Autumn Page 0,17

solicitor who had seemed so authoritative and keen to take control last night, who appeared to be having the most trouble accepting what he had seen and heard today. He stood in the centre of the room alongside Paul Garner (an overweight and middle-aged estate agent), struggling to persuade Emma, Carl, Michael and Kate James (a thirty-nine year old primary school teacher) not to open the door and go back outside.

'But we have to go out, Ralph,' Emma said, calmly and quietly. 'We've got to try and find out what's going on.'

'I'm not interested,' the flustered and frightened man snapped. 'I don't care what's happening. There's no way I'm going to go out there and risk...'

'Risk what?' Michael interrupted. 'No-one's asking you to go outside, are they?'

'Opening that door is enough of a bloody risk in itself,' Garner muttered anxiously. He chewed on the fingers of his left hand as he spoke. 'Keep it shut and keep them out.'

'We can't take any chances by exposing ourselves to those things...' Ralph protested.

'Things?' Emma repeated, her tone suddenly venomous and agitated. 'Those things are people you selfish shit. Bloody hell, your friends and family could be out there...'

'Those bodies have been lying dead on the ground for days!' he yelled, his face suddenly just inches from hers.

'How do you know they were dead?' Michael asked, perfectly seriously and calmly. 'Did you check them all? Did you check any of them for a pulse before you shut yourself away in here?'

'You know as well as I do that...'

'Did you?' he asked again. Ralph shook his head. 'And have you ever seen a dead body walk before?'

This time Ralph didn't answer. He turned away and leant against the nearest wall.

'Jesus Christ,' Garner cursed, 'of course we've never seen fucking dead bodies walking, but...'

'But what?'

'But I've never seen anyone drop to the ground and not get up for two days either. Face it Michael, they were all dead.'

'Look, Paul,' he sighed, 'let's be straight with each other for a second. None of us have got the first bloody clue what's happening here. The only thing I know for sure is that I'm interested in looking after myself and the rest of the people in this hall and...'

'If you're only interested in the people in here why do you want to go out there and...'

'I'm interested in looking after myself,' Michael repeated, still somehow remaining calm, 'but I need to go out there and see if I can find out what's happening and to see if any of those bodies pose a threat to us. I'm not interested in helping them, I just want to know what's going on.'

'And how are you going to find out what's happening?' Ralph demanded, turning around to face the rest of the group again. 'Who's going to tell you?'

For a moment Michael struggled to answer.

'Emma's studied medicine,' he replied, thinking quickly and looking across at her. 'You'll be able to tell us what's wrong with them, won't you?'

Emma shifted her weight uncomfortably from foot to foot and shrugged her shoulders.

'I'll try,' she mumbled. 'I can try and tell you whether they're dead or not but after that I...'

'But can't you see what you're doing?' Ralph protested, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. 'You're putting us all at risk. If you'd just wait for a while and...'

'Wait for what?' Carl interrupted. 'Seems to me that we're at risk whatever we do. We're sat here in a hall that we could knock down with our bare hands if we tried hard enough, and we're surrounded by thousands of dead bodies, some of which have decided to get up and start walking around. Staying here seems pretty risky to me.'

Sensing that the conversation was about to stray into familiar waters with yet another pointless debate about whether to go outside or not, Michael made his feelings and intentions clear.

'I'm going outside,' he said. His voice was quiet and yet carried with it an undeniable force. 'Stay in here and hide if you want, but I'm going out and I'm going out now.'

'For Christ's sake,' Ralph pleaded, 'think about it before you do anything that might...'

Michael didn't stop to hear the end of his sentence. Instead he simply turned his back on the others and walked up to the main door out of the community centre. He paused for a second and glanced back over his shoulder towards Carl, Emma and Kate. The rest of the survivors were silent.

'Ready?' he asked.

After a