Purification

predictions had come to nothing. They had all hoped that Lawrence would have returned by now. With each minute that passed the likelihood that he would ever come back seemed to reduce still further.
    Without warning the sounds of cracking, splintering wood followed by shattering glass fractured the fragile silence.
    ‘What the hell was that?’ Emma asked, quickly getting up from her seat and running over to the window. She leant forward and peered down. The darkness was disorientating.
    She was having difficulty making out any distinct movement in the relentless confusion outside.
    ‘What’s happening?’ Cooper whispered, standing over her shoulder.
    ‘Don’t know,’ she replied.
    ‘Oh, Christ,’ Steve Armitage moaned from a little further down the room.
    ‘What?’
    ‘The office. Fucking things are inside the office.’
    From his position he could see part of the building that was obscured from Cooper and Emma’s view. A window had been shattered three-quarters of the way down its longest side. Desperate bodies were already half-climbing, half-falling through the empty window frame. He could see signs that someone was also trying to fight their way out.
    ‘We’ve got to do something,’ said Juliet, moving across the room so that she could see what was happening. ‘For God’s sake, we have to do something.’
    ‘Like what?’ Cooper asked. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’
    ‘We’ve got to get the doors open downstairs so that they can get over here.’
    Cooper peered into the seething mass of shapes on the ground.
    ‘How they going to do that?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘How they going to get over here? And if they do, how are we going to stop a thousand bloody corpses from pushing their way inside after them?’
    ‘But we can’t just leave them,’ she protested.
    ‘We haven’t got a choice,’ Emma mumbled from close behind.
    ‘There are people down there…’
    ‘There are people in here.’
    As they watched a lone survivor pushed their way out through the smashed window, the force of their sudden desperate escape sending several bodies flying.
    ‘Who’s that?’ asked Armitage.
    ‘Not sure,’ Cooper replied. ‘Jesus Christ…’
    Before any of them had time to consider trying to find a way to help the survivor it was too late. Whoever it was had almost immediately been swallowed up by bodies.
    They crowded around the helpless figure, their numbers meaning that every escape route was quickly blocked, and descended upon it like a pack of starved animals around fresh kill. Elsewhere still more of the bodies surged towards the office, drawn there by the sudden disturbance and noise.
    ‘What the hell’s happening now?’
    ‘They know there are more people around here,’ Emma answered quietly, ‘and they know they’re different to them.
    They’re going to force their way inside and…’
    ‘What do you mean, they know there are more people?’
    Juliet asked.
    ‘Just what I said.’
    ‘But…’
    ‘But nothing. The bodies know we’re here. They’re looking for us. They’ve been watching us for days. They’ve seen the helicopter and the plane and now they’re going to hunt us out.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because we’re different to them? Because we’re a threat to them?’ suggested Cooper. ‘Who knows and who cares?’
    Down below more survivors forced their way out of the besieged building and were swallowed up by the putrefying hordes. Stunned by the speed of events and their absolute, inexorable helplessness, the people in the observation room above could do nothing more than stand and watch.
    ‘So will they come for us next?’ Juliet asked, her voice wavering with emotion.
    ‘They probably don’t know we’re up here yet,’ Cooper answered. ‘But they will.’
    ‘Give them time,’ Armitage muttered.
    ‘You’re right,’ Emma agreed, wiping tears of fear and frustration from her eyes. ‘They’ll realise we’re up here at some point and then…’
    ‘Then what?’ Juliet nervously pressed.
    ‘Their physical condition is deteriorating. I don’t think they can communicate or reason. So whatever their motives are I think they’ll still only be able to react in one way.’
    ‘How?’ the now trembling woman asked, her voice a quiet and nervous whisper.
    ‘I think they’ll try and tear us to fucking pieces,’ she answered in a voice drained of emotion. Her blunt, monotone delivery belied the mounting terror she felt inside.
    In the bathroom of the office block,