4) Corn Dolly

Abby, Jen and Greg are driving back to Abby's village in the hope that Peter may have found his way home. On the way, they run out of petrol. They find a garage. Inside, there's a notice and a map to a settlement.

Charles Vaughan is touring the area in a caravan posting the notices. He is surveying the area, making note of anything useful he finds. He sees the three's abandoned car and makes for the garage in the hope they are there.

Charles is an architect, who before the sickness had already been living a 'self-sufficient' lifestyle on a farm in the area. He now leads a settlement of 12 people at the farm, but wants to expand. He has some impressive plans for the future, and is already talking about restoring hydro-electric power. He is also convinced that the survivors must produce the next generation as quickly as possible.

His estimate of the survival rate, based on his survey, is 1 person in 15,000. He also says that he knows of no 2 people who knew (or knew of) each other, having both survived, (which cheers Abby up no end and is also interesting given that in series 3, we find a mother and three sons all surviving). He also makes the first mention of dog packs wandering the countryside.

Charles is impressed with Greg's adaptation of a footpump to obtain petrol from the garage, and invites them back to his community. Jen is very keen to go, and the other two are interested to see what is going on.

When they arrive, they find that all but one of the community members are dying of food poisoning, after eating fish they had caught in the local river.

Charles is devastated, but is determined to continue with his community. It turns out that four of the women were pregnant by Charles, who was keen to get his 'next generation' theory up and running. Two of the women died from the poisoning. Charles propositions Abby, who is not taken with the idea!

Abby decides to carry on to her home, Jen decides to go with her after finding out about the other women, and Greg goes with Jenny (already the two are becoming close). Charles is upset that they don't want to stay, and tries to persuade them to return, but to no avail.