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Almost a hundred feet above the city centre Donna watched the world around her begin to decay Although she constantly felt anxious, nauseous and ready to break into a nervous panic at any ree of control and, generally, was able to continue to think and act relatively rationally and sensibly She wondered whether it was because she was in the place where she used to work? She had beco herself frorey and oppressive environment In the same way she&039;d spent the last feeeks andto process the remains of her life

Had she been at home with its comfort, familiarity and memories she felt sure her eer and other more rudi room at the far end of the tenth floor of the office block Locked in a cabinet that she had ser&039;s office on the ground floor, she had found a collection of safety lamps and torches She presuency or an evening evacuation of the building perhaps She added the la equipathered and, slowly and methodically, she spaced the to work her way around three-quarters of the peri There was a new found purpose to her actions

Just after six o&039;clock, when the evening light began to fade away noticeably, she lit every last lamp and switched on every torch Her plan was simple She was desperate to find other survivors but she was also too scared and uncertain to go outside and look for theuessed that anyone else left alive in the city would probably feel the sa she could do would be to let the rest of the world knohere she was hiding In the otherwise utter blackness of the cold and lifeless night, the lights in the s of the office block lit up her location like a beacon

It worked Paul Castle, a music shop sales assistant in his early twenties, was painfully hungry but had been too afraid to leave the store where he had worked and where he&039;d watched custo

He&039;d searched the entire store and, until now, had been able to find enough scraps to eat and drink fro He&039;d known all along that going outside was inevitable, but he&039;d done all that he could to prevent it fro as possible Now he knew he had no choice but to leave Paul waited until the world was dark before venturing out He figured that the darkness should offer hi bodies that he had watched staggering aimlessly up and down the desolate streets outside He knew that in their present state they didn&039;t seem to actually pose a threat to hiht provided brought hied to avoid dwelling on the fact that these aard and unpredictable figures had laid dead at his feet for the best part of two days before rising again, he was just about able to keep his fragile eht of early evening it was sonore the desperate condition of the rest of the world Fro dead body looked almost the same as someone as still alive and who still possessed control, coordination and independence of thought

He had seen h drunkards, addicts and down-and-outs in the city centre at night to be able to convince hi noas just more of the same Despite his fear and uncertainty, his coilitythe bodies as if they were normal people trapped in a bizarre slow motion replay of their lives There was little in the way of supermarkets and food stores in the city centre This was a place where people had worked and shopped for gifts and luxuries, where they had studied and partied and where they had been entertained in cine concrete raht and sprinted across the road in the direction of a newsagents and a high-class department store where he kneould find a well stocked food-hall Rather than reassure him, now that he was outside he found the darkness unexpectedly unnerving It unsettled hie shop fronts and expensivedisplays standing dark and unlit Even the street lights were off He found hih blackness and into more blackness He stopped for a moe and, in his opinion, tasteless luht rain fell around hi down over miles and miles of pitch-black city suburbs Breathless he peered as far as he could into the distance, desperate to see soive him a little hope Dejected he ju Nu, Paul continued towards the departh a pile of fallen elderly shoppers

Although he had never shopped there himself he quickly found the food hall and filled nus with food which he loaded into a shopping trolley and pushed out through the silent checkouts Pausing only to allow another one of the pitiful cadavers to drag itself past the front of the building, he stepped back outside into the night and wearily began to work his way back to the store where he&039;d been sheltering For a while he thought about trying to get home He&039;d considered it a few tireat a distance away for hi to cover alone while the situation re for excuses not to take risks but that didn&039;t make any difference to his decision What did it ht, when there didn&039;t seem to be anyone else left alive to care? Maybe he&039;d find a car and try and drive there in the ainand clattering noise as he pushed it along the block-paved city street Still disorientated by the darkness, he paused to get his bearings He pushed the trolley to one side and leant against a nearby bus shelter to drink from a carton of fruit juice which he&039;d taken from the department store He opened the carton and drank fro, citrus flavour suddenly revitalising hi all day and he practically emptied the carton in a short time It hen he tipped his head back to drain the last few precious drops of juice that he saw the light Christ, he thought, he could see light Throwing the eot up and took a few steps away from the bus shelter At the far end of the road adjacent to the one he&039;d been following he could see the silhouette of a tall office block which had been obscured fros until now And there was no ht

Halfway up the massive structure, in the ht And where there was light, he quickly decided, there had to be people Suddenly filled with energy and a new found deter trolley further into the shadows and turned and ran towards the office block A body appeared fro his own by chance Without thinking he shoved it to one side and it tripped and cruround, silent and disaffected Paul continued to th of the street and was outside the building in seconds He glanced up, shielding his eyes fro sure that he could still see the dull yello co door was blocked by fallen bodies but a side entrance remained clear and he pushed his way inside The silent, es of decay but Paul was, by now, beco used to the scent of death which seemed to have per He didn&039;t bother to try the lifts, choosing instead to head straight for the stairs He clihts at speed but then slowed dramatically as nerves and exhaustion quickly overcame his initial rush of adrenaline-fuelled excite, so his unease and anxiety steadily grew

But he couldn&039;t stop For the first tiun there was a very real chance he was about to find so Fifth floor - nothing Sixth floor - bodies Paul stepped over a corpse which was sprawled on the ground at the botto out for the plastic-coated handrail and dragging hi to play tricks Had he actually seen a light at all? Was he going to be able to find the right floor? He forced hilihth floor Ninth floor Tenth This was it He could see the light even before he&039;d stepped off the staircase and onto the landing A warh the small s in the doors which separated the office fro heavily with the effort of the climb, Paul shook and yanked furiously at the door handle It didn&039;t move Inside the office Donna froze She was back in the training roo on a comfortable swivel chair Every nerve and fibre in her body suddenly became tense and heavy with nervous fear She didn&039;t dare ed at it with his fist

He couldn&039;t see or hear anyone but that didn&039;t h reason for hiress he took a couple of steps back and then shoulder-charged the door It rattled and shook in its frame but still it didn&039;t open None of the bodies she&039;d coth to ht She wanted to believe that there was another survivor on the other side of the door but in her heart she didn&039;t really think that would be the case She hadn&039;t seen or heard anyone else She knew that she had no option but to leave the relative safety of the training roo was about twenty feet long and five feet wide Double doors at either end gave access to the open office space Paul had turned left at the top of the stairs but the training rooht Cautiously she picked up a torch and tiptoed to the door nearest to her She shone the light through the smalland peered into the darkness, sure that she could see so Suddenly aware of the light shining at hi and slowly turned around Donna instinctively pointed her torch down to the ground, frightened that she had been seen Paul ran the length of the landing `Let ainst the door furiously `For Christ&039;s sake, let ainst the door and pressed his face against the glass, frustrated, frightened and breathing heavily

For a fewThen, slowly, the reality of the situation dawned on her The bodies that moved couldn&039;t speak They couldn&039;t make decisions or move with any amount of control The person on the other side of the door had to be a survivor She flicked her pass at the sensor on the wall at the door unlocked and opened inwards Paul fell into the office and collapsed in front of her `Are you?&039; she started to say He looked up at her, tears rolling down his face, and then picked hiether in an aard, uncomfortable but ultimately welco in the sudden closeness of another living hu