The City

the base.
    The torrential rain was falling harder than ever, hissing down all around him and bouncing back up off the pavement. Cooper ran up a steady hill towards a small square shopping precinct littered with rotting human remains. There were many of the staggering survivors (if that was what they really were) around the scene, their reaction to him dulled and delayed by whatever it was that had happened to them. As Cooper brushed past it was all they could do to painfully turn themselves around and stumble after him hopelessly. As a soldier it was his duty to defend and protect these people, but it was clear that they were already beyond hope. As a human being, therefore, his priorities became infinitely more selfish and personal. He needed to get away from the unrecognisable hell that this city had become. His own safety was his only remaining concern.
    A sharp right took him down a dark and narrow passageway, lined on either side by tall office buildings. There the driving rain echoed louder than ever before in the confined space. There were people ahead. The passageway was tight and he knew it would be difficult to get through them. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed that still more of them were following him from the other direction. He was boxed-in and, although these poor creatures seemed individually weak and unimportant, there were far too many of them for him to simply dismiss them as not being a threat. By the same token, however, he didn’t want to cause them any harm. They were suffering. They were obviously very weak and undernourished. They were innocent and hadn’t done anything wrong.
    Halfway down the passageway was a large waste bin which Cooper scrambled onto. From there he was able to haul himself up onto a metal fire escape ladder. He climbed to a first floor window which he smashed with a single kick from one of his heavily booted feet. Clambering through the splintered wooden  frame and shattered glass he found himself standing in a large, open-plan office. There were more silent people inside, all in a similar condition to those walking the rain-soaked streets. They immediately turned and began to move towards him, their dark, clouded eyes following his every move. As they approached him he found himself wondering why, after living through the hell which had obviously taken place just under three weeks ago, these people were still at work. Why hadn’t they left to find their families and homes?
    ‘Look,’ he began, struggling to know what to say, ‘please don’t be afraid. I’m not going to…’
    It was pointless. The people in the building were as withdrawn and catatonic as those dragging themselves along outside. Cooper stared with mounting horror into the nearest face. Once a young and attractive graduate trainee, this woman’s blistered, peeling skin was now tinged with an unnatural blue-green hue. He glanced down at one of the inert bodies slumped across a desk next to him. Even though he was looking through a tinted visor, it occurred to him that those bodies which were still moving and those that were motionless seemed to all be in the same despicable condition. He’d seen it before when he’d been out in the field on active duty. This was the look of death. These people were rotting…
    With panic and bile rising in his throat, Cooper ran diagonally across the room, jumping up onto desks to avoid making contact with the shadowy creatures around him. He jumped down to the floor and slid and crashed through a heavy fire door into a dark corridor. Pushing his way past another wandering body he reached the nearest staircase and began to climb up. He moved as quickly as he could until he had reached the top floor and could go no further. After trying three locked office doors he forced his way into a small, square store room. He slammed the door shut behind him and pulled a metal storage rack down to block it and prevent the people outside from getting in.
    Twenty minutes later, when Cooper had caught his breath and managed to calm himself down slightly, he walked across the room to a single window and peered out over the remains of the  world outside. He could see bodies drifting aimlessly along the otherwise silent and deserted city streets. He could hear them moving around in other parts of the building too.
    His transport was long gone and Thompson was dead. He was completely alone.
    As time dragged slowly on, it wasn’t so much the surroundings that frightened