Autumn The City Page 0,90

asked. Armitage looked down at him and scowled. 'If we can get it started then I can bloody well drive it,' he replied, somewhat offended. Bernard Heath began to check over the smaller truck while Croft concentrated his attention on the van. He found its last driver dead at the wheel, haunched forward with his frozen face fixed in a grotesque expression of devastating pain and absolute fear. The chin of the corpse and much of the dashboard of the van were covered in drops of coagulated blood. For a moment the doctor stood and stared at the pitiful sight. What utter terror and agony must each of these people have experienced, he wondered? As he began to yank the stiff and awkward cadaver out of the vehicle he was disturbed by the sudden sound of corpses outside beginning to smash against the outside of the huge metal loading bay doors, the survivor's voices having alerted them to their presence there. As much as the body he was shifting must have suffered, he thought, at least this man's torment was over. For the desperate creatures still moving (and, for that matter, for himself and his fellow survivors too) the fear, confusion, disorientation and pain seemed set to continue indefinitely.

Cooper left the loading bay and ran back to the reception area through which they'd passed just a few minutes earlier. He was looking for the keys to the vehicles they had found. Grasped in the skeletal fingers of another dust covered body slumped on the floor in a small office behind the tall reception counter he found the key to a slim metal cabinet mounted on the wall. Inside the cabinet were door keys, drawer keys, desk keys and many other keys of countless shapes and sizes. He grabbed everything which looked as though it might belong to a car, truck or van and ran back to the loading bay. Having dragged the body away from the van Croft turned his attention to trying to get the engine started. Fortunately he had found the keys he needed on the ground in the footwell between the body's feet. He sat in the driver's seat and fumbled with the ignition. After a month of inactivity he didn't hold out much hope of them getting any of the vehicles going. 'Can you hear them?' Castle asked as he watched Croft work. Croft glanced up and looked through the windscreen towards the loading bay doors. It sounded as if they were being battered by a continual stream of bodies outside. He looked down towards the bottom of the steel shutters. He could see the metal rattling and shaking in its frame. 'Of course I can bloody well hear them,' he grunted as he returned his concentration to getting the van moving. 'More to the point, they can hear us.' He turned the key in the ignition.

The engine began to turn over but then died pathetically. His last words rang round his head as he tried the key again. The noise they were going to make getting these vehicles back to the university would be deafening. The grim reality of the situation was quickly dawning on him. It was clear that even without the engines the noise they had already made had been enough to attract many bodies to the other side of the loading bay doors, and he knew that those bodies would, in turn, draw more and more to the scene. They were quickly being surrounded. The options left now seemed simple and bleak. Get out in the van and the lorries or don't get out at all. Heath had more success with the smaller truck. Having managed to find the right key from the collection Cooper had brought back with him from the office, he tried the engine a couple of times before, on the third attempt, it dramatically spluttered and burst into life, filling the loading bay with rough, mechanical noise and belching out dirty grey floor-hugging clouds of fumes.

Never before had the taste of carbon monoxide and lead been so welcome, the university lecturer thought to himself as he accelerated the engine. Momentarily elated the other men quickly realised that now that one vehicle had started, it would most probably be possible to get the others started too. Heath watched cautiously as the needle on the fuel gauge slowly climbed across the dial, finally stopping just short of the three-quarters full mark. Even over the throaty road of