The Hoffmann Plague Read online

  Now, he was kneeling by the beach huts on De La Warr Parade, looking at a clump of plants growing from the pebbles. It looked like a large sort of cabbage, but more open. He’d always seen them along the coast above the high-tide mark, but hadn’t paid much attention to them in the past. He figured it was time to start paying attention to lots of plants that he came across. There were many varieties growing along that stretch of coastline that he’d often noticed; many of them with succulent stems and leaves. He needed to find out which were edible as they could be an important source of vitamins, minerals and carbohydrates. He decided to cut some samples on his way back and try to identify them from his books.

  At the angling club a bit further on, he didn’t have much trouble breaking in with his wrecking bar and hammer. As he opened the door he recoiled in shock; there was a badly decomposed corpse slumped on a chair. He withdrew and tied a bandana around his nose and mouth before going back in, but at least he didn’t vomit this time. He assumed that since he’d had the disease and recovered he was now immune to it, and he also knew that bacteria couldn’t survive in the open for long, so it would be okay to touch things. He wondered if the guy had locked himself in there to avoid infecting others, or maybe he’d just had nowhere else to go.

  A quick search revealed some useful items. He found two pairs of oars leaning against the wall; they were far too cumbersome to carry back once he had his bike rack and paniers, but at least he knew they were there and could come back another time. There were a couple of lockers containing fishing rods, reels and tackle- fab! There was also a cupboard filled with old junk that people had chucked in there, thinking it might be useful one day; the sort of thing every bloke had in his garage. Rummaging through it, he found a pair of hefty brass rowlocks, complete with nuts and washers attached. That was great news; with his hand-brace he could drill holes in the gunwale of a suitable boat and attach the rowlocks, enabling him to fit the oars and get out on the sea whenever it was calm enough. On a cork notice-board he saw a book of tide-tables for the year, which he took and put it in his rucksack. That would be useful for knowing the times of high and low tides, and could save him many wasted trips. It occurred to him that in future years- if he survived that long- he wouldn’t have that information; obviously, no one was going to be printing tide-tables again in the foreseeable future. He assumed there must be a formula or something for calculating tide-times, so he wrote in his notebook to look into it from the books he had.

  He was pleased with his findings and made ready to leave. He looked at the body and hesitated; he didn’t like leaving it there for when he came back, so he looked around for a way of disposing of it. There was a shovel, a broom, a mop and other cleaning supplies in another cupboard, so he went outside and cut off a tarp from a boat. He laid it on the floor in front of the corpse and hesitated, cringing. ‘Sorry mate, but you’ve got to go. Rest in peace.’ He used the shovel to tilt the chair up until the body fell off and landed on the tarp, then dragged it outside and left it ten yards from the building. There was an old paraffin lamp hanging by the door so he took it down, went back to the body and poured the contents over it. He lit a piece of rag and tossed it on top; the fuel caught immediately and he turned his back and walked away.

  He walked up Galley Hill, stopping at the top. It wasn’t much of a hill, but it was the highest point on the coast between Hastings to the east and Eastbourne to the west, having good views along the coastline. He gazed towards Hastings, which was much bigger than Bexhill, and wondered how many had survived there. He thought that, surely, there must be more people left alive here in Bexhill than just him and the woman he’d seen? There was a low concrete plinth there, with an inlaid metal surface inscribed in the form of a compass, pointing to various places in the world and their distances. He looked down and read some of them: New York- USA- 3,508 miles; Gibraltar- 1,056 miles; Rome- Italy- 841 miles; Sydney- Australia- 10,556 miles. He wondered what was happening in those places, and if it was the same there.

  As he moved to leave, a memory came back to him of happier times: his brother and him, sitting in his car eating fish and chips on that spot, just over a year before. He burst into tears and sat down on a bench, overcome with grief for his family; cursing what had happened and cursing that he should be left alive in this God-forsaken place. He looked at the cliff-edge and thought, just for a second, of throwing himself off it, but the logical part of his brain told him it was too low, and he’d probably just break his legs and lie there in agony for three days before dying. He smiled grimly to himself, pulled himself together and got up from the bench.

