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of snow, driven by the wind, slowed them down to a crawl. To Alex it felt as if he was experiencing the final burial of his world. The lush, green countryside he had marvelled at only ten days earlier had vanished under a poisonous sheet of snow. Trees, many defoliated, hung over them like giant broken skeletons in the gloom. Their branches, dangling like many broken limbs, swinging and pivoting wildly as the wind. Only the houses remained intact - lifeless, shadowy lumps of brick and wood.
    Soon the party stretched out into a long line. The wind velocity increased further, forcing them to bend nearly double to make headway. Hugh forced the pace, stretching his lead over the others until he was only a faint blur against the fury of the blizzard. But the party could only travel as fast as its slowest member, and soon he had to pause to allow the others to catch up. It took nearly two hours to cover the four kilometres to the village centre, and by then many of the party were nearly spent. Several times in the last hour they had to stop to allow the stragglers to catch up. Once, a large woman in her forties collapsed and Alex and another man found themselves supporting her for the rest of the way. Only a lull in the storm and an easing off of the wind enabled them to reach the village.
    Hugh finally called a halt in a former bakery shop. The rest of the party struggled in and collapsed unceremoniously on the floor. Outside, another blizzard was converging on the village. Within minutes the greyness was complete. Even the few lights coming from the second and third storey shop windows across the street had vanished. Alex took off his gloves and tried to warm his fingers by breathing on them. He had lost all feeling in his fingers and his toes about half an hour before. His face had also gone numb, making him think seriously about the possibility of getting frostbite. Having spent most of his life in Australia he had very dim memories of this type of cold. In London, as a small boy, he remembered playing in the lights of the street lamps after dark until his feet and hands had become completely numb. But then he could always run inside and warm up; now he felt he could never be warm again.
    After they had rested a little, Hugh got to his feet and addressed them. ‘I know it means carrying heavy packs to the hospital and back,’ he said, studying their exhausted faces, ‘but I think we should collect our supplies now.’
    His words brought an immediate and angry protest. Most vocal was a short stout man, named Ted Richards, of whom Alex had already formed a very poor impression. For the last hour at least he had been complaining bitterly, and he had flatly refused to help any of the weaker members of their group when they got into difficulties.
    ‘Why can't we pick up the supplies on the way back?’ Ted asked arrogantly.
    ‘Because it may be several days before we can return,’ Hugh replied. ‘All the shops may have been ransacked by then. We must be sure of collecting the supplies we came for.’
    ‘But no one's going to go out in this.’ Ted waved his arm in the direction of the blizzard, which was now blowing directly through the broken shop window.
    Hugh said quietly; ‘It's been eleven days since the holocaust. If everyone has done what the government has told them and only stored two weeks of food, then their supplies will already be running low. When they realise there is no help coming, they will start to panic.’ He gave Ted a cold look. ‘I'll wager a lot of the food has already been taken from these shops.’
    ‘But the government will soon be coming to help us!’ Ted stated confidently.
    Hugh shook his head solemnly. ‘There won't be any help around here for a long time, perhaps never,’ he replied. ‘Nobody would leave a cosy shelter to come out in this, the government least of all. They will wait until the worst cases have died before they attempt to feed the population. Otherwise they would be