The Human Condition

Quarter past five.

After what had happened at the school Juliet returned home before midday and had found both of her elderly parents dead. Mum was in the bathroom, sprawled across the floor with her knickers round her ankles, and Dad was (as always) in his armchair, staring up at the ceiling. Dribbles of blood had run down his chin and trickled down the front of his shirt. She'd wept for them both of course (especially Mum), and had felt a real sense of devastation and loss. But after a while the hurting feeling had, unexpectedly, started to fade. In the strangest, perverse kind of way, she began to enjoy the freedom that the dark day had unexpectedly given her. She'd never had the house to herself like this. She hadn't had to eat at any particular time (not that she felt like eating anything anyway) and she hadn't had to sit through Dad's choice of television programmes (not that the television had been working). She hadn't had to explain her movements every time she got up out of her chair. For the first time in a very long time she felt free.

Juliet's small, quiet and fairly insignificant world had been turned upside down. She'd seen hundreds upon hundreds of bodies littering the streets and hadn't known the reason why any one of them had died. She'd tried to make contact with her few friends, her neighbours, the local police and pretty much everyone else she knew in the local vicinity but she hadn't been able to reach anyone. Her telephone didn't work. There were no answers when she knocked on the front doors of the houses of friends and family. Frightened and bewildered, but also feeling strangely empowered and stronger than she had done for a long, long time, she sat alone in her bedroom and waited for something to happen or someone to come and help, not that anyone knew she was there. At the end of the first day she moved Mum and Dad into the back room. When she woke up on the second day she dug two deep holes in the garden and buried them both. Dad had always wanted them to be buried together. She knew that Mum would have preferred them to be close but slightly apart. She'd still loved Dad but, like Juliet, she'd had enough of him too. KAREN CHASE

`What the hell do you call that?'

I looked at him for a second. Trick question? What did he expect me to say?

`I call it your order,' I answered. `Full English breakfast. Bacon, sausage, scrambled egg, mushrooms, hash browns and baked beans.'

`Doesn't look like the picture in the menu.'

He opened the menu up, laid it out on the table in front of him and jabbed his finger angrily at the photograph at the bottom of the breakfast section.

`I know, but that's only a representation...' I tried to explain.

`But nothing,' he interrupted. `I appreciate that there will inevitably be differences between a photograph and the actual meal, but what you've brought to me here bears very little resemblance to the food I ordered. The bacon's undercooked. The mushrooms are overcooked. The scrambled egg is lumpy. Do I need to go on?'

`So do you want me to...' I began.

`That was what I ordered,' he sighed, tapping the photograph with his finger again, `and that is what I expect to be served. Now you be a good girl and run along back to your kitchen and try again.'

A genuine complaint I can deal with, but I have a real problem when people try and patronise me. I was so angry that I couldn't move. It was one of those second-long moments which seemed to drag on forever. Did I try and argue with this pathetic little man, did I tell him what he could do with his bloody breakfast, or did I just swallow my pride, pick up the plate again and take it back to the kitchen? Much as I wanted to go for either one of the first two options, commonsense and nerves got the better of me. I picked up the plate and stormed back to the kitchen.

`Bloody man,' I snapped as I pushed through the swinging door. In the kitchen Jamie and Keith, the two chefs on duty, stopped playing football with the remains of a lettuce and stood and looked at me.

`Who's rattled your cage?' Jamie asked.

`Fucking idiot outside. Wants his breakfast to look exactly the same as the picture in the menu.'

`Tell him to fuck off and get a life,' Keith sighed as he kicked the lettuce out through the back door.

I stood and stared at the pair of them, waiting for either one of them to move. `What do you expect me to do about it?' mumbled Jamie.

`Make another bloody breakfast,' I answered, `you're the cook, aren't you?'

Christ, these two were stupid. Jamie was still looking at me with his mouth hanging open as if I'd just asked him to prepare forty meals in ten minutes. All I was asking him to do was his job. It was what he was being paid for, for God's sake. If he'd done it right first time he wouldn't have to do it again now.

`Fucking hell,' he complained as he snatched the plate from me. He studied the faded photograph on a copy of the menu stuck to the wall and took a clean plate from the cupboard. Then he took the food from the original plate, rearranged it on the clean one, warmed it up in the microwave and then slid it across the work surface towards me.

`You expect me to take this out to him?' I said, not quite believing what I was seeing.

`Yes,' he grunted. `Looks more like it does on the menu now, doesn't it?'

Keith started to snigger from behind the newspaper he had picked up.

Knowing that there was no point in arguing with either of the chimps I was working with I picked up the plate and turned back round. I stood behind the doors for a couple of seconds to compose myself and looked out through the small porthole windows into the restaurant. I could see my nightmare customer sitting at his table, looking at his watch and tapping his fingers on the table impatiently, and I knew that whatever I did he was going to give me a hard time when I went back out to him. If I went back too quickly he'd accuse me of not having had time to prepare his food properly. If I kept him waiting too long he'd be just as incensed... I decided to wait for a few seconds longer.

Customers were the worst part of my job, and today I had been landed with the very worst type of customer. We got all sorts of passing trade at the restaurant, and there tended to be a couple of customers like this one coming in each week. They were usually travelling sales reps who were stopping in the motel just up the bypass. As a rule they were all badly dressed, loud, rude and ignorant. Maybe that was why they did the job they did and spent their time travelling around the country? Perhaps their wives (if anyone had been foolish enough to marry them) had kicked them out? Perhaps that was why they all came in here with an attitude like they had something to prove. Bastards the lot of them. It wasn't my fault they were so bitter and insecure, was it?

I pushed myself back out through the door and stood cringing next to the customer's table.

`That's better,' he said to my surprise as I put the plate of food down in front of him. Thank God for that, I thought as I quickly began to walk away.

`You're welcome, you wanker,' I muttered under my breath.

`Just a minute, girl,' the customer shouted as I reached the kitchen door. The three other customers in the restaurant looked up and watched me walk back to the table.

`Yes, Sir?' I answered through gritted teeth, doing my damnedest to remain calm and polite and not empty his pot of tea into his lap.

`This is cold,' he complained. He skewered a sausage on his fork, sniffed it and then dropped it back onto his plate in disgust, sending little balls of dried-up scrambled egg shooting across the table.

`Is it really?' I asked with obvious sarcasm and mock concern in my voice. `Yes, it is,' he snapped. `Now you listen to me, missy, you scuttle back over to your little kitchen right now and fetch me a fresh breakfast. And while you're there, send the manager out to see me. This really isn't good enough.'

There may well have been some justification to his complaint, but the tone of his voice and the way he spoke to me was completely out of order. I wasn't paid enough to be patronised and belittled. It wasn't my fault I had bills to pay and no other way of getting the money to pay them. It wasn't my fault that...

`Are you going to stand there looking stupid all day,' he sneered, `or are you going to go somewhere else and look stupid instead?'

That was it. The customer is always right, they say, but there are limits. Here at the Monkton View Eater, it seemed, the customer was always an asshole.

`Look, I'm sorry if the food isn't up to the standard you were expecting,' I began, somehow managing to still sound calm, even if I didn't feel it, `I'll get that sorted out. But there is no need to be rude to me. I'll go and get you...'

`Listen,' he said, the slow and tired tone of his voice indicating that it was a real effort for him to have to lower himself to speak to me, `I'm really not interested in anything more you have to say. Be a good girl and fetch me my food. You are a waitress. You are here to serve me. And if I want to be rude to you then I'll be as rude as I fucking well please. You're paid to take it.'

`No you listen,' I began to pointlessly protest, `I'm not...'

`Get the manager,' he interrupted with a tone of infuriating superiority. `I don't need to speak to you any longer.'

Another one of those moments which seemed to last forever. I was suddenly so full of anger and contempt that, once again, I was too wound up to move. Compounding my awkwardness was the fact that the other customers had all now stopped eating and were watching and waiting to see what I'd do next. I glanced back over my shoulder and saw that the Neanderthals in the kitchen were peering out through the portholes at me too, grinning like the idiots I knew they were.

`Well?' the customer sighed.

I turned and walked, pushing my way through the swinging doors to the kitchen, sending Jamie flying.

`Where's Trevor?'

`Fag break,' Keith replied.

I stormed out through the back door to where Trevor, our so-called manager, was standing smoking a cigarette. He was leaning up the rubbish bins, reading Keith's newspaper.

`Trevor,' I began.

`What?' he grunted, annoyed that I'd interrupted him.

`I've got a problem with a customer. He says he wants to speak to the manager.'

`Tell him you're the manager.'

`Why should I?' He shrugged his shoulders.

`Tell him I've gone out to a meeting.'

`No.'

`Tell him I've got Health and Safety coming.'

`No.'

`For Christ's sake,' he groaned, finally lifting his head from the paper, `just deal with it will you. What the hell do I pay you for? Dealing with customers is your responsibility.'

`Looking after your staff is yours.'

`Oh give it a rest...'

`He swore at me! I'm not prepared to speak to a customer who's going to swear at me. Do you know how bloody insulting he was when...?'

`Now you're swearing at me. You can't have it both ways, love!'

That was it. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. I ripped off the bloody stupid pinafore that they made me wear and threw it at Trevor, along with my order pad.

`I've had enough! Stick your bloody job!'

I couldn't afford to do what I was doing, but at the same time I couldn't put myself through it any longer. This wasn't the first time this had happened, and I knew that if I stayed in the job it wouldn't be the last. I pushed my way back into the kitchen, grabbed my coat, and marched out through the restaurant.

`Is the manager on his way?' the odious little customer asked at the top of his voice as I walked past. I stopped and turned round to face him. His food couldn't have been too bad because he'd managed to eat half of it.

`No he isn't,' I answered. `The manager cannot be bothered to come and speak to you, and I can't be bothered wasting my time dealing with pathetic little fuckers like you either. You can stick your meal and your attitude and your complaint up your arse, and I hope you fucking choke on your food!'

And he did.

Still chewing a mouthful of breakfast, the sickening, smug grin of superiority which had been plastered across the idiot's face as he watched me ranting at him suddenly disappeared. He stopped eating. His eyes began to water and the veins in his neck began to bulge. He spat out his food.

`Get me some water,' he croaked, clawing at his neck. `Get me some...'

A noise from behind made me turn round. The customers in the far corner of the restaurant were choking too. The middle-aged couple were both in as bad a state as the little shit who had caused me so much trouble this morning. I turned back to look at him again. Christ, he looked like he was suffocating. Much as I'd wished all kinds of suffering on him a couple of minutes earlier, now I just wanted his pain to stop. I ran back to the kitchen.

`Call an ambulance,' I yelled. `There's a customer...' Jamie was on his knees, coughing up blood on the floor in the corner of the kitchen. Keith was lying on his back in the storeroom, rolling around in agony like the others. Trevor was also lying on the ground. He'd lost consciousness. His fat body had fallen half-in and half-out of the back door.

By the time I'd picked up the phone to call for an ambulance everyone in the restaurant was dead.

PHILIP EVANS Part i

Mum isn't well.

She's suffered with her health for years now and she's been practically bed-ridden since last December. She's not been well all week but she's really taken a turn for the worst this morning. I've been up with her since just after five and it's almost eight now. I think I'll get the doctor out to see her if she doesn't start to pick up soon.

I don't know what I'd do without Mum. I've forced myself to try and think about it plenty of times, mind, because I know there's going to come a time when she's not around anymore. We're very close, Mum and I. Dad died when I was nine and there's just been the two of us since then. I'm forty-two now. I've not been able to work for years because I've been looking after her so we don't see much of other people. We pretty much live out on our own here. There's just our cottage and one other on either side and that's all. The village is five minutes back down the road by bike. We've never bothered with a car. I don't drive, and we can get a bus into town if we really need to go there. There's not much we need that we can't find in the village.

She's calling me again. I'll make her some tea and take it up with her tablets. It's not like her to make a fuss like this. She always tells me she doesn't like to make a fuss. She tells the doctor that too when he calls. And the health visitor. And the District Nurse. And the vicar.

It's just her way.

I need to get help but I can't leave her.

Oh, God, I don't know what to do. I was up there talking to her when it happened. I was trying to get her to the toilet when it started. Usually when she has one of her turns she's able to let me know when it's coming, but she didn't just now. This one came out of the blue. It seemed to take her by surprise as we were coming back across the landing.

She started to choke. Now Mum's chest has been bad for a long time, but nothing like this. It was almost as if she'd got something stuck in it, but she hadn't had anything to eat all morning so that was impossible. She'd turned her nose up at her breakfast. Anyway, before I knew what was happening she was coughing and retching and her whole body was shaking in my arms. I lay her down on the ground and tried to get her to calm down and breathe slowly and not panic but she couldn't stop. She couldn't swallow. She couldn't talk. Her eyes started to bulge wide and I could see that she wasn't getting any air but there wasn't anything I could do to help. I tried to tip her head back to open up her windpipe like the nurse showed me once but she wouldn't lie still. She kept fighting against me. She was thrashing her arms around and coughing and spluttering. The noise she was making was horrible. It didn't sound like Mum. She was making this scratching, croaking, gargling noise and I thought that there was phlegm or something trapped in her throat. I thought she might have been choking on her tongue (the nurse told me about that once too) so I put my fingers in her mouth to make sure it was clear. When I took them out again they were covered in thick, dark blood like the insides of her mouth were cut. Then she stopped moving. As suddenly as she'd started she stopped. I sat down on the carpet next to her and held her hand until I was sure that she'd gone.

I could still hear that horrible choking sound in my head even after it had stopped and Mum was lying still. I could hear it ringing in my ears when everything else had gone quiet.

It's been quiet like this for hours now.

My Mum's dead.

I can't just sit here and do nothing. I can't help Mum but I can't just leave her lying here either. The doctor will have to come round and then someone will come to take her away and then... and then I don't know what I'll do. I don't know what I'm going to do without her. I've always had Mum.

About half an hour ago I decided to move her. I couldn't leave her lying there on the floor in the middle of the landing, that just wouldn't have been right. She seemed twice as heavy as she did when she was alive. I thought the best place for her would be her bedroom. I put my hands under her arms and dragged her through to the bedroom and onto the bed. I wiped the blood off her face and tried to close her eyes to make it look like she was just sleeping. I managed to get one eye to stay shut but the other one stayed open, staring at me. It was like she was still watching me. It was like one of those paintings of people's faces where the eyes seem to follow you round the room. In a way it made me feel a little better. Even though she's gone it's like she hasn't stopped looking out for me.

I tried to phone the doctor's surgery but I couldn't get an answer. I couldn't even get the telephone to work properly. I knew someone would have been at the surgery (it's open until late on Tuesdays) so I guessed it was our telephone that wasn't working. Often in winter the line used to go down because we're so isolated out here. But it isn't winter. It's early September and the weather's been fine.

I didn't want to leave Mum but I didn't have any choice. I shut the bedroom door, locked up the house and got my bike out of the shed. It didn't take long to get into the village. Mum never liked me riding on the road (she said it was the other drivers she didn't trust, not me) but it didn't matter this morning. There wasn't any traffic about. It was almost too quiet. Now the village isn't the busiest of places, but there's usually always something happening. This morning it was so quiet that all I could hear was the sound of my bike. It made me feel nervous and scared. And as I got deeper into the village, it got much worse. So much worse that I nearly turned round and came home, but the thought of what had happened to Mum made me keep going forward.

I was cycling down past Jack Halshaw's house when I saw that his front door was wide open. That was strange because Jack's always been careful about things like that. He used to be a friend of my dad's and I've known him all my life. So I stopped the bike, because I thought I should tell him about Mum and I thought he might be able to help me get things sorted out. I walked down the path and leant inside and shouted to him but he didn't answer. I shouted a couple more times but still he didn't reply. I walked down the side of the house to see if he was in his back garden and that was where I found him. He wasn't moving. He was lying on his back on the pavement and I could tell just by looking at him that he was dead. There was a pool of blood around his mouth and it looked like he'd died the same way Mum had.

I didn't know what to do. I kept going until I got to the village. When I got there I just stopped the bike in the middle of the road and stared at what I could see all around me. Whatever had happened to Mum and Jack Halshaw had happened to other people too. In fact, the longer I spent there, the more obvious it became that I was just about the only one it hadn't happened to. I went into the doctor's surgery and found Mrs Cribbins from the chip shop and Dr Granger dead in the middle of the waiting room. Their faces were horrible � splattered with blood and all screwed up like they'd been in terrible pain when they'd died. The doctor looked like he'd been trying to scream when it had happened.

I kept going right into the middle of the village and then wished that I hadn't. Even though it had happened fairly early in the morning, there had been lots of people out and about. They'd all just fallen and died wherever they'd been and whatever they'd been doing. And because our village is such a small place I knew them all. I knew where they'd been going and what they'd been doing when they'd died. Bill Linturn from the hardware shop was dead in his car � he'd just arrived to open up for the day. Vera Price, the lady who's on the till at the grocer's on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday mornings was lying dead on the pavement just outside the shop. It looked like she'd fallen into the middle of the fruit and veg displays they always have outside. There were potatoes, carrots and apples all over the place.

I looked around for a while but I couldn't find anyone to help me. I know it was silly, but I didn't want to leave Mum alone for too long. I knew there was nothing I could do for her, but it just didn't feel right leaving her alone at home with all that had happened. I got on my bike and cycled back to the cottage.

It's been over ten hours now since it happened. I can't get a picture on the telly and I still can't get anyone on the phone. I've tried listening to the radio to find out what's happening but all I can hear is hissing and crackling. I've been into the cottages next door on either side but both Ed and Mrs Chester are dead as well. I found Ed in his bath (the water was all pink because of the blood he'd dribbled) and Mrs Chester was at the bottom of her stairs. I tried to move her into her living room but, because of how she'd fallen and because her legs and arms had gone all stiff and hard, she was wedged behind the door and I couldn't move her.

I think I'm just going to sit here and wait for a while. Someone will come sooner or later, I'm sure they will. And anyway, I can't leave Mum here on her own. We did our weekly shop yesterday afternoon so I've got plenty of food in. I'll sit here and wait and everything will be okay.

Everything will be all right again in a couple of days when the police and the government start sorting out what's happened. I'll have to start phoning round the rest of the family to let them know that Mum's passed away. I'm not looking forward to doing that. Aunt Alice � Mum's sister � will be heartbroken. DAY THREE

AMY STEADMAN Part ii

Almost fifty hours have passed since infection. Amy Steadman has been dead for just over two days.

Just minutes after death Amy's body began to decompose. A process known as autolysis has begun. This is self-digestion. Starved of oxygen, complex chemical reactions have started to occur throughout the corpse. Amy's cells have become poisoned by increased levels of carbon dioxide, changes in acidity levels and the accumulation of waste. Her body has begun the slow process of dissolving from the inside out.

