the silence had been broken, however, he finally felt brave enough to call out.
`Hello,' he said, his wavering voice at little more than normal speaking volume.
Nothing.
`Hello, can anyone hear me?'
Nothing.
`Hello.'
Nothing.
Cox took a few more hesitant steps forward (avoiding the crumpled remains of a foul-smelling, rain-soaked corpse) and then turned back on himself to look across the landscape of Taychester. He'd lived there all his life but had never seen it like this. Tonight it was an alien and cold place. It was so dark. Not a single pinprick of electric light interrupted the steadily increasing darkness. No street lights. No light coming from inside any of the hundreds of buildings he could see. Suddenly feeling cold, alone and afraid the counsellor turned and walked back down to where he'd left his car on Tuesday morning.
He paused for a moment longer before setting off. Perhaps he should go back into the chambers and up to his office and see if there was anyone else around. Had any of his colleagues survived? He couldn't risk it. He couldn't afford to get wrapped up in any council business when he had so many issues and uncertainties in his own life to sort out. That was his excuse and he was sticking to it. He climbed into his car, keen to get away quickly.
The sound of the engine was uncomfortably loud but Cox felt protected and safe behind the wheel. He pulled out of the car park and began to drive home. He clipped the hip of a random body which lurched into his path from out of nowhere as he turned left onto the main expressway. He slammed on his brakes and reversed back to help the bedraggled figure. He watched in petrified disbelief as the corpse silently picked itself up off the ground and limped away.
Used to only having to think about himself and Marcia, Cox drove home quickly, forcing himself to block out and ignore the hundreds of bodies, the countless wrecks of crashed cars and the unprecedented destruction and devastation which lined his entire route home. The house was just as he'd left it first thing on Tuesday.
Cox stopped the car on the drive and walked towards the front door. He paused before going inside. He needed to compose himself before he faced whatever he might find in there. Turning around he stared at the quiet cul-de-sac where he and Marcia had lived for almost ten years. It looked pretty much the same as it always had done, and yet everything felt uncomfortably different. This Wednesday evening had the still and silent air of an early Sunday morning. No-one was about. Nothing moved. Nothing, that was, apart from the remains of Malcolm Worsley (who had lived opposite). Worsley's corpse was trapped in its front garden, hemmed in by the ornate shrubs and privet hedges he'd so lovingly tended for years.
Cox turned back to face the front door and put his key in the lock. He stopped and took a deep, calming breath before opening the door and going in. Inside the house was as quiet as everywhere else.
`Marcia,' he called hopefully, `Marcia, are you here?'
She should have been there. She hadn't said that she'd planned going out anywhere on Tuesday morning. He walked further down the hall. He instinctively started to take off his coat but then stopped and quickly pulled it back on. It was almost as cold inside the house as it was out on the street.
`Marcia?' he called again.
He peered through the doors into the living room, dining room and kitchen. All empty. They all looked just the same as he'd left them. He then began to climb the stairs, knowing that his wife would most probably still have been in bed when it had happened. Christ, he hoped she was all right. But she would have answered him when he'd called, wouldn't she? Cox prepared himself for the worst as he neared the landing. Through the gaps between the wooden banister posts he could see into their bedroom. Their duvet lay in a heap on the carpet at the side of the bed. He climbed the last few steps two at a time and burst breathlessly into the room but she wasn't there. The bed was empty.
The carpet on the landing was wet. Water had seeped out from under the bathroom door and had spread along virtually the entire length of the landing. It was obvious now where Marcia was. Cox walked up to the bathroom, his feet squelching beneath him, and knocked on the door.
`Marcia? Marcia, it's me, love. I'm home...'
He tried the handle. It was locked. He pushed and shoved at the door to little effect before taking five or six splashing, sliding steps back down the landing and then running back and trying to shoulder-charge his way into the bathroom. The lock was weak and gave way almost instantly with Cox's considerable weight pushing against it. Marcia had been moaning at him for months to get someone in to change it. He pushed the door fully open (sending a low wave of water rippling back across the bathroom floor) and there, in front of him, stood what remained of his wife. Completely naked and completely oblivious to its surroundings it walked blindly towards the dumbstruck Cox and collided with him. He grabbed hold of his dead wife's arms and held her tightly. Her eyes were dark and vacant and she felt cold to the touch. He pulled her close to him but then pushed her away again. He pressed himself back against the wall and watched in heartbroken silence as she lurched past, staggered the length of the landing and then crashed into the door of the spare bedroom.
Cox shut Marcia in the living room and then went around the house and locked and bolted every ground floor door and window. Wednesday night turned into Thursday morning as he busied himself around his home. The flood in the bathroom (Marcia had been running a bath when it happened) had caused massive damage both upstairs and down in the kitchen below. The cold water made the house smell of must and decay, or perhaps that was just the smell of his wife? Cox wasn't sure. At least she'd left him with a bath full of water. That might prove to be useful.
Very occasionally, and only for the briefest of moments each time, Cox allowed himself to think about what had happened. What could have caused the deaths of hundreds, maybe thousands of people and why had some of them dragged themselves back up onto their dead feet again? Why hadn't it happened to him? Why had he been spared and why were there no other survivors? Why hadn't anyone come to help yet? Surely this couldn't have happened everywhere, could it?
Despite his vocation, thinking about other people was most definitely not something that came naturally to Cox. Soon enough, he had come to the conclusion that the most sensible course of action for him to take would be to just continue to concentrate on his own safety and wellbeing and sit tight and wait. Despite the fact that the gas, electricity and water supplies were all off, his house was still relatively comfortable and, as far as he could be sure, safe. There was a shop round the corner from where he could get food and drink supplies. It made sense to stay at home. What use would he be to anyone else, anyway? One man to help hundreds, possibly even thousands? It would be far more sensible for him to concentrate on looking after himself. That was, after all, what he was best at.
A strange sense of normality gradually overcame Cox. Apart from making one hurried trip to the shop around the corner to fetch food early on Friday morning he remained locked in his home from daylight until dusk. He checked on Marcia a couple of times but there had been no obvious change in her condition. He dressed her and moved her to the garage to limit the damage that her endless and pointless staggering around was causing in the living room. He didn't get annoyed. She couldn't help it. Somehow the noise and inconvenience his wife's corpse caused was more bearable than the constant banging and clattering of the body he'd left behind in the bunker.
With little else to do to occupy his time Cox tried to make good the water damage to his home. It was difficult to do much without any power but he was glad the electricity supply was off. It was safer that way. The light fitting in the kitchen was full of water which had dripped through the ceiling from the overflowing bath. He'd drained as much of it off as he could. By the time the water supply came back on, he decided, it would probably have dried out. He'd have to get someone to come out and look at the damage later. No doubt they'd charge him a fortune...
On Friday evening Cox sat at his desk in an alcove at the side of the dining room towards the front of the house. He read books by candlelight until his eyes began to droop and close. It was good to be occupied and distracted. It was a relief to have something positive to think about and do for a while. He was finding it increasingly difficult to deal with the relentless silence of the dead world around him. After a good hour of searching he found a battery powered cassette player upstairs and used it to play a tape of loud classical music to drown out the quiet.
At a quarter to two on Saturday morning, Malcolm Worsley's corpse (his dead neighbour from over the road) escaped from its garden, staggered over to Cox's house and slammed against the window next to where he was
