Every day I get sick to death of fetching water from the stream at the bottom of the garden, it’s clean and wholesome and uncontaminated, but by any stretch of imagination damn hard work to collect. Checking the traps morning, noon and night for any stray rabbits or rats that could prolong my survival on this ravaged landscape is pushing me to the edge of sanity, I’m becoming a wreck, a shadow, each week I suffer the indignity of losing more pounds. My clothes are falling off me, my strength is failing, the will I have to continue is almost gone and each night as the darkness descends and the urban noises of the empty towns and villages fills my head – all I do is dream of escape.

The last of the petrol slips into the generator tank, it’s a couple of gallons and should last three days if I’m sparing with the lights. Then what? There is no more; only solid night will prevail over the land and my converted house which has also become my prison. The mirror does not lie, there are bones where there should be muscle and shape – God I look like hell – at this rate death will be the only winner. There’s not a chance of taking to the roads, no extended journeys for me, either by foot or on my rusty cycle, it’s an impossibility both physically and mentally. Bravery and courage are my two long lost friends, both instinctive human acts you might say, but none the less they are now departed from me and I am left as just a frightened husk of fear and desperation. Somehow I have to find the will to leave this dead valley and venture southward to the old desolate places of population, but they harbour disease, mutations and other unspeakable things, all the bearers of death. My selection of guns is formidable, collected from the surrounding neighbourhood when I had full strength to forage and my store is crammed with bullets in abundance, enough to equip a small force. There is no inclination or desire to recruit one anymore that is if I could find the men or women to enlist. I have become a loner, a recluse, an abomination in my own right, but the end of my fight can only be days away, this lonely broken shell of a once proud man has been levelled by loss, irrepressible emotion and shame that I’ve had to live with a curse that most men have never had to endure – for they all died before the killing truly began.

What do I do? This is my mantra, a routine that expands and contracts my limited intellect on a daily basis, slowly sliding me nearer and nearer insanity and the love for an empty rope that hangs from the rafters in the barn. I come to worship that twisted old hemp many times a day, the touch of its rough grain excites me with eager temptation as I look at the empty space where the Devil knows there should be a throat to choke. I dare not check the noose for size or stability, as I know it will burn my soul like an addict craves his favoured drug and I will be lost within the space of that old rope, unable to relinquish myself from a death wish. I threw that dirty brown cord over the wooden beam with ease, its presence was meant as a shine, a remembrance of a life lost to memories and history. Except my perception of its meaning changed as the tinned foods and provisions shrank to a few sparse rows and though a bullet would be quicker, the honour in death by hanging always seemed more appealing as a last resort. Escaping from this threat is my only replacement for death, because one way or the other this place will kill me. The rope casts its deadly shadow across the dry dirt of the barns floor at dusk and it haunts me as easily as any spectre from the afterlife. It swings in the gentle breeze and taunts me with its eerie squeak as it rubs against the wooden beam and it draws me in like a shepherd calling his sheep, the threat getting closer as each day passes and I am unable to close my ears to the constant welcoming chatter of its hypnotic charm. Sometimes I’ve inching myself along the rafter totally unaware of my state of mind, the temptation of easy release from my pain the only happiness drug I need.

The old record player my parents bought me one Christmas sits on a wooden plinth in the living area, it’s a prize possession I cherish along with the thousands of records I’ve collected over the years, stolen from farm houses and dwellings close by. In the early days I dared venture into some of the villages, I took rucksacks and suitcases, wheel barrows even to recover things I needed. Collectables, keepsakes, things of no real value that reminded me of my lost youth, but it’s worthless junk now the petrol has run out and yet it still gives me some perverse comfort in a world completely screwed over. Do I leave, that’s where my limited strength needs to focus, trouble with that decision is my stuff will be left behind, there are no vehicles to take it, they lie rotting where they stopped. Anyway, who gives a damn, they’re just rusted relics of a long gone civilisation, useless metal carcasses – but I want one – one that works – that can transport my stuff. I could kit it out like a vehicle from Mad Max, how cool would that be. Very cool but there is no chance and doing the same with a push bike would be pathetic – just like me.

