by David Moody
‘Did you block all the doors and windows downstairs?’
Juliet Appleby asked from across the room. She had her face pressed against another smaller window and was trying to look straight down the side of the building.
Cooper shook his head.
‘Just the main entrance, why?’
‘Because whether they’re going to manage it or not, it looks like they’re trying to get inside.’
‘What’s happening?’ Emma asked anxiously as she ran over to stand next to Juliet.
‘I can see a couple of groups of them.’
‘What are they doing?’
‘Nothing much, just pressing up against the door I think.
It’s difficult to see much from up here.’
Emma sighed and held her head in her hands.
‘They’re going to get in, aren’t they?’ she whispered.
‘Probably,’ Cooper admitted.
‘But you just said…’ Armitage protested.
‘I said I’d blocked the door and it wasn’t going to be easy for them, but there are thousands of those damn things out there, and a thousand bodies pushing against pretty much any door will open it, won’t it?’
‘Yes, but…’
‘I’m not saying they’ll manage it today or tomorrow,’ he continued, ‘but they’re likely to get inside eventually.’
Cooper’s use of the word ‘tomorrow’ made Emma’s heart sink. It brought home to her the reality of their situation, and that reality was that they all had very little chance of seeing many more tomorrows, if any. As far as she could see there was no way out of this place.
‘Christ, this is fucking stupid,’ snapped Armitage, becoming increasingly nervous and angry. ‘We can’t just sit here and wait for it to happen, can we?’
‘That’s just about all we can do, isn’t it?’ sighed Juliet.
‘We could make a run for it?’ he suggested. ‘Fight our way over to one of the trucks and try and get away?’
‘Where would we go?’ asked Cooper. Armitage couldn’t answer. The thought of another directionless drive through the decaying countryside was just marginally more appealing than sitting still and doing nothing. It was a last resort, but they all knew it may well turn out to be their only option.
Emma had made her way back over to the largest window and was now trying to keep hidden in the shadows whilst watching everything that was happening outside.
The ground was now completely carpeted in a constantly shifting layer of dead flesh - she couldn’t see any grass, pavement or runway. The office building was almost completely ablaze and she knew that there was now no-one left alive inside. Elsewhere the bodies were tightly packed around the other buildings and seemed to be pushing ever closer. Burning bodies still dragged themselves around hopelessly and a thick, smog-like layer of smoke had settled across the scene. The wind was light and directionless and the smoke showed no sign of dispersing.
‘What’s the roof of this building like?’ she asked suddenly.
‘What?’ Cooper grunted.
‘The roof of this building,’ she repeated, ‘is it flat?’
‘Not sure. You can’t really tell from the ground. Why, what are you thinking?’
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘I’m thinking that if we are going to get out of here, then we need to do a couple of things. First, we need to be somewhere obvious so that Lawrence can see us when he comes back…’
‘If he comes back,’ Armitage mumbled.
‘When he comes back,’ Cooper corrected him. ‘Whether he can do anything for us or not, I’m sure he’ll be back.’
‘Whatever.’
‘I’m sure he’ll be back because any one of us would do the same if we were in his shoes, wouldn’t we? You couldn’t just sit there on the island knowing that there still might be people left alive and trapped over here, could you?’
No answer.
‘Anyway,’ Emma continued, ‘as well as being visible, we need to make sure that we end up somewhere the bodies definitely can’t get to.’
‘Like?’
‘Like a flat roof,’ she replied.
‘I think the roof here is sloped,’ Juliet said, still standing at the window but now looking up instead of down.
Cooper shuffled round so that he had a better view of the rest of the airfield and, more importantly, the few remaining buildings nearby.
‘Not sure about this one, but that one over there’s a possibility,’ he said quietly, nodding in the general direction of small utility building nestled in the shadows of the hangar where the plane had previously been housed.
‘Just a couple of problems as far as I can see,’ Armitage grumbled from close behind. ‘Getting to it and getting on top of it. Any bright ideas?’
‘How desperate are you feeling?’ Cooper asked.
‘Fucking desperate,’ Armitage replied.
‘Me too, so we’ll just have to find a way of getting up there, won’t we? I don’t see that we’ve got any choice.’
‘How then?’
‘Try the usual tricks,’ he answered, ‘because they’ve worked so far. We’ll distract the bodies and make a run for it.’
‘Shouldn’t the fire be distracting them already?’ Emma suggested. She was right. Many bodies were continuing to crowd around the base of the observation tower and were ignoring the slowly spreading heat and light of the flames.
‘She’s right. And anyway, that building is at least twenty feet high,’ Armitage sighed. ‘What are we going to do?
Jump up for Christ’s sake? Stand on each other’s shoulders?’
‘We’ll find a way up.’
‘Forget about the buildings,’ Emma suggested, her mind suddenly racing. ‘Using the trucks was a better idea. We could do that, couldn’t we? Once they see us on top of one of the buildings we’ll have the whole bloody lot of them snapping at our feet. At least with the trucks we’ll be able to keep moving…’
‘But the trucks are even further away,’ whimpered Juliet.
