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By the ti area of the city it was almost coht The world had been turned on its head and ripped apart in the last week and nothing could be taken for granted In daylight it was difficult enough to try and keep track of as happening around theently pushed Clare towards Bartra building at the best of ti been a focal point for city shoppers Now, drenched in criular shadows cast by the rey walls and ly prison-like `We can stop here tonight,&039; Jack whispered `There&039;ll be food and stuff inside We&039;ll be okay here&039; Clare didn&039;t reply Exhausted and dejected, it was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other and keepforward She hadn&039;t said very ether A few tearful sentences when they&039;d first runted words since then had been all Jack didn&039;t push her to make conversation He felt and understood her pain He was hurting too, of course, but he&039;d suffered loss like this before Clare, he assumed, hadn&039;t
He tried to help her but his well- words appeared to have very little positive effect `I know it&039;s hard,&039; he&039;d said a while back as they&039;d followed the h street `My missus died last year I knohat you feel like You think you&039;re hurting so et over it but you will Believe et better?&039; she&039;d cried `How can it get better when I&039;ve lost everything?&039; Other than that Clare hadn&039;t responded Even Jack didn&039;t know if he really believed what he was saying
At least he&039;d had a reason and an explanation for the loss he&039;d suffered when his wife passed away, even if it had been impossible for him to accept why Denise had died Clare&039;s loss had been completely unexpected and without any justification or obvious cause Jack had looked long and hard into her drained and emotionless face as they had walked How scared and bewildered sheinside He&039;d never had kids of his own but he&039;d often wished that he had His brother had a couple of boys
Stuart was eight and Danny had been five a fortnight ago It hurt to think about thehts of fahtmare scenarios As far as he could see there didn&039;t seem to be any reason or pattern as to who had survived this disaster, who had died or who appeared to at first have died but who had then dragged the children had survived when their parents had died? Hoould they cope? Hoould they feed and look after theest nephew, alone at home Danny had done well in reception class at school
He&039;d learnt to read a handful of simple words and he could write his name He could dress himself, he could count up to twenty and, if he really tried, he could just about tie his shoelace in a proper double-bow But Danny couldn&039;t cook He couldn&039;t find ht a fire to keep hiainst attack He simply couldn&039;t survive Their eventual arrival in the departht Jack a welcoly dark, e store had just opened for business when the disease or virus or whatever it was had struck on Tuesday A row of large glass doors along the front of the building were open and it seemed, fortunately, that the vast ain inside the shop had ed to stumble back out onto the street Tired and emotionally drained, Jack and Clare wearily worked their way up through the store floor by floor Froround floor they collected scraps of food and extra clothing
On the first floor there was a shts Using the now stationary escalators running up through the centre of the building as a staircase, they then climbed up to a second floor furniture departher they went, the fewer bodies they caures couldn&039;t easily cope with cli and falling down Jack and Clare felt safer the higher theybody that they did find on the second floor (trapped between a chest-of-drawers and a fallen wardrobe in a bedroom furniture display) offered no resistance as Jack reluctantly bundled it into a nearby toilet and blocked its way out with a set of bunk beds They spent a long hour together sitting on an expensive leather sofa, picking at the food they&039;d collected and sharing a few h it was relatively early (around half-past eight) the darkness, silence and strain of the day combined to make it feel much later They were both exhausted In what re seemed to take a hundred times more effort to do than it had done before
