The City

Between them they dragged the other three inside before slamming the door shut.
    Jack Baxter pulled the van door closed before climbing back into the front and sitting down next to Cooper. He glanced over his shoulder and checked that the others were safe.
    ‘They’re in,’ he gasped, panting heavily with effort. ‘Let’s move.’
    Donna and the other three survivors from the city collapsed into the back of the motorhome as the police van pulled away outside. Bodies all around the long vehicle smashed their decaying fists against the thin metal walls, fighting to get at the people inside.
    ‘There’s a base or something round here,’ Emma mumbled, her composure slowly beginning to return. ‘We were trying to get in.’
    Donna
    nodded.
    ‘Cooper came from here,’ she said, nodding in the direction of van that was moving back towards the ridge. ‘He’s going to get us inside.’
    ‘How many of you are there?’ Michael asked as he sat back down in the driver’s seat.
    ‘About thirty,’ she replied, following him.
    Thirty people, Michael thought. The hopelessness that had weighed him down for almost a month suddenly began to lift.
    Ignorant to the hundreds of diseased cadavers still fighting to get at them, he allowed himself the faintest smile of satisfaction.
    Cooper was struggling. The already rough ground had been churned up by the numerous military vehicles that had driven to and from the base recently. The constantly swarming bodies made it virtually impossible for him to keep the van moving in a straight line along the uneven track and the tired engine struggled to climb back up towards the ridge. They stopped moving. The van’s wheels span furiously, sending more and more mud flying into the air but failing to grip the ground. The soldier took his foot off the pedals and let the heavy vehicle roll a short distance back down the hill.
    ‘We’re never going to get back up there,’ Baxter said.
    ‘We’ll go round,’ Cooper replied, glancing from left to right and trying to work out which side of the hill to attack. He chose to go right and powered forward again. The ground was more level and, to his relief, he was finally able to build up a little speed. He pushed harder and harder, knocking more and more rag-doll bodies flying, until his velocity was such that he could risk attempting the climb again. Baxter held onto the sides of his seat as Cooper swerved back round to the left and forced the van through the remains of the crowd and up over the top of the ridge. The effort of the screaming engine was suddenly reduced as they reached the crest and began to travel along the flat again.
    ‘Bloody hell,’ Baxter said as they approached the prison truck lying stranded on its side. ‘What a damn mess.’
    Cooper stopped the van a short distance back and surveyed the scene. The number of bodies nearby meant that they couldn’t risk getting out and attempting a rescue on foot. Although the majority of them remained in the field near the entrance to the  base, many more had obviously been congregating nearby. The front of the truck was surrounded by a dense throng of some thirty lurching, grabbing cadavers.
    ‘How the hell are we going to do this?’ Baxter asked.
    Cooper didn’t bother to answer. Instead he drove forward again, turned the van round in a tight arc and began to reverse towards the truck’s upturned cab. Distracted by the noise of the approaching vehicle, the bodies turned and began to move towards them.
    ‘Open the doors,’ he yelled as he leant out of the window to his side and steered the van back. Baxter quickly scrambled out of his seat and crawled to the far end of the van. He threw the doors open and then jumped back as the van smashed into the cab of the truck. A random body, trapped by broken legs pinned between the two vehicles, thrashed its arms furiously. Before Baxter could react Cooper was with him. The soldier punched the corpse in the face repeatedly until it dropped down and lay still.
    The cab of the truck was sideways on, leaving the survivors just enough clearance to be able to clamber up and over its battered bulk.
    ‘We’ll get them out from the back and bring them over the top,’ Cooper explained, wiping his bloodied hands on the back of his trousers. ‘We’ll get Paul and Phil out first.’
    Carefully choosing his spot for fear of causing further injury to the two men, Cooper lifted a single heavy boot and kicked the centre of the cracked