Uneasy, Jones glanced down and across at the various dials in front of the driver. The bus was travelling at a furious speed along the debris-strewn streets and its passengers were being buffeted from side to side. The breakneck journey was so unsteady and turbulent that even Doreen Phillips had become uncharacteristically quiet and subdued.
'Can you see where it's coming from?' Wilcox asked, glancing up for a second to try and catch sight of the light again.
'Not sure,' Jones admitted. 'It's bloody high up though.'
Wilcox braced himself as he forced the bus up and over a mound of rubble and mangled metal at the side of the road. The passengers behind him - not expecting the sudden jolt - were thrown up in their seats as the huge machine clattered up and then back down onto the road.
'Take it easy,' protested Hamilton.
'Next left,' Jones said for the second time, his voice now a little more definite than before.
'You sure?' 'Positive,' he snapped, annoyed that he was being doubted. 'I can see it. We're almost directly under the light now.'
Wilcox slammed on his brakes and swung the bus around to the left. The second street was as difficult to navigate as the first. Huge crowds of lumbering, rotting bodies turned and dragged themselves towards the approaching vehicle. Wilcox increased his already precarious speed, knowing that the quicker they were moving, the more chance they had of continuing to make progress through the rancid crowds. Countless corpses were obliterated by the flat-faced front of the heavy vehicle. They smashed into the bonnet with a relentless bang, bang, bang which sounded like rain clattering down onto a flat tin roof.
'How far now?' he asked breathlessly.
Jones crouched down low and looked up to his right.
'Almost there.'
Proctor got up from his seat and scurried towards the two men at the front of the bus, holding onto the passenger rails and supports and struggling to keep his balance as the vehicle tipped from side to side.
'It's a hotel,' he said, panting with excitement and nerves. 'There's a sign on the side of the building.'
Wilcox nodded.
'So where do I go?' he asked, peering hopelessly into the relentless gloom.
'There must be a car park or something?' Proctor suggested. 'Maybe it's around the back...?'
'Fancy walking out in the open carrying all our stuff, do you?' Jones immediately snapped. 'Forget that, it's too dangerous. We need to get as close to the main entrance as we can. We need to minimise the distance we have to cover on foot.'
'How am I supposed to do that?' grumbled Wilcox. 'I can't see a fucking thing.'
'Here it is,' Jones interrupted. 'Sharp right now!'
Chapter Thirteen
With no time to properly consider his actions Wilcox turned the bus as instructed. The dark silhouette of the hotel loomed large in front of him.
'Where?' he screamed, desperate for some help and guidance.
'Just keep moving,' Jones yelled back. 'Keep going forward until...'
He didn't have chance to finish his sentence. The low light and the constant criss-crossing movement of hundreds of bodies made the distance between the bus and the front of the hotel impossible to accurately gauge. Tired and terrified, Wilcox jammed his foot down on the accelerator and sent the bus crashing through the front of the building. Their velocity was such that the bus continued to move until the twisted metal and rubble trapped under its wheels eventually acted as a brake. Eighty percent inside the building with only the last twenty percent of its rear end sticking out into the cold night, the bus came to a sudden, juddering halt in the middle of the hotel's wide and imposing marble-floored reception, its front wheel wedged hopelessly in an ornate and long-since dried up decorative fountain. No-one moved.
'My back...' Doreen eventually wailed from somewhere on the floor under a pile of carrier bags full of clothes and other belongings.
'Is everyone all right?' Proctor asked. No-one answered. 'Is anyone all right?' he asked again, slightly revising his original question.
Paul Jones shook his head and dragged himself back up onto his feet. He looked across at Wilcox who was trying to stem the flow of blood from a gash just above his right eye.
'Nice driving,' he sneered.
'Fuck off,' Wilcox spat.
'Shit,' Elizabeth cursed from somewhere in the darkness behind them. 'Get out of here. We've got to get out of here.'
The sudden fear and desperation in her voice was clear for all to hear. Without pausing for explanation the six survivors picked themselves up, grabbed as many of their