Purification (25 page)

Michael found it a little unnerving to see so many charred bones. The fact that they were in a natural hollow in the ground gave the area the feeling of being a grotesque mass grave.

‘How you doing, Mike?’ Fry asked cheerfully as they neared.

‘I’m good,’ he answered, ‘just got sick of sitting in there and staring at the walls.’

‘I know what you mean,’ the other man said. ‘Guess we’ve all done enough of that recently to last a lifetime.’

‘That’s why we keep volunteering to come out here,’

Stayt added. ‘I don’t know about you, but I can’t stop and relax until I know that we’ve got rid of all the bodies here and the rest of our people are on their way over from the mainland. I just want to get it done now.’

‘How were they all doing when you saw them?’ Fry asked. ‘Jackie still trying to keep them in line?’

‘Seemed to be.’

‘Give them a week or so and I reckon they’ll all be over here,’ Stayt yawned.

‘Why should it take that long?’

He shrugged his shoulders and yawned again.

‘That’s the timescale we’ve been trying to work towards.’

‘So what’s stopping us from moving things on more quickly?’

Stayt and Fry both became quiet.

‘Apart from getting the village cleared,’ Fry eventually admitted, ‘nothing really.’

‘So we should do it tomorrow, shouldn’t we? What reason have we got for delaying it? I feel the same as you two, I don’t want to be sitting here talking about what we’re going to do when we could be doing it.’

‘I’m not sure. I think we should…’

‘Be honest, Bruce,’ Michael interrupted, ‘everyone instinctively makes excuses and tries to put things off because they’re scared. I understand because I’m the same, but the sooner we do this and get it done, the sooner we can try and get on with our lives.’

‘We know that, but clearing the village is going to be a big job and there’s a lot riding on it. We need to make sure we get it right first time.’

‘There you go again, more excuses. We don’t really have to get it all done on day one, we just have to make sure that things don’t go too wrong. Does that make sense?’

The blank expressions on the faces of the two men seemed to indicate that Michael had confused them both. ‘We just have to make sure we don’t take any unnecessary risks,’ he explained. ‘We should get in there quick, strike, and then get out again. Regroup and then go back and do the same again. Then we do it again and again until the job’s finished.’

‘Probably won’t take that long,’ Fry admitted.

‘So why are you so keen?’ Stayt asked.

‘Partly because I just want it over with, partly because of experience,’ Michael replied.

‘Experience

of

what?’

‘The

bodies.’

‘But we’ve all got that. Why should you think any differently to the rest of us?’

Michael shrugged his shoulders and kicked at the ashes on the ground next to his feet, sending a shower of sparks up into the air.

‘I don’t know about you two,’ he answered, ‘but I’ve watched those things change steadily, almost from day to day. I know there’s going to come a time when they’ve rotted down to nothing and they don’t get in our way, but what I’ve seen over the last couple of days has made me think things might get more difficult before they get any easier. Look at what’s happened so far - in just a few weeks they’ve gone from just staggering around to being aggressive and violent and having some control. And now it seems they’re starting to watch us and think about what we’re doing.’

‘What are you getting at?’

‘I think that if we don’t make a move now, then it’ll be the bodies hunting us out, not the other way round.’

29

The dull morning light crept slowly and silently across the airfield. From the top of the observation tower Clare stood and watched as the darkness gradually disappeared. It looked blustery and cold outside but the building protected and isolated her from the brunt of the harsh, almost wintry conditions. From where she was standing she could see right across to the fence and the hordes of constantly moving corpses beyond. As the light improved she could make out the body of Kelly Harcourt lying on its back in the overgrown grass, just metres away from the shuffling feet of the dead.

‘You can understand why she did it, can’t you?’ Emma asked, standing just behind her.

‘Such a shame though,’ Clare answered quietly, her voice disconsolate and low. ‘I liked her. She was nice, much nicer than Kilgore.’

‘You can’t even begin to imagine what the poor girl was going through,’ Emma sighed sadly. ‘You just don’t know how you’d react if you were in that position, do you?’

‘Makes you realise how lucky you are, doesn’t it?’

