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Another endless night andalone was all that Jack could take He sat at the top of the stairs and reached the inevitable conclusion that it was tiet back he reasoned With his rucksack already packed he nervously locked up his home and stepped outside shortly after one o&039;clock that afternoon For a few precious ly norly dull and overcast A brisk, gusting as fresh and welco the s heavy in the air
Less than fifty meters into his journey and Jack stopped, turned around and took a few hesitant steps back towards his house It looked tely safe and certain back there He knew exactly what he&039;d find behind the locked door and where everything would be Out here in the open, though, he didn&039;t knoas going to be waiting for hihtened to move forward into the unknown, but equally afraid of the consequences of turning tail and hiding alone in his home for days, possibly even weeks on end, he didn&039;t knohich way to turn He stood in the middle of the street and cried like a child lost without its parents
Jack graduallyon a compromise He decided that he would walk a little way further towards the town centre and that after an hour or two he would turn round and come back home Tomorroould venture a little further, then further still the next day and the next day after that until he found other survivors There had to be others, of that an to walk towards the end of the road, wishing that he&039;d learnt to drive like just about everyone else he knew had done before they&039;d reached the age of twenty He would have feltwhen he was halfway down Turnhope Street as the firsthome stumbled into view He was just about able to cope with the corpses that littered the ground, but the ones that moved were still too much for him to stand Despite the fact that they didn&039;t see, he still felt undeniably threatened by their unnatural presence
As the body (the uniformed remains of a male traffic warden) approached, he instinctively stood still and pressed hi that he would blend into the background and go unnoticed His fears were unfounded The corpse staggered past without even lifting its head It dragged its feet along the ground painfully slowly and Jack watched as it listlessly walked further and further away, its ar with the rest of its uncoordinatedwas overpowering The darkness last night had been much the sale street laust of wind blowing litter and waste down the desolate and e No cars No planes No music
No voices Just a heavy, ominous and painfully e the pave amplified a thousand times Once or twice he cleared his throat, ready to shout out for help, but at the last ainst it Much as he wanted to attract the attention of anyone who had survived, he was desperate not to attract the attention of anything else And despite the fact that there didn&039;t see else left to attract, he didn&039;t have the balls to take the chance It all boiled down to the fact that he was scared No, he wasn&039;t just scared, he was damn terrified Portdown Park Road ran into Lancaster Road which led into Haleborne Lane which then ed with Ayre Street, the road which eventually widened and became one of the main routes into the heart of the city In an hour Jack had walked the best part of three slowor anyone, apart fro bodies Some of thenore and pass with little difficulty They looked, to all intents and purposes, relatively nor in colour, almost monochro which instantly filled him with nervous nausea and fear The reanimation of the dead, it seeical criteria Five o Jack had passed a body that had clearly been involved in a horrific accident It had been ht, but he couldn&039;t be completely sure
The body was covered from head to toe in vicious burns There didn&039;t appear to be a single area of skin that hadn&039;t been charred beyond recognition The hair had been burned away from the scalp and the face - or the black hole where the face had been - was coled, burntaround the creature&039;s desperate fra in the breeze Most of it, however, had either burned away or melted into the twisted, blackened flesh But soe and deformation it had suffered and oblivious to any pain or shock it should have felt, the bloody thing just kept onIts eyes were burned out empty sockets and it had no coordination but still it kept on dragging itself forward, clu into walls, parked cars and other obstructions It had been the se He&039;d caught a taste of the scent of scorched flesh on the breeze and had immediately dropped to his knees and eh he&039;d decided to turn back if nothing happened, an unpredictable combination of curiosity and morbid fascination coupled with the desperate desire to actually find so towards the centre of town The further he got froradually became but, as he neared the main hub of the city, the full enormity of what had happened was nificant suburb where he had lived had been brutally scarred by what had happened but that had been nothing cohtly packed shops, offices, factories and other buildings the death and destruction appeared initude of it all Nothing seemed to have been left untouched by the silent killer early on Tuesday eway, he finally plucked up enough courage to shout out `Hello,&039; he yelled, frightening himself with the volume of his own voice `Hello, is there anybody there?&039; Nothing No surprise He tried again `Hello&039; He stopped shouting and listened as the echoes of his words reverberated around the desolate city street, bouncing off the walls of lifeless buildings Now that he seemed to be its only occupant, the world suddenly see bark and howl `Hello&039; he shouted again
