Disintegration

12

“I didn’t think you wanted to play,” Harte said to Hollis as he followed him out of the lobby and walked across the car park. Hollis covered his mouth and stifled a yawn. He’d given up wearing a watch several weeks ago but he guessed it was sometime around six in the morning, maybe even as late as seven. It was a cold, wet, and miserable day. Long overdue rain was finally filling the buckets, pots, and pans they’d left outside to gather water.

“I don’t. I’ll be keeping an eye on you silly bastards from the window,” he said quietly as he filled a jug from the rainwater which had puddled at the bottom of a plastic paddling pool. “For the record I don’t know if this is going to work, but I guess it’s probably worth a try.”

Harte nodded, surprised that Hollis seemed so positive. He watched him wander back to the flats, then pulled on a spare motorcycle helmet and ambled across the car park to where Jas stood checking the bike. Jas looked up as Harte approached.

“You ready?” he asked. He sounded subdued.

“Suppose,” Harte mumbled, adjusting the straps of a small rucksack which he hoisted onto his back. “Let’s just get it done.”

It had seemed like a sensible plan last night, but now, standing here in the cold, low light of morning in full view of the endless devastation once again, they were both beginning to wonder what they’d agreed to. They were going out to try and create a distraction to reduce some of the pressure at the front of the crowd, but Jas suddenly felt less like a decoy and more like bait. Forcing himself to move, he turned his back on the huge expanse of rotting flesh which stretched out below him then climbed on the bike and started the engine. The spitting roar of the powerful machine disturbed the uneasy silence. Harte picked up a can of fuel and got on behind him, holding onto the back of the bike with his free hand as they drove away.

Stokes and Webb watched the bike disappear from the dubious comfort of the now rain-soaked sofa where they’d sat and talked last night.

“We should make a start,” Webb suggested. “Get down there and get ready.”

Stokes shook his head and opened a can of lager.

“Plenty of time, son,” he said. “Plenty of time.”

* * *

Jas weaved around the back of the building, cutting between the rubble and ruin and swerving around mountainous piles of rubbish which had been discarded by the survivors during their incarceration here. He drove the bike through a narrow alleyway, then powered across an empty rectangular yard lined with lock-ups and garages on either side. Through a gap in a chain-link fence, up a steep grass verge and they had reached the road without coming across a single body. There were always fewer of them on this side. Gravity, the overall geography of the land, and the mazelike layout of the dilapidated housing estate meant that the dead were naturally channeled down toward the foot of the hill rather than being allowed to gather in numbers up here behind the flats.

The plan this morning was simple. Get far enough away from their base to be safe, yet stay close enough to create a distraction that would attract the attention of some of the huge crowds gathered around the bottom of the hill. They figured their work would be easier if the corpses were looking in the opposite direction when they mounted their attack.

Navigating through the dead world was becoming more and more of a problem for Jas, particularly at such high speeds. He didn’t want to drive any slower, despite the relative lack of corpses on this particular stretch of road. Traveling at this rate he knew that he’d be able to get past any of the bodies foolish enough to get in his way. If he reduced his speed at all the dead would have a chance, albeit just a slight one, of knocking him off-balance.

Harte maintained his one-handed grip on the bike with all the strength he could muster as the powerful machine dipped from side to side. Jas steered skilfully around the occasional wandering cadaver and other random obstructions, trying hard to fathom his way through the bizarre and chaotic landscape. He’d been here many times before, but the myriad streets all looked broadly the same, and as the world decayed so everything seemed to be becoming less defined. He powered down a long, sweeping, tree-lined road and finally spotted a landmark which helped him focus and make sense of his surroundings again. They drove parallel with a long gray-stone wall which ran the length of one edge of a massive reservoir, then passed the shadowy shell of a once-thriving college. Even now, weeks after they had died, the imprisoned corpses of students pressed their decayed faces against the windows when they heard the bike approaching, looking for release from their dormitory and lecture-room tombs.

Now Jas knew exactly where he was and where he wanted to be. They’d driven in a large loop which took them right around the back of the immense crowd at the bottom of the hill. Two sharp left-hand turns in quick succession and they were almost there. Harte looked up and could see the flats above them in the distance—a dark, imposing structure silhouetted against the ominous gray-white sky. Although their distance from home was unsettling, he was reassured by the fact that, from here, the building looked like an impenetrable gothic castle or fortress. He was distracted from his thoughts when Jas suddenly turned left again, nearly wrenching his shoulder out of its socket as the bike dipped to the side. They stopped and he flicked up the visor of his helmet.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, glancing anxiously around. There were more bodies here, and he was already aware of several creeping, twisted figures which were emerging from the shadows on either side of the road.

