The City a-2 Read online

  He didn’t need her to tell him that, it was painfully obvious.

  Their actions were geared around the basic fact that there was only one way for them to get out of the building. If their escape route became blocked for any reason then that would be it. There would be no second chances.

  Breathing deeply to try and calm her own shattered nerves, Donna cautiously walked away from the light and moved closer towards the doors. Through the small glass panels she could see the creatures outside reacting to her presence. The ferocity of their movements increased as she approached – she could see the reaction of the first bodies causing the second and the third to react, then the forth, the fifth and the sixth and so on until the landing was filled with clumsy, awkward movement and action.

  She wondered what, if anything, was going through their decaying minds? Were they frightened of her? Did they want to harm her? Did they want her to help end their suffering?

  Whatever the reason she knew that ultimately it didn’t matter.

  Self-preservation was all that was important now.

  She took a deep breath and opened the door.

  For a split-second there was nothing. Then the force of the mass of bodies on the landing and stairs caused the crowd to surge forward, spilling into the office and sending countless corpses stumbling and tripping around her. The brightness of the light in the corner of the room was more of a distraction than she was. In the relative darkness she was able to turn and run back to the training room.

  ‘Okay?’

  Paul

  whispered.

  ‘Shut up,’ she snapped. ‘Keep quiet. If they hear us they’ll start coming up this way.’

  The two survivors crept quietly out of the training room and towards the other doors. Down at the far end of the office they could see a huge mass of dark, uncoordinated bodies continuing to flood into the room and head for the light. The first few of them reached out with cold, lifeless hands and grabbed inquisitively at the lamps. Unable to grip with clumsy, uncoordinated fingers and thumbs, one of the creatures knocked a lamp to the ground, shattering its protective glass cover and leaving the burning mantle exposed. Within seconds the carpet and a pile of papers was alight.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Donna gasped as she watched the fire spread quickly.

  ‘Let’s get moving.’

  ‘No, hold on. We should give it a little longer.’

  Donna moved forward just enough to enable her to see through the doors and watch the bodies continuing to enter the office through the other entrance. Still more of them dragged themselves up the stairs and onto the landing. Paul watched the bodies around the light, which had now changed from a steady white-yellow to a flickering orange-red as the unchecked fire took hold. Some of the pitiful creatures walked into the flames, apparently ignorant to the heat and danger. Their ragged clothes were tinder dry and quickly began to smoulder and burn.

  ‘We’ve got to go,’ Paul insisted. ‘Christ, that fire’s going to spread through this whole building. And when the gas bottles on the lamps start to go…’

  ‘I know,’ Donna interrupted, standing up straight and picking up her few belongings. She watched the crowd through the door for a moment longer before stepping back to look at the fire.

  Several bodies were burning (and still moving) now, as was a desk and chair. Thick brown smoke was billowing up and was beginning to roll along the low ceiling towards them.

  Donna flicked her security pass casually at the control panel at the side of the door and then quietly pushed it open. Even now after the bodies had been able to get into the room for several minutes there were still more of them on the landing, tripping towards the open office doors. She looked back momentarily to check that Paul was with her and then led him out towards the staircase. Silently they crept along the landing with their backs pressed against the wall, terrified that they would be seen by the diseased hordes which continued to crowd towards the light.

  Donna stopped just short of the open door which led out onto the staircase.

  ‘Okay?’ she mouthed silently. Paul nodded. ‘Just keep moving forward until we get outside.’

  After waiting for another withered body to drag itself through the doorway Donna turned and forced her way out onto the stairs. She tripped down in the darkness, pushing random bodies to the side as she began to run down towards ground level and deflecting countless grabbing hands which reached out for her constantly. The heavy footsteps of the survivors on the concrete stairs echoed throughout the dead building as they ran down and down, turning one hundred and eighty degrees at the foot of each short flight and the start of the next. Numerous bodies continued to emerge from the darkness around them but the sheer strength, speed and fear of Donna and Paul was too much for any of the cadavers. They were knocked away and flung to the side like discarded rag dolls.

  Through another door and they had reached the reception area. Still more dark and indistinguishable bodies approached but the survivors did not allow themselves to be distracted.

  Donna led Paul down a final staircase and out into the office car park through an insignificant basement entrance. The car park was empty. In the safety of the shadows and the darkness they stopped.

  ‘You all right?’ Paul asked quietly.

  Donna nodded, shaking and breathing heavily.

  ‘I’m okay,’ she replied. ‘You?’

  ‘I’m

  fine.’

  Disturbed by a huge noise from above, Donna took a few steps out into the centre of the car park and looked up. She could see the floor from which they had just escaped. The windows along two-thirds of the length of the building were lit up, illuminated by fierce yellow-orange flames. Even from where they stood, many meters below, they could hear the crackle and pop of the fire as it consumed the office. The sudden muffled bang of an exploding gas cylinder and the cracking of glass made them both catch their breath.

  Without saying another word, and walking slowly for fear of attracting the attention of the sickly, withered bodies soon moving randomly around them again, Paul and Donna left the car park and began to head towards the centre of the city.

