Autumn Read Free Page B

remains of wrecked and twisted cars were strewn all around. The dirty grey pavements were littered with cold, lifeless bodies and the only sound came from the biting autumn wind as it ripped through the trees and chilled him to the bone. Other than the corpses that were trapped in what was left of their cars there didn’t seem any immediately obvious reason for any of the deaths. The closest body to Jeffries was that of an elderly woman. She had simply dropped to the ground where she’d been standing. She still had the handle of her shopping trolley gripped tightly in one of her gloved hands.
    He thought about shouting out for help. He raised his hands up to his mouth but then stopped. The world was so icily silent and he felt so exposed and out of place that he didn’t dare make a sound. In the back of his mind was the very real fear that, if he was to call out, his voice might draw attention to his location. Although there didn’t seem to be anyone else left to hear him, in his vulnerable and increasingly nervous state he began to convince himself that making a noise might bring whatever it was that had destroyed the rest of the population back to destroy him. Paranoid perhaps, but what had happened was so illogical and unexpected that he just wasn’t prepared to take any chances. Frustrated and afraid, he turned around and walked back towards the car.
    At the far end of the car park, hidden from view at first by overhanging trees, stood the Whitchurch Community Hall. Named after a long forgotten local dignitary it was a dull, dilapidated building which had been built (and, it seemed, last maintained) in the late 1950’s. Jeffries cautiously walked up to the front of the hall and peered in through a half-open door. Nervously he pushed the door fully open and took a few tentative steps inside. This time he did call out, quietly and warily at first, but there was no reply.
    The cold and draughty building took only a minute or two to explore because it consisted of only a few rooms, most of which led off a main hall. There was a very basic kitchen, two storerooms (one at either end of the building) and male and female toilets. At the far end of the main hall was a second, much smaller hall, off which led the second storeroom. This room had obviously been added as an extension to the original building. Its paint work and decoration, although still faded and peeling, was slightly less faded and peeling than that of the rest of the rooms.
    Other than two bodies in the main hall the building was empty. Jeffries found it surprisingly easy to move the two corpses and to drag them outside. In the hand of a grey-haired man who looked to have been in his early sixties he found a bunch of keys which, he discovered, fitted the building locks. This, he decided, must have been the caretaker. And the equally grey-haired lady who had died next to him was probably a prospective tenant, looking to hire the hall for a Women’s Institute meeting or something similar. He heaved the stiff and awkward bodies through the doorway and placed them carefully in the undergrowth at the side of the building.
    It was while he was outside that he decided he would shelter in the hall until morning. It seemed to be as safe a place as any in which to hide. It was isolated and although not in the best of repair, it looked strong enough and seemed warmer than the car. Jeffries decided that there didn’t seem to be any point in trying to get anywhere else. The only place he wanted to be was back home, but that was a few hours drive away. He quickly convinced himself that it would be safer to stay put for now and then to try and get petrol in the morning. He’d siphon it from one of the wrecked cars outside.
    As the light began to fade he discovered that there was no electricity in the hall. A quick run to the end of the car park revealed that it wasn’t just the hall that was without power. The entire city for as far as he could see was rapidly darkening.