Disintegration

30

Martin stood outside at the back of the kitchens, sheltering from the wind behind an overflowing waste bin, and tucked his trousers into his socks. He pulled on a hat, zipped up his warmest coat and dragged his bike out of the passageway where he stored it. The world was reassuringly dull and gloomy and he was pleased. He liked it like that. It was early morning and no one else had yet emerged from the individual bedrooms they’d claimed as their own late last night. His breath condensed in icy clouds around his face as he straddled the bike and listened and waited. There it was. Thank God for that, he could still just about hear it in the distance. He always found it easier to do this when the music was still playing. His heart thumping in his chest and his mouth dry with nerves, he began to pedal away from the hotel.

He’d ridden this route so many times now that he’d carved a muddy furrow across the once well-tended gardens and lawns at the back of the main building, right the way over to the boundary fence. Slowing down as he reached the edge of the estate, he edged his front wheel forward through the gap he’d made, looked up and down the empty road on the other side, then pushed through and began pedaling again. It was easier now that the ground beneath his wheels was solid and even. He could move quickly and with much less effort here and he felt relatively safe, shielded from the rest of the world and the risk of attack by the thick, virtually impenetrable hedgerows on either side of the road. He could occasionally see them moving on the golf course through the gaps between the branches and leaves—those stupid, staggering, aimless creatures—but he remained invisible to them. They’d blocked both ends of the road with cars belonging to dead hotel guests and nothing was going to get through.

He could clearly hear the music now, a beautiful, lilting tune carried gently on the air, underscored by the steady belching thump-thump-thump of a generator. Only one of the stereos was still playing. The fuel must have already run out in the generator powering the other machine, he decided. Good job he’d got access to plenty more from the various vehicles abandoned locally. He and Howard had built up a store close to the back of the clubhouse. Enough, he hoped, for several trips a day for a few more weeks at least. I have to keep the music playing, he told himself as he filled two fuel cans. It’s vital.

Up ahead, Martin could now see the turning in the track which led to the back of the clubhouse. His heart started to race again. Christ, he hated being this close to the dead. He didn’t want to look at them, didn’t want to give them eye contact for even a split second, and yet at the same time he had to keep watching. He had to stay alert and on guard, although he didn’t know what he’d do if he found himself face to face with any of them. Clearing the hotel of stiff, mannequin-like bodies before they’d got up and started moving again had been one thing, but dealing with the obnoxious creatures they had subsequently become was a different matter altogether.

Originally a tradesman’s entrance into the clubhouse for those who couldn’t afford to walk through the front door, this sheltered way, fenced off and hidden from the rest of the building, had previously allowed deliveries to be made and refuse to be collected without the overprivileged club members being disturbed by the staff. Today it allowed Martin to get inside without being seen—and how he loved walking through the clubhouse once he was there. For too long this place had been the exclusive retreat of the overpaid and underworked, and he felt a deep, smug satisfaction knowing that he’d survived when the golf club members, no matter how rich they’d been, had almost certainly all died. A man who loved the outdoors and who couldn’t understand why so many acres of beautiful land had been reserved for a select few to traipse around hitting little balls into holes, he used to hate golfers with almost as much venom as he now hated the dead.

Martin stood at the bottom of the staircase and listened to the stirring classical music blasting out from the floor above. The illumination downstairs was negligible, all of the windows having been blocked up and the doors shut and barred to prevent the corpses from catching sight of him whenever he was there. More important, it stopped him from having to look at them. He knew they were out there. Hundreds of them, probably thousands, their rotting faces pressed hard against the sides of the building, hammering continually on the walls with leaden, unresponsive hands.

He took a deep breath and quickly climbed the mud-splattered but luxuriously carpeted stairs, carrying the cans of fuel and passing the expensively framed portraits of numerous dead golf captains as he jogged along the landing toward the meeting room where he’d set up the first stereo. It was cold and damp in the large rectangular room, all of the windows having been propped wide open to spread the noise and fumes as far as possible. Working quickly, he refuelled the still-warm generator and fired it up again, drawing comfort from the volume of its constant chugging noise. Once power had been restored he moved over to the stereo which he’d left on a table just far enough inside to be sheltered from the wind and rain. With cold hands he restarted the disc, checked the volume was at maximum and switched it to repeat.

