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The aard conversation was interrupted by the sounds ofplace deeper within the base Wright peered out into the corridor again, then quickly drew his head back inside

&039;Anything?&039; Carlton asked

&039;Nothing,&039; Wright replied, &039;but it&039;s just aplace goes up in smoke&039;

&039;You reckon?&039;

&039;Absolutely&039;

More noise Getting closer Wright started to shuffle unco?&039; he asked, the desperation very evident his voice Carlton thought for aWhat did he say? He didn&039;t want to tell hied as the noise in the corridor continued to increase in voluet you found, I promise I just want to find somewhere safe where I can&039;

Soldiers appeared at the end of the corridor More gunshots A figure collapsed in a hail of bullets More troops trampled the body as they ran for shelter

&039;Christ,&039; Carlton mumbled under his breath He wanted to turn and run back to the service tunnel, but Wright would follow and he knew that he couldn&039;t afford to let hi him with him would increase the risk dra rid of hiht pleaded &039;Fucking show ht whipped a knife out froht Carlton, not the suit Cut me but don&039;t cut the bloody suit

&039;I can&039;t&039; Carlton began to protest &039;Shohere you&039;re hiding or I&039;ll do it,&039; Wright threatened, his face now close to the other ht&039;s acrid breath

&039;I can&039;t,&039; he said again, bringing his pistol slowly up fro Carlton fired a single shot, ripping a bloody hole through his chest cavity and lungs Wright collapsed to the ground and Carlton stepped over hi dribbles of blood from his precious suit

He was about to step into the corridor when another group of soldiers thundered past thein the opposite direction to the first,back deeper into the base More followed, thenat the back of the pack tried to grab hold of Carlton and drag hi with him Carlton instinctively recoiled and squirrip

&039;Get yourself out of here,&039; the soldier in the corridor screa to open the bloody doors!&039;

He couldn&039;t afford to wait Not caring who saw hih thehatch and into the kitchen Behind him a constant stream of desperate, terrified troops fled deeper into the bunker

Carlton ran back to his hideout as quickly as his tired, under-exercised legs would carry him He threw himself into the service tunnel and scra apparatus With hands tre with nervous fear he put on his kit and melted back into the darkness and waited

At the entrance to the bunker a group of soldiers had fought their way through into the decontamination chambers Their minds twisted and deluded as a result of weeks of hopeless isolation, two of theled to open the sealed doors while another three held offcompromised Risks, priorities and perspectives had been distorted after spending round without hope Perhaps the infection had finally passed? The enuinely believed that this was their last chance for freedo protected by their three colleagues henever they saw the slightestup to the cha to stop them didn&039;t stand a chance, such was the position of the doorway being defended at the far end of a long corridor Explosives and grenades were useless too Fire th at thee would almost certainly be done to ihters continued to try and prevent the breach Those who had been unfortunate enough to have already seen as outside and who kneas about to be let into the base Those who had already fought hand to hand with the dead and who had witnessed for themselves their vast and unstoppable numbers Those ould rather becrowds that were about to flood into the bunker

It was inevitable that the doors were going to be opened It was just a matter of time

Carlton lay on his back in the tunnel and trembled with fear The world sounded different from behind the mask, muffled and somehow distant and indistinct It made him feel even more uncertain and scared

In the distance he could hear further battles raging Bullets were flying and screa eways Even e the direction of any of the sounds The noise seele The voluradually ible cacophony

Then it stopped

A sudden silence so ominous that it made Carlton lose control of his bladder He lay on his back in a pool of his own piss and lifted a shaking hand up to hisapparatus, ready to rip it off Perhaps I should just do it now, he thought, just get it over with

He couldn&039;t bring hi with fear he lay still and waited

The silence continued for the best part of two days In his cramped confine for a clue as to what had happened but too afraid to er and nerves, he waited impatiently He didn&039;t knohich orse, the physical or mental pain? Every bone in his body ached and he knew that if he ht ease But he couldn&039;t do it He was too bloody scared to do anything

After endless hours,Had he iined it? He held his breath and listened carefully, the rapid thu in his ears and threatening to drown out any other sound What was happening? He&039;d begun to presu silence of the last forty or so hours had been a good thing Surely if the base had been invaded by swar by now?

There it was again The bang and clatter of metal on metal It soundednow, he couldn&039;t just lie here and do nothing Moving as cautiously as he could he slid back down the service corridor to the junction with the second, slightly wider passageway Once there he crouched down on his aching knees and listened again, keeping out of sight More noise This time even further away, still unclear and indistinct He shuffled further forward again

Carlton stopped when he reached the next corridor He glanced over at the kitchen door The lights were lower than he remembered The main power supply within the base must have failed and the structure was now illu throughout He retraced the steps he&039;d taken a few days earlier, tiptoeing carefully through the wreckage which covered the kitchen floor and trying not to make any unnecessary noise He stepped over the fallen body of the officer he&039;d discovered last ti hatch and out into the mess hall

