Purification Read online

  ‘I always wanted a van like this,’ he said suddenly, looking around and making a conscious effort to break the silence and start another conversation. ‘Me and Denise were planning on getting ourselves something like this when I retired. We were thinking about selling up and living on the road for a while.’

  ‘I wouldn’t recommend it,’ Michael grinned, ‘it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. We were living on the road for a couple of weeks before we found this place, weren’t we, Em? Didn’t enjoy it!’

  Baxter

  smiled.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it though,’ he rambled, looking out through the motorhome window and imagining he could see something other than grey concrete walls, ‘just think what it’ll be like when the bodies have gone. Just picture it, we’ll have the whole bloody country to ourselves. We’ll be able to go where we like, when we like.’

  ‘So where would you go?’ Croft asked him.

  ‘I think,’ he began, stretching in his seat and staring up thoughtfully at the low metal ceiling above his head, ‘I’ll try and travel right round the coast. I’m going to wait until summer, then I’ll start on the south coast and work my way west. I won’t plan a route, I’ll just keep going and one day I’ll end up back where I started.’

  ‘But you could have your pick of the biggest houses or whatever you wanted,’ Emma said. ‘You could sit on your backside and relax. You’d still want to travel and live rough?’

  ‘I’m getting used to living rough now,’ he smiled, ‘it’d be strange to be comfortable again. I like the idea of moving from town to town or village to village, taking whatever I need from wherever I can find it.’

  ‘Think you’ll ever do it?’ Donna asked.

  Baxter looked deep down into his beaker of water and thought for a moment.

  ‘Don’t know. I hope so.’

  ‘Think it’s going to be as easy as you imagine?’

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I never said it would be easy. Anyway, there’s no way of knowing, is there?’

  ‘I can’t start dreaming like you can, Jack,’ Donna admitted, ‘not yet, anyway. I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I think about the future, I still automatically try and picture things like they used to be before this happened, just empty of people and quiet. But it’s not going to be like that, is it?’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I can’t be anything but realistic. I know we can get by for a while, but I’m anticipating every day from now on being a struggle. The more time passes since everything was normal, the less there’s going to be for us to take out there. The last bits of food will rot. Buildings will start to crumble. Everything we used to know will gradually disappear.’

  ‘Fucking hell,’ Baxter groaned sarcastically, ‘here’s looking on the bright side, eh?’

  ‘Like I said, I’m just being realistic, that’s all,’ Donna mumbled, her voice tired and resigned.

  ‘Anyway,’ Croft interjected, ‘we’ve got to get out of here before you can start sightseeing, Jack.’

  ‘I know,’ he sighed. ‘Frustrating, isn’t it. We’re the one’s who can survive out there, and it’s the bloody army who’ll decide whether we can go outside or not.’

  ‘Think they’ll try and keep us down here, Cooper?’

  Croft asked.

  ‘We need to stay here for a while,’ Emma said.

  ‘Unless us being here puts them at risk, I don’t think they’ll be in a hurry to get rid of us,’ Cooper answered.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I still think we might be useful to them. I’m starting to think they might have plans.’

  5

  ‘What’s

  the

  matter?’

  Emma had woken up alone in bed. After a moment’s panic she had found Michael at the other end of the motorhome, sitting in the driver’s seat behind the wheel and staring out through the windscreen into the grey, shadowy gloom of the vast hanger. The clock on the dashboard said it was almost four in the morning.

  When he heard her he looked up momentarily and then looked down again.

  ‘Nothing’s the matter,’ he replied. ‘I was just thinking, that’s all.’

  ‘What

  about?’

  ‘You know, the usual.’

  ‘What’s

  the

  usual?’

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘What do you think?’

  Emma sat down on the edge of the passenger seat next to him, still unsure as to what he was alluding to. A series of thoughts flashed through her mind. Was he thinking about the other survivors and the conversation they’d had earlier? Was he thinking about the soldiers or what had happened when they’d ventured outside yesterday? Or was he thinking about something else entirely? Whatever it was, it was clearly something which was weighing heavy on his mind. He scowled with concentration. His voice was abrupt and cold.

  ‘Is it me?’ she found herself wondering. ‘Have I upset you or have I done something that’s…?’

  He shook his head and then sighed and rubbed his tired eyes.

  ‘Why do you always assume it’s got anything to do with you?’ he asked. ‘What could you have done to upset me?

  When we’ve got all this shit happening around us, why should it be anything you’ve done that’s keeping me awake?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe if you’d talk to me and tell me what’s wrong I could help. I just want to…’

  Michael turned around to face Emma and reached out for her. She was shivering with cold. He gently pulled her across the front seats of the motorhome and held her close.

  ‘It’s nothing you’ve done,’ he whispered. ‘Believe me, you’re just about the only thing I’m not worrying about at the moment.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘It’s just that when I woke up and found you weren’t there I started to think that… You know what it’s like, I couldn’t help thinking that…’

  ‘I know,’ he interrupted.