  He walked down the hill and then turned left through the underpass for the railway and onwards into the retail park. As he passed Marks and Spencer a smile crossed his face; maybe I’ll pop in there on the way back and get some of their nice ready-meals, to save cooking tonight! The car park was fairly empty, with a few cars parked randomly at odd angles, including a burnt-out wreck. As he passed it he saw the charred remains of two corpses inside.

  He reached B&Q and the doors were open, so he walked in. It was dim inside so he turned on his torch and played it around. It was a mess; stuff was strewn everywhere, from crazed people panic-buying or looting. He walked to where the tools were and found some bolt cutters, took a pair and went to leave.

  As he approached the checkouts, a man stepped out from the aisle to his left and barred his way, giving him the fright of his life. He was perhaps forty, but it was hard to tell; he was in a terrible state and none too steady on his feet.

  ‘Give me the bag,’ he said. There was a knife in his right hand, the blade glinting in the light from the doors.

  He dropped the bolt cutters from his left hand and pulled out his machete with his right. ‘Tough shit- mine’s bigger than yours!’ he replied, with far more conviction than he felt.

  The guy paused for a second as if trying to take it all in, then spun around and ran for the exit. In his haste and poor state of health, he tripped and fell headlong into the plate glass. It didn’t shatter as it was safety glass, but his head snapped back at an acute angle and he crumpled to the floor, his neck broken. He lay there twitching for a few seconds, then became still.

  He picked up his bolt cutters, stepped carefully around the guy and out the door. As he walked away he cursed himself for being so careless; just because he hadn’t seen other people didn’t mean there weren’t some around. Also, there wasn’t anything in the rucksack worth dying for and he could have handed it over. The hell with that! he thought. No one’s going to take what’s mine. The fact that he’d nearly had to use the machete on a person shook him up, and then a line from some old film came to mind: Get busy living, or get busy dying.

  He hurried onwards to Halfords, keeping the bolt cutters in his left hand rather than putting them in his rucksack. They were heavy and could slow him down in a fight-or-flight situation, and that way he could just drop them if need be. He looked at Tesco and wondered about going in for a look around, but now wasn’t the time; he just wanted to get home.

  Halfords’ doors were open and he walked in with more caution than he’d shown at B&Q. He went upstairs to the bike section and soon found what he wanted; a universal bike rack and paniers to fit it. Downstairs in the camping section he found some collapsible water containers in various sizes, which would be perfect for putting inside the paniers. As he was leaving he noticed some small petrol and diesel-powered generators on a shelf; the kind people used with caravans, etc. That made him think; electricity- light- heat. He paused for a second, took his notebook out of his coat pocket and scrawled genny! Putting the notebook back in his pocket, he found a screwed-up £10 note in there. As he passed the checkouts he put the note by the till in payment for his goods and smiled to himself.

  He was happy to get back on the coastal path and stopped briefly at the bottom of Galley Hill, just long enough for a drink of water and a few flapjacks. Instead of going back over the hill, he skirted it and walked along th
e beach path at its foot, looking at plants. He collected a few likely-looking samples, and some more on the way back along the seafront.

  Feeling pleased to get home, he made some coffee and a late lunch. For the remaining afternoon he worked on fitting the rack and paniers to his bike and adapting it to his needs. He made a wooden platform, as large as was practical, and fixed it securely to the rack with bolts, brackets and wingnuts. He incorporated mounting points for bungees or straps so he could tie things securely onto it, and was pleased with the end result. A small trailer would be of more use probably, but he thought it unlikely that he would find one; maybe that was something to build at a later time.

