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Prologue – They Kill

They are coming.

They’re coming and it’s all my fault.

“Walk away!” she yelled to me. “Walk away from me”

And she’s right. I know I should. It makes sense. It makes perfect logical sense. She’s a lost cause now. I know it, she knows it. She’s going to die and it’s all my fault.

“I can’t” I tell her. My eyes burn with tears, my voice scratchy with despair. With guilt. I look at her and I see fear in her eyes. Fear as she realises that she’s going to die and every experience she hasn’t yet had, she never will. I see steeliness in her eyes too. Strength and courage in the face of her own extinction. But, most painfully, I see anger in her eyes. Betrayal. She knows that this is my fault and her last thought on this mortal plane is not going to be one of forgiveness. People kid themselves, say they’ll be the better person in these situations. We’re not better people though. We’re not better people at all. I did this to her. I’m the reason that she’s going to die.

“Just go. Just go Alisha and whatever you do, don’t look back” she said through pained vocal chords. There was no use being quiet. The quiet wasn’t going to save anybody now. We were on Their radar and there’s nothing you can do when you’re on Their radar.

There’s a violent clatter in the distance that means that They are close. And soon, the woman staring at me is going to die. At it is all my fault.

She’s trying to do the noble thing. Sacrifice herself for me. I hate her for doing that. I don’t deserve it and she knows I don’t deserve it. I’m so angry that she’s doing this for me, but I’m too scared to stop her. I guess I’m just a good person second, and a coward first. So I do what she says. I go. I go and I don’t turn back.

I walk away slowly. Heavily. Each footstep toiling as if against a gradient. But I don’t turn back.

And one of Them is here now. I can hear it now. It’s lumbering power. It’s monstrous howl. A parched screech that mauls the air that it travels through. And all that stands between Them and me is her. I can hear her shouting at it angrily. Her voice scorching her throat as she yells in its direction. But I don’t turn back.

I keep on walking. Desperate to conserve the thin river of energy that I have. I want to run. My legs burn to run away from that beast behind me. But running would do no good. They always catch you in the end. No, the smarter play was to walk and not waste energy. Don’t give Them something to feed on. So I walk away. And I don’t turn back.

And the screeching stops. Silence floods the air like nuclear fallout. Her angry warcry dies and I know she’s died with it. It happened so quickly. I expected resistance. But one minute she’s screaming at Them and the next, she’s dead. And as I walk away, I turn back. And I see nothing of her any more. She’s gone now, as if she never was.

Chapter 1 – Hunger Kills

8.51am. Sweat’s running down my brow. Another nightmare. The same nightmare. The same memory. The same inescapable haunting that wraps around my brain and suffocates it. Trapped in a funnel spider’s web. It all comes back to mum’s death. Every time my eyes close, it always goes back to mum’s death.

I need to get up though. Quickly. Come on Alisha, I need to hurry. It’s 8.53am now and that doesn’t leave me much time. Shit, that’s late. I should never lead it this late. It’s just, I’ve been so tired lately. I need to get up earlier. Cannot let this happen again. I can sleep when I’m dead.

There’s a granola bar in my bag. A fucking granola bar. Still, it should stop me getting hungry. For a bit. I mean, in my experience, it kick-starts my metabolism so it won’t buy me long. But it’s something. My last granola bar. After this, I’m all out.

I try to savour it. Draw it out. Drag it out. I try not to rush. I let it chew in my mouth, let the nuts cut my gums as I tumble-dry them, never rushing to swallow. This granola bar won’t keep Them at bay for long. But how long? I grab my notebook from my satchel and do the maths. 8.55am now. 99 calories in the bar. But plenty of carbs. That should help. Hopefully slow energy release. Plus the sugars from the fruit… let me cross-reference with previous times… I reckon I have until 10.52am before I start getting hungry again. 10.52am is my ticking clock.

I pull myself off the sofa. It isn’t my flat. It isn’t anybody’s flat any more. But it was somewhere off the main road where I could rest my head. To grab some sleep. Oh fuck I’m so tired. But I gotta get a move on. No time to inspect the place, no time to wonder what had happened to the previous occupants. There’s no food in the cupboards here and that’s all that mattered. On to the next place.

