Michael came back to the table and sat down. He carried with him more coffee and two pots of dehydrated snack food. Steam snaked up into the air from the top of each pot.
‘Beef and tomato or sweet and sour?’ he asked.
They had found a job-lot of these snacks in the storeroom of a small corner shop they’d looted earlier in the week. The food tasted awful but it was hot, easy to prepare and relatively nutritious.
‘Can’t stand sweet and sour,’ she answered, ‘but I prefer it to beef and tomato.’
He passed her the sweet and sour flavoured food and a fork.
Still sniffing back tears she began to eat hungrily and without further complaint.
‘I think they’ll be back,’ Michael said between mouthfuls of tasteless food.
‘Who will?’ asked Emma.
He looked at her in disbelief. How could she have forgotten already?
‘Whoever it was I saw today,’ he sighed. ‘Remember?
Bloody hell, Emma, anyone would think you didn’t mind living in a shit-hole like this eating plastic food out of a plastic pot!’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m tired. Look, I know how important this is to you…’
‘Do you?’ Michael snapped.
‘Yes,’ she insisted, ‘of course I do.’
‘Have you stopped to think where these people might be from? This might not be as widespread as we’d thought. Maybe it’s only this country that’s been affected……’
He stopped talking, aware that Emma had put down her fork and that she was staring at him.
‘Don’t do this,’ she said softly, reaching her hand out across the table and gently squeezing his. ‘Please don’t let your imagination run away with you. Until we know more let’s just keep our feet on the ground and take every day as it comes. I don’t want to start thinking things are going to change only to find that we’re back in the same damn mess again and nothing’s happened. Do you know what I’m trying to say?’
‘No, not really.’
She sighed and squeezed his hand again.
‘As far as I’m concerned you’re all I’ve got left. You’re the only thing left that I can count on. My family and friends are gone. I don’t have a home any longer and I don’t own anything other than what’s in this van. The only thing I seem to be able to hold onto is you, and I’m not about to let you go.’
‘You don’t have to. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not suggesting that we do anything that’s going to…’
‘I don’t want to take any chances, Mike. You know how much I hate all of this, but if this is as good as it’s going to get then it’s going to have to do. Let’s just keep our heads, take our time and not take any chances, okay?’
He looked across the table and into her eyes and nodded.
Much as he wanted to follow the track and try and find the other survivors he knew that she was right. He felt strangely guilty for a moment. Did he give their relationship and need for each other the same importance that Emma appeared to? For a split second he tried to imagine being without her. He couldn’t. She was all he had too.
26
Cooper woke up.
He couldn’t remember falling asleep. He remembered sitting by the window last night, staring out into the darkness and listening to the rain but, other than that, nothing. He noticed the discarded face-mask on the floor and recollections of what had happened to him came flooding back. He felt okay. He was still breathing and he still had a pulse. As far as he could tell he was still fit and healthy and alive. Surely the disease would have affected him by now if it was going to affect him at all?
The morning outside was dry and, despite the sky being dull and overcast, relatively bright. The heavy smell of death and decay hung over the city like a dense cloud of polluting fog, tainting everything with its abhorrent scent. Now that he had discarded his breathing apparatus the stench was inescapable.
Regardless, Cooper quickly decided that it was just about preferable to the processed and recycled air that he’d been forced to breathe for most of the last two and a half weeks. He reminded himself that he was in the middle of a large city and that the air would surely be cleaner and more palatable elsewhere. There would undoubtedly be better places than this.
For a short time he allowed his mind to wander. Instinctively he thought about making the return trip to the base. He’d already made basic mental plans and preparations before the realisation dawned on him that he didn’t actually have to go back there if he didn’t want to. It was only the sense of duty and misguided loyalty instilled through years of military service that had made him think that he should return. No doubt the other soldiers who had left the base with him yesterday would have given him up for dead by now - the officers would be more surprised if he did find his way back there now than if he remained missing in action. He suddenly found himself in a relatively fortunate position. He was free from the restrictions of military life and the confines of the bunker and, it seemed, immune from the germ that had destroyed pretty much everything else. What remained of the rest of the world was potentially his for the taking.
For a while Cooper alternated between feeling free and feeling compelled to return to his duties. He looked down into the alley below the window and watched a single bedraggled figure trip and stumble along. Should he do something to try and help here? Could he really disappear selfishly into the distance and leave everyone and everything else to rot? It was the scale of the disaster that ultimately convinced him there was nothing he could do. What did he think he could possibly hope to do for the thousands of diseased people? It had been indicated that this was a global crisis. Even if he returned to the base, what could a handful of soldiers possibly do to help millions upon millions of dead or dying citizens? From where he was sitting it was painfully obvious that society and civilisation was as dead as any of the decaying bodies still lying face down in the gutter.
Feeling suddenly stronger and more confident Cooper decided to move. He didn’t know what he was going to do or where he was going to go, he just knew that there had to be somewhere better than this cramped and cluttered storeroom.
Still sweating profusely in his heavy suit (it had kept him warm through the night just ended) he peeled it off and dropped it to the ground, stripping it of any useful equipment. He felt cold and the sudden uncomfortable drop in temperature brought him crashing back to reality and reminded him of the enormity of the catastrophe that had befallen the country. For a while he considered trying to find his friends and family. Much as it hurt him to do so, he knew that it was better to believe they were already lost. If he did try and find them, chances were they’d be dead or dying and there would be nothing he’d be able to do for them. But then again, he thought, he seemed to have survived the disease, so why shouldn’t they have done so also? What if his immunity was linked to his genetic make up? Strange to think that his survival this morning may well have only been possible because of some combination of DNA handed down to him unknowingly by his parents.
He cautiously moved the metal racking blocking his way and, with his automatic rifle held out in front of him, gently pushed the door open and peered out into the corridor. He glanced left and right and, once he was sure the way was clear, stepped out into the shadows. His footsteps echoed loudly on the linoleum floor and he soon heard muffled sounds nearby. Somewhere in the building something was reacting to his movements.