There were a further two troopers sitting in the back with Michael and three other survivors. Obviously soldiers who had been out fighting on the battlefield for some time, the survivors gave them as wide a berth as was possible in the close confines of the military vehicle. Their cumbersome protective suits were covered with a layer of mud, blood and dripping gore which had been picked up during the relentless fighting outside.
Cooper didn’t even bother trying to reply to Michael’s question.
‘Do we just keep going all fucking night?’ Michael cursed, holding on to the back of Cooper’s seat as the armoured vehicle lurched down a sudden incline. He looked out through the blood-splattered glass in front of the driver. The view was frighteningly limited. ‘The motorhome’s got less than half a tank of fuel left,’ he continued, ‘we can’t keep going indefinitely.’
When his comments were again met with silence from Cooper he slumped back angrily in the nearest seat and turned round to look out of the back of the vehicle. Behind them the pointless and costly battle continued to rage with frequent explosions and brilliant flashes of light illuminating the dead world for a fraction of a second at a time. The personnel carrier dipped awkwardly to one side as the ground over which they were driving became increasingly rough and uneven. Following close behind was the prison truck and, further back still, Michael was able to see the lights of the motorhome as it struggled to keep up.
For a second he contemplated trying to stop the convoy so that he could try and get out and get to Emma and the others. But there were still too many bodies around to risk it. Far too many bodies.
Michael held his head in his hands and screwed his eyes shut. He tried to clear from his head some of the nightmarish images he had witnessed in the last hour but it was impossible. Everything had happened so fast. How had it all gone so very wrong so quickly? A couple of hours ago the bunker door had still been sealed and they’d been relatively safe and protected. Now they were exposed and vulnerable again, running once more without direction or defence. He thought about the people he’d seen killed -
several soldiers, Bernard Heath and at least one other survivor. It had all been so pointless. He couldn’t stop thinking about Bernard. He pictured him lying dead on the hanger floor, surrounded by scores of bodies and soldiers still trying to fight. Christ, he hoped he’d died quickly. He hoped he wasn’t suffering. Imagine lying helplessly in the middle of that nightmare, unable to move and slowly bleeding to death, just waiting for it all to be over…
‘We have to hit a road at some point,’ Cooper finally said, snatching Michael back from his dark, depressing thoughts again and bringing him crashing back to reality.
‘Then we’ll stop and try and work out where we are.’
‘Don’t be fucking stupid,’ the other man snapped, ‘how can we stop? If we stop then we’re going to…’
‘If we’re sensible we can afford to stop for a little while,’ Cooper interrupted, his voice slightly louder - just enough to silence Michael’s emotional outburst. ‘We’ll stop and regroup and decide what to do next. If we’re quick enough there won’t be time for any more than just a few bodies to find us.’
Michael nodded and grunted to show understanding but he wasn’t really listening. He was trying to keep himself calm and under control. Again he found himself looking out of the window at the motorhome struggling to move across the rough terrain. He was thinking about Emma and what he would do if anything happened to her. At the same time he watched the constant, dark movement all around them as bodies turned and traipsed through the night after the uncoordinated convoy. He was trying to get used to the bitterly painful fact that they were exposed and on the run again.
In the prison truck Steve Armitage skilfully steered along the wide furrowed tracks that the military vehicle in front of him had left behind. At his side was Phil Croft, watching the scene like a hawk, terrified and shaking with nerves but still alert. In the back of the truck more survivors sat huddled in the darkness, not knowing where they were now or where they were going, each one of them wracked with an uncomfortably familiar sense of disorientation and hopeless fear.
Several metres behind the truck Donna groaned with effort as she struggled to keep control of the motorhome. It was an old, overused and unresponsive vehicle which gave a rough ride on level road at the best of times, never mind in these treacherous conditions. Inside the vehicle was deathly silent. A far more ordinary machine than the other two vehicles in front, its wide windows afforded those survivors crammed in the back a clear view of the dead world around them. It was a view which many of them would have preferred not to have seen. Now more than a mile from the military bunker, there were still vast crowds of bodies swarming across the land. Donna forced herself to keep looking forward and to concentrate on driving. She did the best she could but the motorhome was not built to move through thick, churned mud and over sudden, uneven dips and climbs. The steering was slow and heavy and the vehicle’s rear end constantly threatened to slip and slide out of control. In the back no-one dared speak for fear of distracting their nervous driver.
Emma glanced up and noticed the dark silhouette of a house nestled amongst the trees on the brow of a low hill.
At first she was reminded of Penn Farm and in her frightened state she didn’t stop to think that where there was a building, there would almost certainly be a road, track or some other means of access. It was only when Donna slammed the brakes on that realisation dawned.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, immediately concerned that they had stopped. Donna nodded her head in the direction of the two vehicles ahead. Emma peered into the darkness and saw that Cooper had climbed out of the personnel carrier. He was untying the frayed rope that was keeping a wide metal gate closed and in place. The headlamps of the three vehicles illuminated a steady stream of unsteady bodies which crisscrossed the scene randomly and began to collide with the transports. They watched as Cooper swung the gate open, kicked away the nearest corpse, and then ran back to his vehicle.
‘Should be easier from here,’ Donna said quietly, tired resignation very evident in her voice. ‘I don’t think we’ll…’
Her words were interrupted by the sudden appearance of a withered cadaver which stumbled haphazardly out of the darkness towards them and slammed into the front of the motorhome. She jumped back with surprise and then leant forward and peered down at the pathetic shell which was pointlessly battering the front of the vehicle with clumsy, barely-coordinated hands. It was an appalling sight. In the time that the survivors had been underground the condition of the bodies had continued to deteriorate. This creature, judging by the length of its lank, shoulder-length hair and the remains of its ragged clothes, had once been female.
The features of the lower part of its face were virtually indistinguishable. The hole where its mouth should have been was double normal size. Its jawbone hung down, looking as if it had been ripped away from one side of its head. The corpse’s dark, empty eyes stared unblinking into the headlights of the motorhome.
‘They’re moving,’ whispered Emma, forcing herself to look anywhere but directly at the body in front of them.
Donna looked up and then gently accelerated, hoping that the movement of the motorhome might be enough to dislodge the body and push it to one side. When after a couple of seconds it hadn’t moved, she simply pressed her foot down hard and crushed the obnoxious, disease-ridden thing beneath the wheels of her vehicle.
Following the prison truck and the personnel carrier, Donna carefully steered the motorhome through the gate and turned right onto a narrow tarmac track.