There has already been a marked change in Amy's external physical appearance. Her skin is now discoloured with her once healthy pink hue having darkened to a dull, dirty grey. Her veins are now considerably darker and more prominent and, in places, her skin has taken on a greasy translucency. Amy died lying on her back, with her body arched across the feet of a metal display unit. The parts of her body which are lowest to the ground � her feet, legs and backside and her left arm � now appear swollen and bruised. Blood, no longer being pumped around her circulatory system, has pooled and coagulated in these areas.

The first outward signs of the chemical reactions occurring inside the corpse are now also becoming apparent. Fluid-filled blisters have begun to form on Amy's skin, and around some areas of her body skin slippage has also occurred. Her face now appears drawn and hollowed.

To all intents and purposes Amy is dead. Her heart no longer beats, she no longer breathes, blood no longer circulates. The infection, however, has not completely destroyed her. Unlike the majority (perhaps as many as two-thirds) of the fallen bodies, part of Amy's brain and nervous system has continued to function, albeit at a virtually undetectable level. There are several other corpses nearby which are also in a similar condition.

As an identifiable and unique human being, Amy has ceased to exist. All that now remains of her is a decaying carcass and all traces of the identity, personality and character she once had have now all but disappeared. As time has progressed since infection, however, Amy's brain has begun to steadily regain a fraction of its original capacity. Until now the recovery has been slight and unnoticeable. It has, however, finally reached the stage where the brain is about to regain a degree of basic control over the dead shell which houses it. The brain is only capable of the most basic and rudimentary yes / no decisions. It no longer feels emotion or has any needs or desires. At this stage it operates purely by instinct. Overall control of the body is gradually returning, but at a phenomenally slow speed.

Amy's body is now beginning to move. The first outwardly visible sign of change is in the body's right foot which has begun to spasm and move at the ankle. Over the next few hours this movement gradually spreads to all four limbs and across the torso until, finally, the body is able to stand. Its movements are clumsy and uncoordinated. Coagulated blood and the gelling of the cytoplasm within individual cells (because of the body's increased acidity) is preventing free movement. Its eyes are open but it cannot see. It cannot hear. It cannot feel or react to any external stimulation. The combined effects of gravity, its physical deterioration and the uneven distribution of weight across the corpse after two days of inactivity causes the body to move. Initially it trips and falls like a newborn animal on unsteady legs. Soon, however, its control has reached such a level that it is able to distribute its weight enough to be able to manage a rudimentary walk. Devoid of its senses, the body simply keeps moving forward until it reaches an obstruction. It then shuffles around until it is able to move freely again.

The body remains in this state for a further two days.

PHILIP EVANS Part ii

Wonderful news! I can't believe it! It looks like Mum's going to be all right!

When I got up this morning I found her out of bed. I couldn't believe my eyes. I mean, I was convinced that she was dead. She must have just been in a coma or something like that. I saw a programme about it once on telly. Anyway, she couldn't hear me and she wasn't very steady on her feet but at least she was up and moving about. I knew she wouldn't leave me alone here.

I can tell that she's still very ill, mind. She doesn't look well and she smells. But that's nothing that a good soak in the bath won't cure. When she's ready I'll run her a nice hot bath. I say run a bath, but I'll have to bring some water up from the stream at the bottom of the garden and heat it up on the little camping gas stove we keep in the kitchen for emergencies. The taps have been dry for the best part of two days now, and there's no gas either. I don't know what's happening. Still, Mum's getting better and that's the most important thing. I'm sure there are other people whose condition is improving too.

She's really been shaken up by all of this, has Mum. She's not herself at all. I've had to shut her in her room to stop her wandering off. She just keeps walking around and she won't sit still. Come to mention it, she won't even sit down in her chair or lie on the bed. I keep telling her that she needs her rest but she won't listen to me. I expect she just needs to keep moving for a while after being still for so long.

I've felt so scared and worried for the last couple of days but now I suddenly feel much better again. Everything is okay. I knew that Mum wouldn't leave me. It's just after lunchtime and I've had to tie Mum to the bed. I didn't know what else to do. She just won't stay still and relax and I'm frightened that she'll do herself even more harm if she keeps on like this. I know it's not right, but what else can I do? There's no-one to ask for help or advice. I keep telling myself that it's in Mum's best interests to be firm with her. If she keeps wandering off then who knows what might happen? I could find her halfway down the road or worse...

I didn't need to tie her down tightly. She's still not got very much strength. I went out into the back yard and took down the washing line. I couldn't think of anything else to use. I put Mum back into bed (I had to be quite forceful and hold her down while I did it) and wrapped the line right around the bed and the bedclothes. Since Dad died she's only ever had a single bed. That meant I could wrap the line round her a few more times. I left it quite loose because I didn't want to hurt her or upset her. She can still move but she's not strong enough to get out of the rope and get up.

I keep telling her that I'm doing it for her own good but I don't know if she can hear me.

I walked into the village this afternoon. I didn't like it there. Some of the people who got ill around the same time as Mum also seem to be getting better. They were walking around too. There were some of them who were still lying where they'd fallen. Poor old Bill Linturn was still sitting in his car, dead to the world.

The people who were moving were just like Mum. They didn't look at me or answer me when I spoke to them. They scared me with their blank looks and grey skin. I got out of the village as quickly as I could. My place was at home with Mum. I ran most of the way back to the cottage and locked the door behind me.

More good news! Mum seems to be getting better every day. I still can't get her to eat or drink anything but when I went in to see her just now I'm sure she turned her head and looked at me. When I spoke to her she reacted. I think she recognised my voice. She tried to get up but I told her to relax and take things easy. She's still trying to do more than she should. She won't lie still now. She's wriggling and twisting on the bed all the time.

She's getting stronger by the hour and I've just had to tighten the ropes.

I think she's going to be all right!

JACOB FLYNN Part ii `Bewsey?'

Flynn opened his eyes and looked up in tired disbelief at the figure standing swaying in front of him. It was Bewsey. But it couldn't be, could it? Two days ago he'd stood in this very spot and watched him die. It was impossible. Over the last forty-eight hours Flynn had been forced to consider so many impossible thoughts and possibilities that one more didn't seem to make any difference. He decided that he was hallucinating and buried his face in his grey, prison-issue pillow. That was the most plausible explanation he could think of. He'd hadn't had anything to eat or drink for more than two days, the rest of the world had either somehow been destroyed or had inexplicably disappeared, and he'd been trapped in a ten foot by seven foot cell with only the corpses of his former cell-mates for company. What was left of his mind was obviously playing tricks on him again.

Bewsey's clumsy corpse staggered across the tiny room, tripping over Salman's dead body and knocking into the small bookcase next to the sink, sending its contents crashing to the ground. Flynn sat up as the unexpected thumping and clattering rang out around the cell. This was no hallucination, much as he quickly wished it was. He pushed himself against the wall and into the shadows and watched from the relative safety of his dark bottom bunk as the body awkwardly dragged itself around.

For a while he remained completely still, almost paralysed with fear. Then, very slowly, he inched forward so that he could get a better view of what remained of Bewsey. The dead man's face was cold and expressionless, his eyes empty and unfocussed. The corpse obviously had very little control over its numb, unresponsive body. It simply shuffled across the floor until something prevented it from moving any further forward and then, more through luck than judgement, turned and shuffled back. Salman, by contrast, still lay where he had originally fallen, face down in a pool of dark brown, congealed blood.

`Bewsey?' Flynn hissed anxiously, not sure whether or not he actually wanted to attract the bizarre figure's attention. The lack of any response to his voice was strangely reassuring.

Still shell-shocked from almost forty-eight hours of silence, fear and isolation and mentally exhausted from searching constantly for the answers to countless obviously unanswerable questions, he moved forward again and cautiously swung his feet down from the bunk. Bewsey didn't react. The corpse continued to aimlessly move around, colliding with walls, furniture and, eventually, with Flynn himself. He instinctively lifted his hands and grabbed hold of the body to prevent it from getting any closer.

`Bewsey?' he asked again. `What the fucking hell is going on? I thought you were dead...' Flynn stared deep into the dull and clouded eyes of the corpse. They were covered with a milky-white film of sorts and it was clear that they were unseeing and unfocussed. He let the body go and watched as it tripped off again in another direction before turning and tripping back towards him. No wiser and no less terrified, Flynn crawled back onto his bunk and pulled his covers tight around him.

Less than two hours had passed before he decided that he couldn't stand it any longer. Bewsey's body just never stopped, not even for a second. It continued to shuffle about aimlessly and lethargically. It was the noise and the constant movement that Flynn was finding hardest to handle. Why didn't Bewsey just lie down and stay dead like Salman? He couldn't take it any longer. He had to do something about it.

Creeping anxiously forward again, Flynn climbed off his bunk and looked around for some kind of weapon or implement with which he might be able to disable the corpse. He had finally forced himself to admit that this definitely was a corpse moving to and fro in front of him. How could it not be? How could someone lie motionless and without breathing for two days and not be dead? Mind you, he thought wearily, how could that same person now be moving again?

It was no surprise that the prison cell contained very few items which could be used effectively as a weapon. In fact, all that Flynn could find was the jug they used to pour drinks of water from. Long since empty, the plastic jug had a hard base which, if he used it with enough force, might just be strong enough to use to batter the body into submission. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed Bewsey by the throat with one hand, raised the jug above his head with the other, and then brought it crashing down in the middle of the dead man's face with brutal force. He lifted the jug away again and saw that, despite being a little more bruised and bloodied, the lifeless expression had not changed. He lifted the jug and brought it down again and again and again...

It wasn't working. It didn't matter what he did to Bewsey's body, the dead man didn't react. He continued to move relentlessly, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Flynn was even there.

Increasingly desperate, Flynn let the body go and then turned and dragged his bunk bed into the middle of the cell, swinging it round through ninety degrees so that it formed a barrier across the width of the small room. With mounting disgust he grabbed hold of Bewsey's body again and pushed and shoved the man's clumsy remains over the metal frame of the bed and out onto the other side, successfully confining the cadaver. Keen to separate himself from both of his dead cellmates, he then did the same with Salman. The second body was stiff and inflexible and was difficult to move.

Tired, Flynn leant against the cell door and peered out through the bars, hoping to catch sight of someone (anyone) else in the oppressive semi-darkness. He could see movement in other cells across the landing, but when he called out to the men over there they didn't respond. He assumed that they were in the same unnatural and inexplicable condition as what remained of Bewsey.

He could hear slow, heavy, dragging footsteps approaching. A figure emerged from the shadows at the other end of the corridor. He couldn't tell who it was at first. As it gradually came into view, however, he could see that it was one of the prison officers. In fact, he was sure it was the officer he'd seen dead at the bottom of the staircase. The dead guard lumbered towards him, its head hanging heavily to one side. Although tired, frightened and confused, Flynn immediately realised the importance of seeing this body. The officers had keys and, if he could reach them, then for the first time there was a real chance of him escaping from the cell.

Suddenly more alive and alert, Flynn watched the dead officer intently as it approached. Then, when it was almost level with the cell door, he stretched out his arm between the bars and attempted to grab hold of it. The tips of his outstretched fingers brushed the side of the corpse's sleeve, but not enough for him to be able to get a grip. His heart sank as the body stumbled past and out of reach again.

The prison landing was clear and without obstruction, leaving the dead officer free to continually stagger from virtually one end to the other. Flynn watched the body's every move like a hawk. Eventually, some four and a half hours after he had first noticed the corpse, he was finally able to catch hold of it. He managed to slide his fingers into the creature's shirt pocket and, once he had a grip, he was able to pull the comparatively weak figure towards him. Once close enough he then grabbed the cadaver in a neck lock and, straining to reach and having to fight to ignore the pain and discomfort as he stretched and forced his free arm through the bars, he tugged and yanked and pulled at the body until he was able to reach its belt and keys.

Half an hour later he was free. INNOCENCE

It was almost fun to begin with; a game, an adventure. But now he's had enough. He doesn't like being on his own anymore. He's scared, he's hungry and he's lonely. He wants everything to get back to how it used to be before it happened.

Dean McFarlane is seven years old.

The day before yesterday, as they were walking to school together, Dean's mother dropped dead in front of him.

`Dean,' Mum sighed, `you've only been back at school for a couple of days, how comes you've got yourself in trouble with the teacher already?'

`She don't like me,' he answered as he followed his mum along the garden path and out onto the street. They were late setting off for school and Mum was annoyed. He'd been dragging his feet all morning and he seemed to have slowed down again now that they were finally out of the house and on their way. Even though she was seven months pregnant his mum marched along the road at double his speed. `She picks on me,' he whined pathetically. `She lets Gary and them lot get away with anything. I never done nothing and she blames me when...'

`What do you mean, you never done nothing?' Mum snapped, stopping and turning round to face Dean. `What kind of a way to talk is that? If you never done nothing, then you must have done something...'

Dean looked at her and screwed up his face. What was she going on about now? She didn't believe him, did she? She didn't even want to try and understand. Anyway, he decided, he didn't care what she said because he knew Miss Jinks was picking on him and he knew that he was going to get Gary Saunders back as well at lunchtime or afternoon break because he'd got him into trouble yesterday afternoon and...

`When I tell your father what you've been up to,' Mrs McFarlane warned, pointing her finger accusingly at her son, `he'll kick your backside.' She turned and began to walk again, still talking. `You know what he's like, he just won't stand for this kind of behaviour. I suggest that you...'

She stopped talking mid-sentence.

`Mum?'

Mrs McFarlane stopped walking again. Suddenly she was standing in the middle of the pavement looking straight ahead, pulling that kind of puzzled, almost angry face that she pulled when she was out shopping with Dean and she couldn't remember what she needed, or when she didn't know which way to go, or when Dean's baby brother growing inside her started to kick and move. Expecting her to start walking again, Dean went a few steps further forward before stopping and turning back when he realised she still wasn't moving. She was still stood in the same spot, looking frozen and lost. Now she was rubbing the side of her neck and she looked like she was in pain.

`What's the matter, Mum?' he asked again. Mrs McFarlane looked down at her son but didn't say anything. She couldn't speak. The pain in her throat was getting worse. Her eyes were suddenly watery and wide with unexpected shock and sudden, searing agony. She dropped her shopping bag and it tipped over onto its side. Dean immediately crouched down and began to quickly gather up her spilled belongings, still looking up anxiously into her face.

`Dean, I can't...' she began to try and say, her voice a quiet, strangled whisper. `My throat is...'

Without warning she fell to her knees directly in front of her son. He jumped back in fear. Suddenly at eye level with him she began to retch and gag violently. The inside of her throat had swollen rapidly and already her windpipe was almost completely blocked. In seconds blood began to trickle freely from brutal lesions which had ripped open at the back of her mouth. Her head hung forward and she dribbled, spat and coughed a long, sticky string of bloodied saliva onto the grey pavement. Reaching out for her son she spluttered and coughed again and began to choke.

`Mum...' Dean whined with tears of panic and fear rolling down his cheeks. He shuffled back along the ground away from her, scared and confused by what was happening. He scrambled up onto his feet and looked around for help but he couldn't see anyone else nearby. If he could just find another grown-up who could help... He looked for Mrs Campbell who lived three doors down at number seventeen � she was always sat looking out of her living room window. If she could see what was happening then maybe she'd come out to help him and...

Clutching her stomach in agony, Mrs McFarlane groaned, screwed up her bloodied face, rolled over onto her back and then began to spasm and twitch. Now sobbing with helpless terror, Dean crouched back down next to her and grabbed her shoulder, trying desperately to hold her steady and to make her stop throwing herself about. He was scared that she was going to hurt herself or the baby. Her eyes were still wide open and she stared at him with an expression on her face which frightened him more than anything he'd ever seen before.

And then it stopped.

As quickly as it had started it was over and Mrs McFarlane lay motionless on the ground. Her eyes were staring up into space and her mouth hung wide open. A pool of dark blood was gathering around her frozen face.

Dean shoved her and shook her and tried to get her to respond but she wouldn't move.

I knew straightaway that she had died because I kept shouting at her to wake up but she wouldn't. I kept shaking her shoulder and shouting into her ear but she wouldn't move. I tried to clear up some of the blood that was on her face. I got some tissues out of her handbag but I just made things worse and got her in even more of a mess. She'd got blood in her hair and inside one of her ears and I couldn't get that out either.

Grandad Johnson told me once about the time he'd saved a man's life when there had been an accident. He said you had to make sure the person who's hurt is breathing before you do anything, and he showed me how to do it. He said you could feel for a thing like a little heartbeat on their wrist or their neck, or you could just listen to them breathing. I couldn't remember exactly where to hold Mum's wrist so I just listened to her instead. I put my ear right next to her mouth and listened and listened and listened but I couldn't hear anything.

I kept looking up for someone to help me but I couldn't see anyone. I remembered Grandad telling me that you had to get the person you're looking after to a hospital quickly by phoning for an ambulance. We learnt that at school last year as well and I knew what to do. I got Mum's mobile out of her pocket and dialled `999' like I'd been shown. No-one answered. That scared me because my teacher and Grandad had both said that someone would always answer `999'.

Mum started to get cold really quickly. I tried to move her closer to the house but she was too heavy. I dragged her a little way closer, but not far. I got the keys from her coat pocket and ran back to the house. It took me ages to get inside because I couldn't get the right key at first. When I got in I ran upstairs and took one of the blankets out from the drawer under Mum and Dad's bed and one of Mum's pillows. I went back out and covered Mum up and put the pillow under her head. I was scared that something was going to happen to the baby. I put my hands under the blanket and onto Mum's tummy but I couldn't feel anything. The baby wasn't moving but it might just have been asleep.

I thought I should sit outside and wait with her.

Dean needed the toilet. He held on for as long as he could but, after an hour and a half sitting outside in the cold next to his mother, he couldn't wait any longer. He ran back to the house, unlocked the door, dashed to the toilet and then ran back out to Mum. He'd naively hoped that when he got back out to her he'd find that she'd opened her eyes or rolled over or made any movement that might indicate that she wasn't dead and that he wasn't on his own any longer. Nothing.

Before sitting down next to his mother's body again Dean walked the length of the street looking for help. He didn't dare go any further than that. From the end of the road he could see more than twenty other people lying on the ground like his mum. As far as he could see there was no-one else still moving around like he was. For a while he thought about going a little further but, when he found the body of his friend Shaun Wallis lying face down in the middle of the road with his dad, he got scared and ran back to Mum again. He tried knocking on a few of his neighbours' doors but none of them answered.

The sun had disappeared behind a dark grey cloud and it had begun to rain. Dean made another quick trip back to the house and fetched an umbrella to keep him and Mum dry. He was soon wet and shivering with cold but he couldn't go back inside. He couldn't leave Mum, could he? What if something happened to her? It didn't matter that he hadn't seen anyone else all morning, he just didn't want to leave her on her own out there in case someone came along and took her or did something horrible to her. And anyway, he decided, he wanted to be there when she woke up. She'd be really proud when she found out that he'd looked after her like this. She had to wake up, he thought. If anything happened to Mum, who would look after me? And what about our baby?

