‘I’ve got it,’ Harcourt said calmly as she yanked the desperate figure away from him in a single violent movement. She wrapped her hand around its scrawny neck and threw it angrily to the ground. There were many more around them now. Kilgore, shocked by the sudden attack and not thinking clearly, immediately began to check his suit for damage as the others bundled themselves into the van. Harcourt shoved him forward and he scrambled inside, leaving her to stamp angrily on the body at her feet with her heavy standard issue boots. Flesh, muscle and shattered bones were crunched into the ground. Donna started the engine and the sudden noise prompted Harcourt to dive into the back of the van and slam the door shut behind her.
With its engine straining and wheels skidding across the ground, the van roared out of the car park, thudding into body after body as it powered towards the road.
‘There!’ Clare shouted as Donna threw the van around the second sharp turn. She pointed up at the helicopter which was moving quickly through the sky ahead of them.
‘There it is!’
The survivors had only been on the move for a matter of minutes when Lawrence spotted them. The pilot had completed his first circuit of the city centre and was trying to find an excuse for giving up for the night when he caught sight of a momentary flash of light below. The only illumination in the whole of the dead city, the van was easy to pick out and follow.
‘Left here,’ Harcourt shouted from the back of the van, keen to make sure that Donna followed the route she’d shown them in the classroom and didn’t screw up again.
‘Keep going the way we planned.’
Donna did as instructed, yanking the steering wheel over and guiding the van between the parallel wrecks of a car and a burned out milk float. The van’s headlights lit up constant movement ahead of them as bodies emerged from the darkness and stumbled towards the sudden light and noise.
‘He’ll never see us,’ Kilgore moaned from the back.
‘Of course he will,’ Baxter snapped, sick of the soldier’s defeatist attitude, ‘there’s nothing else to see out here, is there?’
Donna struggled to keep concentrating on the cluttered road ahead of her and resisted the overwhelming temptation to watch the helicopter. It seemed to be flying away from them but she couldn’t be completely sure. She just had to keep the van moving and keep hoping that Lawrence would spot them and… the van clipped the kerb, causing its passengers to be jolted and shaken in their seats momentarily. The sudden and unexpected movement forced Donna to return her full attention to navigating along the debris-littered carriageway.
Struggling to follow the van, Lawrence took the helicopter down as low as he dared. This was, perhaps, the hardest and most dangerous part of flying at night above the dead land. Everything was black, featureless and virtually indistinguishable. He had to keep low enough to try and keep track of the vehicle below, but also stay at a sufficient height to avoid any tall buildings, electricity pylons or similar. Fly too low and he knew he probably wouldn’t see such obstacles until it was too late.
On the ground below the van had come across an obstruction blocking the road. Nothing too serious, but the tangled wreckage of a three car crash had covered enough of the carriageway to force Donna to slow down to little more than a fraction of her preferred speed. Lawrence, noticing their difficulties, seized on the opportunity to try and make contact. He switched on the helicopter’s powerful searchlight and managed to move the concentrated beam of light around enough to gain a general appreciation of the immediate vicinity through which the van was moving. To their right were buildings. On the other side of the road, however, perhaps another half mile further ahead, he could see an expanse of open land - a park or playing fields perhaps? Lawrence eased the helicopter forward to hover above the grassland and saw that directly beneath him were football posts. An important find - he immediately knew that there should be sufficient clear space for him to set down between the two goals. A football pitch would give him more than enough room to land. He moved the searchlight to point down at the pitch in a rudimentary attempt to signal his intent to the survivors on the ground.
‘What’s he doing now?’ Donna asked, keeping her attention fixed on the road ahead and relying on the others to tell her what was happening above them.
‘He’s moved over to our left,’ Baxter replied. ‘Now he’s hovering.’
‘What’s he want us to do?’
‘How the hell am I supposed to know? I’m not a bloody psychic.’
Baxter stared up at the helicopter hopefully. Having cleared the remains of the car crash, the van sped up again and slammed into a random body, its sudden and brutal disintegration leaving a bloody smear of grease and gore across the area of windscreen through which he was looking. The unexpected noise and movement startled him for a moment. Donna flicked on the wipers.
‘He’s definitely stopped moving now,’ he continued, struggling to see clearly through the smeared glass. ‘Try and get closer.’
‘I can only follow the bloody road,’ Donna snapped.
‘What do you want me to do? I can’t even see what there is for us to…’
‘He’s coming down,’ Baxter interrupted. His view of the helicopter was clearer now.
‘What?’
‘He’s landing.’
Donna allowed herself to look up from the road for an instant. He was right, the helicopter was descending, but she couldn’t see what it was descending towards.
‘Stop the van,’ Harcourt shouted from the back. ‘Stop the van and we’ll find him on foot.’
‘Are you bloody stupid?’ Kilgore protested.
‘It’s a park,’ Baxter said as they passed a momentary gap in the tree-lined fence which ran along the left hand side of the road. ‘She’s right, Donna, stop the van and let’s make a run for it.’
Donna didn’t argue. She was cold and tired and frightened and she wanted this wild and pointless chase through nowhere to be over. She forced the van up onto the pavement and climbed out. A body threw itself at her, almost knocking her to the ground. She quickly regained her balance and pushed the rancid cadaver to one side before following Baxter, Clare and the two soldiers who were already sprinting along the fence, looking for a way into the park.
Now that they were out of the van the sound of the helicopter was suddenly deafening. With his lungs already burning and feeling like they were going to explode with fiery effort, Baxter forced himself to keep moving forward, trying to keep up with the others who were all younger and in far better physical condition than he was. He was being left behind. Being at the back of the pack terrified him but he couldn’t move any faster. He allowed himself a momentary glance over his shoulder and saw bodies shuffling after them. The light was poor but there seemed to be hundreds of them dragging themselves out of the shadows from every direction. He looked forward again and concentrated on following Donna who was just ahead.
He didn’t dare look back a second time, but he felt sure that the bodies would be gaining on him. Christ, they were probably catching up. One might even be about to grab hold of him…
Harcourt had also noticed the bodies around them. The disturbance caused by the van had been enough to drive the corpses into a frenzy. Unsurprisingly the helicopter was having even more of an effect. She took comfort in the fact that the aircraft was so loud and its searchlight so bright that in comparison the five of them frantically running along the pavement would hopefully go unnoticed by the dead masses shuffling ever closer.
‘Through here,’ shouted Clare as she reached an open wrought iron gate. She banked left and ran into the park and was immediately able to see the helicopter in all its magnificent glory. It hovered imperiously some ten feet above the ground.