Autumn The City Page 0,45

the corridor and hoping that she was right. 'Let me know if you need anything, okay?' Another nod and another smile and Donna left the man alone and returned to her room. She lay down on the bed and closed her eyes tightly shut.

For a while she couldn't get his face out of her head. As if everything that had happened wasn't hard enough already, this poor sod was having to cope with it all without being able to understand a word that the other survivors said. If she felt detached and alone, she thought, how the hell must he be feeling? Dark thoughts filled Donna's mind. The longer the silence in her room continued, the darker her thoughts became.

Chapter Nineteen

Jack Baxter left his room and walked to the end of the corridor. He wasn't planning on going anywhere in particular, he just needed a change of surroundings. Like many of the other desperate individuals sheltering in the university, the relative quiet and lack of distractions in the building had left him with nothing to do but dwell on the inexplicable hell that his life had become. Jack had spent most of the day sitting on the end of his bed just thinking. He couldn't even remember what he'd been thinking about.

At the far end of the corridor was a narrow square landing leading onto a staircase. Floor to ceiling length windows let the grey autumnal light seep inside.

Jack stood a short distance away from the nearest window and peered down into the mass of dark, decaying bodies still being drawn towards the university and, in particular, the accommodation block.

Why did they stay, he wondered? He took a few cautious steps forward. His position was too far and too high for him to be seen by any of the bodies but he still took care to stay to the side and try and keep out of sight. He was terrified that one of the corpses might see him and start to react. He imagined the effect of that single reaction running through the entire crowd. He'd seen it happen several times before today - a slight disturbance in one part of the huge gathering would spread across the immense gathering like a shock wave. It had happened when the woman had jumped to her death from the window earlier.

He could just about see her from where he was standing. Poor cow, he thought. He couldn't help thinking that she was better off where she was now. 'Bloody mess, isn't it?' a sudden and unexpected voice said from close behind him. Jack quickly turned around to see that it was Bernard Heath. He'd noticed that Heath seemed to have a real problem with being on his own. He could often be seen walking around the building in search of someone to be with.

'Sorry, Jack,' Heath continued, 'I didn't mean to disturb you. It's just that I saw you standing here and I thought I'd check that you were...' 'I'm fine,' Jack said quietly, anticipating his concerns and truncating his sentence. Heath took a few steps forward and peered down into the rotting crowd. 'I reckon this lot will start to disappear sooner or later,' he said with a tone of unexpected optimism in his voice.

'As soon as something happens somewhere else to attract their attention, they'll be off.' 'Like what?' Jack asked. 'There's not really very much going on out there, is there?' Heath didn't answer.

'I'll tell you what's getting to me,' he said instead, his voice quiet and tired and unexpectedly candid, 'it's how slowly everything seems to happen around here. I mean, I'm sitting downstairs with the rest of them and no-one says a word. I look up at the clock and get distracted. Next time I look at the clock it feels like ages later but only a couple of minutes have gone by...' 'That's why I'm out here,' Jack mumbled, still staring into the dark crowd below. 'I was just sitting in my room staring at the walls and going out of my bloody mind.' 'Have you tried reading?' 'No, have you?'

'I did,' he said, scratching the side of his bearded face. 'I used to lecture here. I went back to my office a couple of days ago and picked up a few books. Brought them back with me and sat down to read one but...' 'But what?' 'Couldn't do it.' 'Why?' He shrugged his shoulders and rubbed