‘What the hell are you doing in here?’ Phil Croft asked.
Smoking one of his last few precious cigarettes and walking slowly through the shadows between the empty airfield buildings, the limping doctor had stumbled across Keele sitting in the corner of a dark and musty waiting room. By chance he’d spotted him moving as he’d walked past a cobweb-covered window.
Keele didn’t answer at first. He kept still, hoping the doctor would get the message and disappear. Croft’s lack of movement made it obvious that he wasn’t planning on going anywhere.
‘I’m just trying to get some space,’ Keele eventually answered, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him.
‘Christ,’ Croft laughed, ‘the population of this country has been reduced from millions to probably less than a couple of hundred and you’re trying to get some space!
Bloody hell, mate, if you want space there’s plenty of it out there. You don’t need to hide away in here to be on your own.’
‘Just piss off, will you?’
‘Fine.’
Croft glanced out through the window and noticed Cooper and various other people moving from building to building. He quickly put two and two together and reached the obvious conclusion that they were looking for the man he’d just found. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that Keele had looked up and was now watching him anxiously.
‘So how long you planning to hide in here for?’ the doctor asked, still looking out of the window.
‘I’m not hiding, I just want to…’
‘Come on, they’re looking for you, aren’t they?’
Keele didn’t want to say anything. He forced himself to spit out an answer.
‘I’m not hiding,’ he mumbled again.
‘Yes you are,’ Croft insisted. ‘So I guess what I heard someone saying last night is true, you’re too scared to fly the plane.’
‘I’m not scared.’
‘Oh, right,’ he sneered. ‘So let me see if I understand what’s going on here. You’re sitting in the dark in the corner of this dusty shithole because you want some space, and you’re not hiding from the others, you’re just choosing not to let them know where you are, is that it?’
‘Piss off,’ Keele hissed again.
‘Keele,’ Croft continued, turning away from the window to face the man in the corner, ‘let me just tell you something, and I want to make sure you understand what I’m saying, okay? I’m a doctor and I’ve spent years looking after other people and making sure they get better when they’re sick. Things have changed now and if I’m completely honest, I’m not that bothered about anyone else anymore. I’m only really interested in myself and I tell you now, you’ll do whatever you have to do to get us out of here or I’ll break your fucking legs…’
‘You don’t…’ Keele began to protest.
‘You will fly the plane to the island because if you don’t I swear I will kill you,’ the doctor said in an unnervingly calm and emotionless voice. ‘I haven’t come this far to have my chances blown by some stupid, cowardly little fucker like you. Understand? Is that clear enough for you?’
Keele didn’t respond.
Croft turned and walked out of the building, slamming the door shut behind him. Still smoking his cigarette he began the slow and painful walk back to the observation tower. He passed Donna on the way.
‘Have you seen…?’ she began to ask.
‘He’s in there,’ he replied, pointing back towards the building he’d just left.
Richard Lawrence left Cormansey just after ten o’clock.
The nine survivors who remained on the island stood at the end of the runway and watched the helicopter until its bright lights disappeared and were swallowed up by the grey morning gloom. They hoped that it would return later in the day as planned, bringing with it the plane and at least another fifteen people. Michael hoped that Emma would be one of them.
During the long watch the previous evening and early morning he had managed to convince Stayt and Fry to listen seriously to his concerns about the changing condition of the bodies. So much remained unpredictable and uncertain on the island and it seemed sensible to take action sooner rather than later. Never one for diplomacy, Michael had expressed his opinions in blunt, direct and honest terms to the rest of the small group over breakfast and, apart from some initial nervous reluctance, they had been largely receptive. Stayt had pointed out the immediate practicalities of their situation, and that had proved to be the deciding factor. There were already too many of them to shelter comfortably in the single small cottage any longer and they were going to have to expand into other properties. It made sense to try and get a decent foothold in the village now rather than spend the next few days moving unnecessarily from building to building to building. Better to get the bodies cleared away now. It would make the survivor’s lives immeasurably easier.
Armed with sticks, axes, clubs and blades of varying descriptions, the small group travelled from the cottage towards the village of Danvers Lye in a convoy of two cars and the pickup truck. It seemed to make sense to use several vehicles. The truck would most probably be needed to help dispose of the piles of bodies which would inevitably be accumulated as the day progressed.
This was the first real opportunity since arriving that Michael, Talbot and Guest had had to see anything of the island. It was a bleak, barren and rocky place covered in patchy grass and bracken. The ocean was almost always in view on one side or the other and plumes of cold grey water seemed to constantly be shooting into the air as tall waves crashed against jagged rocks. Trees were few and far between and the wind howled across the weather-beaten landscape. A basic network of rudimentary roads connected the various buildings, most of which were small cottages and houses; some made of old grey stone, others more modern in appearance. There was a farm over on the southwest of the island and he’d seen a few abandoned fishing boats dotted along the shore, but other than that Michael struggled to think what the inhabitants of Cormansey might have done for a living. This land was harsh and unforgiving and life would surely have been difficult at the best of times. Perhaps it was their isolation and distance from the rest of the world that the people who had lived here had craved. Whatever the reason, he thought to himself, it hadn’t done any of them any good.
Despite still wholeheartedly believing in what they were setting out to do, Michael could not help but feel a little uncomfortable, vulnerable and nervous as the village came into view. He stared at the motley collection of unkempt buildings and realised that this was, remarkably, the first time he’d ever gone out actively looking for bodies to destroy in such numbers and it wasn’t a pleasant prospect.
Until now his time had been spent hiding from them or defending himself against them. Although he knew the corpses would probably offer very little in the way of serious resistance, the trepidation he felt was still substantial. And he wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
Some of the other faces around him appeared equally unsettled and unsure.
Michael travelled in the jeep at the front of the convoy with Brigid and Harper. He was hot. The entire group had dressed themselves in boots and gloves and either boiler suits or strong waterproofs taken from the empty homes of long-dead fishermen yesterday morning. The advanced decay of the bodies had now reached such a stage that their destruction, removal and disposal was inevitably going to become a bloody, greasy and gruesome affair. The rotting shells would be ripe with disease. No-one relished the thought of close physical contact with them.
‘Stop here,’ he said when they were just short of the turning onto the road which ran through the heart of Danvers Lye. ‘I think we’re better off leaving the vehicles here. We don’t want to go too far in there and find we’ve got ourselves cut off.’
Brigid stopped the jeep and turned off the engine. The other car pulled up behind her and the truck stopped alongside it. Quietly and nervously the survivors climbed out of their vehicles and regrouped in the middle of the road.
‘So what now? Do we just go marching in there?’
Harper asked. Michael shook his head.
‘No, I don’t think so. Maybe we should take it slow and try and clear the buildings one at a time?’
‘Sounds sensible…’
‘Look,’ Gayle Spencer whispered. She pointed further along the street in front of them, deeper into the
