Purification

go.
    Things have changed since we got here. Arriving here felt like reaching the end of the road. I watched the helicopter leave this afternoon and that made me realise that things are moving on without me now and that I should finish this today.
    I’m an outsider. Neither living or dead. I can’t continue to exist like this.
    I’m standing a little way short of the perimeter fence now. The bodies are watching me but they’re not reacting as much as I’d expected them to. God, everything sounds and feels different out here. I’ve spent the last two months either hidden underground or travelling. Now I can hear my footsteps as I walk through the long, wet grass. I can hear birds again and I can see them shooting quickly across the sky. I can see the wind ripping through the tops of trees and I can feel it blowing against my suit.
    It’s spitting with rain now. Little drops of water are splashing against my visor. If I don’t look at the bodies then everything seems green and fresh and clear and all I want to do is breathe the air again. Since we came above ground and left the base I haven’t been able to touch my own skin. I want to scratch my arms and bite my nails and rub my eyes and run my fingers through my hair. I want to feel the wind and the rain on my skin one last time.
    Kelly Harcourt stood at the edge of the airfield.
    Oblivious to the bodies standing just metres away from her, and equally ignorant to the watching eyes of the survivors in the observation tower behind, she ripped off her facemask.
    And for a moment the sweet relief was overpowering.
    Cool, fresh-tasting air flooded her lungs, making her feel stronger and more human than she had felt in weeks.
    She could smell the grass and the decay and it tasted a thousand times better than she remembered. The seconds ticked by, and it seemed that the impossible had happened.
    Was she immune? By some incredible chance, did she share the same physical traits which had allowed the people in the building behind her to survive? She didn’t dare believe it at first. What were the odds against her managing to survive like this? In a delirious instant her mind was filled with visions of finally making it to the island and actually having some kind of existence where before she’d only been able to think about…
    It
    started.
    It was happening.
    She knew this was it.
    From out of nowhere the pain gripped hold of her like a hand wrapped tight around her neck.
    The inside of Kelly’s throat began to swell and then split and bleed. With her eyes bulging with pain and suffocation she fell back onto the grass and stared deep into the heavy grey sky overhead, seeing nothing.
    Thirty seconds later it was over.

28
    The fact that he found himself lying on a relatively warm and comfortable bed for the first time in weeks wasn’t helping Michael to sleep. Danny Talbot, in comparison, was snoring from the comfort of his narrow bunk on the other side of the small, square cottage bedroom. It was almost midnight. Michael’s head was pounding and he wished that he could find a way to switch off and disconnect for a while. It was impossible. If he wasn’t being distracted by the noise coming from the other survivors downstairs then he was thinking about the island and how he had finally managed to get there. When he stopped thinking about the island he found himself thinking about the changing behaviour of the bodies, and when he stopped thinking about that he started to think about Emma.
    Once he’d started he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
    Funny how distance alters perspective, he thought.
    Having spent virtually all his time with Emma over the last two months, he’d grown used to having her around and it felt strange, almost wrong, now that they were apart. He’d always had her there to talk to or to shout at or cry with until now. Whereas they had previously spent most of their time in the same building or the same vehicle together, now it could be argued that they weren’t even in the same country. The distance between them seemed immense, almost immeasurable. The sudden physical gulf made him feel strangely guilty and made him question whether leaving the mainland had been the right move. He should never have left her. He knew that she was more than capable of looking after herself (Christ, she’d looked after him enough recently) but that didn’t make it any easier. In many ways he felt responsible for her. More than that, he liked being with her