‘The prison truck’s only on the other side of the runway,’ Cooper said. ‘Can’t see the personnel carrier from here.’
‘Still don’t know how we’re supposed to get to it,’ snapped Armitage.
‘Better find a way quickly,’ Emma yelled suddenly with a new found urgency in her voice.
‘Why?’ demanded Armitage, worried by her sudden change in tone.
‘Because the helicopter’s back.’
45
Once he was over the airfield Lawrence allowed the helicopter to drift lower, switching on the searchlight and managing to clumsily guide it around the scene. For a while all he could see were the seething bodies and it took him some time to orientate himself and properly identify the dark shapes and outlines of the observation tower and other buildings through the smoke. Conscious that the noise, light and disturbance that he had inevitably caused was again whipping the rancid crowd below into a bloody frenzy, he moved lower still, stopping only when he was level with the top of the observation tower.
He could see survivors. The nearby office building had been destroyed, but he could definitely see other people at the top of the observation tower. He had to look twice to be sure. Could it have been bodies? Had they found a way inside? From his high position there were no signs obvious of any entrance to the building having been compromised.
If the dead had forced their way in he would have expected hundreds of them to have pointlessly crammed themselves inside by now. There didn’t seem to be many people there, and those that he could see were moving with direction and control. It had to be survivors. But how could he hope to reach them?
Cooper’s face appeared at the window, confirming beyond doubt to Lawrence that his return to the mainland had been worthwhile.
‘We have to go outside,’ Emma shouted, suddenly having to raise her voice to make herself heard over the welcome noise of the helicopter. ‘We have to get out of here.’
‘But t
here is no way out,’ Armitage yelled. ‘We’ve just been through this. We’re surrounded. They’re out the front and they’re round the back and…’
‘Emma’s right,’ Cooper interrupted. ‘We have to find a way out of here and we have to do it now.’
‘Go for the trucks,’ Juliet suggested.
‘I agree,’ Emma said quickly, ‘it’s the best option.
Lawrence will see us moving. If we can get to one of the trucks we can drive through the bodies until we reach somewhere where there are fewer of them. Then he can land and pick us up.’
‘Do we just make a run for it?’
‘It’s not going to be easy,’ Emma replied, looking down at the ground immediately around the base of the building.
‘I think we should try and distract them and get them away from whichever door or window we decide to use to get out. Then maybe just one of us could try to get across and bring the truck back over here.’
Cooper stood behind Emma, thinking carefully. He glanced up and looked outside and across at Lawrence. The helicopter was hovering so close that, despite the drifting smoke, the pilot’s face could clearly be seen. The distance was irrelevant. Cooper thought he might as well have been a hundred miles away for all the good it was doing them.
Lawrence looked understandably agitated. Cooper knew he wouldn’t wait indefinitely for them to make their move.
‘Good God,’ mumbled Juliet. ‘Just look at that.’
She pointed out of the window down at an area of ground which was almost directly beneath the helicopter.
‘What the hell are they doing?’ Armitage asked, crowding forward to try and get a better view.
The four survivors peered down. Lawrence had angled the searchlight below the helicopter and slightly to one side. Whilst many bodies continued to react as the survivors had expected them to, others now were beginning to behave differently. A large number of them ripped and tore at those corpses closest to them, but many others did not. Instead those bodies appeared to be visibly agitated and riled by the noise, light and wind coming from the helicopter hovering a short distance above their decaying heads. Many of them seemed almost to be cowering. It was hard to believe, but some of the bodies were trying to move away from the disturbance.
‘Fucking hell,’ mumbled Cooper.
‘This is it,’ Emma whispered secretively, ‘this is our chance. It’s like you said earlier, they’re changing. They’re finally beginning to wake up, aren’t they? Bloody hell, those things down there are starting to get worried.’
‘Worried?’ Armitage snapped nervously. ‘What the hell are you talking about, worried?’
‘They’re becoming aware of their own limitations,’ she explained. ‘Some of them are starting to realise that we’re capable of causing them a lot more damage than they can do to us. I’m sure that’s why some of them fight. They’re trying to protect themselves.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘Might be,’ she said quickly. ‘Whatever the reason, the point is that this might give us more of a chance of getting past them than we thought we had.’
‘How?’ asked Juliet.
‘Use the helicopter as cover. Make as much of a disturbance as we can and try and get Lawrence’s help.
Chances are some of them will disappear and keep out of our way.’
‘Some of them?’
‘The rest will probably still go for us, same as they always do.’
A moment of quiet contemplation followed, disturbed only by the continual noise coming from the helicopter outside. Much as he hated to admit it, Armitage knew that Emma was right. Better to go out there and face five hundred of those bloody things, he thought, than a thousand.
‘We should do it,’ Juliet Appleby announced timidly.
‘Do what exactly?’ Armitage instinctively asked.
‘Shake them up then go out there and kick their bloody backsides,’ Emma answered.
‘Because if we don’t,’ Cooper reminded them, ‘then we won’t be getting into that helicopter and we’ll be stuck here. If we don’t go outside and face them now, then we’ll be facing them when they finally get in here, that’s if we haven’t burned to death already. Not much of a choice, is it?’
