Autumn: Disintegration (22 page)

“Been far?” Hollis asked Martin as he wheeled his bike back through the kitchens.

“Jesus Christ!” the older man gasped, holding onto a stainless steel worktop for support, “You scared the hell out of me. What are you doing down here at this time of morning?”

“More to the point,” Hollis said, standing up and walking closer so that he didn’t have to shout, “what are you doing out on a bloody bicycle at this hour?”

“I told you yesterday,” he replied, his composure returning. “Playing music. First refuelling trip of the day.”

“Many of them about out there?”

“Enough. Didn’t hang around to do a head count. Can’t stand the sight of them.”

“You and me both. So is it working?”

“Seems to be. I guess the fact that there aren’t any here indicates that it is.”

“Fair point. Good plan, actually.”

“I think so.”

“You’ve managed to channel them away and keep them at a distance.”

“Keeping them at a distance is just about the best we can do, I think. There are too many to try doing anything else.”

“Try telling that to Webb.”

“What?”

“Bit of a loose cannon, is our Webb. Where we’ve just come from we had crowds right around the front of the building. He seemed to think he had to get rid of them all, or at least enough to be able to push them back.”

“That’s never going to work, is it?”

“Suppose not. I thought it might for a while. Most of us got involved when he first suggested it, but it was obvious pretty quickly that it wasn’t going to happen. It would have taken us years.”

“All you’re doing is winding them up. You’re just showing them where you are and inviting them to come pay you a visit.”

“Like I said, try telling Webb.”

“Your friend’s not very bright, is he?”

“He’s not very bright and he’s definitely not my friend,” Hollis said, looking around at the empty racks and shelves. “I’ll tell you something, though, Martin, at the risk of sounding like a broken record: we do need to get out of here and get supplies. We’re going to sit here and starve if we don’t.”

Martin’s heart sank. Not again, he thought. Since the others had arrived yesterday, and after the conversation they’d had last night, he’d thought about little else. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he knew that Hollis was right. For the sake of a few hours out in the open they could improve their situation here dramatically. The thought of having to survive on the pitiful scraps they had left in the hotel stores was depressing. Last night they’d eaten something resembling a proper meal. Sure, none of it was fresh and it had been thrown together, but it was the best food he’d had for weeks. He’d felt re-energized afterward and some company, a few glasses of wine, and a long-overdue cigarette had, for a while, made him feel almost human again.

“You’re right,” he begrudgingly admitted.

31

Caron sat on the end of her bed and held her head in her hands. She was exhausted. It didn’t make sense: the most comfortable bed she’d had in almost two months, the safest surroundings, fresh faces, no crowds of dead bodies, and yet she still hadn’t been able to sleep. Truth was she couldn’t clear her head enough to switch off, not even for a few precious minutes. Every time she closed her eyes she pictured Ellie, Anita, her son Matthew, or any of the others she’d let down recently.

Caron’s room was the first on the second floor of the west wing. Its corner position afforded her an impressive and expansive view to the front and side of the hotel. She stood up and walked to the window, keen to benefit from the limited heat of the sun which had just begun to peek out through a layer of heavy cloud. The carpet felt unexpectedly warm and soft under her feet. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been able to walk around barefoot. The view outside was clear and uninterrupted and allowed her to see for miles back in the direction from which they’d arrived yesterday. She couldn’t see anything recognizable, just hills and fields and open space. She tried to look even farther into the distance, right out toward the horizon. Somewhere out there, she remembered sadly, was the dilapidated building they’d left behind and, inside it, the sick girl they’d abandoned. Sure, she knew that Ellie had been dying and there was nothing more she could have done to help her, but had she really deserved to be left alone like that? Had she even been alone? Had those godforsaken monstrosities which tirelessly dragged themselves along the streets somehow managed to force their way even farther up the hill and into the building? Had they found her and torn her limb from limb, ripping her to pieces as they had done Stokes? Even worse, what if she’d recovered from her illness? Imagine that, finally coming out of her feverish malaise and finding herself alone with no way of following the others or even knowing in which direction they’d gone. Whatever had happened to Ellie—and she hoped for her sake that she’d died a quick and relatively painless death—Caron felt like shit.

