sniffing round the buildings because there’s nothing else here, is there? Hopefully the fire will keep them occupied and distracted for a while.’
‘You think so?’ Armitage challenged.
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘It might.’
‘Assuming it doesn’t, how long before they manage to get inside?’
‘I don’t know if they will. We blocked the door downstairs. They probably haven’t got the strength to get past it.’
‘We didn’t think they’d have the strength to pull the bloody fence down but they managed that, didn’t they?’
Cooper didn’t answer, knowing that Armitage was right and sensing that the conversation was becoming increasingly pointless and predictable.
‘Did you block all the doors and windows downstairs?’
Juliet Appleby asked from across the room. She had her face pressed against another smaller window and was trying to look straight down the side of the building.
Cooper shook his head.
‘Just the main entrance, why?’
‘Because whether they’re going to manage it or not, it looks like they’re trying to get inside.’
‘What’s happening?’ Emma asked anxiously as she ran over to stand next to Juliet.
‘I can see a couple of groups of them.’
‘What are they doing?’
‘Nothing much, just pressing up against the door I think.
It’s difficult to see much from up here.’
Emma sighed and held her head in her hands.
‘They’re going to get in, aren’t they?’ she whispered.
‘Probably,’ Cooper admitted.
‘But you just said…’ Armitage protested.
‘I said I’d blocked the door and it wasn’t going to be easy for them, but there are thousands of those damn things out there, and a thousand bodies pushing against pretty much any door will open it, won’t it?’
‘Yes, but…’
‘I’m not saying they’ll manage it today or tomorrow,’ he continued, ‘but they’re likely to get inside eventually.’
Cooper’s use of the word ‘tomorrow’ made Emma’s heart sink. It brought home to her the reality of their situation, and that reality was that they all had very little chance of seeing many more tomorrows, if any. As far as she could see there was no way out of this place.
‘Christ, this is fucking stupid,’ snapped Armitage, becoming increasingly nervous and angry. ‘We can’t just sit here and wait for it to happen, can we?’
‘That’s just about all we can do, isn’t it?’ sighed Juliet.
‘We could make a run for it?’ he suggested. ‘Fight our way over to one of the trucks and try and get away?’
‘Where would we go?’ asked Cooper. Armitage couldn’t answer. The thought of another directionless drive through the decaying countryside was just marginally more appealing than sitting still and doing nothing. It was a last resort, but they all knew it may well turn out to be their only option.
Emma had made her way back over to the largest window and was now trying to keep hidden in the shadows whilst watching everything that was happening outside.
The ground was now completely carpeted in a constantly shifting layer of dead flesh - she couldn’t see any grass, pavement or runway. The office building was almost completely ablaze and she knew that there was now no-one left alive inside. Elsewhere the bodies were tightly packed around the other buildings and seemed to be pushing ever closer. Burning bodies still dragged themselves around hopelessly and a thick, smog-like layer of smoke had settled across the scene. The wind was light and directionless and the smoke showed no sign of dispersing.
‘What’s the roof of this building like?’ she asked suddenly.
‘What?’ Cooper grunted.
‘The roof of this building,’ she repeated, ‘is it flat?’
‘Not sure. You can’t really tell from the ground. Why, what are you thinking?’
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘I’m thinking that if we are going to get out of here, then we need to do a couple of things. First, we need to be somewhere obvious so that Lawrence can see us when he comes back…’
‘If he comes back,’ Armitage mumbled.
‘When he comes back,’ Cooper corrected him. ‘Whether he can do anything for us or not, I’m sure he’ll be back.’
‘Whatever.’
‘I’m sure he’ll be back because any one of us would do the same if we were in his shoes, wouldn’t we? You couldn’t just sit there on the island knowing that there still might be people left alive and trapped over here, could you?’
No answer.
‘Anyway,’ Emma continued, ‘as well as being visible, we need to make sure that we end up somewhere the bodies definitely can’t get to.’
‘Like?’
‘Like a flat roof,’ she replied.
‘I think the roof here is sloped,’ Juliet said, still standing at the window but now looking up instead of down.
Cooper shuffled round so that he had a better view of the rest of the airfield and, more importantly, the few remaining buildings nearby.
‘Not sure about this one, but that one over there’s a possibility,’ he said quietly, nodding in the general direction of small utility building nestled in the shadows of the hangar where the plane had previously been housed.
‘Just a couple of problems as far as I can see,’ Armitage grumbled from close behind. ‘Getting to it and getting on top of it. Any bright ideas?’
‘How desperate are you feeling?’ Cooper asked.
‘Fucking desperate,’ Armitage replied.
‘Me too, so we’ll just have to find a way of getting up there, won’t we? I don’t see that we’ve got any choice.’
‘How then?’
‘Try the usual tricks,’ he answered, ‘because they’ve worked so far. We’ll distract the bodies and make a run for it.’
‘Shouldn’t the fire be distracting them already?’ Emma suggested. She was right. Many bodies were continuing to crowd around the base of the observation tower and were ignoring the slowly spreading heat and light of the flames.
‘She’s right. And anyway, that building is at least twenty feet high,’ Armitage sighed. ‘What are we going to do?
Jump up for Christ’s sake? Stand on each other’s shoulders?’
‘We’ll find a way up.’
‘Forget about the buildings,’ Emma suggested, her mind suddenly racing. ‘Using the trucks was a better idea. We could do that, couldn’t we? Once they see us on top of one of the buildings we’ll have the whole bloody lot of them snapping at our feet. At least with the trucks we’ll be able to keep moving…’
‘But the trucks are even further away,’ whimpered Juliet.
‘The prison truck’s only on the other side of the runway,’ Cooper said. ‘Can’t see the personnel carrier from here.’
