"Hello Katie,
I hope you're well rested after your well deserved week off! Sorry to be sending you one like this so soon but I have your next assignment. Your next assignment is Ben Crenshaw. He worked for Transport for London (TfL) and he was instrumental in saving a lot of people during last year’s outbreak. Details and the rendezvous location are attached as usual.
Best Wishes
Anna"
The sun had begun to set, bathing the hills in a deep orange glow that a photographer might call golden hour, a priest might call proof of god's love, and a cynic would call a waste of a £3000 camera. I smiled as I drove on the road that wound its way through those golden hills, wondering what I might call it and how somebody would judge me.
I’d probably just call it ‘pretty’. There's a joy in simplicity, in just appreciating the moments and not thinking about their brevity. Too many good things are robbed from too many people by constant, anxiety-fueled overthinking, chipping away at everything simple and good until every situation’s eventuality has been squeezed out, predicted and reacted to. To just enjoy what's in front of you; now that was a luxury. One that few people got to enjoy anymore.
I drove up the hill and turned off on a steep dirt track, slowing my speed to little more than a crawl. The jagged loose rocks covered the road as much as the mud, and my car jolted noisily in protest.
This is going to kill my suspension... Maybe if I showed this to my boss they would let me borrow a tank instead?
At least the drive was pleasant. Trees on my right covered the road in a cool shade whilst an overgrown grass field stretched out on my left, flowing down the hill and out of sight. Eventually, however, I saw the single greatest sign my bruised behind had ever seen. A single red X, spray-painted on a wooden board which had been tied to a fence post. It wasn't much, but it was all the sign I needed and even better, there was no one else there.
It was perfect. I was early.
I stopped the car and got out, stretching my sore limbs and turning my face toward the sun with a sigh. Today was perfect picnic weather, and I wasn't going to let a thing like work stop me from enjoying the sparse sunshine this part of the world got. I opened the boot of my car…
Fuck, been meaning to clean this for about 6 months.
…and retrieved a stack of wooden pallets. I looked around for a convenient and hidden spot to put them. I know they're a vital part of the job, but it's a bit awkward to have it on show!
A small marker stone on my right, embedded in the wall, caught my eye. Looking over to the overside and THANK GOD a small ditch. I arranged the pallets behind a marker stone in the wall separating the road from the field, before heading back to my trunk for a small collapsible table. Walking a short distance down the road, I found a relatively flat patch of ground to set up the table, followed by 2 chairs, a tablecloth, wine glasses, a purple candle and a vase with flowers. The tablecloth was freshly washed, still smelling of "Summer breeze" apparently. I placed the tablecloth with equal fabric on both sides and arranged my purple candle side centrepiece and personal wine glasses for both of the diners.
My god, I'm awesome at this... the world of fine dining could never afford my talents!
By the time I heard footsteps trudging up the road in front of me, my dinner date setup was complete.
I smiled down at my work before looking up towards the source of the footsteps. Immediately my smile faded. A skinny, bedraggled man stumbled his way towards me. His clothes looked three sizes too big for him as they hung off his thin frame, and were stained by what I hoped was just mud. His sunken eyes, slack jaw and greying skin only added to his ‘fish out of water’ look. His appearance would be comical if it wasn’t for the spray of dried blood across his shirt.
"Hello there!" I waved over to him. He stopped suddenly as I spoke, staring blankly at me as I smiled back at him.
"Erm, are... are you who I'm supposed to meet?" His eyes immediately went to his feet, his shoulders hunched. He almost looked like he was about to cry.
"If you're looking for Katie, then you're in the right place." I smiled, but then tried to suppress it a little as he froze. Maybe my cheeriness was making him nervous, and I'd already been to the gym today. I really didn’t want to deal with another runner.
"Ah then, yes, I'm Ben." Of course, I knew that already. Ben moved forward with his hand outstretched and then instinctively stopped himself. "Sorry... am I supposed to get near you? I've never really done this before."
"I'd be surprised if you had! You're allowed to shake my hand although... one moment." I turned back towards my car, opened the passenger side door, and reached into the glove compartment to retrieve a small snub-nosed revolver. I didn't know much about guns, but apparently, a revolver jams less than any other pistol so it was great in this line of work. I opened up the cylinder and grabbed the box of bullets from the passenger seat. Oh, fuck... The box felt very light in my hand as I recalled the note I'd had pinned to my fridge and forgotten about for the past week. I took the last 2 remaining bullets into my hand, making sure it was out of Ben's view. More than I expected to need but 4 less than I'd like. I quietly loaded the weapon and tucked the revolver into a holster behind my back and returned to Ben, my hand outstretched.
"Hello Ben, I'm Katie." He took my hand with a weak grip and an even weaker smile. He smelled strongly of chemicals... probably disinfectant.
