‘You’ve got a point though,’ Baxter agreed, now completely serious, ‘You would have expected all of them to head for the personnel carrier and the soldiers in the field. But how could those things be getting smarter when they’re rotting away?’
Several members of the group of survivors instinctively looked towards Phil Croft for an answer to their obviously unanswerable question. The fact that everyone seemed to still assume that he knew more than they did because he was medically trained never ceased to infuriate and frustrate him.
‘How the hell am I supposed to know?’ he snapped.
‘Bloody hell, I’m getting sick of this. I keep telling you, I know as much as you do.’ Annoyed and tired, Croft swung himself around in his seat and pushed open the motorhome door with his feet. ‘Mind if I smoke?’ he asked.
‘Carry on,’ Michael said quietly.
‘How many you down to now, Phil?’ Baxter wondered.
‘One and a half boxes,’ he replied as he lit the remains of an already half-smoked cigarette and inhaled slowly. ‘I tell you, I’m going to go out of my bloody mind if I can’t get more cigarettes.’
‘How long do you reckon that lot will last you?’ asked Emma.
‘I’ve been limiting myself to smoking half of one each day, so I’ve probably got a couple of weeks left.’
‘What then?’
‘Not much choice really, is there?’ the doctor grumbled.
‘I can give up or I can go out and get some more!’
‘Where you going to go?’ laughed Baxter.
‘Not sure yet,’ Croft smirked. ‘Even if I could get out of here, I haven’t got a bloody clue where we are!’
‘You should try looking closer to home. Bet they’ve got fags and drink and everything in their stores here.’
Cooper shook his head.
‘You’d be surprised, Jack. This whole operation was thrown together in minutes. They’ve got less kit and supplies stashed away than you’d think.’
Across from Cooper Michael sat on the edge of the uncomfortable sofa which doubled up as the bed that he and Emma shared. Emma shuffled nearer to him. She was cold and wanted to be held. He wrapped his arms around her as she rested her weight against him. The other survivors looked away, each of them feeling suddenly awkward and almost embarrassed. Emma and Michael’s relative intimacy made them feel uncomfortable and unsure. Having each individually suffered so much pain and loss, the others found the idea of closeness and tenderness difficult and alien - an uneasy reminder of a world they had given up as gone forever. Having lost his long-term partner many months before the disaster, Baxter had long found dealing with this kind of emotion particularly hard.
‘I always wanted a van like this,’ he said suddenly, looking around and making a conscious effort to break the silence and start another conversation. ‘Me and Denise were planning on getting ourselves something like this when I retired. We were thinking about selling up and living on the road for a while.’
‘I wouldn’t recommend it,’ Michael grinned, ‘it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. We were living on the road for a couple of weeks before we found this place, weren’t we, Em? Didn’t enjoy it!’
Baxter smiled.
‘I’ve been thinking about it though,’ he rambled, looking out through the motorhome window and imagining he could see something other than grey concrete walls, ‘just think what it’ll be like when the bodies have gone. Just picture it, we’ll have the whole bloody country to ourselves. We’ll be able to go where we like, when we like.’
‘So where would you go?’ Croft asked him.
‘I think,’ he began, stretching in his seat and staring up thoughtfully at the low metal ceiling above his head, ‘I’ll try and travel right round the coast. I’m going to wait until summer, then I’ll start on the south coast and work my way west. I won’t plan a route, I’ll just keep going and one day I’ll end up back where I started.’
‘But you could have your pick of the biggest houses or whatever you wanted,’ Emma said. ‘You could sit on your backside and relax. You’d still want to travel and live rough?’
‘I’m getting used to living rough now,’ he smiled, ‘it’d be strange to be comfortable again. I like the idea of moving from town to town or village to village, taking whatever I need from wherever I can find it.’
‘Think you’ll ever do it?’ Donna asked.
Baxter looked deep down into his beaker of water and thought for a moment.
‘Don’t know. I hope so.’
‘Think it’s going to be as easy as you imagine?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘I never said it would be easy. Anyway, there’s no way of knowing, is there?’
‘I can’t start dreaming like you can, Jack,’ Donna admitted, ‘not yet, anyway. I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I think about the future, I still automatically try and picture things like they used to be before this happened, just empty of people and quiet. But it’s not going to be like that, is it?’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I can’t be anything but realistic. I know we can get by for a while, but I’m anticipating every day from now on being a struggle. The more time passes since everything was normal, the less there’s going to be for us to take out there. The last bits of food will rot. Buildings will start to crumble. Everything we used to know will gradually disappear.’
‘Fucking hell,’ Baxter groaned sarcastically, ‘here’s looking on the bright side, eh?’
‘Like I said, I’m just being realistic, that’s all,’ Donna mumbled, her voice tired and resigned.
‘Anyway,’ Croft interjected, ‘we’ve got to get out of here before you can start sightseeing, Jack.’
‘I know,’ he sighed. ‘Frustrating, isn’t it. We’re the one’s who can survive out there, and it’s the bloody army who’ll decide whether we can go outside or not.’
‘Think they’ll try and keep us down here, Cooper?’
Croft asked.
‘We need to stay here for a while,’ Emma said.
‘Unless us being here puts them at risk, I don’t think they’ll be in a hurry to get rid of us,’ Cooper answered.
‘Why?’
‘I still think we might be useful to them. I’m starting to think they might have plans.’
‘What’s the matter?’
Emma had woken up alone in bed. After a moment’s panic she had found Michael at the other end of the motorhome, sitting in the driver’s seat behind the wheel and staring out through the windscreen into the grey, shadowy gloom of the vast hanger. The clock on the dashboard said it was almost four in the morning.
When he heard her he looked up momentarily and then looked down again.
‘Nothing’s the matter,’ he replied. ‘I was just thinking, that’s all.’
‘What about?’
‘You know, the usual.’
‘What’s the usual?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘What do you think?’
Emma sat down on the edge of the passenger seat next to him, still unsure as to what he was alluding to. A series of thoughts flashed through her mind. Was he thinking about the other survivors and the conversation they’d had earlier? Was he thinking about the soldiers or what had happened when they’d ventured outside yesterday? Or was he thinking about something else entirely? Whatever it was, it was clearly something which was weighing heavy on his mind. He scowled with concentration. His voice was abrupt and cold.
‘Is it me?’ she found herself wondering. ‘Have I upset you or have I done something that’s…?’
He shook his head and then sighed and rubbed his tired eyes.
‘Why do you always assume it’s got anything to do with you?’ he asked. ‘What could you have done to upset me?
When we’ve got all this shit happening around us, why should it be anything you’ve done that’s keeping me awake?’
