It was an easy, and unanimous, decision to avoid the city centre and go the long way round, heading east for a few miles to join the A46 bypass. But even that route was already choked with traffic, as a multitude of vehicles tried to flee the chaos.
They had their first direct encounter with the infection, where the main route out of the west side of the city joined the bypass. By then, they were virtually stationary, inching their way towards the well-lit roundabout about 100 metres ahead. A car had mounted the island and was stranded in its centre. All its doors were open. A woman stood by the passenger door with a toddler in her arms. The toddler was screaming.
A man was standing on the driver's side. There was something off about him. His movements were jerky, and his head was held at an odd angle. He was reaching over the car towards the woman and child. The woman seemed to be talking to him.
The man started moved awkwardly around the side of the car towards the woman and child. She backed away a few steps. For a moment, Neil thought she was going to run, but then she hesitated, seemingly pleading with him again.
He got closer.
The child's screaming intensified.
He was touching distance away from them.
The woman was screaming now too.
Run! Neil thought. Run!
Then, the man launched at them, knocking the woman to the ground. The toddler fell from her arms.
Neil opened his door and got out of the van.
"Neil! No! Get back in!" Rob shouted.
But Neil was already running,
An elderly man from a car ahead reached them first. He tried to pull the younger man off the woman, punching and kicking him. But the woman's body was already limp. The man was tearing at her throat with his teeth, shaking her like a rag doll. Dark blood glistened on the ground in the orange glow of the streetlamps.
The infected man released the woman and turned on the elderly man. The toddler was still screaming. Neil headed straight for the child. He was almost there when the woman began to move again. She rolled inelegantly onto her front and pushed herself onto all fours. Neil froze. It wasn't possible. Her neck was in tatters. She was drenched in her own blood. She began to crawl towards the child.
"NEIL! GET BACK IN THE VAN! YOU CAN'T SAVE THEM! THEY'RE INFECTED!"
He turned to see the van beside him. Rob was driving. He had mounted the grass verge. The side door was open and Craig was shouting at him from within. Ian, the fourth occupant of the van, was staring past Neil to his right. The expression of abject horror on his face made Neil turn to follow his gaze.
Another group of people were walking towards him. They were all moving in the same jerky way as the man on the island. Many were sporting hideous injuries, their clothes soaked in blood. They were reaching towards him, snarling and moaning.
He didn't hesitate. He leapt towards the open door of the van. Craig pulled him in and slammed it shut. Rob put his foot down.
For the rest of the journey, Neil couldn't get his last image of the toddler out of his head. Standing there, screaming, as his savaged, infected mother crawled towards him. It was an image that would stay with him for a very long time. Wracked with guilt, he felt sick to his stomach when he thought about what happened next.
He was quiet for the next few hours, as Rob drove on. They were all quiet.
They didn't stop again, no matter what they saw. They just tried to focus on getting home - getting back to their partners, their parents and their children. They passed many more tragic and horrific scenarios playing out all around them, and many more burning vehicles and buildings, and roaming groups of infected. They negotiated road closures, traffic jams and diversions until it all became an endless blur.
Neil tried to stay positive. He hadn't been able to reach Lisa but that didn't necessarily mean anything. If she had been on the train, she might not have had a signal. She might have been asleep. He knew she'd had a late night the night before.
Now that the lines were jammed, there was nothing he could do. He just had to get home. If she was ok, she'd be heading there too. That's what they'd always agreed. What she'd made him agree to, after they were separated on September 11th.
At the time, she'd been obsessed by the fact that they'd been apart that day and that they didn't have a plan. She'd gone on and on about what they would have done if things had developed and they'd been unable to contact each other.
What would they have done? How would they have found each other? Where would they have gone? If he was honest, he'd thought she was overreacting, but because he loved her, he'd humoured her and had agreed to 'The Plan'.
The truth was, he just loved listening to her when she was like that. He loved watching her brain work as she analysed all their options and worked out their best strategy.
At some point during the night, the news reports ceased and were replaced with standard emergency broadcast messages, advising everyone to stay in their homes and make them secure, or get to a place of safety and stay there. To a man, they agreed to ignore the advice and keep moving.
They eventually stopped on a quiet country lane on the outskirts of Tamworth, where they parted company with the other two vans. The guys in these vans lived in or around the Coventry area
