Purification

light and wind coming from the helicopter hovering a short distance above their decaying heads. Many of them seemed almost to be cowering. It was hard to believe, but some of the bodies were trying to move away from the disturbance.
    ‘Fucking hell,’ mumbled Cooper.
    ‘This is it,’ Emma whispered secretively, ‘this is our chance. It’s like you said earlier, they’re changing. They’re finally beginning to wake up, aren’t they? Bloody hell, those things down there are starting to get worried.’
    ‘Worried?’ Armitage snapped nervously. ‘What the hell are you talking about, worried?’
    ‘They’re becoming aware of their own limitations,’ she explained. ‘Some of them are starting to realise that we’re capable of causing them a lot more damage than they can do to us. I’m sure that’s why some of them fight. They’re trying to protect themselves.’
    ‘Bullshit.’
    ‘Might be,’ she said quickly. ‘Whatever the reason, the point is that this might give us more of a chance of getting past them than we thought we had.’
    ‘How?’ asked Juliet.
    ‘Use the helicopter as cover. Make as much of a disturbance as we can and try and get Lawrence’s help.
    Chances are some of them will disappear and keep out of our way.’
    ‘Some of them?’
    ‘The rest will probably still go for us, same as they always do.’
    A moment of quiet contemplation followed, disturbed only by the continual noise coming from the helicopter outside. Much as he hated to admit it, Armitage knew that Emma was right. Better to go out there and face five hundred of those bloody things, he thought, than a thousand.
    ‘We should do it,’ Juliet Appleby announced timidly.
    ‘Do what exactly?’ Armitage instinctively asked.
    ‘Shake them up then go out there and kick their bloody backsides,’ Emma answered.
    ‘Because if we don’t,’ Cooper reminded them, ‘then we won’t be getting into that helicopter and we’ll be stuck here. If we don’t go outside and face them now, then we’ll be facing them when they finally get in here, that’s if we haven’t burned to death already. Not much of a choice, is it?’
    Dividing his concentration between piloting the helicopter, watching the survivors and watching the bodies below, Lawrence noticed that Cooper and the others had shifted their attention from looking at him to watching what was happening on the ground. He peered down through small observation panels by his feet and watched as the bodies reacted to his presence. He shifted the helicopter slightly and saw that as the disc of light coming from the searchlight moved, so more shadowy shapes stumbled out of the way as if they expected it to burn or maim them.
    Having seen the behaviour of the creatures on the island change similarly, the actions of the diseased corpses surprised him less than they surprised the others trapped at the top of the observation tower. Perhaps if he dropped lower, he thought, then more bodies would move and he might be able to land and pick up the survivors. He tried briefly, but the number of corpses which stood their ground and still reacted violently was more than enough to convince him that course of action was out of the question.
    But the presence of the helicopter and the fear (that seemed to be the right word to use) that it seemed to generate amongst the dead was unquestionably important. It would help. It might give the people on the ground a chance, albeit a slight one. Lawrence remembered that the bodies he’d seen acting this way on the island, although quieter and more hesitant than most, had still attacked the survivors eventually when they’d been threatened. The bodies were trying to survive and their most basic instincts drove them to fight when no alternative course of action remained.
    From his position above the airfield Lawrence felt uncomfortable and helpless. He had no way of warning the others or telling them what he knew.
    Several minutes of frightened inaction passed.
    Having stood still and watched and waited for too long, too frightened and unsure to make her move, Emma finally decided that she had to take action. No-one else seemed ready to do it. All the talking in the world wasn’t going to get them away from the airfield and, as Cooper had already pointed out, they had nothing to lose and everything to gain from trying to get away. If they did nothing then their last chance would have gone. The prospect of a relatively safe and secure future with