I first came to believe that we were all going to die the day my neighbour ‘Old Man Bill’ disappeared.  I mean – really believe it.  No more hope.  No more delusions.  Belief that it was just a matter of time before it happened – either by our own hand, or by way of the things that were out there.  It’s the kind of belief that comes with a bitter-sick feeling right in the pit of your stomach.  It drops you to the floor and has you crying your eyes out.  Defeat, annihilation – end.  I believed it all right.  All because one old man got taken out.  The countless deaths before hadn’t made me see it.  It was the death of an Old Man that meant the end of the world.

My house mate Jacinta had been standing at the front door.  She had it open wide enough to fit her head and was peering at the street.  David admonished her to close it and commanded me to pull her away.

‘You do it,’ I said.

‘ I’m stirring the beans,’ he replied.

So I obeyed and went to stand next to her for a moment – to give her time to close it herself.  But she just ignored me.

‘C’mon,’ I said, ‘time to close the door.’

But I just stood behind her without doing anything.  I looked over her head at the view of the street and was entranced by it just as she was.  The soft colours of an autumn dusk were fading.  The lawns and the hedges, the orange liquid ambers that lined the street – all were being enveloped by an encroaching grey.  It was incredibly still and quiet.

‘Would you two shut the door,’ David called from the kitchen.

‘Shut up,’ Jacinta said.

‘Seriously,’ he added.  ‘I mean it.’

‘Seriously, shut the hell up.  I’m trying to listen.’

It was then that I realised that Jacinta wasn’t really watching the street at all but listening to our neighbours.  I heard it then as well.  Just above the silence was the muted sound of a ruckus coming from next door.  I couldn’t make out the words – but it was clear Old Man Bill was having an argument with his wife.  After a moment their front door burst open and the nature of the argument became immediately clear.

‘Get off me woman,’ Bill said.

‘ You’ve gone mad.  Stay inside please,’ his wife replied.

‘ I’ve had enough – I’m going for a walk.  I’ve been cooped up long enough.’

‘No!’ his wife shrieked.  ‘You can’t leave me.  You can’t do that.  I won’t cope.’

Old Man Bill shrugged doggedly and fixed his sights toward the rust stained gate.  It could be seen from the way he held himself that he had once been a big man.  His frame was still enormous but with his strength gone it was now more a liability in old age than an asset.  One arm leaned on his cane the other shook noticeably as it pulled at the stubborn gate.  It creaked loudly and scraped against the concrete. Once he had passed the threshold he held up his cane and pointed it at his wife.

‘Martha, you’re a bloody pain in the arse.  I’d rather get eaten.’

And then he set off slowly down the street, ignoring the wailing coming from his home.  Jacinta and I had spilled out into the front courtyard of our home.  As Martha realised the intractability of her husband’s determination she turned to us in desperation and pleaded for us to stop him and bring him back.  Jacinta looked at her blankly.  I couldn’t keep my eyes straight for the shame.

‘What the hell are you two doing outside?’  David said from the doorway.  He still had the steaming pot of beans in his hand.  Jacinta immediately turned from Martha and pushed past David back into the house.  She was glad for the excuse.  I managed to raise my eyes to Martha’s and was crippled by terror I saw in her.  I couldn’t bear it.

‘We have to do something,’ I said.

‘Just get inside,’ David said.

I obeyed and Martha started wailing again.  From the door I saw her move to the front gate and begin shouting at the whole neighbourhood for someone to rescue her husband.

‘He’s gone mad!  He’s gone mad!  Please someone help him.’

‘Jesus David,’ I said.  ‘We need to do something.’

‘You do something,’ David said from the kitchen.  ‘The old fucker made his choice.  If I was married to that harpy I would have probably chosen the same.’

‘But maybe he has gone mad,’ I said.  ‘I’m not far off it myself some days.  Surely we need to look out…’

‘Listen,’ David said, pointing the wooden spoon at me.  ‘You wanna risk your life for some old bastard that’s probably gonna drop dead from a coronary tomorrow – go for it.’

‘But he’s big.  I couldn’t carry him on my own,’ I said.

‘Not my problem,’ he said.   He emptied some of the beans into one of the three bowls that he had arranged beside the camper on the kitchen table.   A little dollop of chilli sauce was poured into the remainder and returned to the flame.

