Purification Read online

  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.’

  ‘So what are they going to do about it?’ Croft mumbled, asking the question that everyone was thinking.

  ‘There’s no way of clearing the vents from down here,’

  he explained, ‘so they’re going to have to go above ground eventually.’

  ‘But what good’s that going to do?’ Emma protested, immediately terrified at the prospect of the bunker doors being opened again. ‘Do they think they can just clear the bodies away? As soon as they move any of them hundreds more will take their place.’

  ‘I know that and you know that,’ Cooper sighed dejectedly, ‘but they don’t. This is why I can’t understand them not talking to us. The reality is that the people making the decisions down here don’t have a fucking clue how bad things are on the surface. Until you’ve seen it for yourself and you’ve been out there in the middle of it, you just can’t imagine the scale of what’s happened outside, can you?’

  ‘So how are they planning to keep the vents clear?’

  asked Donna. ‘Like Emma says, as soon as they’ve cleared them more bodies will be lining up to block them again.’

  ‘I don’t know. My guess is they’ll try and cover them or build something over the top. You’ve got to remember that this place was built not to be noticed. You’d have to look hard just to find the bloody vents ‘cause they’re not obvious. I think they’re planning to fight their way through to them and then just do whatever
they need to do to block them off. They’ll try and cover the top of them or leave people out there to guard them. A trench or a wall might be enough…’

  ‘Pity the poor bastards who get sent out there to build bloody walls,’ Baxter mumbled. ‘Christ, it’s hard enough just being up there, never mind having to build a bloody wall. I tell you, you wouldn’t get me outside for anything.’

  ‘You reckon? Keep things in perspective, Jack,’ Cooper said, looking directly at the other man, ‘we’ve got a massive advantage over this lot at the moment because we can survive out in the open. So who says they’re not going to try and use us to do whatever it is that they’re planning on doing? Argue all you like, but if you’ve got a gun held at the back of your head, you’ll do whatever they bloody well want you to do.’

  ‘You really think it’s going to come to that? You think they’ll try and get us to go up there?’

  ‘Perhaps not yet, but…’

  ‘But

  what?’

  ‘But they might do eventually. Put yourself in their shoes. You’d probably try and do the same.’

  The conversation stalled as each of the survivors stopped to take stock of Cooper’s words. He knew how the military minds worked better than any of them. Each of them knew that he was being frank and honest with them because there was no point trying to soften the blow.

  Cooper was never anything other than straight and direct.

  He had nothing to gain from scare-mongering or frightening the others.

  ‘How long?’ Donna asked.

  ‘How long until what?’ Cooper replied, assuming that the question had been directed towards him.

  ‘How long before they have to open the doors and go above ground?’

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Don’t know. I don’t expect they know either. We’ll just have to sit and wait.’

  ‘For

  what?’

  ‘For their air to start running out,’ Emma interrupted quickly.

  Another break in the exchange. More silent contemplation.

  ‘It has to happen, doesn’t it?’ Michael said with a tone of honest resignation and acceptance in his voice.

  ‘What?’ mumbled Croft, only half-listening.

  ‘I said it has to happen,’ he repeated. ‘It’s inevitable.

  They call it Chaos Theory, don’t they? If something can go wrong, then eventually it will go wrong.’

  ‘Keep looking on the bright side, eh?’ grinned Baxter.

  ‘He’s right,’ Cooper agreed.

  ‘We’ve all seen it happen,’ Michael continued. ‘We started off in a village hall. There was about twenty of us to start with and we thought we’d be okay but we had to get away. Three of us found ourselves a house in the middle of the bloody countryside miles away from anywhere, but that wasn’t safe enough either. Built a bloody fence around it but it didn’t last.’

  ‘Same with us and the university,’ Donna said, leaning closer to the others. ‘Looked ideal when we first got there but the safety didn’t last. Things change and we can’t afford to just sit still and wait and hope and…’

  ‘And you’re right, the same thing’s bound to happen here eventually,’ Cooper interrupted. ‘Something’s got to give - more vents will get blocked, supplies will run out, the disease will manage to get in or something else will happen. It’ll take luck more than anything else to keep us safe down here.’

  ‘So what do we do about it?’

  ‘There’s not a lot we can do,’ he answered. ‘We just need to be ready for it when it happens, and be prepared to get out of here fast if anything goes wrong.’

  3

  Three days was all it took. It was mid-morning.

  Michael was standing in front of the motorhome talking to Cooper about the sorry state of his battered vehicle.

  Although it had been cleaned and overhauled to the best of their abilities with their limited resources, the machine still looked desperately dilapidated and tired. The two men’s conversation was abruptly interrupted when the hanger lights were suddenly switched on, filling the cavernous space with unexpectedly bright illumination. Having been forced to live in almost complete darkness for weeks the survivors covered their eyes and, for a fraction of a second, found themselves thinking more about the brightness and discomfort than the possible reasons why the lights had been turned on.