A short time later a loud and unexpected electronic bleep shattered the relentless, uncomfortable silence. Dean jumped up with fright and then relaxed when he realised it was just Mum's mobile phone. He picked it up from where he'd left it and looked at the display. On the screen it showed a picture of a battery that was almost empty. Mum had shown him how to use the phone in case anything happened with the baby and they needed to get in touch with the hospital or Dean's dad quickly. He tried the emergency number again but there was still no answer. He decided that the police and the ambulance people must have been busy looking after all the other sick people he'd seen lying on the ground beyond the end of the road. Dean pressed the button which made a list of names come up. Mum had made him remember how to do this. He then pressed the button with an arrow on it which was pointing down and the list of names began to move. Some of the names he knew, others he didn't. Some he couldn't even read. He saw the names of his Aunt Edie and Caroline, Mum's best friend. Further on down the list he found the name he'd been looking for � Royston McFarlane � his dad. He'd call him and tell him what had happened and get him to come home. He should have thought of doing it sooner.

He couldn't get the phone to work.

He was sure he was doing it right, just how Mum had shown him. He highlighted his dad's name on the list, then pressed the green button in the top left corner of the keypad to make it ring. He kept trying but it just wouldn't work. It looked like it was going to work, but then it just beeped in his ear three times and disconnected. It kept on happening. After a while the battery picture came back on for a second before the phone switched itself off completely.

As the long day dragged on Dean became increasingly tired, cold and hungry. Sitting on the pavement next to his dead mother he ate the packed lunch she'd made him for school while he waited for his dad to come home from work.

By half-past six, when it was starting to get dark and still no-one had come, Dean became increasingly upset. He didn't know what to do. He wanted to go back to the house, but he didn't want to leave Mum outside on her own. He tried to drag her again but only managed to move her a little way. When he touched her skin she felt even colder than he was. When the light had almost completely disappeared he reluctantly accepted that there was nothing more he could do. He tucked Mum under the blanket again, put the pillow back under her head and ran back home.

Dean struggled to open the front door. Finding the right key had been hard enough in the daylight, now it was almost impossible. Nothing was working when he finally managed to get inside. The lights wouldn't come on and the television wouldn't work. The telephone was dead. He tried to dial `999' again but it didn't even ring out. He locked the door (Dad had his own key and would be able to let himself in when he got back) and went upstairs. He sat on the end of his bed and looked out of the window and waited. From where he was sitting he could just about see the top of his mother's head on the pavement.

It was exciting for a while, being on my own in the house. Even though it was dark and cold I could do whatever I wanted. I had a torch and a toy with a light in it so I could stay up and read and draw. I wanted to play games but I couldn't get the computer to work.

I kept getting upset when I looked out of the window and saw Mum, especially when it got really dark. I didn't like leaving her out there but I couldn't do anything about it. I tried not to cry and I kept hoping that I'd see Dad coming home soon. I sometimes used to sit in my room and look out for him coming home from work. I used to know which car was his as soon as it turned into our road. But the weird thing was I didn't see any cars at all, not even one.

I got myself some crisps and chocolate from the kitchen and ate them in my room. Mum never let me do that normally, but it wasn't a normal night and I didn't think she'd mind.

I'm not very good at telling the time. I know when it's something o'clock or half-past something, but I get mixed-up with quarter-past and quarter-to's. I remember going to the toilet and then looking at the alarm clock in Mum and Dad's room. I think it said it was almost ten o'clock but I wasn't sure. Whatever time it was, I knew that it was way past bedtime. I started to get really scared then. Dad should have been home from work hours ago. I didn't know why he hadn't come back. Maybe he'd been going out somewhere after work and Mum hadn't told me?

Some nights in the school holidays I used to try and stay up as long as I could but I always seemed to fall asleep. Now I wanted to get to sleep and I couldn't. I wanted to go to sleep and wake up when it was morning. I didn't like being on my own in the dark. I wanted to go back outside and sit with Mum for a bit but I was too scared. I didn't want to go downstairs on my own. The moon came out a few times and when it did I could just about see her. She was still lying on the pavement where I'd left her. I wished she'd get up and come indoors.

When Dean woke up next morning it was late. It was almost midday by the time he climbed out of bed. He remained blissfully unaware of the fact that he had stayed awake virtually all night and had slept through almost the entire morning. He lay still for a while and ran over the events of the previous day in his head. He remembered his mum and how he'd left her lying in the street. He jumped up and his heart sank when he saw that she was still there on the pavement. Then he remembered his dad. He must have been home by now, he thought. He checked his parents' bedroom but the bed hadn't been slept in and, he realised sadly, the car wasn't outside either. Why hadn't Dad come back yet?

The sunlight had been streaming in through Dean's window, warming the area on the top of his bed where he'd curled up and fallen asleep. The temperature dropped noticeably as he moved around the rest of the cold house. He took off his school uniform (which he'd slept in) and, without thinking, threw it downstairs for Mum to wash. Then he grabbed the warmest set of clothes he could find from the wardrobe and got dressed. He'd never known the house to be this cold. It was quiet too. There usually always seemed to be noise all around him and this silence was frightening.

Before going down Dean returned to his bedroom and stared at his mother's body outside again. Why hadn't she moved? What was wrong with her? He decided that he'd go out and see her in a few minutes, once he'd had some breakfast. He didn't much feel like eating but his stomach was rumbling and he knew he'd have to eat something soon. He hadn't eaten much yesterday and he hadn't had anything hot to eat since dinner the night before. He couldn't ever remember feeling so hungry.

Down in the kitchen he fetched himself some cereal with warm milk (the fridge wasn't as cold as it usually was), some bread and a few biscuits. He couldn't find anything else. He didn't know how to use the oven and he couldn't get the kettle, the microwave or the toaster to work. Mum had shown him how to make a pizza in the microwave before now. He decided he wouldn't use any of the food from the freezer. Everything in there was warm and wet and the ice had melted leaving a puddle of water in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Dean put on his school coat and, clutching his food and a half-full bottle of lemonade, walked out of the front door and made his way over to where his mum still lay. All day he sat on the pavement next to her. He didn't know what else to do. He didn't feel safe anywhere else. During the course of the day he tried again to drag her back closer to home. He managed to move her a couple more meters, almost to the edge of their drive, but that was all. As the darkness drew closer again he stumbled dejectedly back indoors.

I couldn't help it. I didn't mean to do it, it just happened. Mum's going to be mad at me.

I'd been sitting outside with her for ages and it started to get dark again so I came back in. I'd been thinking about using my torch under the covers to read or trying to get the telly to work but when I got inside the house was all dark and quiet and empty again and I got really scared. I could hear loads of noises and I knew what they all were but they still scared me. There was dripping water coming from the freezer in the kitchen and I could hear the blind at the window in Mum and Dad's room being blown by the wind. It kept hitting the window and making a tapping noise. And every so often the wind made the letter box in the front door flap. Mum's been nagging at Dad for ages to get it fixed. It sounded like someone coming to the house and, the first few times, I ran to the door because I thought it was going to be Mum or Dad. I got upset when there was no-one there.

I didn't want to go upstairs. I wanted to hide away out of sight so I crawled under the dining room table. I only came out a couple of times, first to get some more food from the kitchen and then to try and find my torch. I got myself another packet of crisps and the last bar of chocolate from the cupboard. I wanted some bread and butter but I must have left the bread open because it had gone all hard and it tasted horrible. All of the lemonade and cans of Coke had gone. I had to drink orange juice straight from the bottle because there wasn't any water to make it properly with. It made me feel a bit sick but I was really thirsty so I kept drinking it.

It didn't feel like home anymore. Everything felt different and strange without Mum and Dad and it seemed to be getting colder and colder. I didn't want to go upstairs so I put my coat back on and my dirty school jumper that I'd thrown downstairs that morning for Mum to wash. Thinking about Mum and Dad made me upset again. I was starting to think I was never going to see Dad again and that he wasn't coming home. I was glad I'd missed two days of school but I would have rather gone there and have everything back how it used to be.

I've made a real mess in here. They're going to be mad at me. The dark frightens me so I tried to light the big yellow candle that Mum keeps on the sideboard. I took it under the table with me and used a match from the box out of the kitchen. Anyway I lit the candle and I must have had it too close to the tablecloth because it started to burn. It burned really, really quickly. I crawled out from under the table and used the bottle of orange juice to put out the fire. I tried to pull the tablecloth off. I didn't know that there were plates and things on the table. I pulled it and they fell on the carpet and most of them smashed. That made me upset again because the noise made me jump and because I knew that Mum would be cross that I'd broken her plates. She always got cross if I broke a plate or a dish or a cup. I didn't want to move because was scared I might cut myself on some of the broken pieces.

I think I fell asleep soon after that. When I woke up I was wet. I thought it was just orange juice at first but then I realised it was all over my trousers and all over the floor and I knew that I'd wet myself. I haven't wet myself since I was four. It was all over the carpet and I tried to clean it up with the burnt tablecloth but all that did was make things worse. My trousers were soaked so I took them off. I didn't want to go upstairs so I put my coat over the top of me and tried to keep warm but I couldn't stop shivering.

Exhausted and suffering from shock and mild exposure, Dean slept intermittently for a further few hours. The morning finally arrived, bringing with it some welcome light and warmth. Tired and aching, he crawled back upstairs and got himself dressed in some clean clothes. He smelled from the accident he'd had in the night but he couldn't wash because he couldn't get any water to come out of the taps. He used some of Dad's deodorant spray to try and cover up the smell.

Dean was finding it harder and harder to come upstairs on his own. Dad had recently decorated the spare room ready as a nursery ready for the birth of Dean's baby brother. He'd painted teddy bears and cartoon characters on the walls. When Dean walked past the open door of the room he felt like their eyes were moving, watching him as he crept around the house.

While Dean was up in his bedroom getting changed he noticed that his mum had gone. For a second he was excited and relieved and he ran back downstairs to find her, expecting that she'd be back inside, cleaning up the mess in the kitchen or sitting on the sofa waiting for him. When he discovered that she wasn't there he slumped down at the bottom of the stairs and began to sob. Where had she gone? Why had she gone? Why had she left him and why hadn't she come back to the house? The pain of this sudden, unexpected rejection was in many ways worse than the unexplained loss and confusion he'd been trying to deal with for the last two days.

He had to go and find her.

Dean grabbed his coat from where he'd left it at the bottom of the banister and put on his trainers. He filled his school bag with all the food he could find in the kitchen, swung it onto his back and stepped out into the open. He shut the door behind him, locked it (he was pretty sure he'd done it properly) and then put Mum's keys in his trouser pocket.

She hadn't taken her bag. Strange that she'd left it there in the middle of the street. And her phone too.

He picked up the phone and held it tightly in his hand. He picked up the bag too but then stopped and put it down again at the end of the road because it was quite big and heavy and because he didn't think there was anything that important in it. Mum always carried her purse and her money in her coat pocket because it was safer. Dean tucked the bag out of sight at the end of someone's drive.

Where was she? Where would she have gone?

Strange that there were other people moving around now. Strange that none of them seemed to respond, even when he got up close to them. Strange that all their faces looked so cold and empty and that none of them answered when he asked them for help.

I remembered the way to Dad's work because Mum took me there on the bus loads of times when we went to meet him in the holidays. I thought I'd try and walk there even though I knew it was quite a long way.

I'm going to go and find Dad and then the two of us will go and find Mum.

DAY FIVE AMY STEADMAN Part iii

A further two days have passed since Amy Steadman's corpse began to move. It is now five days since first infection and death.

Amy's body has continued to move constantly around its immediate surroundings. Until now its movements have been automatic and spontaneous and any changes to direction have occurred purely as a result of the corpse reaching a physical obstruction and being unable to keep moving forward. The corpse is little more than an empty collection of bones, rotting tissue and dead flesh. At this stage it does not have any conscious control or decision making capabilities. The body moves until it is stopped and then alters direction and continues to move again.

Although animated, the cadaver remains otherwise lifeless and oblivious to its surroundings. It is ignorant to its physical limitations. The body is continuing to decay and the lack of a functioning circulatory system is beginning to cause movement problems. Gravity has steadily pulled the body's internal contents downwards. Blood has swollen its already clumsy hands and feet. It's bowels are slowly and involuntarily evacuating. The face, already tinged with the blue-green hue of decay, is otherwise drained of colour.

Until now the body's nervous system has been operating at a massively reduced level, and the corpse is oblivious to changes in its surroundings such as temperature, humidity and light levels. Several hours ago its clothing became snagged and torn after becoming entangled with the wheel of an upturned shopping trolley. The body's once smart black skirt is now just a rag wrapped around its right foot. It has also lost one of its shoes which causes its awkward gait to become even more clumsy and unsteady.

The corpse does not respire, nor does it have any need to eat or drink or seek shelter or protection. There is, however, still some activity in the centre of the brain which facilitates some basic functionality. The eyes and ears operate at a massively reduced level. It can see and hear, although it is presently unable to interpret and understand the information it absorbs. As the rest of the body continues to deteriorate, however, the part of the brain least affected by the infection is beginning to re-establish itself, albeit at a desperately slow rate.

Less than three hundred meters away from the corpse's present location the front of another building has collapsed. Initially damaged by a truck which plunged off an elevated section of road when its driver became infected, the weakened structure has now crumbled and caved in on itself, producing huge amounts of dust and substantial vibrations and noise. Amy Steadman's body, although not understanding what the disturbance is, has instinctively altered direction and is beginning to move towards it.

It is just before eight o'clock in the morning and the building where Amy died has now been in almost total darkness for more than twelve hours. With no electricity, almost all of the visible light comes from the windows in and around the main entrance doors which the body is now moving towards. It does not realise that this is an exit, but it gravitates towards the doors because of the comparative level of brightness there and also the fact that the sound and vibrations from the building collapse emanated from that general direction. Three of the four main doors are blocked. Still drawn to the brightness outside, instead of turning and moving away when it reaches the glass, Amy's body now shuffles clumsily from side to side until it finally reaches the single open door and trips outside.

The body is ignorant to the sudden change in its surroundings. It is noticeably cooler outside and it has been raining steadily for the last two hours. A strong westerly wind is gusting across the front of the building that the corpse has just emerged from, and the sudden strength of the wind is sufficient to knock the comparatively weak body off course. The cloud of dust which was thrown up by the collapse of the second building is steadily being washed down by the rain, causing the entire scene to become covered in a light layer of grey dirt and mud. The noise and vibrations have faded now and there remains no noticeable indication of the previous disturbance. Without any obvious visual or auditory distractions, Amy Steadman's corpse begins to move randomly again, shuffling slowly forward until it can go no further and then turning and moving away.

Several hours have now passed.

The corpse has now moved more than half a mile from the building where it was infected and killed. It has continued to make constant but slow and directionless progress. Its dulled eyes have gradually become accustomed to the light levels outdoors. Additionally the rain has now stopped and the scene has brightened. Previously only able to see clear, obvious movements and stark differences in light levels, the sodden corpse is now able to distinguish a finer level of detail and is aware of more subtle changes around its immediate vicinity. There are other bodies nearby. Amy's cadaver is now able to see their movements from a distance of around ten meters away.

As a result of the immense devastation caused by the infection, the ground outside is littered with debris and human remains. The streets are uneven and the corpse frequently loses its footing and falls, its slow reactions preventing it from taking any corrective action until it is too late. As the day has progressed, however, the body has been able to move with slightly more freedom and control.

The environment through which the body is now moving is largely silent. It has reached a wide and straight road which leads out of town and it has been moving along this road in the same general direction for some time. There are numerous crashed cars and other vehicles nearby. Just ahead, straddling half of the width of the carriageway, is a family-sized estate car containing three corpses. In the back is a dead child, in the front passenger seat its dead mother. The third corpse � that of an overweight man in his late thirties � moves continually but is restrained and held in place by its safety belt. In the boot of the car, trapped behind a protective wire-mesh grille, is a dog. It has no means of escape and is becoming increasingly angry and scared. For some time the hungry and confused animal has been quiet but the movement from the body in the front of the car and the close proximity of another random corpse outside has suddenly excited it again. It has begun to bark and howl and its cries can be heard from a considerable distance away.

Half an hour and already three more bodies have reached the car. Attracted by the animal's noise they crowd around it, leaning heavily against its windows and occasionally banging their numb, clumsy fists against the glass. Their appearance and actions cause the dog to become even more agitated. Amy Steadman's corpse has now become aware of the noise and is moving towards it. It reaches the car and joins the group of cadavers. This section of road is relatively remote. Nevertheless, in the absence of any other constant and distinguishable sounds, just over an hour later and the dog in the car has been surrounded by another seventeen corpses.

By next morning Amy Steadman's corpse is one of a crowd of almost two hundred bodies gravitating around the car.

DUCK AND COVER

Counsellor Ray Cox never wanted this level of responsibility. He'd wanted the title `counsellor' for the social status and financial implications, not for any other reason. Overpaid and underworked, he had sat in the shadows at the back of the council chambers for several years and had tried his best not to be noticed, except when it was unavoidable or in his interest to be seen. It was a sad indication of the apathy amongst his constituents that he had been elected and then re-elected without actually ever having done very much for them at all. It had been different to begin with, of course. Back then in the early days he'd wanted to make an impression. He'd wanted to be somebody. But the novelty of office had quickly worn off and the reality of the job set in. Cox's priorities had changed and his prime concerns became lining his own pockets and claiming back as much food, entertainment, drink and travel costs in expenses as he possibly could. The good of the community had been long forgotten � never completely ignored, but often conveniently overlooked and put to one side. In the space of a single devastating and unimaginable day, however, everything in Cox's world had been turned on its head.

Working with the council leaders had stood Cox in good stead, both personally and on a business level. When he'd made a few very public mistakes (a couple of years ago now) and had got himself mixed up in an ill-considered and wholly inappropriate business deal, his friends in high places had looked after him. They found him a quiet and modest little office at the far end of a particularly long corridor and gave him responsibility for the borough's tennis courts and football pitches and various other public amenities which tended on the whole to pretty much look after themselves. They made sure that there were enough of their people working with him and around him to make sure he made the right decisions and to keep him out of trouble. All things considered, Cox was happy with the arrangement.

Full council meetings were, at the very best of times, long, drawn out and tedious affairs which frequently degenerated into huge, overblown debates about the most trivial of issues. He'd sat there for hour upon hour before now listening to the arguments for and against such issues as the politically-correct renaming of school `blackboards' to `chalkboards' and whether or not the frayed and threadbare chairs in the council chambers should be reupholstered with dark blue or light purple material. Cox switched off whilst these pointless debates raged, writing them off as a total waste of time without even bothering to listen. He never contributed to the discussions and he found it hard to hide his disinterest. He'd always felt the same about the Emergency Planning Committee too although, of course, he'd pricked up his ears and listened intently when they'd explained what the counsellors should do in the event of an emergency. He'd even found a reason to go down and check out the bunker on more than one occasion. The committee � or EPC as they were known � were the butt of many private jokes and whispers. A group of fairly senior council members who regularly got together to assemble and maintain detailed plans to coordinate and run the Borough should the unthinkable ever happen. Well now it had.

