Aftermath

side.
    And it was empty.
    Michael panicked, irrationally fearing that at any moment the dishevelled remains of a dead baby might be about to scuttle across the floor and attack him. He grabbed the rest of the things he needed and ran for the door, feeling like he was being watched.
    *   *   *
     
    When the four of them finally returned to the marina, they found that it had been surrounded. Harry had built a temporary blockade to keep the dead at bay, but they’d continued to advance. They moved almost too slowly to see, trickling forward like thick molasses.

 
     
    22
     
    It had always been their intention to spend at least one night on the mainland, probably two or three. After the emotional events of the day now ending, the group planned to make the most of their situation and relax. It actually seemed possible to do that now they realized how little a threat the dead posed in their pitifully weak condition. They lit a series of bonfires in metal dustbins and positioned them in open spaces around the marina and the closest parts of the town to distract the corpses and draw them away from the boats.
    Harry had managed to get both of the boats’ engines started while the others had been out looting. He’d even managed to rig up a basic radio in each boat. That had been unexpectedly unnerving, scanning the wavelengths and hearing nothing but unending static. For a while he’d wondered if he might find someone else transmitting, like he’d always seen happen in the movies. But he didn’t. There was nothing.
    It had taken a while to load up the boats, splitting the supplies equally between them, and yet there had still been plenty of space. Cooper suggested they should “shop” again in the morning, both to maximize the usefulness of this expedition, and to replace the food and booze he intended gorging himself on tonight.
    Michael found another boat moored well away from all the others. It was an enormous luxury craft, so large it warranted a section of the marina almost to itself. He thought it would probably have cost more than his house, maybe even the entire street. They’d be back on Cormansey in a couple of days’ time, and he suggested they spent their nights here. It would probably be their last opportunity to eat, drink, and relax in such relative comfort for a while, if not their last ever. There were rooms enough for all of them to sleep, and a large lounge. Harry managed to get the electrics working—he was proving bloody useful to have around—and the five of them settled down to an evening which, unexpectedly, began to echo the normality of their old lives.
    Richard was in the galley, cooking. In times past he’d been a keen cook, to the point where he’d taken a couple of courses in the evenings after work. He’d initially gone along because he’d thought it might be a good place to meet women, before realizing that cooking was something he actually enjoyed. He’d long since tired of the bachelor life, but he’d never had much luck with relationships. A helicopter pilot who loved to mes he used to joke with his friends that he couldn’t understand how women could resist him. But there had been a serious side to his lighthearted moaning. He wasn’t getting any younger, and he’d been actively looking for someone to settle down and share the rest of his life with. He’d even joined a couple of dating Web sites and had put one of those “last chance” (as he called them) lonely heart adverts in the local paper. It had all been academic, because the end of the world had come along and fucked everything up before he’d met anyone. Now he was damned like most of the rest of the men who’d survived to an enforced life of celibacy. It hadn’t mattered until recently—until he’d been on the island for a while and had actually had a chance to start thinking about things like love and sex and relationships again—but it was beginning to really play on his mind now. He’d been daydreaming about finding a camp populated exclusively by nubile young female survivors, desperate for the company of men …
    His idle thoughts were interrupted by a loud crash and a scream of protest from the other end of the boat. He quickly ran to the lounge but relaxed when he saw that it was nothing. Harry had knocked a bottle of beer over the table where he and Donna had been playing cards.
    “Be careful, for Christ’s sake,” Richard said, acutely aware that he was starting to sound like an