More distant sounds He pri at the noise it made, and walked to the end of the hall He was about to step out into the corridor when a figure appeared from a doorway to his far left Christ, as that? More to the point, as it? It was dressed in a soldier&039;s uniform, but it was so slow and clumsy Whoever it was must have been injured, he decided Maybe he should try and help the to wait until the solider got closer before he took any chances You can&039;t trust anyone these days, he thought And, he quickly reht be equally uncertain of hi down the barrel of the other man&039;s rifle The trooper was close now Carlton held his breath, trying not towasn&039;t right Another sudden sound canored it, concentrating instead on the solider still approaching The figure&039;s head hung heavily over to one side and it see to take proper, controlled steps What the hell was going on? The soldier was now no ered into the dull yello of one of the ehts directly overhead and Carlton recoiled at the creature&039;s nightmarish face What the hell had happened to this man? It was as if the life had been sucked out of him His skin hite, almost blanched, and thick, dried blood had dribbled from his mouth, down his chin and onto his unifor ahead but not actually appearing to look at anything To all intents and purposes this poor bastard looked dead Carlton disappeared back into the shadows of the mess hall The soldier (or corpse or whatever it was) shuffled past him oblivious

It had to be the infection That was the only explanation The integrity of the bunker had been coere outside had been let in His an to work overtiht, then I have to get out of here Christ, he&039;d seen for himself what the dead hordes were capable of when they&039;d forced the o And now he found hi side of the bunker doors with, potentially, anything up to a hundred of the bloody things He had to get out He had to get out right now He didn&039;t knohere he was going to go, but he had to try andto die soon, that much was inevitable, but he wasn&039;t about to let himself be torn apart at the hands of his forhtened as he was, he wasn&039;t prepared to end his days like that One last burst of energy

Carlton stepped out into the corridor The body of the soldier continued to trip away to his right It must have heard hieas clear Leaving the safety of the shadows he li the door fro a T-junction Left or right? All the corridors in this daly featureless Carlton was disorientated and in pain and he couldn&039;t remember the way to the control room If he could reach the control room he was sure he&039;d be able to then find the coed to reach the communications rooh the maze of tunnels to the decontamination chambers That had to be the area he ai there wasn&039;t still a flood of rotting bodies trying to force their way inside, he&039;d have a chance, albeit a very slight one, of getting out of the base alive What happened after that, however, was anyone&039;s guess

He turned left Damn, the door to a ransacked equipan to radually beco less stiff Now all that he had to do was Shit, another one of those creatures right in front of him He looked at it and wondered if he could see who it used to be To keep ht direction he knew he had no option but to try and pass it For a moment he stood helpless in the middle of the corridor, completely still and completely useless, unable to decide what to do He watched the shabby figure as it tripped towards him and he poised himself for its attack Three meters between them and he held up his pistol

&039;Stop,&039; he co head off&039;

The body continued its lethargic advance He had no option but to shoot He closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger and winced as the deafening sound of the gunshot echoed throughout the whole of the underground coain he saw that the soldier&039;s corpse had cruround in front of him The back of its head and the contents of its skull dripped red frorey corridor walls Carlton was so preoccupied with the bloody fate of the first body that he failed to notice another two approaching until they had al to consider his actions he lifted his pistol again and fired another two shots at close range

Control room He&039;d found it Carlton weaved around the e-since redundant coh the rooered towards hi it, he instead si blundered past It hadn&039;t even seen him

Out of the control rooht Jesus Christ, yet another body He shot this one in the face - the corridor was too narrow to risk taking any chances He stepped over the fallen corpse and pushed through the door into the communications room And then he stopped Another couple of hundred meters or so of corridor and he&039;d be outside the decontamination chambers Did he really want to do this? Could he do it? More to the point, did he have any choice? Carlton&039;s ever-decreasing alternatives were continuing to rapidly deplete His final choices were now appallingly griround with a hundred dead soldiers for coet up to the surface and have to face the possibility of having to deal withfrorey and enclosed confines of the bunker was the deciding factor Okay, so it round, but at least he&039;d be out in the open, if only for a few minutes The choice was er to catch his breath, and then pushed through the door out of the co into a crowd of seven bodies, all struggling to h for two Instinctively he began kicking and punching at theround They offered no resistance as he angrily battered his way through them

The corridor ahead was clear He could see the doors to the decontamination chambers Just a few meters further now Yet more bodies In the doorway to the main chamber lay a pile of fallen corpses, blood-soaked and riddled with bullet holes Bloody hell, the creature at the very botto In the roo his best to ignore their disarly insistent, clumsy movements, he looked past them and out towards the open decontaht of endless thousands of savage, decaying figures baying angrily for his flesh

Where he had expected to see frantic, angry activity he instead saw nothing No movement Relative calm

In disbelief Carlton pushed away the du around the chamber and stood at the final door which separated the interior of the bunker from the rest of the diseased world outside He could see that the huge hanger doors were still open and the vast cavern was filled with harsh but beautiful sunlight After round it took a while before he was able to open his eyes fully and look around the hanger properly As the bright stinging in his eyes faded away he looked around at an utterly unbelievable scene