`Anything?' Carlton asked.
`Nothing,' Wright replied, `but it's just a matter of time. Won't be long before this whole fucking place goes up in smoke.'
`You reckon?'
`Absolutely.'
More noise. Getting closer. Wright started to shuffle uncomfortably.
`Where you been hiding?' he asked, the desperation very evident his voice. Carlton thought for a moment before answering. What did he say? He didn't want to tell him. `Come on, man,' he begged as the noise in the corridor continued to increase in volume. `Let me come with you. I won't do anything to get you found, I promise. I just want to find somewhere safe where I can...'
Soldiers appeared at the end of the corridor. More gunshots. A figure collapsed in a hail of bullets. More troops trampled the body as they ran for shelter.
`Christ,' Carlton mumbled under his breath. He wanted to turn and run back to the service tunnel, but Wright would follow and he knew that he couldn't afford to let him. No matter what the other man said, having him with him would increase the risk dramatically. He had to find a way of getting rid of him, and quickly.
`Come on,' Wright pleaded. `Fucking show me!'
In desperation Wright whipped a knife out from his belt and held it to Carlton's neck. Christ, thought Carlton, not the suit. Cut me but don't cut the bloody suit.
`I can't...' Carlton began to protest. `Show me where you're hiding or I'll do it,' Wright threatened, his face now close to the other man's. Carlton recoiled at the noxious smell of Wright's acrid breath.
`I can't,' he said again, bringing his pistol slowly up from his side. Before Wright had realised what he was doing Carlton fired a single shot, ripping a bloody hole through his chest cavity and lungs. Wright collapsed to the ground and Carlton stepped over him, wiping dribbles of blood from his precious suit.
He was about to step into the corridor when another group of soldiers thundered past the mess hall doorway, this time moving in the opposite direction to the first, moving back deeper into the base. More followed, then more. One of the soldiers straggling at the back of the pack tried to grab hold of Carlton and drag him along with him. Carlton instinctively recoiled and squirmed free from the soldier's grip.
`Get yourself out of here,' the soldier in the corridor screamed. `Get out of here now. The fucking idiots are trying to open the bloody doors!'
He couldn't afford to wait. Not caring who saw him Carlton turned and ran back through the mess hall and clambered quickly through the serving hatch and into the kitchen. Behind him a constant stream of desperate, terrified troops fled deeper into the bunker.
Carlton ran back to his hideout as quickly as his tired, under-exercised legs would carry him. He threw himself into the service tunnel and scrambled around furiously in the darkness for his breathing apparatus. With hands trembling with nervous fear he put on his kit and melted back into the darkness and waited...
At the entrance to the bunker a group of soldiers had fought their way through into the decontamination chambers. Their minds twisted and deluded as a result of weeks of hopeless isolation, two of them struggled to open the sealed doors while another three held off more troops who fought to prevent the base being compromised. Risks, priorities and perspectives had been distorted after spending months buried underground without hope. Perhaps the infection had finally passed? The men now struggling to open the doors and get outside genuinely believed that this was their last chance for freedom and life.
The soldiers at the doors were being protected by their three colleagues who, whenever they saw the slightest movement in the corridor leading up to the chambers, unleashed a torrent of bullets. Those trying to stop them didn't stand a chance, such was the position of the doorway being defended at the far end of a long corridor. Explosives and grenades were useless too. Fire munitions of any strength at them this close to the chambers and enough damage would almost certainly be done to immediately compromise the base. A few desperate fighters continued to try and prevent the breach. Those who had been unfortunate enough to have already seen what was outside and who knew what was about to be let into the base. Those who had already fought hand to hand with the dead and who had witnessed for themselves their vast and unstoppable numbers. Those who would rather be mown down by bullets than face the rotting crowds that were about to flood into the bunker.
It was inevitable that the doors were going to be opened. It was just a matter of time.
Carlton lay on his back in the tunnel and trembled with fear. The world sounded different from behind the mask, muffled and somehow distant and indistinct. It made him feel even more uncertain and scared.
