The City

behind the van, Clare started to get up.
    ‘Wait,’ Jack mouthed. He turned back and watched as the two men disappeared back down the stairs. ‘Let them load up the car first.’
    A couple of minutes later and Holmes returned. He threw more goods into the boot of the blood-splattered car and then turned and ran back down again. Another couple of minutes and  Heath emerged from the shadows again, closely followed by Holmes making his third trip. Jack couldn’t wait any longer.
    ‘Hey,’ he said, standing up and stepping out into the light.
    ‘Are you…?’
    Holmes reacted instantly to the presence of an unexpected body. The fact that this body was communicating with him didn’t register. He turned to face Jack and, giving him as little regard as he would any one of the thousands of corpses dragging themselves along the streets, he dropped his shoulder and charged into him, sending him flying across the car park.
    ‘You stupid bloody idiot!’ Clare screamed, jumping up and pushing Holmes back against the car. ‘What the hell did you do that for?’
    Realisation dawned. Holmes stood and stared at Jack as he rolled around on the cold ground, doubled up with pain. Heath pushed past him and helped Jack to his feet.
    ‘Get in the car,’ he shouted to Clare.
    Stunned and in considerable pain but nevertheless relieved, Jack slowly made his way over to the car and opened the back door and collapsed onto the seat. Clare sat down next to him.
    ‘You okay?’ she whispered.
    ‘I’m all right,’ he replied, still clutching his chest and with his face screwed up in agony. His breathing was heavy.
    Heath paced up and down anxiously in front of the car.
    Holmes had disappeared again. Moments later and he re-emerged from the staircase, carrying yet more provisions including, Heath noticed, his precious beer. They loaded the boot until it was filled to capacity. Holmes casually threw the remaining carrier bags of food at Clare who grabbed hold of them as he slammed the door shut.
    Heath introduced himself as he sat down in front of them.
    ‘I’m Bernard Heath,’ he said as Holmes started the engine and turned the car in a quick, tight arc. He drove at speed back towards the entrance to the car park as the sweat-soaked and overweight university lecturer next to him struggled to turn round and face Jack and Clare.
    ‘I’m Jack Baxter,’ he replied, still wheezing, ‘this is Clare.
    Thanks for…
    ‘You with anyone else or are there just two of you?’ Holmes interrupted.
    ‘Just the two of us. What about you?’
    ‘There are about forty of us,’ Heath answered.
    ‘Does anyone know what’s happened?’ Jack asked hopefully.
    Heath shook his head.
    ‘Haven’t got a clue,’ he replied and, with that, the brief conversation abruptly ended.
    Holmes drove back down the entrance ramp and deep into the crowds of bodies, destroying any of them unfortunate enough to stumble into his path.

11
    ‘I can’t do this,’ Paul said suddenly. It was the first time that either he or Donna had spoken for more than an hour.
    ‘Can’t do what?’
    ‘Stay here like this. I can’t handle it. I can’t just sit here knowing they’re out there waiting…’
    ‘Well you’re going to have to handle it, aren’t you? There’s not a lot else we can do.’
    Still crouching in the training room where they’d hidden since the incident hours earlier, the two survivors knew that there were still bodies out on the landing. Occasionally Donna plucked up the courage to peer out through the window, immediately moving out of sight again at the faintest sign of activity in the corridor outside. She had spent the last hours trying to work out why the creatures were there at all. Had they been trapped by the heavy landing doors swinging shut, or had they made a conscious decision to wait there for the survivors to emerge again? Were they even capable of conscious decision making? It was impossible to tell.
    Assuming that it had been sound that first attracted them to the tenth floor, Donna had come to the conclusion that it had been a domino effect of sorts that had drawn others to the scene.
    It seemed logical that the noise made by the first body trying to force its way inside had attracted another which in turn had attracted another and another and so on…
    ‘So what are we going to do?’ Paul moaned. Christ, he really was beginning to irritate Donna now.
    ‘Jesus,’ she sighed, ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘We can’t sit here