Cox had been one of those counsellors who'd thought the EPC an unnecessary and over the top waste of time and money. He just couldn't see the point in it. The council did a pretty bloody poor job of running things at the best of times, how the hell would it cope in the event of a nuclear or chemical attack or similar? And anyway, the cold war was over and, despite the increased number of terrorist threats and attacks that had taken place around the world recently, such an event seemed less likely than ever, certainly here in Taychester anyway. Listening to the committee members discussing the rationing of food, decontamination of the population, the disposal of mass fatalities and the like had seemed pointless and not a little surreal. If the world did come to an end, he thought, then the population would be buggered whatever happened, and no amount of council diplomacy and planning would help. Whenever he thought about the subject he couldn't help remembering an old American public information film he'd seen recently on TV. `Duck and Cover' he thought it was called. In the film a cartoon turtle walked happily though a cartoon forest, only to hide away and cower safely in its shell when a nearby cartoon atomic bomb exploded. What was the point of telling school children to get under their desks in the event of a nuclear strike? As far as Cox was aware very few materials had been discovered that could withstand the pressure, heat and after-effects of a thermonuclear explosion. And he was pretty sure that even if such a material did exist, it wouldn't be the flimsy wood that the desks the children of Taychester sat behind at school were made from. Even if they managed to survive the blast, what was the point? What would be left? Cox believed it would be better not to survive and `Duck and Cover' was an absolute bloody joke as far as he was concerned, as was the Taychester Borough Council EPC and its underground bunker. If it ever did happen, he had long since decided, he wanted to be stood underneath the very first bomb. He didn't particularly want to be around to pick up the pieces afterwards. There'd be one hell of a mess for the council to sort out...

Well now it had happened. Not as he'd ever expected or imagined, but suddenly, from out of nowhere yesterday morning, the end of the world seemed to have arrived. Sitting alone underground in the semi-darkness he struggled to comprehend what had happened around him. He wasn't sure what had taken place on the surface above, but from the little he'd seen it was already clear that it had been an event of unprecedented scale and devastation. It was Wednesday now � more than a day since it had happened � and still he couldn't even begin to come to terms with what he'd witnessed.

Tuesday had begun normally enough. After taking a cup of tea up to his wife Marcia and waking her gently he'd left home at the usual time and had driven across town to the council house. He'd driven down the ramp into the car park below the main building and it was there that the nightmare had begun. He was reversing into his usual space when he caught sight of movement on the ground behind him in his wing mirror. Thomas Jones, one of the finance directors, had collapsed at the side of his car. Cox jumped out and ran round to help the other man but he hadn't been able to do anything for him. He seemed to be suffocating or choking on something. He looked around for help but there was no-one nearby. Cox ran back up the ramp towards the security guard's hut only to find another three people along the way who were suffering in the same way Jones had been. They were writhing and squirming in agony on the dirty concrete floor. Potts, the regular morning car park security guard, was in a similar state also, helplessly thrashing around on the floor of his little square fibreglass hut.

Cox had started to panic. More terrifying than the fact that at least five people around him appeared to have suddenly been attacked by something that he couldn't see or hear, he realised that it might be about to get him too. He continued to run. When he staggered back out into the open and looked across the civic square, however, he stopped and his legs buckled underneath him with nervous fear. It was happening everywhere. For as far as he could see in every direction people were dropping to the ground, unable to breathe, grabbing and clawing desperately at their burning throats. He had to do something. He couldn't help them. The only remaining option was to help himself. Instinctively he turned and ran back underground. Moving faster than he had done for years he forced his unfit and overweight body to keep moving. Level G, Level 1A, past his car on Level 1B and then down to Level 2. There it was, right at the far end of Level 2, a single, inconspicuous grey metal door � the entrance to the council's emergency bunker. He pushed himself towards it, his lungs about to burst but the fear that the invisible killer might be closing in on him kept him moving forward. A figure lurched out of the shadows to his right and stumbled into his path, arms outstretched, desperate for help. Without thinking he grabbed the body and dragged it along with him. He smashed into the bunker door, yanked it open, forced himself and the body inside and then turned back to seal the shelter. He couldn't see anyone else nearby. The Emergency Planning Committee, he decided, were probably already dead. Cox slammed the door shut and sealed and locked it behind him.

The body on the ground was convulsing. Inside the bunker was dark and the only illumination came from dusty yellow emergency lights hanging from the low ceiling. Cox crouched down at the side of the helpless figure and looked it up and down, not knowing how to help or even where to start. Before he could do anything its arms and legs went into a sudden flurry of quick spasms � a fit or a seizure � and then it lay ominously still. His eyes now becoming used to the low light, Cox looked around and took a torch down from a rack on the wall above him. He shined the light into the face of the person now lying motionless at his side. No reaction. The young woman was obviously dead. Her wide, blue eyes stared desperately up into space, as if searching for an explanation as to her sudden demise. Her pale white skin was speckled with spots of dark, crimson blood. Cox wept with fear as he tried to wipe the blood away and as he shook her shoulder to try and get her to move. He had seen the girl around before. He knew that she worked in Payroll (their offices were not far from his own) but he'd never had anything to do with her. The name on her ID card was Shelly Bright. Much as he'd genuinely wanted to help her, Cox wished that she wasn't there. He wished he'd left her outside.

Adrenaline and pure fear kept Cox moving uncharacteristically quickly for the next couple of hours. Like most council members he had a very basic knowledge of what was housed in the bunker and how the generator, lights and air conditioning and filtering systems worked. Relatively basic and foolproof instruction manuals had been left by each piece of machinery and, to his immense relief, he was able to get the bunker operational in a fairly short period of time. It was a dark, depressing place which had been stocked with basic supplies but nothing much of any substance. The EPC had considered it increasingly unlikely that the bunker would ever need to be used as the regional command centre it had originally been designed for. Much of it had been decommissioned over the last decade with just an essential core being preserved. There was sufficient food and water down there to keep a small group alive for a couple of days, perhaps even a week. Alone and preoccupied as usual with thoughts of his own survival, Cox estimated that if he was careful there would probably be enough stored underground to keep him alive for almost a month.

It was a short time later, when the initial shock of the bizarre morning's terrifying events had begun to fade, that Cox truly began to appreciate the potential enormity of what had happened around him. Shelly Bright was dead and so, he assumed, was everyone else that had been affected. Of course he had no way of knowing how widespread this attack or whatever it was had been, but the fact that no-one else had yet tried to gain access to the bunker meant that vast numbers of people in the immediate area had probably been struck down. But surely he couldn't have been the only one who had survived? In an unforgivably selfish moment he found himself hoping that he was. Because, he realised ominously, if the rest of the council were dead, by default he was now in charge of the borough of Taychester! Cox had never wanted this level of responsibility. It wasn't what he'd become a council member for. He didn't dare move. He couldn't risk going back out there. Suddenly `Duck and Cover' seemed like sound advice.

Cox sat alone in the cold, echoing emptiness of the bunker and waited.

Cox rapidly grew to hate the body of Shelly Bright. It frightened him. He couldn't bring himself to touch it or move it. He didn't want to look at it but at the same time he was also too scared to look away. What if she moved when he wasn't looking? What if she wasn't dead? He hated the pained expression on her frozen face. He'd once thought her attractive (Cox found any woman under the age of forty attractive) but her smooth skin and soft, delicate features had been stretched and contorted by the pain of her sudden suffocation and demise. In the wavering dull yellow light the shadows seemed to shift and her expression seemed continually to change. He knew she hadn't moved, but she now seemed to be grinning at him. A second later she was sneering, then smiling, then snarling... He wanted to close her eyes and shut her out but he was too scared not to look. Eventually, in a moment of uncharacteristic strength and conviction, he covered the corpse with a heavy grey fire blanket.

The long day dragged endlessly and Cox's mind span constantly � filled with a thousand and one unanswerable questions and, it seemed, a similar number of nightmarish images and split second recollections of everything he'd seen. An inherently selfish man who had been conditioned by years of nine-to-five working, it was only as six o'clock in the evening � dinnertime � approached that he began to think about his wife. Was she safe? Should he leave the bunker and go and find her? He already hated being underground but he knew that he didn't dare leave. He'd had a lucky escape this morning. If he went outside now, whatever had killed everyone else would surely come for him. He knew that he had no choice but to sit and wait.

Never a man to follow procedures (often because he didn't understand them), it wasn't until almost nine o'clock that Cox started to read through the emergency planning guidelines and manuals that lay around the dark and cluttered command room. Following step-by-step instructions with the painful, awkward slowness of someone who had avoided as much contact with technology as possible over the last few years, he eventually managed to get the radio working. He cursed the fact that he was so hopelessly inept. Forty-five minutes of fiddling and messing with the controls and all he could get was static punctuated by brief moments of silence. What he'd have given to hear another voice.

It felt like the morning would never come. The lack of natural light was strangely disorientating but, having slept intermittently for the last few hours, just after five o'clock Cox finally plucked up enough courage to get up from his seat and properly investigate his surroundings. He'd so far spent almost all of his time in the main command room but had also briefly visited the stores, the plant room (where the generators and air purification and conditioning equipment machinery was housed) and the bathroom. Moving slowly, and using the torch and dull emergency lighting to find his way around, he peered into two cramped and musty smelling dormitories and a hopelessly inadequate kitchen before returning to the heart of the bunker. Perhaps it was the lack of any proper lighting making things seem worse than they actually were, but the whole place seemed to have fallen into a state of terrible disrepair. He found himself cursing those (himself included) who had mocked the efforts of the EPC in those long and tedious council meetings. If only they'd been better prepared...

It was only when he returned to the command room that he realised just how much the body on the ground was still playing on his mind. Even though it was covered up and was almost impossible to see clearly, he found it difficult to be in the same room as the corpse. What if he was stuck in there for weeks or a month? Imagine the smell and the decay and... and he knew he had to do something about it. It took him over an hour to finally decide what to do, and a further forty-five minutes before he was ready to actually do it. He then shifted the dead bulk into one of the dark dormitories. Shelly Bright's body was stiff, awkward and cumbersome. Its arms and legs were frozen by rigor mortis and Cox had to push, pull and shove it in order to get the corpse from where she'd died, round the corner, down the corridor and into the dorm. Terrified, shaking uncontrollably, panting and sweating profusely he slammed the door shut and sobbed his way back to the command room.

If only there was a window in the main door or some other way that he could see what was happening outside. A part of him began to wonder whether the carnage he thought he'd seen above ground was really as bad as he'd thought. It all seemed so bizarre � had it really happened at all? Was this unbearable self-imposed incarceration necessary? Would he eventually emerge from the bunker to find everything back to normal above ground? He'd be a laughing stock (again). If he stayed down there long enough, someone would probably have moved into his office and taken over his desk...

The urge to open the door and take a look outside was almost impossible to resist. Just a quick look, he thought, just long enough to see what, if anything, was happening out there. Just long enough to see if there really were still bodies lying around and whether there were other people like him who had remained apparently untouched by what had happened. He knew that he couldn't risk it. In frustration he leant against the door and wept. Cox wept for the family and friends that he was sure he'd lost. He wept for the easy, comfortable life which he was certain was gone forever. First and foremost, however, he wept for himself. His retirement from office had been looming on the horizon and an even easier and more comfortable future was in the offing. Now, through no fault of his own, he found himself buried underground with only a corpse for company. Even worse than that, if and when he eventually emerged from the shelter, as potentially the last surviving council member his life would inevitably become harder and more complicated unless he found a way of resigning his position. Maybe he should have stayed outside and let it get him too...

Wait. What was that? He could feel cold air. A very slight breeze on the back of his hand. It was little more than the faintest of draughts coming from the side of the door just below its hinges. In sudden fear he stumbled and tripped further back into the bunker. The bloody door was supposed to be airtight. If he could feel a draught then the seal had been broken, and if the draft was coming from outside then whatever it was that had caused all the death and destruction out there had probably already seeped into the bunker. He scrambled away from the door and hid like a frightened child on the other side of the command room and waited for it to get him.

More than an hour had passed before Cox finally allowed himself to accept that he probably wasn't going to die, not yet, anyway. The people outside had been struck down in seconds. He'd been out there with them when it started and he'd been breathing in the same air (albeit in a filtered form) for more than a day. The fact that he might have some immunity to what had killed so many seemed even more improbable than the arrival of the infection itself. He didn't like to think about it. Cox distracted himself by eating a little food (a powdered meal which he made with cold water) and then fell asleep clutching a picture of Marcia which he'd found tucked amongst the crumpled bank notes, credit card receipts and out of date business cards he'd found stuffed in the back of his wallet.

He could hear something. Cox had been sleeping lightly again but a sudden and unexpected shuffling, bumping noise had disturbed his slumber. Something falling off a shelf? A problem with the generator or the pumps that were filtering and circulating the air? There it was again. He jumped up from his seat, a cold, nervous sweat immediately prickling his brow. In the deathly quiet of the bunker the direction of the noise was clear. It was coming from the dormitory where he'd left Shelly Bright's corpse. But it couldn't have been, could it? As much as he wanted to walk the other way, Cox forced himself to walk towards the room.

Another crash. The sound of someone tripping and falling? What the hell was going on in there? Was there another entrance to the bunker that he wasn't aware of?

Cox wiped the sweat from his forehead and cleared his throat.

`Hello...' he whispered meekly, too scared to raise his voice any louder. `Hello...?'

He lifted his hand to open the door and then stopped. Come on, he thought, this is bloody stupid. The main entrance to the bunker was sealed and he was sure there was only one way in or out of the dorm so how could there be anything on the other side of the door? He decided that it must have been rats or some other vermin that had somehow managed to tunnel their way in, although how they'd managed to do that when the place was supposed to be airtight was anyone's guess.

Another crash.

`Oh, Christ,' Cox moaned pathetically to himself. He was completely on his own. He didn't have anyone to hide behind now. He knew what he had to do.

Holding a torch in his left hand (both as a source of light and as a potential weapon), Counsellor Cox timidly shoved the door open and shone it into the room. The dull yellow circle illuminated the back wall opposite the door but nothing else. It must have just been...

`Bloody hell,' he cursed loudly as Shelly Bright tripped across the room in front of him. `What the bloody hell...?' He desperately shone the torch around until he found her again. There was no doubt that it was Bright, but how could it have been? She'd been dead since Tuesday morning, hadn't she? Cox stood rooted to the spot with confusion and fear. After all that he had been through over the last day or so, this new discovery was too much to take. He stared at the body with an uncomfortable mixture of bemusement and sheer terror and he only moved when the creature awkwardly turned itself around and, quite by chance, began to shuffle towards him. He held out his hand and shoved it away. It fell back and then dragged itself back up and walked away, stopping and turning again when it hit the wall at the far end of the room with a heavy, uncoordinated thud. Unable to go any further the cadaver slowly began to walk back towards him. Cox looked deep into its face. Its skin was unnaturally discoloured and its pupils dilated and unfocussed. Without waiting for it to get any closer the terrified counsellor slammed the door shut and gripped the handle tightly. He felt the sudden collision as the corpse hit the back of the door and then listened carefully as it turned and shuffled away again. He dragged a chair out of the other dormitory and wedged it under the handle, preventing it from being opened again.

Back in the command room Cox paced up and down with his hands over his ears, trying to block out the sound of the clumsy body clattering around. The sealed entrance to the bunker now looked more inviting than ever. He purposefully stormed over to the door, fully intending to open it, but then stopped. Although the bunker was obviously no longer airtight (he could still feel the cool draught from outside) he couldn't bring himself to take that final step and push his way back out into the unknown. It might have been hellish underground, but for all he knew it could have been a thousand times worse outside. Sitting tight and doing nothing was, for the moment, the lesser of two evils. With the sounds of the body still crashing around in the background Cox sank to the ground, covered his head with his hands and curled himself up into a ball. It never stopped. The bloody thing never stopped. All day the damn cadaver trapped in the other room moved constantly, smacking into the door, tripping over furniture, knocking things over � the noise, although not particularly loud, was enough to rattle Cox to the core. It was driving him insane. He had to get away from it.

It was almost seven o'clock. He'd been down in the bunker for a day and a half and he wanted out. All day he'd been sitting there in the semi-darkness, trying to decide what he should do. Did he go outside or stay down there and wait? The body would have to stop moving sooner or later, wouldn't it? It couldn't just keep going indefinitely. And how the bloody hell was it managing to move at all? Nothing made any sense.

Cox knew it was important to try and eat but the limited food supplies he had tasted bloody awful. A lover of rich, fatty foods and sugary sweets, cakes and puddings, his stomach was growling angrily and he seriously wondered whether he'd be able to survive on the meagre rations that had been stockpiled below ground. He was growing to detest every aspect of his grim and gloomy surroundings � the stale and musty, artificial smell, the noise of the body, the lack of any decent light. For a while he actually found himself crouching by the door in desperation, sniffing at the `fresh' air which was somehow managing to seep inside.

What's the point of sitting in here doing nothing, he dejectedly thought to himself? He wanted out. He wanted to go home and find his wife and find out what had happened to the rest of the world. He wanted to change his clothes and eat properly and be away from the damn body which was still moving around incessantly. So what was stopping him? Apart from the obvious fear and uncertainty and the fact that he still thought going outside might kill him, he realised that the main reason he wanted to stay underground was particularly cowardly and selfish. He silently admitted to himself that he didn't want to go up there because he didn't want the responsibility of having to do anything about the mess, and he definitely didn't want to have to take charge of what was left of Taychester. He couldn't do it. He knew he wouldn't be able to do it. But hang on a minute, why should he have to? Although in his early days at the council he'd had his fair share of appearances in the local papers, who would know who he was now and, more to the point, who would care? If he got into the car and drove away quickly, no-one would be any the wiser. He could get on with sorting out what was left of his own life and he could forget about everyone else. In the intense, claustrophobic darkness of the bunker, getting out gradually began to seem more and more like a good idea. Another crash from the dead body in the dormitory convinced him that the time was right to try and make his move. And anyway, he thought, what was there to lose when, in all probability, it looked like he'd already lost everything?

Cox grabbed his jacket and the torch and, after overcoming a final moment of uncertainty and self-doubt, strained to re-open the heavy bunker door. He groaned with effort. It wouldn't open and, for just a second, he panicked as he realised that he might never get out. Another hefty shove and it began to move. He cautiously stepped outside.

It was quiet. And cold. And dark.