And towards the main road. A main roads where no people walked and no cars drove. Not any more. Not after Them. Along the tram track down the high street, that the weekday commuters and weekend shoppers used to take. This was my best chance of finding somewhere that hadn’t had another vulture prey upon it. Shops were always sacked, they were a dead end. Back when all this kicked off, those were the first port of call. Those early days before most of the world had been wiped away. I remember thinking it was like Black Friday. Like it was comparable to fighting over a TV set that had a reduced sale price. Things have changed a bit since then. Quieter. Uglier.

I head down an alleyway, hoping for some other properties. It’s 9.19am now. Not shops, properties are what I need. And there’s an hour and a half to go. An hour and a half before I get hungry. An hour and a half before They come. There’s nothing down here and I feel that sense of dread stir at the base of my stomach again. Things have been getting more and more desperate for a while. Calls have been getting closer and closer. I’ve been hanging on by my fingernails for a while now. It’s only a matter of time before I can’t hold on any more. Before one of those fingernails snap.

There’s a block of flats across the way. Hope. Surely someone somewhere has left something for me to eat in this architectural carbuncle in the middle of the city. I have nearly an hour to go now and I can feel the cloud hanging over me now. I know I haven’t got long now.

But I try to stay calm. Keep my breath under control. And out. And in. And out again. Come on Alisha, stay focused. Keep your head in the game. And in. And out again. And 9.32am. And shit. And fuck. And out again.

I get to the flats and I see it straight away. Bordered up entrance. Wood right across the main entrance. Unbroken. People lived here? Had they managed to fend Them off in here? Was there enough food in here to keep Them out all of this time? Shit. What do I do now?

I took a moment. And in. And out again. If there was enough food to sustain people this long, then there must be a lot of food. And I was desperate now. I couldn’t turn away from a trove like this. Could I?

I sat down outside the place and cried. I could. I should. I should break in and rummage through the place, scouring for anything to eat. Tins. Tins would have been perfect. But anything would have done. But I can’t. I can’t, can I? I just can’t face it. I can’t face it because I can’t face people. In this building are people weathering the storm. And if I go and break in, then they’ll weather the storm a little less. I can’t do that. I can’t take someone’s last meal. Not again. Not again. Not again. And breathe, Alisha. Breathe. Breathe in. And out. Come on, keep your breath. And in. And out again.

No. No humans. That’s the rule. Avoid people at all costs. Because they’ll get you killed or you’ll get them killed. Humans are liability. They are the potential for something to go wrong. Humans are danger and the rule is avoid them at all cost. I have just one rule. An absolute rule, not for flexing. No humans. So no block of flats. I needed somewhere else. It is 10.03am, I have 50 minutes until They come for me and I need to find somewhere else. Somewhere more residential.

Like down towards Broomhall? It’s about a 30 minute walk from here so I don’t have a lot of time. But I don’t have a lot of options. So I walk.

And walk.

And I can take my time because time isn't the thing trying to kill me. It's my metabolism. So I can walk as slowly as I like, as leisurely as possible, and meander through from the centre of Sheffield. Cos that's one of the rules. Time isn't what gets you, pace is. So take your time when you can.

I take a turn left with the university to the right of me. It had been where I had studied. Accountancy and Financial Management. I chose the university upon whose doorstep I lived. Most people go to university for the nightlife or the chance to cut free. Be free. Be independent. Not me. No, I stayed with my parents, with my whole dysfunctional family and would catch the tram from up near Hillsborough to get here. The university didn't seem like such a big deal. You couldn't go shopping without passing this one, or Hallam on the other side of the main city thoroughfare. I'd been raised in its shadow. The old art building, only recently demolished, had hovered over the city's skyline for as long as I could remember. Other buildings were newer, and had that curved and glassy veneer that new buildings have. Buildings that feel designed. Designed by architects who want to feel heard. All sleek metal rims and maximum light. They were the backdrop to my childhood, and continued into my adulthood.

