“You fucking BITCH!”

I jolted when a cry went up from the stairwell… my first thoughts were that the pack of diseased scavengers had found a way to breach the building, or worse still that we had inadvertently stumbled into their enclave… my grip tightened on my long knife and I pulled it free… Trey slid his weapon from his shoulder and trained it onto the door of the stairwell and motioned me to stay back as he made use of the wall as cover as he advanced… he reached the door and kicked at it, it swung hard and crashed against the crumbling wall… the flashlight on his gun giving him a perfect halo of vision as he heard the wounded man cry out, demanding all sorts of vengeance be bought to bare… Trey quickly grabbed his shoulders and dragged him back towards the lobby, allowing his gun to swing wildly from his shoulder casting a riotous symphony of shadow that flickered across the grey walls conjuring all manner of spectres…

I watched as Trey dragged the soldier through the water that covered the floor of the lobby, I rushed in to help him as he tried to lay him across the remnants of a table to keep the fetid water from tainting his wound… his thigh cleanly torn my a metal bolt, the wound pumped with blood… though I was sure that it had missed the major vessel, it could still be enough to finish him off especially if it became infected… I returned to Trey and with deference to his companion I whispered…

“We have to find a way to get him out… the wound itself wouldn’t ordinarily be fatal but in these conditions and without any proper medical equipment he is on an hour glass.” I cast a furtive glance back to the soldier

By now the rest of the team had returned from the far reaches of the building, having come running at the sound of the air being punctured by their comrades agonised cries… and moved to regroup with their commander, their hasty conference was quickly disrupted however…

There was a sudden crack as though the heavens had exploded overhead… I flinched at the noise as a sudden bolt of lightening tore across the sky like a shattered ribcage and in that moment London seemed illuminated… the ruins of the criminal courts highlighted against the blackness… the massing clamour that besieged the lobby entrance cast in silhouette as the blast flared through the glass roof of the lobby chasing away the darkness for the briefest time and showering us in a burst of white light… my eyes were already trained on the open doorway, and my expression faltered as my eyes fell wide and locked on the eyes of another… a woman

My mind turned over a thousand things a second as she remained locked with my gaze… she had the look of someone who had learnt to survive this nightmare… she was dishevelled but carried a certain air about her… but more than that… she looked free of disease… but there was something else, a revelation inside that shocked me to the core… a torment that raise up within… my mouth fell open… but I hadn’t been the only one to have seen her…

Trey screamed suddenly and as the flare from the lightning faded the room was suddenly relit by a burst of gunfire that thudded into the wall drawing a great cloud of dust and plaster…

“NO!” I screamed and threw myself against Trey, throwing his aim off as his bullets ripped through the far wall… he turned and faced me with a raging look

“What the hell is that about!”

“You didn’t see her did you? You just reacted to her… she wasn’t one of them, she was free… we have to stop her…” I had already started towards the stairwell before Trey grabbed at me, his eyes calmer now

“Now look who’s reacting… she has already demonstrated that she has no fear of us… she has probably been surviving like this for months, years even…” Trey signalled the remainder of the group to take point… “She can’t have gone far, and I doubt that she would want to face that horde outside any more than we do… she would have gone upwards…” with that he motioned with his finger pointing towards the ceiling…

My fingers of my free hand drifted into my coat as I touched against the collection of syringes that nestled in their custom design pouches… my touched glanced upon the last one and for a moment my heart stilled… and the feeling that flooded through me as my gaze locked with hers returned to me briefly… it was a few moments before I had composed myself enough to follow Trey through into the stairwell….