"So is it... what are we going to do up here?" He was already looking around nervously. Getting them to relax was a vital part of any Completionist job and I had a tried and tested method in mind.
"Well Ben, firstly we're going to take a seat and enjoy a lovely bottle of wine." He was taken aback.
"Wine? Here?" He frowned as he recoiled. I rolled my eyes. Come on Ben. It’s not hard. It’s getting drunk! You put liquid in your mouth until you chill out… or like me, until it’s Sunday and you’re a disgrace to your family.
"Yes, I have a 2002 Merlot and a crate of what passes for beer these days."
"Bloody Merlot? Out here? What..." I glared and lifted a hand to silence him. He sputtered a bit, but the desired effect worked immediately.
"You've been sent to me so we do things my way.” He still looked panicked, so I smiled again.
“Besides, all of this is nice! Why are you complaining? How often do you get the chance to just relax?"
Ben paused for a moment before taking a seat in front of me. I took the seat opposite, already uncorking the wine and pouring us two generous portions. I could see Ben staring with an incredulous expression as I circled the wine around in my glass under my nose and ignored him. I smiled as I took in the cherry-smelling liquid. Sure the job has long hours and a few downsides but I can't fault a good Merlot on a sunny day. It was the little, simple things in life one had to savour. Few people could do that anymore.
I raised my glass towards him."Cheers!"
Ben, still with the confused look on his face, cautiously raised his glass. Our glasses met in the middle with a clink and I took a quick sip of the cool red wine.
Oaky but also fruity... turns out I have a new favourite.
Ben's hands were shaking so badly he barely drank anything, even though I’d specifically brought a wine I knew he’d like. He took the smallest of sips before carefully returning the glass to the table and resting his hands in his lap.
"So Ben." I rested my glass on the table with a smile. "As I said, my name is Katie and I'm a Completionist. I don’t know how much they told you, but I hear about important people and the life-changing work they've done, and I make sure to record it so people will know."
Ben's mouth fell agape.
"Life-changing work? I managed train routes... are you sure you've got the right person?" Another line I’d heard before. Ben that is precisely why I get out of my king-size dream machine every day. For people just like you.
"Well then, I guess I've choo, choo, choose..n the right person!" I laughed. Ben frowned and then visibly recoiled away from me, face clouding in confusion and maybe anger.
"Not a shitty joke guy?" I didn't let him answer. I didn't want him to ruin all the hilarious jokes I had lined up for later. "No worries then. So you are: Ben Crenshaw, born 1992 in Reading, went to school locally, started a Business degree from Suffolk University…”
Did he just wince?
“...but dropped out 6 months later. Started working for Transport for London a few years back, so why don't we start there?"
He stared down for a second before leaning back in his chair. I matched his posture, pen in hand. I'd read somewhere that mirroring posture helps people trust you, but God knows if that's true.
"Um.. yeah sure. So, I was um.. at a loose end, nothing left for me in Reading so I decided to head to London. Now even before all this mess, London was a mess itself you know, it's not a British city anymore…”
Oh god please don't be racist.
“It's an international city.” Ben continued.
Phew… maybe. Doesn’t completely rule out racism but I’m not here for that.
“There's like a thousand different parties and communities all working side by side mostly without knowing each other existed. Like it's a…” Ben paused. “Um, multi-layered jigsaw puzzle and somehow it all fits together without anybody realising how it works."
"And where did a young man from Reading fit into that?" I grinned at the opportunity for a jigsaw pun.
I internally cheered when I saw Ben smirk a little at that. I took another sip and grabbed my notepad and pen.
"Well, I needed a job, so the first place I fit was in the Transport for London department at the Ministry of Transport in Stratford. Making sure all the timetables run smoothly, and if they weren't due to unavoidable circumstances or malfunctions, then delaying or cancelling trains." I looked down to hide my frown as my pen flew across the page.
"Ah, so you're the reason my 7:38 train to Kings Cross was cancelled so often!" Ben laughed as I remembered the hour I had to wait in the middle of January for a train that never arrived.
"I'm sorry but probably yes, at least that was me cancelling them, but I can promise you it was for good reasons!"
Bastard.
"Alright, I believe you so far, but you're on thin ice..." He grinned at the mock-serious face I was trying to put on. I say trying, I've seen myself in the mirror, I don't think I could intimidate a fly. That was part of the reason I was so good at my job.
"So what's it like working at a place that leaves incredibly hilarious and attractive women waiting at stations for an hour before cancelling the train? Is it like some interesting high-tech nerve centre?"
"If by high-tech nerve centre you mean ugly windowless basements where the walls are mould coloured so you can't tell what's growing on them, then yeah. It's just like that." I laughed as he finally began to sit back and relax. He grabbed his wine, steadily this time, and took a soothing sip. Regardless of whatever posture does, nothing makes people relax more than making them think they're hilarious.
