The Human Condition

glared at Ted who, as usual, was filling his face with chocolate.

    `And you're a fat bastard who should...'

    `For Christ's sake,' Elizabeth sighed, interrupting her, `give it a rest, will you?'

    Doreen immediately stopped talking, folded her arms and slumped into her seat like a scolded child.

    `Just keep going,' John Proctor's comparatively calm voice suggested from three seats back. `We're here now and shouting at each other isn't going to help. Just keep driving.'

    Nick Wilcox took one hand off the steering wheel for a couple of seconds, just long enough to rub his tired eyes. He'd been driving for what felt like hours and he was struggling but he wasn't about to let the others know. They annoyed him beyond belief. He'd so far only found five other living, breathing human beings since all of this began. So why did it have to be this five?

    This ragged, dysfunctional group of survivors had been together for just three days. They'd found each other by chance as they'd each individually wandered through the remains of the devastated world. Elizabeth and John Proctor had been the first to meet, Elizabeth having walked into the church where Proctor used to preach just as he was tearing off his dog-collar and walking out. A cleric of some thirty years standing, his already wavering faith had been shattered by the cruel and unstoppable infection which had raged across the surface of the planet. If this God is so powerful, loving and forgiving, he'd asked Elizabeth , then how could the fucker let this happen? Proctor's sudden loss of faith had been as powerful and life-changing as his initial discovery of the church had been in his early days at college. In all seriousness Elizabeth had suggested that the plague might be some kind of divine retribution � a Noah's ark for our times. Proctor told her in no uncertain terms that he thought she was out of her fucking mind.

    Ted Hamilton, a plumber, part-time football coach and full-time compulsive comfort eater, had been on the roof of an office block working on the water pipes when the infection had struck. He'd had an incredible view of the destruction from up there but he'd been too afraid to come down. He'd sat on the roof for hours until he saw Doreen Phillips walking down the high street, shopping bags in hand, stepping gingerly over and around the mass of tangled bodies which covered the pavements. Together they'd wandered around aimlessly and pointlessly in search of help which never came. Their constant shouting and noise had eventually attracted the attention of Paul Jones, a sullen and quiet man who kept himself to himself but who recognised the importance of sticking with these people, no matter who they were or how stupid they appeared.

    Jones had suggested building themselves a base from where they could explore the dead land around them and, hopefully, find more survivors. As obvious and sensible as his plan had been, it also proved to be unnecessary. As they struggled to establish themselves in a deserted guest house on the edge of a small town, more survivors had found them. Three days ago the eerie silence of the first post-infection Friday morning had been disturbed by the unexpected arrival of a fifty-three-seater single-deck passenger bus driven by Nick Wilcox. Wilcox � who had previously driven such buses for a living � had ploughed through the town with a nervous disregard for anything and everything. Jones and Hamilton flagged him down and it was only the quick reactions of Elizabeth Ferry (who, with John Proctor, was already travelling with Wilcox) that stopped him from gleefully running them down in the same way he'd destroyed several hundred rotting bodies already that morning.

    The motley collection of survivors made the bus their travelling home. It was relatively strong, comfortable and spacious and there was more than enough room inside for them, their belongings, and as many boxes of provisions and supplies as they could lay their hands on. And the bus had a huge advantage over everywhere else they'd previously tried to shelter because it moved. When things got too dangerous or there were suddenly too many bodies around they just started the engine and drove somewhere else.

    `Just keep driving, Nick,' Proctor said, his calm and deceptively relaxed tone helping to settle the group and diffuse the mounting hysteria within the bus. `Just keep going until we reach a major road then follow it back out of the city.'

    `I can't see the