  14

  The atmosphere in the university accommodation block was by turn tense and expectant. Those survivors who had chosen to emerge from their rooms had gathered in the assembly hall where they sat in silence and waited pensively for something –anything – to happen. It was impossible for any of them to rest or sleep most of the time but tonight it was particularly difficult.

  Deep in the bowels of the building Sonya Farley was reaching the final stages of a long and painful labour. Her pain could be heard and felt in every corner of every otherwise silent room.

  The makeshift delivery room upstairs was brightly lit. Bright, that was, in comparison with the rest of the dark building.

  Several survivors had willingly given up torches and other lights to allow Phil Croft – the only person with any relevant medical experience – to deliver Sonya’s baby. He was nervous and apprehensive. He hadn’t done this for a while and this was only the third delivery that he’d been actively involved in. Paulette, the large and remarkably bright and enthusiastic lady standing at his side, had been involved in three times as many. And more than half of those births had been her own children. Croft was pleased to have her around. Having been in Sonya’s unenviable position on no less than five occasions, she was essential to the first time mother-to-be’s well-being tonight. Although Croft knew all the technical terms and he could monitor and react to mother and baby’s vital signs, Paulette was able to do something far more important. She could reassure her. She could talk to Sonya. She could tell her when to push and when to relax, when to breathe in and when to breathe out. She could understand, anticipate and explain the pain and tell her how well she was doing and how much more she had left to do. Croft admired her ability to somehow shut out her own personal fear and loss and ignore the devastation beyond the university walls to allow her to concentrate on the young
girl lying in nervous agony on the sweat-soaked bed next to her.

  ‘Come on, lover,’ she said softly, gently stroking Sonya’s forehead and at the same time gripping her hand tightly. ‘You’ve not got long left to go now. We’ll have this baby born within the hour.’

  Sonya’s face screwed up in pain as another contraction peaked. Croft crouched at the end of the bed, feeling momentarily redundant and helpless and wishing that he could have used some of the monitoring equipment and pain-relieving drugs sitting silent and useless in the nearby hospital. He administered what medicines he could, but they had little effect.

  Sonya was fully dilated. He could see the first whisps of greasy dark hair on the top of the baby’s head.

  ‘Nearly there,’ he said quietly.

  Sonya relaxed momentarily as the pain faded away. Apart from the expected agony and emotion of childbirth she felt surprisingly calm. This was just how the midwife had said it would be during the pre-natal classes she’d attended. Even though it hurt more than any pain she’d ever felt before, it somehow felt good. It was positive pain, and she knew it was right. Nothing in what remained of her life made sense anymore except this. Her husband was gone. Her friends and family were dead. She had lost her home and possessions and she had nothing left except the precious little person inside her who was about to be born. And it felt so right. For the first time since the nightmare had begun something was happening as it was supposed to.

  Another sharp contraction. They were becoming unbearable.

  Sonya screamed out in agony and squeezed Paulette’s hand so tightly that the other woman winced in pain.

  ‘Come on,’ she soothed, crouching lower so that her face was close to Sonya’s. ‘Baby’s ready to come now.’

  Fifty-five minutes later and the moment had arrived. Sonya’s incredible pain again built to an almost unbearable crescendo before being dramatically relieved as her baby was delivered in a sudden release of pressure and a rush of activity and emotion.

  Croft guided the child safely down onto the bed between its mother’s ankles and gently wiped blood and other bodily fluids from its face. He clamped and cut the cord and then quickly whisked the baby away to the makeshift crib they’d prepared.

  His face was a picture of intense concentration as he checked the baby’s vital signs and waited anxiously for it to respond.

  The silence was deafening.

  ‘You did it, lover,’ whispered Paulette, kissing the top of Sonya’s sweat-soaked head.

  Sonya watched with unexpected nervousness as Croft worked on her child. When she’d first fallen pregnant she remembered her mother telling her that this was the worst part – the wait for the baby to realise it had been born and to start to breathe and react for itself. She’d tried to prepare herself but it was impossible. Every long second of silence felt like hours.

  Then it happened. A sudden, shrill and piercing cry of surprise and realisation from the child in the crib. Croft glanced across at Sonya and smiled.

  ‘Perfect little baby girl,’ he said. ‘Well done.’

  For a few blissful moments nothing else mattered. With huge, saucer eyes filled with tears of joy and relief, Sonya watched as the doctor wrapped her little baby in a soft blanket and carried her across the room. Ignoring the pain and discomfort she felt, she sat up and took the little bundle from him. Shutting out the rest of the world, she stared down into a beautiful, wrinkled, blotchy blue-pink face. She stroked the baby’s cheek with a single gentle finger and revelled in the warmth, movement and noise that the little girl had innocently brought to her otherwise lifeless world.

  ‘What are you going to call her?’ asked Paulette, peering over the mother’s shoulder.

  ‘Don’t know,’ Sonya replied quietly. ‘We had a few ideas for names but we hadn’t settled on anything for definite.’

  ‘Take your time and get it right. I always said it was easier to give them a name once you knew what they looked like. Until then you…

  Paulette suddenly stopped talking. The baby had stopped crying. The room was quiet.

