cylinders strapped to their backs. Long tubes snaked out of the cylinders to metal spray guns with tiny pilot lights flickering beneath the nozzles. Flamethrowers.
We'd heard reports of their activities. They were roaming the country in teams, burning any houses that contained dead bodies, carting away anyone they found alive. We'd been waiting for them. Bates was still running the school then, so he and I went down to the gate to talk to them. We took guns.
'We hear you've got kids cooped up in there. Any of them blood type O-Neg?' asked the spokesman, his voice distorted by the mask.
'A couple, why?' I replied.
'They'll need to come with us, Miss. Government orders. All O-Neg citizens are to be taken to special hospitals. They're immune, you see.'
'These children are under our protection,' said Bates. 'They're going nowhere.'
'Look, don't make us get rough, mate,' said the weary official. 'They won't be harmed, they're immune, ain't they? We just need to take some blood samples and then take them to a special camp where all the O-Negs we round up are being looked after. We keep 'em safe, okay? Either of you O-Neg?'
Neither of us replied.
'If you're not, then you're going to die unless you got one of these,' he gestured to his suit. 'Simple as that. It's airborne. Animals carry it, birds carry it, it's in the water, and it's in the rain. There's no escape. Quarantine won't work. And who'll look after the kids then, eh? Best thing for everyone if you just hand 'em over to us.'
'And if we don't?' said Bates, nervously levelling his rifle at the quartet.
'We have the authority to take them by force.'
'There are two of us with guns, and there are more back in the main building,' I said. 'There are only four of you and two flamethrowers, which don't reach as far as bullets. I don't fancy your chances.'
We stood there, facing each other.
'You really don't want to pick a fight with us,' said the spokesman eventually. His voice was quiet, the threat clear.
'I think we just did,' I replied.
'I'm sorry you feel that way, Miss.'
I gripped my gun harder, waiting for the inevitable fight. But it never came.
'We'll be back,' said the spokesman. 'You can count on it.'
And they got back in the truck and drove away.
We spent that night and the whole of the next day erecting defences at the main gate, breaking the weapons out of the armoury and rallying the few boys still not sick.
But they never returned. They were the final representatives of bureaucracy and government we ever encountered. When they left, they took the last traces of the old order with them. Or so we thought.
We weren't sure whether they encountered some other group who gunned them down, or they succumbed to the virus.
But as I stood in that bank another possibility occurred to me.
Maybe they just went mad.
The cleaner who stood in the doorway had seen one unarmed woman run into the building. He wasn't prepared for three of us, with guns. We all opened fire at once. The blood flowed slickly down his yellow protective suit as he jerked and shook, then he collapsed in a heap. The grenade rolled forward a few inches then stopped on the threshold.
Without thinking I jumped up, ran forward, and kicked it as hard as I could. I was always more of a netball girl, but Johnny Wilkinson would have been proud of me. The grenade soared away across the street and landed in a bin. It popped and a column of evil poison smoke rose up, only for the wind to take it and blow it away from us.
I ducked back inside the bank, knowing that our victory was temporary.
'We need to get out of here now,' I shouted.
'This is a bank,' said Rowles, exasperated. 'The back door is armoured, we can't kick it down.'
'Shit.'
'There is the vault,' offered Caroline, sounding scared for the first time since I'd met her.
'The what?' I asked.
'There's a vault, a walk-in thing,' she explained. 'It's not huge, but it's probably airtight.'
'And once we're in there how do we get out? Or breathe?' said Rowles.
'Fine,' she shouted resentfully. 'So what's your plan, genius?'
I didn't have time to waste watching a lover's tiff. 'No, that's a good idea Caroline,' I said, 'and it might work as a last resort but…'
'Look!' screamed the girl.
I turned to see a yellow arm withdrawing from the doorway and a gas grenade rolling towards us, making a nasty squelching noise on the sodden carpet.
'Up!' I shouted. We ran through the door that said 'No Entry' and headed for the stairs. Even as we scrambled up that narrow staircase I knew that all I'd done was buy us a few minutes. We were trapped. Where the hell was Sanders?
This building was one of the few new ones on the main street of town, and it only had two storeys. We came to a landing and a series of non-descript offices so dull that nobody had even bothered to trash them.
'There has to be a fire escape,' I said. 'Check all the rooms.'
None of the windows had been shattered, so cracking open these doors was like walking into a time capsule, breathing pre-Cull air, still with the faint tang of PVC chairs, air conditioning and carpet fumes. One of the desks had a framed picture of two blonde toddlers on it, next to a desk tidy full of neatly arranged pens. I didn't know which was creepier – booby trapped Woolies or this strange museum.
'Here,' shouted Rowles. Caroline and I ran to the office he was in, which had a fire exit with a push-bar in the wall facing away from the street. Caroline and I stepped back and raised our weapons then I nodded to Rowles, who crouched down and shoved the door open.
The exit led on to a metal staircase in a dim courtyard. So dim, that the figure standing outside was just a silhouette. I held my fire, unsure, but Caroline panicked and squeezed off two rounds. I yelled at her to hold her fire but it was too late.
The figure grunted, staggered back against the metal railing and toppled backwards into space. We heard him hit the concrete below with an awful thud.
'Dammit Caroline,' I yelled. 'We have no idea who that was.'
'But…'
I ushered her and Rowles out of the door and they clattered down the fire escape. As I turned to pull the door closed behind me I caught a flash of yellow on the landing and fired through the plasterboard walls at where I thought the cleaner was standing. I didn't wait to see if I'd hit him.
I pelted down the loud metal steps and found Rowles and Caroline standing, appalled, over the body of Patel, the squaddie Sanders had taken with him. Caroline had got him clean in the chest. He was stone dead.
In the dank concrete-floored courtyard, with the interior walls of buildings rising all around us, their small staircase windows looking out on this joyless scene, I could see her face was ashen white. Rowles was holding her hand tightly.
'He must have been coming to help us,' she said softly.
'No time,' I barked as I reached down and grabbed Patel's machine gun.
Then there was a loud clang. And another, and another, as something metal bounced down the fire escape behind us.
At the same time we heard the distant echo of gunfire from the main street. That had to be Sanders.
I threw my arms wide and herded the children towards a small brick alley that led beneath one of the buildings and out of the courtyard. As they ran I turned, slipped the safety off the machine gun, and sprayed the fire escape with bullets, hoping to discourage pursuit. Then I ran after the kids as I heard the loud hiss of escaping gas behind me.
We emerged into a car park littered with wrecked vehicles and shopping trolleys. But no cleaners, thank God. I strained to hear the gunfire and tried to identify where it was coming from. As soon as I was sure that it was
