Armitage climbed into the van and looked down at Croft, Cooper, Baxter and Heath. Baxter nodded for him to start the engine and he turned the key, sending a sudden splutter of noise and fumes into the cold night and causing more than a hundred bodies to turn and begin moving back towards the football pitch.
Realising what was happening he slammed the van into reverse and skidded back a few meters to open up the exit. As soon as a large enough gap had been opened the four survivors ran forward into the darkness. Armitage drove forward and blocked the entrance off again.
Still somewhat sluggish and clumsy, but now with undeniable control and intent, the corpses stumbled towards the van. The light was low and the comparative speed of the four survivors was such that the creatures were not aware of them until they were close. A half-naked cadaver lashed out at Croft and knocked him off balance momentarily as he pushed his way back towards the university. Bernard Heath, running with his shoulder dropped, charged body after body out of the way as he let his momentum carry him back to the shelter.
The ground was wet and uneven, a combination of autumn mist and some earlier rain having left a layer of surface water almost everywhere. Cooper slipped and fell and, by the time he was back up on his feet again, six bodies were within a meter of him. He punched and kicked his way through them and continued on towards the building. He was the last one to reach the sheltered area where the waste bins were stored and where the door they’d used earlier was. Croft was already there and had it open. He ushered the other men inside quickly.
‘Get in,’ he hissed. Cooper pushed past and listened with relief as the door slammed shut behind him.
44
Michael and Emma lay motionless on the floor of the motorhome, still hidden beneath a heavy blanket and daring not to move an inch for fear of attracting the bodies again. There were still hundreds of them nearby - the survivors could sense their closeness - but their interest in the vehicle and its occupants finally seemed to have dissipated. For a while the relentless banging and rocking of the motorhome had stopped.
‘So what the hell are we going to do now?’ Emma asked, her voice the quietest of anxious whispers.
‘Don’t see we’ve got much choice,’ Michael replied, equally quietly. ‘Those soldiers seemed to just disappear. We have to be close. Their base must be here somewhere.’
‘How are we supposed to find it? We’re not exactly going to be able to get up and go walking around outside, are we?’
‘We don’t have to. We’ll just wait here and…’
‘Wait here and what? Just keep hiding on the floor with a bloody blanket over our heads? For God’s sake, how are we suppose to……?’
‘So what else do we do?’ he hissed, interrupting her. ‘Do you want me to start the engine and try and drive us out of here?
Imagine what that’s going to do to those bloody animals around us.’
Emma didn’t answer. Instead she buried her head in hands and did her best to hide all the desperate emotions she was feeling. Not since being trapped in the attic room in the farmhouse from which they’d recently fled had she felt such fear and hopelessness. Just when she thought their situation couldn’t get any worse, they had taken another fall. Their options appeared to be simple and bleak - sit and wait as Michael had suggested or risk everything by trying to get away. Unable to contain her feelings, she began to sob. Instinctively Michael shuffled closer and wrapped his arm around her.
‘We’ll get out of this, you know,’ he whispered, his voice softer and his face just inches from hers. ‘Trust me. We’ll find a way to…
‘How?’ she pleaded. ‘How can we?’ Although she hadn’t seen a crowd of this size for the best part of two weeks, she knew that one body would invariably attract the attention of another and, therefore, a hundred bodies would attract a thousand more. Every second that they lay still together and waited made their situation more dangerous.
‘We’ll get out of this,’ he said again, doing his best to reassure her when it was obvious that he was far from sure himself. ‘I swear those soldiers are still close. Their base was always going to be difficult to find, wasn’t it? They’re going to have to come out into the open again sooner or later and then we’ll…’
‘I think we should just give this up as a bad idea,’ Emma sighed dejectedly. She looked deep into Michael’s eyes and, for a moment, considered telling him just how empty and hollow she felt. She had trusted him and he had let her down. This had been his idea. She’d wanted to be more cautious. She felt strangely cheated, almost betrayed even.
‘What?’ he mumbled.
‘I said we should give this up as a bad idea,’ she repeated.
She stopped speaking momentarily as the motorhome shook.
Another body had collided with the thin metal wall a short distance from where she and Michael were sitting. That single, apparently random collision and the sound it created drew more of the obnoxious cadavers back to the vehicle. Seconds later and the air was filled with a deafening clattering again. Not seeming to care anymore, Emma carried on speaking regardless. ‘I think we should wait for a while and then just get the hell out of here.
We were doing okay back at the farmhouse, weren’t we? We’ll find somewhere like that again, I’m sure of it.’
‘How many times have we been through this? There are millions and millions of fucking bodies staggering around this country and they’re not about to start leaving us alone now, are they? And we weren’t doing okay back at the farmhouse, because if we were we’d still be there now, wouldn’t we? Accept it, no matter where we go, no matter what we do, they’re going to be snapping at our heels constantly.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘But nothing. Look, I’m sorry this hasn’t worked out, I still think it will. I just need to stop running for a while, Em. I’m tired.’
‘And you really think these soldiers are just going to open their arms and help us?’
Michael thought for a moment before answering.
‘Yes.’
45
It was early morning, just before three. Time to leave.
The survivors sheltering in the university complex had been left with few choices. They were surrounded by an ever-increasing crowd filled with sickness and disease and now, it seemed, pain, suffering and anger also. In leaving the building to fetch the vehicles and by lighting the fire to temporarily draw the bodies away from the trucks and the main accommodation block, the desperate group had succeeded in making every last one of the vile, rotting creatures throughout the entire city aware of exactly where it was they were hiding. Donna and Clare’s well-meaning distraction had become an unwanted beacon and most people quickly accepted that it would only be a matter of time before the expanding crowds outside became too large and fierce a tide for the few despairing souls inside to be able to keep at bay. The earlier question ‘should we go?’ had, for many people, now been replaced by ‘when do we go?’
The noise and confusion associated with the return of the six men meant that every last one of the survivors gathered in the university building knew that they had made it back. More to the point, each individual also knew that, like it or not, the time had come for them personally to make serious decisions affecting the course of what remained of their futures. To take their chances and leave or to stay and wait? Risk everything out in the open, or risk just as much by sitting in the shadows and hiding and waiting until something happened? Even after such a length of time spent in the same building together, the group remained as disparate and desperate as ever. Opinion was divided and never shared or discussed. Fully understanding the unique dilemma that each of the survivors faced, Donna, Cooper, Croft and the others did nothing to try and persuade people to come with them.