She turned away from the window and entered the small bathroom on the other side of the room. She switched the light on instinctively, despite knowing full well that the electricity had been off for weeks. She flicked the switch down again, feeling unnecessarily foolish and angry, and shoved the door open as wide as it would go, hoping that the sunlight would stretch far enough across the room to reach the bathroom. The sink and the mirror above it were partially illuminated by daylight. She wiped the dust-covered glass clean with an equally dusty towel which had been left draped over the edge of the bath by a long-since-dead housekeeper, then stared at her own reflection. Christ, she looked old this morning. Perhaps it was the light and shadow? Maybe it was the fact that she no longer used the creams and lotions and makeup that she’d treated her skin with for years? Maybe it was just because her life had become a relentless and unbearable nightmare that she looked so bad? Whatever the reason, she dumped the towel angrily in the sink and went back and laid down on the bed.

Caron’s stomach was knotted tight with nerves. She’d last felt like this a couple of years back when she’d discovered that her husband had been sleeping with Sue Richards, the receptionist from the doctor’s surgery. It hadn’t been his deceit or lies which had hurt her—in fact, their sex life had already deteriorated to such an extent that it was something of a relief that he’d found himself an alternative channel to vent his pent-up sexual frustrations. Instead, Caron had struggled with keeping the secret and maintaining a façade. She’d found it almost impossible to carry the weight of the pretense when both she and Bob had decided it would be better for all concerned—particularly Matthew—if they just pretended his little indiscretion (actually numerous little indiscretions) hadn’t happened at all. She’d hated sleeping in the same bed as him when she despised him, hated him touching her when he made her skin crawl, hated forcing herself to speak civilly to him when all she wanted to do was scream in his face and tell him to fuck off and die. Strange that she should feel so similar today. As she buried her face in her pillow she decided it was because, like her dead husband Bob, all these other people wanted her to pretend to be someone she wasn’t. They all thought she was capable of things which, in reality, she couldn’t do. Ellie and Anita thought she’d help them. Matthew thought she’d always look after him …

So this is it
, she thought to herself, rolling over again and looking up at the ceiling.
This is your best chance—your last chance—to make something of what’s left. Do you take it, or is it time to give up and admit defeat?

It was a difficult decision. Her instinct was to continue to fight and try to survive, but her brain was saying something else entirely. Was there any point in fighting if there was no longer anything worth surviving for? If the events of the last few days were anything to go by then probably not. But here, out in the middle of nowhere in this unexpected oasis of corpse-free space and silence, there was the slightest chance that things might actually prove to be different. Yesterday evening Ginnie had alluded to her finally having someone to help her in the kitchen “looking after the boys.” Caron had balked at the idea, telling her she was sick of playing mother hen all the time. And that, she decided, was the decision she would ultimately have to make: did she try and survive to make things easier for everyone else, or for herself? Without thinking, on the bedside table she’d arranged a symbolic representation of her ultimate choice. On one side was a bottle of cognac and a trashy romance novel, on the other the bag of pills she’d brought with her from the flats, enough to kill a horse.

Tired, irritated, and unable to relax or even get comfortable, Caron got up again and walked back over to the window. She could see people outside now. There was Howard Reece walking his dog across the overgrown lawns on the far side of the car park. She could also see Harte and Jas peering in through the windows at the swimming pool and poolside gym, then pulling open an outside door and disappearing inside. It certainly looked as if the others were going to give their new surroundings a chance.

I’ll do the same
, she decided.
I’ll give it a couple of days and see how things are going. If it looks like everything’s going to work out, I’ll keep drinking the booze and reading the books. If I wind up just facing the same old problems, then maybe I’ll have to think again
.

32

“Problem is,” Jas sighed, “you need power to use most of this stuff.”

