Free The Rot (Post Apocalyptic Thriller) by Paul Kane

apart from the candles and the narrow slit of light that seeped through the doors to the street. Smoke was already reaching me from the cellar so it was time to get out. A quick check of the street revealed that it was just as quiet out there; no sign of anyone at all. Of course, the affected could pop up out of nowhere at a moment’s notice, as I’d seen, but I had the gun and was willing to risk it.
    Not looking back, I headed out through the main door of the pub. Moving forward, always moving forward.
     
    Pause.
     
    Resume recording:
     
    I spent the next couple of hours making my way through those streets, which were uncannily quiet. Perhaps all the affected had wiped themselves out , I thought to myself. But then where were the bodies, if that was the case? Not that there weren’t a fair few of those, don’t get me wrong.
    Wasn’t long after leaving The White Hart , though, that I came across somewhere I could grab some clothes. My time with Dennis and co. had made me realise that I needed to blend in more, cover the SKIN to avoid any questions I couldn’t really answer. The shop was an old Army & Navy store – just the one arm of the forces missing, which happened to be mine, naturally. It had been broken into already, or at least the glass at the front had been smashed.
    Taking a leaf out of Rakesh’s book, I swiped a dark hoodie from a rack and tugged that on, then I pulled the hood up and over a baseball cap. A pair of cargos fitted over my shorts, and of course I had my boots already, courtesy of the facility. I found a grey overcoat to complete the outfit, which would also hide the rifle quite nicely, then I tugged a pair of gloves over the SKIN on my hands. Finally, I filled a backpack with things I thought might be useful, like a compass; a few maps; binoculars; that kind of thing. A backpack, which was just a little bigger than Jane’s school one had been…
    Jane.
    I tried to push away thoughts of what had happened to that little girl, but it wasn’t easy. If there’d been a delay in her turning, then why not with others? Could anyone now be trusted? Was anyone actually immune to this thing? Made me all the more grateful for the SKIN; I was starting to realise that it was the only thing keeping me safe… that would continue to do so, with a bit of luck.
    Being in that store was the first time since it had all happened I’d been able to catch my – recycled – breath, and thinking about Jane brought back memories not just of Carrie, Rakesh and Dennis, but of the people back at the facility. The kindly doctor Weeks, that nurse, the guard on the roof; all victims of this in their different ways; and even the affected were still people deep down. Maybe they could even be cured, a reversal set in motion. It would take greater minds than mine to figure all that out, but it did start me thinking; it gave me a direction and maybe some shreds of optimism.
    For most of the rest of that day, I checked out some of the other buildings in town – clearing rooms before searching them for anything useful; seeing if any phone lines were working, whether there were any mobile signals. In only one of those houses was electricity still powering the lights, but I couldn’t get either the desktop computer or the laptop working. I tell a lie, the laptop did power up for about a minute, enough to show me what looked like a scrambled screensaver of clouds. Oh God, what I wouldn’t have given for a plane at that point; to be soaring through the clouds, up and away from all that shit on the ground. Then the thing just died on me, and it wasn’t long after that the lights winked out as well.
    There was just no consistency to it. If the power was out, then it should have been out everywhere – not randomly. And why didn’t it last? When it grew dark, I didn’t want to be out on the streets alone – there was a night vision scope on the rifle, which helped, but that wasn’t the point. I wasn’t ready back then. So