Slowly, step by nervous step, Cox moved away from the bunker entrance and began the long climb back up the twisting concrete ramp which led back through the underground car park to the surface. Suddenly there was movement ahead which made him stop dead in his tracks � a single dark figure tripping across the width of the car park. He tried to call out but the silence which shrouded the scene was intense and he couldn't bring himself to make any noise. It didn't matter anyway. The person up ahead was in the same condition as the body he'd left down in the shelter, it was obvious even from a distance. The shadowy figure moved in the same awkward, listless and directionless way as Shelly Bright's remains had done and it failed to respond when he got closer to it, even when he crossed its path and was directly in its line of vision.

As Cox neared the surface the number of bodies around him increased. There were numerous corpses still lying where they'd fallen on the cold concrete and many more dragging themselves silently through the semi-darkness of early evening. In the strangest way he was slightly relieved � everything he'd thought he'd seen on Tuesday morning had actually happened. He hadn't imagined it. He walked past the security guard's hut and peered in through the window to see what remained of Potts scrambling around on the floor pathetically, trying desperately to stand but unable to pull itself up with useless, heavy arms.

The civic square in front of the council house was a grim sight. The sun was just disappearing below the horizon, drenching the scene in warm orange light and casting long, dragging shadows. It had recently been raining and the sunlight made the wet ground glisten and shine. Cox counted sixteen bodies traipsing across the block-paving in various random directions. One of the stupid things nearby lost its footing and tumbled down a short stone staircase just to his right. Its clumsy, barely coordinated movements made him chuckle nervously to himself. His laughter, although quiet, sounded disproportionately loud and made him feel uncomfortable and exposed. Now that the silence had been broken, however, he finally felt brave enough to call out.

`Hello,' he said, his wavering voice at little more than normal speaking volume.

Nothing.

`Hello, can anyone hear me?'

Nothing.

`Hello.'

Nothing.

Cox took a few more hesitant steps forward (avoiding the crumpled remains of a foul-smelling, rain-soaked corpse) and then turned back on himself to look across the landscape of Taychester. He'd lived there all his life but had never seen it like this. Tonight it was an alien and cold place. It was so dark. Not a single pinprick of electric light interrupted the steadily increasing darkness. No street lights. No light coming from inside any of the hundreds of buildings he could see. Suddenly feeling cold, alone and afraid the counsellor turned and walked back down to where he'd left his car on Tuesday morning.

He paused for a moment longer before setting off. Perhaps he should go back into the chambers and up to his office and see if there was anyone else around. Had any of his colleagues survived? He couldn't risk it. He couldn't afford to get wrapped up in any council business when he had so many issues and uncertainties in his own life to sort out. That was his excuse and he was sticking to it. He climbed into his car, keen to get away quickly.

The sound of the engine was uncomfortably loud but Cox felt protected and safe behind the wheel. He pulled out of the car park and began to drive home. He clipped the hip of a random body which lurched into his path from out of nowhere as he turned left onto the main expressway. He slammed on his brakes and reversed back to help the bedraggled figure. He watched in petrified disbelief as the corpse silently picked itself up off the ground and limped away.

Used to only having to think about himself and Marcia, Cox drove home quickly, forcing himself to block out and ignore the hundreds of bodies, the countless wrecks of crashed cars and the unprecedented destruction and devastation which lined his entire route home. The house was just as he'd left it first thing on Tuesday.

Cox stopped the car on the drive and walked towards the front door. He paused before going inside. He needed to compose himself before he faced whatever he might find in there. Turning around he stared at the quiet cul-de-sac where he and Marcia had lived for almost ten years. It looked pretty much the same as it always had done, and yet everything felt uncomfortably different. This Wednesday evening had the still and silent air of an early Sunday morning. No-one was about. Nothing moved. Nothing, that was, apart from the remains of Malcolm Worsley (who had lived opposite). Worsley's corpse was trapped in its front garden, hemmed in by the ornate shrubs and privet hedges he'd so lovingly tended for years.

Cox turned back to face the front door and put his key in the lock. He stopped and took a deep, calming breath before opening the door and going in. Inside the house was as quiet as everywhere else.

`Marcia,' he called hopefully, `Marcia, are you here?'

She should have been there. She hadn't said that she'd planned going out anywhere on Tuesday morning. He walked further down the hall. He instinctively started to take off his coat but then stopped and quickly pulled it back on. It was almost as cold inside the house as it was out on the street.

`Marcia?' he called again.

He peered through the doors into the living room, dining room and kitchen. All empty. They all looked just the same as he'd left them. He then began to climb the stairs, knowing that his wife would most probably still have been in bed when it had happened. Christ, he hoped she was all right. But she would have answered him when he'd called, wouldn't she? Cox prepared himself for the worst as he neared the landing. Through the gaps between the wooden banister posts he could see into their bedroom. Their duvet lay in a heap on the carpet at the side of the bed. He climbed the last few steps two at a time and burst breathlessly into the room but she wasn't there. The bed was empty.

The carpet on the landing was wet. Water had seeped out from under the bathroom door and had spread along virtually the entire length of the landing. It was obvious now where Marcia was. Cox walked up to the bathroom, his feet squelching beneath him, and knocked on the door.

`Marcia? Marcia, it's me, love. I'm home...'

He tried the handle. It was locked. He pushed and shoved at the door to little effect before taking five or six splashing, sliding steps back down the landing and then running back and trying to shoulder-charge his way into the bathroom. The lock was weak and gave way almost instantly with Cox's considerable weight pushing against it. Marcia had been moaning at him for months to get someone in to change it. He pushed the door fully open (sending a low wave of water rippling back across the bathroom floor) and there, in front of him, stood what remained of his wife. Completely naked and completely oblivious to its surroundings it walked blindly towards the dumbstruck Cox and collided with him. He grabbed hold of his dead wife's arms and held her tightly. Her eyes were dark and vacant and she felt cold to the touch. He pulled her close to him but then pushed her away again. He pressed himself back against the wall and watched in heartbroken silence as she lurched past, staggered the length of the landing and then crashed into the door of the spare bedroom.

Cox shut Marcia in the living room and then went around the house and locked and bolted every ground floor door and window. Wednesday night turned into Thursday morning as he busied himself around his home. The flood in the bathroom (Marcia had been running a bath when it happened) had caused massive damage both upstairs and down in the kitchen below. The cold water made the house smell of must and decay, or perhaps that was just the smell of his wife? Cox wasn't sure. At least she'd left him with a bath full of water. That might prove to be useful.

Very occasionally, and only for the briefest of moments each time, Cox allowed himself to think about what had happened. What could have caused the deaths of hundreds, maybe thousands of people and why had some of them dragged themselves back up onto their dead feet again? Why hadn't it happened to him? Why had he been spared and why were there no other survivors? Why hadn't anyone come to help yet? Surely this couldn't have happened everywhere, could it?

Despite his vocation, thinking about other people was most definitely not something that came naturally to Cox. Soon enough, he had come to the conclusion that the most sensible course of action for him to take would be to just continue to concentrate on his own safety and wellbeing and sit tight and wait. Despite the fact that the gas, electricity and water supplies were all off, his house was still relatively comfortable and, as far as he could be sure, safe. There was a shop round the corner from where he could get food and drink supplies. It made sense to stay at home. What use would he be to anyone else, anyway? One man to help hundreds, possibly even thousands? It would be far more sensible for him to concentrate on looking after himself. That was, after all, what he was best at.

A strange sense of normality gradually overcame Cox. Apart from making one hurried trip to the shop around the corner to fetch food early on Friday morning he remained locked in his home from daylight until dusk. He checked on Marcia a couple of times but there had been no obvious change in her condition. He dressed her and moved her to the garage to limit the damage that her endless and pointless staggering around was causing in the living room. He didn't get annoyed. She couldn't help it. Somehow the noise and inconvenience his wife's corpse caused was more bearable than the constant banging and clattering of the body he'd left behind in the bunker.

With little else to do to occupy his time Cox tried to make good the water damage to his home. It was difficult to do much without any power but he was glad the electricity supply was off. It was safer that way. The light fitting in the kitchen was full of water which had dripped through the ceiling from the overflowing bath. He'd drained as much of it off as he could. By the time the water supply came back on, he decided, it would probably have dried out. He'd have to get someone to come out and look at the damage later. No doubt they'd charge him a fortune...

On Friday evening Cox sat at his desk in an alcove at the side of the dining room towards the front of the house. He read books by candlelight until his eyes began to droop and close. It was good to be occupied and distracted. It was a relief to have something positive to think about and do for a while. He was finding it increasingly difficult to deal with the relentless silence of the dead world around him. After a good hour of searching he found a battery powered cassette player upstairs and used it to play a tape of loud classical music to drown out the quiet.

At a quarter to two on Saturday morning, Malcolm Worsley's corpse (his dead neighbour from over the road) escaped from its garden, staggered over to Cox's house and slammed against the window next to where he was sitting reading. Startled, he leapt back, his pulse suddenly racing. He quickly began to regain his composure when he realised it was only one of the dumb bodies from outside and nothing more sinister. He nodded in recognition when he realised it was what was left of Malcolm and watched as the corpse on the other side of the glass pressed its lifeless face against the window, leaving behind a greasy, bloody smear. As he watched, it lifted a single, rotting hand into the air and slapped it down on the glass. Strange, thought Cox as he watched the wizened, decaying shell of his friend hitting the glass again and again. It didn't bother him unduly. In fact he felt quite sorry for it. The windows were double-glazed and that muffled each bang to little more than a dull thud. Tired, Cox turned up the volume on his cassette player and carried it upstairs with him to bed.

Saturday morning. Day five.

Cox slept well. It would have been wrong to say that he was happy with his situation but, all things considered, it could have been much, much worse. He'd begun to accept what had happened and was determined to make the most of it. Regardless of what had happened to everyone else, he remained relatively safe, warm and well protected. For a while he lay there and didn't move, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about how everything had changed.

What was he going to do today? He really needed to start thinking about getting more supplies in. He'd noticed earlier in the week that workmen had been at one of the houses down the road when all this had started last Tuesday morning and their van was still parked outside the house. Perhaps he should borrow it and drive it round to the local supermarket? If he spent a little time today filling the van with absolutely everything he'd need, it would save him having to go out again for maybe as long as a couple of weeks. By then he was sure that the situation outside would have improved. It couldn't get any worse, could it? In a couple of weeks time, he decided, the other people who had survived like him would start to coordinate themselves and get things organised.

Cox forced himself to get up. He swung his legs out of bed and winced at the sudden drop in temperature � without the central heating working the house was icy cold. He tiptoed across the landing to the toilet (stepping gingerly over the still damp carpet) and relieved himself in the plastic bucket he'd been having to use since the toilet cistern had dried up. Once a day he carried it down to the bottom of the garden and emptied the contents over his roses. That felt better, he thought as he shook himself dry and walked back to the bedroom to get dressed.

He was half-dressed and halfway down the stairs when he noticed that something had changed. It was a subtle, far from obvious change and he struggled for a moment to put his finger on exactly what it was that was different. It was dark. That was it, the ground floor of the house was unusually dark this morning. Feeling slightly uneasy, but not overly concerned, he continued down the staircase.

He saw them at the front door first. Visible only as shifting shapes through the frosted glass, he could see the heads and shoulders of at least three or four corpses, maybe more. Unusual, he thought as he continued down, zipping up his trousers and tightening his belt as he walked. As it was every morning, his next port of call was the kitchen at the back of the house. Still half asleep he walked barefoot across the cold, tiled floor to fetch himself some breakfast cereal from the cupboard next to the sink. The cupboard door slammed shut (the hinges were loose and needed tightening) and the sound echoed through the empty house like a gunshot. Cox cringed and then frowned. He could suddenly hear Marcia moving around in the garage. Was it just coincidence, or had what remained of his wife just reacted to noise for the first time since she'd died? He was about to go and see her when he caught sight of something in the dining room. Like the rest of the ground floor of the house this morning, that room also seemed darker than usual, and Cox was sure he could see some movement. He put his head around the door and then quickly drew it back again. Bodies. Hundreds of the bloody things, or that was how it seemed. Fighting to keep himself calm, he peered through the narrow gap between the open door and the door frame and saw that the entire width of the wide bay window at the front of the house was packed tight with dead flesh. He could see countless ghastly, cold faces pressed up against the glass, scouring the room with their dry, clouded eyes. Why were they here? What did they want? Cox leant his head against the wall and tried to understand what was happening. None of the creatures had shown the slightest interest in him before, so why now? Were these somehow different to all the other bodies he'd so far seen? His mind wandered back to what had happened just before he'd gone to bed. Malcolm Worsley. That was it, that bastard Worsley had brought them here. He must have tipped them off that he was from the council. Did they think he'd be able to do something for them? Before he'd died Worsley had asked Cox to do favours for him on more than one occasion � everything from rushing through planning permission for an extension to his house to trying to get a parking fine overturned. Cox had no reason to think he would have changed his ways now just because he'd died. He peered through the gap again. There he was, the sly bugger, his dead face pressed hard against the window, letting everyone know where Cox was, wrongly assuming that he was the man who could (and would) help them.

His fragile confidence rattled, Cox felt suddenly uncomfortable and unsure. He ran back upstairs and peered out of the window in the spare room. Bloody hell, there were hundreds of them out there. A huge, ragged crowd of diseased, decomposing flesh had suddenly gathered in front of his property. The nearest corpses had been rammed tight against the front of the house by the relentless pressure of countless others behind, and the whole mass had spilled out into the middle of the road. His car � his escape route � had been surrounded and swallowed up by the dead hordes.

The nervous counsellor considered his suddenly limited options. As he continued to watch from behind the curtains he could see more of the dark, shuffling shapes dragging themselves along the nearby streets towards his house. Individually they seemed weak and distant and he had no reason to believe that they would intentionally do him any harm, but how could he be sure? How could he be sure of anything? These things were dead, for Christ's sake. He never thought that his constituents would resort to mob rule to try and get action from the council. They'd never shown any interest before. He began to regret the day he'd stood for election.

Cox crept round to the back of the house and sat down on the edge of the bed. I'll stay here and keep out of sight for a while, he thought. Maybe they'll get tired waiting and go somewhere else.

By mid-afternoon the crowd of bodies had filled the entire length of the street, and still more were approaching. They were hammering against the windows and front door, and the sound could most probably be heard for miles around. Cox had finally plucked up enough courage to creep back downstairs and had quickly come to the conclusion that, as his stay in the house might now prove longer than he originally expected, his supplies were far from sufficient. He only had enough food for a few more meals. Sitting there with his throat dry and his stomach rumbling at the breakfast bar in the kitchen (well out of sight) he came to the crushing realisation that, because of the bloody public outside, his situation was now nowhere near as comfortable or safe as he'd originally thought. Disconsolate he stood up, walked across the room and went out to the garage to see Marcia. Maybe her condition would have changed today? Perhaps she might have improved enough to be able to offer her husband some support at this increasingly difficult time. No such luck. He peered into the garage through the window in the door and saw that his dead wife was still crashing tirelessly around the room. Her dressing gown had slipped off and she was naked again. Bloody hell, she looked awful. Several stones overweight, wrinkled with age, limp-breasted and her skin had turned a dirty shade of blue-green. He wished she'd stop. As long as she was making this much noise the people of Taychester would know there was someone in and would continue to beat a slow (but very definite) path to his door. Perhaps if he went in there and found a way of keeping her quiet? Christ, what was he thinking? He'd never been able to keep Marcia quiet when she was alive and she'd been able to listen to him, how the hell was he supposed to get her to cooperate now?

Maybe he needed to get away and lie low for a while. But how was he going to get out and where was he supposed to go? The answer was disappointingly obvious. He anxiously glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was already close to midday. In a few hours time the light would start to fade. He could either sit tight for another night or make his move today. His mind wandered back to the size of the ever-increasing crowd on the street. If there were hundreds of them out there now, how many more would he find when he got up tomorrow morning? Or the day after that, or the day after that? It wasn't so much the size of the crowd which bothered him, instead it was the fact that they wanted him to help them. As a counsellor surely he had a public duty to help and protect them? As he'd done for most of his life in public service, he decided to turn his back on that responsibility and run.

Get some food, he thought, then get back underground.

Almost four o'clock. A tired and frightened Counsellor Cox, on foot and with a heavy holdall full of spare clothes in his hand, approached the supermarket that he and Marcia usually shopped at. His way out of the front of his house blocked, he'd sneaked out of the back door and clambered over the fence at the bottom of the garden. Bloody hell, some of the public had been waiting for him there too! He'd found himself in the middle of a crowd of between twenty and thirty of them. For a moment he'd tried to reason with them, tried to make them see that there was nothing he could do to help so many of them but they wouldn't listen. To his shame he'd pushed and barged his way through the crowd in tears, unable to get away quick enough. A fifteen minute walk through the shadows and he was there.

The supermarket was as quiet and desolate as everywhere else. That pleased Cox. He didn't want to see anyone else, unless they could talk and control themselves and help him. He was sick of the pathetic, lethargic population and the way they gravitated towards him whenever they saw him. He wished they'd just leave him alone. Didn't they know that he had problems too? Who was going to help him out? Just because he didn't appear to be as sick as they obviously were, it didn't mean he was there to run to the aid of every person who happened to see him. As he got closer to the building he could see that there were people swarming around the front entrance and car park. He decided to try and get in through the back. The loading bay was a much quieter option.

Cox weaved through the abandoned lorries, trolleys and carts at the back of the huge store and slowly worked his way through the staff area, the bakery and into the main part of the shop. Bloody hell, the place smelled awful. The council health and safety department would have had a field day. A week's worth of rotting food and rotting flesh. It was so strong that it made him gag and he thought about turning round and getting out. `Keep calm Ray,' he told himself, `this is the hardest part. You can do this. Get everything you need here and then you can shut yourself away for as long as it takes for this bloody mess to sort itself out.'

Two bodies tripped and staggered towards him. Cox turned when he heard their heavy, shuffling footsteps.

`Leave me alone,' he hissed at them, loud enough for them to hear but not so loud that the rest of the dead shoppers would notice. `I can't help you. There's nothing I can do for any of you...'

They kept coming towards him.

`Look,' he continued, `I'm really sorry. I'm sure someone will be along soon who'll be able to help you, but it's not me. I really can't do anything for you. I'm just here to get some food then I'm leaving. I've got problems too, you know.'

The corpses continued undeterred. The nearest of them was just a couple of meters away now and its relentless, slothful approach unnerved Cox. He turned and tried to make his way over to the other side of the building but there were more of them approaching. Panic rising, he looked around and could suddenly see them dragging themselves towards him from just about every direction. Creeping up the aisles. Crawling over empty cardboard boxes and piles of spilt food. He could see more than twenty of them now, and others were beginning to drag themselves in through the supermarket's open entrance doors. In desperation and exacerbation he climbed up onto the lid of the nearest of a row of freezers full of decaying, defrosted food to both escape from and address the advancing public.

`Stop!' he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous building and attracting the attention of the few remaining bodies nearby who hadn't yet noticed him. `Just leave me alone, will you? There's nothing I can do for any of you. Go away!'

