Autumn: Disintegration (3 page)

“Let’s get out of here.” Jas, on the bike, sighed wearily as he climbed back onto the saddle of his machine. Webb moved toward him. “Piss off,” he spat. “You’re not getting on here like that. Look at the state of you. You’re covered in all kinds of shit.”

Webb looked down at his blood- and pus-soaked leathers. Gore dripped onto the ground around him. With his face screwed up in a grimace he bent down and picked a piece of scalp—complete with a clump of lank brown hair—out of a crease in his trousers at the top of his boot. He tossed it away in disgust.

“You’re not coming in here either,” Hollis snapped, looking him up and down. “Hold onto the back of the van.”

Too tired to argue, Webb picked up his trusty baseball bat from where he’d dropped it at the roadside, then climbed wearily up onto the footplate at the back of the van. Jas pulled up alongside him and shouted over the roar of the bike.

“And when we get back you make sure you wash yourself down before you take one step inside. I don’t want to be stepping through your shit all night, okay?”

Webb didn’t respond. He wasn’t interested in anything Jas or any of the others had to say. He tightened his grip on the van roof bars as they began to move away, then looked back over his shoulder, watching the smoke rise up from the burning crowds. One of the dead, its clothes and hair aflame, broke free and staggered after the van like the last firework on bonfire night, eventually dropping to the ground when its remaining muscles had burned away to nothing.

Is that the best you can do?
Webb thought.
Is that all you’ve got left?

2

Cold, tired and angry, Webb stormed up to the third floor and headed straight for the communal flat where most of the small group spent much of their time. He barged into the living room, almost tripping over Anita, who was asleep on the floor.

“You left me!” he yelled when he found her. “You bloody well left me!”

Sitting on a threadbare sofa in the corner of the room, Lorna barely lifted her eyes from her magazine. Anita groaned at him to shut up.

“Yeah,” Lorna mumbled, her voice devoid of any sincerity, “really sorry about that, Webb.”

“You stupid bitch,” he continued, her apparent lack of concern only increasing his anger, “I could have been killed.”

“Now there’s a thought.”

“Didn’t you even notice I wasn’t there? Didn’t you realize the seat next to you was empty?”

Lorna sighed and finally lowered her magazine.

“Sorry Webb,” she said, her voice now overly sincere. “Truth was I
did
notice that you hadn’t made it back. Problem was I was trying to drive a van filled with cans of petrol through a crowd of dead bodies. I could either turn back to get you and risk being blown to kingdom come, or just keep going. We both managed to get home in one piece, didn’t we? I’d say I made the right decision.”

“Bitch. You wouldn’t be so cocky if it was you that had been left behind. If I’d been in the van—”

“Two things to say to that,” she interrupted, pointing her finger at him. “One, I wouldn’t have gone mooching around for fags when I’d been given a job to do. And two, you can’t drive.”

“You always have to bring that up, don’t you? You’ve got a problem because I—”

“No,
you’ve
got the problem. I couldn’t care less if you could drive two cars at the same time. I just think you need to start—”

“Will you two shut up arguing?” Caron demanded as she entered the room carrying a pile of recently looted clothing. “You’re like a couple of kids. For crying out loud, look out of the window will you? The whole world’s dead and all you want to do is fight with each other.”

“We don’t have to look out the window, Caron.” Lorna sighed. “We’ve just been outside, remember?”

“And we’re all very grateful,” Caron replied calmly, refusing to allow herself to be drawn into the same pointless argument they had on a regular basis. “Thank you, both of you. Now will you please stop fighting and start trying to get on with each other?”

“Yes, Mom,” Webb mumbled.

Insensitive prick, Lorna thought. Caron had been a mother up until just over a month ago; until the day she’d spent almost an hour trying to resuscitate her seventeen-year-old son Matthew, oblivious to the fact that the rest of the world outside her front door had died too. Still, she thought, at least Caron was trying to come to terms with what’s happened, which was more than could be said for some of the others. She glanced over at Ellie, who was sitting in an armchair beside the door, cradling a plastic doll—a replacement for her seven-month-old daughter who had died in her arms on the first morning of the nightmare. Everyone knew it was wrong, yet Lorna couldn’t bring herself to say anything. Webb watched her too, scowling at the way she talked to the damn thing, and how she kept checking it was warm enough, planting kisses on its cold plastic cheek. Fucking nutter.

