Disintegration

29

Eight o’clock. Pitch black outside. Everywhere silent. The entire group sat around tables in the restaurant and ate. Howard’s dog prowled up and down, sniffing the air hungrily and grabbing at whatever scraps happened to fall her way, but the amount of waste was negligible. Those who had been living in the hotel were starving, the meager rations they’d so far survived on were nothing compared to the relative riches the others had brought with them.

“I never used to like tomatoes,” Ginnie said excitedly as she helped herself to another serving of lukewarm chopped, canned tomatoes, “but my God, this tastes good!”

Caron and Hollis exchanged glances across the table. What had these people been eating? Caron asked the question.

“Not much,” Howard replied, just visible in the candlelight at the other end of the table. “I reckon I’ve lost a couple of stone.” He lifted up his baggy sweater to reveal an equally baggy T-shirt. “Few more stones to go yet, mind,” he added, patting his wide belly.

“I don’t understand why you haven’t just gone out for supplies,” Harte said. “There’s a town just down the road, you could have been there and back in a couple of hours. And you’ve got those trucks too. If you’d filled one of them you’d have had enough to last you weeks, months even.”

“We just haven’t wanted to risk going out there,” Martin answered. “Okay, so we’ve gone hungry, but none of us are starving and we’ve been safe so far. I know what I’d rather have.”

“I’d have risked it,” Sean said from a table a short distance away where he was sitting with Webb and Jas.

“We all agreed, Sean,” Martin sighed. “There were only five of us here. We’d have been taking too much of a chance.”

“You all agreed,” he protested. “I don’t remember getting to have much of a say. You’d decided before I even knew you were having a discussion.”

“It was for the best, Sean. Come on, son, everything’s worked out okay, hasn’t it?”

Sean grunted and carried on eating. He found it a little easier to stay calm and not lose his temper now that he wasn’t so hungry. Christ, it was good to taste so many different flavors again. It was all tins and packaged convenience food, but it was more than he’d had in a long time. And beer! Although the lager made the cold night feel colder still, the numbing effect of the alcohol was worth it.

“There are more of us here now,” Amir said quietly. “Kind of changes things, doesn’t it?”

“Does it?” Martin asked, thoughtfully chewing a mouthful of food.

“Of course it does. Now there’s more than twice as many of us, maybe we could risk going out?”

“We don’t need to. They’ve brought plenty of stuff with them.”

“You think?” Jas interrupted. “We brought as much with us as we could, but it’s not going to last forever. Seems to me we’ve got no choice but to go out some point.”

“You don’t understand. It’s not as easy as that.”

“I do understand. I understand perfectly well. I understand that if we’re all going to stay here then we’re going to need a lot more food than we’ve got at present, and I also understand the bodies a lot better than you do too. We’ve dealt with thousands of them at a time.”

“But it’s not as black and white as you’re making it sound,” Martin protested. “Our safety relies on them not knowing we’re here. If you go out there and start throwing your weight around, you’ll attract their attention and before you know it—”

“I think we’re talking about one trip outside, two at the most. Surely that’s not going to have too much of an effect if you keep playing your music to them?”

“They’re starting to work things out,” Hollis warned. “You can’t just assume that—”

“There’s no need to go outside,” Martin repeated, his voice tense but still low. “We just need to show some self-control. A little discipline. Make the food that we’ve already got here last—”

“One trip out and one busload of supplies will make all the difference.” Jas sighed wearily, already growing tired of the conversation. At the mention of his bus Driver stirred in the corner. Jas glanced across at him. Bloody waster was fast asleep with his paper over his face, backside on one chair, feet up on another. He’d barely even eaten anything.

“Jas is right,” Harte agreed. “The risks are small but the potential rewards are huge. We could set ourselves up here for months.”

“Oh, so we’re definitely staying, are we?” Lorna asked, disgruntled. She’d been following the conversation with disinterest. After spending the best part of two months trapped with most of these men she’d begun to find their relentless arguments and indecision incredibly tiring, and the men they’d found here seemed no better. Put more than two men in a room together and make a suggestion, she’d long ago discovered, and they’ll spend hours debating the most obvious points before finally deciding you were right all along and claiming they’d had the idea in the first place. She’d grown tired of the way they seemed to feel obliged to take charge then blunder their way through every situation trying to convince themselves, and everyone else, that they knew what they were doing. “Not that I have a problem with staying here,” she explained. “It just would have been nice to have been consulted, that’s all.”

“No one’s decided anything,” Hollis said.

“You see?” Sean interrupted angrily. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. They’re doing to her exactly what you do to me all the time. You think you always know what’s best and I can’t stand it.”

“Keep the noise down, Sean,” Martin warned, cringing at the volume of his voice.

“No one’s decided anything,” Hollis repeated.

“I have,” Caron said quietly. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think I’ll be staying here.” The faces in the room all turned to look in her direction. “I don’t mind going without much food until those things outside have disappeared. I’d rather starve and be safe, and if we’re away from the bodies then there’s less chance of anyone else catching whatever it was that killed Ellie and Anita. We’ve got space here and I can have my own room with four strong walls and windows which aren’t smashed and—”

“Ellie and Anita?” Ginnie asked.

“They caught some kind of germ from the bodies,” Hollis explained dismissively.

“All the more reason to stay inside,” Martin quickly interjected.

“Are you sure it was from the bodies?” Ginnie wondered anxiously. “There’s no chance you could have brought it here with you? The last thing we need is—”

“They caught it from the bodies,” Hollis said firmly. “They must have. And if there are fewer bodies here, then there’s little chance of anyone catching anything.”

“Caron’s right,” Gordon agreed, yawning. “We’ll struggle to find anywhere better than this. And the fact that you’ve kept the bodies at bay is an added bonus. The safety’s got to be worth a little discomfort.”

“You’re just too scared to go outside, Gord,” Webb said. “It’s got nothing to do with the bodies or how much food there is.”

“We’ll keep watching the Swimmer,” Martin said. “If she looks like she’s going to start causing problems then we’ll know it’s time to change our plans.”

“The bodies are falling apart. They’re going to become less of a problem, not more,” Ginnie said, helping herself to more food.

“Don’t count on it,” Harte started to say before being interrupted.

“One of them bit me,” Webb said, suddenly animated, “and they killed Stokes.”

“Christ, change the bloody record, will you?” Hollis sighed.

“Well, I’m staying put,” Caron said again, standing her ground admirably. “You can all go back outside if you want to. I’ve got a suitcase full of books, a comfortable bed, and all the time in the world.”

“What you’ve done here is incredible, and I think we’d be stupid not to stay,” Hollis agreed, “but I also think we need to get out and get supplies. It’s like Jas said—one properly coordinated trip out there and we could set ourselves up for weeks, maybe even months. Just think about it, safety and comfort.”

“But it’s taken weeks to get the bodies away from here,” Howard protested. “You’re just going to bring them straight back again.”

“Sure, we’ll excite a few hundred of them, but once we’re back we’ll batten down the hatches and sit and wait for them to disappear. Martin can keep playing his music to them and within a couple of days no one will be any the wiser.”

“Makes sense. I’m in,” Amir volunteered, surprising the other residents of the hotel.

“And me,” Sean agreed quickly before anyone else had a chance to speak.