In his frightened, confused and misguided state Cox failed to appreciate the stupidity of his actions. With renewed interest the corpses continued to advance towards him. As the nearest few began to reach out and grab at him with cold, numb hands he scrambled back across the row of freezers. One of the freezers � the third or fourth in the line � was open. Cox didn't notice until it was too late. He struggled to keep his balance but was unable to stop himself from falling down into it. He sank deep into a mushy sludge of soaked cardboard boxes and defrosted pizzas and lasagnes and he threw his arms out to steady himself. The sudden unexpected descent had brought him face to face with the dead, eye level with what was left of the people of the borough. The same people who used to use the tennis courts and football pitches that he had responsibility for. The same people whose lives were shaped in the council meetings he used to sleep through. Cox tried to scramble up again but lost his footing and slipped deeper into the mire. Cold, wet and terrified he reached out and grabbed hold of the shoulders of the nearest cadaver and hauled himself up onto his feet using the body for support. Once upright again he climbed out of the freezer and pushed the body away. Cold, soaking wet and covered with foul-smelling, rotting food he pushed through the heaving crowd. The dark mass of bodies turned and followed him as he ran towards the rear of the shop and back out through the loading bay.

Cox arrived back at the council house in a supermarket branded home delivery van. He slammed on the brakes when he reached the civic square and looked anxiously in his mirrors. Already more of the people of the borough were coming his way. Would they never stop? He'd only been stationary for a couple of seconds and already they were swarming around the van, banging and hammering angrily on its sides. He edged the vehicle forward nervously, hoping to nudge the bodies out of the way. They just stood there defiant and stared at him. Stupid bloody things. In temper he slammed his foot down on the accelerator and tore through them.

Into the car park. Down the ramp. Round and round and down until he reached Level 2. He left the van in front of the still open bunker door and ran into the underground shelter. It was still empty, thank God, except for the body in the dormitory, of course. Too scared to stop and think about what he was doing Cox crashed through the bunker rooms and yanked the dormitory door open. Shelly Bright's corpse, now looking particularly grotesque and discoloured, lunged at him at the same time that he lunged at her. The counsellor and the corpse both fell heavily to the ground. Cox scrambled back up onto his feet and then, with an utter contempt and lack of respect, he grabbed hold of the cadaver's hair with one hand and its right arm with the other. Panting heavily he dragged the kicking and squirming corpse out of the bunker and threw it into the car park.

There were other bodies close now. He could see what appeared to be hundreds of them tripping and falling down the concrete ramp towards him. Obviously attracted by the noise he'd made returning to the bunker, more crowds were spilling in from the surface. The steep downwards slope of the car park seemed to be increasing their uncoordinated speed dramatically.

`Bloody hell,' Cox whimpered as Shelly Bright's body lunged for him again. He threw her to one side, not even giving her a second glance as she collapsed to the ground and then stood up again. He'd wanted to check the back of the van to see if there was any salvageable food inside but he knew he didn't have time to do it now. Maybe he'd be able to come back out in a couple of hours time when the excitement had died down and the bodies had disappeared. He remembered the ever-increasing size of the crowd of corpses outside his house and tried to convince himself that this would be different. They wouldn't stay down here in the darkness waiting for him, would they?

Shelly Bright was coming for him again. There was another body almost as close. He had to move.

Ray Cox looked out at the desperate scene around him one more time before scurrying back into the bunker and slamming the door behind him.

No sign of them disappearing yet. Every so often I try and open the door a little bit to see what's going on. It's been a couple of days now and the bloody things are still waiting for me. From down here it looks like the whole car park is full now. How the hell am I supposed to get out? Maybe it's the noise of the generator and the air conditioning pumps that's attracting them, but I can't turn them off, can I? I'll just have to sit here and wait. They'll have to go eventually, won't they?

I don't mind being down here on my own. I've spent years keeping a low profile and trying to keep out of sight. It won't be long now. Just a few more days.

I try not to think too much about what's happened because I don't understand it and I don't think I ever will. All that matters now is making sure that I get through all of this in one piece.

I can finally see the sense of `Duck and Cover' now. It has to work, doesn't it? Stay under cover long enough and you'll be okay. I'll keep my head down until this has all blown over.

PENELOPE STREET

Penelope Street is nearing the end of her life. She's becoming very weak now and it's an effort for her to lift her head, even to keep her eyes open. In many ways its much easier to stay head bowed and eyes shut. She doesn't want to see what's happening around her.

Penelope wants the end to come quickly but every single second seems to take a cruel eternity to pass. She just wants it to be over.

One hundred and thirty-three.

I've been sat here for one hundred and thirty-three hours now. How much longer will I last? Will I reach one hundred and thirty-four or one hundred and thirty-five? Christ, I hope not. I can't take much more of this but there's absolutely nothing I can do. I can't make the end come any faster. I've reached the stage when the frustration is worse than the fear.

I feel so weak. I haven't got my medication with me and I haven't eaten or had anything to drink since first thing on Tuesday morning. That's more than five and a half days ago now. Surely I can't last much longer, can I? I can't do anything but sit here with my head hanging down, looking into my lap. Sometimes I try to look up and look around but it's all so horrific that I can't stand it. Everything has changed and I don't know how or why. Arthur's body is just in front of me (I can see his feet sticking out from behind the sofa we were looking at buying) and they are all around here. Dark, decaying shadows of people who should be lying dead on the ground. Cold and empty bodies. Thank God there are none of them here in the shop with me. When I look up I can see them through the window, constantly moving up and down the street outside. I don't move so they don't see me, but if I make any noise they stop. I screamed and shouted at them to start with because I thought they'd be able to help me but now I know they can't. When they hear me they stop and stare and bang on the glass, and then more of them come. I'm used to being stared at. I don't move. I don't react. After a couple of hours they start to drift away.

Arthur brought me here on Tuesday morning to choose a new sofa. Not that he needed me to come. There wasn't any point in my getting involved in the decision. It was down to him to choose one and try it out and decide whether or not we were going to have it. We got here early so that there wouldn't be many people about. If there are too many people then I just feel like I'm in the way. We'd just got through the front door and round to the sofa section when it happened. It got him and everyone else. I watched them all crumble and fall and I wish that it had taken me too. I kept waiting for it to get me, hoping and praying that it would, hoping and praying that it would soon be over. I can't stand being alone like this. It makes me feel more helpless and vulnerable than ever.

I'm so hungry. And thirsty too. My mouth's dry and I'm so dehydrated that I feel like my tongue's swollen to ten times its normal size. I can't talk properly now, not that there's anyone left here to speak to. I think there must have been a fire near here a couple of days ago. People must have been trapped inside. I smelled the smoke first, then the burning bodies. It was like sitting the middle of a damn barbeque. The whole world stank of roast meat. Every so often I can still smell it. It made the hunger pains immeasurably worse.

The worst part of all of this is the fact that I haven't got any control over anything. I've not had much control for a long time, but now I don't have any. It hurts more than the fear and the not knowing. I can't do a bloody thing about the situation. I can't do anything to help myself or to bring the end any closer. Help might be just around the corner, but I can't even get myself out of this damn building, never mind get anywhere else. An inch might as well be a hundred bloody miles for all the good it'll do me now.

Just trying to look up takes so much energy. There are more bodies outside now, gazing at me with their cold, vacant eyes. I feel like a bloody shop window dummy. People always stared at me. You'd think I would have got used to it by now, but I haven't. I've never been able to handle the sideways looks and the glances and the stares and the whispers behind people's hands. Mostly they didn't say anything at all or they'd go completely over the top and patronise me. They made me feel like a freak. They always saw the wheelchair before they saw me sitting in it. I'm paralysed from the neck down, not up. I can't move my body, but that was the only difference between me and everybody else. My arms and legs might be numb and frozen, but I've always been able to feel pain and get scared and panic like everyone else. Christ knows I'm scared now.

I would have been all right if it hadn't been for him, that stupid bloody husband of mine. If he'd have left me there after the fall I would have been okay. It would have taken time to get well again, but I would have been okay. But no, he knew best, didn't he. It was him trying to move me that did the real damage to my neck. He blamed himself and so did I. And now here I am, trapped in this cold, dark and empty place and starving to death with the rest of the world already dead around me. I can't move an inch, and all I have for company is Arthur's useless corpse. I don't know what I did to deserve this.

Come on death, hurry up. Enough's enough. I want it to be over now.

I'm tired of sitting in this bloody chair just waiting... DAY SEVEN

AMY STEADMAN Part iv

It is now several days since Amy Steadman's corpse took its first unsteady steps away from the shadows of the building where she died. It is a week since infection.

The body continues to move at a painfully slow and lethargic pace. Its movements are still limited and difficult. It has, however, been moving constantly and has now covered a considerable distance since leaving the crowd on the motorway. The dog trapped in the car � the cause of the disturbance which originally attracted the mass of cadavers � became weak and quiet after several hours. Many of the dead, Amy Steadman's corpse included, gradually drifted away from the scene in random, uncoordinated directions. By pure chance Amy's body continued to follow the route of the road forward in the general direction in which it had originally been travelling. Although it has come across numerous blockages and occasional distractions along the wide, rubbish-strewn road, it has been able to keep moving in largely the same direction. It has now covered several miles.

As time has progressed so has the body slowly regained a further degree of control over its movements. It now walks with slightly more fluidity and speed although its muscles, flesh and nerves are continuing to decay. The body's limbs � previously stiff, awkward and largely inflexible � are now able to bend and flex to an extent, although their range of motion is still severely limited. The body is now able to draw its hands into fists and can move its fingers independently. It can also move its head. There has been a substantial increase in the number of voluntary head movements, indicating that the corpse is becoming increasingly aware of the direction of sound.

The long and wide motorway, which had remained relatively straight for a considerable distance, eventually curved round to the right as it merged with another major road which skirted around the centre of the city of Rowley . Amy's body, however, did not change direction. Instead it continued to move forward and straight ahead, leaving the tarmac and tumbling down a grassy embankment. After managing to stand up again, the corpse crossed the width of a field, stumbled through an open gate and then found itself following a narrow gravel path which ran alongside an isolated bungalow. After dragging itself along the length of the gravel path the body then reached another narrow tarmac road. The steep banks on either side of the road channelled the corpse and prevented it from moving in any other direction but forward.

The physical effort of the distance travelled has caused the condition of the body to deteriorate further. The process of decay has continued unabated. Its skin is now extremely discoloured. The chemical reactions continuing to occur throughout the cadaver have manifested themselves as numerous weeping sores and lesions. In the fall down the embankment the corpse sustained a number of cuts and lacerations to its right hand, its arm, its upper torso and its face. Thick, congealed blood has slowly seeped (rather than poured) from these cuts. There is no pulse. The body's circulatory and respiratory systems no longer operate. Blood and oxygen is no longer being pumped around the body.

The self-awareness of the corpse has steadily increased. Although still at an extremely low and rudimentary level, it is now aware of its own general shape and size and compensates for its bulk whilst moving. It can now use its hands to push and grab with limited success. Its balance has also improved although it is still occasionally unsteady on its feet and has difficulty coping with uneven ground.

A sudden heavy downpour of rain has drenched the body which is now struggling to cope with a steep gradient of descent down a hillside. It is still following the road. There is now a canopy of trees hanging overhead which, coupled with the increased cloud cover, has substantially reduced the available light. The loud, echoing sound of the rain hitting the ground and the leaves overhead is confusing the creature. It is now surrounded by noise. It moves its head around constantly, looking for the source of the directionless sound. It eventually emerges from beneath the canopy and the volume of the noise subsides.

Both of the body's feet are bare and the exposed flesh is rapidly wearing away. It leaves a greasy, bloody residue on the ground with virtually every footstep. Already there are insects feeding off this residue and also off the many other corpses scattered around the countryside. Amy's body has just passed another cadaver which died as the result of a car crash. The body is trapped in the wreckage of the car and it appears, over the course of the last seven days subsequent to its death, to have been picked at and ravaged by various scavenging animals. The sheer amount of dead meat which is now easily found almost everywhere is proving to be an unexpected benefit to many millions of predators and parasites. It is likely that over the coming months the population of these creatures will increase massively. The lack of any form of pest control will further allow their numbers to multiply unchecked. It is still very early days, but it is already clear that the removal of almost all of the human population will have an unprecedented effect on the ecosystem.

A brief moment of sunlight bathes the scene with unexpected brightness and warmth. Although unable to detect or understand the change in temperature, Amy's corpse does notice the increased light levels. The quality of its eyesight is still rudimentary and poor � it sees shapes and is aware of movement but has so far been unable to make out any level of finer detail. The sudden illumination allows it to see slightly more, but nothing of any significance. The control the body has over its eyes and its ability to absorb and interpret what it sees is improving, but at the same time its physical condition continues to deteriorate. The eyeballs and the associated nerves and muscles are rotting.

The body has reached a junction where the road it has been following joins a more major route. Here a crowd of bodies has gathered around a young survivor. Caught out in the open looking for food, a ten year old girl has become lost and has found herself dangerously exposed. With nowhere else to shelter she has shut herself in a telephone box. She is on the ground with her back pressed up against the door to prevent it from opening. There are already seven bodies surrounding the girl with a further three approaching. Amy Steadman's corpse is now also close. Whilst the young survivor has learnt that by keeping still and silent she can evade detection by the corpses, her situation is so unexpected and unnerving that she is finding it impossible to contain her fear and emotion. She is sobbing uncontrollably, and the bodies on the other side of the glass are reacting to every sound. Although they don't understand why, they are driven to try and get closer to her. One of them begins to bang on the glass, and this new sound attracts the attention of even more nearby cadavers.

Steadman's corpse has now reached the telephone box. Although it does not understand what it is doing, the body has an instinctive, insatiable desire to reach the source of the disturbance at all costs. It reaches out and grabs hold of the nearest corpse and awkwardly attempts to pull itself nearer to the survivor. Less decayed than some of the surrounding cadavers, it clumsily rips at them and pulls and pushes them out of the way. Their rotting flesh is weak and is literally torn from the bone. Steadman's body keeps moving until it is standing directly in front of the telephone box. It leans forward and presses its decaying face against the glass. The girl inside is now face down, covering her head in fear. Steadman's corpse stares down at it with dry, cold and unblinking eyes.

As long as the girl continues to move or make any noise the bodies will remain.

JACKSON

You can learn a lot about them by watching.

I'm not a biologist or a doctor. I don't know what's happened to them or why it hasn't happened to me. I don't know if I'm immune or whether it will get me eventually. I might only have a day left, I might live for another twenty years. I know hardly anything, except how to survive.

I never had any training for this kind of thing. I did a couple of years in the Boy Scouts but that was the limit of my experience. I could have done with a stretch in the forces, but it wasn't for me. I couldn't stand the shouting and the discipline. I've never been able to handle being told what to do. I work better on my own and I always have done. I get on with other people (not that there are many other people left) but if I'm given the choice I prefer my own company. Especially now. I wouldn't be able to trust anyone else to be quiet enough or still enough when the bodies are about. The world is dead and everything I do is exaggerated by the stillness.

If I move they see me. If I make a sound they hear me. Hear me breathe and they want to kill me.

So what have I learned about them? Well, forgetting about what they used to be before it happened, they're pretty simple and easy to read. There's not a lot of conscious thought going on inside those empty skulls. Actually I've got no idea what's happening inside their festering brains and their rotting bodies, but I have noticed more and more of them following certain behaviours. And those behaviours seem to be changing. What they're doing today isn't necessarily what they're going to be doing tomorrow.

It's almost a week now since it happened. They lay still for a while, and I checked enough of them to know that they were dead. Well their bodies certainly were, but I think that something inside must have survived. And whatever part of them has resisted the disease, it seems to have been growing steadily stronger ever since. It began when they picked themselves up and started to move again, and then they were able to hear and see. Over the last day I've noticed that they've become even more animated and controlled. They're beginning to show some rudimentary emotions too. They're showing anger, although it could actually be frustration and pain. No doubt that's going to make things more complicated for me in the long run.

Enough of this. Thinking like this is a waste of time. Hypothesizing pointlessly about what might and might not be happening to them isn't going to help me. All I can do is respond to the changes day by day and hope that I can stay one step ahead of the game. My comparative strength and my intelligence should be enough to see me through. I just have to keep control and hold my nerve. Start to get jumpy or twitchy and I'll start to make mistakes. Make mistakes and I've had it.

These things don't communicate with each other, in fact they're fiercely independent and I've seen them tearing each other apart. That said, they do also have a strange tendency to move together in large groups. It's almost like they're herding. If something happens which attracts the attention of one or two of them, more and more seem to follow until there's a huge crowd around whatever it was that caused the disturbance. I can use that behaviour to my advantage, but there are disadvantages too. The advantages? When they're together it's easy to pick them off. I haven't yet, but I can imagine being able to take hundreds of them out at a time if I have to. The disadvantages? Pretty obvious really. If I'm the one making the noise and causing the disturbance, I'm screwed.

There are other benefits to be gained from attacking them when they're grouped together. Apart from the obvious plus of getting rid of masses of the damn things with one hit, it also takes the heat off me for a while. Even starting a small fire is enough to flush them out from a wide surrounding area. The stupid things can't help themselves. They stumble towards the heat or light or noise or whatever without giving me a second look. I can virtually walk past them and they don't notice. Their senses are obviously pretty dull and basic. Give them something obvious to focus on and they don't seem to see anything else. It's like they can only concentrate on one thing at a time.

The darkness is my friend. These things are still pretty awkward and clumsy and they'd struggle to catch me, even if I gave them a chance. Take away their sight, though, and the advantage I have over them increases massively. I now travel almost exclusively at night. I only risk walking out in daylight when I'm out in the middle of nowhere and I know there are only a few of them about.

So what am I planning to do? I'm going to keep travelling in one direction for a while, probably north but I might head towards the coast in another direction. It's not going to be easy, but I can't think of anything else to do. Why the coast? Seems as good a place as any. Nowhere's going to be completely safe anymore. The coast strikes me as being rough and inhospitable, and with the ocean on one side I'll have less land to have to keep watching. It will be okay. I expect that as the bodies deteriorate they'll find it harder and harder to cause me any problems.

I'll be all right on my own. Maybe I'll get lonely, maybe I won't. Whatever happens, I'm just glad that I survived. In a strange way I'm almost looking forward to whatever the future brings. It'll be a future without the countless bullshit trappings of my previous daily life. A future without the drudgery of trying to hold down a job and pay bills. A future without politics, crap TV, religion and who knows what else. Who knows what's going to happen. And I know I'm being na�ve, because for every problem the infection has solved, it's created another few thousand. You have to be positive though, don't you?

I often wonder how many people like me are left? Am I the only one, or are there hundreds of us creeping quietly through the shadows, avoiding the bodies and, by default, avoiding each other too. Doesn't matter.

