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&039;Now look,&039; he shouted, &039;I&039;ot some problees et into the safe I apologise for any inconvenience, but I&039; to have to ask you all to leave If you&039;d like to co I&039;m sure we&039;ll be able to&039;

Another forward surge in the crowd interrupted hi interest fro For soet inside The situation was beginning to get uncoain, &039;I realise this is out of the ordinary and I understand that you&039;ve been inconvenienced, but I do need your cooperation There really is nothing more I can do for you today Please come back tomorrohen I&039;ll be more than happy to&039;

Da StillWalters couldn&039;t stand it when people didn&039;t listen to hi at the top of his voice again toin the doorway to get inside could hear him, &039;let&039;s have so it had happened Walters had gradually been forced further and further back along the counter He now found hi hall to the doors he&039;d originally intended closing Between hi, narrow room were at least a hundred furious customers He looked down into the faces of the nearest few Christ, they looked angry If he wasn&039;t careful the situationthat one of the others in the er&039;s room would hear him and come out to help

&039;Could I have a hand out here please,&039; he shouted, watching anxiously as another wave of bodies attehtly-packed building &039;Tony Brian could one of you come and&039;

His words were cut short as the heavingrippled along the rooo the closest of theed to catch hold of the bottom of his bank uniform trousers He recoiled and tried to pull away but lost his footing He slipped down from the counter and fell into the bodies below hied crowd surfer at a concert Panicking, and fearing for his life, he covered his head with his hands and curled hi on his hands and knees he began to slowlyfeet which continued to stagger deeper into the bank For a fraction of a second he thought about trying to help the others get out but he knew he couldn&039;t go back Without hi it had happened the coward in hiain The th and defiance that had burned today had suddenly been extinguished just as quickly as it had been lit Terrified he closed his eyes and kept pushing forward, ignoring the countless bodies which stood and blocked his orking his way around them He accidentally knocked a handful of the himself on inch by slow and painful inch until he was level with the front door of the bank Should he try and stand up to close and lock it? He kneas i that he eak and hating hith, Walters instead kept on crawling forward until he was out of the building, down the rahtly thinner, he picked hi back at the overrun bank for a second before sprinting towards home Ten o&039;clock A half-eaten can of cold baked beans and three-quarters of a bottle of whiskey later

The house was silent, save for the occasional thump from Matthew upstairs Walters sat alone in darkness at the kitchen table with his head in his hands He couldn&039;t stop thinking about the events of the day noing to an end It was one thing that he&039;d left the bank wide open and abandoned his colleagues, but it was another aspect of the dark day just passed which concerned him more For a moment back there today he&039;d actually felt like soood But he&039;d been brought back down to earth with a harsh and sudden bump The bitter truth was that he was still a nobody A forty-seven year old stationery clerk and cashier with no prospects, a faly bleak future Maybe he should just accept where he was and who he was and do his best to live with it? Stick hat you know, that had always been one of his father&039;s sayings Don&039;t take risks and don&039;t take chances We&039;re not all s Stick hat you know

Walters got up from his seat and shuffled out into the hallway He paused to look out at the dark crowd of bodies at the end of his drive before wearily cli the stairs to bed, a final tumbler of whiskey in his hand He undressed, put his dirty shirt in the washing basket with all the others, and then put on his pyja around in his bedroo or resting or at the very least studying If only his son knehat he had to put up with every day His attitude would soon change if he was the one who had to face the daily indignities and humiliations of office politics Christ, he hoped Matthew didn&039;t make the same mistakes he had If only he&039;d worked harder at school and not just taken the first job he&039;d been offered after leaving

No point dwelling on all that now, he thought as he climbed into bed behind June She had her back to him She was still in the sa She hadn&039;t done the washing or the shopping In fact, it looked like she&039;d been in bed all day again Bloody hell, she didn&039;t kno easy she had it If she&039;d had to put up hat he&039;d faced today

He wrapped his ar body and pulled her close He wished she&039;d talk to hio to sleep yet He wanted someone to listen to his proble his best and that it was the rest of the

Walters felt humiliated and let down by everyone, even those closest to him He&039;d tried so hard today but, ultimately, all he&039;d done wasto face them all at work tomorrow?

