Purification (10 page)

Half an hour was sufficient time to enable the survivors to rid themselves of the last bodies and dispose of them in a heap outdoors. Pleased to finally be occupied for a while, many of the survivors then busied themselves around the building, collecting anything they thought might prove useful. The bodies outside had yet to materialise in the vast numbers the group had come to expect. When the hordes of corpses had failed to appear a handful of people had ventured out into the open for a few risk-filled minutes and gathered all the edible food and drink they could find from the kitchen of the restaurant next door and the concessions stand in the foyer of the cinema opposite. Mostly sweets, chocolate and tinned goods, it was better than nothing. By the time the men and women who had gone outside were safely back in the warehouse there were around twenty bodies gathered around the front of the building and half as many again clattering against the fence surrounding the loading bay, nothing like the massive numbers they were used to.

‘They’re not a problem when there’s only a few of them,’ Cooper explained, trying to educate Stonehouse.

‘Problem is that one of them will inevitably attract another and so on and so on until you’ve got hundreds to deal with.

And there are thousands upon thousands of the fuckers out there.’

Stonehouse sat opposite Cooper, slumped dejectedly in a chair in the area of the store where customers would previously have sat with staff and applied for credit. Baxter sat alongside them. Donna, Emma and Michael were also nearby, as were several other survivors. A short distance away the three other soldiers sat in silence on a pile of large cushions and garishly coloured beanbags which looked like they had originally been designed for use in children’s bedrooms.

‘So what happens next?’ Stonehouse asked. Baxter looked at him with sadness and pity, trying to imagine how the soldier must have been feeling, trapped in his uncomfortable protective suit, knowing that to take it off would almost certainly result in a quick, painful and instant death. He imagined that he himself might have been able to handle it for a few hours, maybe even a couple of days, but the four soldiers now travelling with them would have to exist like this indefinitely. He didn’t know how they’d be able to eat, drink or do anything else. Surely it would only be a matter of time before they had no option but to take off their suits. It was inevitable. Christ, whether they realised it or not (and he was pretty sure they did), they were just waiting to die.

‘I don’t know,’ Cooper replied, answering the soldier’s question. ‘We need to stop here for as long as it’s safe. We need to know exactly who and what we’ve got here. There are a lot of people here who need to…’

‘Then what?’ the soldier pressed, interrupting. He wasn’t interested in hearing about the state of mind of any of the survivors. Cooper shrugged his shoulders.

‘We move on I suppose.’

‘Where

to?’

‘How the hell am I supposed to know?’ he sighed.

‘Bloody hell, I don’t know.’

‘Problem is,’ Baxter said quietly, ‘nowhere’s safe anymore. Christ, you lot with your bloody guns and your tanks and everything else couldn’t look after yourselves, could you? What hope do you think we’ve got?’

Cooper looked up at him and slowly shook his head.

‘Come on, we’ve talked about this a hundred bloody times already, Jack,’ he said before turning back to face the soldier again. ‘The bodies are rotting. Although they’re more controlled than they were before, the fact is they’re still decaying.’ He turned to face Stonehouse again. ‘We reckon it’s not going to be too long before they reach the point when they’re not able to function.’

‘And how long do you think that’s going to be?’

‘Just a few more months now.’

‘A few more months? Fucking hell, are we supposed to sit here like this for a few months?’

‘You might have to. Could you last that long?’

‘I

doubt

it.’

‘So what are you going to do about it?’

The soldier thought for a moment.

‘Doesn’t look like we’ve got any option but to try and get back to the base,’ he replied, his voice tired and slow.

‘Whatever happens we’re dead if we stop out here. Might as well try and get back inside if we can.’

‘You’ve got nothing to lose,’ Baxter said.

‘Seems to me we’ve lost everything already,’ the soldier snapped.

10

By Clare’s watch it was a quarter to three.

The warehouse was silent and cold. She lay restless on the floor on a thin mattress next to Donna. Together they’d dragged it over from the furniture department hours earlier.

