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it though,’ he rambled, looking out through the motorhome window and imagining he could see something other than grey concrete walls, ‘just think what it’ll be like when the bodies have gone. Just picture it, we’ll have the whole bloody country to ourselves. We’ll be able to go where we like, when we like.’
    ‘So where would you go?’ Croft asked him.
    ‘I think,’ he began, stretching in his seat and staring up thoughtfully at the low metal ceiling above his head, ‘I’ll try and travel right round the coast. I’m going to wait until summer, then I’ll start on the south coast and work my way west. I won’t plan a route, I’ll just keep going and one day I’ll end up back where I started.’
    ‘But you could have your pick of the biggest houses or whatever you wanted,’ Emma said. ‘You could sit on your backside and relax. You’d still want to travel and live rough?’
    ‘I’m getting used to living rough now,’ he smiled, ‘it’d be strange to be comfortable again. I like the idea of moving from town to town or village to village, taking whatever I need from wherever I can find it.’
    ‘Think you’ll ever do it?’ Donna asked.
    Baxter looked deep down into his beaker of water and thought for a moment.
    ‘Don’t know. I hope so.’
    ‘Think it’s going to be as easy as you imagine?’
    He shrugged his shoulders.
    ‘I never said it would be easy. Anyway, there’s no way of knowing, is there?’
    ‘I can’t start dreaming like you can, Jack,’ Donna admitted, ‘not yet, anyway. I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I think about the future, I still automatically try and picture things like they used to be before this happened, just empty of people and quiet. But it’s not going to be like that, is it?’
    ‘What are you saying?’
    ‘I can’t be anything but realistic. I know we can get by for a while, but I’m anticipating every day from now on being a struggle. The more time passes since everything was normal, the less there’s going to be for us to take out there. The last bits of food will rot. Buildings will start to crumble. Everything we used to know will gradually disappear.’
    ‘Fucking hell,’ Baxter groaned sarcastically, ‘here’s looking on the bright side, eh?’
    ‘Like I said, I’m just being realistic, that’s all,’ Donna mumbled, her voice tired and resigned.
    ‘Anyway,’ Croft interjected, ‘we’ve got to get out of here before you can start sightseeing, Jack.’
    ‘I know,’ he sighed. ‘Frustrating, isn’t it. We’re the one’s who can survive out there, and it’s the bloody army who’ll decide whether we can go outside or not.’
    ‘Think they’ll try and keep us down here, Cooper?’
    Croft asked.
    ‘We need to stay here for a while,’ Emma said.
    ‘Unless us being here puts them at risk, I don’t think they’ll be in a hurry to get rid of us,’ Cooper answered.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I still think we might be useful to them. I’m starting to think they might have plans.’

5
    ‘What’s
    the
    matter?’
    Emma had woken up alone in bed. After a moment’s panic she had found Michael at the other end of the motorhome, sitting in the driver’s seat behind the wheel and staring out through the windscreen into the grey, shadowy gloom of the vast hanger. The clock on the dashboard said it was almost four in the morning.
    When he heard her he looked up momentarily and then looked down again.
    ‘Nothing’s the matter,’ he replied. ‘I was just thinking, that’s all.’
    ‘What
    about?’
    ‘You know, the usual.’
    ‘What’s
    the
    usual?’
    He shrugged his shoulders.
    ‘What do you think?’
    Emma sat down on the edge of the passenger seat next to him, still unsure as to what he was alluding to. A series of thoughts flashed through her mind. Was he thinking about the other survivors and the conversation they’d had earlier? Was he thinking about the soldiers or what had happened when they’d ventured outside