Autumn Page 0,11

get out there.'

'I'm not going out.'

'Yes, we've already established that,' the hidden man sighed. 'You're going to stay in here until you fucking starve to death...'

'Don't get smart,' Jeffries spat. 'Don't get fucking smart with me.'

Michael sensed that the friction in the corner might be about to turn into violence. He didn't know whether to get involved or just stay out of the way.

'I know what you're saying, Stuart,' Carl said cautiously, 'but we need to do something. We can't just sit here and wait indefinitely.'

Jeffries looked as if he was trying desperately to think of something to say. Maybe he was having trouble trying to reason the argument. How could you apply any logic and order to such a bleak and inexplicable situation? Unable to find the words to express how he was feeling he began to cry, and the fact that he was unable to contain his emotions seemed to make him even angrier. He wiped away his tears with the back of his hand, hoping that the others hadn't noticed, but knowing full well that everyone had.

'I just don't want to go out there,' he cried, finally being honest and forcing his words out between gasps and sobs. 'I just don't want to see it all again. I want to stay here.'

With that he got up and left the room, shoving his chair back across the floor. It clattered against the radiator and the sudden noise caused everyone to look up. Seconds later the ominous silence was shattered again as the toilet door slammed shut. Carl looked at the man in the corner for a second before shrugging his shoulders and getting up and walking away in the opposite direction.

'The whole bloody world is falling apart,' Michael said under his breath as he watched.

'What do you mean falling apart?' Emma asked quietly. 'It's already happened, mate. There's nothing left. This is it.'

He looked up and around at his cold grey surroundings and glanced at each one of the empty shells of people scattered about the place. She was right. She was painfully right.

Chapter 6

Dead inside.

Henshawe sat alone in a dark corner of a storeroom with his head in his hands, weeping for the wife and daughter he'd lost.

Where was the sense in going on? Why bother? Those two had been the very reason he existed. He'd gone to work to earn money to keep them and provide for them. He'd come home every night to be with them. He'd been devoted to them in a way he thought he'd never be with anyone before he and Sarah had got together. And now, without any reason, warning or explanation, they were gone. Taken from him in the blinking of an eye. And he hadn't even been able to help them or hold them. He hadn't been there when they'd died. When they'd needed him most he had been miles away.

Outside in the main hall he could hear the moans and cries of other people who had lost everything. He could smell and taste the anger, frustration and complete bewilderment of the other survivors which hung like the stench of rotting flesh in the cold, grey air. He could hear fighting, arguing and screaming. He could hear raw pain tearing each one of the twenty or so disparate, desperate people apart.

When the noise became too much to bear he dragged himself up onto his feet with the intention of leaving. He was about to get up and walk and leave the hall and the rest of the survivors behind when his mind was quickly filled with images of millions of lifeless bodies lying in the streets around him and he knew that he couldn't go. The light outside was beginning to fade. The day was almost over. The thought of being out in the open was horrific enough, but to be out there in the dark - lost, alone and wandering aimlessly - was too much to even consider.

He leant against the storeroom door and peered into the main hall. The brilliant orange sunlight of dusk poured into the building from above his head, illuminating everything with vibrant, almost fluorescent colour. Curious as to the source of the light, he took a few steps out of the room and turned back around. In the sloping ceiling just above the door was a narrow skylight. The storeroom he had hidden in had been added as an extension to the original building and when he had