  Michael was the first to react.

  ‘Shit,’ he cursed as he squinted and looked around, shielding his eyes, ‘here they come. This must be it.’

  Cooper looked up and saw that the doors to the main decontamination chamber were opening. From deep inside the base a steady stream of dark, suited figures were beginning to emerge. Close on a hundred troops filed out into the hanger. They marched quickly and quietly.

  Although their formation and manner lacked something of the discipline and precision Cooper had come to expect from his former colleagues, they were still clearly well organised and ready to fight.

  ‘Christ, they mean business,’ he mumbled.

  ‘What do we do?’

  ‘Get everyone ready to get out of here.’

  The two men sprinted across the huge room, cutting through the soldier’s ragged formation. The sudden light and noise had already alerted the other survivors. Anxious faces appeared in numerous doorways before Michael and Cooper were even halfway across the hanger.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Steve Armitage asked.

  ‘What’s it look like?’ Cooper replied. ‘They’re about to open the fucking doors!’

  ‘Shit,’ was all that Armitage could say. Before he could react a further crowd of panicking survivors pushed passed him and spilled out into the hanger.

  ‘Get ready to leave,’ Cooper shouted. He hoped they weren’t going anywhere, but he felt duty bound to prepare the group for the worst possible scenario. ‘Get everyone into the vehicles.’

  Without question or delay the frightened crowd began to hurriedly make its way across the cavernous chamber towards the police van, prison truck and motorhome.

  Bernard Heath looked around for Phil Croft. He grabbed the unsteady medic’s arm and pulled him along. Whilst he could walk, his injuries still prevented him from getting anywhere with any real speed.

  ‘Get the kids,’ Michael yelled to Donna across the small, square room where the youngest members of the group tended to gather. She did as he said, ushering the few children towards the door. Emma, frightened and moving against the flow of the others, grabbed hold of his arm.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she began to ask. ‘What are they doing…?’

  ‘Get into the motorhome,’ he snapped anxiously. ‘I’ll be over there in a couple of minutes.’

  ‘But…’ she protested. Michael pushed her away, desperate to get her to safety quickly.

  ‘Don’t ask questions,’ he shouted after her, ‘just get yourself over there.’

  ‘Is that everyone?’ Cooper asked breathlessly as he returned to the hanger after checking the largest room was clear.

  ‘Think so,’ said Jack Baxter as he looked back across the immense cavern. He watched nervously as the rest of the survivors attempted to cram themselves into the back of the group’s three vehicles.

  ‘You two get yourselves over there and try and get that lot sorted out,’ Cooper ordered. Although he had never been formally recognised by the group as their leader, the authority and command in his voice was unquestionable.

  Michael and Baxter turned and ran towards the others.

  Cooper stood his ground and anxiously watched the soldiers. The roar of engines suddenly filled the base and an armoured personnel carrier took up position at the foot of the ramp which led up to the main entrance doors. Two smaller jeeps were driven out of the shadows and parked behind the first vehicle. He cautiously moved forward, his military mind keen to try and work out the tactics and intentions of what was about to happen.

  ‘Cooper,’ shouted Michael as the final few survivors jostled for
space in the group’s battered transports, ‘come on!’

  Cooper ignored him and instead moved closer still to the troops. He estimated there were somewhere between eighty and a hundred soldiers in the hanger and there was no doubt that this was a major operation. He knew that the officers (who, as far as he could tell, were still buried safely within the deeper confines of the base) would never risk sending such a large number of troops above ground unless they had absolutely no option but to do so.

  He took a chance. He had nothing to lose.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, standing in shadow and reaching out and grabbing the arm of the nearest suited figure. The soldier nervously span around to face him. The protective mask and breathing apparatus partially obscured the trooper’s face allowing Cooper to see only his eyes. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Vents are blocked,’ he answered in a muffled but clearly young and anxious voice.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’

  The soldier looked from side to side, not sure whether or not he should even be speaking to Cooper. He figured that the preparation of the troops and equipment closer to the front of the hanger was a sufficient distraction for him to risk saying a few more words.

  ‘They reckon we can get by for now with at least two of the vents clear, so we’re going out there to sort ‘em and to make sure they stay working.’

  ‘Are you staying out there?’ Cooper whispered. The soldier shook his head.

  ‘You’ve got to be fucking joking,’ he replied quickly.

  ‘No, that’s what the jeeps are for. The vents are low on the ground. Plan is to leave a jeep straddling each vent to block them off and stop those bloody things out there from clogging them up again.’

  The soldiers began to move forward. The trooper next to Cooper pulled himself free from the survivor’s grip and moved up to retake his position in formation next to his colleagues. Still curious, Cooper jogged across the width of the hanger towards the others. Instead of getting into one of the vehicles with them, however, he instead clambered up onto the front of another huge military transport to try and get a better view of what was about to happen. Out of breath and red faced, Baxter appeared at his side.