Much as I think Cooper is overdoing it, I keep asking Michael to make sure our vehicle will be ready when the time to leave finally arrives. And none of us are under any illusions here, we all know that the time to leave is going to come eventually. It might be today, it might be tomorrow or it might not be for six months. The only certainty we have is that we can’t stay down here indefinitely.
Michael is stirring in bed.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asks, waking up and noticing that I’m not there next to him. His eyes are dark, tired and confused as he looks around for me.
‘Nothing’s the matter,’ I answer. ‘Couldn’t sleep, that’s all.’
He sits up and yawns and beckons me over. I’m still cold. I get back into bed and lie down and he grabs hold of me tightly like we’ve been apart for years.
‘How you doing?’ he asks quietly, his face close to mine.
‘I’m okay,’ I answer.
‘Anything happening?’
‘Not really, just a delivery of supplies, that’s all. Does anything ever happen around here?’
Still holding me tightly he kisses the side of my face.
‘Give it time,’ he mumbles sadly. ‘Give it time.’
2
‘Morning, you two,’ Bernard Heath said in his loud, educated voice as Michael and Emma walked into the largest of the few rooms that the survivors were permitted access to.
‘Morning, Bernard,’ Emma replied. ‘Bloody cold, isn’t it?’
‘Isn’t it always?’ he sighed. ‘Get yourselves something to eat, the soldiers left us quite a lot last night.’
Holding onto Michael’s hand, Emma followed him as he weaved through the crowded room. About six metres square, it was used by the group of survivors as a dormitory, a meeting place, a kitchen and a mess hall. In fact it was used for just about everything. As bleak, grim and imposing as its grey and featureless walls were, the fact that the room was always filled with people made it just about the best place for any of them to spend their time. In spite of the uncertainty and unease which still surrounded everything, the heat and noise made by the group of frightened and frustrated people made this room a more inviting place than anywhere else. At least here they weren’t always looking over their shoulders. At least here they could, for the time being at least, begin to try and relax, recuperate and heal.
A basic shift pattern had been drawn up shortly after they had first arrived at the bunker. Although there had been the expected few missed shifts, most people seemed prepared to pull their weight and contribute by cooking or cleaning or doing whatever other menial tasks needed to be done. Rather than evade work as some of them might have done before the disaster, just about all of the survivors now willingly did as much as they could. How much of this work was done to help the others was questionable. Most simply craved the responsibility because it helped reduce the monotony and boredom of every long, dark day. As each of them had already found to their cost on many, many occasions, sitting and staring at the walls of the bunker with nothing to do invariably resulted in them thinking constantly about all that they had lost.
Emma and Michael collected their food from Sheri Newton (a quiet and diminutive middle-aged woman who seemed to always be serving food) and sat down to eat. The faces of the people sitting around them were reassuringly familiar. Donna Yorke was at a table nearby talking to Clare Smith, Jack Baxter and Phil Croft. As the couple began to eat Croft looked up and around and nodded at Michael.
‘Morning,’ Michael said as he chewed on his first mouthful of dry and tasteless rationed food. ‘How you doing today, Phil?’
‘Good,’ Croft replied, wheezing. He took a long drag on a cigarette and coughed.
‘You should think about giving those things up,’
Michael muttered sarcastically, ‘won’t do your health any good. They’ll be the death of you!’
Croft grimaced as he coughed and then managed a fleeting smile. It was a sign of the grim hopelessness of their situation that death was just about the only thing they could find to laugh about. The group’s only doctor, he had sustained serious injuries in a violent crash when they had first approached the military bunker. The dark, dank conditions underground were not ideal and did nothing to aid his recovery. The only visible signs of his injuries which remained now were a scar across his chest and a severe limp and, as far as the rest of the group were concerned, he appeared to be getting stronger and fitter with each day. A trained and experienced medical professional, however, Croft knew that his body had sustained a huge amount of damage and that he would never be fully fit again. With his discomfort and pain seeming to increase day on day, and with the military on one side and a crowd of thousands of decomposing corpses on the other, the potentially harmful effects of smoking cigarettes was the very least of his worries.
Cooper marched angrily into the room, his sudden, stormy appearance instantly silencing every conversation and causing everyone to look round. He fetched himself a drink, yanked a chair from under the table and sat down next to Jack Baxter.
‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’ Baxter asked.
‘This place is full of fucking idiots,’ the ex-soldier snapped. Since returning to the base he had steadily distanced himself from his military colleagues to the point where he now had very little to do with them. Perhaps symbolically, he now only wore the lower half of his uniform, and he only kept the boots and trousers on because they were the most practical clothes he possessed.
In fact, they were just about the only clothes he had.
‘Now who’s he talking about?’ Croft interrupted. ‘Who you on about now, Cooper?’
Cooper took a swig of coffee.
‘Bloody jokers in charge of this place,’ he answered.
‘What have they done?’
‘Nothing, and that’s the fucking problem.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Donna, concerned. She knew Cooper well enough to know that there had to be a reason behind his sudden ranting. He was usually much calmer and more controlled than this.
‘The troops won’t tell me a thing anymore,’ he explained. ‘My guess is they’ve been ordered not to. I just can’t understand their logic. What do they think they’re going to gain from keeping us in the dark? We’ve seen more of what’s happened out there than they have. You’d think they’d want to try and keep us on side, wouldn’t you?’
‘Sounds typical of what I’ve seen of the military so far,’
Baxter said quietly. ‘So is that all that’s bothering you?’
Cooper shook his head.
‘No,’ he sighed, ‘it’s more than that. I’ve just been talking to an old mate of mine, Jim Franks. Jim and I go back a long way and I know I can trust him. Anyway, he’s been telling me that they think they’re going to start hitting real problems soon.’
‘Supplies?’ Baxter wondered.
‘No.’
‘What kind of problems then?’ asked Emma, immediately worried.
‘Big fucking problems,’ Cooper continued. ‘Nothing they weren’t expecting, but big fucking problems nonetheless.’
‘Such as…?’
‘You’ve got to remember that I was talking to Jim through the intercom on the front of the decontamination chamber and he was trying to keep his voice down in case anyone caught him speaking to me so I didn’t get a lot of detail. It’s the bodies. They’ve been taking readings around the base and the damn things still keep coming. Jim told me that the air filtration system’s still working but it’s really starting to struggle and the problems we’ve heard about with ventilation have really started to take hold. Seems that more than half the exhaust vents are blocked or almost blocked, just like we said they would be.’