Aftermath

the country, staring at the appalling sight on the other side. Inside the station, the concourses were filled with bodies. Some were still trapped on buses and in shelters and waiting rooms.
    “It was rush hour,” Donna said quietly. “Remember that?”
    Michael remembered the daily hell of the rush-hour grind all too well. Like the people who had died here, he’d once had to cram himself into overfull buses and trains to get to work and back each day. He remembered it with a kind of nostalgic fondness now, but another look into the desolation was enough to snap him out of his daze. The interior of the modern-looking building was like a mass grave, many bodies lying in the shadows on top of each other, many more still languidly moving through the dark. Some of them gravitated toward the glass, decaying hands pawing the windows and doors as if they were trying to attract his attention and get help. The time for that was long gone.
    Leaving the others for a moment, Michael walked farther around the perimeter of the station, captivated by the succession of horrific sights which unfolded in front of him. A bus had become trapped in the station exit, hitting the wall on one side, becoming wedged and completely blocking the way out. Even now he could see a sticky mass of decay which was once its passengers, reduced to little more than a bone-filled soup as a result of several months’ constant movement, grinding against each other in such a confined space. He couldn’t see how many people had died on the bus, but their decay was sufficient that, even now, an offensive-smelling, yellow-brown bile was still dripping out from under the door.
    Michael continued in the direction he’d been walking, and saw that this had been a railway station too, not just a bus depot. He stepped over the crumpled remains of a corpse lying at the bottom of a steep staircase, its neck broken by the fall, then climbed up onto an elevated walkway. This pedestrian bridge had obviously been necessary to get people over the train tracks which ran directly below, but it had also been designed as a viewing area of sorts, and from the midpoint he had a clear view over the entire station below: the tracks, the engines, the platforms, and the concourses. Jesus, he thought, this place had been packed when the world had been brought to an abrupt end last September. The station was heaving with decay. And as for the trains themselves … He could only look for a few seconds before turning away. At every window in every carriage there seemed to be countless dead faces staring out, still trying to escape after all this time.
    Harry took out a few of the nearest corpses as they advanced toward the marina—it didn’t feel right not to—but they simply walked past many of the others. It was almost as if time had stopped and everything had frozen. It felt impossible, surreal almost, and yet, bizarrely, it also felt good .
    It’s like we’re in control again , Cooper thought as they walked— walked! —through the kind of open spaces which would have been impossible to cover on foot last time they were on the mainland. He crossed a miniature golf course nearer to the seafront, climbing over small hills and stepping over dried-up streams, weaving around wooden windmills with faded paint.
    Today was a stark contrast to the last time he’d been on the mainland. He remembered his desperate escape back then after being stranded in the overrun airfield at Monkton with Emma, Juliet Appleby, and Steve Armitage. He never admitted as much, but he still had occasional nightmares about that day. Maybe his time back here now would change all that? It was a trendy expression he hated to use, but perhaps being here again would bring them all some closure.

 
     
    21
     
    They kept the car park and, more important, the helicopter in view as much as possible as they explored the rest of the town. After finding a small, industrial-looking boatyard first, they worked their way through increasingly exclusive-looking sections of the marina, eventually ending up in a more secluded landing area where a number of fantastically expensive boats had been moored. Most were empty. In one, a luxurious cruiser named The BarJerr (obviously a grotesque amalgamation of the owners’ forenames, Cooper thought), Harry found a body preserved to an unfortunate degree by the dry conditions and relatively steady temperature inside the cabin. It still wore a pair of hideous shorts and