Purification

to…’
    ‘Come on, Emma,’ Cooper sighed. ‘We’re as trapped as they are. There’s nothing we can do.’
    ‘What do they want?’ Juliet Appleby asked. She had gradually moved away from the window and was now standing in the middle of the room.
    ‘Haven’t you ever seen them like this before?’
    ‘No,’ she replied, shaking her head. ‘I’ve been here for weeks. I’ve seen the crowds, but never anything like this.
    I’ve never been this close to so many of them. I don’t know what…’
    ‘Chances are you’re going to get a lot closer to them yet,’ Emma interrupted. ‘And in answer to your question, I don’t know what they want and neither do they. The bloody things don’t know anything. They don’t know who they were or what they are now. They don’t know who or what we are or what they want from us. They don’t know a fucking thing and all that I know is they’ve probably just taken away our last chance of ever getting away from here.’
    ‘No they haven’t,’ Cooper snapped. ‘We can still get out.’
    ‘You keep saying that,’ she yelled, sobbing again, ‘but I can’t see how it’s going to happen.’
    Dejected and demoralised she sat down heavily and put her head in her hands. Cooper continued to stare out of the window for a moment longer before turning away and looking round the room.
    ‘They’re crowding around us because we’re a distraction,’ he said quietly, ‘and we’re the only distraction come to that. They go for us because we’re different. And I don’t know if they do it because they want help from us or because they’re scared of us or because they want to rip us to fucking pieces or…’
    ‘It doesn’t matter why they do it,’ Armitage hissed, his voice strained and hoarse. ‘You’re right though, the only thing left for them to do is to try and get to us. They won’t stop until we’re gone.’
    ‘I think,’ Cooper continued, ‘that all we can do for now is keep out of sight and not make a bloody sound. If they don’t know we’re up here then we should be okay for a while. We’ll wait for Lawrence to come back.’
    ‘Come on,’ Emma protested, ‘they already know we’re up here. Even if just one of them knows and tries to get inside then hundreds more will copy it and will try and do the same.’
    ‘I
    know.’
    ‘So what if Lawrence does bring the helicopter back?’
    Armitage asked.
    ‘When he brings the helicopter back,’ Cooper corrected him, ‘then we’ll have to move, won’t we? Until then all we can do is shut up, sit tight and wait.’

40
    ‘Just get down, shut your fucking mouth and keep out of sight,’ Phil Croft hissed at Jacob Flynn. Croft was crouching behind a desk. Flynn was standing in the middle of the room, in full view of every window. He was a volatile and selfish man who’d generally kept himself to himself for as long as he’d been at the airfield. He was different now, desperate and frightened. He’d been this way since the plane had left and they’d been forced back into the office. He’d somehow allowed himself to be left behind and it angered him. As far as he was concerned it was every man, woman and child for themselves now, and he was damn sure that he wasn’t going to end his time trapped in this fucking building with these stupid, frightened fucking people.
    ‘What good is keeping out of sight, you frigging idiot?’
    Flynn yelled. ‘They already know we’re in here for God’s sake. The only chance we’ve got is to open the fucking door and fight our way out.’
    ‘Fight your way out to where?’ Croft asked. ‘There’s nowhere left to go.’
    One of the survivors cowering in the darkness behind Croft let out a sudden, painful wail of fear. The doctor turned around but he couldn’t see them. From his position low on the ground, however, he could see into several of the nearby office rooms. Thick, angry crowds of rotting bodies stood pressed against every window, trying to push and force their way inside. Even if Flynn was right and they tried to make a run for it, he thought, the sheer weight and number of cadavers outside would stop them. Sensing that his time was running out, he dragged himself back onto his feet and walked over to the man still standing in the middle of the room.
    ‘Open any of the doors,’ he said quietly, his face just inches from Flynn’s so that no-one else could hear, ‘and this place will be full of them in seconds. You won’t survive and I