walking. He turned round and was about to begin retracing his steps back along the wall when he happened to glance down into the dark streets hundreds of feet below. In silent disbelief he watched the bizarre sight of a fairly ordinary looking bus ploughing through the rotting crowds, sending whole and dismembered bodies flying in all directions and hurtling at speed towards the hotel. He waited for a fraction of a second ? just long enough to convince himself that what he was seeing was real ? before sprinting out of the suite and down the hallway to the staircase.
`Next left,' Paul Jones instructed. He'd moved to the front of the bus and was now standing next to the driver's cab, doing his best to guide Wilcox through the mayhem and towards the light. `No, sorry, not this one. Take the next one.'
Wilcox grunted and pulled the steering wheel back round to his right. Uneasy, Jones glanced down and across at the various dials in front of the driver. The bus was travelling at a furious speed along the debris-strewn streets and its passengers were being buffeted from side to side. The breakneck journey was so unsteady and turbulent that even Doreen Phillips had become uncharacteristically quiet and subdued.
`Can you see where it's coming from?' Wilcox asked, glancing up for a second to try and catch sight of the light again.
`Not sure,' Jones admitted. `It's bloody high up though.'
Wilcox braced himself as he forced the bus up and over a mound of rubble and mangled metal at the side of the road. The passengers behind him ? not expecting the sudden jolt ? were thrown up in their seats as the huge machine clattered up and then back down onto the road.
`Take it easy,' protested Hamilton.
`Next left,' Jones said for the second time, his voice now a little more definite than before.
`You sure?' `Positive,' he snapped, annoyed that he was being doubted. `I can see it. We're almost directly under the light now.'
Wilcox slammed on his brakes and swung the bus around to the left. The second street was as difficult to navigate as the first. Huge crowds of lumbering, rotting bodies turned and dragged themselves towards the approaching vehicle. Wilcox increased his already precarious speed, knowing that the quicker they were moving, the more chance they had of continuing to make progress through the rancid crowds. Countless corpses were obliterated by the flat-faced front of the heavy vehicle. They smashed into the bonnet with a relentless bang, bang, bang which sounded like rain clattering down onto a flat tin roof.
`How far now?' he asked breathlessly.
Jones crouched down low and looked up to his right.
`Almost there.'
Proctor got up from his seat and scurried towards the two men at the front of the bus, holding onto the passenger rails and supports and struggling to keep his balance as the vehicle tipped from side to side.
`It's a hotel,' he said, panting with excitement and nerves. `There's a sign on the side of the building.'
Wilcox nodded.
`So where do I go?' he asked, peering hopelessly into the relentless gloom.
`There must be a car park or something?' Proctor suggested. `Maybe it's around the back...?'
`Fancy walking out in the open carrying all our stuff, do you?' Jones immediately snapped. `Forget that, it's too dangerous. We need to get as close to the main entrance as we can. We need to minimise the distance we have to cover on foot.'
`How am I supposed to do that?' grumbled Wilcox. `I can't see a fucking thing.'
`Here it is,' Jones interrupted. `Sharp right now!'
With no time to properly consider his actions Wilcox turned the bus as instructed. The dark silhouette of the hotel loomed large in front of him.
`Where?' he screamed, desperate for some help and guidance.
`Just keep moving,' Jones yelled back. `Keep going forward until...'
He didn't have chance to finish his sentence. The low light and the constant criss-crossing movement of hundreds of bodies made the distance between the bus and the front of the hotel impossible to accurately gauge. Tired and terrified, Wilcox jammed his foot down on the accelerator and sent the bus crashing through the front of the building. Their velocity was such that the bus continued to move until the twisted metal and rubble trapped under its wheels eventually acted as a brake. Eighty percent inside the building with only the last twenty percent of its rear end sticking out into the cold night, the bus came to a sudden, juddering halt in the middle of the hotel's wide and imposing marble-floored reception, its front wheel wedged hopelessly in an ornate and long-since dried up decorative fountain. No-one moved.
`My back...' Doreen eventually wailed from somewhere on the floor under a pile of carrier bags full of clothes and other belongings.
`Is everyone all right?' Proctor asked. No-one answered. `Is anyone all right?' he asked again, slightly revising his original question.
Paul Jones shook his head and dragged himself back up onto his feet. He looked across at Wilcox who was trying to stem the flow of blood from a gash just above his right eye.
`Nice driving,' he sneered.
`Fuck off,' Wilcox spat.
`Shit,' Elizabeth cursed from somewhere in the darkness behind them. `Get out of here. We've got to get out of here.'
The sudden fear and desperation in her voice was clear for all to hear. Without pausing for explanation the six survivors picked themselves up, grabbed as many of their belongings as they could carry, and moved towards the door at the front of the bus which Jones had already forced open. He glanced down the side of the long vehicle and immediately saw what Elizabeth had seen. A large part of the hotel entrance had collapsed. Although still partially blocked by the bus, there was now a huge, gaping hole in the side of the hotel where the main doors had once been. Hundreds of bodies were already swarming into the building from outside.
`Over here,' an unexpected voice yelled. Barry Bushell stood at the bottom of the main hotel staircase at the other end of the vast, dust-filled and rubble-strewn lobby. He gestured for the survivors to follow him. The light inside the building was minimal and they struggled to make him out at first. Wilcox was the first to see him. He ran across the room, closely followed by Doreen, Elizabeth and Jones.
`Come on, Ted,' Proctor pleaded. `Leave your stuff, we have to move.'
Hamilton was busy collecting his belongings and supplies. Loaded up with bags and boxes he tripped and stumbled down from the bus after the others.
`Keep going,' he gasped, already out of breath. `I'll catch you up.'
Proctor looked back at the other man who was clearly struggling.
`Just leave that stuff,' he shouted. `We don't need it.'
`I need it,' Hamilton groaned.
`They're coming!'
Come on you idiot, thought Proctor. Drop the bags, drop your boxes and get your backside over here. Hamilton was oblivious to the swarm of bodies that were now dangerously close behind him. They moved like a thick, heavy liquid slowly seeping across the floor of the hotel reception. Already the bus had been swallowed up and surrounded, overcome in the same way that scavenging insects might cover and devour a dead animal. Proctor looked around to see that the rest of the survivors had all but disappeared. Just Elizabeth remained, standing at the bottom of the staircase.
`Move you fucking idiot!' screamed Proctor. Hamilton tried to speed up but, if anything, he was slowing down. He was desperately unfit and scared. He glanced back over his shoulder and, seeing how close the nearest bodies now were, he tried unsuccessfully to increase his speed again. He couldn't do it. He couldn't make his tired legs move any quicker. It was hopeless.
`Move!' Proctor screamed again as he nervously backed away and moved towards Elizabeth.
Whereas most people would have dug deep and done everything possible to cover the remaining difference between themselves and safety, Hamilton did not. He was already exhausted and the staircase ahead of him seemed to stretch up into the darkness forever. He'd never make it. An eternal pessimist, subconsciously he had