"Okay, I'll lower my expectations. So this train controller basement bunker, what was it like as a first job?"
"Well originally you walk into a darkly lit room with no natural light, smell stale air and then see about 20 pairs of dead eyes staring back at you from desks surrounded by various screens and you want to get out of there as fast as you can but after a few days the place kind of grows on you."
"Not just the mould then?" He laughed at that.
"No, not just the mould. You're surrounded by fun people who know the job is dull so they do absolutely anything to make it fun. Weekly nights out, the most terrible jokes you can imagine. After work, once we stayed and hooked up one of the screens to a router outside so we could watch a live stream of the Rugby world cup!"
I wasn’t interested in hearing about the rugby. Terrible jokes, however…
"Terrible jokes? Like what?"
"A horse walks into a bar, the barman says "Why the long face?" The horse says "I've been struggling to find a stable income." A twist on a classic. Hilarious!
The laughter died down and I took another sip of wine and went back to my notes.
"So, now we're caught up with the old days.” I began, readying my pen. “What happened to you about a year ago? When everything kicked off?"
"The same as everybody else around the world, I guess. I was actually working from home on the 22nd of April when, all of a sudden, my phone buzzed and there's a notification talking about a bioweapon attack in London, saying that everybody should stay inside. Then my phone didn't stop buzzing as a whole bunch of cities around the world seemed to be reporting the same kind of thing."
I nodded and began to quickly write down some notes. Everybody has a different story but everybody remembers the exact same moment when the news went from pointless celebrity bullshit to terror. Weirdly enough, I was on a train out of Kings Cross when it happened. Maybe on a train managed by Ben. My phone didn't stop buzzing for about an hour. It was just a constant stream of news alerts and people messaging me to make sure I was okay and that I managed to get out of London.
"And then..." Ben paused for a moment. He looked off to one side and shifted in his seat.
"Those um... Zombies. Wait... we both agree on zombies, right?"
I rolled my eyes internally.
"Absolutely. I'll accept Zims or Zombs as a shorthand but everything else is dumb."
"No bullshit, walkers or shufflers or clickers or the Walking Dead?" I laughed, exasperated, as Ben was listing names. Every marketing department after the outbreak wanted to have their own unique name for what were, essentially, just zombies. Even as the world seemed to be ending some Marketing Executive would try to make money on that if we all survived it. Capitalism gonna capitalism, I guess.
"I never even got shufflers. It was such a dumb name, especially since they sprint at you!"
"I know right? The best I heard was shitters because they make you shit yourself when they just appear." I laughed. Shitters... nice. I've never heard that one before.
"So what did you do when all this went down?
"Well I got a call from David, a guy from work, well my supervisor really, but it was a relaxed kind of place to work. He basically said ‘Have you seen the news? Get dressed for work and get something ready, I'm going to be there in 5.’ So I rush on my work clothes and I grab this crowbar and kitchen knife and in 5 minutes he's outside. I get in his car and he's already on a call with Charles Delane, the Transport Minister at the time." I raised an eyebrow and readied my pen in interest. We were finally getting to the good stuff I hadn't heard before. His eyes wandered from mine to out in the distance.
"I'm speeding in a car with David and after saying hi and stuff, The Transport Minister basically says, there's been bioweapon attacks spreading a fungus that makes zombies out of people in various big cities around the world, including London. We had to evacuate everybody and for that, we needed the trains to be running. The automated system is down so the infection couldn't spread outside of London on the trains and…” Ben dropped his gaze and began scratching at his chest. I kept paying attention but that wasn’t a good sign…
“...We can seal the drivers in their cabins for the trips in and out but they need people to run the lines. I thought he was joking at first, we didn't even know how this spread back then but then he explained if we didn't get the trains running then people would have to walk out of central London and it would be chaos. 7 million people trying to escape a city on foot or by car with this thing chasing after them and spreading from there to infect the rest of the country. Everybody's lives were at stake and I had this strange feeling. Like I was probably going to die but..."
He shuffled again in his seat and dropped his gaze.
"...But we had to do this. Like it was important or something. Quarantines were being set up outside of the city for everybody to get to and the Army was already at the stations in the city and setting up roadblocks so we just had to get there."
"Yeah, about getting there. How did you get there?" My Dad had taken a four-hour detour around London after the shutdown as all the roads were blocked up. The country was in panic mode like it was the COVID-19 pandemic again and we all had to stay inside, hoping we weren't going to die, except this was less of a silent killer and more of a screaming one.
