Autumn The City Page 0,59
across the table and into her eyes and nodded. Much as he wanted to follow the track and try and find the other survivors he knew that she was right. He felt strangely guilty for a moment. Did he give their relationship and need for each other the same importance that Emma appeared to? For a split second he tried to imagine being without her. He couldn't. She was all he had too.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Cooper woke up. He couldn't remember falling asleep. He remembered sitting by the window last night, staring out into the darkness and listening to the rain but, other than that, nothing. He noticed the discarded face-mask on the floor and recollections of what had happened to him came flooding back. He felt okay. He was still breathing and he still had a pulse. As far as he could tell he was still fit and healthy and alive. Surely the disease would have affected him by now if it was going to affect him at all?
The morning outside was dry and, despite the sky being dull and overcast, relatively bright. The heavy smell of death and decay hung over the city like a dense cloud of polluting fog, tainting everything with its abhorrent scent. Now that he had discarded his breathing apparatus the stench was inescapable. Regardless, Cooper quickly decided that it was just about preferable to the processed and recycled air that he'd been forced to breathe for most of the last two and a half weeks. He reminded himself that he was in the middle of a large city and that the air would surely be cleaner and more palatable elsewhere.
There would undoubtedly be better places than this. For a short time he allowed his mind to wander. Instinctively he thought about making the return trip to the base. He'd already made basic mental plans and preparations before the realisation dawned on him that he didn't actually have to go back there if he didn't want to. It was only the sense of duty and misguided loyalty instilled through years of military service that had made him think that he should return.
No doubt the other soldiers who had left the base with him yesterday would have given him up for dead by now - the officers would be more surprised if he did find his way back there now than if he remained missing in action. He suddenly found himself in a relatively fortunate position.
He was free from the restrictions of military life and the confines of the bunker and, it seemed, immune from the germ that had destroyed pretty much everything else. What remained of the rest of the world was potentially his for the taking. For a while Cooper alternated between feeling free and feeling compelled to return to his duties. He looked down into the alley below the window and watched a single bedraggled figure trip and stumble along.
Should he do something to try and help here? Could he really disappear selfishly into the distance and leave everyone and everything else to rot? It was the scale of the disaster that ultimately convinced him there was nothing he could do. What did he think he could possibly hope to do for the thousands of diseased people? It had been indicated that this was a global crisis. Even if he returned to the base, what could a handful of soldiers possibly do to help millions upon millions of dead or dying citizens? From where he was sitting it was painfully obvious that society and civilisation was as dead as any of the decaying bodies still lying face down in the gutter.
Feeling suddenly stronger and more confident Cooper decided to move. He didn't know what he was going to do or where he was going to go, he just knew that there had to be somewhere better than this cramped and cluttered storeroom. Still sweating profusely in his heavy suit (it had kept him warm through the night just ended) he peeled it off and dropped it to the ground, stripping it of any useful equipment. He felt cold and the sudden uncomfortable drop in temperature brought him crashing back to reality and reminded him of the enormity of the catastrophe that had befallen the country. For a while he considered trying to find his friends and family. Much as it hurt him to do so, he knew that it was better to believe they were already lost.