  Emma pushed her face closer towards Michael’s and curled up on his lap.

  ‘So what exactly were you thinking about?’ she asked.

  He nodded in the direction of the heavy entrance doors which separated the fortunate few inside the base from the immense and relentless gathering of rotting flesh outside.

  ‘The bodies,’ he answered quietly.

  ‘What about them?’

  He thought for a second.

  ‘You remember how many were outside when we first arrived here?’

  ‘Thousands,

  why?’

  ‘Jack said he thought there were just as many of them out there today, maybe even more.’

  ‘I know, I heard him. What’s your point?’

  ‘My point is that even though we’ve been buried down here for weeks, they’re still managing to find us out.’

  ‘We knew this was going to happen…’

  ‘I

  know.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So if they’ve been able to find us when we’ve been keeping quiet and out of sight, what the hell is going to happen now? What’s going to happen now that those bloody idiots have started going out there with their guns and their flame-throwers and God knows what else?’

  Emma squirmed uncomfortably as the implications of what he was saying became clear.

  ‘So what do you think’s going to happen?’ she asked.

  She already thought she knew the answer, but she wanted to hear it from Michael.

  ‘I think that every last corpse that’s anywhere near here is going to end up outside those doors, trying to get inside.

  And then more will come, then more. And more of them means that the military’s precious base is going to be put under increasing pressure to keep functioning. Sooner or later they’ll have to go above ground again and then, when they do, it’ll just make matters worse. Then even more of the fucking things will end up here.’

  ‘Do you thi
nk that’s really going to happen…?’ she started to say.

  ‘This is inevitable,’ Michael said quietly, his voice low and unemotional. ‘We’ve said it before, it might happen tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or the day after that. It might happen in the next hour or on the other hand it might not happen for weeks. The one thing I’m sure of is that it will happen eventually.’

  6

  ‘You on your own, Cooper?’

  Cooper shuffled closer to the intercom on the heavy door which separated the main decontamination chamber and the rest of the buried base from the hanger. Well away from most of the rest of the group of survivors, he had been sitting talking to Bernard Heath when they’d become aware of sounds of movement coming from inside the decontamination area. Through a six inch square observation panel he had recognised Jim Franks, just about the last of his ex-colleagues who still dared to risk speaking to him.

  ‘No, I’ve got Bernard Heath with me,’ Cooper replied, his voice deliberately low. ‘It’s okay. Bernard’s all right.’

  A

  pause.

  ‘Okay, mate,’ the subdued and disembodied voice said.

  Franks and Cooper had known each other for several years and held each other in mutual respect. The rest of Cooper’s former colleagues had, for a number of reasons, either been ordered or had chosen to no longer communicate with him.

  Many now felt uneasy around him and distrusted him because he was “out there with them” instead of being “in here with us.” Others thought that being a bona-fide

  “survivor” somehow made him a different person to the Cooper they had known and served alongside previously.

  Those troops who still remained committed and loyal to the military simply feared incurring the wrath of their superiors if they dared speak to him. Others had become completely isolated and withdrawn and just didn’t speak to anyone any longer.

  ‘How you lot doing in there?’ Cooper asked, huddling closer to the intercom.

  ‘Not good,’ Franks replied.

  ‘What’s

  happening?’

  Another brief silence.

  ‘The men are scared ‘cause no-one knows what’s happening or why it’s happening. And we know we’re on our own here now, so the jokers who are running this place are starting to think they’re in charge of what’s left of the fucking country and they can do what they please. We’re all pretty shook up after what happened outside and it’s getting pretty fucking intense down here.’

  ‘Did you go outside?’

  ‘Not this time,’ Franks replied, ‘but it’ll be my turn sooner or later. You boys know better than I do what we’re facing here…’

  ‘It’s not good,’ whispered Heath.

  ‘Seems to me it’s fucking awful, never mind “not good”,’ Franks hissed. ‘Jesus Christ, we’ve got people walking round down here talking about fields full of bodies and…’

  Cooper interrupted, keen to get an answer to his original question.

  ‘So what’s happening?’

  ‘Christ, Cooper, you know what it’s like when you’re getting ready for a fight. You’ve got some blokes who can’t wait for it all to kick off so they can get going, then you’ve got others who spend most of their time crying into their pillows like fucking babies. All that most of us want to do is just get out of this hole, but we keep being told that what’s out there is worse than what’s down here and… and I don’t know what the hell’s going to happen but something’s going to give sooner or later.’

  Cooper was worried that Franks had mentioned a fight.

  As far as he was concerned a fight in their present position would inevitably mean risking absolutely everything for absolutely nothing.

  ‘I wish I could give you some good news,’ Cooper sighed, ‘but I’d be lying to you because there’s been no good news since this whole bloody thing started. Believe me though, mate, you’re in the best place you could be.