Harte nodded and continued to walk around the collection of gym equipment at the side of the pool. It was just far enough away from the stagnant water to avoid the worst of the acrid stench which they’d tried to clear by propping open some of the outside doors. This place would have been quite nice in the summer, he thought as he gazed around through the dust and cobwebs. He’d never been much of a fan of exercise, but the prospect of finally having something constructive to do with his time was appealing. Providing they could get enough food and nutrition to replace whatever energy they used up while working out, the benefits of using the gym equipment were obvious. As well as keeping them in shape—or, in the case of most of them, getting them into shape—the physical exertion would also undoubtedly allow them to release some of their frustrations. Webb could continue with his therapy sessions without having to round up decaying corpses and batter the hell out of them.

“Weights are all right, though, aren’t they?” he said. Jas looked up and nodded. He’d been wiping the dust off a screen attached to the front of some kind of rowing machine.

“Weights are fine,” he replied. “I used to do a lot of weight training. I can show you a few exercises that’ll help.”

“I don’t want to end up looking like a bloody bodybuilder,” Harte immediately protested. “All the muscle turns to fat as soon as you stop training, doesn’t it?”

Jas grinned.

“You’ve got to get the muscle first, mate!” He laughed. “You got any idea how much they had to eat to get like that? And there’s the bulking up foods and the steroids and—”

“I get the picture.”

“We only need to do enough to keep ourselves in shape—just in case.”

“In case what?”

Jas shrugged his shoulders. “You know the score. If it’s not the bodies, then there are a few people in here who look like they’re ready to kick off.”

“Such as?”

“Such as Webb.”

“Oh, him,” Harte said. “Don’t need much strength to keep him in check. Kid’s a bloody idiot. You shout at him loud enough and you can see his lips start to quiver. I tell you, mate, when I was in teaching I came across hundreds of kids like Webb. They’re all talk and no action. He’s no threat.”

“You sure about that?”

“As sure as I can be.”

“And how sure’s that?”

Harte didn’t answer. Instead he started looking at another piece of training equipment. It looked more like a medieval torture device than anything that might actually have been designed to do some good.

“What’s this do?” he asked. Jas didn’t answer.

“Just watch yourself around Webb,” Jas warned, his voice low and deadly serious. “I’ve seen him in action and I don’t like it. I’ve watched him when he thinks no one’s been looking. I’ve seen him do some things—”

“Like what?”

Jas, now much closer, wouldn’t be drawn. He continued past Harte and stood at the edge of the pool, looking into the murky water. They’d need to drain the pool, he decided. The glass doors, roof and walls made the place like a greenhouse.

“Doesn’t matter now,” he eventually replied, forcing himself to think about Webb again. “Just be careful, that’s all. He’s got himself a new friend now. We need to make sure he doesn’t get carried away and start showing off.”

“That kid Sean seems okay. He seems pretty sensible.”

“He’s like a coiled spring,” Jas said. “Poor sod’s been trapped in here with a bunch of old bastards who are scared of their own shadows. By the look of the dust in here he hasn’t been using the gym to let off steam, so he’s going to be full of frigging teenage angst and hormones. I tell you, he’ll be itching for a chance to get out of here and see some action to prove he’s a man.”

“Looks like a strip of piss to me,” Harte grunted. “I can’t see him fighting his way out of a bloody paper bag.”

“Keep your eye on the quiet ones.”

“Whatever.”

“I mean it. Just don’t let him get carried away. If you see him getting out of control, jump on him hard. If he starts looking up to Webb and seeing him as a role model, then we’re going to have all kinds of problems to—”

Jas stopped talking, interrupted by a sudden crashing noise.

“What the hell was that?” Harte asked anxiously. Jas disappeared back out through the nearest door and ran along the corridor. Howard’s dog pelted toward them from the opposite direction. The animal stopped beneath the window of the small office where Martin’s pet corpse was kept. She looked up and snarled but didn’t make a sound. Howard himself followed breathlessly at a distance. Jas peered through the glass. He could see the Swimmer scrambling about on the floor, slowly picking herself back up.