Autumn Page 0,99

be difficult to see from the angle they would be approaching at.

They rushed past the trees, bushes and buildings lining the sides of the roads at a dangerous speed but neither Michael or Emma cared. Both were individually content to risk a degree of safety to get back home in the shortest possible time.

Carl was almost there.

Just a couple of hundred yards remained between him and the turning onto the track to the farm. He too searched constantly for the elusive junction. There were bodies all around him, stumbling onto the road in whichever direction he looked. Yet again the silence of the rest of the world seemed to have amplified out of all proportion every sound the motorbike made. Like a perverse Pied Piper a growing crowd of restless corpses followed him, attracted by the throaty roar of the powerful engine.

Carl's heart sank as that same roar suddenly spluttered and died.

He was out of fuel. Damn close to the farmhouse, but not close enough.

As the bike freewheeled to a standstill he frantically tried to decide what to do. He quickly took off his helmet and threw it at the closest few bodies before dumping the bike and beginning to run. Exhausted, hot and tired he sprinted down the road and towards the track with what seemed like hundreds of corpses in close (but slow) pursuit and with more swarming around him from the trees and shadows surrounding. He was faintly aware of a low mechanical sound in the distance but he was too scared to stop. He had to keep moving. He reached the turning onto the track and began to sprint up the hill in the direction of the farmhouse.

At that moment the Landrover and car appeared, both still in close convoy and both out of sight of Carl. Disorientated and surprised by the unexpected appearance of so many bodies, Michael missed the turning. The sound of their vehicles had attracted plenty of cadavers along the way, but why were so many of them here now? Had their collective interest been aroused by the noise from the Landrover when they'd first left Penn Farm earlier that morning?

Emma flashed her headlamps at Michael and gave a blast on the horn, not sure if he knew he'd passed the turning onto the track. Furious for allowing himself to be distracted by the crowds, he braked hard and tried to turn around. The road was infuriatingly narrow and his frantic three point turn took many more turns than it should have done. Each time he reversed or drove forward more and more of the shambling creatures were dragged under the wheels of the Landrover.

Emma smashed through the rotting crowd and accelerated up the hill back towards the house. The rough track seemed worse than ever - the wheels of the car were smaller and less forgiving than the larger wheels of the van and Landrover. Each dip and trough of the uneven ground caused her to lurch forward in her seat and rattled her to the core. Weak and defenceless bodies were thrown to the side but there seemed to be still more and more of them further ahead. She accelerated again and managed a momentary glance into the rear view mirror. Michael was on his way up the track close behind her.

Carl was managing to outrun the bodies. Now that he had ditched the motorbike the sound he made was greatly reduced, and in turn that reduced his attraction to the ragged corpses all around him. But he was tiring fast. The air was dry and he had a painful stitch which he tried unsuccessfully to breathe through. He knew that he could not afford to stop but at the same time he was beginning to have real difficulty in keeping going. For a second he could hear the noise he'd heard at the bottom of the track again, and this time he realised that its volume was steadily increasing. The corpses dragging themselves up the hill towards him gradually broke off their pursuit and began to stumble back down again, distracted by this new sound. Carl looked over his shoulder and then turned back to look ahead again. In the near distance he could see the gate and the barrier and, just beyond that, Penn Farm.

Without warning Emma's car appeared with Michael in the Landrover close behind. Carl span around and could hardly believe what he was seeing. He stood in the middle of the track waving