Dejected, he wondered whether it orth going on He had left his home with some hope, albeit aBut how could he possibly be the only one left, he asked himself? Out of millions - possibly billions - of people affected, how could it be that he had survived when the rest of the to do here he&039;d been when it had happened? Did he just have a natural, inbuilt i he&039;d eaten or not eaten? Nothing seemed beyond the real bodies were all that he could see
Now that his initial fear and uncertainty at being out in the open had subsided, Jack was beginning to feel stronger and less threatened by those bodies which moved He could see, hear, think and react They, it seecloser and closer to the heart of the city with every step Was it safe to go in there? Should he turn back now and head hole lane in either direction and the sudden closeness of the buildings around hiainst shouting out again There were even ed to walk past thee to push one of theered randoht where he saw one of the pathetic creatures sitting in the shadows of a shop doorway
He hadn&039;t seen any of the corpses sitting still before, they seemed to move about constantly Perhaps this was one that had fallen and died in the doorhere it had remained until now He stopped and walked a little closer As he approached the body raised its head and looked up at hiht autuap in the heavy cloud cover The figure in the doorway - a young girl, perhaps thirteen or fourteen years of age dressed in a creased and cruan to walk towards hiood thirty seconds to realise and fully accept the fact that they had both found another survivor
Moving slowly and with caution at first, the girl broke into a run for the last fewto her knees He crouched down and held her as tightly as he could, as if he&039;d known her for fifty years and not seen her for ten He&039;d finally found so and emotional seconds of silence, Jack looked around anxiously before taking the girl&039;s hand in his and leading her towards the nearest building It was a dental surgery A cold, dark and sed with a sterile, antiseptic edge The two survivors sat down together in aroom on hard plastic seats, surrounded by threeto be seen by the now dead dentist since early Tuesday ht The presence of the bodies didn&039;t seeically, regardless of how gris were At first neither survivor knehat to say to the other `I&039;m Jack&039; he eventually staan to sob She shook as she leant against hi `I didn&039;t knohere you were,&039; she continued `I heard you but I couldn&039;t see you and&039; `Doesn&039;t ently kissing the top of her head `It doesn&039;t irl asked `No-one What about you?&039; She shook her head Feeling fractionally better and htly and sat up in her seat He watched as she wiped her face `What&039;s your name?&039; he asked softly `Clare Smith,&039; she mumbled `And are you froain
No, I live with my mum in Letchworth&039; `So how did you end up in this part of town?&039; `I&039;d been stopping at my dad&039;s this weekend We didn&039;t have any school on Monday so I stayed with hi when the memory of her parents and the recollection of her sudden, unexplained loss ca back She started to cry silently Jack watched helplessly as a relentless stream of tears ran down her pale cheeks `Look,&039; he soothed, trying to make it easier for her, `you don&039;t have to tellif you don&039;t want to If you e could just&039;
`What happened?&039; she asked suddenly, cutting across hi to look him square in the face for the first tihed, stood up and stepped over a corpse lying at his feet `Don&039;t know,&039; he replied, looking through a frosted-glassinto a small office area `I was onuntil it was too late Clare leant forward in her seat and held her head in her hands `Dad was driving me to school,&039; she said quietly as she stared down at the floor between her feet `He lives right on the other side of town so ere coh the city centre&039; She paused to wipe her eyes and clear her throat `We pulled up at a set of traffic lights and Dad started to choke
I tried to help hi I could do We drove into the car in front and the car behind hit us Dad just kept coughing and shaking until he died and I couldn&039;t do anything&039; Clare&039;s coain Jack took a few steps closer to her and knelt down in front of her chair She grabbed hold of hi her face in his chest Still feeling a little aard and unsure, he put his arently `Come on&039; he soothed Clare wiped her eyes and continued to talk between heavy sobs `I got out of the car to try and get some help for Dad I didn&039;t even stop to think about what had happened to hiot out I couldn&039;t believe what I saw Everything had stopped We were stuck in the est crash you&039;ve ever seen It looked like there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cars all set to the side of the road&039;
`It happened so quickly that no-one had ti seconds of silent reflection he cleared his throat and spoke again `I&039;ve been heading into the centre of town,&039; he explained `I live out in the suburbs I thought I ht find a few more people that had survived round here&039; `And you haven&039;t found anyone?&039; Clare asked Jack shook his head `You&039;re the first&039; `So why have we survived?&039; `No idea I don&039;t know anythingto get ho suddenly `And what?&039; Clare pressed `Shh&039; he hissed, lifting a finger to his lips He could hear so roo wooden staircase led froery At the very top of the staircase were three doors leading to separate consulting rooms Jack cautiously pushed the nearest door open
It swung forward, opening into a se treatment chair complete with dead patient A dental nurse&039;s corpse lay at his feet On the other side of the rooienic white overalls covered with dribbles of blood - was trapped, its path blocked by the chair and an upturned cupboard of ered helplessly froo,&039; Jack said under his breath He turned and led Clare downstairs and back out onto the street