The Rot (Post Apocalyptic Thriller) by Paul Kane

tap on the shoulder automatically. Nobody at home, you know…” Rakesh pointed to his temple, “…up here. He was drooling; reminded me of Nan that time when she had the stroke, and… I could smell something. As if he’d messed himself or whatever. When I looked down, the front of his trousers were wet as well. His eyes were going in different directions; he was in a proper bad way. I was going to call for an ambulance, but that’s when the gang caught up with me, all grunting and snarling. I braced myself for what they were about to do, but it was the policeman they went for first. Some part of them must have remembered that they hated the police more than…” He hung his head and shook it. “I ran off. Wanted to stay and help him, but there were just too many of them – and I’m not much of a fighter. Never have been. Used to get bullied all the time at school, but could never dish it back out.”
    “That’s not a bad thing,” I told him, at the same time thinking that perhaps it was, given this new situation. That if you didn’t fight, you would never survive it.
    As if reading my mind, Rakesh said: “It might be. I think I’m going to have to learn; the things I saw out there… Before I ran into Carrie and Jane.”
    “You mentioned your phone – did you try to use it after the thing with the cop?”
    “Reception’s rubbish at the best of times out here, but it’s completely dead at the moment – at least on mine. No net, no service; nothing.”
    Okay, that was my radio, the landline Carrie had said was out, and now Rakesh’s mobile. “So,” I said, trying to change the subject, “you all ended up here, in the cellar of a pub?”
    “Dennis spotted us wandering down the street, ushered us down through the cellar doorway.”
    “Just in time too, there was a car weaving its way towards them. Out of control it was. I could see what was going to happen as plain as day,” Dennis informed us. “It ended up smacking into the post office opposite.”
    “But how did you come to be down here in the first place?” I asked him.
    “What kind of stupid question is that?”
    I shrugged.
    “It was the safest bleedin’ place to go when all the shit hit the fan. I can lock the door to the cellar from the inside, and there’s a way out through the cellar doors I saw them through.” Dennis thumbed back at Carrie and Rakesh. “I’ve seen this place turn ugly before, usually after a match night – or on Friday or Saturday when it comes to chucking out time – but this was something else. And in the middle of the fucking day! No warning, nothing. Weren’t even that many people in here; dozen or more. Started when Franny, that’s my…was my barmaid.” He paused, composing himself. “She was serving this customer – well-to-do kinda bloke. Smart suit, wanted one of those poncy lagers that they think makes ‘em look so cool. Franny was pulling that for him, chatting away like always – nothing flirty, she wasn’t that kind of girl. Definitely nothing that should have provoked what happened next, when he just reached across the bar and grabbed her… you know… grabbed her.” Taking one hand off the rifle, now resting across his knees, Dennis made a squeezing gesture to illustrate what had happened. “Just out of the blue, right there in front of everyone. Molesting her. ‘Course, Franny slaps him, as you would – but that doesn’t stop this guy. He’s holding on for dear life, squeezing harder, hurting her.”
    It was the kind of behaviour I’d come to associate with some of the affected, reduced virtually to animals – acting on their basest instincts, whether that was to kill or to mate.
    “I was over there quicker than you can say Jack Robinson, obviously. He ignored my warnings to let go of her, so I just smacked him straight in the jaw.” Here was someone who was the exact opposite of Rakesh, no stranger to a brawl or several. Probably grew up learning how to use his fists;