The Human Condition

turned left into a dark alleyway. She stopped running for a moment and rested with her hands on her knees, sucking in as much precious oxygen as she could. No bodies had followed her yet. If she could get out of sight quickly she knew she might have an opportunity to properly catch her breath and decide what to do next. There was a door halfway down the alley. She looked in through a small, dusty window but couldn't immediately see any movement. She pulled the door open and slipped inside, too tired to care what she found on the other side.

    Bloody hell, she thought as she climbed a narrow, white marble staircase. Of all the doors in all the alleys, she seemed to have chosen the staff entrance to Lacey's department store. Christ, she'd never been able to afford to shop there although she'd always wanted to. It was one of those places that made you feel dirty and unworthy if you walked in without a purse full of gold and platinum charge cards and credit cards. Today, of course, it was a cold, dark, skeletal shadow of its former self but what the hell, it was still Laceys.

    Barry Bushell's words continued to play heavily on Elizabeth's mind as she crept further up the stairs and deeper into the building. How right he'd been. She couldn't think of anywhere she'd be completely safe and, even if she could, she had no way of getting there now. She continued to climb, stopping when she reached the jewellery department on the third floor. There were no bodies around that she could see. Always a sucker for gold and stones, she found herself drawn to the cobweb-covered display cabinets. They were still filled with beautiful pieces that, a month ago, would have been worth a fortune. Today they were worth nothing. But hell, she could dream, couldn't she? Dreaming was just about all she had left...

    Elizabeth finally had her shopping trip around Laceys. She worked her way through the building floor by floor, avoiding the occasional corpse and staring in wonder at all the things she'd never been able to afford. When she reached the ladies clothing department she changed out of her dirty clothes and dressed in the most expensive outfit she could find. She climbed to the very top floor and sat on a leather sofa she'd never have been able to afford in a hundred years. She drank wine, ate chocolate and swallowed enough headache tablets to kill an elephant.

    Paul Jones had also decided to take his own life.

    He stopped running and hid in the shadows of a newsagents until the effect of his sudden appearance and disappearance had faded away and the bodies had lost interest. He lay on the floor behind the counter and read the last ever editions of half a dozen newspapers until the sun had disappeared and the light had faded away. All of the headlines that had once seemed so important and relevant now seemed puerile and insignificant.

    Walking slowly through the shadows now without fear or concern, Jones made his way along the dark city streets to a construction site. With a rucksack full of booze on his back, he climbed to the very top of the tallest crane he could find which stood in the middle of the foundations of an office building that would never be completed. Protected by the height and enjoying a view which was even more impressive than the view from the hotel's Presidential Suite, he drank and slept.

    In the morning, when the sun finally came up, he looked back across town at the hotel he'd left behind and watched the occasional stupid body fall from the roof. He laughed out loud without fear of retribution.

    Paul Jones had decided to take his own life, but not yet. He'd do it when there were no other options left. Once Proctor had lost sight of Elizabeth he'd stopped running. He'd slowed his pace to match that of the dead and, for a time, had been able to walk among them undetected. I can do this, he thought, I can outwit them. I can move around them and between them and I can do this. Bushell was wrong. They were all wrong. I don't have to run and I don't have to give up. It's not over...

    For almost a day he managed to survive, but his foolish confidence proved to be his undoing. It took only a single sneeze. One sneeze in the middle of a vast crowd of bodies and his position was revealed. And Proctor, being a cowardly man, tried to run. Instead of standing his ground and continuing to mimic the actions of the bodies all around him, the stupid man tried to run. Deep in the middle of several hundred rancid, rotting