Purification

replied, pointing back towards the building he’d just left.

30
    Richard Lawrence left Cormansey just after ten o’clock.
    The nine survivors who remained on the island stood at the end of the runway and watched the helicopter until its bright lights disappeared and were swallowed up by the grey morning gloom. They hoped that it would return later in the day as planned, bringing with it the plane and at least another fifteen people. Michael hoped that Emma would be one of them.
    During the long watch the previous evening and early morning he had managed to convince Stayt and Fry to listen seriously to his concerns about the changing condition of the bodies. So much remained unpredictable and uncertain on the island and it seemed sensible to take action sooner rather than later. Never one for diplomacy, Michael had expressed his opinions in blunt, direct and honest terms to the rest of the small group over breakfast and, apart from some initial nervous reluctance, they had been largely receptive. Stayt had pointed out the immediate practicalities of their situation, and that had proved to be the deciding factor. There were already too many of them to shelter comfortably in the single small cottage any longer and they were going to have to expand into other properties. It made sense to try and get a decent foothold in the village now rather than spend the next few days moving unnecessarily from building to building to building. Better to get the bodies cleared away now. It would make the survivor’s lives immeasurably easier.
    Armed with sticks, axes, clubs and blades of varying descriptions, the small group travelled from the cottage towards the village of Danvers Lye in a convoy of two cars and the pickup truck. It seemed to make sense to use several vehicles. The truck would most probably be needed to help dispose of the piles of bodies which would inevitably be accumulated as the day progressed.
    This was the first real opportunity since arriving that Michael, Talbot and Guest had had to see anything of the island. It was a bleak, barren and rocky place covered in patchy grass and bracken. The ocean was almost always in view on one side or the other and plumes of cold grey water seemed to constantly be shooting into the air as tall waves crashed against jagged rocks. Trees were few and far between and the wind howled across the weather-beaten landscape. A basic network of rudimentary roads connected the various buildings, most of which were small cottages and houses; some made of old grey stone, others more modern in appearance. There was a farm over on the southwest of the island and he’d seen a few abandoned fishing boats dotted along the shore, but other than that Michael struggled to think what the inhabitants of Cormansey might have done for a living. This land was harsh and unforgiving and life would surely have been difficult at the best of times. Perhaps it was their isolation and distance from the rest of the world that the people who had lived here had craved. Whatever the reason, he thought to himself, it hadn’t done any of them any good.
    Despite still wholeheartedly believing in what they were setting out to do, Michael could not help but feel a little uncomfortable, vulnerable and nervous as the village came into view. He stared at the motley collection of unkempt buildings and realised that this was, remarkably, the first time he’d ever gone out actively looking for bodies to destroy in such numbers and it wasn’t a pleasant prospect.
    Until now his time had been spent hiding from them or defending himself against them. Although he knew the corpses would probably offer very little in the way of serious resistance, the trepidation he felt was still substantial. And he wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
    Some of the other faces around him appeared equally unsettled and unsure.
    Michael travelled in the jeep at the front of the convoy with Brigid and Harper. He was hot. The entire group had dressed themselves in boots and gloves and either boiler suits or strong waterproofs taken from the empty homes of long-dead fishermen yesterday morning. The advanced decay of the bodies had now reached such a stage that their destruction, removal and disposal was inevitably going to become a bloody, greasy and gruesome affair. The rotting shells would be ripe with disease. No-one relished the thought of close physical contact with them.
    ‘Stop here,’ he said when they were just short of the