Autumn The City Page 0,54

to have to take?' Jack Baxter had been watching the increasingly tense conversation develop. 'What if we put a beacon on the roof?' he asked. 'What's that going to achieve?' Heath wondered. 'Think about it, if we put some kind of beacon up on high then it's not going to be immediately obvious to the bodies but a survivor...' '...a survivor would know that anything up on the roof would probably have been put there intentionally,' added Donna, completing his sentence for him. 'If we're talking about lighting a fire, then a survivor would know that any blaze would most probably start somewhere inside the building and work its way up, it wouldn't start on top, would it?' 'I understand that,' moaned Heath, sitting down on an uncomfortable plastic chair, 'but if and when those other people get here, they're going to bring the bodies with them, aren't they? It's not going to matter how careful you are with your bloody beacon, is it?'

Donna looked at the frightened lecturer for a few long seconds before turning her back on him in frustration. She understood what he was saying, she just couldn't understand why it was such a issue for him. To her the solution to their problem and the potential side-effects were obvious and unavoidable. Increasing the number of bodies outside the building seemed to be a small price to pay if it meant they could make contact with other survivors - people with transport and weapons who, it seemed, were surviving out in the open. Just over thirty miles from the city, and two and a half miles away from the concealed entrance to the underground bunker, two survivors sat together in nervous silence. Hiding in a relatively well-appointed motorhome they had taken from outside another dead town just three days ago, the couple had driven out to the most exposed and isolated area of land they had been able to find. Since being forced to leave the farmhouse where they had previously sheltered, Michael Collins and Emma Mitchell had lived from hand to mouth like scavenging animals.

Five days ago the building where they had hidden in relatively safety for the best part of two weeks had been overrun by hundreds of wandering corpses, attracted to their remote and otherwise inconspicuous location by the activity and sounds the survivors had made simply by existing. They had taken many precautions to separate themselves from the rotting remains of the population, but all their efforts had ultimately been in vain. Michael and Emma had learnt to their bitter cost that there was no way of escaping the unwanted attentions of millions upon millions of desperate, diseased and increasingly vicious corpses. The couple had heard the engine in the distance when the soldiers had emerged from their hidden base earlier in the day. At first it had seemed impossible to believe - since leaving the farmhouse neither of them had seen any indication that other people remained alive - not a single sound or movement that might have pointed to the existence of other survivors.

But the noise of the engine had been definite and unmistakable, and it had filled them both with sudden unexpected hope where before they had felt nothing but pain, emptiness and desolation. By the time they were out of the motorhome and were able to look for the source of the sound the soldiers had been long gone. They did, however, stumble upon a straight gravel track at the bottom of a hill near to where they were parked. In the absence of any other roads or pathways for miles around, the track seemed logically to be a good starting point in their search for other survivors. Michael had supposed that anyone else attempting to survive in this brutal, inhospitable world might have found themselves a base similar to the farmhouse where he and Emma had hidden. It followed that if these people were heading out for supplies, there was a fairly good chance they would be back again before long.

He was right. The darkness of early evening had all but swallowed up the last light of the gloomy afternoon when they heard the sound again. Distant and faint at first, it had quickly increased in volume. Ignorant to the dangers of being outside and exposed, Michael threw open the motorhome door and jumped down the steps. He sprinted across the long, rain-soaked grass and crouched down on a small rocky outcrop from where he