The Human Condition

fear he stumbled and tripped further back into the bunker. The bloody door was supposed to be airtight. If he could feel a draught then the seal had been broken, and if the draft was coming from outside then whatever it was that had caused all the death and destruction out there had probably already seeped into the bunker. He scrambled away from the door and hid like a frightened child on the other side of the command room and waited for it to get him.

    More than an hour had passed before Cox finally allowed himself to accept that he probably wasn't going to die, not yet, anyway. The people outside had been struck down in seconds. He'd been out there with them when it started and he'd been breathing in the same air (albeit in a filtered form) for more than a day. The fact that he might have some immunity to what had killed so many seemed even more improbable than the arrival of the infection itself. He didn't like to think about it. Cox distracted himself by eating a little food (a powdered meal which he made with cold water) and then fell asleep clutching a picture of Marcia which he'd found tucked amongst the crumpled bank notes, credit card receipts and out of date business cards he'd found stuffed in the back of his wallet.

    He could hear something. Cox had been sleeping lightly again but a sudden and unexpected shuffling, bumping noise had disturbed his slumber. Something falling off a shelf? A problem with the generator or the pumps that were filtering and circulating the air? There it was again. He jumped up from his seat, a cold, nervous sweat immediately prickling his brow. In the deathly quiet of the bunker the direction of the noise was clear. It was coming from the dormitory where he'd left Shelly Bright's corpse. But it couldn't have been, could it? As much as he wanted to walk the other way, Cox forced himself to walk towards the room.

    Another crash. The sound of someone tripping and falling? What the hell was going on in there? Was there another entrance to the bunker that he wasn't aware of?

    Cox wiped the sweat from his forehead and cleared his throat.

    `Hello...' he whispered meekly, too scared to raise his voice any louder. `Hello...?'

    He lifted his hand to open the door and then stopped. Come on, he thought, this is bloody stupid. The main entrance to the bunker was sealed and he was sure there was only one way in or out of the dorm so how could there be anything on the other side of the door? He decided that it must have been rats or some other vermin that had somehow managed to tunnel their way in, although how they'd managed to do that when the place was supposed to be airtight was anyone's guess.

    Another crash.

    `Oh, Christ,' Cox moaned pathetically to himself. He was completely on his own. He didn't have anyone to hide behind now. He knew what he had to do.

    Holding a torch in his left hand (both as a source of light and as a potential weapon), Counsellor Cox timidly shoved the door open and shone it into the room. The dull yellow circle illuminated the back wall opposite the door but nothing else. It must have just been...

    `Bloody hell,' he cursed loudly as Shelly Bright tripped across the room in front of him. `What the bloody hell...?' He desperately shone the torch around until he found her again. There was no doubt that it was Bright, but how could it have been? She'd been dead since Tuesday morning, hadn't she? Cox stood rooted to the spot with confusion and fear. After all that he had been through over the last day or so, this new discovery was too much to take. He stared at the body with an uncomfortable mixture of bemusement and sheer terror and he only moved when the creature awkwardly turned itself around and, quite by chance, began to shuffle towards him. He held out his hand and shoved it away. It fell back and then dragged itself back up and walked away, stopping and turning again when it hit the wall at the far end of the room with a heavy, uncoordinated thud. Unable to go any further the cadaver slowly began to walk back towards him. Cox looked deep into its face. Its skin was unnaturally discoloured and its pupils dilated and unfocussed. Without waiting for it to get any closer the terrified counsellor slammed the door shut and gripped the handle tightly. He felt the sudden collision as the corpse hit the back of the door and then listened carefully as it turned and shuffled away again. He dragged a chair out of the other dormitory and wedged it under the