"So they took us to this airbase where David and I met up with Steve and Rahul from work. The four of us were given these yellow biohazard suits and chucked into a helicopter with some soldiers and they flew us into the city. Honestly, it felt so surreal, like we were in some action movie or game. Like I have never seen London so devoid of life as it was outside. There were no cars or people outside. We saw a few of those things chasing the helicopter from the ground and that was it." My pen was sprinting across my paper, making my handwriting look like a spider having an asthma attack. Ben's tired eyes cycled slowly between me to my notepad and then off in the distance. He grabbed the wine and inhaled deeply before taking another sip.
"So they drop you down on this building..."
"A hospital, actually. It was the only place nearby with a landing pad." A hospital? Really? Damn, they must have been desperate. That's the last fucking place I'd wanna be.
"Well, that must have been terrifying."
"A horror movie. Seriously, they had sealed all these rooms to isolate people. They all looked up at us from their beds with these big sunken eyes. Most of them were screaming for us to do something. I don't know what they wanted us to do, but by how half-dead the staff looked, I don't think there was anything that could be done."
There had been posters describing the symptoms plastered all over for a year now but from when Ben mentioned the sunken eyes, there wasn't a huge amount that could be done for those people. The posters always mentioned the 5 stages in big letters:
Stage one: Rapid fat loss. Resulting in loose skin and sunken eyes
Stage two: A grey rash forming and covering the skin
Stage three: A burning pain, spreading from the source of the infection to the entire body
Stage four: Hyper aggression
Stage five: Loss of mental capacity
At stage five, the infected patients would scratch and break the skin of uninfected people to spread the pathogen most effectively, but people could also catch it from sweat or the infected breath, effectively aerosolising the pathogen.
"There was this tiny little girl, she couldn't have been older than ten. Her skin was already turning grey and her eyes were wide like a puppy. She didn't scream like the rest. She just stared at us through the window and my god, the image of her staring up at us is seared into my memory. Just..."
Jesus... that poor girl. Fuck, just... Fuck. I don't think I'd ever get over that.
Ben's breathing began to shorten. He grabbed his wine but his greying hands were trembling enough for him to quickly rest it back down on the table. I instinctively grabbed a tissue from my pocket. He waved it away. Instead, he took a deep breath and wiped his eyes with his fingers.
"Just fuck, you know? It was just really messed up. She didn't deserve to be there. She was just a child."
I nodded and stared down at my glass.
"Yeah, I know. It's awful and to see that happen to someone so young is... is horrible. Especially in the early days when they had nothing set up and just rooms for people to wait and die in. I can't imagine working in London right after it all kicked off." He nodded quietly for a bit, his eyes beginning to wander anywhere but towards me. I nodded and frowned, keeping to my well-rehearsed phrases and looks. I could feel my heart wanting to sink in my chest as Ben slumped over once again in his chair, trying to restrain himself.
"It's okay. This is a zero judgement zone." What a classic, 100% true phrase. These kinds of stories used to really affect me but over time I learned how to reframe it in my mind. This moment was for Ben. These were his feelings and emotions. They deserved respect and attention, especially now.
"Yeah just... give me a minute" I nodded and smiled. I grabbed my wine and looked around once again at the landscape, trying to find a distraction to allow Ben time to process his emotions. Golden hour was well and truly here, and my god it was pretty. I could sit there for hours. We sat in near silence for a bit as he tried to get his breathing under control.
"Look if we skip past the hospital." As much as I appreciated that listening to trauma was
part of the job description, we were on a schedule. "What happened when you made it to the control centre?"
"Sorry, yes let's move on." He smiled apologetically and I smiled in return.
"Nothing to be sorry for, this is your story. I'm just trying to tell it." He relaxed back into his chair. From here, I could see his trousers swamping his legs and even the chair. His brown leather belt had three new holes unevenly stabbed through it.
"So we were led down into the basement where the soldiers left us all... basically boxes with oversized dog food sachets inside which were apparently supposed to be fit for human consumption but if you've ever tried the grey tasteless mush that comes out of them, then you'll know that's up for debate. They then gave us some water purification tablets, which made everything taste like a swimming pool and said if we make it, they'll come to resupply us in a few weeks and good luck. They barricaded us from the outside and we locked the door from the inside and we got to work."
"What was going through your mind then?"
"Nothing profound or interesting at that moment I'm afraid. To be honest we were 4 people doing the jobs of nearly 30. I didn't really have time to think much. It was much later on when things were running and you had a spare second or two, and I would just stare at the pallets of food and water purification tablets. Basically counting the number of days we had left until they either resupplied us or we were going to starve. We didn't have access to the wider news then which probably made things a little better."
"Oh trust me it did. I kept doom scrolling through the news on my friend's sofa because I couldn't go back home and so instead I just kept staring as the numbers rose and I got more and more depressed." He nodded along solemnly.
"Yeah, screw that. We didn't need anything distracting us."
My face screwed up as a thought popped into my head.
"Wait... How did you guys wash and stay clean?"
"Erm... Well, we kind of didn't" …
Gross.