  That evening after his supper, he sipped a whisky while reading by gas-lamp through books on plants and survival, and was delighted to discover that two of the specimens he’d collected were edible, which was great news. He was unsure about the others; their pictures were ambiguous, so he decided to leave them for now. Unless he could make a positive identification he couldn’t risk eating them and maybe getting sick. The large cabbage-like plant he identified as sea kale, and found that the whole plant was edible, including the roots, which could even be eaten raw. The other was sea beet, the leaves of which could be eaten like spinach, and also the root. Interestingly, he found that sea beet was the genetic ancestor of modern beetroot, sugar beet, chards and spinach; all of which had been grown from selective cultivation over the years. Looking through the books, he was also reminded that common plants such as dandelion leaves and nettles were also abundant, nutrient-rich and easily gathered.

  On the rooftop of her building, the woman stood by the parapet wrapped in a blanket, staring out over the sea after eating a rather cheerless meal. She longed for fresh food and living conditions that were more suitable. Her flat was secure enough, and the rooftop had good views along the coast, but climbing the stairs laden with things was becoming a burden. Added to which, she needed somewhere suitable for lighting fires for cooking and warmth, and also for growing food. She decided it was time to look for somewhere else to live.

  She had seen the smoke earlier in the day, when the man had burnt the corpse at the angling club, and had wondered what it meant. Although the man-in-the-hat had been going that way, she had no way of knowing whether it was anything to do with him. She went to bed worrying about many things and couldn’t sleep.

  He put the books down and sat there fretting for a while. The encounter with the man in B&Q had shaken him and he wondered if that would be the norm with any other survivors he might meet. He felt scared and anxious about his situation, as was to be expected. He had been wondering for many weeks whether he should make trips into Hastings and Eastbourne, to see what the situation was in those towns and if there were others he could make contact with. From TV and radio broadcasts before the services had failed, things were likely to be the same as Bexhill; with the rest of the UK probably the same, too. He didn’t feel inclined to go to those places, risking potentially dangerous encounters, armed only with a machete and a hammer. Guns of some sort would be useful and comforting to have, but he had no idea where he might find any. He felt rather pleased with his day for the first time in ages and went to bed happy with his achievements, though he lay awake for a while thinking about things, unable to shut down.

  Three

  The shock, the horror, and the speed at which it had happened had been difficult enough to deal with, but on top of that he’d had the deaths of his mother, his brother and sister and their families, too. As for the rest of his extended family, he had no idea if any were still alive up north. The pandemic had spread in no time and society, communications and infrastructure had broken down rapidly. In a relatively short space of time after the first cases, the utilities were becoming intermittent as staff levels fell due to the disease. All systems were automated, of course, and some lasted longer than others, but eventually they had all collapsed, and far sooner than he would have thought possible.

  The first cases had appeared in Glasgow and had spread at an alarming rate. It was thought to have come from eastern Asia or maybe Africa, though they didn’t know for sure. At first it was reported, incorrectly, as a new strain of influenza; some type of avian flu maybe. They soon discovered they were wrong and that it was a bacterium rather than a virus. A German doctor named Dirk Hoffmann, who worked at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, was the first to discover what the disease was.

  It was a new strain of pneumonic plague; a mutation of the Yersinia pestis bacterium that had caused the Black Death of the fourteenth century, with continued outbreaks for around four hundred years. Most people didn’t know that, far from being extinct, plague bacteria had produced small, irregular outbreaks of bubonic or pneumonic plague around the world throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, even in North America. If caught early enough it could usually be treated with antibiotics, which drastically reduced the likelihood of death. Pneumonic plague was the rarer of the two, and usually developed as a result of bubonic plague. Antibiotics and modern standards of hygiene had stopped those small outbreaks from spreading and becoming epidemics or pandemics. A few new strains had been discovered in recent years, though, that showed resistance to some antibiotics.

