Autumn Page 0,108

when he was only a couple of steps up.

Blissfully unaware, Carl opened the door fully and, for a single second which seemed to last longer than ten, nothing happened. A moment of stillness and unexpected calm which was suddenly shattered by a tidal wave of rotting flesh and bone which powered into the house. The force of the surge was such that Carl was lifted clean off his feet and smashed against the nearest wall. In seconds the hallway was filled and Carl had completely disappeared from view, swallowed up and destroyed by the vast and unstoppable crowd.

Turning quickly, Michael ran up the stairs after Emma. She was hiding in Carl's attic bedroom. He slammed the door shut behind him.

'Get the fucking bed!' he screamed. 'Help me push it in front of the door.'

Taking one end each, the two of them shunted the heavy wooden bed down the length of the room and turned it sideways so that it completely blocked the door.

'Where's Carl?' Emma asked, although she already knew the answer. Michael didn't bother to reply. He ran over to the window and looked out. The bedroom was at the front of the house. It was dark but he could make out their Landrover and car in the yard below.

'We've got to get out,' he said, his voice trembling with emotion. 'I've still got the keys to the Landrover...'

'But what about our stuff? Christ, all our stuff's...'

'Forget it,' he snapped.

'But how are we going to get out? We can't just...'

Michael ignored Emma's questions. He opened the window and leant outside. A few of the bodies below caught sight of him and their ferocity seemed to increase when he stepped out onto the roof.

'Follow me,' he said, turning back momentarily to face Emma.

She walked over to the window and looked down.

'I can't...' she whined.

'You've got to. You haven't got any choice.'

Fighting to stay calm and in control of her body and emotions, she watched as Michael carefully shuffled around and lowered himself down along the slanted roof until his feet were resting in the guttering. Lying flat with his stomach pressed against the tiles, he shuffled sideways until he was directly above the porch. Once there he stopped and looked up at the bedroom window again.

'Come on,' he hissed. Emma looked at him and then looked down at the mass of bodies in the yard. More and more of them were reacting to Michael's voice. Unsure, she climbed up onto the windowsill and tentatively put one foot outside. Moving painfully slowly, she then lowered herself down until she was hanging out of the window. She stopped again, paralysed with fear.

'You can do it!' Michael yelled, sensing her unease. He prayed that she couldn't sense his.

He lowered himself down the last few feet onto the roof of the porch and then stood still for a moment to regain his balance. He glanced down at the shifting sea of figures below and saw that he was now close enough to be able to see the faces of the hundreds of corpses gathered around the house. Just meters away from his feet an endless column of creatures struggled to force themselves into the building.

Emma still clung tightly onto the windowsill for dear life, too afraid to move. A sound from inside the house distracted her and she looked back through the open bedroom window to see that the bed blocking the door was being shoved out of the way. The volume of bodies that had entered the house was astonishing. It was the sheer mass of cadavers that was forcing the door open. As she watched a thick and constant stream of featureless figures began to pour into the room.

'Move!' Michael screamed, distracting her. She looked down and watched as he dropped from the roof of the porch onto the yard below. It was a drop of some ten feet and he landed awkwardly amongst the bodies, twisting his ankle. Ignoring the pain and the clumsy, grabbing hands which reached out for him, he forced his way over to the Landrover and unlocked the door. Kicking and punching at the corpses holding onto him, he fought his way inside and started the engine.

Another new sound meant another surge of bodies, this time all heading towards Michael.

Emma looked up. The bodies in the bedroom were close. She had to move. She stretched her legs out behind and lay on the sloping roof, moving her toes constantly, hoping to feel the guttering and use it