‘That’s got to be better than just sitting here and…’
‘Why not wait? They came back yesterday, didn’t they?
Surely they’ll come back again today?’
‘Not necessarily,’ he said as he pulled on his jeans and fastened his belt.
‘No,’ she yawned, ‘not necessarily, but probably. You’ve got to admit, there’s a damn good chance they’ll be back later.’
‘Yes,
but…’
‘But
what?’
Michael stopped what he was doing and peered at Emma through the early morning gloom. Dejected, he threw his T-shirt down onto the bed in front of her and sat down heavily next to her feet. He knew she was right. In the time it had taken him to put on his jeans and socks the noise outside had already disappeared. Whoever these people were, he had to agree it was likely they’d be back again later.
‘Come here,’ Emma said quietly.
Michael looked up at her with sad, childlike eyes. She could see that he was struggling. As strong, resilient and brave as they both tried constantly to be for each other, it was becoming harder and harder just to get through each day. The lack of any news, direction or purpose was slowly killing them, and that was why Michael had reacted to the sound of the engine in the way that he had. Every last fibre of his body wanted to believe that the survivors they had heard would bring an end to the bleak and relentless nightmare that their once ordinary lives had become over the last few weeks.
Michael lay down on the bed next to Emma and rested his head on the pillow close to hers. She rolled over onto her side and looked deep into his tired face. He stared up at the ceiling, excited by the sound he’d heard but also angry and infuriated that he was still no closer to finding out who these survivors were and where they’d come from. He knew he’d probably get the answers to his questions in the near future but that wasn’t good enough - he wanted to know now.
Emma wrapped her arm around him and pulled herself closer.
He could feel her breath on the side of his face. It relaxed him.
For a moment it made what was happening outside feel somewhat less important.
‘They will be back you know,’ she whispered again with real belief and conviction in her voice. Michael knew that she was right. ‘I’m sure of it. It’s too much of a coincidence for us to hear them travelling past here twice in two days and back again last night. They must have a base nearby.’
‘I know,’ Michael grunted.
‘We should move the van,’ she suggested. ‘Move it into a place overlooking the track.’
He
nodded.
‘Suppose
so.’
‘Look, that’s what we’ll do,’ she said gently, still trying desperately to keep him positive and focussed. ‘We’ll drive across the hills until we find somewhere we can see the track from and we’ll sit and wait. We can sit in the front and watch and as soon as we see them we’ll try and follow them back to wherever it is they’ve come from.’
Michael nodded again. Her well-meaning words, although perhaps said more out of duty than belief, were welcome and appreciated. He was lucky to have Emma. He glanced across at her and lifted his hand and brushed a fallen curl of hair away from her face. She smiled and pulled herself even closer so that their faces were almost touching. He kissed her lightly on the cheek and then kissed her lips. He kissed her again and then pulled back slightly and stared deep into her eyes. Much as they both craved warmth, comfort, protection and countless other things, to be safe and to be this close to each other was enough for now.
28
Exhausted by the effort of moving silently through the diseased crowds, Cooper dragged himself on through the bleak remains of the city. Despite all of his training and preparation for dealing with nightmare scenarios, he was finding it increasingly difficult to keep moving forward. Every single step he took required more concentrated effort than it ever should have. Every time he turned his head he saw something else which shocked, repulsed, disgusted or terrified him. The cold, grey streets were littered with the abhorrent remains of broken, decaying bodies - the residue of thousands of innocent and unsuspecting plague victims. If he half-closed his eyes and tried to ignore the sickly, shuffling bodies that milled hopelessly around him then it felt like he was walking through a bizarre still photograph. It was almost as if the world had been frozen in an instant of time, and that every part of it was now dying the slowest and most painful death imaginable. He could no longer see any goodness around him, nothing positive. Death, decay and destruction dominated everywhere.
In half an hour he had reached the ring road which ran around the perimeter of the city centre. His geography and knowledge of the local area was fair but far from comprehensive. He looked hopefully at every road sign he passed, trying to find the name of a suburb or nearby village that he recognised or at least remembered something about. It made sense for him to head for somewhere right on the outskirts of the city, somewhere where the buildings were spread out over a decent area rather than being packed tightly together as they were in many of the closer inner-city districts. He’d had plenty of time to think about what he was going to do, but the constant distractions around him had prevented him from coming up with anything resembling a sensible or coherent plan of action. All that he really wanted was to find somewhere relatively safe and comfortable where he could stop and rest for a few days and take stock of everything.
More than anything he needed to spend some time trying to work out what it was that had actually happened. He didn’t expect to be able to find many answers (if he found any at all) but for the sake of his sanity he needed the opportunity to stop, take a deep breath and at least attempt to understand.
On Cooper’s left as he trudged slowly down the middle of the ring road was the city centre proper and, just ahead and to his right, the first few buildings of the hospital and university complex. The road slowly dropped down and arched lazily to the left, and as he followed it around he became aware of something bizarre and initially inexplicable that made his blood run cold.
Up ahead, little more than a quarter of a mile away, was an immense crowd of bodies. Instinct urged him to turn around and head in the opposite direction but at the same time he knew that he didn’t dare make such an obvious move. A sudden stop or an unexpected change in direction might attract the attention of the numerous random bodies moving close around him. From what he had already seen this morning he knew that something as simple and innocent as such a movement might cause him to be noticed, and the resulting disturbance would inevitably attract more and more of the rotting corpses to him like moths around a single light burning in an otherwise pitch-black room. Like it or not, he seemed to have no option but to keep moving forward, to keep walking towards the huge crowd.
He neared the bodies with the initial intent of shuffling around the furthest edge of the massive gathering and carrying on out of the city. As he approached, however, he began to ask himself why such a gathering had built up there in the first place? The answer, it occurred to him, was simple. The creatures seemed to be devoid of virtually all decision making capabilities and they only appeared to react to the most basic of stimuli.
Something was drawing them to this place.
The wide road was strewn with the remains of wrecked cars and other vehicles, making it difficult for Cooper to be able to accurately estimate the number of bodies ahead of him. They appeared to be dragging themselves towards a large, modern building on the other side of the road, each one of them advancing forward painfully slowly until the sheer weight and number of tightly packed creatures ahead prevented them from getting any closer. Cooper made a slight alteration to his course so that he drifted towards the far side of the road where there were slightly fewer figures. He noticed that more and more of them were appearing almost constantly, dragging themselves out from the shadows of the city centre. The vast crowd was largely silent, save for the constant slow shuffling of rotting feet being dragged along the ground. Over this low background noise, however, he thought he could hear something else. Too wary of drawing attention to himself by lifting his head to dare look up, he stared at the ground in front of him and concentrated so that he could distinguish and identify this new sound. It took only a few seconds for it to become apparent that it was the cracking and popping of burning wood, accompanied by occasional snatches of human conversation. When he heard someone shout -