The City

keep our heads down and we keep out of sight.
    Don’t let them know we’re in here.’

9
    Music woke Jack from his light sleep. He thought he was imagining it at first but no, there it was again. Faint and tinny, for the first time in almost a week he could definitely hear music.
    Once he was fully awake it took him a couple of seconds to get his bearings. He looked around and let his eyes slowly become accustomed to the low morning light. The department store looked very different in daylight - completely different in fact to how he’d pictured it last night when it had been filled with nothing but shadows and darkness. He then remembered that he hadn’t been alone last night and he sat up quickly and looked around for Clare.
    ‘Over here,’ she shouted from the other side of the store.
    She’d been watching him stirring for the last couple of minutes but hadn’t wanted to wake him. Stiff, aching and tired, Jack swung his legs out over the side of the bed, got up and then slowly shuffled over to the dining room furniture display where she was sitting. He sat down opposite her at a large mahogany table. In the middle of the table was a small stereo unit. Clare was playing a CD. He didn’t recognise the music. Although he didn’t say anything to her he wished she’d turn it down. It wasn’t particularly loud, he decided it just seemed that way because everything else was so deathly silent.
    ‘How are you this morning?’ he asked.
    She nodded and smiled sadly.
    ‘I’m okay,’ she replied. ‘Look, I didn’t mean to wake you up.
    I hope you don’t mind the noise. I couldn’t stand the quiet any longer. I found the stereo in the electrical department just past the beds.’
    Jack looked back over his shoulder and noticed a huge bank of dead television screens a short distance behind the row of 54
    beds where they’d just spent the night. Still drugged by sleep he stood up again and walked back to where he’d left their belongings last night. After searching through his rucksack he found a little of the food which he’d brought with him. He took it back to Clare and sat down again.
    ‘Hungry?’ he asked.
    She shook her head.
    ‘Not
    really.’
    ‘You should try and eat something. We both should.’
    He opened up a plastic lunch box and took out some chocolate and fruit which he laid out on the table between them.
    Clare took a chocolate bar and unwrapped it. It was surprisingly good. The rich taste and smell of the food was reassuringly familiar and strangely comforting. She’d hardly eaten since Tuesday. After days of feeling nothing much more than sickening hurt and constant disorientation, the food provided a welcome distraction. For a moment it seemed that although they appeared to have lost everything, there was a slight chance that it might be possible for them to rediscover something resembling normality amongst the rubble of what remained of the lives they used to lead.
    ‘I love this song,’ Clare said as the next track on the CD
    began. She chewed thoughtfully on her chocolate and turned up the volume. She closed her eyes and for a precious few seconds tried to imagine she was somewhere else.
    To Jack the music sounded no different and no less processed and manufactured than the last bland track he’d heard. He remembered the days when music was played by real musicians and when talent mattered more than appearance and… and he could hear something else. He slammed his fist down on top of the stereo and stopped it playing.
    ‘Hey…’ Clare protested.
    ‘Shh…’
    he
    hissed.
    He pushed his chair back and walked towards the escalators which snaked up through the centre of the department store. He could hear movement on the first floor below. Cautiously he peered over the top of the staircase and saw that a crowd of bodies had appeared. Unlike the clumsy bodies he’d seen earlier,  these seemed to have a modicum of control. The light was poor but he could see, incredibly, that two or three of them had begun trying to climb up the motionless escalator towards him. They tripped over shop displays and random fallen corpses as they tried awkwardly to move forward. Clare suddenly appeared at his side, startling him.
    ‘What’s going on?’ she asked anxiously.
    ‘Look,’ he answered, nodding down in the direction of the figures beneath them. He concentrated his attention on the diseased body which had made most progress towards the second floor. It was now almost halfway up