‘Why should it take that long?’
He shrugged his shoulders and yawned again.
‘That’s the timescale we’ve been trying to work towards.’
‘So what’s stopping us from moving things on more quickly?’
Stayt and Fry both became quiet.
‘Apart from getting the village cleared,’ Fry eventually admitted, ‘nothing really.’
‘So we should do it tomorrow, shouldn’t we? What reason have we got for delaying it? I feel the same as you two, I don’t want to be sitting here talking about what we’re going to do when we could be doing it.’
‘I’m not sure. I think we should…’
‘Be honest, Bruce,’ Michael interrupted, ‘everyone instinctively makes excuses and tries to put things off because they’re scared. I understand because I’m the same, but the sooner we do this and get it done, the sooner we can try and get on with our lives.’
‘We know that, but clearing the village is going to be a big job and there’s a lot riding on it. We need to make sure we get it right first time.’
‘There you go again, more excuses. We don’t really have to get it all done on day one, we just have to make sure that things don’t go too wrong. Does that make sense?’
The blank expressions on the faces of the two men seemed to indicate that Michael had confused them both. ‘We just have to make sure we don’t take any unnecessary risks,’ he explained. ‘We should get in there quick, strike, and then get out again. Regroup and then go back and do the same again. Then we do it again and again until the job’s finished.’
‘Probably won’t take that long,’ Fry admitted.
‘So why are you so keen?’ Stayt asked.
‘Partly because I just want it over with, partly because of experience,’ Michael replied.
‘Experience of what?’
‘The bodies.’
‘But we’ve all got that. Why should you think any differently to the rest of us?’
Michael shrugged his shoulders and kicked at the ashes on the ground next to his feet, sending a shower of sparks up into the air.
‘I don’t know about you two,’ he answered, ‘but I’ve watched those things change steadily, almost from day to day. I know there’s going to come a time when they’ve rotted down to nothing and they don’t get in our way, but what I’ve seen over the last couple of days has made me think things might get more difficult before they get any easier. Look at what’s happened so far - in just a few weeks they’ve gone from just staggering around to being aggressive and violent and having some control. And now it seems they’re starting to watch us and think about what we’re doing.’
‘What are you getting at?’
‘I think that if we don’t make a move now, then it’ll be the bodies hunting us out, not the other way round.’
The dull morning light crept slowly and silently across the airfield. From the top of the observation tower Clare stood and watched as the darkness gradually disappeared. It looked blustery and cold outside but the building protected and isolated her from the brunt of the harsh, almost wintry conditions. From where she was standing she could see right across to the fence and the hordes of constantly moving corpses beyond. As the light improved she could make out the body of Kelly Harcourt lying on its back in the overgrown grass, just metres away from the shuffling feet of the dead.
‘You can understand why she did it, can’t you?’ Emma asked, standing just behind her.
‘Such a shame though,’ Clare answered quietly, her voice disconsolate and low. ‘I liked her. She was nice, much nicer than Kilgore.’
‘You can’t even begin to imagine what the poor girl was going through,’ Emma sighed sadly. ‘You just don’t know how you’d react if you were in that position, do you?’
‘Makes you realise how lucky you are, doesn’t it?’
‘Suppose so.’
‘We are lucky, aren’t we?’
Emma shrugged her shoulders. It was a strange question that Clare had asked. On the face of it they had survived where millions had fallen and that had to make them lucky, didn’t it? But every day life seemed to be getting harder, and she couldn’t help thinking that in many ways it would have been easier just to have fallen and died on the first morning. Feeling suddenly guilty for allowing herself to think so negatively, she forced herself to respond positively to Clare.
‘Of course we’re lucky,’ she said. ‘We’re lucky to be here. We’re lucky to have a chance of getting away from all this.’
Clare wasn’t really listening. She nodded and returned her attention to looking out of the window.
‘So are we just going to leave her there?’ she wondered, staring at Harcourt’s body on the ground. ‘Shouldn’t we move her or…?’
The sudden arrival of Cooper and Jackie Soames into the room interrupted the conversation. Emma quickly turned round. She could tell from the expression on both of their faces that they were far from happy.
‘Has anyone seen Keele?’ Soames asked, looking around the room hopefully. Her already red face seemed even redder and more flushed than usual.
Clare shook her head.
‘I saw him earlier,’ Emma volunteered.
‘Do you know where he is now?’
‘No, have you tried the…?’
She didn’t bother to finish her sentence. Soames and Cooper had already turned and were walking away. Donna appeared in the doorway, blocking their way out and stopping them momentarily.
‘Any luck?’ Cooper asked.
‘Not yet,’ she replied. ‘He’s not here then?’
Cooper shook his head.
‘He’s probably hiding in the outbuildings somewhere,’
Jackie Soames suggested. ‘We’ve found him there before, the cowardly bastard.’
Soames and Cooper bustled out of the room again leaving Donna standing alone by the open door. Emma was confused.
‘What the hell’s going on?’
‘Gary Keele’s done a runner,’ Donna explained. ‘We can’t find him.’
‘Why? What’s he running from?’
‘Cooper wants him to try and get the plane moving.’
‘And?’
‘And that’s it. Says he can’t do it. He suffers with his nerves apparently.’
‘Don’t we all?’
Donna smiled.
‘I hate blokes like him, I really do. They’re all bloody talk and no action. Apparently he’s spent the last couple of weeks making noises to some of this lot about how he’s going to be the big hero and fly them all to safety. When it comes to the crunch he’s bottled it.’
‘But he can’t have left the airfield, can he?’
‘Not without getting himself ripped apart or letting a couple of thousand bodies in here he can’t.’
‘So what happens if they can’t get him to fly the plane?’
Clare asked. It was a sensible and obvious question.
‘Then we’ll have to try and get to the island by helicopter I suppose. Lawrence will end up making loads more flights and we’ll be limited on the amount of stuff we can take over with us. We’ll still get there, it’ll just take a lot longer and be more complicated, that’s all.’
‘But what happens if we can’t get…?’ she began.
‘We’ll get there,’ Donna assured her, her voice ominously lacking in conviction.
