Purification

motorhome you won’t,’ Steve Armitage said from across the room. He’d been outside to check over the three vehicles and had just returned, breathless and cold. He wiped his greasy hands on a dirty rag which he threw into a dark corner. ‘It’s knackered. Axle’s broken.
    I’m not surprised after the journey we had last night.’
    ‘Shit,’
    Michael
    cursed.
    ‘What are we going to do now then?’ Emma asked, feeling strangely saddened by the loss of their vehicle.
    Although she had often detested being inside it, she had spent a lot of time there with Michael. It was where they had been able to be alone and intimate. She had come to think of it as their own private space. A small, uncomfortable and increasingly cramped and squalid private space, granted, but it had been their own.
    ‘We’ll have to go out and find something else,’ said Donna who, until then, had been sitting nearby and listening silently. ‘We’re going to need another vehicle.
    There’s bound to be something round here that we can use.’
    ‘There still aren’t too many bodies around out there,’
    Armitage added. ‘I reckon we’ll be all right to go and look around providing we’re sensible and we’re not outside too long. Maybe a few of us should go out and work our way through the car parks?’
    ‘Can’t we try and manage with just two trucks?’ Emma wondered. Michael shook his head.
    ‘Don’t think so,’ he answered. ‘We might have been able to fit everyone in at a push, but I think we need to try and take as much stuff from here as we can get our hands on. Seems stupid to leave it all behind now we’re here, doesn’t it? We don’t know when we might need it.’
    ‘He’s right,’ Cooper agreed. No-one argued.
    ‘You’re going to have to get yourselves two vehicles,’
    Stonehouse announced. Stood at the back of the small group of people, the soldier stood up. An imposing figure in his heavy protective gear, flanked by one of his men and with his rifle held at his side, his sudden movement silenced the survivors.
    ‘Why’s that?’ Cooper asked, genuinely confused.
    ‘Because we’re going back to the base,’ he replied. ‘It’s our only option.’
    ‘Don’t be fucking stupid,’ snapped Croft. ‘The place was overrun. You can’t go back there.’
    ‘We can and we will. We can’t stay out here.’
    ‘But we need your…’
    ‘We need to get back underground. We’re completely fucked if we stay up here.’
    ‘Doesn’t look like you’ve got much choice,’ Michael hissed. ‘You’re dead whatever you do. Might as well come with us and…’
    ‘And what? Sit and watch you lot run? Sit in these bloody suits and wait to die? Sit and…’
    ‘At least you’d be giving us a chance,’ Croft yelled, his face suddenly red with emotion. ‘Do things your way and everyone loses.’
    ‘Tough.’
    ‘Bastard,’ he spat and he lurched towards the soldier, limping and wincing as he landed heavily on his feet, aggravating his still painful injuries. Stonehouse lifted a single gloved hand and pushed the doctor to one side.
    Already off-balance, he fell awkwardly to the ground at the soldier’s booted feet. Stonehouse lifted the butt of his rifle and held it poised inches above Croft’s upturned face.
    ‘Leave it, Phil,’ Cooper said. He turned to face Stonehouse. ‘Just go.’
    ‘What the fucking hell are you doing?’ Croft demanded as he crawled away from Stonehouse. ‘Have you gone completely fucking mad?’
    Cooper looked down at him.
    ‘No,’ he replied.
    Stonehouse stood and watched, unnerved by the unexpected response he had received from his ex-colleague. He had anticipated some kind of resistance from him at least.
    ‘Christ,’ the incensed doctor continued as he picked himself up and brushed himself down, ‘there are only four of them. We need that vehicle, Cooper. We’ll end up driving to Bigginford in a convoy of twenty bloody cars if we’re not careful.’
    ‘No we won’t,’ Cooper said calmly. All eyes were on him. He began to walk towards the exit and away from the confrontation when he suddenly stopped, turned round and ran back in the opposite direction, diving through the air and smashing into Stonehouse and the soldier standing next to him. In the sudden confusion the two soldiers were knocked flying and sent tumbling to the ground.
    Stonehouse was on all fours. Cooper grabbed hold of his facemask underneath his chin and yanked it off his face.
    The second