Caron dumped the pile of clothes over the arm of the sofa and gazed out the window. This was one of the rare apartments in the block which was still fully glazed. Most of the others had either been smashed by vandals or boarded up in the weeks leading up to the infection. She still couldn’t believe she’d ended up here. She’d driven past these flats hundreds of times before the world had fallen apart, and they’d always seemed to her to be the last place on the planet she’d ever want to live. Three grotesque concrete constructions that had both dominated and blighted the local landscape for years; dated, two-winged buildings which had once housed literally hundreds of underprivileged families. The decision to pull them down had finally been made by the housing authority more than a year ago, but—no doubt as a result of delays caused by pointless local government bureaucracy, bickering and red tape—they’d only demolished one and a half of them before everything had been reduced to ruin.

As quickly and angrily as he’d entered, Webb left the room, muttering and cursing under his breath, slamming the door behind him. The sound echoed around the flat like a gunshot. Ellie held her doll closer and soothed her. Lorna shook her head and continued to read her magazine. Caron cringed at the noise and looked out over the dead world outside—beyond the ever-shifting (and, it seemed, ever-growing) sea of bodies on the other side of the blockade of cars and rubble at the foot of the hill, and stared farther into the distance. She seemed to find herself doing this at least ten times every day, pretty much every time she looked out of the window in fact. Moving just her eyes she traced her route home along suburban roads which were now barely recognizable. From her hilltop position she could see Wilmington Avenue, and from there she counted the rooftops until her eyes settled upon number thirty-two. Her house. Her pride and joy. Her precious home which she’d tended for years and where her dead son still lay on his back in the middle of the kitchen floor. At least that was where she hoped he was. She didn’t allow herself to think about the alternatives. She couldn’t cope with the thought of her boy endlessly dragging himself along the streets like the rest of those vile creatures out there.

“So how was it today?” she asked, her breath misting up the cold glass in front of her face. She wiped it clear.

“Same as usual,” Lorna grunted, still flicking through her magazine.

“The neighbors seem a little more restless today,” Caron said. She couldn’t bring herself to call them bodies or corpses, or use any of the thoughtless and disrespectful expressions the others used. At least none of them used that ridiculous Z word. She found it easier just to refer to them as the neighbors. Then, in her mind at least, she could shut the door and close the curtains on them and forget they existed, just like she’d done with that awful man Gary Ross who’d lived and died over the road from her on Wilmington Avenue.

“Some of them were a bit wild. Nothing we couldn’t handle.”

“So what happened with him?”

“Who—Webb?” Lorna replied, looking up momentarily. “Just what I said. He decided he’d go off looting, and I decided to teach him a lesson. I’m sick of the rest of us having to risk our necks because of him. Bloke’s a bloody idiot.”

“Sounds like he was nearly a dead idiot.”

“Maybe. He always makes things sound worse than they are. Anyway, serves him right.”

Caron closed her eyes and leaned against the glass. What had her life become? What had she done to deserve this? Trapped in this horrific place, surrounded by these horrific people. She looked up again and focused once more on the gray slate roof of her house in the distance. She squinted, hoping to block out the thousands of cadavers and make them disappear.

Wilmington Avenue was five minutes away by car, but number thirty-two and the world she’d left behind felt a million miles away.

3

On a fifth-floor balcony, illuminated only by a three-quarter moon hanging high in the empty sky above them, three men stood together, drank beer, and watched the dead.

“Is that a corpse?” Stokes asked, pointing down into the shadows below. Hollis peered into the darkness, momentarily concerned. The figure was moving with coordination and control and he relaxed.

“Nah,” he yawned, “it’s Harte.”

Hollis watched as the tall man walked over to the left side of the building and looked through the motley collection of buckets, bathtubs, wheelbarrows and paddling pools the group had left out front to gather rainwater. He half-filled a jug from a large plastic plant-pot then wandered back inside. For a moment everything was still and quiet again.

