Autumn: The City (26 page)

‘What the fuck is going on?’ a terrified Phil Croft demanded, forgetting himself. The sound of his voice caused hundreds more vile creatures to look up and begin to peel away from the crowd and move towards them. ‘You said they’d ignore us if we…’

Cooper knew there was no time to stand and argue. By all accounts the behaviour of the bodies had been changing constantly since the day they’d been infected
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in the short time he’d been away from his base he’d seen them become more aggressive. A few days earlier slow movements and feigned lethargy had been sufficient to fool the dead. Today the creatures appeared to be reacting with unmistakable intent. Although still awkward and clumsy, today they were moving with ominous speed and purpose.

‘Move!’ Cooper ordered. ‘Just get to the fucking courthouse now!’

Without waiting for further instruction the survivors turned and sprinted towards the city centre. Cooper led the way but, not knowing the city particularly well, he ran without direction.

‘This way!’ Paul Castle shouted, running away to the soldier’s left. The others followed as swarms of bodies gathered around them. Castle glanced back over his shoulder. His speed and panic was such that it was impossible to make out details, instead he was just aware of an increasing dark mass of cadavers following them. Terrified, he turned back around and ran into a single random corpse, sending it flying to the ground.

Castle, the soldier and the doctor were relatively young and in good health. Baxter and Heath, although somewhat older, were also able to keep up. Steve Armitage, however, was struggling. With tears of panic and fear running freely down his face, the overweight truck driver lashed out at the countless figures which lurched and lunged towards him. For the moment the force of his large bulk was enough to keep them at bay. It was difficult to keep sight of the rest of the group ahead, such was the number of ragged bodies that crisscrossed his path and grabbed at him with clumsy, decaying hands.

They weren’t going to make it. From what he’d been told he guessed the courthouse was still a fair distance away. Cooper knew he could do it, but it was doubtful whether the older men would keep up.

‘Over there,’ he yelled, suddenly changing direction and moving to his right. He needed to find shelter. It didn’t matter what or where, they just needed to get out of sight for a time until the crowd’s interest in them had dissipated. He pushed open a heavy door in the middle of a small, glass-fronted bookshop and held it open for the other survivors. ‘Go through to the back,’ he yelled as Heath and Baxter crashed breathlessly past him. Armitage was almost there. Cooper reached out and grabbed his arm and pulled him through. ‘Get out of sight.’

Croft dragged a bookcase and low reading table across the door once Cooper had managed to push it shut. Already there were rotting faces pressed against the glass, smashing their fists against the window, trying to get at the survivors inside. Cooper gently pushed Croft deeper into the building.

The others were waiting in a small, square office.

‘What the hell are we going to do now?’ Heath asked anxiously. He looked at Armitage. The red-faced man was slumped over a desk in the middle of the room, fighting to get his breath back.

‘We keep going,’ Croft said. ‘What option have we got? We can either turn back and fight our way through a fucking huge crowd of bodies, or we can do what we came out here to do, get some transport organised, and then fight our way back through a fucking huge crowd of bodies.’

His humour wasn’t appreciated. Regardless, the rest of the men knew that they didn’t have a choice.

‘Where exactly are we?’ Cooper asked. ‘Where are we in relation to the court?’

Castle, standing with his hands on his hips and breathing heavily, cleared his throat and looked round.

‘Not too far to go,’ he replied, moving slightly so that he could look through another door and out towards the back of the building. ‘I reckon it’ll be easier if we go through the back.’

‘Fine,’ Cooper said. ‘We ready?’

Armitage looked up in disbelief.

‘Give us a minute,’ he complained.

‘You can rest when we’ve found ourselves a fleet of trucks, okay?’

The lorry driver covered his head in despair and then pushed himself back up.

‘All right?’ Baxter asked.

Armitage nodded.

