The City

everyone in here?’ Baxter wondered, thinking out loud. He stared at the three vehicles and tried to visualise how they were going to cram the survivors and their belongings in.
    ‘We’re going to have to,’ mumbled Croft. ‘There’s no way we can risk trying to come out here again. Anyway, if…’
    His words were interrupted by yet more smashing and clattering on the other side of the metal loading bay door. The noise acted as a grim reminder that before they could think about  getting out of the city, they’d first need to get out of the court building and find their way back to the university.
    The doctor walked across the loading bay and stopped just short of the doors. Doing his best to ignore the constant, violent battering coming from outside, he crouched down to examine the locking mechanism. The doors, it seemed, were manufactured in a kind of concertina style. Once they’d managed to unlock them, therefore, they would slide open. Equally keen to get out and get moving and feeling useless and redundant because he couldn’t drive, Jack Baxter also began to study the locks.
    ‘Christ knows how we’re going to get these open,’ he muttered. ‘These would have been powered doors. We’ll be hard pushed to get them open without any electricity.’
    ‘We can do it,’ said Cooper from close behind. ‘We’ll take the locks out, free any restraints and then force them open.’
    ‘Force them open with what?’ Baxter asked.
    ‘The bloody trucks, what else?’ the soldier snapped.
    He lay down on the ground and stared at the bottom of the door. Light was trickling in from outside and was being blocked intermittently by the constant movements of the many random bodies milling around the other side of the barrier. With an outstretched hand Cooper tried to feel the door mechanism and understand how it worked. He could feel a metal runner buried in the concrete and it followed that some kind of pin would follow the track and keep the door in line. There would no doubt also be something similar at the top. He stood up and returned his attention to the lock which Croft was still examining studiously.
    ‘Think you can get it open?’ he asked.
    ‘If I hit it hard enough I can open anything!’ the doctor smirked.
    Steve Armitage appeared at their side with various spanners, wrenches and other tools.
    ‘Found these over there,’ he said, gesturing over towards the area of the loading bay where he had earlier found the jump leads. Cooper took one of the heavier wrenches from him and began to smash the lock. Croft stepped back. The noise the soldier was making was deafening, and the implications were obvious.
    ‘Get into the trucks,’ Baxter shouted to the others. As the only non-driver he felt duty bound to carry on working to get the doors open. ‘When we get this done there’ll be thousands of bloody bodies in here.’
    Croft and Armitage returned to their vehicles. Paul Castle settled himself in the driver’s seat of the smaller prison van which Heath had started. Just ahead of them Cooper continued to batter the lock, feeling it weaken with every deafening blow.
    Another thirty seconds and it was released.
    ‘That it?’ Bernard Heath asked from close behind.
    Cooper shook the door and tried to slide it open a fraction. It wouldn’t move.
    ‘Must be other restraints,’ he mumbled. He took a step back and then looked up and down at the area where the door met the frame. He could see that there were two more locks or bolts, one about a third of the way up the side of the door, the other a third down.
    Heath gestured for Croft to bring the van over. The doctor edged the vehicle forward cautiously and stopped just short of the door. The lecturer hauled himself up onto the bonnet of the van and then stepped up onto its roof.
    ‘Pass me something to get this open with,’ he shouted down to the others. Cooper passed up a heavy steel lump hammer with which Heath immediately began to batter the metal. His pulse raced with adrenaline, effort and fear as he smashed the hammer down again and again. His arm ached but he didn’t stop. He could sense the vast crowd waiting for them on the other side of the metal door but it didn’t seem to matter. He wanted to be away from this place.
    Directly below where Heath was working Cooper was leaning across the van and had started to try and free the one remaining restraint, prising it open with a metal crowbar.
    Although this was a secure door it was by no