BATTLEFIELD [4]

Then there was silence.

It was the prisoners, still sitting around the table fifteen meters away, who reacted first. They began to whoop and laugh; a couple of them high-fived each other.

Irritably Purna raised a hand for silence, pressing her ear against the door. After a few seconds, she said, 'Still some movement, but I think we should go now, while those that haven't been blown to bits are still recovering.'

Though Sam's ears were still throbbing, he nodded and looked around. 'Everyone ready?'

There were further nods and mutters of confirmation.

'Come on,' said Purna.

She opened the door with a shove, took one look around, and started running. Sam, a step behind her, did the same, feeling not unlike a soldier crossing a battlefield. The circular room – Panopticon, Kevin had called it – was a wreck, the floor scattered with twisted metal and shattered glass. Even more of a wreck were its occupants, the majority blown to pieces. There were body parts everywhere, and the floor was so awash with blood that it resembled a red lake choked with flesh and debris.

Despite this, some of the infected were still active. A good proportion of these, however, were so badly injured they could do little more than drag themselves around on shattered limbs. One man, his arms nothing but stumps from which spikes of splintered bone stuck out like vestigial wings, ran at Sam, gnashing his teeth. Sam swiveled and shot him in the head, barely breaking his stride. He jumped over the grasping hand of a man whose innards were oozing from a gaping hole in his midriff. Nearby a head, attached to little more than a spinal column and half a torso, was growling and grinding its teeth.

It had earlier been agreed that if a good proportion of the infected survived the blast, the seven of them would make for the observation tower in the center of the room and re-enact 'Operation Fish in a Barrel', picking off the zombies from above. However, the grenades – two dozen of which had been liberated, along with their guns, from the police armory on Banoi – had done considerably more damage than Sam suspected even Purna had hoped. As a result of this, the Australian girl turned briefly and shouted, 'Keep going!' She gestured towards the door diagonally across from the one through which they had entered.