Autumn The City Page 0,28
the seat. Clare sat down next to him. 'You okay?' she whispered. 'I'm all right,' he replied, still clutching his chest and with his face screwed up in agony.
His breathing was heavy. Heath paced up and down anxiously in front of the car. Holmes had disappeared again. Moments later and he re-emerged from the staircase, carrying yet more provisions including, Heath noticed, his precious beer. They loaded the boot until it was filled to capacity. Holmes casually threw the remaining carrier bags of food at Clare who grabbed hold of them as he slammed the door shut. Heath introduced himself as he sat down in front of them. 'I'm Bernard Heath,' he said as Holmes started the engine and turned the car in a quick, tight arc. He drove at speed back towards the entrance to the car park as the sweat-soaked and overweight university lecturer next to him struggled to turn round and face Jack and Clare. 'I'm Jack Baxter,' he replied, still wheezing, 'this is Clare. Thanks for...'
'You with anyone else or are there just two of you?' Holmes interrupted. 'Just the two of us. What about you?' 'There are about forty of us,' Heath answered. 'Does anyone know what's happened?' Jack asked hopefully. Heath shook his head. 'Haven't got a clue,' he replied and, with that, the brief conversation abruptly ended. Holmes drove back down the entrance ramp and deep into the crowds of bodies, destroying any of them unfortunate enough to stumble into his path.
Chapter Eleven
'I can't do this,' Paul said suddenly. It was the first time that either he or Donna had spoken for more than an hour. 'Can't do what?' 'Stay here like this. I can't handle it. I can't just sit here knowing they're out there waiting...' 'Well you're going to have to handle it, aren't you? There's not a lot else we can do.' Still crouching in the training room where they'd hidden since the incident hours earlier, the two survivors knew that there were still bodies out on the landing. Occasionally Donna plucked up the courage to peer out through the window, immediately moving out of sight again at the faintest sign of activity in the corridor outside.
She had spent the last hours trying to work out why the creatures were there at all. Had they been trapped by the heavy landing doors swinging shut, or had they made a conscious decision to wait there for the survivors to emerge again? Were they even capable of conscious decision making? It was impossible to tell. Assuming that it had been sound that first attracted them to the tenth floor, Donna had come to the conclusion that it had been a domino effect of sorts that had drawn others to the scene. It seemed logical that the noise made by the first body trying to force its way inside had attracted another which in turn had attracted another and another and so on... 'So what are we going to do?' Paul moaned. Christ, he really was beginning to irritate Donna now. 'Jesus,' she sighed, 'I don't know.' 'We can't sit here forever, can we?' 'But what are we going to gain from leaving?'
'We're ten floors up here. The only way out is to go down the staircase and if any more of those things appear then we're going to have a hell of a job trying to get through them when we need to get out, aren't we?' He was right. She didn't bother to acknowledge him but she had to admit that he was right. Much as she wanted to stay hidden in the office, she knew that if she followed her earlier line of thinking through, then more and more of the bodies could be attracted to the scene until it became impossible for the two of them to get away. Her options looked decidedly bleak; take her chances with the diseased population or sit here and wait endlessly with this whinging mouse of a man. For a few seconds she sat and weighed up the odds before deciding it was time to move. 'All right then,' she said, 'let's do it.
We'll try and find somewhere safer, if anywhere's going to be any safer, that is.' She watched Paul's face. He looked terrified. Although he had been the one who had suggested they leave, it was obvious that the grim reality of his suggestion was only just beginning to sink in. 'But how?' he stammered. 'How are