They didn't look the same now. The buildings didn't look quite as smug. As austere. Those curves had splintered, the glass had smashed. The sleek metal rims crumpled. The maximum light made dark. Everything looked roughed up. Every surface looked scratched. The university I had just turned my back to, having never turned my back on it all my life, was a bloodied husk devoid of life and lustre. And looking around now, the same could be made of the rest of Sheffield. Sure, the properties never had the same vim in the first place. It was an old city and a new city all living in one body, a dying steel town living off the glamour of its past and its dry-stoned walls, cast aside while all the funding gets pushed towards the two universities and any upstarts that come from there. The hipster bars and the sushi vans sat alongside housing estates of grey and underpasses tarred with graffiti and gang tags. And now everything is just reverting to that underfunded mean. Everything is grey now in this city. Where there were once people, there is now just further canvases of grey.

Take the street to the right of me. I knew someone who lived there once. Before all this happened. Before They did. His name was Archie, but don't hold that against him. He went to the same school as me, and he would come round my house and we'd play Call of Duty on the Xbox because his parents wouldn't let him play violent games. He was always a laugh and I never thought anything of it. He got into trouble a bit more than I did, I guess. He was a bit of a 'lad'. And as it drew towards GCSEs and stuff, I began to notice that I was middle class, and he was working class. I was a 'square', his words, and he was a trouble-maker, the teacher's words. I had a nice uniform despite having older siblings, he lived on hand-me-downs. I got the latest games, he got games with graphics so angular that Lara Croft's tits could poke an eye out. My family celebrated the end of my exams with a meal out at a restaurant. He had Maccy D's. It was this city in microcosm. I was going to become an accountant or a doctor or a lawyer, I knew that even then, and he was going to drop out as soon as he could and get a job at his dad's steelwork place. It was just how it was. And, as kids, we didn't know better. And we drifted apart. He moved onto that road there, and I stayed where I was and we didn't see much of each other after that. Last I heard, his dad's place folded, ended up with horrible debts, and he's unemployed and a white nationalist. This Indian girl was his best friend for his entire childhood and now he's a racist.

But, here's the thing, now They've arrived. None of that matters. It doesn't matter who we were or even who we are. It's all just survival now. It's all just trying to get by from one minute to the next. Trying to circle a drain forever without ever falling in. I bet Archie's still alive. I bet he's smart enough, not academically smart but real life smart, to survive this nightmare. I bet he's coping better than I am. Because, in a world where nobody has anything, then I guess we're all working class now. I guess we all have nothing to our name but our name. And if I saw another Indian girl, and she had a stash of food, I'd attack her just as much as he would. This city, Sheffield, it's spent so long kidding itself it wasn't a dying city, a lie I straight up bought. And now it isn't a dying city. And now it's dead.

10.28am.

I walk a bit faster. I’m feeling nervous. But walking faster doesn’t help. That just burns the calories faster, it’s a false economy. But I’m getting worried now. I’ve gambled and I think I’ve lost. And breathe, Alisha. In, come on, and out again. Come on, you can do this.

And walk.

10.34am

10.37am.

10.37am and that’s when I feel it. That trickle up to my cerebral cortex to tell me I’m starting to get hungry. That’s earlier than normal. 10.37am and They’re coming.

I look around to gather my bearings. The quiet abandoned streets of a once-thriving city. Shops hollowed out, homes reduced to mausoleums. Roads so accustomed to being log-jammed with traffic, now laid barren by Them. All the markers of what once was, now reduced to silence and nothing. When they say that city centre high streets are dying, I don’t think this is what they had in mind. Sheffield is a corpse now.

I rummage in my rucksack, the nearest thing I have to a steed, but it’s in desperation not hope. No food, nothing. Just a morsel would have bought me some time, a crumb to deter them, anything, but no. No, I know there isn’t any in there. I’m looking but it’s only out of desperation. No, if I’m gonna find some food, I need to scavenge some. And I’ve just about gotten to Broomhall so I have a chance. I just need to get in one of these abandoned properties, and hope there’s something in there.

