Autumn The City Page 0,26

of fear and sudden physical exertion. From the shadows of an open-fronted jewellers shop behind them a body lurched towards him and knocked him off balance. He yelped with surprise and disgust and struggled to push the obnoxious figure away. Without speaking Holmes pulled it away from him and threw it down to the ground. He kicked its head and then stamped on its face. He felt a certain degree of baseless vindication and satisfaction when it lay bloodied and battered at his feet. The men ran towards the supermarket. The body dragged itself up off the ground and followed.

'They've got to be in there,' Jack whispered as he crept along the front of the high street shops with Clare at his side. From their department store lookout they had quickly lost sight of the car. Fortunately the trail of devastation and the huge mass of desperate bodies following in the vehicle's wake revealed the route it had taken. Even from a few hundred meters back along the road they could see that a vast collection of ragged figures had stumbled along the street and gathered close to the entrance to the multi-storey car park.

'They've got to have gone into the shopping centre,' Clare said quietly. 'They must have.' In silence the two survivors continued to cautiously make their way towards the immense crowd of bodies. The events of the morning had allowed them to quickly deduce that it was primarily sound that the creatures were reacting to. Having braced themselves for some kind of bloody struggle once they were back out on the street, they discovered that as long as they were silent and moved at a painfully slow pace which matched that of the dead, they didn't seem to arouse any unwanted attention.

Moving slowly between the rotting corpses and stepping through a sea of decaying human remains took more self control and determination than either Jack or Clare had imagined. The tortuous pace left them feeling exposed and vulnerable. A journey which should have taken thirty seconds took more than fifteen minutes. Still silent, and daring to communicate only with subtle nods of the head and momentary facial expressions, the two survivors stayed close together. With almost unbearable disgust and trepidation they worked their way through the bulk of the emaciated crowd and began to climb the entrance road which led to the car park. 'What colour was it?' Jack asked, allowing himself to speak with a little more volume now that they were away from the majority of the bodies. 'What?' 'The car? What colour was the car?' 'Dark red I think,' Clare replied quietly.

They had only managed to see the vehicle for a few seconds, and they had only really seen its roof at that. It had been surrounded by a constant shroud of bodies, making it almost impossible to see anything clearly. They didn't know what size, shape, make, model or style it was. There were hundreds of cars in the car park, all abandoned when their owners had perished. 'This is pointless,' Clare whined. 'They're probably long gone by now.' Jack shook his head. 'No, we would have heard them.' 'I don't like being out here. What if those things on the street start to...' 'Shh...' Jack interrupted, turning round and lifting a finger to his lips.

'They'll be here somewhere, they have to be. I haven't seen any other crowds like the one downstairs, have you?' He didn't wait for her answer and instead kept moving forward. The same logic that had guided Jack to the top floor of the department store last night was now making him gravitate towards the top storey of the car park. It seemed sensible to presume that a survivor would have gone up as far as they could, knowing that the lethargic bodies below would struggle to follow. 'That's it,' he said suddenly as they rounded a corner and reached the top level of the car park. 'How do you know?' asked Clare. He walked towards a single car parked next to the staircase. 'Three reasons,' he explained quietly. 'First, you wouldn't normally park here, would you? Second,' he paused to lean down and touch the bonnet, 'the engine's still warm.' 'And...?' 'And look...' He pointed at the number plate and radiator grille. The front of the car was dripping with blood and gore. 'So what do we do?' 'We wait for them to come back.' The two survivors crouched down in the shadows