‘Morning,’ he said nonchalantly as he shook himself dry and did up his fly. ‘You all right?’
‘Fine,’ she replied, shielding her eyes from the sun as he walked towards her.
‘What you doing out here?’
‘Originally the same as you,’ she answered factually.
‘Other than that, nothing much. I just wanted to get some air, that’s all. Still can’t get used to being able to be outside.’
Michael nodded and shoved his hands into his pockets.
‘Bloody cold though, isn’t it?’
Donna looked up into his face. He was staring into the distance and it was obvious that he had things on his mind.
‘You okay?’
He crouched down next to her but didn’t immediately answer. From where they sat the bodies on the other side of the fence seemed miles away. From such a distance he couldn’t make out individual figures - just a constant, shifting mass of grey-green decay. Phil Croft had mentioned that he thought the corpses might not be able to see the survivors for much longer because of the steady deterioration of their faces and eyes. Their limited eyesight may have reduced, but the fact they remained on the other side of the fence in such vast numbers seemed to be proving the doctor’s theory wrong.
‘Cooper tells me you’re leaving us.’
‘You make it sound like I’m disappearing for good,’
Michael grumbled in reply. ‘I think we’re planning to leave later today. All depends on us being able to fly in this wind I suppose.’
‘How’s Emma feel about it?’
‘She’s ecstatic,’ he answered sarcastically. ‘She’s really pleased.’
‘I bet.’
‘She understands.’
‘What happens on Cormansey is important.’
‘I know.’
‘Do you realise how important?’
‘I think so.’
‘This could make the difference, Mike. This is the best chance we’ve had. This is the best chance we’re going to have.’
‘I know,’ he said again.
Michael stood up, brushed himself down and walked out onto the runway in front of him. He thought about what Donna had just said, and he found the sudden gravity and importance of the day strangely humbling. Until now he hadn’t stopped to think about what he was going to do in any great detail. Sure, he’d considered the practicalities of getting over to the island and he’d paid lip service to starting to build a future for the group. Outside and unprotected, however, with the cold wind biting into his face, he began to fully appreciate the enormity of the task ahead.
Michael was ready to face the bodies again.
After weeks of inaction he was ready to work hard and fight to clear the island of death and decay. He was ready to start planning and working and building and grafting to try and make something positive out of the skeletal remains of the past.
Behind him Richard Lawrence emerged from the door at the base of the observation tower and walked over to where Donna was sitting.
‘You all right?’ he asked.
‘Just taking in the air,’ she replied, giving him the same answer she’d given Michael minutes earlier. ‘It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to do this.’
Michael turned around when he heard the conversation.
He slowly walked back towards the others.
‘We’ll be looking to leave around midday, okay?’ said Lawrence.
‘Will we be all right with this wind?’
The pilot laughed.
‘This is nothing,’ he answered. ‘I’ve been up in far worse than this recently. Trust me, this is a good day for flying. A little breezy, but nothing I can’t handle.’
His apparent confidence did nothing to inspire Michael.
Much as he genuinely did still want to make the trip over to the island, he’d been quietly hoping for a delay. Although he understood why, things suddenly seemed to be happening at an uncomfortably quickening speed. He wanted to spend some time with Emma before they were separated. They’d spent just about every minute of the last eight weeks together. Now that they were going to be apart, however, every last second suddenly felt more precious.
Without saying anything else Michael turned and jogged back to the observation tower to find her.
26
The morning seemed to be over in minutes. For the first time in recent memory Michael prayed that time would slow down. Take-off was delayed by an hour but that wasn’t enough. He’d wanted longer.
The helicopter’s powerful rotor blades sliced through the air above their heads as Lawrence flew Michael, Peter Guest and another man called Danny Talbot across the dead land. The spare seat between Michael and Guest was loaded up with their belongings and supplies. What was quickly becoming a regular, almost run-of-the-mill journey for Lawrence was far more of an unsettling experience for his passengers. As well as being used to flying, the pilot had also grown accustomed to the view of the scarred and overgrown landscape from the air. For Michael, Guest and Talbot the turbulent journey was an uncomfortable education - a painful reminder of the incomprehensible scale of the tragedy which had destroyed the world around them.
For the first half of the journey Michael had been preoccupied with thoughts of Emma. He hadn’t been able to get her tearful face out of his mind for even a second. As the morning at the airfield had disappeared he’d gradually become more and more uncomfortable with the idea of leaving her behind. Now that it had finally happened and he’d left he felt hollow, empty and alone. He’d looked down from the air and had watched her until the distance between them had become too great and she’d disappeared from view. He tried to comfort himself with the thought that if everything went according to plan they could be back together in less than a week. But there was a lot of work to do before then, and these days things rarely seemed to go according to plan. Michael was already bitterly regretting not being at the airfield to look after her, even though he knew she didn’t need him there. It was like she’d said in the early hours of the morning just passed, so far they’d struggled through almost every second of the nightmare together. Being away from her now just didn’t feel right.
Forcing himself to try and clear his mind and to focus on what was ahead, not what was (temporarily) behind him, he looked across the helicopter at Peter Guest. Guest was sitting with his head resting against the window and he was staring down. Transfixed, almost unblinking, he watched the ground rush by beneath them at a furious speed.
Interested, Michael turned back and looked out of his side.
The bright sun of early morning had long gone, leaving the late-autumn sky dull, grey and filled with rain. He peered down and watched as they flew over a small town. Out of view again in seconds, the buildings which made up the town seemed unusually blurred and ill-defined. Everything seemed to be overgrown and covered in a fine layer of green. It was almost as if the buildings and roads were being swallowed up and were melting back into the land.
Below the helicopter the world seemed almost completely still. Danny Talbot - a short and acne-ridden teenager who had arrived at the airfield in the back of the prison truck - found himself instinctively looking out for survivors amongst the ruination. If I was out there on my own, he thought, when I heard the helicopter I’d go outside and I’d made damn sure they saw me. So why couldn’t he see anyone down there now? Why could he only see rotting bodies shuffling painfully across the cluttered landscape?
Was it because any survivors who heard the helicopter were too scared, too slow or too vulnerable to react? Or was it just because there were no more survivors? On this cold and uncertain day that seemed to be the most probable explanation.