Purification

familiar sight of hundreds upon hundreds of ruined vehicles, some frozen and still, others with the emaciated remains of their drivers and passengers still trapped inside, fighting to get out as the survivors neared. By comparison the road in the opposite direction was virtually empty. Few vehicles seemed to have been travelling away from Rowley when the infection had first struck. Cooper led the convoy across the central reservation, smashing his way through an already damaged section of metal barrier. Driving on the wrong side of the road felt annoyingly uncomfortable and strange, but it was also unquestionably easier.
    A brief respite in the mist and rain increased the light levels of the late October afternoon for a short while. The road followed a long, gentle arc with woodland on one side and, in the near distance on the other, the shadows of the city of Rowley. No matter how much time had elapsed since the germ - if that really was what had done all the damage - had struck and destroyed so much, the sight of a once busy and powerful city drenched in total darkness and without a single light shining out was still unnatural and unsettling. Having been isolated and shut away for some time, it presented the survivors with a stark reminder of the incomprehensible scale and magnitude of what had happened to the defenceless world around them.
    Peter Guest now seemed a little more composed again.
    ‘In about half a mile we should reach a series of roundabouts on this road,’ he explained, carefully following every inch of their progress on his map. ‘Keep going straight until we hit the fifth one, then it’s left.
    Another twenty miles or so after than and we should just about be there.’
    Michael crouched on his knees on the floor in the back of the personnel carrier and washed his hands with strong disinfectant they’d taken from the warehouse, trying desperately to get rid of the smell of dead flesh which had stained him. Emma sat at his side, watching him intently and occasionally looking up and out of the window. Every few seconds the light from one of their vehicles would catch in a window of an empty building or in the windscreen of a motionless car and would reflect back for an instant, making her look twice and wonder whether there was anyone there. She knew there would be no-one, but she had to keep looking just in case.
    His hands stinging, Michael finished what he was doing and sat back down next to her, collapsing heavily into his seat as the personnel carrier swerved around the first roundabout, knocking him off-balance.
    ‘You okay?’ Emma asked.
    ‘Fine,’
    he
    replied.
    ‘You
    stink.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    She didn’t know which was worse - the smell of death and decay (which they were all becoming disturbingly accustomed to) or the overpowering stench of the strong chemicals Michael had doused his hands with.
    The couple hadn’t spoken much all day. There had been so many distractions and interruptions that it hadn’t been possible for them to speak for any length of time. It had been one of those now all too familiar depressing days filled with fear and uncertainty, when many people seemed to have been so wrapped up in their own dark thoughts that they hadn’t been able to (or hadn’t even wanted to) share them with anyone else. Now that the end of their journey seemed to be approaching, however, the mood among the survivors in the personnel carrier appeared to have lifted slightly.
    ‘I was thinking,’ Michael began, leaning against Emma and whispering quietly to her, ‘if this works out then I want to try and get over to that island as soon as I can. I think we both should.’
    ‘Why?’ she asked, her voice equally quiet and secretive.
    ‘Because if you believe everything we’ve heard then it could well be the place where we end up spending the rest of our lives. I want to make sure we get everything we need out there.’
    ‘That’s a bit selfish, isn’t it? What about…?’
    ‘I’m not suggesting doing anything at the expense of any of the others,’ he explained quickly, keen to make it clear that he wasn’t being completely self-centred, ‘I just want to be sure we get what we need. And I’m not just talking about you and me either, I’m talking about all of this lot too.’
    He looked around the personnel carrier at the other people travelling with them. It was disheartening that even now after having spent so much time together, the group remained fragmented and