It'll be okay in the end.

More to the point, I'll be okay.

OFFICE POLITICS

There are thirty-seven houses on Marshwood Road. Only one of them has a freshly cut back lawn. Only one has had its dustbins emptied and the rubbish placed neatly in black plastic sacks at the end of the drive. Only one has had the curtains in its windows drawn each night and opened each morning since the infection destroyed more than ninety-nine percent of the population.

Different people deal with stress, loss and other emotional pressures in a wide range of different ways. Some implode, some explode. Some shrivel up and hide in the quietest, darkest corner they can find, others make themselves visible and make as much noise as possible. Some accept what was happened, others deny everything.

Simon Walters is handling what has happened to him particularly badly. The arrival of the infection and its subsequent repercussions and after-shocks has been little more than a trivial irritation which has further complicated his already utterly miserable existence. One of life's perennial victims, in his eyes no-one's misery can compare to his own. Walters cannot cope with what has happened all around him. As a last ditch defence mechanism he has shut out all other suffering to concentrate on his own.

The sudden clattering of Walters' battery-powered alarm clock shattered the early morning stillness of the house. He groaned, rolled over and switched it off. It sounded louder than ever this morning. How he hated that damn noise. No, he didn't just hate it, he absolutely bloody detested it. Especially today. When that unholy clanging began he knew it was time to get up and start another bloody day. The noise was marginally more bearable on Thursdays and Fridays as the weekend neared, but today was Monday, the beginning of yet another week, and the alarm sounded worse than ever.

`Morning, love,' he yawned as he rolled over onto his back and looked up at the ceiling. June, his wife lying next to him, didn't move. Lazy cow, he thought to himself. Okay, so she only had to drop the kids off at school and work and they didn't need to be there until just before nine, but she could at least make an effort once in a while and get up with him. She'd been the same all weekend. She hadn't got out of bed once. Perhaps when he came home from work tonight he'd sit her down and force her to talk. They needed to have a proper discussion about what was bothering her. God knows he needed to say something. Her personal hygiene standards were slipping. Her hair was greasy and lifeless and she was beginning to smell. He wondered whether she'd even been bothering to wash? He'd tried to say something to her about it yesterday afternoon but it was a delicate subject and he'd found it difficult to find the right words. He'd tried his hardest to be careful and tactful but he'd obviously said something that had upset her because she'd not said a word back to him. She'd just stared into space and ignored him. She hadn't even had the decency to look at him. Late last night he'd brought her up a glass of wine and a slice of cake as a peace offering. She hadn't even touched them.

Walters rubbed his eyes and glanced over at the alarm clock again. Five past seven. He couldn't put it off any longer. There was no avoiding it, it was time to get up. Much as he wanted to curl up and pretend the day wasn't happening, he couldn't. He had responsibilities. He kicked the covers off his side of the bed, rolled over to the right and then yawned, stretched and stumbled to the bathroom.

This country is well on its way down the road to ruin, he decided as he stared at himself in the mirror. No water again. The taps had been dry for almost a week now. There really was no excuse. God, he thought to himself, I look awful. He looked tired, and that was because he was bloody tired. Tired of his family and their behaviour towards him, tired of his job and tired of himself. Forty-seven years of age and he'd found himself stuck in a deep, directionless rut. He couldn't see a way out. The only way he could see himself getting back in his family's good books would be to pander to them and buy them more, and the only way he could afford to buy them more stuff would be to get promoted at work or find himself a better job. Bloody hell, how he hated his job. He'd worked for the bank for more than twenty-five years and in that time he'd seen huge changes. It was no longer the same job he'd walked into after leaving school at age sixteen. Back then it had been a career to be proud of and working for a bank had given him some kind of status and standing in the community. People had once looked up to him and his colleagues but now he was little more than a glorified salesman, stood at the counter all day trying to sell loans, accounts and insurance policies to people who either already had enough loans, accounts and policies or who had only come into the bank to pay their gas bill. Maybe it was his own fault he thought sadly as he began to shave with his old electric razor. He'd seen plenty of people who'd joined the bank after him overtake him and be promoted through the ranks at speed. In fact, he'd trained three of the last five managers he'd worked for to be cashiers when they'd first joined the company.

The bank needs people like me, Walters decided as he tugged and pulled at the weekend's stubble with his razor. If it wasn't for people like me at the bottom, he thought, the high-flyers and the people at the top wouldn't be able to do their jobs and make their massive profits. Some of his colleagues laughed at him because he'd been in charge of the stationery cupboard for longer than most of them had been in the bank, but they'd be laughing on the other side of their faces if he didn't put in a stationery order, wouldn't they? How could they sell their loans and their accounts and their insurance policies without the right brochures and forms? And how could they fill them out without any pens? He did more for his branch and the company overall than any of them gave him credit for.

The batteries in his razor ran out mid-shave. The left side of his face was mostly clean shaven, the right still covered with long, dark stubble. Bloody typical.

They needed to go shopping. The kitchen cupboards were practically empty. He should have gone to the supermarket at the weekend. More to the point, June should have gone. Why was everything left to him all of a sudden? As he sat munching his dry cereal (no milk), Walters scribbled out a shopping list. He'd leave it on the table for June. Hopefully she'd get up later and go out and get everything they needed.

Walters looked around the kitchen dejectedly and shook his head. He wished he could understand what was going on. He'd never known anything like it. The water, gas and electricity supplies had been off since early last week. To lose one of them would have been bad enough, but all three? At the same time? He wondered what he bothered paying his bills for. And it wasn't as if he'd been able to get June to phone to complain either. The telephone had been out of action for just as long. He'd tried to phone up himself from work last Friday but they'd had the same problem there. He sighed sadly to himself. Imagine the grief I'd get if I didn't do my job properly, he thought. There'd be hell to pay if the customers couldn't get access to their money.

As ready for work as he was ever going to be, Walters stood up and packed his lunch away into his briefcase. It wasn't really very much of a lunch, just a few dry crackers, some biscuits, a packet of crisps he'd found at the back of the cupboard and an apple, the skin of which felt slightly rubbery and wrinkled. He jammed his food in amongst the hundreds of old circulars, leaflets, handwritten notes and photocopied procedures that he carried to and from work every day. None of it was necessary (most of it was probably out of date) but it made him feel safer and more important carrying a case full of papers to the office. It was a security blanket of sorts, something to hide behind. He convinced himself it was necessary. He needed to be well-informed and up-to-date in case someone tried to get one over on him.

`Are any of you out of bed yet?' he yelled from the bottom of the stairs. Christ, what was happening to his family? Was he the only one who was bothered now? Agitated and nervous (he always felt that way before work) Walters put his briefcase down at the foot of the stairs and stormed back up to try and inject a little life and motivation into his lethargic family. He could hear something happening in Matthew's bedroom. At least he was up.

`Are you ready for school, Matt?' he asked as he pushed his way into his fourteen year-old son's room. What was left of Matthew was on the other side of the door, trying to claw its way out in reaction to hearing its father's voice. Walters shoved the door back and sent the wasted body of his son tripping backwards. `Sorry about that, son,' he mumbled. The corpse regained its footing and lurched forward again, crashing into him. `Steady on,' Walters laughed, `take it easy!' Matthew's corpse grabbed at him with rough, uncoordinated hands. `I haven't got time to mess about now,' he sighed wearily, assuming that the body was play-fighting with him, `I've got to go to work now. I'll see you when I get back, okay?'

Laughing, Walters picked up the light, emaciated body and carried it across the room and dumped it on its bed. The corpse immediately stumbled back onto its feet and began to awkwardly stagger back towards the door.

`Make sure you change your sweatshirt before you go to school,' Walters ordered, pointing a disapproving finger at the dribbles of blood and other bodily emissions which had seeped down the front of his dead son's dark blue jumper. He left the room and pulled the door shut behind him, ignoring the heavy clump and clatter as what remained of his son smashed into the other side of the wooden barrier.

Just like her mother, he thought as he peeled back the bedclothes in the next room to reveal the head and shoulders of Emily, his daughter. She'd just turned seventeen when she'd died and had started work in a hairdressing salon three weeks earlier. He gently shook her shoulder and the lifeless body fell over onto its back. Its unmoving, vacant eyes stared through him unblinking.

`Don't you be late for work,' he whispered. `You don't want to give them the wrong impression, do you?'

No response. Walters leant down and kissed his daughter's cold, discoloured cheek. There was a spider in her hair. He picked it out and flicked it across the room.

`See you tonight, love. Have a good day.'

Walters paused and took a deep breath before going back into the bedroom he shared with June.

`I'm off to work now,' he said quietly. `I'll see you tonight. Maybe we could talk later? I'd like to know what it is I'm supposed to have done...?'

For a moment he stood and stared sadly at the body in the bed. She didn't move. Eighteen years of marriage (some of them pretty good years too) and she couldn't even bring herself to acknowledge him. What had he done wrong?

Walters pushed his way through the growing crowd of rotting bodies gathered around his front gate and began the short walk to work. He didn't know why these people were there or what it was they wanted. They'd been there for days now. Didn't they have homes to go to? More to the point, didn't they have jobs to go to? Was he solely responsible for keeping the country running? It was certainly beginning to feel that way this morning. There wasn't a single car out on the roads. He couldn't see any of the usual faces he saw heading off to work or taking the children to school or walking the dog. All he could see were more of these dirty, ragged people. Some of them had tried to grab at him and pull his clothes as he passed them and he couldn't understand why. What did they want from him? What had he done to them? He ran to the end of the road, hoping that they would disappear by the time he got home tonight.

His first port of call (as it was every morning) was the newsagents on the corner of Marshwood Road and Calder Street. The shop was quiet. Walters picked up his usual paper (last Tuesday's again � bloody annoying � he'd bought the same paper seven times now) and dug deep in his pocket for some change. There was no-one about to serve him (again). In temper he slammed the coins down on the counter (next to the coins he'd left there yesterday morning) and left the shop, yet again cursing the desperate state of the country under his breath as he stormed back outside.

More bodies. He pushed them out of the way and marched towards the high street, a man on a mission.

Walters hated his job. As he did every morning, he felt his guts tighten and churn and his bowels loosen as he neared the bank. A tall, traditional and imposing late-nineteenth century building, its architectural beauty had been destroyed by the array of perspex signs which hung above and around its solid wooden doors, the gaudy advertising hoardings plastered across the inside of its large, arched windows, and the ATM which had been crow-barred into what had once been a street-level window. Ignoring the unwanted attention of yet another rancid, dribbling corpse which hurled itself at him, he paused to check the screen of the ATM. Bloody thing was down again. No doubt he'd get the blame. Nothing short of 99.85% uptime was good enough for the bank. Another target missed, and he hadn't even made it through the front door yet.

The staff door at the side of the building was already open. That was completely against the company's security policy. Which idiot had left it open? Didn't they know there was a strict security procedure to be followed each morning before anyone could go inside? Angrily he stormed into the building and slammed and bolted the door shut behind him. He'd let himself out last thing on Friday evening and he'd assumed that one of the others would have locked the doors after him. Christ, could the bank have been left open all weekend?

By quarter past nine only three other members of staff had arrived for work. The branch manager (Brian Statham, ten years Walters' junior) had already been in his office when Walters had arrived, pacing about furiously, slamming into the door and occasionally banging against the glass. Two of the other clerks � Janice Phelps and Tom Compton � were dead at their desks. Janice was slumped over her computer terminal whilst Compton had fallen off his chair and lay spread-eagled on the carpet. Walters was appalled by the lack of work being done around him. He knocked on Statham's door to try and get something done about it but his manager seemed unconcerned and was only marginally more responsive than the others. He took it upon himself to try and improve the situation. There was no way they could run the branch on a skeleton staff like this, was there? He dug out the telephone numbers of some of the missing staff from their personnel files and tried to call them to find out where they were and what was happening. He cursed when he couldn't get the telephones to work. The damn lines were still down.

He just had to get on with it, Walters decided. It was half-past nine, time to open the branch to the public, and it was all down to him again as usual. He disappeared back into the manager's office and took the front door key from his desk drawer. He then walked the length of the banking hall, unlocked the heavy wooden doors and pulled them open.

Nothing happened. A few random figures in the street stopped and turned around to see what the noise was but, other than that, nothing happened. Walters sadly remembered a time when the banking hall would have been filled with an endless queue of customers all day every Monday, and the queue would have been out the door first thing. How things had changed.

He dejectedly wandered back and took up his position behind his till.

Walters didn't mind hard work. He could cope with an in-tray piled high with papers and a huge queue of customers at the counter. None of that bothered him just as long as everyone was pulling his or her weight. He'd happily work until midnight if everyone else worked that late too. But today that wasn't happening. He was already annoyed by the fact that less than half of the staff of the branch had turned up for work today. What was really winding him up, however, was the fact that he was the only one who seemed to be doing anything.

It was almost midday. The bank had been slowly filling with customers for the last half-hour. After waiting until almost eleven o'clock before the first customer of the day had appeared, a ragged bunch of them had now dragged themselves up the concrete wheelchair access ramp and through the doors. Unsavoury looking types, they hadn't actually seemed to want anything, they'd just wandered up and down on the other side of the glass panel which separated the back-office from the public area. Walters had shouted at them and tried to get them to come to his till. They'd crowded round when they heard his voice, but he still didn't know what it was they actually wanted.

Behind the counter absolutely nothing was happening. Walters glanced back over his shoulder occasionally and shook his head in despair. Lazy bastards, he thought to himself, you bunch of lazy bastards. There he was, trying his best to deal with the customers, while they just sat there and did nothing. Janice was still face down on her computer keyboard and Compton hadn't yet got up from the floor. Statham � inexperienced, overpaid and bloody useless in Walters' opinion � was still pacing up and down in his office. None of them had lifted a bloody finger to help him all morning.

Usually he could take it. Usually he'd stand at his till and stew about them in silence or he'd find a reason to disappear off to the stationery room and hide there for as long as he could, forcing the others to serve a few customers. Today was different. Today the others weren't only doing very little, they were doing absolutely nothing. Walters wasn't prepared to sit back and let them take advantage any longer. He'd had enough. Maybe it was the lack of respect shown to him by his family that had pushed him over the edge? Perhaps it was the dire and deteriorating state of the country? Was it the fact that the customers in the banking hall (and there were more of them now) were all but ignoring him too? Could it have been the appalling conditions he suddenly had to work under? No heat or light, no computer or telephone, and not even any money in his bloody till. Whatever it was that had tipped the balance, he decided at last it was time to do something about it. For the first time in as long as he could remember he was finally ready to stand up for himself and speak his mind.

`Staff meeting,' he shouted suddenly. The bodies in the banking hall turned towards the noise and slammed up against the glass, trying desperately to get to him. A short distance away Brian Statham's body also threw itself against the door of its office. Unperturbed, Walters slid his `till closed' sign into position and closed his till drawers. `I want a staff meeting right now,' he demanded angrily. `I've had enough of this.'

Ignoring the rotting clientele on the other side of the counter (whose numbers were rapidly increasing as a direct result of his sudden outburst) Walters strode up to the door of the manager's office and flung it wide open in temper. Statham's body lurched towards him.

`We need to talk, Brian,' he said as he shoved the decaying bank manager back into its room and blocked its way out with its desk. `Things just can't go on like this. I'll get the others in.'

Suddenly feeling strangely empowered, Walters strode back out into the main office. He grabbed hold of Janice Phelps' shoulder and peeled her back from her computer before tipping her back on her swivel chair and wheeling her through to the manager's room. Tom Compton was heavier and a little more awkward. He dragged him along the floor before putting his arms under the dead man's shoulders and lifting him up and sitting him down on one of the customer chairs on the other side of the office. His body was bloody heavy. Walters had to use all his strength to get him in and get him sat down.

With Statham trapped behind his desk and the other two now in position, Walters took the floor.

`You all know me pretty well,' he began, suddenly trembling with nerves, hoping that the others couldn't tell. `I'm a reasonable man and I'll do whatever's expected of me.' He paused and looked around at the lifeless faces which surrounded him. Ignorant bastards weren't even looking at him. He continued regardless. `We've all got a job to do here. Now in the past you might have thought that you were better than me and that your jobs were more important than mine, but I want to put things straight. We're all small cogs in a much bigger machine.' He paused again, pleased with the clich� he'd just managed to slip into his address. It made him sound more confident than he actually was, although his nerves were now beginning to fade slightly. `Without me none of you would be able to do your jobs properly.' He took another deep breath before making another crucial point. `Without me this branch wouldn't function.'

Walters paused for a moment to let the others fully absorb the enormity of what he was saying. Almost on cue Compton's body slid off the chair he'd left it on. Its head hit the wall with a dull thud. Walters, thrown off his stride momentarily, seethed with anger. He picked up the corpse and threw it back onto its seat.

`You see,' he yelled, finding it hard to keep calm and controlled, `that's exactly the kind of thing I wanted to talk to you lot about. You all think it's funny, don't you? You think you can all have a good laugh at my expense. Well you can't, not any more. I've had enough. I've had enough of being the butt of all your stupid bloody jokes and of having to do all the donkey work around here. It's not fair, do you hear me?'

Statham's corpse became more and more animated as the volume of Walters' voice increased. Other than that, however, the other dead bodies failed to respond. Their lack of reaction incensed him.

`How dare you?' he screamed. `How dare you treat me like this? Show me some bloody respect, will you? I've been working flat out this morning while you've all been sat on your backsides doing nothing. If I stopped working like you lot then this place would grind to a halt in seconds. Well things are going to change round here. I'm not going to carry you anymore, do you hear me? From now on you're on your own...'

Still no response.

Walters grabbed Janice Phelps by the scruff of her neck and screamed into her dead, decaying, discoloured face.

`Are you listening to me?'

Janice wasn't, but the other bodies in the building clearly were. The dead hordes in the banking hall began to beat their rotting fists against the walls, driven wild by the desperate man's voice. Walters ignored the noise as best he could.

`There's not a lot that any of us can do today, not until the power comes back on anyway,' he said, his voice now fractionally calmer. `I'm going to shut the branch and I suggest we all go home. We'll come back tomorrow morning and try again, shall we?'

He looked around the room again for a response but didn't get one. The hammering on the wall behind him continued unabated.

Walters stood in the middle of the manager's office for a moment, surrounded by his dead colleagues, and he realised that he felt a little better. The others hadn't agreed with him, but they hadn't turned against him either. More importantly, he'd just taken a managerial decision and no-one had argued. Could it be that he was about to be shown some respect? Had the rest of them finally realised just how important he was to this office and to the company? Bloody hell, he thought, maybe he should try the same approach on his family when he got back home. Maybe he could make them listen to him too?

`I'm going to lock the door,' he said, his voice suddenly cocksure and uncharacteristically strong.

