The City

towards the main road. The rest of the survivors followed behind, their nervousness increasing with every step. Bernard Heath took deep breaths of stagnant air in an attempt to fill his lungs with oxygen before they started running again.
    Cooper paused and turned back to make sure they were together.
    ‘Ready?’ he asked. No response. He turned and ran.
    Instinctively the others followed at a frantic pace.
    Immediately those straggling bodies left in the street turned and moved towards the sudden disturbance. Cooper led the way, pushing corpses away to the side as he forced his way forward.
    Castle was close behind. A myriad of unexpected emotions ran through his mind as he moved. As the inhabitants of the city had rotted and decayed, so the city itself also appeared to have deteriorated. The once familiar sights of streets that he’d walked along hundreds of time seemed to have changed almost beyond recognition. Unchecked moss and weeds grew between the cracks in the pavements and climbed the walls of cold and silent buildings. Motionless, skeletal corpses lay in the gutter being steadily devoured by the passage of time and by the numerous rodents and insects which fed off their disintegrating flesh. A random body lashed out and caught him off-guard. He grabbed it by the neck and threw it into a crowd of three more advancing cadavers.
    ‘Left!’ he shouted at the soldier who, in his haste and desire to keep moving, had just passed the turning. Castle changed direction, followed closely by the rest of the men who were all somehow managing to keep a comparable pace. Bernard Heath and Steve Armitage in particular were moving with unexpected velocity and newfound determination. Pure adrenaline and fear was driving them to run like men half their ages.
    Disorientated by its overgrown appearance and the sudden effort of the sprint through the streets, it took Phil Croft a while to recognise the court building. As he swerved to avoid another lurching body his eyes locked onto the steep steps which led up from ground level to the court’s imposing bronze-tinted glass entrance doors. Cooper, Castle and Heath were already there.
    They held the doors open for the others and then slammed them shut and barred them once they were all inside. Half of the men dropped to their knees and struggled to catch their breath. The remaining three realised immediately that there were suddenly movements in the shadows all around them. Within thirty seconds some fifteen ragged figures had appeared in the building’s vast reception area. Countless more slammed into the door and began to try and beat their way inside.
    ‘Get rid of them,’ Cooper ordered. ‘Go for the head and try and take them out. We’ll get this area cleared and then we can slow it down a gear.’
    Looking round for inspiration he picked up a nearby metal tube (which had previously held up a sign instructing visitors to the court to wait to be searched by security) and moved towards the closest body. What had once been a policewoman dragged itself towards him with willowy arms outstretched. He swung the heavy metal tube through the air and smashed it into the side of the corpse’s head. Deep crimson blood, almost black, began to ooze steadily from a gash above the body’s shattered cheekbone.
    It moved forward again. Cooper lashed out again and again, his fifth strike finally making the pitiful creature crumble, leaving it limp and motionless on the dusty marble floor.
    Armitage stood in numb terror as an elderly cadaver stumbled towards him. With empty, emotionless eyes it stared at him and he found himself unable to look away or to react in any other way. Suddenly too close to be avoided, the lorry driver screwed up his face in disgust and lifted his arms to prevent the pathetic figure from advancing any further forward. Although the body squirmed relentlessly in his grip, the survivor’s strength was clearly too much for it to overcome. Becoming suddenly more confident now that he was aware of the physical gulf between the living and the dead, Armitage pushed the body away and into the nearest wall with angry force. The corpse stopped and then turned and began to move towards him again. This time Armitage grabbed hold of the rotting head, just below the chin, and, with weeks of pent up fear and frustration behind him, he slammed it against the wall, almost crushing it completely.
    They were cutting through the bodies with incredible ease.
    The lethargic