Autumn The City Page 0,91

the engine they could clearly hear more and more of the bodies thudding against the door outside. 'Bernard,' Armitage yelled, 'pull up in front of me and we'll get this one started.'

The lorry driver had also managed to locate the keys to his vehicle from the pile Cooper had found. He watched from his cab as Heath slowly pulled forward in the smaller truck and swung round in front of the larger vehicle. Armitage climbed down and ran over to an area in the far right corner of the loading bay which seemed to have been used as a makeshift garage and repair shop of sorts. Managing to locate a set of heavy duty jump leads he quickly moved back to the trucks, opened the bonnets and started work. Paul Castle nudged Croft who was still trying unsuccessfully to get the van's engine to fire.

'Join the queue,' he said. 'Wait till they've got the other truck going and then get them to do the same with the van.' Croft nodded. He gestured for Castle to move to the side and then released the handbrake, allowing the van to slowly roll a few feet forward. He turned the steering wheel and guided the vehicle closer to the trucks.

Ten minutes later and all three vehicles were started and were running. The six men stood together in the middle of the loading bay and hurriedly arranged their exit plans. Much as the university had seemed the most cold, uncomfortable and impersonal of prisons recently, every one of the men desperately wanted to be back there now. 'Do we wait?' Heath asked. 'Should we shut the engines off and hope some of the bodies disappear?'

'No point,' Croft answered. 'We might as well just go for it. The amount of bloody noise we've made will have brought hundreds of them here. It'll take days for them to disappear.' 'He's right,' Cooper agreed. 'We're not going to gain anything from putting this off.' 'Are we going to fit everyone in here?' Baxter wondered, thinking out loud. He stared at the three vehicles and tried to visualise how they were going to cram the survivors and their belongings in. 'We're going to have to,' mumbled Croft. 'There's no way we can risk trying to come out here again. Anyway, if...' His words were interrupted by yet more smashing and clattering on the other side of the metal loading bay door. The noise acted as a grim reminder that before they could think about getting out of the city, they'd first need to get out of the court building and find their way back to the university. The doctor walked across the loading bay and stopped just short of the doors. Doing his best to ignore the constant, violent battering coming from outside, he crouched down to examine the locking mechanism. The doors, it seemed, were manufactured in a kind of concertina style. Once they'd managed to unlock them, therefore, they would slide open. Equally keen to get out and get moving and feeling useless and redundant because he couldn't drive, Jack Baxter also began to study the locks. 'Christ knows how we're going to get these open,' he muttered. 'These would have been powered doors. We'll be hard pushed to get them open without any electricity.'

'We can do it,' said Cooper from close behind. 'We'll take the locks out, free any restraints and then force them open.' 'Force them open with what?' Baxter asked. 'The bloody trucks, what else?' the soldier snapped. He lay down on the ground and stared at the bottom of the door. Light was trickling in from outside and was being blocked intermittently by the constant movements of the many random bodies milling around the other side of the barrier. With an outstretched hand Cooper tried to feel the door mechanism and understand how it worked.

He could feel a metal runner buried in the concrete and it followed that some kind of pin would follow the track and keep the door in line. There would no doubt also be something similar at the top. He stood up and returned his attention to the lock which Croft was still examining studiously. 'Think you can get it open?' he asked. 'If I hit it hard enough I can open anything!' the doctor smirked. Steve Armitage appeared at their side with various spanners, wrenches and other tools. 'Found these over there,' he said, gesturing over towards the area of the loading bay