Purification Read Free Page A

woman who seemed to always be serving food) and sat down to eat. The faces of the people sitting around them were reassuringly familiar. Donna Yorke was at a table nearby talking to Clare Smith, Jack Baxter and Phil Croft. As the couple began to eat Croft looked up and around and nodded at Michael.
    ‘Morning,’ Michael said as he chewed on his first mouthful of dry and tasteless rationed food. ‘How you doing today, Phil?’
    ‘Good,’ Croft replied, wheezing. He took a long drag on a cigarette and coughed.
    ‘You should think about giving those things up,’
    Michael muttered sarcastically, ‘won’t do your health any good. They’ll be the death of you!’
    Croft grimaced as he coughed and then managed a fleeting smile. It was a sign of the grim hopelessness of their situation that death was just about the only thing they could find to laugh about. The group’s only doctor, he had sustained serious injuries in a violent crash when they had first approached the military bunker. The dark, dank conditions underground were not ideal and did nothing to aid his recovery. The only visible signs of his injuries which remained now were a scar across his chest and a severe limp and, as far as the rest of the group were concerned, he appeared to be getting stronger and fitter with each day. A trained and experienced medical professional, however, Croft knew that his body had sustained a huge amount of damage and that he would never be fully fit again. With his discomfort and pain seeming to increase day on day, and with the military on one side and a crowd of thousands of decomposing corpses on the other, the potentially harmful effects of smoking cigarettes was the very least of his worries.
    Cooper marched angrily into the room, his sudden, stormy appearance instantly silencing every conversation and causing everyone to look round. He fetched himself a drink, yanked a chair from under the table and sat down next to Jack Baxter.
    ‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’ Baxter asked.
    ‘This place is full of fucking idiots,’ the ex-soldier snapped. Since returning to the base he had steadily distanced himself from his military colleagues to the point where he now had very little to do with them. Perhaps symbolically, he now only wore the lower half of his uniform, and he only kept the boots and trousers on because they were the most practical clothes he possessed.
    In fact, they were just about the only clothes he had.
    ‘Now who’s he talking about?’ Croft interrupted. ‘Who you on about now, Cooper?’
    Cooper took a swig of coffee.
    ‘Bloody jokers in charge of this place,’ he answered.
    ‘What have they done?’
    ‘Nothing, and that’s the fucking problem.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ asked Donna, concerned. She knew Cooper well enough to know that there had to be a reason behind his sudden ranting. He was usually much calmer and more controlled than this.
    ‘The troops won’t tell me a thing anymore,’ he explained. ‘My guess is they’ve been ordered not to. I just can’t understand their logic. What do they think they’re going to gain from keeping us in the dark? We’ve seen more of what’s happened out there than they have. You’d think they’d want to try and keep us on side, wouldn’t you?’
    ‘Sounds typical of what I’ve seen of the military so far,’
    Baxter said quietly. ‘So is that all that’s bothering you?’
    Cooper shook his head.
    ‘No,’ he sighed, ‘it’s more than that. I’ve just been talking to an old mate of mine, Jim Franks. Jim and I go back a long way and I know I can trust him. Anyway, he’s been telling me that they think they’re going to start hitting real problems soon.’
    ‘Supplies?’
    Baxter
    wondered.
    ‘No.’
    ‘What kind of problems then?’ asked Emma, immediately worried.
    ‘Big fucking problems,’ Cooper continued. ‘Nothing they weren’t expecting, but big fucking problems nonetheless.’
    ‘Such
    as…?’
    ‘You’ve got to