stopped and thought about it though, the soldier had a point.
‘I don’t know…’ Baxter instinctively mumbled.
‘Look,’ Harcourt explained, annoyed by their indecision.
She leant across the desk and grabbed hold of Donna’s torch so that she could show the others what she was thinking. ‘We could go left as you suggested, Jack, but then turn left at the next roundabout instead of going straight over. By the time that gets us onto the right road we should only be a few miles short of the airfield.’
A thoughtful few moments of silence followed as the two survivors each considered the soldier’s plan. It seemed to make sense and they had to admit she had a point - the risks they were facing were great whichever direction they chose to travel in. So if they were resigned to taking risks anyway, surely it would be more sensible to leave the school and move forwards rather than backwards?
‘I’m still not sure,’ Baxter said quietly. ‘I understand what you’re saying but I don’t…’
‘You lot better make a decision quickly,’ Clare said from near the window.
‘Why?’ Donna snapped.
‘Helicopter,’ she said, pointing up into the sky at the flashing lights on the tail of the aircraft high above them.
For a second no-one moved.
‘Come on,’ Harcourt shouted, forcing the rest of the small group into action. With sudden, nervous energy Baxter did up the zip on the front of his jacket and began to collect up the maps and shove them back into his rucksack, all the time keeping one eye on the helicopter circling over the city. He picked up the pack and swung it round onto his shoulders.
‘How will they know we’re here?’ Clare asked.
‘They won’t,’ Donna answered as she grabbed her things and ran over to the classroom door. ‘We’ll need to get back to the van and get moving. We’ll have more of a chance if they see us in the van.’
‘Think so?’ asked Baxter.
She shrugged her shoulders and glanced around the room at the others.
‘Hope so.’
She led the way out of the room and back down the stairs. Weaving through the darkness at speed she pushed open the front door of the school and ran over to the van.
The two soldiers, Baxter and Clare followed close behind.
Pausing momentarily to look for the helicopter as she opened the van, Donna immediately became aware of a huge swathe of movement all around them. From the shadows in, it seemed, every direction, bodies had turned and were now moving quickly towards them, lurching at them desperately with an ominous speed and purpose. The evening gloom was disorientating and the low light made the perception of distance surprisingly difficult. One of the nearest cadavers reached out for Kilgore and caught hold of him before he even knew it was there.
‘Get it off me!’ he screamed. ‘Get this fucking thing off me!’
The body had grabbed him from behind. He span around, trying desperately to dislodge the emaciated creature or to grab hold of it and drag it round in front of him. The corpse’s slimy, rotting skin and constant, writhing movements made it difficult for him to get a grip.
‘I’ve got it,’ Harcourt said calmly as she yanked the desperate figure away from him in a single violent movement. She wrapped her hand around its scrawny neck and threw it angrily to the ground. There were many more around them now. Kilgore, shocked by the sudden attack and not thinking clearly, immediately began to check his suit for damage as the others bundled themselves into the van. Harcourt shoved him forward and he scrambled inside, leaving her to stamp angrily on the body at her feet with her heavy standard issue boots. Flesh, muscle and shattered bones were crunched into the ground. Donna started the engine and the sudden noise prompted Harcourt to dive into the back of the van and slam the door shut behind her.
With its engine straining and wheels skidding across the ground, the van roared out of the car park, thudding into body after body as it powered towards the road.
‘There!’ Clare shouted as Donna threw the van around the second sharp turn. She pointed up at the helicopter which was moving quickly through the sky ahead of them.
‘There it is!’
The survivors had only been on the move for a matter of minutes when Lawrence spotted them. The pilot had completed his first circuit of the city centre and was trying to find an excuse for giving up for the night when he caught sight of a momentary flash of light below. The only illumination in the whole of the dead city, the van was easy to pick out and follow.
‘Left here,’ Harcourt shouted from the back of the van, keen to make sure that Donna followed the route she’d shown them in the classroom and didn’t screw up again.
‘Keep going the way we planned.’
Donna did as instructed, yanking the steering wheel over and guiding the van between the parallel wrecks of a car and a burned out milk float. The van’s headlights lit up constant movement ahead of them as bodies emerged from the darkness and stumbled towards the sudden light and noise.
‘He’ll never see us,’ Kilgore moaned from the back.
‘Of course he will,’ Baxter snapped, sick of the soldier’s defeatist attitude, ‘there’s nothing else to see out here, is there?’
Donna struggled to keep concentrating on the cluttered road ahead of her and resisted the overwhelming temptation to watch the helicopter. It seemed to be flying away from them but she couldn’t be completely sure. She just had to keep the van moving and keep hoping that Lawrence would spot them and… the van clipped the kerb, causing its passengers to be jolted and shaken in their seats momentarily. The sudden and unexpected movement forced Donna to return her full attention to navigating along the debris-littered carriageway.
Struggling to follow the van, Lawrence took the helicopter down as low as he dared. This was, perhaps, the hardest and most dangerous part of flying at night above the dead land. Everything was black, featureless and virtually indistinguishable. He had to keep low enough to try and keep track of the vehicle below, but also stay at a sufficient height to avoid any tall buildings, electricity pylons or similar. Fly too low and he knew he probably wouldn’t see such obstacles until it was too late.
On the ground below the van had come across an obstruction blocking the road. Nothing too serious, but the tangled wreckage of a three car crash had covered enough of the carriageway to force Donna to slow down to little more than a fraction of her preferred speed. Lawrence, noticing their difficulties, seized on the opportunity to try and make contact. He switched on the helicopter’s powerful searchlight and managed to move the concentrated beam of light around enough to gain a general appreciation of the immediate vicinity through which the van was moving. To their right were buildings. On the other side of the road, however, perhaps another half mile further ahead, he could see an expanse of open land - a park or playing fields perhaps? Lawrence eased the helicopter forward to hover above the grassland and saw that directly beneath him were football posts. An important find - he immediately knew that there should be sufficient clear space for him to set down between the two goals. A football pitch would give him more than enough room to land. He moved the searchlight to point down at the pitch in a rudimentary attempt to signal his intent to the survivors on the ground.
‘What’s he doing now?’ Donna asked, keeping her attention fixed on the road ahead and relying on the others to tell her what was happening above them.
‘He’s moved over to our left,’ Baxter replied. ‘Now he’s hovering.’
‘What’s he want us to do?’
‘How the hell am I supposed to know? I’m not a bloody psychic.’
Baxter stared up at the helicopter hopefully. Having cleared the remains of the car crash, the van sped up again and slammed into a random body, its sudden and brutal disintegration leaving a bloody smear of grease and gore across the area of windscreen through which he was looking. The unexpected noise and movement startled him for a moment. Donna flicked on the wipers.
‘He’s definitely stopped moving now,’ he continued, struggling to see clearly through the smeared glass. ‘Try and get closer.’
‘I can only follow the bloody road,’ Donna snapped.
‘What do you want me to do? I can’t even see what there is for us to…’
‘He’s coming down,’ Baxter interrupted. His view of the helicopter was clearer now.
‘What?’