And that’s when I see one of Them. And it’s seen me. This is probably it for me then. May I rest in peace.

It hulks towards me. They look like nightmares made flesh, veiny green and improbably ambulating. Half-canter and half-crawl, like a lame animal through sewers. It’s locked onto me and there’s only one thing in the world that can save me. I need to have something to eat.

I look around at the properties nearby. Dead shops mainly, but old homes too now. Terraced houses with tired façades and weathered features. No idea if any of them are occupied, unoccupied or formerly occupied. No idea if any of them contain anything to eat. I don’t really have that luxury. I just need to take a punt and hope lady luck’s on my side once more.

My legs spring into life and I sprint to the one across the road. Just off the main street is a detached property, seemingly unperturbed by the chaos that They wrought. I see an open window on the second floor and if I can climb onto the garage roof, I should be able to get in. C’mon Alisha, you can do this. The Them is after me now, and I hear the horrifying sound of it announcing that it’s spied its prey. It’s reedier than a howl, yet louder and more piercing. I remember it well. And suddenly more of Them start to appear. And They are all chasing after me.

I get to the property and my legs are already burning and heavy. My chest is already clawing at my ribcage. I need to shimmy up the drainpipe, but I’ve never really done anything like that before. I can do this though. I can do this. I clasp the drain with my hands and upper arms as tightly as I can, so tight that I can feel it digging sharply into the skin of my forearms, piercing skin. I wrap my legs around it too, and push up as quickly as I can. With small movements, I repeat, grunting and grimacing as I get higher and higher. It feels impossible, like my muscles are telling me to give up with every pull, but I just gnash my teeth tighter and tighter as I scale it. I can finally reach the garage roof now and heave myself up, straining every sinew to grip tightly. If I fall, I die. It’s as simple as that.

I’m up onto it now and, on hands and knees, I clamber to the open window. The incline of the roof is steeper and more disorienting than I imagined, but I scamper to it. I don’t fall. I don’t die. Not yet anyway. I feel sick at this point. Flecks of vomit are curdling in my stomach. I climb in clumsily, banging loudly, bruising my knees. Fuck that hurt. I rush to close the window, and lock it shut. The first Them is rapidly approaching the property and a closed window isn’t going to slow it down very long. I can feel that familiar pain of my heart beating at the inside of my ribcage, trying to get out. Because if it doesn’t, it will probably get eaten too. I need to pause and get my breath back, but I don’t have that luxury either. I can hear one of Them climbing onto the garage roof now. Though, given its size and strength, it does so a lot easier than I did.

I rush across to the landing, banging clumsily into the railing while the Them bursts through the window. My legs are so weak now, so much so that I almost fall down the stairs. But the first of Them is close behind. I can hear the colossal weight of the thing as its limbs hit the floor with each movement, the straining and creaking of the floorboards as it shambles towards me.

Downstairs and I’m opening doors in a mad frenzy, hoping one of them leads to a kitchen, or better still, a pantry. One of them, surely. I try the first door as soon as I land downstairs. Nope. Another. To an internal garage. I bang loudly as I throw things wide open but I don’t care. Stealth isn’t an option right now, only speed is. Inside, I can see people lived here, and that they no longer do. It sounds cruel, but I hope they got eaten by Them. That means they might have left some food behind. Cos I could really do with a chicken sandwich right now. A chicken sandwich might just about save my life.

Another ones barged through the door. The front door. And now my number’s really up. I scamper to the only unopened downstairs room and close the door behind me. Thank fuck, it’s a kitchen. I try to jam it with an ironing board, of all things, but doing that probably cost me more time than it saved me. As quickly as I can, I open as many cupboards as I can. The ones under the sink. Nothing. The ones over the sink. Just mugs and plates. Fuck. I’m in trouble now.

