Autumn Page 0,107

in the shed which they had purposely left there for emergencies. Using the dull light from its dying bulb he scanned the machine's control panel. It had been days since they had used the generator, and he prayed that it would work tonight. He remembered Carl's instructions (he'd taught both Michael and Emma to operate the system) and began to prime the machine. He looked up and saw through the flapping door (which constantly opened and shut in the wind) that there were bodies all around. He flicked the switch to start the generator and, as it coughed and spluttered and failed, every last one of the bodies he could see immediately turned and began to walk towards the shed. He tried the generator again and, again, it died. Once more and the same response. Terrified and unable to think straight, he tried the machine for a forth time. It finally burst into life and began to chug and thump reassuringly. Clouds of dirty fumes billowed up into the swirling night air.

All around the house and throughout the surrounding countryside, approximately one and a half thousand bodies began to move towards the mechanical noise. Over fifteen hundred bodies staggered towards Michael.

There was no time to think. He kicked open the door and ran back towards the house, fighting his way through a thick sea of clumsy bodies. He kicked and punched and powered through to the back door which he lunged towards. As he tugged and pulled at the handle more than a dozen pairs of twisted, rotting hands grabbed at him, catching hold of his hair, his clothes, his shoulders and his legs and arms. He screamed and writhed to free himself but it was useless. He could struggle free from the grip of one corpse, only to be caught by countless others. He began to feel himself being pulled back into the disease-ridden crowd.

'Michael!' he heard Emma scream. He looked up and saw that she was on the other side of the back door. She was pushing at the door, struggling to open it against the sheer volume of sickly cadavers outside. Michael managed to shuffle a couple of steps to his right and get one arm back inside the building. With a strength and determination that she had never before possessed, Emma grabbed hold of him and dragged him back into the house. A body was pulled inside with him and, while Michael kicked and punched at the wretched thing, Emma slammed the door shut, severing an emaciated arm in the process.

The body on the floor stopped moving momentarily and Michael crouched down, struggling to catch his breath.

'Okay?' Emma asked, shouting to make herself heard over the noise coming from the frenzied crowd outside.

He nodded.

'Think so,' he gasped.

She turned to look out of the window in the door. The small pane of glass was filled with a mass of dark, dangerous shadows, every last one of them clamouring to get inside.

'We need to...' Michael began before being interrupted by another noise, this time from the front of the house. He looked at Emma for a split-second before standing up and running down the hallway.

It was Carl.

'Shit!' Michael yelled to Emma. 'What's he doing?'

The two survivors watched helplessly as their friend unlocked the front door. He lifted his hand to the latch and then stopped and turned to look over his shoulder when he heard the others approaching.

'Ready?' Carl asked, grinning with excitement and misguided anticipation. His face was grotesque and almost unrecognisable. Already scratched, bloodied and bruised, his features were distorted further by the dark shadows of the besieged house. He seemed blissfully unaware of what was waiting for him on the other side of the door.

'Fucking hell,' Michael gasped, 'he's going to open it! He's lost it. He's completely fucking lost it!'

Emma was rooted to the spot with fear. She couldn't move or even think. Her lips formed silent words of desperation and terror.

Carl lifted up the rusty rifle they had found and smiled again at Michael.

'Come on, Mike,' he yelled. 'We'll have them. You and me'll have the fucking lot of them!'

Michael could hear the bodies fighting to get into the house with a new found purpose and ferocity. He was about to try and talk to Carl and make him understand when he opened the door.

'Get upstairs now!' he screamed at Emma. He grabbed hold of her arm and half-dragged, half-threw her up the staircase. He followed close behind but stopped and turned back