The Human Condition

he'd found a way of measuring the speed and progress of the dead when they finally appeared. Their incalculably vast numbers meant that the bodies at the front of the crowd were continually being pushed and shoved forwards and up the stairs. With corpses continuing to pour through the bus-shaped hole in the hotel wall, once the ground floor reception had been completely filled with flesh there was nowhere else for them to go but up. The enormous crowd was slowly channelling and funnelling itself further up the stairs and deeper into the hotel. Each time Proctor hauled the camera back up to the top floor the group crowded around the little screen on the back of its casing to monitor the progress of the slowly climbing cadavers. There had been no sign of them initially, but Proctor had continued to take his photographs every morning regardless. And then, yesterday morning, the furthest advanced of them had been photographed on the twenty-second floor. It was a simple enough calculation to make � the dead had covered twenty-two floors in about nine days. They were climbing at the rate of just over two floors a day. The second simple calculation the group made was altogether more disturbing. It was Thursday today. If their rate of climb continued at the same speed (and there was no immediate reason why it should change) the bodies would reach the twenty-eighth floor sometime on Saturday or by Sunday at the very latest.

    Proctor found a strange sense of enjoyment in his role of chief cameraman and body-watcher. It made him feel useful. It made him feel indispensable and gave him a purpose. Perhaps even more importantly, it gave him a role which he could hide behind and use as an excuse for not doing anything else. He saw the camera as a potential way out of some of the pretty bloody unpleasant and downright dangerous jobs which would inevitably come their way over the course of the next few days.

    Three forty-five. The afternoon sun had begun another rapid descent towards the horizon, filling the Presidential Suite with harsh orange light and long, dragging shadows. Rather than spreading themselves around the edges of the apartment, on this rare occasion the six survivors were sat together around the dining table. There was no meal to be eaten or food to be shared this afternoon. The reason for sitting together was to finally talk about the issues they'd avoided talking about for the last ten days. The agenda for their discussions was dishearteningly short and simple. Firstly, they had hardly any food supplies left. Secondly, according to the photograph Proctor had taken earlier, the bodies were now close to reaching floor twenty-four.

    `So exactly how much food have we got?' Doreen asked.

    `A days worth,' Bushell replied, `maybe two at the very most. After that there's nothing.'

    `We must have something...?'

    `No,' he said again, shaking his head, `we won't have anything.'

    `But...?'

    `But what?' snapped Wilcox. Christ, how did they get through to this bloody woman? `Listen, we've got nothing, okay? We're down to our last few meals. We haven't got an extra little stash of food tucked away for emergencies. After this we'll have absolutely nothing. Fuck all. Zip.'

    Doreen slumped back in her seat and stared into space.

    `So what are we going to do?' she eventually asked. More sighs from around the table.

    `That's what we're trying to decide, you stupid cow!' Wilcox groaned. `Bloody hell, are you on the same planet as the rest of us?'

    `Wish I wasn't,' she grunted.

    `So we've got two problems,' Proctor summarised, trying his best to control the direction of the conversation. `We need to try and get out and get supplies but...'

    `But this building is full of bodies,' continued Bushell, `thanks to the hole you lot made in the front door.' He glanced across at Wilcox as he spoke. Uncomfortable, Wilcox looked down and did his best to avoid eye contact with anyone.

    `So what do we do?' Doreen asked again.

    `Is there any way of getting out of here and back up again?' Elizabeth wondered.

    `Not that I know of,' Bushell answered quickly. `Getting down's no problem, we can use the fire escape.' He nodded towards an inconspicuous looking door in the far corner of the room. `The problem is what to do once you're down there,' he continued. `Open the fire escape door on the ground floor and you'll probably find yourself face to face with a few thousand bodies. And if you manage to get outside, Christ knows how you're