Dividing his concentration between piloting the helicopter, watching the survivors and watching the bodies below, Lawrence noticed that Cooper and the others had shifted their attention from looking at him to watching what was happening on the ground. He peered down through small observation panels by his feet and watched as the bodies reacted to his presence. He shifted the helicopter slightly and saw that as the disc of light coming from the searchlight moved, so more shadowy shapes stumbled out of the way as if they expected it to burn or maim them.
Having seen the behaviour of the creatures on the island change similarly, the actions of the diseased corpses surprised him less than they surprised the others trapped at the top of the observation tower. Perhaps if he dropped lower, he thought, then more bodies would move and he might be able to land and pick up the survivors. He tried briefly, but the number of corpses which stood their ground and still reacted violently was more than enough to convince him that course of action was out of the question.
But the presence of the helicopter and the fear (that seemed to be the right word to use) that it seemed to generate amongst the dead was unquestionably important. It would help. It might give the people on the ground a chance, albeit a slight one. Lawrence remembered that the bodies he’d seen acting this way on the island, although quieter and more hesitant than most, had still attacked the survivors eventually when they’d been threatened. The bodies were trying to survive and their most basic instincts drove them to fight when no alternative course of action remained.
From his position above the airfield Lawrence felt uncomfortable and helpless. He had no way of warning the others or telling them what he knew.
Several minutes of frightened inaction passed.
Having stood still and watched and waited for too long, too frightened and unsure to make her move, Emma finally decided that she had to take action. No-one else seemed ready to do it. All the talking in the world wasn’t going to get them away from the airfield and, as Cooper had already pointed out, they had nothing to lose and everything to gain from trying to get away. If they did nothing then their last chance would have gone. The prospect of a relatively safe and secure future with Michael was too great a prize to risk throwing away. She had to do something.
‘Where you going?’ Cooper shouted as she turned and pushed through the doors and began to clatter down the staircase.
‘To Cormansey,’ she shouted back. ‘What about you?’
Suddenly feeling forced into action, Juliet, Armitage and Cooper followed close behind. For all her sudden movement and intent, it was clear that Emma didn’t have a plan. They found her at the bottom of the staircase, looking around hopefully for inspiration.
‘What now?’ Juliet asked.
Through the bitter-tasting, wispy smoke which had seeped inside, Armitage noticed the light leaking in from under the front entrance to the building. A mixture of the natural first light of day and the harsh artificial illumination coming from the helicopter, he cautiously moved towards it. Clambering carefully over the tables and chairs which he and Cooper had earlier used to block the entrance, he peered out through a narrow crack between the double doors. There were still an uncomfortably large number of bodies milling around out there, but their numbers in the light from the helicopter were considerably more diffuse now. He looked up at the aircraft hanging in the air above them. Lawrence seemed to have worked out what was happening. Armitage couldn’t be completely sure, but the pilot seemed to be deliberately aiming his light towards the door.
‘I reckon we should make a run for it,’ he suggested, his sudden positive attitude meeting with surprise from the others. ‘We should do it now.’
‘We can’t risk just throwing the doors open and going out there,’ Emma protested. ‘What
if we get split up? What happens when we get over to the truck? Do we just stand there and wait for you to open it up?’
‘Worse than that,’ Juliet added, ‘if we open the doors and we all go out there, then that leaves this place wide open. We’ll have no way back if anything goes wrong.’
‘We need to get the truck over here,’ Cooper said. ‘One of us needs to get over to it then get it back here to pick the rest of us up.’
The sound of the helicopter was deafening and seemed to be amplified at the bottom of the staircase by the long, thin shape of the building itself. Above the mechanical noise the occasional sound of bodies slamming against the walls, doors and windows could be heard. The longer the survivors remained silent, the louder the sound outside seemed to become. Although the helicopter seemed to be keeping some of the creatures at bay, its position next to the observation tower was also drawing more of them closer.
Armitage couldn’t stand it any longer. He was generally a quiet man who was content to sit and wait and watch rather than act, but, occasionally, the pressure of a situation proved too much and forced him to take action. It had happened before back in the city when he’d left the safety of the university complex to help collect transport for the group. It was happening again now.
‘I’ll do it,’ he said suddenly.
‘What?’ asked Cooper, surprised.
‘I said I’ll do it,’ the burley man repeated before he had chance to talk himself out of volunteering. ‘Might as well.’
‘You sure?’
‘No.’
Cooper moved forward and looked through the narrow gap in the doors that Armitage had been looking through just a few seconds earlier. His view was limited, but he could clearly see the prison truck on the other side of the runway where it had been left. It wasn’t going to be easy to reach.
‘It’s got to be a couple of hundred metres away,’ he whispered, still looking out through the gap, ‘and there are a couple of hundred bodies in your way. Think you can make it?’
‘I can do it,’ Armitage answered. ‘Listen, with enough of those things snapping at my heels, I could run a bloody marathon!’
Cooper nodded and then started moving the tables and chairs which were blocking the doors.