"They gave us wet wipes but there wasn't any running water or a fresh change of clothes. We began to have a bowl of soap and water to wash our underwear which, if I'm honest, is what we went down to wearing."
“Well, I'm sure nobody will mind if not EVERYTHING was written down.” I smiled coyly and took another sip of wine. "Moving swiftly onwards: How did it work down there?"
"So we were supposed to take 16-hour shifts, in rotation. I'd do eighthours with Rahul then eight hours with David and then I'd sleep for eight hours whilst Steve took over from me but after a few days, it all went to mush. We did as much as we could for as long as we could. There was one time I was working with Steve and we'd both kinda stared at each other..."
Might be funny? Sure. Completionist worthy? Probably not.
"I meant about your work and what exactly you did during the pandemic?"
"Oh of course. So we were in constant communication with the platforms and the train drivers on the radios. Making sure each train took the correct lines to the quarantines that could handle extra patients and sending the trains and the drivers to rest points when they needed it."
"How were the drivers handling it?"
"Honestly, worse than we did. At least we had each other. Some of them were sealed in their train cabins alone for months. Every stop they made, they were passed through a parcel of food and water into their cabins by this airlock. Half of the time I wonder if we were there to keep most of them sane."
"Wow... I thought you had it bad but being a train driver must have sucked." Ben laughed and nodded.
"Yeah, I mean compared to them we had space to move around and isolation. There was this one guy who used to buzz us every time he ran over a zombie. There was this one day in the second week where every couple of minutes he was radioing to say he'd hit another one and another one and another one. We cheered him on every time like it was a high score for a game." I could feel myself frowning for a moment before I pushed myself back to my professionally neutral face.
"Jesus, that's dark."
"It was a dark time, as I'm sure you know." Ben looked down at his feet again. "I know we shouldn't have. Each one of them was once a person we were just... I guess... So desensitised by that point. It's awful now I look back at it but for some of those drivers, locked in their tiny cabins for months. It was the only thing that got him through the day. You know actually, afterwards I met up with that train driver at the pub a few months ago and it was like meeting a good old friend, despite having never met him in person. After a few drinks, we started talking about it and he nearly cried as he thanked me for just being there for him and interacting with him."
It was my turn to look down at my feet awkwardly. Maybe I shouldn't jump to judge so quickly. I had a relatively comfortable last year, writing from a sofa about the state of the world. A couple of days of what they'd been through would have been a life-changing trauma for me and many others, and yet they kept it up for months.
"No, I completely understand. You guys were dealing with it every day. Whatever got you through that was important, even if it seems really dark by pre-outbreak standards." Ben considered it for a moment with his wine glass in hand but seemed to accept it. I looked down the margin in my notepad to see the next topic underlined twice in red pen.
"So on this note, I'm very sorry but I've been told to ask you about the Liverpool Street incident about a month into your work." Ben took a deep breath and looked away again awkwardly. "It's okay if you don't want to discuss it. Whatever it is, I was only given a name and told to ask you about it. There doesn't seem to be any other official mention of what happened."
"Really? No official mention." He sucked air through his teeth and his leg began to bounce. "That's infuriating. They seriously mentioned nothing?"
I shook my head as my hand slowly went to the pistol on my belt. I quietly opened the holster and curled my fingers around the weapon.
"That's such bullshit. Of course, the government would try to cover that up. It's never about how incompetent they are, just how much incompetence they can get away with!"
"Tell me what happened then. The Liverpool Street incident means nothing unless we tell people what happened." Ben took another couple of deep breaths and he began to calm down. My hand went from my pistol back to my notepad.
"So there was a train going from Liverpool Street to near Stansted airport where the runway had been turned into a quarantine camp. Somebody had been let through the checks at Stansted despite having grey skin and literally shaking from the pain. They let them through and they were packed into the train with a few hundred others. Well on the way this person turned and they began scratching and biting everybody on the train. The passengers mashed the infected person's head in with a fire extinguisher but by that point, it was too late. The entire train was exposed and probably infected. When the driver told us, we knew they couldn't be allowed to go on to Stansted, they would infect everyone. We told the government guys and they told us to find somewhere isolated for them so we found an old industrial station just outside of London where we expected them to be left until a proper cordon could be set up.”
Ben paused. All of a sudden he looked exhausted. Slumping back in his chair with an exasperated expression on his face.
“Instead, the government called in 2 RAF bombers with firebombs and they burnt the train and everybody on it alive. They didn't even tell us it was going to happen. We were actually talking to the driver just as the bombs dropped on the trains and the screams echoed across our room. Eventually, Steve just muted the radio and we all sat there in silence..."
Jesus Christ... fuck. How does nobody know about this?! Can I even write about this?
I could feel my eyes widen. I had to make a conscious effort to make sure my mouth didn't fall open.
