Wilcox nodded.
`So where do I go?' he asked, peering hopelessly into the relentless gloom.
`There must be a car park or something?' Proctor suggested. `Maybe it's around the back...?'
`Fancy walking out in the open carrying all our stuff, do you?' Jones immediately snapped. `Forget that, it's too dangerous. We need to get as close to the main entrance as we can. We need to minimise the distance we have to cover on foot.'
`How am I supposed to do that?' grumbled Wilcox. `I can't see a fucking thing.'
`Here it is,' Jones interrupted. `Sharp right now!'
With no time to properly consider his actions Wilcox turned the bus as instructed. The dark silhouette of the hotel loomed large in front of him.
`Where?' he screamed, desperate for some help and guidance.
`Just keep moving,' Jones yelled back. `Keep going forward until...'
He didn't have chance to finish his sentence. The low light and the constant criss-crossing movement of hundreds of bodies made the distance between the bus and the front of the hotel impossible to accurately gauge. Tired and terrified, Wilcox jammed his foot down on the accelerator and sent the bus crashing through the front of the building. Their velocity was such that the bus continued to move until the twisted metal and rubble trapped under its wheels eventually acted as a brake. Eighty percent inside the building with only the last twenty percent of its rear end sticking out into the cold night, the bus came to a sudden, juddering halt in the middle of the hotel's wide and imposing marble-floored reception, its front wheel wedged hopelessly in an ornate and long-since dried up decorative fountain. No-one moved.
`My back...' Doreen eventually wailed from somewhere on the floor under a pile of carrier bags full of clothes and other belongings.
`Is everyone all right?' Proctor asked. No-one answered. `Is anyone all right?' he asked again, slightly revising his original question.
Paul Jones shook his head and dragged himself back up onto his feet. He looked across at Wilcox who was trying to stem the flow of blood from a gash just above his right eye.
`Nice driving,' he sneered.
`Fuck off,' Wilcox spat.
`Shit,' Elizabeth cursed from somewhere in the darkness behind them. `Get out of here. We've got to get out of here.'
The sudden fear and desperation in her voice was clear for all to hear. Without pausing for explanation the six survivors picked themselves up, grabbed as many of their belongings as they could carry, and moved towards the door at the front of the bus which Jones had already forced open. He glanced down the side of the long vehicle and immediately saw what Elizabeth had seen. A large part of the hotel entrance had collapsed. Although still partially blocked by the bus, there was now a huge, gaping hole in the side of the hotel where the main doors had once been. Hundreds of bodies were already swarming into the building from outside.
`Over here,' an unexpected voice yelled. Barry Bushell stood at the bottom of the main hotel staircase at the other end of the vast, dust-filled and rubble-strewn lobby. He gestured for the survivors to follow him. The light inside the building was minimal and they struggled to make him out at first. Wilcox was the first to see him. He ran across the room, closely followed by Doreen, Elizabeth and Jones.
`Come on, Ted,' Proctor pleaded. `Leave your stuff, we have to move.'
Hamilton was busy collecting his belongings and supplies. Loaded up with bags and boxes he tripped and stumbled down from the bus after the others.
`Keep going,' he gasped, already out of breath. `I'll catch you up.'
Proctor looked back at the other man who was clearly struggling.
`Just leave that stuff,' he shouted. `We don't need it.'
`I need it,' Hamilton groaned.
`They're coming!'
Come on you idiot, thought Proctor. Drop the bags, drop your boxes and get your backside over here. Hamilton was oblivious to the swarm of bodies that were now dangerously close behind him. They moved like a thick, heavy liquid slowly seeping across the floor of the hotel reception. Already the bus had been swallowed up and surrounded, overcome in the same way that scavenging insects might cover and devour a dead animal. Proctor looked around to see that the rest of the survivors had all but disappeared. Just Elizabeth remained, standing at the bottom of the staircase.
`Move you fucking idiot!' screamed Proctor. Hamilton tried to speed up but, if anything, he was slowing down. He was desperately unfit and scared. He glanced back over his shoulder and, seeing how close the nearest bodies now were, he tried unsuccessfully to increase his speed again. He couldn't do it. He couldn't make his tired legs move any quicker. It was hopeless.
`Move!' Proctor screamed again as he nervously backed away and moved towards Elizabeth.
Whereas most people would have dug deep and done everything possible to cover the remaining difference between themselves and safety, Hamilton did not. He was already exhausted and the staircase ahead of him seemed to stretch up into the darkness forever. He'd never make it. An eternal pessimist, subconsciously he had already decided that his number was up. He made one last weak attempt to move quicker but it wasn't working. The distance still seemed huge. Hamilton stopped and dropped his bags and boxes. Proctor and Elizabeth watched helplessly as the bodies swarmed around him and over him and dragged him to the ground.
`Let's go,' Proctor sighed. Elizabeth was already on her way up the stairs. Proctor turned and disappeared into the shadows after her. Although he couldn't see where he was going, he could hear the others' voices up ahead.
`So what the fucking hell are you supposed to be?' Wilcox asked as they climbed. They had stopped momentarily to regroup a few flights up. Bushell carried a torch with him which he used to check who was with him. It was the first time that any of them had been able to see him clearly. He could see the puzzled expressions on their faces. Suddenly self-conscious, he didn't know what to say. He hadn't needed to explain his bizarre dress-code to anyone else yet. For a moment he felt foolish before remembering how good these clothes made him feel and how, when there was just a handful of people left now, what he was wearing was of absolutely no consequence to anyone.
`I'm Barry,' he eventually answered, `Barry Bushell.'
`So why are you wearing a dress?' Wilcox demanded.
`Because I want to,' he answered factually.
`You look lovely, dear,' Doreen said as she passed him on the landing. Already gasping for air and in need of a cigarette, she patted him on the shoulder and nodded her head upwards. `This way, is it?'
`Just keep going,' he replied. `I'm living in the suite on the top floor. It was as far away as I could get from everything that's been going on down here.'
Doreen nodded and kept climbing, her nervous fear helping her forget and overcome her tiredness. Wilcox waited on the landing with Bushell and Jones as Elizabeth and Proctor finally caught up.
`Where's Hamilton?' Wilcox asked. Proctor shook his head.
`Didn't make it,' he said, panting with the effort of the sudden climb. `Silly bastard got caught.'
`Shit,' Wilcox mumbled under his breath. He shook his head and carried on up the stairs.
The climb to the top of the building seemed to take an eternity to complete. Weighed down by their physical exhaustion and the bulky supplies they'd manage to salvage from the bus, the survivors struggled to make progress. Eventually, several stops later, they reached the impressive top floor penthouse which Bushell had claimed for his own. Even though their appreciation of material possessions and the value of property had been massively distorted by the events of the last seven days, the sheer luxurious scale of the huge apartment still impressed all of them.
`Nice place she's got here,' Wilcox hissed sarcastically as he gazed around the room. Some of the group had sat themselves around a rectangular dining table, others were sprawled out on a nearby sofa.