He still had the key in his pocket from when he'd opened up hours earlier. Brimming with unexpected confidence he stepped over the outstretched feet of Compton's body (which had slid down off the chair again) and left the manager's office. He walked through the back-office and made his way towards the heavy security door which separated the staff from the customers. Security conscious as ever, he peered through the fish-eye lens viewing hole before going through. Bloody hell, he thought, the banking hall was suddenly full of customers. Now this was how it always used to be on a Monday. With no computers working and no cash in his till he couldn't serve them of course. He'd just have to go out there and make an announcement. He'd tell the customers how things were going to be in the same way he'd just told the staff. He was getting pretty damn good at taking charge of situations.

A deep breath and he opened the door. A sudden, second-long pause followed before the huge mass of rotting flesh which had filled the building turned and lurched towards him. Ignorant to the sudden danger of his situation, Walters pushed deeper into the crowd, fighting to move forward as everything else pressed against him.

`If you could just bear with me for a second please, ladies and gentlemen,' he shouted as he struggled to stay upright. A sudden surge of decaying corpses from the general direction of the main entrance door knocked him off-balance and altered his direction. He found himself shuffling helplessly further back into the building and reached out to try and stop himself moving. The bodies pushed him back against the wooden counter. He climbed up onto the other side of his own till and stood tall above the crowd. Before trying to speak again he brushed himself down. He was covered in stains from the customers.

`Now look,' he shouted, `I'm sorry but we've got some problems here today. Our computer systems are down and staff shortages mean that we've not been able to get into the safe. I apologise for any inconvenience, but I'm going to have to ask you all to leave. If you'd like to come back tomorrow morning I'm sure we'll be able to...'

Another forward surge in the crowd interrupted him. The sound of his voice seemed to be attracting interest from all around. The bank was filling up instead of emptying. For some strange reason more and more people were trying to get inside. The situation was beginning to get uncomfortable.

`Look,' Walters tried again, `I realise this is out of the ordinary and I understand that you've been inconvenienced, but I do need your cooperation. There really is nothing more I can do for you today. Please come back tomorrow when I'll be more than happy to...'

Damn. They still weren't listening. Still more people were trying to cram into the building. Walters couldn't stand it when people didn't listen to him.

`Please,' he yelled, now shouting at the top of his voice again to make sure that even the people still struggling in the doorway to get inside could hear him, `let's have some common-sense here...'

Without realising it had happened Walters had gradually been forced further and further back along the counter. He now found himself at the opposite end of the banking hall to the doors he'd originally intended closing. Between him and the other end of the long, narrow room were at least a hundred furious customers. He looked down into the faces of the nearest few. Christ, they looked angry. If he wasn't careful the situation might turn nasty. He banged on the wall behind him, hoping that one of the others in the manager's room would hear him and come out to help.

`Could I have a hand out here please,' he shouted, watching anxiously as another wave of bodies attempted to cram themselves into the already tightly-packed building. `Tony... Brian... could one of you come and...'

His words were cut short as the heaving movement of the bodies at the far end of the building rippled along the room and reached him. With nowhere else to go the closest of them reached up for him. Two or three of them managed to catch hold of the bottom of his bank uniform trousers. He recoiled and tried to pull away but lost his footing. He slipped down from the counter and fell into the bodies below him like a bizarre middle-aged crowd surfer at a concert. Panicking, and fearing for his life, he covered his head with his hands and curled himself up into a ball. He had to move. Crawling on his hands and knees he began to slowly move forward, weaving through the forest of decomposing feet which continued to stagger deeper into the bank. For a fraction of a second he thought about trying to help the others get out but he knew he couldn't go back. Without him realising it had happened the coward in him had suddenly been allowed to take control again. The momentary flame of strength and defiance that had burned today had suddenly been extinguished just as quickly as it had been lit. Terrified he closed his eyes and kept pushing forward, ignoring the countless bodies which stood and blocked his way, working his way around them. He accidentally knocked a handful of them down and they fell like skittles. He kept on moving, forcing himself on inch by slow and painful inch until he was level with the front door of the bank. Should he try and stand up to close and lock it? He knew it was impossible � he'd never be able to do it. Knowing that he was weak and hating himself for his lack of courage and strength, Walters instead kept on crawling forward until he was out of the building, down the ramp and onto the street. The crowd slightly thinner, he picked himself up and began to run, glancing back at the overrun bank for a second before sprinting towards home. Ten o'clock. A half-eaten can of cold baked beans and three-quarters of a bottle of whiskey later.

The house was silent, save for the occasional thump from Matthew upstairs. Walters sat alone in darkness at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. He couldn't stop thinking about the events of the day now drawing to an end. It was one thing that he'd left the bank wide open and abandoned his colleagues, but it was another aspect of the dark day just passed which concerned him more. For a moment back there today he'd actually felt like somebody and it had felt good. It had felt damn good. But he'd been brought back down to earth with a harsh and sudden bump. The bitter truth was that he was still a nobody. A forty-seven year old stationery clerk and cashier with no prospects, a family that weren't interested in him and an increasingly bleak future. Maybe he should just accept where he was and who he was and do his best to live with it? Stick with what you know, that had always been one of his father's sayings. Don't take risks and don't take chances. We're not all made for great things. Stick with what you know.

Walters got up from his seat and shuffled out into the hallway. He paused to look out at the dark crowd of bodies at the end of his drive before wearily climbing the stairs to bed, a final tumbler of whiskey in his hand. He undressed, put his dirty shirt in the washing basket with all the others, and then put on his pyjamas. He could still hear Matthew banging around in his bedroom. Bloody teenagers, he thought. He should be sleeping or resting or at the very least studying. If only his son knew what he had to put up with every day. His attitude would soon change if he was the one who had to face the daily indignities and humiliations of office politics. Christ, he hoped Matthew didn't make the same mistakes he had. If only he'd worked harder at school and not just taken the first job he'd been offered after leaving...

No point dwelling on all that now, he thought as he climbed into bed behind June. She had her back to him. She was still in the same position as he'd left her this morning. She hadn't done the washing or the shopping. In fact, it looked like she'd been in bed all day again. Bloody hell, she didn't know how easy she had it. If she'd had to put up with what he'd faced today...

He wrapped his arm around his wife's cold, lifeless and rapidly putrefying body and pulled her close. He wished she'd talk to him. He didn't want to go to sleep yet. He wanted someone to listen to his problems and reassure him that he was doing his best and that it was the rest of them who'd got it wrong. The silence was deafening.

Walters felt humiliated and let down by everyone, even those closest to him. He'd tried so hard today but, ultimately, all he'd done was make matters worse for himself. Christ, how was he going to face them all at work tomorrow?

THE HUMAN CONDITION Part i � GOING UP Barry Bushell sat at the dressing table in his wide, palatial executive hotel suite and fixed his make-up. He wondered whether this was just a fad � just a phase he was going through � or whether he was destined to spend the rest of his life dressing as a woman. He wasn't gay and he wasn't transsexual. This wasn't something he'd always wanted to do. He wasn't a drag queen or lady-boy in training. Barry Bushell was just a typical, red-bloodied, heterosexual man who happened to have recently discovered that he felt comfortable wearing women's clothes. And when the rest of the world lay decaying a couple of hundred feet below him, why the hell shouldn't he wear whatever he damn well wanted?

The last seven days had been the strangest, darkest and longest seven days of Bushell's life so far. Everything had been changed forever. If he was honest, his problems had started long before last Tuesday. A few months ago he'd been happy and settled. He'd moved in to his girlfriend Tina's flat with her and, for a time, life had been good. Their relationship had abruptly ended on what had, until then, been the worst day of his life. Out of the blue Bushell lost his job when a huge black hole was discovered in the accounts of the company he'd worked for and they were forced into administration. Gutted and penniless, he'd returned to the flat unexpectedly to find his brother Dennis in bed with Tina. She'd proceeded to tell him that Dennis was better in bed than he was and that their relationship was over. By three o'clock that afternoon he'd lost his partner, his brother, his job and his home. That nightmare day had, of course, seemed like the best Christmas ever in comparison with last Tuesday. Last Tuesday morning Bushell had helplessly watched as the entire population of the city (and, he later presumed, the country and perhaps even the world) had fallen and died. After the cruel and unexpected hand that life had dealt him recently, there was a part of him that found some slight comfort and solace in the sudden isolation and quiet. His pent up anger and frustration with the world made the pain, fear, confusion and disorientation slightly easier to deal with. Subconsciously he blamed the inexplicable trauma which had unfolded around him for his sudden `gender-realignment' (as he had labelled his drastic change in appearance). And now here he was, alone and, as far as he could tell, the last man on Earth. Almost certainly the last man on Earth in a dress, anyway.

Five days ago many of the bodies lying dead in the streets had risen. At first he'd gone back down to ground level to try and find out what was happening, only to quickly return to his isolated and comfortable hide-out as soon as he realised that the situation had worsened, not improved. The people wandering the streets down there were dead. Although they moved, there wasn't the slightest spark of life left within them. Their sudden reanimation was as improbable and impossible to explain as their equally sudden demise had been just days earlier. Bushell climbed all the way back to the top of the twenty-eight storey, five star city-centre hotel and barricaded himself in the Presidential Suite on the twenty-eighth floor. It was the safest and most sensible place that he could think of to hide. Within the hotel's three hundred or so bedrooms, many kitchens, function rooms, dining rooms, bars, restaurants and sports facilities he'd been able to find pretty much everything he'd need to survive, and a vast wardrobe of women's clothing, make-up and accessories to boot.

He stood up, smoothed the creases out of his dark blue dress, and looked himself up and down in the full-length mirror to his right. God I look good, he thought, pretty damn convincing. His first experiments with make-up last week had been over-the-top and amateurish but now he was definitely getting the hang of it. He wore a long, straight blonde wig which he'd taken from a shop-window dummy but he hoped that in time his own hair would grow to a sufficient length for him to be able to style it. He'd stopped biting and started painting his fingernails and he was finally getting the hang of walking in heels. That had been the hardest part of all but it had been worth all the effort. The knee-high leather boots he'd found in a bedroom on the seventh floor looked perfect with this outfit. Am I confused, Bushell thought to himself in a moment of self-doubt, or have I just gone completely fucking insane? Whatever the answer to his question, he was relatively happy and, all things considered, he felt good. He could do whatever he wanted now. He was in charge. If he wanted to wear a dress then he'd wear a dress. If he wanted to walk around naked, then that was what he'd do.

It was starting to get late. This was the time of day he really didn't like. This was when he found it hardest being alone and when he started to think about everything that had happened and everything he'd lost. His sudden change of outfit had been deliberately timed to give him a much needed confidence boost to help him get through the long, dark and lonely hours until morning. As much as he was comfortable in his own company, there were times when he needed the isolation to end and when he desperately needed to see and speak to other people. He lit lamps in all the windows of the suite at this time every night, praying that someone out there would see them but at the same time also hoping that no-one would. He had to let the world know where he was, but in doing so he left himself feeling vulnerable and exposed. But he couldn't not do it, he continually reminded himself. He would be safer with other people around him. Problem was that so far there hadn't been any other people...

Bushell walked around the perimeter of the vast suite (which covered almost the entire top floor of the building) lighting candles, lamps and torches in every available window.

Distracted by the increasing complications of his own already complex situation, he remained blissfully unaware of sudden movement and confusion outside. For the first time in a week a vehicle had entered the city.

`You're a stupid fucking idiot, Wilcox,' Elizabeth Ferry screamed hysterically. `I said keep out of the city, not drive right through the bloody city-centre. Fancy a little late night shopping do we?'

`Shut up,' Wilcox hissed. `If it hadn't been for the fucking noise you two make with your constant bloody talking I wouldn't have taken the wrong turn in the first place!'

`Don't bring me into this,' Doreen Phillips snapped. `It's got nothing to do with me.'

`It's never got anything to do with you, has it, Doreen?' piped up Ted Hamilton from the seat directly behind her. `Of course it's your fault. It's got everything to do with you. You're a bloody trouble maker, you are.'

Doreen turned round and glared at Ted who, as usual, was filling his face with chocolate.

`And you're a fat bastard who should...'

`For Christ's sake,' Elizabeth sighed, interrupting her, `give it a rest, will you?'

Doreen immediately stopped talking, folded her arms and slumped into her seat like a scolded child.

`Just keep going,' John Proctor's comparatively calm voice suggested from three seats back. `We're here now and shouting at each other isn't going to help. Just keep driving.'

Nick Wilcox took one hand off the steering wheel for a couple of seconds, just long enough to rub his tired eyes. He'd been driving for what felt like hours and he was struggling but he wasn't about to let the others know. They annoyed him beyond belief. He'd so far only found five other living, breathing human beings since all of this began. So why did it have to be this five?

This ragged, dysfunctional group of survivors had been together for just three days. They'd found each other by chance as they'd each individually wandered through the remains of the devastated world. Elizabeth and John Proctor had been the first to meet, Elizabeth having walked into the church where Proctor used to preach just as he was tearing off his dog-collar and walking out. A cleric of some thirty years standing, his already wavering faith had been shattered by the cruel and unstoppable infection which had raged across the surface of the planet. If this God is so powerful, loving and forgiving, he'd asked Elizabeth , then how could the fucker let this happen? Proctor's sudden loss of faith had been as powerful and life-changing as his initial discovery of the church had been in his early days at college. In all seriousness Elizabeth had suggested that the plague might be some kind of divine retribution � a Noah's ark for our times. Proctor told her in no uncertain terms that he thought she was out of her fucking mind.

Ted Hamilton, a plumber, part-time football coach and full-time compulsive comfort eater, had been on the roof of an office block working on the water pipes when the infection had struck. He'd had an incredible view of the destruction from up there but he'd been too afraid to come down. He'd sat on the roof for hours until he saw Doreen Phillips walking down the high street, shopping bags in hand, stepping gingerly over and around the mass of tangled bodies which covered the pavements. Together they'd wandered around aimlessly and pointlessly in search of help which never came. Their constant shouting and noise had eventually attracted the attention of Paul Jones, a sullen and quiet man who kept himself to himself but who recognised the importance of sticking with these people, no matter who they were or how stupid they appeared.

Jones had suggested building themselves a base from where they could explore the dead land around them and, hopefully, find more survivors. As obvious and sensible as his plan had been, it also proved to be unnecessary. As they struggled to establish themselves in a deserted guest house on the edge of a small town, more survivors had found them. Three days ago the eerie silence of the first post-infection Friday morning had been disturbed by the unexpected arrival of a fifty-three-seater single-deck passenger bus driven by Nick Wilcox. Wilcox � who had previously driven such buses for a living � had ploughed through the town with a nervous disregard for anything and everything. Jones and Hamilton flagged him down and it was only the quick reactions of Elizabeth Ferry (who, with John Proctor, was already travelling with Wilcox) that stopped him from gleefully running them down in the same way he'd destroyed several hundred rotting bodies already that morning.

The motley collection of survivors made the bus their travelling home. It was relatively strong, comfortable and spacious and there was more than enough room inside for them, their belongings, and as many boxes of provisions and supplies as they could lay their hands on. And the bus had a huge advantage over everywhere else they'd previously tried to shelter because it moved. When things got too dangerous or there were suddenly too many bodies around they just started the engine and drove somewhere else.

`Just keep driving, Nick,' Proctor said, his calm and deceptively relaxed tone helping to settle the group and diffuse the mounting hysteria within the bus. `Just keep going until we reach a major road then follow it back out of the city.'

`I can't see the bloody road,' Wilcox cursed anxiously through gritted teeth, `never mind follow it.' Even with his headlights on full-beam he could see very little. The streets were teeming with movement as the dead continually staggered into the path of the huge, bulky vehicle. His vision already severely limited, he was forced to frequently flick on his wipers to clear blood, gore and other splattered remains from the wide windscreen in front of him.

`Does anyone know where we are?' Elizabeth asked hopefully. `Anyone been here before?'

Her question was met with silence from the others. `We could just stop,' Ted Hamilton suggested, his mouth still full of food. `We've done it before, haven't we? Sit still and shut up and they'll leave us alone after a while.'

`Come on, Ted,' Elizabeth sighed, `there's got to be a better way. They'll take hours to go, you know that as well as I do, and there are hundreds of them around here. I don't want to spend another night lying on the floor.'

`I'm not sleeping on the floor again,' Doreen immediately protested in her grating, high-pitched voice. `It's bad for my back. When we did...'

`Doreen,' Hamilton interrupted, `with all due respect, love, would you please shut your fucking mouth. You couldn't keep quiet if you tried.'

Wilcox managed half a smile as he steered the bus around a sharp bend in the road and powered into another group of shuffling corpses. He knew as well as the rest of them that several hours of absolute stillness and silence would be necessary if they wanted to try and fool the bodies into leaving them alone. With Doreen on board it was impossible to have even five minutes of silence, never mind anything longer.

`Bloody hell,' Hamilton said suddenly, swallowing his last mouthful of food and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. `Look at that.'

`Look at what?' Paul Jones asked, quickly moving forward along the length of the bus towards the others and surprising them with his sudden involvement. Hamilton pressed his face up against the window and pointed up.

`There,' he mumbled.

`What is it?' demanded Elizabeth anxiously. Apart from Wilcox (who was craning his neck to see what was going on from behind the wheel) the rest of the survivors stared out into the unending darkness on the left hand side of the bus, not knowing what they were looking for but desperate to see whatever it was that Hamilton thought he'd seen.

`A light,' he said quietly, not quite believing himself, `up there.'

Visible fleetingly between the tall, dark buildings which lined the streets along which they drove, the light � although relatively dull � appeared to burn brightly through the otherwise total blackness.

`Head towards it,' Doreen demanded.

`Where is it?' Wilcox yelled.

`Over to the left,' Proctor replied. `You watch the road and we'll keep an eye on the light.'

High above the disease-ridden streets Bushell's quiet and solitary life seemed now to be filled with a series of infuriating contradictions. He wanted to be surrounded by light, but the brightness made him feel vulnerable and exposed. Likewise darkness made him feel safe but it was also unsettling and cold and he was scared of the shadows that filled the hotel at night. He wanted to hear some noise to end the eerie silence but, at the same time, he wanted the quiet to remain so that he could hear everything that was happening in the dead world around him. He wanted to sit out of sight in the relative comfort of his suite but he also felt compelled to check each window and stare outside almost constantly. He knew that he was alone in the building and that it was secure (he'd checked every one of the rooms and had kicked out every moving body himself over the last week) but an uneasy combination of nerves and paranoia convinced him almost constantly that there were bodies on the staircases and walking the halls. He felt sure that rotting hands would reach out of the shadows for him whenever he opened a door. Whatever he was doing he felt uncomfortable and unsafe. It was far easier to handle the situation in daylight. Each night he found the darkness harder to cope with, and that led to the cruellest paradox of all. Bushell's fear would keep him awake through almost the entire night. Only when the morning (and the light) came was he finally able to relax enough to sleep. Invariably he would drift and doze through the morning and early afternoon and miss almost all of the precious daylight.