The creatures come at night; they prowl the countryside looking for something but I’m not sure what they want. I hear them outside dragging lazy feet over the gravel in the yard and they tap at the windows and scratch at the doors trying to get inside. Should that happen I don’t know if they would attack me, they seem placid enough as I watch them through the spy holes I’ve made – these things from hell, that man created and then let loose on an unsuspecting world. Damn the Government and their desire to change the face of modern civilisation – for it went wrong! We have paid the price in death and mutilation and starvation and fear of mutations we cannot control, that roam and ravage, that seem neither to sleep nor struggle under an adversity. God help us, it’s only a matter of time before we are outnumbered and die from old age or disease, we are mortal and they are indestructible. There was old metal, steel and angle iron out in the barn, I drilled it out and bolted it together and made a cage that I screwed onto the wooden beams in the loft. If they have brains enough to smash through the roof then they will get no further. All the unused rooms have had their windows bricked up and the others that I need are strengthened with shutters and metal guards that will need an explosion to dislodge. Do I fear for my life at the hands of these ‘beings’ or dread the life of loneliness and despair, of starvation and solitude with no thought of a future and normality or happiness. Whichever way you look at it civilisation as we know it is doomed, I have nothing and no one, not even a dog for a companion. The rope is forever looking like my finest friend.

At night I lay in my bed, the noise outside is sickening and strikes fear into my heart, but I feel safe and secure inside behind my bars and shutters. The things outside, I pity them, they are empty carcases of flesh with no souls or humanity – still I fear them – fear what they really are and what they are capable of. Time is on their side, not mine – well not in the long run. Posters cover the walls of the room, they plaster over the cracks and the decay and damp and without them my little paradise would be a drab place. Marilyn Monroe stares down at me holding that famous dress as the sudden rush of air tries to lift it above her waist, pop stars, guitar greats, racing drivers, even a picture of Jesus. They are icons from another time, stolen by me in easier moments, rescued from empty love on lonely deserted walls; if there are any children born in the decades to come they will not recognise those handsome and beautiful faces – then there is Steve McQueen, the king of cool, Mr. Unbelievable, the person we all want to be, a superstar of extra-ordinary power, a rare breed set aside by men and women alike on a raft of undying love and devotion and I have him with me, on my wall, watching me almost hand in hand with Marilyn. Those faces are not enough; just empty images and memories from a lost time, so around me are the guns I hold dear to my heart. Should all else fail in my war, the gates, the shutters and all my traps then I have these – the pistols, rifles, grenade launchers – my treasures, my life savers, my final frontier should all else crumble around me in those last remaining hours?

As the wind blows outside and the windows rattle in the eye of a small storm a lone human voice calls out in desperation. It needs help, the tone is reedy and small, like a child crying in a tin can – but I hear it, hear its forlorn loss, its need for comfort and safety – but I cannot help as I am inside and this sound, this imitation of humanity is outside. Those things are not as naive as I believe, they have strength, some intelligence and they rule the land during the darkness of night. How can I help, the trick is in the trick and I don’t believe what I am hearing as I sit up in the comforting warmth of the bed sheets and begin to strip the dogged sleep from my eyes? There it is again, that cry, haunting, desperate and alone looking for solace and peace – needy but lost. What do I do, it sounds like a girl maybe eight or ten years old. I shake, feel terrorised, helpless and emotionally unbalanced that I am bound to help but cannot raise the nerve to leave this wholly desirable warm pit. What do I do – she – the thing is still calling out to me?

The bolts slip back easily and the steel outer door opens like a great mouth and all there is between me and the horrors slithering around in the black night is a fragile outer wood barrier. I’m scared to death, what awaits me the other side of this flimsy panel could be the end of me in a breath. One last gulp of air and I pull open the door and slip outside into the darkness thinking only of the desperate cries. Can I help – I know I’m being duped, but hell – I have no choice if I am to call myself human, with all the traits and failings that come with that title, but if it is a child and I do nothing then I could not live with myself and the rope would finally have me – by God I would be there in a second and nothing would stop me putting my head in that noose and kicking my feet free.

