The day dragged unbearably. Ray couldn’t switch off: his mind was filled with a thousand and one unanswerable questions and a similar number of nightmarish images, split second recollections of everything he’d seen aboveground. An inherently selfish man conditioned through years of regimented, nine-to-five working, it was only when it reached six o’clock in the evening – dinnertime – that he began to think more about his wife. Was Marcia safe? Would she be worried? Should he leave the bunker and go and find her? He already hated being underground but he knew he couldn’t do that. He’d had a lucky escape this morning. If he went outside now, he’d surely be exposing himself to whatever had killed everyone else. He had no choice now but to sit and wait.
Never a man to follow procedures (usual