"I... wow. Look Ben... I mean... in your defence, if that train had reached Stansted then it could have been so many times worse." Ben shrugged his shoulders.
"I agree, it could have been but looking logically at this doesn't wipe the blood off of my hands. I was still the one who got them to an isolated place so they could be burnt. Afterwards, we were congratulated and told we'd kept the country safe, but honestly, I felt sick. If you want to know what I was thinking then, then well... I realised we'd essentially helped commit a mass murder."
My mouth was open now. I had to stop writing as my mind immediately flickered to what that must have been like. All the screaming writhing bodies on the train, which Ben and his team had set up. He didn't fire the gun but he sure did load it without knowing.
"I.. I'm sorry, Ben." I genuinely didn't know what to say. I mean what the hell are you supposed to say to that?
"That's alright. You didn't know. Nobody told us that it hadn't been reported on. After that, the work began to take its toll, at least on me mentally. We did our best to keep our spirits up. We celebrated David's birthday by putting a candle on a screen behind one of our food pouches and played 'throw the pen in the cup'. It just became a lot. We couldn't really talk that much as one of us was sleeping nearby and after having a few weeks' worth of grime and dirt build-up on you alongside the guilt which we couldn't talk about. It became very hard for all of us. One night Rahul and I passed a note between us where we just checked in with each other. We started talking about the Liverpool street thing but we both quickly changed the topic. Nobody wanted to complain because we knew what was at stake but I could see it on the guys' faces, we were all getting tired."
"I'm so sorry it got that dark but, if I can, I'd like to tell you the impact of your sacrifice. Maybe make things a little lighter on your shoulders. Do you know how many people you ended up saving in those weeks?" Ben shook his head. "About 2 million people."
"Wow."
"Yup, a quarter of London managed to get out because of you and the others in that basement. After working for twoand a half months with 18-hour days, you managed to get out a large percentage of London which wouldn't have made it without you. For the thousands lost to the zombies you managed to save millions and stop the infection from leaving London. It could have been like Seoul or LA but you and many others worked 150% to get people out. Then you have the audacity to tell me you're just 'some guy' who directs trains. Brag a little, will ya?" He smiled and took some of his wine while I left him in silence to contemplate it.
God, I hope he appreciates it. Two million people is difficult to imagine. I can't even imagine how many would have made it without him.
He smiled to himself and took a good mouthful of his wine.
"It's not a bad bit for a few weeks of work, I'll give you that." He chuckled to himself and I grabbed my pad and pen again.
"What happened when the four of you were finally able to leave?" His smile dropped and his head lolled to one side. He shuffled in silence in his seat.
"Three of us..."
"Oh no..." I knew only 3 of them made it out. Nobody had written down whatever had happened down there but I'd seen the discrepancy between the report of who went in and how many came out in the rescue. However, asking that bluntly never gives as good of an answer as letting it emotionally fall out with all the details.
"Is it okay to ask what happened?" I'm going to ask anyway, might as well make him feel like he's in a position of control. Ben shifted uncomfortably.
"Yeah, of course, It's fine. Um.." Filler words... he's feeling the heat now "Yeah so um.. We were down there and the food was running low so we knew they had to come and get us out soon and I don't even know what happened. To be honest we were just messing around, trying to find something to do so we started playing around with the pistol they gave us. Then Bang, it went off. I have no idea how anybody in action movies has any hearing left because it was so unbelievably loud!" He's getting off-topic, time to focus him back on the subject.
"Oh god, did somebody get hit?"
"No, No, we were lucky. It just hit the concrete wall but a few seconds later we could hear the screams from outside. A lot of those horrible screeches they do to attract the others. Then it was just fingernails constantly trying to claw at the metal door. It's then we realised that there was another door which led to a fire escape door which hadn't been sealed shut, at the other end of the room. We found that out because a zombie managed to claw its way inside. David, being the er.." Ben sighed deeply.
"...the man that he was, sprinted in with my crowbar and bashed the things brains out but by that point, it was too late. He's been exposed. We barricaded the door from outside and David did the same on his side." I sat back and brought my glass up to my face and took a sip to hide my expression. I knew whoever didn't make it out would have been a bad story, a very personal story, but foreknowledge never prepares you for it.
"Oh... I'm... I'm so sorry Ben." He took a deep breath to steady himself.
"It's um... it's okay." I left him in silence for a few moments as he stared uncomfortably at anywhere but me. I only gave him a moment of quiet, there was no point letting him think his way into misery.
"What happened next?"
"We um... we all knew what was going to happen. We made sure one of us took the time to keep speaking to him for the next couple of days. You know he didn't tell us anything amazing or profound, he was just telling us about his life. Everybody who was important to him and whose memories he wanted to share. He told us about his Dad who had Alzheimer's at the time but still loved the Piano so they took him to his cafe which had a musician with a keyboard out front every Saturday. His son, Aaron, who had his 16th birthday whilst we were in that basement and he was locked down at home. His daughter Julia who used to climb all over him whenever he got home. With me, he was giving me advice about women." Ben was
frowning as he began to chuckle.
