The City

brilliant white headlights flashed back at him in acknowledgment. He put the van into gear, turned around in a tight circle and then clattered out of the football pitch and back towards the road. Donna looked over her shoulder and watched as the two trucks began to slowly trundle after them.
    Fighting hard to keep his concentration and to keep moving in the right direction, Cooper slammed his foot down on the accelerator as body after body hurled itself in front of the van.

46
    Standing in silence in the window of a first floor bedroom, Nathan Holmes and Steve Richards watched the convoy of survivors disappear into the night.
    ‘They’re bloody idiots,’ Holmes said. ‘They’re wasting their time.’
    Richards didn’t respond. He was crying. Holmes glanced over his shoulder and looked at the other man momentarily before turning back to look out of the window again. To his left he could see the fading taillights of the trucks and the van.
    Hundreds of staggering bodies followed pointlessly in the wake of the vehicles. To his right the huge blaze at the other end of the university complex was continuing to draw thousands upon thousands of cadavers to the scene. He glanced back at Richards again.
    ‘Okay, mate, you ready?’ he asked. Richards nodded and sniffed. ‘Going to be a good night, this is.’
    Holmes picked up an outdoor jacket which he had left hanging on the back of a nearby chair. He put the jacket on and did up the zip. Still crying, Richards pulled on a warm fleece.
    ‘Sure you’re up for this?’
    Richards nodded again.
    The two men left the room and walked down the dark and silent corridor to the staircase. Together, they then made their way down to the ground floor. They stopped at an inconspicuous window in the corner of a similarly dark and inconspicuous room. Holmes turned to face Richards.
    ‘Pub or club?’ he asked.
    Richards managed half a smile.
    ‘Start with a pub. We can always go on to a club later.’
    ‘The Crown or The Lazy Fox?’
    Richards thought for a moment.
    ‘The Crown. It’s closer.’
    Grinning, Holmes leant forward and gently teased open the window in front of them. After peering up and down along the outside wall of the building momentarily he climbed up onto the windowsill and jumped down into the middle of an overgrown flower bed. Richards followed close behind. Filled with fear and nerves, and knowing that this was most probably to be his last night alive, he stopped walking and began to cry again.
    ‘Think about it this way,’ Holmes soothed, ‘those idiots that left here tonight, they’ve got nothing left to look forward to except more grief. You and me, mate, we’ve got it made. It’s going to get harder and harder for the rest of them. It’s going to get easier for us.’
    Holmes crept forward until he reached the edge of a narrow pathway.
    ‘Nathan, I…’ Richards began.
    ‘Trust me,’ Holmes interrupted.
    With that he turned and began to jog away from the university. Richards followed close behind, breaking into a sprint as Holmes did the same, afraid that he was going to be left behind.
    The two men emerged from a narrow side street onto a section of the ring road which was swarming with bodies. As the number of bodies around him increased, so Holmes moved with a nervous urgency, pushing his way through the rancid crowds.
    Driven by a combination of terror and disgust, Richards matched his speed, smashing corpse after corpse out of his way.
    After reaching the far side of the carriageway, Holmes turned left into another wide and silent street and headed for the shadowy remains of The Crown public house, a large pub which occupied a prominent position on the corner of two once busy main roads. Panting with exhaustion from the sudden sprint, he crashed through the swinging entrance door, followed seconds later by Richards.
    ‘Okay?’ he asked.
    Richards was bent over double with his hands on his knees, fighting to catch his breath.
    ‘I’m okay,’ he replied.
    The now familiar dull thud of bodies smashing against the outside of the door made the two men look up. Holmes immediately began to pile tables, chairs, cigarette machines and anything else he could find in front of the entrance to prevent the odious corpses from forcing their way inside. Richards walked deeper into the building. The pub was empty. It had been closed when the disaster had happened.
    ‘What are you drinking?’ he asked as he walked around to the back of the