Aftermath

57

The air outside was unexpectedly clear and fresh. A strong wind blew in off the sea, temporarily dispersing the decay-filled tang which was usually so prominent. The ground was still wet from the rain, but the storm had completely cleared and the angry gray clouds which had clogged the skies all day yesterday had now disappeared.

There was a handful of bodies outside when they left the apartment. They must either have followed the survivors last night or been drawn here subsequently by their activity and noise. They continued to converge on the building as the small group worked to get things ready. No one bothered to do anything about the dead: they simply worked around them knowing the fire would bring an end to them all soon enough.

All seven of the small group worked individually and without complaint, finding it infinitely easier to be outside now that the dead were no longer the threat they’d originally perceived them to be. Several cars had been left in the car park outside the apartment block, and Harte rolled some of them closer to the building. His plan was simple: crowd the base of the apartments with enough vehicles so that, when the heat from the fire they intended starting indoors was fierce enough, the fuel in the cars would explode and fan the flames.

While Harte shifted the cars, Michael, Kieran, and Hollis disappeared into the town and siphoned fuel from more vehicles into petrol cans and buckets, then carried them back to the flats. Lorna and Howard drenched the ground floor of the building with petrol and opened all the windows and interior doors. After working for a while, Caron sat herself down on a low stone wall on the other side of the road and watched.

When all the fuel had been used up, they were ready to start the fire. Kieran splashed fuel around the entrance to the apartments, Harte remained standing a short distance back from him, holding a Molotov cocktail, and watched.

“You done?” he asked as Kieran jogged back over to where the others were waiting. They’d all taken cover on the other side of the stone wall now, leaving him on his own.

“We’re done,” Kieran shouted.

Harte nervously held a lighter in one hand, the petrol bomb in the other. The fumes from the fuel were stinging his eyes and nose; he wasn’t sure if they were coming from the bottle or the apartments. The stench reminded him of when he’d burned down the petrol station, and the memory of the blast back then seemed to increase his nervousness tenfold.

“Get on with it,” Hollis yelled at him. He flicked the lighter before he could talk himself out of it. The petrol-soaked rag caught immediately. He threw the bottle and turned and sprinted back toward the others in a single, barely coordinated movement. Kieran grinned at him as he ran back.

“Crap shot!” he laughed. Harte dived over the wall, then scrambled back up again. He was right, it had been a bad shot—the bottle had smashed against the side of the front entrance, missing the door completely—but it didn’t matter. Theyd drenched the place in more than enough petrol and the fumes caught light almost instantly. Flames filled the air like a scorching mist, billowing left and right, then racing inside and tearing up through the apartment block. It wasn’t as dramatic as he’d been expecting, but it was enough. He stood back, arms folded, and watched with satisfaction as the fire began to take grip.

“Quite therapeutic, actually,” Howard said, and Harte thought back to those days at the flats when Webb used to spend his time beating the shit out of random corpses and calling that therapy. He knew exactly how he felt now. A little wanton destruction of property wasn’t doing anyone any harm, but Christ, it made him feel a lot better. Even if they didn’t make it off the mainland, maybe he could fill his time smashing things up to try and vent his numerous frustrations.

Less than a minute had passed, but the fire had already begun to take a substantial hold. Dancing orange-and-yellow light was visible through many of the first-floor windows, illuminating the insides of the individual flats which had, until now, remained shadow-filled and unlit. He watched through one particular window, directly ahead of him. The fire snaked in through the open doorway, then furniture toward the back of the room caught light, seeming to burst into flames spontaneously. The fire moved quickly, its pace accelerated by the copious amounts of petrol with which everything had been doused. A couple of seconds later and the curtains were alight, then flames began to lick up against the window as if they were trying to escape. Somewhere else another window shattered, exploding outward, flying glass followed by a belch of white-hot flame. And then another, then another. Within minutes a couple of the cars were alight too. They all knew it wouldn’t be long before fuel tanks caught and the raging firestorm they’d started would be burning out of control.

Several bodies were already moving toward the growing inferno. Lorna thought she was imagining it, but their speed seemed to have increased slightly. She watched as one walked right up to the apartment building, seemingly oblivious to the flames which now surrounded it. A loose rag of clothing caught light, and in an instant the whole body was consumed. It staggered on for a few more seconds, completely enveloped by fire now, before collapsing. The same thing happened to several more. Another one walked toward a part of the building where the flames were particularly ferocious. It caught light before it had even made contact with anything which was burning, the intensity of the heat enough to cause it to spontaneously combust.

“So what do we do now? Just sit here and wait?” Caron asked. She looked at the others, their faces bathed in the strangely soothing flickering orange glow.

“It’s going to get too dangerous here,” Michael said. Almost on cue, there came a series of quick, successive explosions like gunshots; aerosols or something equally flammable detonating inside. The noises seemed to spur on even more of the dead to get closer.

“So where do we go?”

“There’s only one place to go, isn’t there?” he said. “If Richard does come back for us, he’s going to head straight for the car park.”

“The car park?” Caron said, confused. Michael was about to explain but another blast stopped him from speaking. The fuel in the tank of one of the cars had exploded, sending the vehicle up onto its nose, pirouetting, then crashing back down against the side of the burning apartment block. When the noise had subsided, Michael tried to speak again. He pointed out across town.

“See that multistory car park over there? That’s where he lands, so that’s where we need to be.”

Without waiting for any of them to respond, he started walking.