"It's absurd, right? He was dying but he was talking about how to treat women and how I should act on dates. How he was with his wife, Suzanne. How they fell in love. You know, he met Suzanne on a boat tour in Greece. He took her out for dinner, they spent the holiday staring into each other's eyes, for them to realise they only lived 15 minutes away. He got back to the UK and he immediately booked a table for two to a Greek restaurant. They still go to that restaurant for their anniversary because it was always a reminder for him." I smiled and I quickly jotted it down in my notepad. It wasn't absurd, not to me. It felt like David was trying to create a legacy in the last few moments he had left. We always think we have more time. That change and important or scary things can always be done later. When that is limited to a couple of days, as David had, then people will rush to make an impact on the world.
Ben paused for a moment. He shifted uncomfortably again, rubbing his stone grey nose, his sunken eyes still glued to the floor.
"He went on like that for a few days. We made sure there was always someone there until he started to get angry and he started screaming about how we'd been left there to die. We all knew what was happening. So one time when I was asleep and the two other guys needed to work, he left. Afterwards, we found out that he'd blockaded the fire door by driving a car into it. I mean that's just the kind of guy David was, he was a good person in the truest sense of the word and so... even in his last moments... he was such a fucking hero." Such a fucking hero. I nodded as a pang of guilt grew in my stomach. Davids story was important to the story of this country too. If he hadn't acted and run out to defend his colleagues then the trains would have stopped and London would have been a cemetery.
"Wow... I'm so sorry for your loss. Look, I'll make sure David's sacrifice is recorded. He deserves to have his story and sacrifice remembered just as much as yours. His wife and children should know as well." I didn't care about the extra workload.
"Thank you. They deserve to know." Ben nodded. It had clearly been difficult for him to tell the story. I wonder if he feels any loss or responsibility. With how vague he described the gun accident, I'm guessing it was his fault.
"Don't worry. I made sure to tell David's family when we finally got out. That was a day of... very difficult moments."
"I can imagine... Let's drink to having no more difficult days." Ben's smile was tinged with sadness as he raised his glass to touch mine. He wasn't going to have any more difficult days.
He drank heavily, draining his glass whilst I took just a few sips. I never really got downing alcohol. Arguably I've never tasted anything worth drinking that quick, especially wine. Wine is something you slowly enjoy. If you want to down something then drink something worse.
I rested my glass back down and grabbed my pen again.
"So what happened when they were finally able to get you guys out?"
"Well to be honest by that point we weren't even sure they were coming. David dying was well... terrible. For me at least it put it really in perspective. We had no idea how bad the outside world had gotten... We didn't even know if anybody was coming."
"Oh, of course. Without the constant news updates, you had no idea what was happening in the rest of the world."
"We could only speak to the train drivers and they were sealed in their cabins. Anyway, after um..." He shifted uncomfortably again. "David... we started to ration out the remaining food we had. We figured that with our current food levels we could make it last for at least another week or two before one of us needed to head out. Instead, a few days later we had a knock at the door and a muffled voice which we could barely hear. We knocked back and put on the same yellow biohazard suits we'd left with as they began to dismantle the barricade. All around us, there were gunshots and it was kinda crazy actually. Like by the time we got out, there were zombie bodies everywhere. Anyway, they opened the door and we suddenly had a whole bunch of guns in our faces and people screaming at us. I'd like to say they were being cautious but I smelt my clothes when I got back..."
"Ah so just from the smell they probably thought you were dead already."
"From experience, I can tell you that dead people smelt better than us." I laughed with him.
"Anyway when they realised we were still alive. They removed the barricades and they took us out and put in eight more people from my old team. It was surreal, I hadn't seen these guys in months and we just had a brief moment to say hi and then they were locked in as well. We were taken by helicopter to Stansted where we were isolated for a couple of weeks."
"Is that where you met Astrid?" Ben smiled. It wasn't a smile out of humour or friendliness, but by the way, he looked down and tried to stop himself from grinning, it was a personal smile. The kind which I felt like I was intruding upon to even witness.
"Astrid was a nurse who'd volunteered to come over from Austria to help out anywhere in Europe. It just so happened she got posted to the UK. Even more fortunate that she was treating me for those entire weeks. We spent those 2 weeks together and then afterwards I promised to take her out for a drink. She said sure and so we spent possibly the longest date of my life together and afterwards I just thought... Damn. I could do that again."
"Did David's advice help?" He looked down for a moment. Oh shit, have I just ruined his happy memory? A moment later the corner of his mouth curled into a smile.
