‘Come on, that’s not fair. I’m just worried that this won’t work out.’
‘It’ll work out.’
‘There are a hundred reasons why it might not. Christ, you told me they were wearing suits. They can’t even walk out in the open. They can’t breathe the air because it’ll do to them what it did to the rest of the population.’
‘Yes, and that’s our get out, isn’t it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If things don’t work out the way we want, we’ll walk.’
‘You think they’ll let us?’
‘You think they’ll have a choice?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Emma sighed, holding her head in her hands.
‘I’m not trying to be negative. I just think we need to play this whole situation very carefully.’ She knew that she was going to have trouble trying to contain Michael’s eagerness and excitement. She knew where he was coming from, but his cavalier approach and lack of concern worried her. They both knew what the risks were. They had already lost just about everything they had. At the farmhouse they had fought to build themselves some kind of shelter and protection from the rest of the world, and despite their huge physical and mental advantage over the countless scores of plague victims they had lost it all in the blinking of an eye. One mistake was all that it had taken.
And although sitting in a cold motorhome in the middle of a field was far from ideal, at least they now had some degree of control again. Emma had an unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach that they were dangerously close to.
Every night felt like an eternity. The dark hours dragged endlessly. With no distractions or entertainment it was all that Michael and Emma could do not to dwell on the problems outside their door. Occasionally the situation became slightly lighter and more bearable. Most of the time, however, the musty atmosphere in the cramped motorhome was tense and overbearing.
Conversation had continued to be sparse and difficult throughout the evening. As the couple had discovered on many occasions recently, there was very little they could talk about that didn’t somehow lead them back to discussing everything that they had been doing their best to forget about and ignore. Going to bed sometimes brought temporarily relief, but much of the time it was of little help. The survivors would either lie there, unable to sleep, or they would manage to lose consciousness only to be jolted back into their bizarre reality by a dark nightmare or a sudden noise from the other side of the motorhome’s paper-thin metal walls.
The only true comfort that Michael had found in the days and nights since his life had been turned upside down was Emma. As they lay in bed together, holding each other tightly, keeping each other warm, he relaxed in the comfort of her closeness. He loved the sound of her voice whispering in his ear late at night, and the gentle tickle of her breath on the side of his face somehow managed to remind him that, no matter how it often felt, he was still very much alive. The smell of her, the feel of her body against his, the warmth that she brought to the long, cold nights, all helped reassure him that the effort of survival had been worthwhile and that, despite the considerable odds stacked against them both, there remained a faint glimmer of hope that their situation would eventually improve. He clung to the thought that, one day, the two of them might be free to walk out in the open again without fear. He knew that it might happen someday. The rotting bodies were deteriorating and couldn’t continue to function indefinitely, could they?
It was twenty past two in the morning. The wind was buffeting the side of the motorhome, rain was driving down and crashing onto the metal roof above them and they could hear a solitary body tripping and sliding randomly through the mud outside. It didn’t seem to matter. For a few precious moments none of it seemed to matter to Michael. He was close to Emma and, for a couple of relaxing, refreshing and unexpected minutes he was somehow able to forget the hell outside.
31
‘We should get out of here now,’ Donna said, her mouth half-full of food. ‘We’re not going to gain anything from staying here. We should get out and head back to the base with Cooper.’
‘What’s there for us?’ Bernard Heath asked anxiously.
‘More than there is here,’ she replied before returning her full attention to the scraps of food on her plate.
‘Who says I’m going back to the bloody base?’Cooper muttered to himself, just loud enough for the others to hear.
Nine survivors sat together in semi-darkness and ate a scraped together meal in one of the university lecture rooms. The atmosphere throughout the building had changed noticeably since the soldier had arrived there earlier in the day. To many of the desperately frightened people gathered in the accommodation block his appearance had brought a faint glimmer of unexpected hope into their dark lives. To an equal number of others, however, his presence in the building had increased their unease and anxiety. Claustrophobic, monotonous and uncomfortable their world may well have become, but with the rest of the country lying in ruins around them, this was all they had left.
The soldier’s sudden unannounced and unexpected interference in their fragile existence was disproportionately unsettling. To make matters worse (if they possibly could get any worse) the noise and commotion that had accompanied Cooper’s arrival had whipped the crowds of disease-ridden bodies outside into an unprecedented frenzy. Even now, many hours later, the creatures still fought to get closer to the building, banging hopelessly against exposed windows and doors with their rotting fists.
‘Isn’t it about time we started trying to make some decisions here?’ Jack Baxter said suddenly, pushing away his plate of cold food and taking a swig from a can of drink. ‘I mean,’ he continued, ‘we can’t just sit here and wait indefinitely, can we?’
‘We can if we want to,’ Heath disagreed. ‘It makes sense to sit tight and wait for…’
‘Wait for what?’ Donna wondered.
Sitting in the chair next to Donna, Clare looked from face to face in the low light. First Heath, then Baxter, then Cooper, then Donna and then back to Heath again. She waited for him to say something. In the gloom he looked haggard, old and weary as if he was carrying the weight of everyone’s problems on his shoulders. She sensed that he was struggling to keep himself calm and controlled. She could see fear in his eyes.
‘What I mean is…’ he stammered. It was obvious that he didn’t know what he meant.
‘What are you planning to wait for?’ Donna asked again.
‘What exactly are you expecting to happen?’
Obviously uncomfortable and wishing he’d stayed quiet, Heath played with his food and picked up a paper towel which he screwed into a tight ball before throwing it into a nearby waste bin. He sank back in his chair and looked up for inspiration but nothing came.
‘Don’t know…’ he finally admitted.
‘Something’s got to give eventually, hasn’t it?’ Baxter said.
‘Like what?’ asked Cooper.
‘Well, things can’t stay like this forever, can they? Nothing ever stays the same for too long. I mean, you turned up here today, didn’t you? There will be more like you and…
‘There are more like me,’ Cooper explained, ‘but don’t assume they’re going to come back here. As far as they’re concerned this is a dead place.’
‘They might.’
‘Yes, they might, but on balance they probably won’t. As far as I was aware we were sent out on a reconnaissance mission and that was all. If the others made it back to the base and reported what they’d found then…’
‘Then what?’
‘Then they’ll know that there’s no real reason for anyone to come back here, won’t they?’
‘So what do you think they’ll do?’ Donna wondered. ‘It doesn’t matter where they go, they’re going to find the same thing.’
Cooper shrugged his shoulders and continued eating.
‘I really don’t know. Like I said earlier, there were supposed to be other bases. I suppose they’ll try and group
