corner of the pain he was vaguely aware of the
smaller boy regaining control of the backpack, reaching up for the last bottle.
"No!" He threw his arm out, knocking him to one
side, but the pain was back, in a slightly different place this time, and
suddenly he had no strength; he tried to reach out, to fight back, but his arms
were like wads of wet cotton wool, and the pain came again, round the front
this time, over and over. He clutched at
his side, at his stomach, and he knew he was bleeding.
"You're
alright, he's done," he heard the bigger one say, as Aaron's knees
collapsed beneath him. "Get the
other bottle, then."
"He
got much else?" said the other.
"Yeah. Fair bit.
Whoa—chilli! We're sorted for
tonight, then. Don't know what
this is, though."
Aaron
was vaguely aware of the bottle of chalky medicine landing with a thump beside
his head, so he knew he must be lying on the floor again, and the lads' feet
were pattering away, their voices growing fainter and fainter until he could
hear them no more, and it was just him, bleeding out all over the floor of a
mucky little supermarket.
Down
there on the floor was a smell, a familiar smell that reminded him of something
in the past, but he couldn't think what it was.
He
pulled himself up onto his hands and knees and crawled towards the light,
because it was still the afternoon outside, and if he saw someone they might
help him, but even if nobody came he badly didn't want the last thing he ever
saw to be the inside of this shop. He
smelled the outside, the air, felt the cold pavement underneath his bleeding
stomach, and he was glad that he had made it out of the shop that smelled of
dust and cumin seeds. Ah—that was what
the smell was: cumin seeds. Like in the
restaurant where he and Luisa used to eat on Friday nights, long ago.
I never want to be without you. I'd die for you.
He
wondered, in a floaty, distant sort of way, what would happen to her, if she
would think he had just gone away and left her, but part of him didn't care
because if she hadn't made him say those words they might not have come true,
he might have made her better, and they could have packed up and gone, found a
camp, met other people, made some sort of life.
Lying on a pavement bleeding to death after
a fight over three
litres of bottled water.
#NewWorldProblems.
This story can be found in my post apocalyptic short story collection, Patient Zero.
All stories are completely stand alone, and feature side and back stories from the characters in The Project Renova series