“So what exactly happened with Webb today?” Stokes asked, disturbing the silence.

“He’s a liability,” Hollis said quietly, leaning over the metal veranda.

“He’s a fucking idiot,” Jas said, standing just behind him. Stokes shuffled forward, maneuvering his sizable bulk around the limited space of the balcony so he could reach another beer. He snapped back the ring-pull and held the can out in front of him as the gassy froth bubbled up and dribbled over the edge. He shook his hand dry, took a long swig, then bustled back to his original position next to Hollis.

“He’s just a kid, that’s all,” he said, stifling a belch. “He’s all right.”

“He’s got to learn to keep himself under control and not get distracted.” Jas sighed. “We’ve all got to get smarter when we’re out there.” He stamped on an empty can, flattening it with a satisfying crunch, then picked it up and pushed his way to the front of the veranda between Stokes and Hollis. He flicked his wrist and hurled the can out into the darkness like a Frisbee, the moonlight allowing him to track its curved path downward. It clattered against a half-demolished wall near to the remains of the second block of flats a little farther down the hill. The sharp and unexpected sound caused a noticeable ripple of inquisitive movement within the ranks of the dead nearby. He could see a sudden momentary swell of interest among the tightly packed corpses on the other side of the wall of rubble and wrecked cars they’d erected to keep the hordes at bay.

“We’ve just got to be sensible,” Hollis said. “Just keep doing what we’re doing until they’ve rotted down to nothing. We’re not prisoners here. We’ll keep going out and getting what we need, when we need it. We’re in charge here. Those things will only ever be able to get to us if we let them.”

“Maybe we should leave Webb here next time,” Jas suggested. “He’s going to get someone killed.”

“He’s just a loose cannon,” said Stokes. “Don’t write him off. He just needs to learn how to keep himself under control, that’s all.”

“I’ve seen dead bodies in the streets with more control than him,” Jas grumbled as he stomped on another empty can.

“Don’t joke about it,” Hollis said, leaning over to one side as the second crushed can flew past his ear. “Did you see that one today?”

“Which one?”

“The one with the branch.”

“What are you talking about?” Stokes asked, confused.

“It was just after we’d filled the first van,” Hollis explained. “One of the dead came marching out through the middle of the crowd dragging half a bloody tree behind it.”

“Must have got itself caught up,” Jas suggested, sounding only half-interested.

“That’s what I thought,” he continued, “but I was watching it and…”

“And what?”

Hollis paused, not entirely sure what he was trying to say. “And I swear it was trying to pick it up and use it.”

“Use it for what?”

“A weapon, I guess. Maybe it was going to attack us with it.”

“You’re worried about being attacked by a corpse carrying a branch?” Stokes said, smirking. “Christ, mate, you’re going soft. There’s thousands of them out there, and they’re all ready to gouge your bloody eyes out. I don’t think we need to lose any sleep over one that thinks it’s going to kill you with a bit of tree!”

Christ, Hollis thought, Stokes could be a pain in the backside at times. He was an insensitive, uneducated prick.

“You fucking idiot,” he cursed, amazed that he was having to spell out his concerns, “it’s not what it was carrying that bothers me, it’s the fact it was carrying anything at all. Have you seen any of them carry anything before now?”

“No, but—”

“Exactly. The last thing we want is for them to start picking stuff up and starting to—”

“Are you sure it was carrying the branch?” Jas interrupted.

“I was only looking at it for a few seconds,” he admitted, “and there were loads of them around us.”

“Don’t get wound up about it, it was probably nothing. Like I said, maybe it just got caught up.”

“Maybe, but what if—”

“Never mind what-if,” Stokes snapped, “let’s just concentrate on what we know they’re capable of.”

“And what’s that?” Jas asked.

“Fuck all!” he laughed, his bellowing voice echoing around the desolate estate, bouncing off the walls of empty buildings.

“What I think,” Webb suddenly announced from the darkness behind them, “is that we should go out there tomorrow and start burning them again. And this time we should keep at it until there’s nothing left of any of them.”