“Need to work out how we’re going to get out of here,” Jas replied, his voice muffled and quiet.

“Don’t you think we should have thought about that before we came out?”

Harte stared at a grotesque creature which limped closer to them. A huge chunk of flesh was missing from the right of its torso, as if something had taken a bite out of its side. It wore a pair of soiled pajama bottoms and slippers, and its awkward, lethargic movement caused more of its putrefied guts to spill out of the hole in its chest.

“Are you listening to me?” Jas said angrily. Harte shook his head, cursing himself for being so distracted by the monstrosity he’d been watching and the trail of guts it had left on the road.

“What?” he mumbled.

“We’ll go around the back,” Jas yelled, driving a little farther forward, then stopping midway down what had once been an ordinary suburban street lined on either side with unremarkable, semidetached houses. He looked up to make sure he could still see the flats—no point creating a distraction that can’t be seen from up there, he thought—then gestured toward the nearest house. More bodies were hauling themselves toward them now. A group of three seemed to be moving together. “Open that gate!” he ordered, pointing to the narrow passageway which ran down the side of the house.

Harte immediately jumped off the bike and ran down the driveway, pausing only to barge a lanky and particularly unsteady body out of the way, sending it tripping over onto the tarmac. He tried to force the wooden gate open but it wouldn’t move.

“It’s locked,” he shouted to Jas, who had driven down the drive after him.

“Of course it’s locked, you idiot!” he shouted back. “Just climb over and get the bloody thing open!”

Inquisitive bodies were beginning to swarm down the driveway now, almost completely blocking the way out. Still holding on to the fuel can, Harte hauled himself up over the top of the tall gate and crashed down into the passageway on the other side, immediately picking himself up, turning around and sliding the bolt. As soon as the gate was open Jas drove toward him, barely giving him chance to get out of the way. Once he was through, Harte ran back and pushed the gate shut again, slamming it in the rotting face of a once-pregnant cadaver. The creature’s distended belly—still filled with the partially-developed remains of its dead child—slapped against the wood like meat on a butcher’s slab.

“Now what?” Harte asked, returning to Jas, who’d parked his bike on a patio. Weeds sprouted between the slabs they stood on.

“On foot,” he said. “We’ll cut through a few more gardens, then do it. It should disorient them. Once we start the fire they’ll lose track of where we are. It’ll give us a better chance of getting back out.”

Harte didn’t argue. He followed Jas deeper into the long garden, moving away from the back of the house and looking for a way through to next-door. Jas found a broken fence panel two-thirds of the way down the narrow lawn. He pushed it over and clambered through to the other side. Harte stayed close, running across the second garden and checking back over his shoulder to make sure he’d remember where they’d started out from.

“Bloody hell,” Jas cursed as he crawled through a gap in a laurel hedge into the third garden, then stood up and walked straight into the dead arms of something which, from the look of its blood and paint-stained overalls, might have been a builder or decorator when it had been alive. It had been on the right side of the garden at exactly the wrong time for Jas and had managed to grab hold of him with its clumsy, outstretched arms. He pushed the corpse away. It stumbled back, then pivoted around on heavy, uncoordinated legs and lurched toward him again.

“I’ve got it,” Harte said. Jas stepped out of the way as Harte plunged a garden fork up into the creature’s face, one prong drilling through the side of its cheek and into the roof of its mouth, another gouging an eye, then sinking deep into what was left of its brain.

“Cheers,” Jas grunted, stepping over the body and continuing through into garden number four. In no time he’d managed to get through gardens five, six, and seven. Still struggling to get across garden six, Harte, who was nowhere near as fit and was lagging behind, yelled for him to stop.

“Come on,” he wheezed as he clambered over the final low fence. “Surely this’ll do.”

Jas stopped and rested with his hands on his hips. He cleared his throat and spat a lump of phlegm into a stagnant fish pond just ahead of him. His spit settled on the surface, barely even causing a ripple in the murky water, which was dark green, almost solid with algae and silt. He could just make out a few shards and slivers of orange and white among the sludge—all that remained of someone’s pet goldfish.