Despite being physically exhausted she couldn’t relax enough to be able to sleep. Looking around in the low light it was obvious that she wasn’t the only one struggling to get any rest. Perhaps as many as half of the others were awake too. Clare needed to get some sleep but she couldn’t.

She felt increasingly anxious and uncomfortable. Her guts were twisting with pain. Maybe it was just nerves? Perhaps it was the overdose of sugar she’d taken when she’d eaten earlier. Whatever the reason, the very thought of food now made her want to vomit. She’d had diarrhoea an hour or so ago. Christ it had been humiliating. She’d sat on a dried-out toilet pain in the furthest corner of the building and had cried with the discomfort and degradation of the experience. She was sure that everyone had been able to hear her. Even now after living rough for almost six weeks and going without even the most basic of human necessities, sometimes it was still too much for her. She was a teenage girl and, despite what had happened to the rest of the world, her body had continued to develop as it would normally have been expected to. She’d started her first period a week and a half ago. Donna had helped her and had reassured her as much as she could but it hadn’t been easy - it was obvious that she was struggling too.

Everyone was struggling.

Clare lay on her back and looked up at the ceiling, studying the many metal girders which supported the roof and wishing that the huge lights hanging high above her would work. She’d be prepared to risk attracting the attention of the bodies outside if she could just turn on the lights and see clearly for a while. She wanted a little light and certainty. The darkness and shadow unnerved her. She hated it even when she was in relatively familiar surroundings, but this place was cold and unknown. She hated the darkness more than ever tonight.

Her eyes were becoming heavy but still she couldn’t sleep. Clare desperately needed to relax and start building up her energy reserves. She knew that as soon as day broke they’d most probably be up and out again and she didn’t know when they’d next be able to stop. She didn’t know if she’d have enough strength to be able to make it through tomorrow. She found it incredibly difficult to keep going when they didn’t know where or what they were going to.

She just hoped that tomorrow would be relatively easy and painless and…

She could hear something.

She lifted herself up onto her elbows and listened intently. There it was in the distance - a faint, mechanical sound. The world was so still that the unexpected noise seemed directionless and vague and she wondered at first whether she was just imagining it. Was it just a cruel trick her tired mind was playing on itself? The sound became fractionally louder, and she made the logical assumption that it must have been more soldiers from the base. Perhaps a few more of them had managed to get to their vehicles and get away from the bunker. Maybe they were looking for the survivors? Maybe they’d just come this way by chance? Whatever the source of the noise, it was still faint and it seemed for a while to wash in and out of range. It could have been a mile away or ten. Clare had no way of knowing where it was coming from and she was too afraid to risk getting up and going to the window and looking for it. She didn’t want to be seen by any of the things outside.

It was getting louder.

She wasn’t the only one who had heard it. She noticed that another couple of people (she couldn’t see who) were now sitting up and listening. She leant across and shook Donna’s shoulder.

‘What?’ Donna grumbled lethargically before suddenly remembering where she was and jumping up, worried that something was wrong or that something had happened.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Listen,’ Clare whispered.

The noise was definitely moving closer now. It sounded like an engine of sorts, but not the engine of a car, truck or lorry. It continued to steadily increase in volume and, as it got louder, it began to change and to gradually become clear. A relentless mechanical chop, chop, chop could now be heard above the general din. Those survivors who were awake knew what it was they could hear, but they refused to believe it. Louder and louder now until the building felt like it was beginning to shake and the air was filled with the deafening sound. Michael got up and ran to the front of the warehouse, desperate to see what was making the noise and also concerned that it would attract many more unwanted bodies to the scene. All of his worries were forgotten instantly when, from out of nowhere, a brilliant shaft of bright white light suddenly swooped along the length of the industrial estate and then stopped. It took a few seconds for the reality of the situation to sink in. The reality was that there was a helicopter hovering over the warehouse, lighting up the place with a powerful searchlight.

‘Is this one of yours?’ Baxter asked Stonehouse as they both stood up. Behind them Cooper grabbed the nearest soldier’s weapon and pushed his way over to the door through which they’d originally entered the building.

