Purification

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.
    ‘When you get out there,’ he said as he worked, looking back over his shoulder at the other man, ‘you just put your head down and run, understand? Keep moving until you reach the truck. Don’t stop for anything.’
    ‘I’m not going to.’
    Armitage nervously turned round to look at Emma and Juliet as Cooper continued to clear the door. Both women tried to think of something to say but, overcome with nerves and emotion, neither of them were able to speak.
    ‘Ready?’ Cooper asked as he dragged the last table away.