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 -
even though the noise lasted for only a couple of seconds and was unintelligible - he knew beyond doubt that there were other survivors nearby. Unable to contain his curiosity and desire to see other living, breathing people like himself, he cautiously lifted his head and looked into the distance. A pall of dirty grey smoke was drifting lazily away from the top of the large building opposite. He squinted and saw that there were people on the roof. Although he only dared look for a few seconds, he thought he could see between five and eight of them and, despite having seen each of them for only a moment, he knew that they were survivors. He’d seen the remains of many offices and shops that had been scarred by fire, but the fact that this blaze was on the roof of the building left him in little doubt that it had been started deliberately.
Against his better judgement, Cooper allowed himself to drift deeper into the crowd. He didn’t dare shout to the survivors to make them aware of his presence, knowing instead that his only option was to slowly and cautiously make his way closer to the building. Just a few short footsteps further forward and he found himself deep within the bulk of the rotting crowd. Random decaying figures collided with him constantly and it was all that he could do to keep his nerve and not lose control. The smell of putrefaction was appalling. He’d been around death many times before during his years of service, but never anything like this.
The cloying, relentless smell of decay hung like a thick, disease-ridden blanket smothering everything. Keeping control of his stomach was beginning to take almost as much effort and concentration as keeping control of his speed and his movements.
The density of the crowd added to the confusion. All that Cooper could now see were shuffling bodies on every side.
Although the creatures were withered and relatively slight, there were so many of them and they were packed so tightly together that it was impossible to see clearly in any direction. Generally the heads of the figures hung heavily on their weary shoulders but Cooper knew that it was too dangerous for him to again look up and over the top of the crowd. He had to keep moving with the flow of the obnoxious masses and hope that luck would eventually push him in the right direction.
Although he tried for a while to convince himself otherwise, there was no escaping the fact that, after a few minutes, he was not making any real progress towards the building. There was very little that he could immediately do about it. He felt himself being pushed and buffeted away from the front of the building and out to his right, back along the ring road in the general direction from which he had just arrived. Again there was nothing he could do except keep moving and hope that chance would eventually allow him to drift back the other way. He stumbled and tripped over an inert body on the ground. In a fraction of a second he was able to regain control, keep his balance and not panic. Even as his boot smashed down onto decayed flesh and exposed bone he forced himself to remain steady and emotionless.
A
subway.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw it. Just over to his right he became aware of the entrance to a subway which, he guessed, provided a pedestrian connection between the buildings on the side of the road he was heading towards and the rest of the city.
Before the events of a few weeks ago the ring road would have been far too busy for people to try and cross by foot - it was proving awkward enough to negotiate now with the wreckage of hundreds of cars and other vehicles and countless bodies strewn randomly across the cold tarmac. Sensing that he was still going nowhere, Cooper decided to take a chance and head underground. Although there would surely be more bodies trapped down there, it would be darker and, he presumed, safer.
Cautiously he began to veer off towards the sloping concrete entrance. His nervousness increased as he stared down the ramp into the approaching darkness. As he descended the light steadily faded and the smell intensified. Unnerved, a sickly sweat broke out across the soldier’s brow - it reminded him of the moment he entered the bunker on that first morning three weeks ago.
Inside the subway was almost pitch black, much darker than he had expected. He was aware of some degree of movement around him but it seemed that most of the bodies had by now dragged themselves up above ground, their limited attention captured, no doubt, by the light and sound and the movement of the rest of the crowds out there. No more than twenty meters down and he came upon a T-junction where a second tunnel crossed the path of the one he’d been following.