‘Nothing to do with us,’ the equally bemused Stonehouse replied as he and Baxter both followed Cooper out into the loading bay. They shielded their eyes from the burning light and whipping wind and ran for cover behind the prison truck as the pilot of the helicopter skilfully and carefully lowered the machine and set it down in the space between the soldier’s and survivor’s three vehicles. Cooper watched every metre of its rapid descent.

The very moment the helicopter was down the pilot cut its engine and extinguished all lights. The swirling rotor blades began to slow and the ground-shaking mechanical noise began to fade, leaving the all too familiar sound of bodies clattering against the wire mesh fence to become clear again. Baxter stood up to move but Cooper grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him back down.

‘Wait,’ he hissed, ‘take it easy. We don’t know who the hell this is.’

The doors on either side of the helicopter opened.

Cooper watched with caution and a degree of unquestionable excitement as two people jumped down onto the tarmac. It was difficult to clearly see what was happening in the gloom of early morning. What appeared to be a well-built man and a smaller, more rotund woman stood together in front of the aircraft and scoured the scene for signs of life.

‘Hello,’ the man called out. ‘Anyone there?’

His calls provoked a sudden and intense reaction from the crowd of corpses on the other side of the fence but nothing else. After a few seconds spent silently weighing up the options, Cooper slowly stood up and stepped out of the shadows. He held the soldier’s rifle tightly in his hands, making sure it was visible, but kept the barrel very obviously pointed down towards the ground.

‘Over here,’ he answered. The two figures turned and, after a moment’s hesitation, began to walk towards him.

‘Where the bloody hell did you come from?’ he demanded, relieved that these people looked relatively normal.

‘Just outside Bigginford,’ the man replied factually. ‘I’m Richard Lawrence. This is Karen Chase.’

‘Everything all right, Cooper?’ Michael asked, suddenly appearing at his side, flanked by another two survivors and a soldier. A further crowd of people were stood in the doorway, watching intently.

‘Think so,’ Cooper mumbled in reply. He moved a little closer to Lawrence and Chase. ‘How did you find us?

We’ve only been here for a few hours.’

‘Pretty easy in that thing,’ Lawrence answered, nodding back towards the helicopter. He brushed his long and windswept grey hair out of his face so that he could clearly see Cooper. ‘We saw the crowds a few miles back and we knew that something was happening round here,’ he continued, referring to the battle at the bunker, ‘so we’ve been on the lookout for anyone trying to get away. And you lot stick out like a sore thumb.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve been flying helicopters for years now,’ he explained, ‘and it gets easy to spot things that are out of the ordinary, even today when pretty much everything’s screwed up. You don’t often get vehicles like the ones you’ve got parked around the back of places like this.’

He had a point, Cooper silently admitted to himself. The prison truck, motorhome and military vehicle did look conspicuously out of place tucked away in the shadows of the warehouse.

‘How many people you got here?’ Chase asked.

‘Don’t know exactly,’ Cooper replied. ‘Between thirty and forty I think…’

‘Look, can we finish this inside?’ Michael interrupted.

He was, as always, acutely aware of the effect their prolonged appearance outside was having on the mass of bodies nearby. Cooper nodded and stood to one side to allow the new arrivals to walk past him and follow Michael into the dark building.

By the time they reached the main area where the survivors had grouped themselves just about everyone was up and awake and aware of what had happened. Nervous and subdued conversations were quickly silenced as the unfamiliar figures entered the warehouse. The centre of attention, Lawrence and Chase found themselves standing in the middle of the group feeling awkward and exposed, nodding acknowledgments to the few faces they were able to make out in the half light. Chase tugged Lawrence’s arm and pulled him over to the edge of the impromptu gathering. They found themselves somewhere to sit and looked round into the many faces staring back at them.

‘This is Richard Lawrence and Karen Chase,’ Cooper announced as he arrived back in the room. ‘They’ve come from Bigginford, so Christ knows how they’ve ended up here.’