Disintegration

27

Hollis and Harte followed Martin deeper into the hotel complex. Howard’s dog walked alongside them, constantly sniffing at the air.

“You’ve got the pool, a gym, and a small sauna room down here,” Martin explained. “None of it’s any use without power, I’m afraid. We hardly ever come up here, actually, only to see her.”

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Harte admitted, his voice low. His head was rapidly filling with all kinds of unsavory thoughts: necrophilia, torture, some other kind of weird perversion he hadn’t even thought of … He had no idea what they were about to find going on in the dark and shadowy depths of the hotel.

“The dog usually follows when anyone comes down here,” Martin continued. “She thinks she’s protecting us—not that we need it, of course.” He stopped walking as the cream-walled, windowless corridor began to curve away to the right. The smell here was noticeably worse—a noxious combination of stagnant water and dead flesh—and the light levels were uncomfortably low. He beckoned them farther forward and then gestured toward a narrow rectangular window set in the wall. He peered cautiously through the glass.

“What’s going on?” Hollis demanded, his nerves getting the better of him. Martin scowled and lifted his finger to his lips. The dog padded forward, clearly agitated. They could see what Howard meant now—the animal was pacing up and down below the window, snarling but not making a noise. “Does that mean there’s a body in there?”

On Martin’s instruction he stepped up to the glass and looked into a dark office, illuminated only by a few slender beams of light trickling through a grime-covered skylight. Something was moving in the farthest corner of the untidy room. He couldn’t make it out at first, but when it shifted again he saw that it was a corpse. In the low light its appearance was muted and indistinct: female, perhaps a little shorter than he was, short blond hair, wearing only a swimming costume discolored through weeks of putrefaction. He was distracted when Harte shoved him to one side so he could look in. The sudden movement seemed to agitate the corpse, which lunged forward and threw itself at the glass with surprising speed and aggression, slamming against the window and leaving a smeared, face-shaped stain. It took a few stumbling steps backward, then stopped and stood swaying on its unsteady feet, staring at Harte with dull black eyes.

“She likes you!” Hollis smirked, watching with equal amounts fascination and disgust as the cadaver stumbled back into the shadows. He felt a surprising sadness, perhaps even pity for the abhorrent creature. Who had it once been? Why had she been at the hotel? On holiday or business? Had she been here alone or were the bodies of her family nearby? He found it strange that he was suddenly asking himself so many questions about this one particular carcass when he’d seen thousands upon thousands of them before and not given a damn. Had he come across this poor bitch outside he probably wouldn’t have wasted another thought on her—he’d have gone straight for her head with whatever weapon he’d had and he’d have beaten her until she stopped moving. Maybe it was because she was isolated and trapped here that he felt different? Perhaps it was because he could watch her without fear of attack?

As she moved away he noticed that she had a tattoo on her right shoulder blade, just visible next to the strap of her swimming costume. Her skin had an unnatural, mottled blue-green tone, but he could just make out the faded outline of Winnie the Pooh. He hadn’t expected that. Seeing the tattoo increased the strength of his confusing feelings. It reminded him that the lump of dead flesh in front of him had once been a living, breathing human being like him with friends, family, likes, dislikes, passions, and vices. Now look at it …

“She was a guest here,” Martin said quietly, gently forcing his way between the other two men. “I saw her the day before it all happened. Good-looking girl, she was.”

“So how did you get her in there?” Harte asked.

“I didn’t,” he replied. “She got herself trapped. The changing rooms are on the other side of this office. Poor cow must have been getting ready to swim when it killed her. She must have been bloody terrified and dragged herself in here looking for help. Probably the last thing she did.”

Hollis and Harte continued to stare at the pitiful creature in the shadows. Her movements were slow but appeared definite and considered. She was more coordinated than many of the bodies they’d come across previously. There had been others which had exhibited a similar level of control—some even more so—but they’d never had the opportunity to study any of them at such close quarters and without fear of attack.

“So why is she here?” wondered Harte. “Why haven’t you got rid of her? Have you got a thing for dead women in swimming costumes?”

Martin ignored his cheap jibe.

“She’s protected in here. She’s useful.”

“Useful? How exactly?”

“She’s like a human barometer.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You know what a barometer is, don’t you?”

“’Course I do,” Harte said quickly, offended, “but what’s a dead body got to do with the weather?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Martin explained. “It’s not about the weather, it’s about their behavior.”

“You can study them without going outside.” Hollis said, beginning to understand. “You can see what they’re doing without getting too close.”

“Exactly.”

“But what would you want to study them for?” Harte grunted ignorantly. “You’re never going to find a cure, or a reason why it happened, or—”

“No, nothing like that,” Martin interrupted, shaking his head and beginning to lose his patience. “That girl in there is protected from the elements. She’s still decaying, but there’s nothing in there to speed up the decay like wind or rain. That means—”

“—that she’s probably stronger and in better condition than most of the corpses outside,” Hollis said.

“Maybe not stronger, but she’s certainly in better physical shape than most of them.”

“So what you’ve got in there is the worst-case scenario?”

“Something like that. By watching her and how she reacts, we can get an idea of how the rest of them are going to respond next time we have to head out from here. We can see what they’re going to start doing even before they’ve started doing it!”

“So what have you learnt?” Harte asked, still not taking his eyes off the corpse.

“That they’re becoming more violent and they’re starting to make decisions.”

“Is that all? We could have told you that.”

“And they think we’re a threat.”

“And?”

“And we’re not going outside again until we absolutely have to. We’re going to make our supplies last and sit this thing out.”