The Human Condition

and safety, Hamilton did not. He was already exhausted and the staircase ahead of him seemed to stretch up into the darkness forever. He'd never make it. An eternal pessimist, subconsciously he had already decided that his number was up. He made one last weak attempt to move quicker but it wasn't working. The distance still seemed huge. Hamilton stopped and dropped his bags and boxes. Proctor and Elizabeth watched helplessly as the bodies swarmed around him and over him and dragged him to the ground.

    `Let's go,' Proctor sighed. Elizabeth was already on her way up the stairs. Proctor turned and disappeared into the shadows after her. Although he couldn't see where he was going, he could hear the others' voices up ahead.

    `So what the fucking hell are you supposed to be?' Wilcox asked as they climbed. They had stopped momentarily to regroup a few flights up. Bushell carried a torch with him which he used to check who was with him. It was the first time that any of them had been able to see him clearly. He could see the puzzled expressions on their faces. Suddenly self-conscious, he didn't know what to say. He hadn't needed to explain his bizarre dress-code to anyone else yet. For a moment he felt foolish before remembering how good these clothes made him feel and how, when there was just a handful of people left now, what he was wearing was of absolutely no consequence to anyone.

    `I'm Barry,' he eventually answered, `Barry Bushell.'

    `So why are you wearing a dress?' Wilcox demanded.

    `Because I want to,' he answered factually.

    `You look lovely, dear,' Doreen said as she passed him on the landing. Already gasping for air and in need of a cigarette, she patted him on the shoulder and nodded her head upwards. `This way, is it?'

    `Just keep going,' he replied. `I'm living in the suite on the top floor. It was as far away as I could get from everything that's been going on down here.'

    Doreen nodded and kept climbing, her nervous fear helping her forget and overcome her tiredness. Wilcox waited on the landing with Bushell and Jones as Elizabeth and Proctor finally caught up.

    `Where's Hamilton?' Wilcox asked. Proctor shook his head.

    `Didn't make it,' he said, panting with the effort of the sudden climb. `Silly bastard got caught.'

    `Shit,' Wilcox mumbled under his breath. He shook his head and carried on up the stairs.

    The climb to the top of the building seemed to take an eternity to complete. Weighed down by their physical exhaustion and the bulky supplies they'd manage to salvage from the bus, the survivors struggled to make progress. Eventually, several stops later, they reached the impressive top floor penthouse which Bushell had claimed for his own. Even though their appreciation of material possessions and the value of property had been massively distorted by the events of the last seven days, the sheer luxurious scale of the huge apartment still impressed all of them.

    `Nice place she's got here,' Wilcox hissed sarcastically as he gazed around the room. Some of the group had sat themselves around a rectangular dining table, others were sprawled out on a nearby sofa.

    `Shh...' Elizabeth scowled. `Leave him alone. He's obviously got problems.'

    `We've all got problems,' he sighed.

    `Lovely place,' Doreen agreed. `Just think of all the famous people who must have stayed here. Royalty? Film stars?'

    `Why?' Paul Jones grunted.

    Doreen looked puzzled. How could he not be excited by the prospect of sleeping in a hotel room that might have been used by millionaires and mega-stars?

    `Imagine who's sat round this table...' she continued.

    `Why?' he interrupted again. `Why waste your time thinking about people like that? People like that who could afford to stay here had too much money and not enough sense. You shouldn't look up to them. The only difference between you and them was the size of their wallets compared to yours.'

    `It was more than that,' Elizabeth protested. `It's about glamour and watching them do the things that you always dreamed about and...'

    `So did you two read all the celebrity gossip and buy all the glossy magazines that were...?'

    `Absolutely,' Doreen said quickly.

    `And I bet you used to watch soap operas and reality TV shows and...'

    `Never missed my soaps,' she told him with something approximating pride in her voice.

    `Pathetic,' Jones snapped. `Bloody pathetic. It's got nothing to do with glamour or anything like that. I bet you used to swallow all that crap because