The City

fine details, they had decided, when no-one knew whether or not their main objectives were going to be achieved? Now that the 227
    men had succeeded in getting transport, the intentional shortfalls in their planning were unnerving and daunting.
    ‘So what do we do now?’ asked Croft as they drove towards the wire-mesh enclosed football pitch. They could already see that the gate was closed. To get out and open it would be taking a huge risk and to smash through would open the entire area up to the wandering bodies.
    ‘Just keep moving,’ answered Cooper, swinging himself around and sitting back down. ‘We’re going to have to drive through the gate.’
    ‘But we’ll…’ Croft began to protest.
    ‘Go through, reverse up and we’ll use the van to block off the entrance once the others are through.’
    ‘So how are we going to get back inside if we’re going to block the fucking exit?’
    Cooper shook his head, resigned and irritated by the doctor’s obvious nerves.
    ‘We’re not going to be able to do anything for some time,’ he explained, holding onto the sides of his seat as the van bumped and rocked as it ploughed through still more bodies. ‘The noise we’re making is going to bring thousands of these bloody things here.’
    ‘We could make a run for it.’
    ‘We could, but I think we should sit tight and wait for a while. Doesn’t matter if we don’t get back inside for a couple of hours. Hopefully there will be fewer of them around by then.’
    Cooper braced himself as Croft accelerated towards the metal gate blocking the entrance to the football pitch. Steve Armitage watched from the larger of the two trucks following close behind.
    ‘If he can’t do it,’ the lorry driver grunted, ‘then I’ll get through it with this thing.’
    ‘You’ll take half the bloody fence with you,’snapped Bernard Heath sitting next to him. As they had neared the university so Heath’s nervousness and apprehension had increased considerably. He knew the time was coming for them to risk leaving their shelter.
    The four men following watched as the police van careered into the gate. The force of the impact was enough to twist and smash it out of shape, leaving the buckled metal barrier hanging half-open, held in place by one stubborn hinge. Croft reversed a few meters back and then drove forward again, forcing the remains of the gate to one side and driving onto the football pitch. Suddenly free and able to move without obstruction, the doctor turned the van around in a large circle. He watched with nervous fascination as the bodies began to arrive. The diseased shells collided with the rattling wire-mesh barrier around the entire perimeter of the football pitch.
    ‘This is going to be tight,’ Armitage muttered as he lined up the truck and drove through the space where the metal gate had been. An experienced driver, the sides of his vehicle missed the fence by little more than a few centimeters on either side.
    Seeing that the first truck had entered the football pitch unscathed gave Paul Castle a false faith in his own abilities. He forced the smaller truck forward and winced as the passenger side scraped along the gatepost.
    As soon as the last of the three vehicles was safe within the confines of the metal fence Croft parked the van across the width of the entrance, blocking access to the football pitch for the hundreds of staggering cadavers which dragged themselves towards the survivors. Steve Armitage parked his vehicle in the middle of the pitch. After obliterating three bodies which had managed to squeeze onto the playing field in the short time between the last vehicle entering and Croft closing the gap, Paul Castle did the same.
    ‘Get out of sight,’ Cooper ordered as he ran from the van towards the larger of the two trucks. ‘Get in the back of this one.’
    All around the football pitch bodies continued to collide noisily and clumsily with the fence. Where between ten and twenty had stood moments before, now hundreds of ragged, bedraggled figures stood and smashed their rotting hands against the barrier, grabbing and shaking the wire-mesh and trying hopelessly to get at the survivors inside.
    Needing no further encouragement, the five other men followed Cooper into the back of the truck. Taking care not to fully shut the heavy, security locked door, the soldier collapsed down onto a nearby metal bench.
    ‘Did it,’ he said quietly. The military authority and direction previously so