The door flies open, the ironing board snapping at its centrepoint as They come into the kitchen and size up their meal. I try another cupboard. More plates. How many plates did this family fucking need? I can hear Them now, the wetness of them as they draw near. The dampness of each of Their steps dripping on the linoleum. No use fighting them, I just need to find…

...Oreos. A pack of Oreos. I rip into them and swallow them as quickly as I can. One after another, I eat. My back is to Them. I can’t see Them. I daren’t see Them. Whatever I do, don’t turn back. I can feel the cold shadow of Them as they draw in on me and I simply don’t have the nerve to look. I just prey that these Oreos hit my stomach soon. A third monster now shows up in the kitchen, loudly clanging as it draws upon me, its meal, and there really isn’t much room for all three of them. I withdraw into the corner and cower, very little elsewhere to go. There’s nowhere else now for my eyes to go apart from stare at the creature as it seemingly pulls itself apart at the seams and opens its entire body as if on a hinge to swallow me.

The inside of the creature is grotesque. The outside is a sickly light green, but internally its an acrid black, festering and fetid. It looks like how a hangover feels. It looks like an apocalypse. That’s the best description I have. It looks like an apocalypse. Slowly, and it is moving slowly now, the wide gape of it maw opens around me and there is nowhere left for me to go and nothing left for me to breath. This is it. And now it is my turn to be consumed, and wiped away since I never existed in the first place. Each and every trace of me, swallowed and digested without even a reminder of who once was. This is it for me. My comeuppance I guess. My retribution. I hope there isn’t a Hell, cos if there is, I’m going there. I hope there’s just darkness and nothing. Because that doesn’t feel so different to here and now.

And then it stops. It freezes, as if turned to stone, its body or mouth or whatever it is, is around me and surrounding me and it just stops. It’s encroaching craw drawing to a standstill all around me and then it just stops. I’m shrouded from the daylight by it, and everything is black, but nothing is moving. Everything is still. I guess the Oreos have hit my stomach. I guess I’m no longer hungry. And, therefore, I guess they’re no longer hungry too. Because that’s what drives Them. They feast on our hunger.

I slowly, carefully, and in near pitch darkness, open another couple of Oreos and eat them. Normally I wouldn’t be so reckless. I would savour every crumb, hoping to appease my appetite by increment, but when you are literally in the belly of the beast, there’s not much room for manoeuvre. I couldn’t take the risk. And I was stuck. Walled in, inside the open mouth of the beast, and there was nothing I can do. Any nudge, the slightest touch, would set it to spring like a bear trap. I just had to hope this pack of Oreos could stave off my hunger long enough for something to attract its attention elsewhere. And breathe Alisha. In and out. You can do this. Just in and out. In… yep, and then out again. Keep control of your breath. Keep control.

Sitting down and slowly chewing these Oreos, hushed in Them’s darkness, I remember when this first started happening, when Them first broke in the news. Nobody knew anything but rumours and scaremongering at that point. Monsters. Aliens. Nobody knew. They ate people and there wasn’t a lot you could do about it. Tanks couldn’t stop them. Bombs couldn’t stop them. They were plague incarnate, and they were spreading.

I remember the shock of it. The panic. Here, in Britain, with flights cancelled and the Channel Tunnel sealed off, we hoped we were hermetically sealed off. Typical British arrogance. But nothing gets between Them and a good meal. Not even an ocean. We were not safe. Nobody was safe. As long as you were hungry, you were dead meat.

Because, by the time it struck Britain, we knew it was hunger they responded to. Nothing else but hunger. They fed on our hunger. Our hunger was their fuel. Not just rumbling stomachs and pangs, but even a simple spot of peckishness can attract Them from about a 2 mile radius. You have to stay on top of your appetite, or they get to satisfy their appetite. You get hungry, then you get got.

They are only prompted by food, but they will kill you if provoked. Tanks, fighter jets, all thought they could take on Them. Some fell. They weren’t impervious to fire and brimstone. But, they were too hungry, too angry when provoked. Too fast. Too strong. Too many. Just way too many. So all attacks failed. Quickly. These monsters were not like anything else. You simply didn’t stand a chance unless you had a full stomach. So, while I’m stuck in the agape cavern of this creature’s stomach or mouth or whatever it is, all I can do is periodically eat Oreos and pray they last long enough for the creature to move away from me, so I can escape. For it to pick up someone else’s unsatiated scent.

