Disintegration

10

“It bit me!” Webb yelled as he flew into the communal living room, his voice close to breaking. “Fucking thing bit me!”

Hollis and Gordon were playing cards. Gordon looked up from the table momentarily but then looked down again, disinterested. Driver was asleep in an armchair with his newspaper over his face. Lorna had headphones on and was listening to music. Only Ellie showed any interest.

“What bit you?” she asked as she changed her doll’s nappy.

“One of those fucking things out there!”

“What?”

“One of the bodies bit me!”

Hollis glanced up from his cards. Was Webb on something? None of them bothered taking drugs anymore, mainly because they couldn’t find any. But had he found something in the warehouse yesterday? Was he still drunk from last night? Stokes’s sudden appearance in the doorway derailed his train of thought.

“It’s true,” he gasped, red-faced and fighting for breath. “One of them bit him.”

“Did it cut you?” Ellie asked. Webb shook his head and held up his arm, using his other hand to show where he’d been bitten.

“It just grabbed hold of me and bit me here,” he explained. “It couldn’t get through my jacket.”

“So what’s the problem, then?”

“The problem is it bit him, you stupid bitch!” Stokes yelled. Ellie shrugged off the insult; she’d been called much worse recently. “Are they going to start trying to eat us now?”

“You’ve watched too many crap films,” she announced, putting the doll over her shoulder, then getting up and walking around the room, gently patting its back.

“Are you sure it bit you?” Hollis asked, finally putting down his hand of cards, knowing they weren’t going to get any peace until Webb had his say.

“Of course I’m sure, you fucking idiot!” he screamed, his normally cocky voice filled with genuine panic and fear. “It had its teeth wrapped around my fucking arm!”

“But did it really bite you? Are you sure you didn’t just put your arm in its mouth?”

“Are you having a laugh?” Stokes said in disbelief. “It bit him. What don’t you understand? The bloody thing bit him.”

Hollis looked at him for a moment longer, then picked up his cards again.

“It didn’t really, though, did it? Why would it? Think about it. As far as I know they don’t eat, so it wasn’t trying to take a chunk out of you because it was hungry, was it?”

“It bit me,” Webb snarled, his fear now giving way to anger.

“Put anything in their mouths and chances are they’ll bite down on it. It’s an instinctive reaction, isn’t it? Just the same as walking or—”

“It fucking bit me!”

The volume of Webb’s voice had reached such a level that everyone stopped to listen. Even Driver moved his newspaper slightly so that he could see what was happening. Jas and Caron appeared from the flat next door. Only Anita, who hadn’t yet got out of bed today, was absent.

“What’s the matter?” Caron asked, concerned. Hollis couldn’t be bothered to recap.

“Calm down,” he warned Webb, who seemed poised to erupt again.

“Calm down?” Stokes gasped having finally got his breath back. “Calm down? For Christ’s sake, man, just listen to yourself, will you? One of those things out there tried to take a chunk out of his arm and you’re telling him to calm down? Can’t you see what—”

Hollis sighed. “It was just an instinctive reaction.”

“You weren’t even there!” Stokes yelled at him.

“But like I said, they don’t eat,” he protested. “They’re not controlled enough to be able to attack like that. Like Ellie said, this isn’t some stupid horror film. You’re not going to become one of them because you’ve had contact with infected blood or anything like that.”

“How do you know?”

Hollis rolled up his sleeve to reveal a seven-inch-long zigzag cut running along his forearm from his elbow to his wrist. The cut had been deep and sore but was beginning to scab over and heal. “One of them did this to me last week.”

“How?” Jas asked from the other side of the room. “You told me you did it trying to move a car.”

Hollis shook his head. “I said it happened while I was moving a car. I got scratched, that’s all. Just a lucky hit from a body that had lost a lot of flesh on one of its hands. Caught me with a sharp edge of bone.”

“Did you clean it up?” Caron quickly asked, her motherly instincts coming to the fore again. Hollis sighed. Did she think he was stupid?

“Of course I cleaned it up. Look, this really isn’t anything like the films you used to watch or the books you read. Those things out there are just dead bodies. They’re not flesh-eating monsters. They don’t want our brains or anything like that.”

“No, but they do attack us and they are getting smarter,” Lorna said. In an instant the focus of everyone in the room switched to her. “I don’t know how or why, but they are getting smarter, aren’t they?”

“What’s she talking about?” Gordon asked nervously. He turned around and repeated his question directly to her. “What are you talking about?”

“If you’d actually come outside with us and done something useful you’d know exactly what I was talking about.”

“My hip…” he began, immediately making excuses.

“Fuck you and your hip,” Webb said angrily. “Fucking waster.”

Gordon looked down and shuffled his cards again. He couldn’t handle confrontation.

“Is that right?” Caron asked, her voice suddenly tight and unsure. “Are they really getting smarter?”

“Not all of them,” Harte answered, “but some seem to be.”

“And did it really bite him?”

Hollis made eye contact with her and shook his head, the movement subtle enough for Webb not to see.

“I don’t think it’s anything to worry about,” Lorna continued. “Doesn’t matter how hard or fast they come at you, they’re still falling apart. It’ll still take a shitload of them to cause you any problems.”

“What—a shitload like the fifty thousand or so we’ve got camped out at the bottom of the hill?” Stokes grumbled unhelpfully.

“You know what I mean.”

“But what if they get up here?” Gordon asked anxiously.

“They’re not going to get up here,” Harte answered quickly.

“Who says?” Webb snapped. Driver fully removed the paper from over his face and sat up in his seat. Gordon put down his cards. Caron moved farther into the room.

“Shut up, Webb,” Hollis said. “You’re winding everybody up. For the last time, that thing didn’t bite you, and none of them are going to get up here, okay?”

“One of them did last night.”

“What?”

“While I was out in the car,” he explained, “one of them managed to get almost all the way up here.”

“Must have just got lucky.”

“What happened to it?” wondered Ellie, looking nervously out of the window.

“I beat the shit out of it, that’s what happened,” he replied.

“So one of them managed to get over the barrier,” said Hollis. “So what? The rest of them haven’t. They’re still stuck down there.”

“At the moment,” Stokes said. Hollis looked up at the ceiling in despair.

“For crying out loud, will you please stop trying to wind everyone up? We’re safe here. Nothing’s changed.”

“You reckon?”

“Yes.”

“Hollis is right,” Lorna agreed. “We just need to keep a close watch on things. If something does happen then we’ll deal with it straightaway.”

“I’m ready,” Webb said purposefully, a mask of machismo hiding the mounting fear he was feeling. “I’ll fucking deal with them.”

“I know you will,” Lorna said quietly. “And that scares me more than the bodies do.”