The Human Condition

being protected by their three colleagues who, whenever they saw the slightest movement in the corridor leading up to the chambers, unleashed a torrent of bullets. Those trying to stop them didn't stand a chance, such was the position of the doorway being defended at the far end of a long corridor. Explosives and grenades were useless too. Fire munitions of any strength at them this close to the chambers and enough damage would almost certainly be done to immediately compromise the base. A few desperate fighters continued to try and prevent the breach. Those who had been unfortunate enough to have already seen what was outside and who knew what was about to be let into the base. Those who had already fought hand to hand with the dead and who had witnessed for themselves their vast and unstoppable numbers. Those who would rather be mown down by bullets than face the rotting crowds that were about to flood into the bunker.

    It was inevitable that the doors were going to be opened. It was just a matter of time.

    Carlton lay on his back in the tunnel and trembled with fear. The world sounded different from behind the mask, muffled and somehow distant and indistinct. It made him feel even more uncertain and scared.

    In the distance he could hear further battles raging. Bullets were flying and screams of pain and panic were ringing through the twisting maze of subterranean corridors and passageways. Even more than before it was now impossible to gauge the direction of any of the sounds. The noise seemed now to surround Carlton and come at him from every angle. The volume increased steadily and previously distinct sounds gradually merged into a single unintelligible cacophony.

    Then it stopped.

    A sudden silence so ominous that it made Carlton lose control of his bladder. He lay on his back in a pool of his own piss and lifted a shaking hand up to his mask. He wrapped his fingers around the breathing apparatus, ready to rip it off. Perhaps I should just do it now, he thought, just get it over with...

    He couldn't bring himself to do it.

    Sobbing with fear he lay still and waited.

    The silence continued for the best part of two days. In his cramped confinement Carlton listened intently to the stillness, hoping for a clue as to what had happened but too afraid to move and investigate. Weak with hunger and nerves, he waited impatiently. He didn't know which was worse, the physical or mental pain? Every bone in his body ached and he knew that if he moved some of that pain might ease. But he couldn't do it. He was too bloody scared to do anything.

    After endless hours, minutes and seconds of nothing he finally heard something. Had he imagined it? He held his breath and listened carefully, the rapid thump of his own frightened heartbeat ringing in his ears and threatening to drown out any other sound. What was happening? He'd begun to presume that the all-consuming silence of the last forty or so hours had been a good thing. Surely if the base had been invaded by swarms of decaying bodies he would have seen or heard something by now?

    There it was again. The bang and clatter of metal on metal. It sounded more like a random, clumsy crash than anything more purposeful or sinister. He had to do something now, he couldn't just lie here and do nothing. Moving as cautiously as he could he slid back down the service corridor to the junction with the second, slightly wider passageway. Once there he crouched down on his aching knees and listened again, keeping out of sight. More noise. This time even further away, still unclear and indistinct. He shuffled further forward again.

    Carlton stopped when he reached the next corridor. He glanced over at the kitchen door. The lights were lower than he remembered. The main power supply within the base must have failed and the structure was now illuminated only by the low yellow electric back-up lighting throughout. He retraced the steps he'd taken a few days earlier, tiptoeing carefully through the wreckage which covered the kitchen floor and trying not to make any unnecessary noise. He stepped over the fallen body of the officer he'd discovered last time he was here and then slid through the serving hatch and out into the mess hall.

    More distant sounds. He primed his pistol, cringing at the noise it made, and walked to the end of the hall. He was about to step out into the corridor when a figure appeared from a doorway to his far left. Christ, who was that? More to the point, what