Autumn The City Page 0,29

we going to get past them. We don't know how many of them are...' Donna thought for a moment. 'Distract them,' she said eventually. 'There are doors at either end of the landing, aren't there? We'll draw them towards one end of the office and then get out through the other.' Paul looked into space, thinking carefully. The expression on his face slowly began to change and Donna started to wonder whether she'd been hasty in her judgment of him. He had listened and he suddenly looked ready to overcome his obvious nervousness and take what was left of his life in his hands to leave the relative safety of the office.

'Okay,' he said quietly, his voice a little more positive and purposeful than it had been all morning, 'so where do we go once we're out there?' 'Don't know. From what I can see we can pretty much take our pick of the entire city, maybe even the country.' 'We could find ourselves a car and try and get away...' Donna shook her head. 'I don't think that's a good idea. If those things outside are able to hear us now, all we'd be doing is drawing more attention to ourselves. What we need is to find somewhere secure like this place, but with more than one way out.' 'There must be hundreds of places like that round here. This is a city centre for God's sake.' 'There's the main police station round the corner for a start. Then there's the hospital, the university, shops, pubs...' 'If we could find somewhere with food supplies and drinks...' 'Christ, I could murder a drink...' 'Or beds? What about finding somewhere with real beds? Bloody hell, a decent-sized house would do, wouldn't it?'

'There aren't many houses round here,' Donna said, suddenly feeling a fraction more positive about their situation. 'But you're right, when we're ready we could head out into the suburbs, maybe even further?' Paul stopped to think again. 'There's one thing that we're not taking into consideration here,' he sighed. 'What's that?' 'The bodies. We both saw what that one tried to do to you. As soon as we go outside we'll be...' 'I still don't think that body tried to do anything to me,' she interrupted, 'it just reacted to me being there. I think if I'd stood still and stayed quiet it would have walked straight past.' 'I'm not sure...' 'They don't seem to be attacking each other, do they?' 'I don't know. I haven't seen enough to be able to say...' 'Look, assuming their senses are gradually returning, how would they know that we're not like the rest of them if we played dead? We're stronger and we look in better condition than they do, but after everything that's happened to them are they really going to be able to tell?' Paul shrugged his shoulders. 'I don't know. Can we afford to take a chance like that?'

'Can we afford not to? You're right, Paul, we could be trapped in here. There might be thousands of those things here in just a few hours, there might even be that many out there now. We don't have an option.' 'When then? Now?' 'Tonight.' 'Why wait?' 'If we're relying on the fact that their senses are poor, then why not wait a little longer until it's dark outside? If they can't see us properly in daylight, what chance have they got at night?'

Chapter Twelve

Holmes drove the car the wrong way down the ring road, swerving around meandering bodies and avoiding the abandoned wrecks of other crashed vehicles. Slamming on the brake, he took a sharp right turn and followed a narrow service road between two grey university buildings and down around the back of the accommodation block. The number of bodies on the far side of the complex was considerably fewer. Clare looked up and saw people watching from the first floor windows of the large red-brick building. Holmes parked the car on a grass verge a short distance away from the block, close to an enclosed artificial turf football pitch. In silence the four survivors quickly clambered out and grabbed as many bags and boxes as they could carry from the boot of the blood-soaked vehicle. Struggling with their loads and following Bernard Heath's lead they half-ran, half-walked towards an inconspicuous blue door which was being held open by another survivor. Holmes ran back to the car after dumping his first load of supplies indoors,