Harte was already walking toward the house, moving around the edge of a large, circular children’s trampoline. The center of the trampoline sagged heavily. A puddle of rainwater had gathered over weeks, steadily distorting the once taut elastic sheeting. He climbed four low steps up to another weed-infested patio, then paused at the back door before entering the building. Jas peered in through the cobweb-covered kitchen window.

“Can’t see anything in there,” he said, unaware that he had suddenly started to whisper. Harte tried the door, which was stiff and hard to open. A shove with his shoulder and it moved. He pushed it fully open and stepped into the house. The building was filled with the suffocating and disturbingly familiar stench of death. His concern was not how many bodies he’d find inside, however, just how many were moving.

Speed was vital. Not needing to discuss the routine, the two men immediately began moving at pace. Jas checked downstairs while Harte worked through upstairs, briefly looking into every room, ready to react if anything moved, grabbing anything he thought might be of use later. Apart from two motionless, skeletal bodies curled up in bed together, the building was clear.

“All clear,” he shouted as he ran back down the stairs. “Couple of stiffs up there, that’s all. Nothing moving.” He paused for a moment to look out a small window just to the right of the front door. There was an uncomfortably large number of bodies milling about in the road outside, most of them gravitating around the house the men had originally entered. Their numbers were nothing they couldn’t handle, but something they could still do without. He found Jas in the dining room, piling furniture up against one wall. He had pushed a long, rectangular table over onto its side and was stacking chairs up against it. As Harte watched he pulled down the curtains and began to stuff them into the gaps between upturned wooden chair legs.

“Where’s the fuel, Harte?” he asked as he worked. Harte disappeared again, leaving him alone. Jas ran around to the other side of the upturned table to look for more to burn. He stopped immediately when he saw the body. How he hadn’t noticed it before, he didn’t know. Slumped in the corner of the room under the bay window was the curled up body of a child. Two years old when it had died, three at the most. For a moment the small, defenseless, withered husk was all that he could see and think about. It had died lying on its back, its tiny hand held across its face as if it had been trying to hide from whatever it was that was killing it.

“What’s the matter?” Harte asked, returning to the room and finding him standing over the corpse on the carpet. He threw down a pile of coats he’d grabbed from the hallway and started to pack them around the table and chairs. Jas continued to stare at the child. The small boy looked about the same age as his little girl Annia had been when she’d …

Don’t do this, he thought. Please don’t do this. He could feel the pain of the family he’d lost welling up inside him. Most of the time he managed to keep this suppressed, but like everyone else there were moments when he was caught off-guard. He couldn’t allow himself to break down. Not here, not now. He had to forget about everything he’d lost and—

“Jas!” Harte snapped. “Now’s not the time. Come on, mate, get a fucking move on!”

Still nothing.

The last time he’d seen his children alive they’d been at home in their house, which was similar in design to the one they stood in now. He hadn’t been back there since he’d lost them. Were they still there, lying motionless like this poor little creature, or were they moving? Was Annia up on her feet, staggering around hopelessly, aimlessly and tirelessly? Were the kids alone or had—

A corpse slammed against the window directly in front of him, distracting him and bringing a sudden, thankful release from his increasingly dark thoughts. He turned around and acknowledged Harte.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, “I just…”

“Doesn’t matter,” Harte said quickly, doing all he could to avoid getting involved in another awkward conversation. He opened the fuel can and began to empty its contents over the pile of furniture. Jas pushed past him as the acrid smell of petrol filled the air and ran back to the kitchen. Harte followed, slowly shuffling out backward, carefully spilling a trail of petrol through the house behind him. Once the can was empty he kicked it across the kitchen floor; it clattered noisily on the hard tiles.

“Keep still,” Jas mumbled as he ferreted around in the rucksack on Harte’s back for a box of matches. As soon as he had them they both barged out through the back door, Harte not stopping until he was on the far side of the trampoline again. He shielded his eyes from the light drizzle and watched as Jas crouched in the doorway.

Jas almost allowed himself to think about the body of the child again before he struck the match; almost, but not quite. Just at the last second he managed to distract himself and, before his mind could wander again, he lit the flame. The vapor in the air caught light immediately. He turned and ran.

By the time the two men had worked their way back through seven gardens and were ready to get on the bike, the house down the road was well ablaze. The crackling, spitting flames, the noise, the belching black smoke and the dancing orange, red, and yellow light were enough to distract virtually all of the bodies out in the street. Jas and Harte were away before the dead had even realized they were there.