  Make sure you stay down there as long as you can. I’ve told you before, every move you make up here brings hundreds of bodies swarming round you like flies. You might be stuck down there, but at least you’re alive and you’re not having to watch every step that you take. And if you do end up out here, you’ll be trapped in your suit until you get back underground because one breath of outside air and chances are you’ll have fucking had it. My advice is to keep your head down and get through this as best you can because…’

  ‘You’ve got no fucking idea,’ Franks snapped, raising his voice to a dangerously high level. ‘For Christ’s sake, Cooper, don’t be so fucking naive. You know the kind of people that are down here. There’s only so much of this they’re going to take. There’s only so much I’m going to take…’

  ‘You don’t have a choice. Go above ground again and…’

  ‘Try telling that to this lot.’

  ‘I know how it seems, but you’ve got to…’

  ‘Remember Carlson?’ Franks’ desperate voice asked.

  ‘Keith Carlson?’ Cooper answered.

  ‘Kevin,’ Franks corrected. ‘Remember him?’

  ‘The chef, right?’

  ‘That’s

  right.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘They found him a couple of hours ago in his bunk.

  Stupid bloody idiot had slit his wrists.’

  ‘Christ,’ Bernard Heath sighed under his breath.

  ‘He’s not the first and he won’t be the last,’ Cooper answered quickly with a cold matter-of-factness.

  ‘I know that,’ Franks continued, ‘the problem isn’t what he’s done, it’s how to get rid of him. They can’t decide what to do with the body. People are so fucking paranoid down here that they’re talking about trying to burn it or cut it up into little fucking pieces for God’s sake. I’ve just seen blokes fighting over the corpse.’

  ‘Fighting, why?’ Cooper asked.

  ‘Because they want to make sure it’s dead,’ he replied.

  ‘Jeavons and Coleman are standing over the fucking body watching it, ready to hack it to pieces if it starts to move.’

  ‘It’s not going to move,’ Heath interrupted, his voice unintentionally condescending. ‘That would probably only going to happen if the body had been exposed to the outside air before he killed himself. I don’t think…’

  ‘I know that and you know that,’ Franks snapped angrily, ‘but you try convincing a couple of hundred soldiers who are scared out of their fucking minds and who feel like they’ve been backed into a corner. These people are trained to fight, not to do nothing. They’re talking about dumping the body outside when we go above ground again.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Cooper said, ‘but that could be weeks.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Something

  planned?’

  ‘It’s starting to look that way.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not sure, no-one’s saying much. There are a few rumours doing the rounds, that’s all.’

  ‘Such

  as…?’

  The conversation faltered momentarily. Through the observation panel Cooper watched as Franks looked over his shoulder and checked he was safe to continue talking.

  ‘I started to hear a few rumblings yesterday, and I’ve heard more today from people that I trust so it looks like there’s some truth in what they’re saying. Main problem is that we still can’t get enough air down here and it’s probably going to get worse. They cleared a couple of exhaust vents last time but they need to do more. There’s no way of unblocking them from this side ‘cause they’ll risk infecting the whole fucking base, so at best it looks like we’ll be coming up again soon to go out and get a few more of them cleared.’

  ‘If that’s at best,’ Heath asked quietly, his voice filled with uncertainty, ‘then what’s your worst case scenario?’

  Cooper glanced across at the other man, sharing his concern.

  Another pause and then Franks spoke again.

  �
�Some of the boys who went out last time,’ he explained, ‘told the bosses that they managed to get rid of hundreds of those things up there.’

  ‘They did,’ agreed Cooper. ‘Problem is there’s thousands more of them left.’

  ‘Rumour has it,’ Franks continued, ‘that they’re looking at trying to organise one massive push. Rumour has it we’re all going above ground to torch the whole fucking lot of them.’

  7

  The lights came on.

  Donna jumped up from her seat as the doors of the decontamination chambers began to open.

  ‘Oh, Christ,’ she mumbled anxiously, glancing across at Emma, Clare and Heath who were stood nearby and who were also staring at the slowly opening door.

  Alerted by the sudden brightness in the hanger, most of the other survivors had already begun a furious and uncoordinated scramble across the vast cavern and over to their vehicles. As the first heavily-suited soldiers began to emerge from their sealed shelter the frightened crowd of men, women and children once again sprinted towards the police van, prison truck and motorhome.

  A steady stream of troops again took up position on the ramp just short of the entrance doors. Standing to the side of the main column of soldiers, an officer furiously marshalled proceedings. Just as they had done the time before a number of engines were started and another armoured personnel carrier was driven out of the shadows.

  This time the powerful vehicle was accompanied by four jeeps and was surrounded by a phalanx of eight, flame-thrower carrying men. The men moved quickly towards the front of the short convoy, ready to escort the vehicles out into the open and burn a path for them through the crowds.

  It was Saturday afternoon, three o’clock.