Purification

Armitage turned back towards the door.
    ‘Ready,’
    he
    answered.
    Cooper nodded. He took a deep, nervous breath.
    ‘Go for it.’
    Armitage pushed the doors open and burst out into the cold morning. The light which poured down from the helicopter and saturated the immediate vicinity was momentarily blinding and the unexpected force of the wind bearing down from the aircraft threatened to knock him off his feet. The suffocating smell of burning flesh filled his lungs. For a single disorientated second he stood still and stared at the truck on the other side of the runway. His view was relatively clear and, for an instant, the distance he had to cover seemed reassuringly short. But then he glanced to his left and then to his right and saw that there were bodies all around him. Some remained cowering in the shadows, others began to quickly converge on him from all directions. The sound of the door being pulled shut behind him - barely audible over the constant noise from the helicopter above - prompted him to move.
    ‘Shit,’ he cursed as the nearest body reached out for him. It’s hands were bony and hard with much of the putrefied flesh having long since been worn and rotted away. Jogging slowly away from the observation tower, and trying desperately to pick up some much needed speed, Armitage grabbed the skeletal figure by the neck and swung it around, sending it flying into a group of four more ragged cadavers and knocking them down like skittles.
    He looked ahead again and tried to regain his focus on the truck. Where before he’d seemed to have a clear passage, now a myriad of shuffling figures crisscrossed ahead of him. More vicious hands lashed out, one catching his cheek and tearing three long cuts from just under his left eye and down to his chin. Suddenly pumped full of adrenaline, fear and stinging pain, Armitage again forced himself to ignore the bodies all around him and keep moving forward. His mouth was dry and his heart was thumping like it was about to explode but he knew that he had to keep moving. He lowered his shoulder as two more corpses crossed his path. Charging through the pair of them he smashed one away in either direction.
    Almost halfway there.
    A heavy and unfit man, Armitage’s right knee was hurting badly as a result of the sudden stress he was putting his body under. He knew that he had no option but to keep running through the pain, but every time his foot hit the ground a piercing, shooting pain ran along the length of his leg from his knee to his backside. The pathways and grass under his feet had now given way to the harder tarmac surface of the runway and he knew that he had almost reached the truck. The ground was littered with the random remains of corpses which had been burnt or brought down and torn apart by others and he trod heavily on one which had fallen onto its back. His boot smashed through the rib cage and sent the rotten remains of internal organs flying in every direction. As he frantically tried to pull his foot clear he tripped and fell and in seconds bodies had swarmed all over him.
    ‘Fucking hell,’ Cooper yelled from the observation tower as he watched through the crack in the door. More and more bodies piled on top of the helpless truck driver, quickly burying him under a mound of constantly moving, decaying flesh.
    ‘Jesus,’ Emma wailed, looking out through a small window nearby and taking care not to be seen from outside.
    Cooper moved to open the door.
    ‘Cooper, don’t…’ Juliet screamed instinctively.
    ‘I can’t just leave him out there…’
    ‘Wait,’ Emma snapped. She pushed her face against the window. She could see movement from the bottom of the pile of bodies. Armitage was still fighting. High above him Lawrence had moved the helicopter round so that the searchlight was bearing down on him directly. The sudden illumination caused many of the bodies still lurching towards the disturbance to turn and trip away in other directions.
    Lying on his back on the cold, hard runway and struggling to breathe because of his tiredness and the choking, abhorrent smell, Armitage began to kick and punch out at the bodies on top of him. They felt hollow and cold and individually offered little resistance. He felt their decayed flesh dripping and dribbling over him and he could feel himself being soaked through by their vile discharge.
    The more they fought, he found, the quicker they deteriorated. He rolled over onto his front and tried to