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Music woke Jack fro it at first but no, there it was again Faint and tinny, for the first time in almost a week he could definitely hear music Once he was fully awake it took his He looked around and let his eyes slowly becoht The departht - completely different in fact to how he&039;d pictured it last night when it had been filled with nothing but shadows and darkness He then reht and he sat up quickly and looked around for Clare &039;Over here,&039; she shouted fro hi for the last couple ofand tired, Jack swung his legs out over the side of the bed, got up and then slowly shuffled over to the dining roo He sat down opposite her at a large any table In thea CD
He didn&039;t recognise theto her he wished she&039;d turn it down It wasn&039;t particularly loud, he decided it just see else was so deathly silent &039;How are you this ?&039; he asked She nodded and smiled sadly &039;I&039;m okay,&039; she replied &039;Look, I didn&039;t mean to wake you up I hope you don&039;t er I found the stereo in the electrical department just past the beds&039; Jack looked back over his shoulder and noticed a huge bank of dead television screens a short distance behind the row of beds where they&039;d just spent the night Still drugged by sleep he stood up again and walked back to where he&039;d left their belongings last night After searching through his rucksack he found a little of the food which he&039;d brought with hiry?&039; he asked She shook her head &039;Not really&039; &039;You should try and eat so We both should&039; He opened up a plastic lunch box and took out some chocolate and fruit which he laid out on the table between them Clare took a chocolate bar and unwrapped it
It was surprisingly good The rich taste and sely co She&039;d hardly eaten since Tuesday After days of feeling nothinghurt and constant disorientation, the food provided a welcoh they appeared to have lost everything, there was a slight chance that itnorst the rubble of what re,&039; Clare said as the next track on the CD began She chewed thoughtfully on her chocolate and turned up the volume She closed her eyes and for a precious few seconds tried to iine she was somewhere else To Jack the music sounded no different and no less processed and manufactured than the last bland track he&039;d heard He remembered the days when music was played by real musicians and when talent matteredelse He sla &039;Hey&039; Clare protested &039;Shh&039; he hissed He pushed his chair back and walked towards the escalators which snaked up through the centre of the department store
He could hear movement on the first floor below Cautiously he peered over the top of the staircase and saw that a crowd of bodies had appeared Unlike the clumsy bodies he&039;d seen earlier, these seeht was poor but he could see, incredibly, that two or three of the to climb up the motionless escalator towards him They tripped over shop displays and random fallen corpses as they tried aardly tohi on?&039; she asked anxiously &039;Look,&039; he answered, nodding down in the direction of the figures beneath them He concentrated his attention on the diseased body which had ress towards the second floor
It was now almost halfway up the escalator but had been forced to stop, its way ahead blocked by an upturned baby&039;s pushchair Although it had been considerably darker last night it had been fairly easy for Jack and Clare to negotiate their way around such obstacles The stilted movements of the desperate creatures beloere nowhere near as controlled and precise as those of the survivors As they crouched in silence in the shadows and watched, the crowd below theathering were beginning to trip and stumble away &039;Was it the music?&039; Clare wondered
The corpses on the escalator see back down to the first floor again &039;Must have been&039; &039;But why?&039; &039;What d&039;you es shouting for help and they didn&039;t react then I didn&039;t think they could hear us&039; Jack thought about what she&039;d said She was right He re body that he&039;d come across - the woman in the street outside his house He&039;d run towards her breathlessly but she hadn&039;t reacted The rest of the world had been quiet and there had been no other distractions that he&039;d been aware of Surely the wo if she&039;d been able to? Clare moved around Jack and took a couple of steps down the escalator &039;Where you going?&039; he hissed, concerned At the raised volu and slowly turned back around again to face the survivors Both Clare and Jack froze and hoped that they would e into the shadows and not be seen The body continued down the escalator
Reaching over to one side, Clare wrestled a handbag free frorip of an old woman whose lifeless corpse was sprawled across the escalator She threw the bag down to the first floor, past the few res card display
The display rattled and crashed to the floor and, almost instantly, the bodies returned The survivors watched with increasing fear and uncertainty as the dead gathering regrouped around the sudden distraction Clare turned and ran back towards Jack, her footsteps echoing loudly on the metal steps beneath her &039;Bloody hell,&039; mumbled Jack as he watched the bodies react to the sound of Clareat the bottoain She pushed past hi just a few rabbed his bag and began frantically packing everything away A fa of helplessness, panic and disorientation had suddenly returned &039;What are you doing?&039; Clare asked, instinctively starting to gather up her own things &039;Getting out,&039; he replied in a hushed and frightened whisper &039;Getting away froo?&039; &039;Don&039;t know&039; Clare stopped and sat down at the table again She held her head in her hands &039;They won&039;t get up here, will they?&039;
&039;I don&039;t know,&039; Jack answered &039;Give theht Who knohat they&039;ll do?&039; &039;But we can block the escalators off, can&039;t we? We can use so enough to get through, are they?&039; Her si and stared at her, struggling to answer
His throat was dry and he could feel beads of cold, nervous sweat running down his back &039;You ht, but&039; &039;But what?&039; &039;But we don&039;t know for sure&039; &039;We don&039;t know anything really, do we?&039; Clare rubbed her eyes and started to mess with the food Jack had left on the table &039;I&039;o anywhere&039; Jack put down his rucksack and collapsed on the end of his bed She was right What would they gain fro? The top floors of the department store seemed as safe a place to hide as any
A short tih to be able to creep quietly across the floor to the top of the escalator and look down again He couldn&039;t see any bodies In the silence of thethey had all drifted away