  The three adults in the room exchanged nervous glances.

  Both women looked to Croft for an explanation. When he remained silent Sonya looked down and gave her little girl’s hand a gentle squeeze. Nothing. And then the baby opened its mouth wide and let out a sudden, rasping cry. The cry turned into a helpless splutter. Then another cough. Then another and another until the high-pitched coughing had become a constant scream of innocent, helpless agony. Sonya held her daughter close to her breast, desperate to help but knowing that there was nothing she could do. Croft tried to help and take the baby from her but she wouldn’t let go. They knew what was happening.

  The deadly contagion still hung heavy in the air.

  Just minutes after being born the baby was dead.

  15

  Croft broke the news to the handful of survivors gathered in the assembly hall before heading back upstairs to look after the heavily sedated Sonya. The range of drugs available to him had been desperately limited. He’d pumped the devastated girl full of whatever he could find until she’d finally stopped screaming and slipped into unconsciousness.

  Jack Baxter sat with Bernard Heath in a corner of the hall.

  Clare lay on a foam mattress next to them. They had talked intermittently for a few hours with neither man able to even contemplate sleep. In that time Baxter had been given the opportunity to ask some of the questions which had weighed heavy on his mind since last Tuesday morning. Heath, of course, had been unable to answer any of them, but the conversation seemed to have helped nevertheless.

  On hearing the news that the baby had died, Heath began to cry. He seemed ashamed by his show of emotion and tried unsuccessfully to hide his tears from Baxter.

  ‘You know what this means, don’t you?’ he said after a few minutes of silence, his voice unsteady.

  ‘What?’ Baxter replied.

  ‘It means that this is definitely the end.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘It’s got to be over now, hasn’t it? There are only a handful of us left now and it looks like we can’t reproduce. So as far as I can see that’s the end of the human race, Jack.’

  Baxter stared into the darkness.

  ‘You can’t be sure,’ he said quietly.

  ‘We can’t be sure about anything, but you’ve got to admit, it doesn’t look good, does it? I’d started to think that there might have been some hope for us. I’d been thinking that whatever makes people like you and I immune might make our children immune or our brothers or…

  Tears began rolling freely down his tired face.

  ‘You might still be right,’ Baxter whispered.

  Heath shook his head.

  ‘I’ve got a son,’ he continued, wiping his eyes again. ‘He lives in Australia. My wife’s been over there with them. She flew over three weeks ago to see the grandchildren. I know she’s…’

  ‘She’s probably with them now,’ he interrupted, anticipating what he was about to say and instinctively saying the opposite.

  ‘For all you know they could be safe. It might only be this country that’s affected. We might………’

  ‘I know they’re dead,’ Heath interrupted sadly. ‘Doesn’t matter what you say, I know they’re dead.’

  Baxter rubbed his eyes and looked up at the ceiling. He knew what he was hearing was right.

  ‘Until we know for certain though…’ he began, about to try pointlessly to persuade Heath that there was still some hope.

  ‘Don’t waste your time, Jack,’ Heath interrupted, sitting upright and staring into the other man’s face. ‘There’s no point holding on to dreams or half-baked ideas or…’

  ‘But you can’t just dismiss everything that……’

  ‘Listen, can you really say you’ve stopped to try and appreciate the scale of what’s happened here?’

  ‘Well

  I…’

  ‘I hadn’t. But something struck me a
couple of days ago that puts all of this into perspective. Did you own a car?’

  ‘Never learnt to drive,’ Baxter answered, surprised by the question he’d been asked. ‘Why?’

  ‘I remember when I brought my first car home. My mother thought it was a death trap and my old dad spent the day outside with me trying to get the engine tuned. I’ll never forget that day…

  ‘What point are you making?’

  ‘How many crashed cars have you seen? How many abandoned cars have you seen round here?’

  ‘Hundreds, probably thousands, why?’

  ‘Because somebody owned every single one of them. Every single one of those cars was someone’s pride and joy.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying…’

  ‘What about your home? Did you own your house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Remember the feeling when you picked up the key and walked inside? Remember your first night there when it was your house and you could shut the front door and forget about everyone else?’

  A faint smile crossed Jack’s face as he remembered setting up home with his dear departed Denise.

  ‘God, yes,’ he said quietly. ‘We had such a laugh. We hardly had anything. We sat on boxes and ate chips from a…’

  ‘Just think about the fact that someone had memories like that about every single house you’ve passed, and chances are they’re all dead now. Hundreds of them. Millions of them.’

  ‘It doesn’t bare thinking about.’

  ‘But we should think about it. And what about children? Did you have children, Jack?’

  He shook his head sadly.

  ‘No, we wanted to but…’

  ‘Every single corpse lying and rotting on the streets and every one of those bloody things outside this building, they were all somebody. They were all someone’s son or daughter or brother or sister or……’

  Heath stopped talking again. More tears trickled from his tired eyes.

  ‘You okay?’ Jack asked, hesitantly. He shook his head.

  ‘This is the end,’ he replied. ‘I tell you there’s no doubt about it, this is the end.’