The City

pulled him through. ‘Get out of sight.’
    Croft dragged a bookcase and low reading table across the door once Cooper had managed to push it shut. Already there were rotting faces pressed against the glass, smashing their fists against the window, trying to get at the survivors inside. Cooper gently pushed Croft deeper into the building.
    The others were waiting in a small, square office.
    ‘What the hell are we going to do now?’ Heath asked anxiously. He looked at Armitage. The red-faced man was  slumped over a desk in the middle of the room, fighting to get his breath back.
    ‘We keep going,’ Croft said. ‘What option have we got? We can either turn back and fight our way through a fucking huge crowd of bodies, or we can do what we came out here to do, get some transport organised, and then fight our way back through a fucking huge crowd of bodies.’
    His humour wasn’t appreciated. Regardless, the rest of the men knew that they didn’t have a choice.
    ‘Where exactly are we?’ Cooper asked. ‘Where are we in relation to the court?’
    Castle, standing with his hands on his hips and breathing heavily, cleared his throat and looked round.
    ‘Not too far to go,’ he replied, moving slightly so that he could look through another door and out towards the back of the building. ‘I reckon it’ll be easier if we go through the back.’
    ‘Fine,’ Cooper said. ‘We ready?’
    Armitage looked up in disbelief.
    ‘Give us a minute,’ he complained.
    ‘You can rest when we’ve found ourselves a fleet of trucks, okay?’
    The lorry driver covered his head in despair and then pushed himself back up.
    ‘All right?’ Baxter asked.
    Armitage
    nodded.
    ‘Lead the way, Paul,’ Cooper ordered. Trembling with nerves Castle did as he was told, cautiously creeping through the building until he reached the back door which opened out into a communal loading area shared with a number of neighbouring shops. A narrow service road ran along the back of the buildings.
    As far as he could see there were no bodies nearby.
    ‘Which way?’ Cooper whispered. Castle nodded to his right.
    ‘Okay,’ the soldier continued, ‘stick together and not a bloody sound from anyone, understand?’ No-one responded. ‘Let’s go.’
    Castle began to walk away from the shop, pressing himself against the nearest wall and doing his best to blend into the shadows. In the middle of the group Armitage silently cursed his condition. He wished that he was younger and fitter. Although  no doubt amplified in his mind, he feared that the sound of his heavy breathing might be enough to bring the bodies to them again.
    The service road carried on for a hundred meters or so before taking a sharp right and rejoining the main road. Castle paused just before the turning.
    ‘How far?’ Cooper asked, his voice deathly quiet.
    ‘Carry on along this road and we’ll reach another junction,’
    he replied, nodding further down the service road. ‘Go left and the court’s at the top of the main shopping street. A few hundred yards probably.’
    ‘What’s it look like?’
    He shrugged his shoulders.
    ‘Big building, bronzed glass in the windows, steps up to the front door.’
    ‘Who else knows what it looks like?’
    The other men, who had now grouped around Castle and the soldier, nodded. Baxter wasn’t sure.
    ‘Is it by…’ he began.
    ‘Follow the rest of us,’ Cooper snapped. ‘Wait here for a second. I’ll go and see what’s around.’
    Silently creeping further down the service road, he stopped when he reached the point where it merged with the main road.
    Cautiously he stuck his head around the corner and looked up and down the once busy street. There were plenty of bodies around, but considerably fewer than they had seen before they’d taken shelter in the bookshop. He guessed that the disturbance they’d caused back at the university would have resulted in many of the corpses gravitating around that area. He made his way back to the others.
    ‘There are a fair few of them about,’ he said quietly. ‘The only way to get through them is to ignore them. Try and forget they’re there. Run through them. They can’t match speed and the power we’ve got.’
    ‘A few thousand of the bastards could…’ Armitage moaned.
    ‘There aren’t a few thousand out there,’ Cooper replied, ‘but there will be if you panic so shut up, take a deep fucking breath and follow me.’
    Without waiting for a response he headed back