Croft had successfully kicked the habit five months ago but had started again yesterday. It didn't seem to matter anymore. He lit his cigarette and acknowledged the two women who turned around to see who it was who had joined them. `You all right Dr Croft?' Yvonne asked.
He nodded and blew a cloud of smoke out into the still air just in front of his face. `I'm okay,' he replied, his voice quiet and tired. `You two?' Sunita nodded instinctively but otherwise didn't reply. `My Jim,' Yvonne said softly, `he used to love the dark. Sometimes, when he couldn't sleep, he'd get up and go and sit in the bay window at the back of the house and watch the sun come up. He used to love it when the birds started singing. If he was feeling romantic he'd wake me up and take me downstairs with him. Didn't happen often, mind.'
Yvonne smiled momentarily and then looked down at the ground as the sound of bird song in her memory was swallowed up and overtaken by the all consuming silence again, leaving her feeling empty, vulnerable and lost. She wiped a tear from her eye. She was in her early fifties but the strain of the last few days had left her looking much older. Her usually impeccable hairstyle was frayed and untidy, her once smart business suit now crumpled and unkempt. Sunita sensed her grief and put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her close. She knew that Yvonne's husband had worked in an office across town and that, on the first morning, she'd gone there and found him dead at his desk, face down in a pile of papers. `I can handle the dark as long as I'm not on my own,' Sunita said. `When I'm on my own my mind starts to play tricks. I start convincing myself that there's someone else there.' `You'd be lucky to find anyone these days,' the doctor sighed. `Anyway, never mind the dark, I'm having enough trouble trying to deal with what's happening in the light,' he admitted. `You any closer to working out what's happened yet?' Yvonne asked innocently as she turned to look out of the window again. Croft shook his head and looked away, trying to hide his sudden frustration and annoyance. Why did everyone assume that just because he was a doctor he'd somehow be able to find a reason and explanation for their impossible situation? Christ, no-one had ever come across anything like the virus or disease or whatever it was that had killed so many people in such a short period of time. And to his knowledge no-one had ever risen after two days without moving or breathing either.
Nothing had ever happened like this before so of course he didn't know what the bloody hell had caused it. With his sudden anger close to boiling to the surface he forced himself to bite his tongue and remain calm. Inside he felt like screaming at Yvonne and telling her to go and look for the answers to her questions in a fucking medical encyclopaedia but he knew it wouldn't achieve anything other than to make an already unbearable situation more tense and unbearable still. He took a deep breath and sucked in another lungful of smoke. She wasn't trying to wind him up. He silently reminded himself that she was just trying to get through this like everyone else. `You checked on Sonya?' Sunita asked. He nodded. `She all right?' `She's fine. She's sleeping.' `Lucky cow,' mumbled Yvonne. `I haven't slept properly for days.'
Croft finished his cigarette and dropped the glowing stub onto the floor before putting it out with his foot. He held his head in his hands. Without power it was as dark inside the building as the night was outside. The brightest lights were the glowing ends of Sunita and Yvonne's cigarettes moving through the cold air. Exhausted, the doctor closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind. He'd tried several times in the last few hours to completely empty his head of all conscious thought and switch off but nothing seemed to work. Even the smallest, most insignificant noise or the slightest thought was enough to bring him crashing back to reality in seconds. And even though he was one of only a handful of people left alive, the disturbances and distractions were constant and unending. `You see that young lad who came in this morning?' Yvonne