And added to that, nothing could be done which didn&039;t remind them both of all they once had but which now they had suddenly lost By torchlight Jack flicked through a TV listingsMost probably all of the celebrities pictured in the glossy pages were now dead In any event none of it really ood were actors, presenters and celebrities now? `We&039;ll have more luck tomorrow, I&039;h not entirely convincingly) `What do you mean?&039; Clare mumbled `We&039;ll find someone else&039; `Where?&039; `I don&039;t know Look, this is a huge city There must be more people left alive somewhere You and I can&039;t be the only ones left, can we?&039; She shrugged her shoulders `Well we haven&039;t seen anyone else, have we?&039; `TheyI stayed at home for a while before I went out, I bet there are hundreds of people sitting in their houses waiting for so to happen They&039;ll have to coet food and drink and&039; Clare wasn&039;t listening She was crying again Although he knew that he couldn&039;t do anything to relieve her pain and fear, and even though he kneasn&039;t the cause of her suffering, as the only adult around Jack couldn&039;t help but feel responsible and protective towards her
Cautiously he rested a gentle hand on her shoulder, and then reached across and pulled her closer Half-expecting her to recoil and pull away, he was surprised when she did the opposite and leant her weight against hi to stop?&039; she sobbed, drawing her knees up andherself as srunted honestly `But what caused it all?&039; `I don&039;t know,&039; he said again `Will it happen to us? Is it just taking longer for us to?&039; `I don&039;t know, Clare,&039; he sighed with a hint of resigned frustration clear in his tired voice `I don&039;t know anything and I can&039;t give you any answers I know as ,&039; she protested tearfully `Exactly&039; A brief silence `No-one had a chance, did they?&039; she mumbled `There wasn&039;t any time, was there? I mean, from the little I sahatever it was that did all of this seemed to spread across the city like a fire We don&039;t even kno far widespread this is&039; `How far do you think it&039;s gone?&039; Jack stopped to think for a second It was the first time for a day or so that he&039;d actually been able to stop and think about the possible extent of the disaster `No idea,&039; he ad then you&039;d have expected people to have arrived to help us by now&039; `Maybe they don&039;t think anyone survived?&039; `Possible&039; `Or perhaps they can&039;t get here?&039; `What?&039; `Maybe whatever it was that killed everyone is still in the air Perhaps we&039;re immune to it and they can&039;t come here until it&039;s cleared?&039; `Don&039;t know You ht&039; A difficult fewand withdrew to think about what had happened again It was a natural reaction but thinking didn&039;t seem to help anyone There were no easy answers and, even worse than the frustration of not being able to understand, thinking inevitably turned into re hurt `Do you like this sofa?&039; Jack asked suddenly,rubbish and stop trying to ed half a smile `Not bothered, why?&039; `Seen the price of it?&039; She was sitting on the price label She sat up and looked at it `Is that expensive? I&039;ve never had to buy a sofa&039; `Expensive?&039; he said, shaking his head in eous Me and Denise kitted out our whole house for just a little bit more than that And that was a few years back It&039;s this shop,&039; he continued `This shop was always for people that had ht they had&039; `Myfaintly `She used to bring us here ere little&039; `I think everyone&039;sthem here&039; `What, yours too?&039; He nodded and sat back in his seat
`Yes, been here for years this place has It used to be the only place around that sold school uniforet kitted out And shoes too We used to get our shoes from here&039; `Me too&039; `Hated it Me and my brother both hated it&039; `Me too&039; `You could see the other kids going through exactly the saainst the wall to have our feet measured And we&039;d all start the next school terh and sniffed back another tear `I&039;o to bed,&039; he grinned, shining his torch across the store to a line of seven double beds for sale The survivors gathered their belongings and silently made their way across the shop floor to the beds Jack found duvets and pillows fro as Clare sat down on the bed in theto be all right here?&039; he asked as he passed her a pillow
`I&039;ll be fine,&039; she replied as she settled back and attempted to relax `What about you?&039; `Oh, I&039;ll be okay,&039; he said as he openedand threw it down on the bed next to Clare&039;s He dragged a small bedside table across the room and put a laht it produced was coht&039; Jack lay down and, after a few seconds of uncertainty, eventually closed his eyes He was asleep in a surprisingly short tietting through each minute of the day had been relentless Now that their conversation had ended the world was silent again save for the occasional noise made by one of the few bodies left trapped in one of the store&039;s lower floors Clare didn&039;t like being alone Unable to sleep as easily as Jack, she picked up her duvet and pillow and curled up next to him on his bed Her hurried movements woke him for a moment He knew she was in bed with hi for him as it was for her