I open the packet and try to read the number of calories, but it’s so dark in here. And so damp. Like a seawater cave. I try to do the maths, to gauge the frequency of consumption. How many calories consumed versus burnt. I try to monitor it all. I have to stay on top of these things. One slip, one numerical oversight and I’m fodder. I try to eat at regular intervals, and monitor when and how much I eat. I have hooked to my jeans a manual pedometer that tracks how many steps I’ve taken, so I know how far I’ve walked. All trying to balance and offset exertion with intake. But, for now, all I can do is wait in the dark.

I eat another Oreo. I have no idea how long this creature has had its jaw around me. My watch is analogue, which is great since it relies on clockwork for accuracy and not satellite signals that we no longer receive. But awkward when it’s dark. But I would guess half an hour. I should count really. Keep track of things. Plus, it will help with the breathing. One mississippi, two mississippi.

I hope there’s somebody out there about to get hungry. It’s cruel, I know, but it’s a cruel world we live in now. I’ve seen cruelty, I’ve wielded cruelty. It’s the only reason I’m alive. Twenty mississippi, twenty one mississippi. The problem is that there are so few people left. They saw to that. Unsustainably thinning our herd, killing people in swathes. A firing squad of consumptive annihilation. A panhuman holocaust. Hunger doesn’t discriminate and so neither do They. And now there are so few people left. A terrifying fraction of the hundreds of thousands that used to live in Sheffield here. The haunting consequence of starvation becomes a readily approaching menace. I just need one of those remaining people alive, just one of them to fall foul of hunger. Eighty three mississippi, eighty four mississippi.

It was the power cuts that did for so many. Once power from the grid went, and frozen food thawed, and refrigerated food warmed, suddenly people got hungry quickly. And then Them got full just as quickly. And now I’m stuck here, breathing in air filtered through fetid lungs of this disgusting beast, praying for one more person to fall. 304 mississippi, 305 mississippi. They can’t be outran, or outfought, just staved off. But they are inevitable and I fear that my hourglass has just run out of sand. 1013 mississippi, 1014 mississippi. It’s a desperate life. A futile life. Just railing against the dying of the light. Death is coming for all of us. We’re all just running until it catches up with us. Maybe my running days are over. Maybe this is it. 2111 mississippi, 2112 mississippi. Maybe another Oreo, just to be safe.

And then something changes.

Something triggers one of the monsters in the room to twitch. They always stay stony still when not activated. Conserving energy, for a guess. Hibernation maybe. Which is what I do. Careful to stretch out every calorie consumed as far as I can. So every morsel goes further. But one of them is moving, I can hear it. The squelch of each placed footprint. No it has left the room, I swear I can hear it leaving the room. Is this it? Is this hope? I can hear it slowly waddling out as it picks up its scent. 3098 mississippi, 3099 mississippi. Somebody else out there is peckish, and They are beginning to notice. I stay as still as I can, I strain to breath lightly so as not to aggravate Them, and hope, just desperately hope, that the one around me moves soon too. I’ve only got a couple of Oreos left and food doesn’t keep me full as long as it used to 4 months ago when it all went to shit. 3268 mississippi, 3269 mississippi.

I hear the call of the Them that left the building. That whistled roar that rips through the airwaves rather than travelling along them. 4126 mississippi, 4127 mississippi. The one I heard when I was spotted, I was located and I was identified as dinner. Someone else has been spotted, someone else has been located and someone else was identified as dinner. And, like in a nature documentary, Them begin to migrate away.

And finally, finally, the darkness evaporates and the stale air dissipates as the Them that had me in its very grasp, slowly pulls away from me. They lumber and heave, so very heavily through the destroyed front door and out into the neighbourhood, towards their new prey. And soon that weighted lumber accelerates and these otherworldly juggernauts accumulate speed and make their charge down the street. Somebody not too very far from here is having a very bad day. But that person was not me, and that was the important thing. Another close shave though, and I’ve been having a few of those recently. If this trend continues, then it’s gonna be me having one of them bad days. It would be only fair.