Purification

collective movement down the steep entrance ramp gave the ominous impression of speed and control. Gunfire continued to ring out and echo constantly. As more soldiers forced their way back inside, so the base became filled with more deadly gunfire and, occasionally, barely controlled flame.
    From her position at the front of the motorhome Emma searched desperately through the confusion outside, hoping to catch sight of Michael. Next to her Donna tried to keep calm as she struggled to drive the heavy and unresponsive vehicle. She followed Armitage ahead of her in the truck, concentrating on staying close to his taillights. For a second she allowed herself to look up and into her door mirror.
    Back deeper in the base she could she frantic movement around the back of the personnel carrier. In the midst of the bloody confusion she could see Bernard Heath struggling to climb inside. She watched in helpless disbelief as he was brought down by gunfire, a stray round almost cutting him in half. A torrent of bullets thudded into his right leg, his crotch, his abdomen and his shoulder. By the time he hit the ground he was dead.
    ‘Fucking hell,’ she wailed with tears in her eyes.
    ‘Bernard’s gone down.’
    ‘What?’ Emma mumbled, spinning around desperately and trying to get a clear view through the back of the motorhome. She stared for a second at Heath’s crumpled body on the ground before looking for Michael again.
    Where the hell was he? What had happened to him…?
    Out of sight of Emma, Michael pulled the door at the back of the personnel carrier shut.
    ‘Get moving!’ he yelled as he stared out through a small, square window at the remains of his fallen friend. He lurched forward and then fell back into a seat as the soldier driving the transport slowly turned it around and pulled away.
    ‘Put your fucking foot down,’ Cooper hissed in his ear.
    The driver did as he was ordered, quickly overtaking the motorhome and the prison truck and powering towards the ramp. Countless staggering shapes - both living and dead -
    were smashed to the side.
    ‘Which way?’ the nervous trooper stammered through his cumbersome facemask as they neared the doors. Bright electric light was replaced by sudden blackness as they drove out into the open. Intense battles still seemed to be raging on all sides, providing some illumination but not enough to allow Cooper to make sense of everything that was happening around them. Knowing that the main track away from the bunker was blocked by the truck the survivors had crashed when they’d first arrived there weeks earlier, he needed to find another route away. The vehicle he was travelling in would be able to cope with any terrain, no matter how rough or uneven. The prison truck and motorhome following behind, however, would undoubtedly struggle to deal with uneven ground or anything more than the gentlest of gradients. Resigned to the fact that conditions would probably be as bad whichever direction they went in, he made a snap decision.
    ‘Follow the line of the valley,’ he ordered, gesturing left and choosing what he thought would be the most level route. He struggled to make himself heard over the engine, the rain and the relentless thud, thud, thud of the constant stream of bodies which launched themselves pointlessly at the metal sides of the personnel carrier. ‘Just keep going straight,’ he continued. ‘We’re bound to pick up a road or a track at some point.’
    Driving through the bloody mayhem and devastation which continued to unfold all around them, the three vehicles disappeared into the darkness.
    The hanger was filled with bodies. Individual soldiers still managed to offer a degree of resistance but their ammunition and their will to fight was almost completely gone. Terrified and exhausted, several disorientated troops had ripped off their cumbersome facemasks in desperation and were quickly infected and killed. Others were brought down by crossfire. Many more were ripped apart by vast, surging crowds of crazed bodies.
    The senior officer left below ground ordered the decontamination chambers to be locked and sealed.
    One hundred and seventeen troops remained buried underground.
    Almost double that number were trapped on the surface, some still fighting, the majority dead or dying.

8
    Being constantly thrown from side to side, Michael had to crawl the length of the personnel carrier to get to Cooper.
    ‘So what the hell do we do now?’ he demanded,