‘Suppose

so.’

‘We are lucky, aren’t we?’

Emma shrugged her shoulders. It was a strange question that Clare had asked. On the face of it they had survived where millions had fallen and that had to make them lucky, didn’t it? But every day life seemed to be getting harder, and she couldn’t help thinking that in many ways it would have been easier just to have fallen and died on the first morning. Feeling suddenly guilty for allowing herself to think so negatively, she forced herself to respond positively to Clare.

‘Of course we’re lucky,’ she said. ‘We’re lucky to be here. We’re lucky to have a chance of getting away from all this.’

Clare wasn’t really listening. She nodded and returned her attention to looking out of the window.

‘So are we just going to leave her there?’ she wondered, staring at Harcourt’s body on the ground. ‘Shouldn’t we move her or…?’

The sudden arrival of Cooper and Jackie Soames into the room interrupted the conversation. Emma quickly turned round. She could tell from the expression on both of their faces that they were far from happy.

‘Has anyone seen Keele?’ Soames asked, looking around the room hopefully. Her already red face seemed even redder and more flushed than usual.

Clare shook her head.

‘I saw him earlier,’ Emma volunteered.

‘Do you know where he is now?’

‘No, have you tried the…?’

She didn’t bother to finish her sentence. Soames and Cooper had already turned and were walking away. Donna appeared in the doorway, blocking their way out and stopping them momentarily.

‘Any luck?’ Cooper asked.

‘Not yet,’ she replied. ‘He’s not here then?’

Cooper shook his head.

‘He’s probably hiding in the outbuildings somewhere,’

Jackie Soames suggested. ‘We’ve found him there before, the cowardly bastard.’

Soames and Cooper bustled out of the room again leaving Donna standing alone by the open door. Emma was confused.

‘What the hell’s going on?’

‘Gary Keele’s done a runner,’ Donna explained. ‘We can’t find him.’

‘Why? What’s he running from?’

‘Cooper wants him to try and get the plane moving.’

‘And?’

‘And that’s it. Says he can’t do it. He suffers with his nerves apparently.’

‘Don’t we all?’

Donna

smiled.

‘I hate blokes like him, I really do. They’re all bloody talk and no action. Apparently he’s spent the last couple of weeks making noises to some of this lot about how he’s going to be the big hero and fly them all to safety. When it comes to the crunch he’s bottled it.’

‘But he can’t have left the airfield, can he?’

‘Not without getting himself ripped apart or letting a couple of thousand bodies in here he can’t.’

‘So what happens if they can’t get him to fly the plane?’

Clare asked. It was a sensible and obvious question.

‘Then we’ll have to try and get to the island by helicopter I suppose. Lawrence will end up making loads more flights and we’ll be limited on the amount of stuff we can take over with us. We’ll still get there, it’ll just take a lot longer and be more complicated, that’s all.’

‘But what happens if we can’t get…?’ she began.

‘We’ll get there,’ Donna assured her, her voice ominously lacking in conviction.

‘What the hell are you doing in here?’ Phil Croft asked.

Smoking one of his last few precious cigarettes and walking slowly through the shadows between the empty airfield buildings, the limping doctor had stumbled across Keele sitting in the corner of a dark and musty waiting room. By chance he’d spotted him moving as he’d walked past a cobweb-covered window.

Keele didn’t answer at first. He kept still, hoping the doctor would get the message and disappear. Croft’s lack of movement made it obvious that he wasn’t planning on going anywhere.

‘I’m just trying to get some space,’ Keele eventually answered, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him.

‘Christ,’ Croft laughed, ‘the population of this country has been reduced from millions to probably less than a couple of hundred and you’re trying to get some space!

Bloody hell, mate, if you want space there’s plenty of it out there. You don’t need to hide away in here to be on your own.’

‘Just piss off, will you?’

‘Fine.’

Croft glanced out through the window and noticed Cooper and various other people moving from building to building. He quickly put two and two together and reached the obvious conclusion that they were looking for the man he’d just found. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that Keele had looked up and was now watching him anxiously.

