Purification

Michael shouted to Cooper from the bottom of the ramp.
    Cooper didn’t answer at first, continuing instead to scan the mayhem he could see outside. There seemed to be a never-ending sea of movement ahead of him. The countless bodies which had been burned and destroyed by the last military excursion seemed to have gone - trampled underfoot by yet more corpses. He turned and ran back into the base.
    ‘Get the engines running,’ he eventually replied in a loud but calm and authoritative voice which masked the anxious, creeping terror he felt inside.
    Back out in the field a combination of friendly misfires and the random movements of the bodies had now exploited four breaks in the soldier’s defensive line.
    Already at an unexpected advantage because of the dire conditions and their incalculable numbers, the cadavers continued moving forward incessantly towards the light in the distance coming from inside the bunker. En masse they surged through the gaps in the ranks almost unopposed.
    Pockets of troops struggled to dispose both of the bodies they faced head-on and those moving through the undefended areas between them and their base. In less than fifteen minutes the balance of power on the battlefield had suddenly and unexpectedly shifted. With the coordination and order they had previously commanded now gone, the soldier’s instinctive reactions and their individual selfish desire for self-preservation caused still more gaps in their defences to appear. Now there were shadowy shapes on all sides. The troops continued to fight and to shoot and to burn and destroy as many corpses as was physically possible until a single flare was launched into the sky near to where Cowell, the officer’s aide, had been standing.
    The flare was the signal to retreat.
    ‘They’re coming back,’ Cooper yelled to the others as he sprinted towards them. He had spotted the incandescent flare hanging in the squally air and had immediately understood its meaning. Before he’d finished speaking the personnel carrier crashed back into the base, careering out of the darkness and skidding out of control. Michael and Heath dived in opposite directions as the heavy machine ploughed along the length of the hanger and then collided with the front of the survivor’s police van, sending it spinning round and shunting it against the wall. Michael instinctively ran to help the survivors who had been waiting inside the vehicle and who had been unprepared for the sudden violent impact. He could hear them screaming and shouting as he yanked at the doors. One of them - an elderly man who’s name he couldn’t remember - was dead, his bloody face having been smashed against one of the windows.
    ‘What the hell do we do now?’ he yelled to Cooper as he pulled the remaining survivors back out into the light.
    Cooper had already yanked the door at the back of the personnel carrier open.
    ‘Get them in here,’ he screamed.
    Michael ushered the terrified survivors towards the military vehicle. As they quickly covered the short distance between the van and the personnel carrier the first foot soldiers returned to the base. They stumbled down the ramp, still firing indiscriminately into the darkness behind them. Seconds later the first bodies appeared. A sudden noise and a flash of movement distracted the survivors.
    Cooper looked up and saw that one of the jeeps had crashed into the side of the entrance door. The soldier who’d been behind the wheel was now limping into the base, struggling to keep moving forward whilst the nearest bodies reached out and began to pull him back.
    ‘We’ve got to get out of here now,’ Cooper decided. ‘If they can’t get that door closed then in a couple of minutes this place will be full of those fucking things.’
    ‘Go!’ Michael screamed at the drivers of the survivor’s other two vehicles. The noise in the cavernous room was deafening and intense and at first neither Donna or Steve Armitage reacted. Michael gestured frantically and angrily towards the bunker doors until Armitage acknowledged him and began to pull forward, steering the clumsy prison truck around stockpiles of military equipment. Donna, who had never driven the motorhome before, did the same.
    As the two vehicles moved towards the entrance many more soldiers and bodies swarmed into the base. Like small and insignificant ants against the vast and bland concrete backdrop, individually the corpses were slow and largely uncoordinated but their