Those things are yowling, screaming like teenagers on a white knuckle ride, baying for blood and death. They hold court in my back yard and I’m the defendant. The problem is judgement has already been made, one way or another, and I’m sentenced to a life of everlasting suffering whether they catch me or not. It’s in the nature of the world I inhabit; it’s screwed on a massive scale with only one way of escape and I’m not convinced there is any other way out?

I slip round back of the building under cover of trees; I hear them close by dragging themselves on awkward limbs, leaving skin and powdered blood on rocks and in the sand and earth, it’s a human disaster beyond imaginable understanding and I’m freaking out in the darkness. They are close, they can smell me, I’m on the menu – to be truthful I am the only item on the menu and they need me to gratify their hunger. That sound hits out again, like the memory of a distant freight train gliding up the tracks welcoming arrival into the station. It screams in anguish, my nerves quiver, legs are lead fastening themselves to the ground like posts. I can’t go on – I hate those things – if only I had brought my guns – I would blow the bastard things all the way to hell and twist knives into their skulls to just for pleasure. They have no business here, this is my world, my domain – I am king and shall rule as I God damn please.

Under the shadow of a watery moon I duck into the trees and wait, those things come closer with their spindly legs and shattered crablike movements. Their heads hang on candle necks, hunched with a curvature of the spine; they roam like lost lambs looking for mothers. Then I see it and reel in disbelief. Speak; I would if I had the words, but there are none to describe the horror I see but five metres away in the streak of the moon’s glare. I bend over and hurl into the tall grass, coughing, choking on something I ate hours ago. They hear my noise and heads rise, sniffing the air, they see me in their radar. Now I am done for – but what the hell! How can I tell you what I see, how do I fit that in a picture you can see in your mind’s eye, because if I live passed this moment I will never forget that slaughtered image. It’s a child, no that’s not true, it’s just its head ripped from the body, spare bone and sinew dragging limply in the breeze like torn curtains and is skewered onto the free arm like limb of one of those monsters and it talks – it screams. Eyes pop and bulge and move, swivel in their sockets, it sees me but how it lives is way beyond my understanding, those things must be able to keep its functions fluid, usable for their desperate violating needs and I’m next for the slaughter. I’m just road kill for their carrion ways, no emotion, no remorse or sorrow, just instinct and survival kicking in and Jesus Christ we made them. I am as much their God as I am their hunger. The child’s voice croaks and creaks like a dried out hinge on a garden gate “Help me,” it pleads. This tiny mutilated head, pretty with spliced tissue and gore screams in its fragile voice. “Kill me – kill me.” Over and over and over till I cannot stand the pain, till the inner ear bleeds with crushing pain and I run unable to look behind and I leave it all. My wealth, my things, my gifts and possession collected the years I spent in total isolation for I care not, have no need for it, no further desire to retain any of it. Why – because in the aftermath of that grizzly apparition it all means nothing at all, it’s just matter, memorabilia, the desperate hanging onto a life long gone and lost in the winds of history.

I run and run and run, the river is three fields away and I gallop like a horse not looking around. Are those things at my heels, I don’t care but I think – what would Steve McQueen do, yeh he’d be a man, be cool and calm in the developing turmoil. I catch my foot in a muddy rut and stubble over the silken earth, tumbling like an acrobat and laugh. Now I know I have the madness, the strain has taken its toll, the swinging noose looms in my heads imagination but I will not succumb because I am Steve McQueen, the king of cool and I am better than all this hideous terror and lonely pain.

My feet swing onto the boat, those monstrous things are in the distance, like sloths creeping across the moon lights fields, but I have the edge, time to recover, time to plan, time to leave. The motor starts easily; I always have it primed ready to go for this is my escape plan the one thing I could never leave to chance. It wasn’t that I lied to myself; it’s just that I withheld the truth of my conscious plan. So what now, the ocean, America – maybe those devouring creatures only search the good land that is Britain? A slim chance I know, but what the hell, I’ve nothing better to do with the rest of my life, so maybe, if you think logically like the cat with nine lives I have several left to satisfy my earthly mortal needs.

Set sail, raise the yardarm and plot our course Captain – who know where we shall go –America? Steve McQueen is calling? I once heard he had a nice car, I remember that film, that Mustang. Rumour has it it still exists in a barn in Iowa?