‘Oh and when Martha starts to starve because she’s too senile to go and get her own food, when she’s pleading with us for a share of our own – that aint gonna bother you?  Takes a long time for a person to starve.  You so much a bastard that you’ll be able to endure that without giving in to the guilt – making our lives just that much more difficult?’

‘Watch me,’ he replied.  ‘You going out there or what?  Because we need to block this door.’

“Fuck,’ I said.  I turned to Jacinta who had sat herself on the couch with her knees pulled up to neck and her arms wrapped around her ankles.  She looked dreadfully thin, I thought.  She wouldn’t be much help.  I had no business asking her for it.  But I asked anyway out of my own weakness and need for affirmation.  I knelt down beside the couch.  She wouldn’t look me in the eye.

‘Jacinta, listen.  You know it’s the right thing yeah?  We should help Bill right?’

‘Of course we should,’ she almost whispered.  ‘But… but what can I do?  Really Mark.  I don’t know what I can do.’

‘Bill always liked you.  He used to pick you lemons off his lemon tree remember?  He’ll listen to you.  You can convince him to come back inside.’

‘I can’t,’ she said.

Outside Martha was still screaming at the neighbourhood.  No one was going to help her.  Humanity had abdicated.  Or maybe it had never been.  Maybe our entire civilisation had been a fairytale of solidarity.  I gave up on Jacinta and returned to David in the kitchen.

‘Listen to her,’ I said.  ‘She’s a beacon.  You want them all swarming outside our house?’

‘There’s an easy way to fix that problem,’ David said.  The second bowl was now half full of beans.  David was carefully scrutinising the quantities in each and comparing that with the remainder still left in the pot.

‘Yeah – but then you’d have to summon the balls to actually go outside and do it.  But you’re gutless so it’s not going to happen.  Enjoy your chilli beans asshole.’

I stood up and swung the door open, letting it slam against the wall.  I deliberately left it open and went to meet Martha at the gate.  I heard it close behind me.  I didn’t look back.

‘Martha,’ I said. ‘Martha listen.  I’ll go get him.  Please listen.  I’ll go get him.’

‘Oh you will!  Oh thank you.  Thank you. You are a good person.   You are good.’

‘Listen please,’ I said.  ‘I’ll go get him, but I need you to be quiet and go back inside.  Can you do that?’

‘Yes, I’ll do that,’ she said.

‘Go back inside and don’t open it until you hear my voice.  Okay?’

‘Yes okay,’ she said.  ‘I’ll wait for you.  Please bring back my husband.  You are a good person.’

The look of gratitude in her eyes almost crippled me just as much as her previous look of terror.  She held my hand for a moment and gave me a smile.   It made me feel good like she said.  Maybe I was good.  But I couldn’t really bring myself to believe it.  Maybe I just wanted to shut her up but didn’t have the guts to whack her over the head.  Who really knew after all?  Maybe it’d be all over tomorrow and things would be back to normal.  Maybe then I’d have to explain why I’d murdered my neighbour.

I made sure Martha had gone back inside her house and then willed myself to peer up the street.  It was empty.  The old man had made good time it seemed.  Where the fuck had he gotten to?  I jogged up the street.  A cool breeze was blowing from the south making me shiver – but it was stale.  The garbage was piled high out the front of many houses and it polluted the air.  The ones that hadn’t been ransacked were boarded up and relatively clean if not a little overgrown.  But the ones that had been had become dumping grounds for the shit of the neighbourhood.  I ran a little faster past those ones.  Outside one of them I spotted a shovel and picked it up for protection.  It was better than nothing, I thought.

I stopped at the intersection to try and get a glimpse of Bill but I couldn’t see him.  The light was almost gone and even if he was in my line of sight I was no longer sure that he’d stand out enough to be spotted.  He’s just gone around the block, I thought to myself.  I’ll just do one more leg and if I don’t see him then he’ll be more than halfway back to his house anyway.  I’ll have tried.   So I ran the leg down to the next intersection – the opposite corner of the block from my home.  Still no sign.  Fuck!

I’d done my bit, I thought.  I’d tried.  There was so little light left.  The moon hadn’t risen.  The street lamps hadn’t been on for weeks.  It would soon be pitch black.

