The Last Englishman: Synopsis and Selected Chapter.

The Last Englishman: Synopsis1

The story starts in the near future, not too many years from now. The protagonist who remains unnamed for the whole story is writing down his memoirs, he is the last survivor of an apocalyptic event that wiped humanity off the Island north of France once known as Britain. He hasn’t seen another human in years and has stopped counting time. Nothing matters to him any more and he is coming to terms with his won mortality, he doesn’t know how long it’ll be till his inevitable death but he knows it’s coming. So he has decided to write down his account of the terrible events that lead to him sitting alone, the last man in England. 2

At first he narrates his childhood, telling of how he was a normal child, nothing special and recounts of various episodes in his childhood, leading to him as a teenager falling in love just before the disaster strikes. Throughout this and subsequent chapters he digresses randomly, allowing his thoughts and melancholy recollections to flow onto the page. Once he has finished narrating his childhood he tells of the fateful day when the plague wiped out most of Britain, he tells of the traumatic morning when he realised everything had changed. He came downstairs for breakfast to find his mother lying dead on the floor, one of the lucky few who dies of the virus rather than being turned into the monsters he soon meets. Shocked and unbelieving he retreats back upstairs in the vain hope that this is just a dream, however it isn’t so and eventually he goes to call the police, however the phone line is dead leading him to go next door to borrow his neighbours phone, however this is where he first encounters one of the infected, narrowly escaping with his life he flees back home and attempts to barricade himself in. This eventually proves useless and he is forced to confront a small group of the infected, through sheer luck he escapes, killing several in the process. He once again flees, this time to the nearest town hoping to find some form of resistance or order. However after finding a small group of people and attending the “party at the end of the world” he leaves the city disillusioned and ready for a solitary existence. He disappears into the hills to the north of the town, living alone in the wild, spending many sleepless nights in a tent hidden in the woods. Eventual he finds some more companions who invite him to their defensible dwelling, he lives amongst them for a few months. During this time he sees from a distance several large fires, which it becomes evident, are the towns and cities having been bombed to rubble by foreign forces afraid of the threat the infected pose. Also rumours reach him that the few nuclear power plants around Britain have gone into meltdown and large tracts of the country have been rendered uninhabitable. Eventually he is forced to flee from the community he has been living in as a large horde of infected breach the gates and kill most of the survivors inside. The protagonist escapes with his life and once more lives alone in the wild, this time further from any hints of civilisation, deep in Dartmoor. He lives alone for many years telling us of certain memorable events, but skipping most of it. Eventually he travels eastwards towards Dover after seeing a light on the horizon, and ends up in a small shack on the top of the cliffs of Dover. Time catches up with itself and the protagonist tells of how he has grown weary and sick of life and says his goodbyes to the people he lost.3

The First Chapter4

The following transcript was taken from a leather bound note pad found by French armed forces on a search mission in the land once known as England.5

As well as the transcript of this man’s diary I have included documents and historical evidence, which I hope will expand the readers knowledge of the events this unknown man lived through. I have taken “artistic licence” with the text and added chapter division where there were none before. This will, I hope, make it easier to read and allow for me to insert documents explanations and other useful additions. I sincerely hope that you learn from this man’s experiences lest we forget the tragic loss of life of the 2008 plague of mainland Britain.6

Professor Joseph Kruithof7

Chapter One: A Prologue8

Too many years… it has been too many years. I haven’t seen another human, well to be precise another living human, for too long, I don’t know how long exactly, but I know it’s been too long. I’ve stopped counting traditional time, days, weeks, months, years they mean nothing to me now, yes the sun still rises and set, yes time carries on as before, but I’ve stopped counting. What use is time when nothing runs to it? There are no trains running, no meetings to get to, no children starting school in the morning, no adults coming home from work in the evening, time simply doesn’t matter.9

Not since the plague anyway. Not since everyone in England died, and in Wales, and in Scotland, maybe I’m the last one on the Planet, it certainly seems like it. I don’t even know why I’m writing this, no one will ever read it. Even if I’m not totally alone here, even if there are other people out there, or even if (assuming the plague was contained to this island) people eventually come back to my insignificant island they’ll never know I survived this long, they’ll never know what I lived through… but still I’m writing this… not sure why though. Well I suppose it’s something to do, something to waste the time. The time until what? The time until the end, the inevitable, lonely , end. That’s it I suppose, I know it’s coming, one day I’ll be gone… just like the rest of them, just like all my friends, and family, like all their friends and family, and theirs and theirs and theirs and so ad infinitum. It’s mind boggling.10

I bet should someone somehow read this before the plague they wouldn’t understand it, they wouldn’t understand the sheer emptiness of my world, I mean who would eh? I’m not sure even I understand it now and I’m the only one left over here… aside from Them, but They don’t count, besides most are gone now, rotted away, blown apart or even devoured by each other. And yet again I’m off on a tangent, I better get on with what I intended to do, writing my story.11

I suppose my story will never be heard but I write it anyway, and where better to begin than the beginning?12

It’s better than the end at any rate. 13