THE HUMAN CONDITION Part i - GOING UP Barry Bushell sat at the dressing table in his wide, palatial executive hotel suite and fixed his make-up He wondered whether this was just a fad - just a phase he was going through - or whether he was destined to spend the rest of his life dressing as a woay and he wasn&039;t transsexual This wasn&039;t so queen or lady-boy in training Barry Bushell was just a typical, red-bloodied, heterosexual man who happened to have recently discovered that he felt co women&039;s clothes And when the rest of the world lay decaying a couple of hundred feet below him, why the hell shouldn&039;t he hatever he damn anted?

The last seven days had been the strangest, darkest and longest seven days of Bushell&039;s life so far Everything had been changed forever If he was honest, his probleo he&039;d been happy and settled He&039;d irlfriend Tina&039;s flat with her and, for a tiood Their relationship had abruptly ended on what had, until then, been the worst day of his life Out of the blue Bushell lost his job when a huge black hole was discovered in the accounts of the company he&039;d worked for and they were forced into administration Gutted and penniless, he&039;d returned to the flat unexpectedly to find his brother Dennis in bed with Tina She&039;d proceeded to tell him that Dennis was better in bed than he was and that their relationship was over By three o&039;clock that afternoon he&039;d lost his partner, his brother, his job and his hohtmare day had, of course, seemed like the best Christ Bushell had helplessly watched as the entire population of the city (and, he later presumed, the country and perhaps even the world) had fallen and died After the cruel and unexpected hand that life had dealt hiht comfort and solace in the sudden isolation and quiet His pent up anger and frustration with the world htly easier to deal with Subconsciously he blamed the inexplicable trauender-realigne in appearance) And now here he was, alone and, as far as he could tell, the last man on Earth Almost certainly the last odead in the streets had risen At first he&039;d gone back down to ground level to try and find out as happening, only to quickly return to his isolated and comfortable hide-out as soon as he realised that the situation had worsened, not i the streets down there were dead Although they htest spark of life left within them Their sudden reanimation was as improbable and impossible to explain as their equally sudden demise had been just days earlier Bushell cliht storey, five star city-centre hotel and barricaded hihth floor It was the safest and most sensible place that he could think of to hide Within the hotel&039;s three hundred or so bedroo rooms, bars, restaurants and sports facilities he&039;d been able to find prettyhe&039;d need to survive, and a vast wardrobe of wo, make-up and accessories to boot

He stood up, smoothed the creases out of his dark blue dress, and looked hiht God I look good, he thought, pretty da His first experiments with make-up last week had been over-the-top and a of it He wore a long, straight blonde hich he&039;d taken from a shop- durow to a sufficient length for hi and started painting his fingernails and he was finally getting the hang of walking in heels That had been the hardest part of all but it had been worth all the effort The knee-high leather boots he&039;d found in a bedroom on the seventh floor looked perfect with this outfit Aht to hione co insane? Whatever the answer to his question, he was relatively happy and, all things considered, he felt good He could do whatever he wanted now He was in charge If he wanted to wear a dress then he&039;d wear a dress If he wanted to walk around naked, then that hat he&039;d do

It was starting to get late This was the time of day he really didn&039;t like This hen he found it hardest being alone and when he started to think about everything that had happened and everything he&039;d lost His sudden change of outfit had been deliberately tiet through the long, dark and lonely hours untilAs much as he was comfortable in his own company, there were times when he needed the isolation to end and when he desperately needed to see and speak to other people He lit laht, praying that someone out there would see the that no-one would He had to let the world knohere he was, but in doing so he left hi vulnerable and exposed But he couldn&039;t not do it, he continually reminded himself He would be safer with other people around him Problem was that so far there hadn&039;t been any other people

Bushell walked around the perimeter of the vast suite (which covered al candles, lamps and torches in every available

Distracted by the increasing complications of his own already complex situation, he remained blissfully unaware of sudden movement and confusion outside For the first time in a week a vehicle had entered the city