‘Lead the way, Paul,’ Cooper ordered. Trembling with nerves Castle did as he was told, cautiously creeping through the building until he reached the back door which opened out into a communal loading area shared with a number of neighbouring shops. A narrow service road ran along the back of the buildings. As far as he could see there were no bodies nearby.

‘Which way?’ Cooper whispered. Castle nodded to his right. ‘Okay,’ the soldier continued, ‘stick together and not a bloody sound from anyone, understand?’ No-one responded. ‘Let’s go.’

Castle began to walk away from the shop, pressing himself against the nearest wall and doing his best to blend into the shadows. In the middle of the group Armitage silently cursed his condition. He wished that he was younger and fitter. Although no doubt amplified in his mind, he feared that the sound of his heavy breathing might be enough to bring the bodies to them again.

The service road carried on for a hundred meters or so before taking a sharp right and rejoining the main road. Castle paused just before the turning.

‘How far?’ Cooper asked, his voice deathly quiet.

‘Carry on along this road and we’ll reach another junction,’ he replied, nodding further down the service road. ‘Go left and the court’s at the top of the main shopping street. A few hundred yards probably.’

‘What’s it look like?’

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘Big building, bronzed glass in the windows, steps up to the front door.’

‘Who else knows what it looks like?’

The other men, who had now grouped around Castle and the soldier, nodded. Baxter wasn’t sure.

‘Is it by…’ he began.

‘Follow the rest of us,’ Cooper snapped. ‘Wait here for a second. I’ll go and see what’s around.’

Silently creeping further down the service road, he stopped when he reached the point where it merged with the main road. Cautiously he stuck his head around the corner and looked up and down the once busy street. There were plenty of bodies around, but considerably fewer than they had seen before they’d taken shelter in the bookshop. He guessed that the disturbance they’d caused back at the university would have resulted in many of the corpses gravitating around that area. He made his way back to the others.

‘There are a fair few of them about,’ he said quietly. ‘The only way to get through them is to ignore them. Try and forget they’re there. Run through them. They can’t match speed and the power we’ve got.’

‘A few thousand of the bastards could…’ Armitage moaned.

‘There aren’t a few thousand out there,’ Cooper replied, ‘but there will be if you panic so shut up, take a deep fucking breath and follow me.’

Without waiting for a response he headed back towards the main road. The rest of the survivors followed behind, their nervousness increasing with every step. Bernard Heath took deep breaths of stagnant air in an attempt to fill his lungs with oxygen before they started running again.

Cooper paused and turned back to make sure they were together.

‘Ready?’ he asked. No response. He turned and ran. Instinctively the others followed at a frantic pace.

Immediately those straggling bodies left in the street turned and moved towards the sudden disturbance. Cooper led the way, pushing corpses away to the side as he forced his way forward. Castle was close behind. A myriad of unexpected emotions ran through his mind as he moved. As the inhabitants of the city had rotted and decayed, so the city itself also appeared to have deteriorated. The once familiar sights of streets that he’d walked along hundreds of time seemed to have changed almost beyond recognition. Unchecked moss and weeds grew between the cracks in the pavements and climbed the walls of cold and silent buildings. Motionless, skeletal corpses lay in the gutter being steadily devoured by the passage of time and by the numerous rodents and insects which fed off their disintegrating flesh. A random body lashed out and caught him off-guard. He grabbed it by the neck and threw it into a crowd of three more advancing cadavers.

‘Left!’ he shouted at the soldier who, in his haste and desire to keep moving, had just passed the turning. Castle changed direction, followed closely by the rest of the men who were all somehow managing to keep a comparable pace. Bernard Heath and Steve Armitage in particular were moving with unexpected velocity and newfound determination. Pure adrenaline and fear was driving them to run like men half their ages.