  This new variant, however, was pneumonic, with no initial bubonic stage. It started in the respiratory system and was airborne from the outset, spreading rapidly. It was a mutation unlike anything they’d seen before and proved completely resistant to all available antibiotics. The medical community was at a complete loss to know what to do about it; though, of course, they didn’t make that public. The mortality rate was virtually a hundred percent and death occurred within thirty-six to forty-eight hours after symptoms developed. Those who looked at first like they might fight it and survive soon slipped into a coma, from which few recovered. There had been much written in recent years about the growing ineffectiveness of antibiotics, and how so many bacteria were becoming resistant to them.

  Information got leaked to the press and by the second week one of the tabloids had labelled it “The Hoffmann Plague”. Before they fully realised the implications and seriousness there were lurid headlines like “HOFFMANN PLAGUE: THE NEW BLACK DEATH!”, “PLAGUE IN THE UK!”, and other similar things.

  Initially they estimated its R0 (“R- nought”) figure- the basic reproductive number- to be between one-point-three and two-point-five, using previous models for pneumonic plague; for which there wasn’t a huge amount of data. But infections and deaths were occurring so quickly in so many different locations that it was obviously much higher than that. They soon had to revise their figure and estimated that it was higher than smallpox, which was six or seven, but it was difficult to give an accurate number. That meant that a contagious person was likely to infect another six or seven people- or even more if their estimate was low. It depended on many factors; how strong people were, their movements and contact with others, and their ability to get around before they succumbed to the disease.

  What was strange was that the incubation period seemed to vary from person to person before the main symptoms developed; anywhere between two and seven days. That meant that a person could be contagious and not realise they’d contracted it. People touch their faces many times an hour, then transfer those bacteria onto any surface they touch, ready for the next person to pick up the bacteria and become infected. People would also be sneezing and coughing from colds and other viruses as well as from the plague, spreading the bacteria to all in their vicinity.

  It soon became obvious that this wasn’t just scaremongering or sensationalist reporting by the tabloids about bird flu or Ebola that had occurred in recent years. This was real; it was happening here and now in the UK and was spreading incredibly quickly around the country. He’d spoken to a friend in Scotland towards the end of the second week, who had told him the emergency services and hospitals were already struggling to deal with the number of cases and all the bodies. By then, many hundreds of deaths
had also occurred in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Sheffield, with many thousands more showing symptoms.

  At the end of that phone call he’d made a decision: he knew that Bexhill-on-Sea wasn’t exactly a thriving metropolis or a major hub for nationwide travel, but it was only two hours’ drive from London and the plague would surely reach there soon. He’d sat down and made a list of all the things he might need for survival in the short and long-term, and withdrew all his money from the bank. Over the next week he made many visits to all the supermarkets, food stores, pharmacies, hardware and camping shops in the area. He bought as much canned and dried food as he could fit in his car at each visit, along with all the bottled water he could get, earning him some strange looks from people at the supermarkets. He didn’t care; he’d rather be safe than sorry. He also couldn’t believe that more people weren’t doing the same as him yet. He had the conversation with his brother, but his opinion was that they’d soon develop a vaccine and it would blow over.

  He bought extra torches and large quantities of batteries, all the candles that he could find, and many water filters and purification tablets. He bought extra containers to store rainwater in- dark ones to prohibit the growth of mould and fungus- and jerrycans of petrol for his camping stove and lantern, along with tins of butane gas and a couple of camping stoves. He even remembered to get another bow saw and extra blades for cutting wood. He thought that gas and electricity might not last long, so he had to have means of cooking and boiling water. The chimenea on the patio of his small courtyard would serve as a usable barbeque and he could easily rig up a tarp for protection from the rain. He already had enough general tools to get by. As an afterthought he also bought a large quantity of disposable plates, bowls and cutlery as he didn’t want to waste precious water for washing dishes. By the end of that week his flat was almost full; the long hallway was stacked floor-to-ceiling with everything he’d bought. He went over his lists again to see if he’d forgotten anything.