&039;You&039;re a stupid fucking idiot, Wilcox,&039; Elizabeth Ferry screamed hysterically &039;I said keep out of the city, not drive right through the bloody city-centre Fancy a little late night shopping do we?&039;

&039;Shut up,&039; Wilcox hissed &039;If it hadn&039;t been for the fucking noise you twoI wouldn&039;t have taken the wrong turn in the first place!&039;

&039;Don&039;t bring ot nothing to do withto do with you, has it, Doreen?&039; piped up Ted Hamilton from the seat directly behind her &039;Of course it&039;s your fault It&039;s got everything to do with you You&039;re a bloody trouble lared at Ted who, as usual, was filling his face with chocolate

&039;And you&039;re a fat bastard who should&039;

&039;For Christ&039;s sake,&039; Elizabeth sighed, interrupting her, &039;give it a rest, will you?&039;

Doreen i, folded her arms and slumped into her seat like a scolded child

&039;Just keep going,&039; John Proctor&039;s coested fro at each other isn&039;t going to help Just keep driving&039;

Nick Wilcox took one hand off the steering wheel for a couple of seconds, just long enough to rub his tired eyes He&039;d been driving for what felt like hours and he was struggling but he wasn&039;t about to let the others know They annoyed hi, breathing huan So why did it have to be this five?

This ragged, dysfunctional group of survivors had been together for just three days They&039;d found each other by chance as they&039;d each individually wandered through the remains of the devastated world Elizabeth and John Proctor had been the first towalked into the church where Proctor used to preach just as he was tearing off his dog-collar and walking out A cleric of so faith had been shattered by the cruel and unstoppable infection which had raged across the surface of the planet If this God is so powerful, loving and forgiving, he&039;d asked Elizabeth , then how could the fucker let this happen? Proctor&039;s sudden loss of faith had been as powerful and life-changing as his initial discovery of the church had been in his early days at college In all seriousness Elizabeth had suggested that the plague ht be some kind of divine retribution - a Noah&039;s ark for our tiht she was out of her fucking mind

Ted Hamilton, a plumber, part-time football coach and full-time compulsive co on the water pipes when the infection had struck He&039;d had an incredible view of the destruction from up there but he&039;d been too afraid to come down He&039;d sat on the roof for hours until he saw Doreen Phillips walking down the high street, shopping bags in hand, stepping gingerly over and around the ether they&039;d wandered around aimlessly and pointlessly in search of help which never ca and noise had eventually attracted the attention of Paul Jones, a sullen and quiet nised the i with these people, no matter who they were or how stupid they appeared

Jones had suggested building themselves a base from where they could explore the dead land around them and, hopefully, find more survivors As obvious and sensible as his plan had been, it also proved to be unnecessary As they struggled to establish thee of a so the eerie silence of the first post-infection Fridayhad been disturbed by the unexpected arrival of a fifty-three-seater single-deck passenger bus driven by Nick Wilcox Wilcox - who had previously driven such buses for a living - had ploughed through the toith a nervous disregard for anything and everything Jones and Haed him down and it was only the quick reactions of Elizabeth Ferry (ith John Proctor, was already travelling with Wilcox) that stopped hi them down in the sa bodies already that

Theho, coh roos, and as many boxes of provisions and supplies as they could lay their hands on And the bus had a huge advantage over everywhere else they&039;d previously tried to shelter because it erous or there were suddenly too ine and drove so, Nick,&039; Proctor said, his calroup and diffuse theuntil we reach a major road then follow it back out of the city&039;

&039;I can&039;t see the bloody road,&039; Wilcox cursed anxiously through gritted teeth, &039;never hts on full-bea with ered into the path of the huge, bulky vehicle His vision already severely limited, he was forced to frequently flick on his wipers to clear blood, gore and other splattered remains from the indscreen in front of him

&039;Does anyone knohere we are?&039; Elizabeth asked hopefully &039;Anyone been here before?&039;

Her question was met with silence frogested, his mouth still full of food &039;We&039;ve done it before, haven&039;t we? Sit still and shut up and they&039;ll leave us alone after a while&039;

&039;Coot to be a better way They&039;ll take hours to go, you know that as well as I do, and there are hundreds of the on the floor&039;