"You know, I hadn't really thought about it but absolutely. I pulled the seat out for her. I complimented her. It seems basic but I followed his advice and I think it set us up for the night."
"How long was this world's longest date?"
"Seven hours." Jesus okay that is pretty long. I think mine was five and that's including sleeping with him.
"Wow, she must really like you."
"Well I expect so, we've been together ever since. It was crazy how fast we moved but I don't regret it for a second. We're expecting a little baby girl." Well, that's adorable. I can't hate on love!
"Awww, that's adorable! I'm always glad when things work out." I was smiling but I felt a pang of sadness. I already knew the rest of the story and how it would end. No reason to go over it here with him. "Now Ben. I have a surprise for you."
Ben looked confused.
"A surprise? Out here? How are you hiding it?"
"Well I'll be upfront now, it's not a Lamborghini. It's actually small enough to fit behind the marker stone in the wall there." He looked over to the stone wall with a small chuckle.
"You've had it hidden there the whole time?" I smiled and nodded.
"The weather is nice and this isn't my first rodeo. I need only one thing from you. Step onto the stone wall and close your eyes. I know the view over the field is pretty good, but I need to get something from my car for the reveal." Ben still looked confused but he laughed.
"Okay, so I just stand on the wall?." He walked over whilst I grabbed the car keys from my pocket.
"Yup just stand on the wall and close your eyes!"
"Okay, okay I'm going." He stepped onto the wall whilst I grabbed a small plastic petrol can from my car.
"Is there a way I'm supposed to be facing?"
"Um, maybe out to the field so you can open your eyes and look down at it." He faced the woods and shut his eyes as I walked behind him and unclipped my pistol from my holster.
"Okay.. I'm doing this. What are you setting up back there?"
I pulled the trigger. The gunshot sound bounced off of the surrounding hills and echoed its way back to me. Ben slumped forward. His body landed directly onto the pile of pallet wood I'd left there earlier or at least I hope it did. I couldn’t be bothered to get out my gloves to drag him on top of the pallets. Dead bodies weighed. I re-holstered my pistol, headed back to the table and grabbed what remained of my wine. I took a deep breath then followed by a sip. My hands used to shake so badly after shooting but now... nothing. Just an empty, grim feeling in my stomach. A therapist is going to have a field day with me at some point.
I took the time with my glass until my pulse had lowered. I walked back over to the stone wall and Yes! He'd landed perfectly on the stack of wood. My heart lifted for a moment before feeling disgusted at myself for my momentary callousness.
I raised my wine glass in the air and left it there for a moment.
"To Ben. Your life was lived well. You'll be missed by all who loved you. In the hearts of people who have heard of you and remembered by millions who'll never get the chance to thank you for all you did."
I tilted my head back and drank the rest of the glass. Damn, that's some good Merlot. I mean nobody likes drinking anything alcoholic quickly but if you have to then I know what I'd prefer.
I took a moment to stare down at Ben and to take in the scenery before pouring petrol over Ben's body. Once soaked, I lit three matches together and threw them down. Watching as the fire quickly burst forth.
Talking about his love and his child seemed a good point to end on. Nothing else that interesting happened to Ben until he was travelling around inside one of the cleared areas in London which apparently had been a lie. Something attacked him and Ben killed it. Thankfully his family wasn't around. They stuck him in isolation at Marlborough Hospital. He spoke to his family through the glass for a week, when he began to rapidly lose weight. The skin around his eyes was already turning grey. He had to say goodbye to them through the glass to make sure he didn't infect them too.
There was no reason for us to go over that part of the story. It was better he died with a smile on his face than the depressing reality of what's next.
I grabbed the rest of the bottle and poured out another glass as I watched the fire take hold to make sure all of Ben was cremated.
In his final moments, I hope Ben knew he mattered. Sure he wasn't the Prime Minister, or a scientist that helped combat the crisis but even then without him, it would have ended so much worse. He gave so much energy and time so that so many could survive. We didn't go over when he kept on working with Astrid nearby at Stansted Airport station to keep supplies flowing to London and the refugee camp there or when there wasn't a bus to a nearby family stuck inside, so he stuck a week’s worth of food into a wheelbarrow and a rucksack and carried it to them. Ben mattered. Which is why I think he got sent to me. He was just a good guy who by fate or luck saved millions.
A Completionist’s job is to complete somebody's life. To make sure that the heroes who helped us through this crisis are remembered by generations to come and also to make sure that they're not subjected to an undignified, horrible death of watching themselves slowly turn into a zombie. Ben and many others will be remembered for what they've done and their stories will be added to the tapestry that was the bio-weapon outbreak.
I walked up with a long stick and I pushed Ben's, now crackling body, into the centre of the fire. With that I waited and drank as the sun rose high in the sky, making sure every part of him but his legacy was turned into dust.
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