picked himself up and has grabbed hold of Ralph by the scruff of his neck. Ralph is kicking and screaming. I'm trying to push myself further and further into the shadows because I know that the trouble kicking off in the middle of the hall is about to boil over into something far more serious. The people here are right on the edge. It's not going to take much to push them over...
Ralph's been shoved down to the ground. He's lying there and I can see him panting and struggling to get up, his face pressed hard against the dirty floor. He's half-turned towards me. Even from a distance I can see sheer and absolute terror in his face. Like a man possessed he's somehow managed to push himself up and he's knocked Peters out of the way. Pumped full of adrenaline and fear, he's punching and kicking at Peters (who is half his size) and he's sent him reeling. Now Peters is on the ground and their positions have been reversed. With a desperate, terrified look in his eyes Ralph has now picked up the chair he's spent most of the last day sitting on and he's lifted it above his head. Peters is looking up at him and he's trying to crawl away backwards. I can't bear to watch. I know what's going to happen. Ralph starts to bring the chair down and I look away. I can hear him smashing the chair down on the other man. I can hear him grunting with effort and picking up the chair again and again and smashing it down on the body at his feet. I force myself to look up. I have to know what's happening. Now Peters is lying in the middle of the room in a crumpled heap, twitching and shaking with blood dripping from his head. Ralph is standing over him, still holding the chair up high, looking ready to strike again if Peters moves.
Someone - I couldn't see who it was - just ran at Ralph and tried to grab the chair from him. He's swung it at them, and he's caught them on the side of the head and sent them crashing to the ground. Now someone else - it might have been Jag Dhandra - has just run past me, sprinted down the length of the hall, tripped over Peters' now motionless body and is running down towards the main entrance.
I know what he's doing.
Jesus Christ, he's opening the door.
Oh, God, Dhandra's lost it and he's made a run for it. People are trying to get to him but it's too late to stop him. The door has been opened. I can already hear the wind and feel the cold air blowing into the building from outside. People are screaming. I can see them rushing to grab their belongings and get away from the door and move back towards this end of the community centre and...
And now I can see them.
Bodies.
There's an endless stream of grey, featureless bodies slowly dragging themselves into the room. The people out in the hall can move with much more speed and control but they're instinctively recoiling from the painfully slow cadavers which are lurching towards them.
I have to get out of here. Jesus, I need to find a way out.
There's no way I can get back through the hall - there are far too many bodies in here now - and I don't know of any other exit apart from the windows. Now there are other people around me, all moving in the same direction and trying to get away from the sea of dead flesh that continues to push its way inside. I'm trying to stand up but it's difficult to move. The main hall is almost completely full of corpses now. Ralph is still in the middle of the room, swinging the chair around like a madman, knocking the bodies off their already unsteady feet. Their flesh is decaying and each blow from the chair rips their rotting shells apart. The shadowy-grey of the room is now flowing with dark red and crimson-browns. Ralph has just lost his footing and slipped in the bloody mire. He's gone down. I can see him struggling on the floor. He can't get up again. He's been trampled under the feet of countless corpses.
I'm being carried forward by the stream of panicking survivors. There's nothing I can do but move with them. I can't stop and I can't go