Disorientated by its overgrown appearance and the sudden effort of the sprint through the streets, it took Phil Croft a while to recognise the court building. As he swerved to avoid another lurching body his eyes locked onto the steep steps which led up from ground level to the court’s imposing bronze-tinted glass entrance doors. Cooper, Castle and Heath were already there. They held the doors open for the others and then slammed them shut and barred them once they were all inside. Half of the men dropped to their knees and struggled to catch their breath. The remaining three realised immediately that there were suddenly movements in the shadows all around them. Within thirty seconds some fifteen ragged figures had appeared in the building’s vast reception area. Countless more slammed into the door and began to try and beat their way inside.

‘Get rid of them,’ Cooper ordered. ‘Go for the head and try and take them out. We’ll get this area cleared and then we can slow it down a gear.’

Looking round for inspiration he picked up a nearby metal tube (which had previously held up a sign instructing visitors to the court to wait to be searched by security) and moved towards the closest body. What had once been a policewoman dragged itself towards him with willowy arms outstretched. He swung the heavy metal tube through the air and smashed it into the side of the corpse’s head. Deep crimson blood, almost black, began to ooze steadily from a gash above the body’s shattered cheekbone. It moved forward again. Cooper lashed out again and again, his fifth strike finally making the pitiful creature crumble, leaving it limp and motionless on the dusty marble floor.

Armitage stood in numb terror as an elderly cadaver stumbled towards him. With empty, emotionless eyes it stared at him and he found himself unable to look away or to react in any other way. Suddenly too close to be avoided, the lorry driver screwed up his face in disgust and lifted his arms to prevent the pathetic figure from advancing any further forward. Although the body squirmed relentlessly in his grip, the survivor’s strength was clearly too much for it to overcome. Becoming suddenly more confident now that he was aware of the physical gulf between the living and the dead, Armitage pushed the body away and into the nearest wall with angry force. The corpse stopped and then turned and began to move towards him again. This time Armitage grabbed hold of the rotting head, just below the chin, and, with weeks of pent up fear and frustration behind him, he slammed it against the wall, almost crushing it completely.

They were cutting through the bodies with incredible ease. The lethargic movements, slow reactions and comparative weakness of the cadavers was no match for the strength and coordination of even the most tired and unfit survivor. In less than five minutes the reception area had been cleared.

‘Good job,’ Croft said. He was breathing heavily.

Paul Castle acknowledged their efforts.

‘Bloody hell,’ he gasped, clearly surprised, ‘they were nothing, were they? Christ we could have torn a thousand of them apart…’

‘But there are millions out there,’ Bernard Heath reminded him. The university lecturer’s voice was solemn and resigned.

‘Don’t think that’s it,’Cooper said. ‘There will be more of them around the building. Just keep moving and don’t let your guard down.’

With that he began to move towards a nearby corridor.

‘Where you going?’ asked Armitage, wiping his grease and gore-covered hands on the back of his trousers. Cooper gestured towards a brass sign on the wall.

‘Juror’s suite,’ he replied. His answer was met with blank looks from the others. ‘Jurors sit in on trials,’ he explained. ‘Trials happen in court rooms. Prisoners stand in the dock in court rooms…

‘And…?’ pressed Castle.

‘And the prisoners have to get from the prison vans to the dock, don’t they? We’ll work our way back through the building.’

‘Christ,’ mumbled Clare as she looked down from a high window onto the remains of the huge crowd outside the university building. ‘Look at them! Just look at them!’

Donna had been sitting silently on the stairs holding her head in her hands, waiting impatiently and anxiously for the men to return. They had been gone for almost an hour. She got up and slowly walked over to where Clare was standing.

‘Bloody hell…’ she gasped as she stared into the mayhem below.

The bodies were moving with more force and speed than she’d ever seen before. Those nearest the centre of the city were continuing to break away from the main group and were stumbling away from the university complex in the general direction in which the six survivors had disappeared earlier. This wasn’t any random coincidence. It was obvious that the corpses were moving with a purpose and a new found drive. And as the figures continued to stagger away, so more and more of them followed.