safest part of the complex by a long margin, it was where people ate, talked, slept, planned, cried, argued and did pretty much everything else together. Not really a tower as such, it was simply the tallest and safest building around and the first survivors to arrive there had naturally gravitated towards it.
Its relative height and its distance from the perimeter fence and the dead hordes beyond provided them with a little welcome security. With the arrival of Cooper, Donna, Michael and more than thirty others, however, space was suddenly at a premium. At two-thirty in the morning Michael and Emma found themselves sitting together in a small, dark room off the main entrance corridor at the foot of the stairs. The temperature was icy cold. The couple held each other tightly and covered themselves with blankets and coats to keep warm. Conversation was sporadic.
Michael had something on his mind. He’d wanted to talk to Emma about it for a couple of hours since an earlier discussion he’d had with Cooper and Jackie Soames, but for the first time in weeks she seemed relaxed and almost happy and he found it difficult to bring himself to speak knowing that what he wanted to say would inevitably upset her.
After skirting round the subject for what felt like the hundredth time, Michael decided to take a deep breath and tell her.
‘Em,’ he began slowly, choosing his words with care, ‘I was talking to Cooper earlier…’
‘I know,’ she replied, ‘I saw you. The pair of you were as thick as thieves.’
‘Remember the conversation we had on the way over here?’ he continued, ignoring her.
‘Which one?’
‘When we talked about the island? I said I wanted to try and get over there pretty quickly so we could make sure we get everything we needed.’
‘I remember,’ Emma mumbled, already beginning to anticipate what he was about to say next.
‘Well…’ he began before pausing momentarily, ‘I’m going to go over on the next flight.’ Michael forced his uncomfortable words out as quickly as he could. Once they were spoken he felt sudden relief at having finally come clean and told her. Emma nodded but didn’t say anything.
In the darkness it was difficult for him to see her face and gauge her reaction. The silence was awkward and Michael soon felt pressured into explaining further. ‘There are a couple of damn good reasons why I should go,’ he continued. ‘Most important is that I really do want to get over there to try and make sure that this island is everything we need it to be. Second…’
‘What happens if it’s not?’ Emma interrupted. ‘What are you going to do? Ask them to bring you back so you can start looking for somewhere else?’
He ignored her again.
‘Second,’ he continued, ‘have you looked at the people left around here, Em?’
‘What about them?’
‘Just go back upstairs and have a look around. Most of the people here are empty. There’s more life in half the bodies outside than in some of them up there. It’s not their fault, they just can’t handle what’s happened and…’
‘What point are you trying to make?’
‘Jackie Soames says they’ve already sent some of their strongest people over there but they need more. They’re planning to try and clear out the village in the next couple of days and they’re going to need as much manpower as they can get.’
‘So why do you have to go? Why not send Cooper or some of the others?’
‘Cooper’s a hard bastard - he’ll be more use here keeping this lot moving in the right direction. And if I’m honest, I want to do this. I want to go.’
Emma stopped to think.
‘So when are you leaving?’ she asked quietly, not really wanting to hear his answer. Her mouth was dry with sudden nervous emotion. Michael shrugged his shoulders.
‘They’re planning the next flight for sometime tomorrow. It will probably be early afternoon.’
She nodded but didn’t say anything. Once again Michael found himself feeling pressured by her ominous lack of words. He desperately wanted to know what she was thinking and feeling. He’d known all along that she was never going to have been happy with the idea, but he didn’t know what else he could do. Cooper had implied that he owed it to the rest of the group to go and Michael couldn’t help but reluctantly agree. Since arriving at the military base it had been him, Cooper, Donna and a just handful of others who had kept the group together and functioning.
The same level of control needed to be applied on the island. They needed representation over there quickly.
Keen to keep the conversation with Emma flowing he spoke again.
‘It’ll be okay,’ he began to say, his voice soft and quiet.
‘This place seems fairly safe…’
‘You say that every time we find somewhere new to shelter and within days we’re on the run again,’ she snapped.
‘This place seems fairly safe,’ he repeated, ‘but you know as well as I do that it’s probably not going to last.
Places like this don’t stay safe indefinitely. We attract the bodies, and until we manage to find ourselves somewhere that they can’t get to this will just keep happening.’
‘So you’re going to leave now before it happens again?’
Stung, Michael looked at Emma and pushed his body away from hers slightly.
‘Come on, that’s not fair,’ he protested. ‘I want to go over to the island to make sure things are moving, that’s all.
The place could be cleared of bodies in a couple of days and we could all be over there. By this time next week we could be standing out in the open without a hundred thousand bloody corpses watching our every move.’
Emma regretted her comment. He was right, it had been unfair and unnecessary.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbled apologetically.
‘It’s okay.’
‘It’s just that I don’t want…’ she began to say before stopping.
‘Don’t want what?’ he pressed gently.
‘I don’t want you to go,’ she answered. ‘I don’t want to be here on my own.’
‘But you’re not going to be on your own, are you? There are more people here now than we’ve been with since this all started.’
‘No,’ she sighed, shaking her head sadly, ‘that’s not what I mean. You and I have been together since the first few days and I don’t want that to change. I’ve been okay as long as I’ve been with you. We’ve had some pretty bloody awful times, but we’ve got by. I guess I’m just frightened that you’ll leave here and something will happen to you or you won’t come back or…’
‘Shh…’ he soothed, sensing her mounting emotion.
‘Come on, now you’re just being stupid.’
‘Am I?'
‘Yes. Look, this is nothing. I’ll go over there in the helicopter tomorrow and the job’ll be done before you know it.’
‘You make it sound easy.’
‘It is easy.’
‘Is it? Is it really? Wake up, Mike. In case you hadn’t noticed, nothing’s easy anymore. Finding the next meal isn’t easy. Keeping warm and dry and out of sight isn’t easy. Keeping quiet isn’t easy. Driving round the country running from place to place isn’t easy so please don’t patronise me by telling me that getting in a frigging helicopter and flying God knows how many miles to wipe out this island’s already dead population is going to be easy either.’
‘Look,’ Michael snapped, beginning to become irritated by her negativity and defeatist comments, ‘I’m not