In the distance he could hear further battles raging. Bullets were flying and screams of pain and panic were ringing through the twisting maze of subterranean corridors and passageways. Even more than before it was now impossible to gauge the direction of any of the sounds. The noise seemed now to surround Carlton and come at him from every angle. The volume increased steadily and previously distinct sounds gradually merged into a single unintelligible cacophony.
Then it stopped.
A sudden silence so ominous that it made Carlton lose control of his bladder. He lay on his back in a pool of his own piss and lifted a shaking hand up to his mask. He wrapped his fingers around the breathing apparatus, ready to rip it off. Perhaps I should just do it now, he thought, just get it over with...
He couldn't bring himself to do it.
Sobbing with fear he lay still and waited.
The silence continued for the best part of two days. In his cramped confinement Carlton listened intently to the stillness, hoping for a clue as to what had happened but too afraid to move and investigate. Weak with hunger and nerves, he waited impatiently. He didn't know which was worse, the physical or mental pain? Every bone in his body ached and he knew that if he moved some of that pain might ease. But he couldn't do it. He was too bloody scared to do anything.
After endless hours, minutes and seconds of nothing he finally heard something. Had he imagined it? He held his breath and listened carefully, the rapid thump of his own frightened heartbeat ringing in his ears and threatening to drown out any other sound. What was happening? He'd begun to presume that the all-consuming silence of the last forty or so hours had been a good thing. Surely if the base had been invaded by swarms of decaying bodies he would have seen or heard something by now?
There it was again. The bang and clatter of metal on metal. It sounded more like a random, clumsy crash than anything more purposeful or sinister. He had to do something now, he couldn't just lie here and do nothing. Moving as cautiously as he could he slid back down the service corridor to the junction with the second, slightly wider passageway. Once there he crouched down on his aching knees and listened again, keeping out of sight. More noise. This time even further away, still unclear and indistinct. He shuffled further forward again.
Carlton stopped when he reached the next corridor. He glanced over at the kitchen door. The lights were lower than he remembered. The main power supply within the base must have failed and the structure was now illuminated only by the low yellow electric back-up lighting throughout. He retraced the steps he'd taken a few days earlier, tiptoeing carefully through the wreckage which covered the kitchen floor and trying not to make any unnecessary noise. He stepped over the fallen body of the officer he'd discovered last time he was here and then slid through the serving hatch and out into the mess hall.
More distant sounds. He primed his pistol, cringing at the noise it made, and walked to the end of the hall. He was about to step out into the corridor when a figure appeared from a doorway to his far left. Christ, who was that? More to the point, what was it? It was dressed in a soldier's uniform, but it was so slow and clumsy. Whoever it was must have been injured, he decided. Maybe he should try and help them? Carlton chose instead to do nothing, preferring to wait until the solider got closer before he took any chances. You can't trust anyone these days, he thought. And, he quickly remembered, the advancing solider might be equally uncertain of him. One unexpected move and he might find himself staring down the barrel of the other man's rifle. The trooper was close now. Carlton held his breath, trying not to move for fear of giving away his position. Something wasn't right. Another sudden sound came from the other end of the corridor behind him but he ignored it, concentrating instead on the solider still approaching. The figure's head hung heavily over to one side and it seemed to be dragging its feet rather than managing to take proper, controlled steps. What the hell was going on? The soldier was now no more than a couple of feet away. It staggered into the dull yellow glow of one of the emergency lights directly overhead and Carlton recoiled at the creature's nightmarish face. What the hell had happened to this man? It was as if the life had been sucked out of him. His skin was white, almost blanched, and thick, dried blood had dribbled from his mouth, down his chin and onto his uniform. His eyes were dull and unfocussed, staring ahead but not actually appearing to look at anything. To all intents and purposes this poor bastard looked dead. Carlton disappeared back into the shadows of the mess hall. The soldier (or corpse or whatever it was) shuffled past him oblivious.