‘So how long you planning to hide in here for?’ the doctor asked, still looking out of the window.

‘I’m not hiding, I just want to…’

‘Come on, they’re looking for you, aren’t they?’

Keele didn’t want to say anything. He forced himself to spit out an answer.

‘I’m not hiding,’ he mumbled again.

‘Yes you are,’ Croft insisted. ‘So I guess what I heard someone saying last night is true, you’re too scared to fly the plane.’

‘I’m not scared.’

‘Oh, right,’ he sneered. ‘So let me see if I understand what’s going on here. You’re sitting in the dark in the corner of this dusty shithole because you want some space, and you’re not hiding from the others, you’re just choosing not to let them know where you are, is that it?’

‘Piss off,’ Keele hissed again.

‘Keele,’ Croft continued, turning away from the window to face the man in the corner, ‘let me just tell you something, and I want to make sure you understand what I’m saying, okay? I’m a doctor and I’ve spent years looking after other people and making sure they get better when they’re sick. Things have changed now and if I’m completely honest, I’m not that bothered about anyone else anymore. I’m only really interested in myself and I tell you now, you’ll do whatever you have to do to get us out of here or I’ll break your fucking legs…’

‘You don’t…’ Keele began to protest.

‘You will fly the plane to the island because if you don’t I swear I will kill you,’ the doctor said in an unnervingly calm and emotionless voice. ‘I haven’t come this far to have my chances blown by some stupid, cowardly little fucker like you. Understand? Is that clear enough for you?’

Keele didn’t respond.

Croft turned and walked out of the building, slamming the door shut behind him. Still smoking his cigarette he began the slow and painful walk back to the observation tower. He passed Donna on the way.

‘Have you seen…?’ she began to ask.

‘He’s in there,’ he replied, pointing back towards the building he’d just left.

30

Richard Lawrence left Cormansey just after ten o’clock.

The nine survivors who remained on the island stood at the end of the runway and watched the helicopter until its bright lights disappeared and were swallowed up by the grey morning gloom. They hoped that it would return later in the day as planned, bringing with it the plane and at least another fifteen people. Michael hoped that Emma would be one of them.

During the long watch the previous evening and early morning he had managed to convince Stayt and Fry to listen seriously to his concerns about the changing condition of the bodies. So much remained unpredictable and uncertain on the island and it seemed sensible to take action sooner rather than later. Never one for diplomacy, Michael had expressed his opinions in blunt, direct and honest terms to the rest of the small group over breakfast and, apart from some initial nervous reluctance, they had been largely receptive. Stayt had pointed out the immediate practicalities of their situation, and that had proved to be the deciding factor. There were already too many of them to shelter comfortably in the single small cottage any longer and they were going to have to expand into other properties. It made sense to try and get a decent foothold in the village now rather than spend the next few days moving unnecessarily from building to building to building. Better to get the bodies cleared away now. It would make the survivor’s lives immeasurably easier.

Armed with sticks, axes, clubs and blades of varying descriptions, the small group travelled from the cottage towards the village of Danvers Lye in a convoy of two cars and the pickup truck. It seemed to make sense to use several vehicles. The truck would most probably be needed to help dispose of the piles of bodies which would inevitably be accumulated as the day progressed.

This was the first real opportunity since arriving that Michael, Talbot and Guest had had to see anything of the island. It was a bleak, barren and rocky place covered in patchy grass and bracken. The ocean was almost always in view on one side or the other and plumes of cold grey water seemed to constantly be shooting into the air as tall waves crashed against jagged rocks. Trees were few and far between and the wind howled across the weather-beaten landscape. A basic network of rudimentary roads connected the various buildings, most of which were small cottages and houses; some made of old grey stone, others more modern in appearance. There was a farm over on the southwest of the island and he’d seen a few abandoned fishing boats dotted along the shore, but other than that Michael struggled to think what the inhabitants of Cormansey might have done for a living. This land was harsh and unforgiving and life would surely have been difficult at the best of times. Perhaps it was their isolation and distance from the rest of the world that the people who had lived here had craved. Whatever the reason, he thought to himself, it hadn’t done any of them any good.