Autumn The City Page 0,16

of his back. `Painful?' He shrugged his shoulders. `Not really,' he replied. `Truth is I've hardly thought about it since everything happened.' `So what did you do next?' `I went to work. Christ, there's conditioning for you. I didn't know what else to do. I mean, I couldn't get home and I couldn't think of anywhere else to go. I figured that if I was at work then I'd at least have some shelter and protection. I knew where everything was.'

`I know what you mean. That's why I'm still here.' `You worked here?' She nodded. `Typical, isn't it,' Paul grinned. `You spend most of your life trying to get out of work then you end up trapped there when everything goes belly-up.' `So was there anyone else around when you got there?' `There were plenty of people there,' he replied, `but no-one else was alive. Jesus, all the people I'd been working with just the day before were dead. All those people that I'd known for ages just gone... You get to know the people you work with, don't you? I had mates there and we'd been out drinking at the weekend and now they're...' He stopped talking and looked up at the ceiling to avoid eye contact before losing control and starting to cry again. Donna sat and watched from the other side of a wide grey desk. She said and felt nothing. Somehow she had managed to distance herself from the pain.

Perhaps it was the shock of everything that had happened? Whatever the reason, inside she felt as dead as the thousands of bodies lying and rotting on the streets. It was as if every nerve in her body had been cauterised. She didn't seem to feel anything anymore. She knew that was a bad thing but, at that moment, it helped. `Have some food,' she said, unable to think of anything else to say. She pushed a packet of biscuits across the desk. Paul shook his head. `You should eat something.' `No thanks.' `Drink?' She offered him a half-empty bottle of water. He nodded and wiped his face on his sleeve before taking the bottle from her and drinking thirstily. `So what do we do now?' he asked as he screwed the lid of the bottle back on and passed it back. Donna shrugged her shoulders. `Don't know,' she replied bluntly. `I mean we can't just sit here, can we?'

`What else is there to do?' `Christ, we should do something. We should get out there and find other people. See if we can actually find someone who knows what's going on...' `Bloody hell, I haven't seen anyone else alive apart from you. I haven't found anyone who's still breathing, so what chance have we got of finding anyone who knows what's happened?' `I know, but I...' `Look, I don't want to go out until I have to,' she continued, interrupting.

`Until I know what's caused all of this I want to stay as far away as I can from those bloody things out there.' Her voice was cold, flat and tired and her message abrupt and definite. Paul didn't bother trying to argue. He got up and made himself a makeshift bed from clothes and blankets underneath a desk. He lay there in silence and stared up into the darkness for hours. Donna sat in her chair and did the same.

Chapter Seven

Less than half a mile from the office block stood the first few buildings of a modern university campus. Separated from the rest of town by the six-lane ring road that ran along the front of a large and recently built accommodation block, the university grounds were vast. The medical school located at the far end of the complex formed part of one of the city's main hospitals. With specialist dental, children's, skin and burns departments, the hospital itself had been fundamental to the continuing health of the city's population. Tonight only one doctor remained on duty. Tonight there was only one doctor left alive. The modern accommodation block had individual rooms for several hundred students.

During the days since the disaster somewhere in the region of fifty survivors had gathered there. Some had been near the hospital or university when it had happened, others had found their way there by chance, a few dull lights and occasional signs of movement revealing the survivor's presence to the otherwise empty world. Dr Phil Croft, the last remaining medic, had just started his morning rounds