Martin stepped back as the music began to blare out from the stereo, the volume cranked to such a deafening level that the speakers rattled and the sound crackled with distortion. It didn’t matter; as long as it was loud enough to attract the dead and keep them here he didn’t care what it sounded like. For a moment longer he stopped and listened to the music—the first track of a country music compilation CD he used to listen to in his car. Sean had joked that his taste in music would probably drive the dead away rather than draw them closer. Cheeky little bastard.

Moving faster now, he ran across the landing to the administration office where he’d left the second stereo sitting on a windowsill. He repeated his well-rehearsed refuelling operation and leaned back against the wall once the music began to play again, feeling protected by the screeching, jarring, cacophony of noise which now filled the entire building. On their own each CD was, in his humble opinion, a masterpiece. Played together and accompanied by the generator noise, however, they sounded ear-splittingly awful.

Should he look?

Some days it was easy, other days he didn’t want to do it. He wasn’t sure today. He had been feeling a little more confident since the others had arrived yesterday, but at the same time their spontaneity, bravado, and noise made him feel uneasy and unsure. At least if he looked outside today he’d have an idea of the size of the crowd that had gathered on the golf course. He hadn’t wanted to look for a week or so, maybe longer. In fact he couldn’t remember when he’d last done it. Most days he preferred to try and convince himself that all he’d see out there would be the well-tended greens and freshly mown, rolling fairways. Maybe he should just have a quick look this morning …

* * *

“Been far?” Hollis asked Martin as he wheeled his bike back through the kitchens.

“Jesus Christ!” the older man gasped, holding onto a stainless steel worktop for support, “You scared the hell out of me. What are you doing down here at this time of morning?”

“More to the point,” Hollis said, standing up and walking closer so that he didn’t have to shout, “what are you doing out on a bloody bicycle at this hour?”

“I told you yesterday,” he replied, his composure returning. “Playing music. First refuelling trip of the day.”

“Many of them about out there?”

“Enough. Didn’t hang around to do a head count. Can’t stand the sight of them.”

“You and me both. So is it working?”

“Seems to be. I guess the fact that there aren’t any here indicates that it is.”

“Fair point. Good plan, actually.”

“I think so.”

“You’ve managed to channel them away and keep them at a distance.”

“Keeping them at a distance is just about the best we can do, I think. There are too many to try doing anything else.”

“Try telling that to Webb.”

“What?”

“Bit of a loose cannon, is our Webb. Where we’ve just come from we had crowds right around the front of the building. He seemed to think he had to get rid of them all, or at least enough to be able to push them back.”

“That’s never going to work, is it?”

“Suppose not. I thought it might for a while. Most of us got involved when he first suggested it, but it was obvious pretty quickly that it wasn’t going to happen. It would have taken us years.”

“All you’re doing is winding them up. You’re just showing them where you are and inviting them to come pay you a visit.”

“Like I said, try telling Webb.”

“Your friend’s not very bright, is he?”

“He’s not very bright and he’s definitely not my friend,” Hollis said, looking around at the empty racks and shelves. “I’ll tell you something, though, Martin, at the risk of sounding like a broken record: we do need to get out of here and get supplies. We’re going to sit here and starve if we don’t.”

Martin’s heart sank. Not again, he thought. Since the others had arrived yesterday, and after the conversation they’d had last night, he’d thought about little else. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he knew that Hollis was right. For the sake of a few hours out in the open they could improve their situation here dramatically. The thought of having to survive on the pitiful scraps they had left in the hotel stores was depressing. Last night they’d eaten something resembling a proper meal. Sure, none of it was fresh and it had been thrown together, but it was the best food he’d had for weeks. He’d felt re-energized afterward and some company, a few glasses of wine, and a long-overdue cigarette had, for a while, made him feel almost human again.

“You’re right,” he begrudgingly admitted.