Some were factual, giving details and descriptions of missing people, while others were emotional and desperate pleas for help to find loved ones. Most were from survivors, who, having made it to safety themselves, were seeking information about friends and family, but some were more altruistic, providing information about people they'd met on their journeys.
There were prayers and poems, prophecies and postulations. There were ribbons and faded flowers and photographs. Hundreds of images captured in happier times, of missing men and women and children of all ages, gazing out from the crowd of lost souls.
Lisa's mind flashed back to all the infected they'd seen, and those that they'd killed, over the past few days. Were any of them these people? A tear rolled down her cheek. She brushed it away and concentrated on searching for anything that might mention Neil. Had he met anyone heading for the safe zone? Had he given them a message for her?
Together they scanned the sea of messages for something of any significance. For almost an hour they looked. It was a harrowing task. The tragic and desperate words and images haunted them for days afterwards. Eventually, emotionally exhausted, they agreed that there was nothing of relevance. They'd covered the entire length of the barriers twice. Lisa's head was thumping again. She was desperate to lie down.
Anita took her to the large tent that they were sleeping in and showed her to her cot. They were arranged in four rows of ten, lined up nose to tail. The layout aimed to prevent strangers from having to sleep side by side, affording a scrap of privacy in the most public of circumstances.
Lisa slept for the rest of the afternoon and woke at six, her headache easier for the first time since she'd arrived. She got up and wandered over to the mess tent, thirsty and relieved to be finally feeling a bit better. Anita was sitting with the same group as before at the same table. Lisa joined them and, for the first time, started to listen to their stories.
Chapter 9 - Day 6 - Long Marston
The mood amongst the survivors was a strange mix of relief at having made it to a place of safety, and shock and distress about their experiences before they got there, heightened by an acute anxiety about the future. All had lost people to the infection. Some had been forced to commit unspeakable acts to survive. Most had no idea where their missing friends and family were. Husbands and wives had not returned from work that day; children had not come home from school. Many, like Lisa and Anita, had been away from home when it began and had not been able to return, nor contact their loved ones.
The teenage couple always sat away from the rest of the group at the far end of the table. Lee and Emma were from Solihull. They were studying in Stratford-on-Avon and had stayed on for a drink after lectures on the day of the outbreak. They had been in a bar down near the river when the first reports of the crisis began to filter through. They'd not taken much notice at first, but as the evening had gone on, and the bar slowly emptied around them, they had begun to realise how serious it was.
When the bar staff announced that they were closing early and advised them to go home, they decided to heed their advice. It was only then they discovered that none of the buses or trains were running, and that all the phone lines were jammed so they couldn't contact their parents. They were left with no choice but to wait it out until morning, and had spent the night huddled together on the bandstand in the middle of the riverside park opposite the town centre.
The next day, from their relatively safe vantage point, they watched the chaos that was ensuing across the river and were afraid to move. Terrified and confused, they had crouched on the bandstand for most of the morning. When a few infected eventually appeared on their side of the river, they chose to make a run for it, heading out of the town into the Warwickshire countryside. Unknowingly, they had headed straight towards Long Marston and were picked up by the military on Day 2 before the camp had even been properly established.
They had been there ever since. They hadn't found out anything about their friends or family from the army records, the message boards, nor any of the other survivors. (Lisa shuddered when she recalled the destruction they had seen in Solihull and was not surprised that the pair had heard nothing.) However, the young couple seemed oddly unconcerned, apparently content to simply be together, smooching and snuggling in their cosy corner of the mess tent. They had that enviable teenage ability to be completely absorbed in each other, and indifferent towards everything and everyone else around them.
The three women were friends from London, who had been in Oxford for an extended hen weekend. Two were married and had young families back at home with their partners. They had arrived in Oxford on the Thursday night and were due to leave on the Tuesday morning. Fortuitously for them all, the bride-to-be was marrying a senior civil servant, and he had contacted her as soon as he realised what was happening. He instructed them to lock themselves into their room at the Malmaison and stay there until he sent help. By the time they were successfully extracted by a bemused Special Forces team 24 hours later, they had consumed the entire contents of their mini-bars and in-room snacks, and used up all of the free toiletries.
The two married women had since discovered that their families were