That’s when I saw it.  It was in the corner of my eye – a shape, a shadow black and angular.  It crawled along the roof of the house to my immediate left.  I didn’t turn my head to confirm.  I just bolted back up the street the way I’d come.  Bill had already been taken.  I knew it now.

I was next.

I ran faster than I ever knew I could.  They were right behind me.  I could feel them there.  They had an energy you could sense – like the pull of a magnet, like the secret desire to die and have it all over with.  I looked behind me once as I ran and saw them.  Some of the shapes were crawling across the ground, some across the roofs.  One leaped from a tree right in front of me and lunged.  I sidestepped like a pro-footballer but it caught my ankle and I slipped.  I got my balance quickly but had lost my momentum.  I had to do something.  If I tried to run again now it would be all over.

I swung my shovel at the one that had tripped me.  The blow connected.  I felt the jarring impact in my arms and I saw the black shape reel backward, but the blow made no sound.  Dear god why did it make no sound?  I swung at the next shape and the next.  I went into a rage.  I swung and I screamed and I hungered for their pain.  But they remained as silent as death.  There was no telling their thoughts.  There was no avenue of empathy to these monstrosities.

I was given a chance.  My insane attack had surprised them.  Perhaps they’d never seen its like from one of their prey before.  They stopped their advance.  My senses returned and I knew their confusion and lack of momentum was my one small window for survival.  I fled.

When I reached the house I shouted and banged on the door for my housemates to let me in.  But there was no response.  I couldn’t believe it.  That was it.  There was nowhere else to go.  I put my back against the door and turned to face my end as bravely as I could.  The monsters were not far behind but they approached me with some caution.  I waved my shovel out in front.  I screamed at them to take me.

And then I heard Martha.

“Mark?  Is that you?  Did you find my husband?  Is he okay?”

I turned to see Martha’s head peering over the fence in the gloom.  I could just make out the look of hope in her eyes, as well as the sudden terror as she saw the shapes surrounding me.

‘Martha no,’ I said.  But it was too late.  The shapes suddenly bolted in her direction and her face fell away out of view.  She screamed.  She screamed so loud the night was filled with her death.  It was every aspect of the nightmare sealed in one blood-curdling note.

I didn’t move.  Martha was not a few feet away from me on the other side of the fence.  I would see her if I had the courage to turn and look.  But I couldn’t.  Her scream had stopped.   There were just muted grunts of pain now and the sound of tearing flesh.   Martha was not more than a few feet away from me but I couldn’t look because she was being murdered.  She was being torn apart by horrors and I didn’t even have the strength to bear witness.  I had no courage in me now.  I had no will nor care to help.  I wasn’t thinking about anyone else but myself.  I would have ripped the heart out a newborn if it might have saved me.  That fucking Old Man.  That selfish son of a bitch.  If the horrors hadn’t gotten him I would have put a shotgun to his head myself.

Oh god why wouldn’t they just open the fucking door!

My wits and action returned and I became singular in my quest for survival.  I alternated between kicking at the door and trying to pull away the boards on the windows.  ‘You fuckers,’ I shouted.  ‘You fucking cunts.  I swear to fuck I’ll rip a hole in this house before they get me.  I’ll fucking burn you alive.  You selfish fucking shits.  You’re all fucking dead.  You hear me?  You’re fucking dead.’

The door opened.  David’s strong arm pulled me inside and threw me to the floor.  Jacinta began moving the furniture back in front of it and David turned to help.  I just lay there on the floor with my shovel in hand and watched as they worked.  When they were done Jacinta just returned to the couch and stared vacantly at the floor.  David walked past me without a word.  He gave me a look of complete and utter hatred.  He disappeared into his room and slammed the door.  I heard him bolt it from the inside.

I couldn’t hear what was going on outside anymore after that and was glad for it.  The horrors out there did their work so quietly.  We knew there would be nothing of Martha’s remains by morning – nothing but a large blood stain on the concrete.

I don’t know how long it was before I could move myself from the floor.  I went into the kitchen to splash water on my face and try to calm my nerves.  I saw the three bowls that David had used to serve the beans.  Two of them had the residue of the sauce.  One remained completely clean.  I saw that bowl and collapsed to the floor.  I bawled my eyes out.  We were all going to die and there was nothing out there in the world that was good enough to save us.

We were all going to die and none of us deserved to be saved.

End