Disintegration

31

Caron sat on the end of her bed and held her head in her hands. She was exhausted. It didn’t make sense: the most comfortable bed she’d had in almost two months, the safest surroundings, fresh faces, no crowds of dead bodies, and yet she still hadn’t been able to sleep. Truth was she couldn’t clear her head enough to switch off, not even for a few precious minutes. Every time she closed her eyes she pictured Ellie, Anita, her son Matthew, or any of the others she’d let down recently.

Caron’s room was the first on the second floor of the west wing. Its corner position afforded her an impressive and expansive view to the front and side of the hotel. She stood up and walked to the window, keen to benefit from the limited heat of the sun which had just begun to peek out through a layer of heavy cloud. The carpet felt unexpectedly warm and soft under her feet. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been able to walk around barefoot. The view outside was clear and uninterrupted and allowed her to see for miles back in the direction from which they’d arrived yesterday. She couldn’t see anything recognizable, just hills and fields and open space. She tried to look even farther into the distance, right out toward the horizon. Somewhere out there, she remembered sadly, was the dilapidated building they’d left behind and, inside it, the sick girl they’d abandoned. Sure, she knew that Ellie had been dying and there was nothing more she could have done to help her, but had she really deserved to be left alone like that? Had she even been alone? Had those godforsaken monstrosities which tirelessly dragged themselves along the streets somehow managed to force their way even farther up the hill and into the building? Had they found her and torn her limb from limb, ripping her to pieces as they had done Stokes? Even worse, what if she’d recovered from her illness? Imagine that, finally coming out of her feverish malaise and finding herself alone with no way of following the others or even knowing in which direction they’d gone. Whatever had happened to Ellie—and she hoped for her sake that she’d died a quick and relatively painless death—Caron felt like shit.

She turned away from the window and entered the small bathroom on the other side of the room. She switched the light on instinctively, despite knowing full well that the electricity had been off for weeks. She flicked the switch down again, feeling unnecessarily foolish and angry, and shoved the door open as wide as it would go, hoping that the sunlight would stretch far enough across the room to reach the bathroom. The sink and the mirror above it were partially illuminated by daylight. She wiped the dust-covered glass clean with an equally dusty towel which had been left draped over the edge of the bath by a long-since-dead housekeeper, then stared at her own reflection. Christ, she looked old this morning. Perhaps it was the light and shadow? Maybe it was the fact that she no longer used the creams and lotions and makeup that she’d treated her skin with for years? Maybe it was just because her life had become a relentless and unbearable nightmare that she looked so bad? Whatever the reason, she dumped the towel angrily in the sink and went back and laid down on the bed.

Caron’s stomach was knotted tight with nerves. She’d last felt like this a couple of years back when she’d discovered that her husband had been sleeping with Sue Richards, the receptionist from the doctor’s surgery. It hadn’t been his deceit or lies which had hurt her—in fact, their sex life had already deteriorated to such an extent that it was something of a relief that he’d found himself an alternative channel to vent his pent-up sexual frustrations. Instead, Caron had struggled with keeping the secret and maintaining a façade. She’d found it almost impossible to carry the weight of the pretense when both she and Bob had decided it would be better for all concerned—particularly Matthew—if they just pretended his little indiscretion (actually numerous little indiscretions) hadn’t happened at all. She’d hated sleeping in the same bed as him when she despised him, hated him touching her when he made her skin crawl, hated forcing herself to speak civilly to him when all she wanted to do was scream in his face and tell him to fuck off and die. Strange that she should feel so similar today. As she buried her face in her pillow she decided it was because, like her dead husband Bob, all these other people wanted her to pretend to be someone she wasn’t. They all thought she was capable of things which, in reality, she couldn’t do. Ellie and Anita thought she’d help them. Matthew thought she’d always look after him …

So this is it, she thought to herself, rolling over again and looking up at the ceiling. This is your best chance—your last chance—to make something of what’s left. Do you take it, or is it time to give up and admit defeat?

It was a difficult decision. Her instinct was to continue to fight and try to survive, but her brain was saying something else entirely. Was there any point in fighting if there was no longer anything worth surviving for? If the events of the last few days were anything to go by then probably not. But here, out in the middle of nowhere in this unexpected oasis of corpse-free space and silence, there was the slightest chance that things might actually prove to be different. Yesterday evening Ginnie had alluded to her finally having someone to help her in the kitchen “looking after the boys.” Caron had balked at the idea, telling her she was sick of playing mother hen all the time. And that, she decided, was the decision she would ultimately have to make: did she try and survive to make things easier for everyone else, or for herself? Without thinking, on the bedside table she’d arranged a symbolic representation of her ultimate choice. On one side was a bottle of cognac and a trashy romance novel, on the other the bag of pills she’d brought with her from the flats, enough to kill a horse.

Tired, irritated, and unable to relax or even get comfortable, Caron got up again and walked back over to the window. She could see people outside now. There was Howard Reece walking his dog across the overgrown lawns on the far side of the car park. She could also see Harte and Jas peering in through the windows at the swimming pool and poolside gym, then pulling open an outside door and disappearing inside. It certainly looked as if the others were going to give their new surroundings a chance.

I’ll do the same, she decided. I’ll give it a couple of days and see how things are going. If it looks like everything’s going to work out, I’ll keep drinking the booze and reading the books. If I wind up just facing the same old problems, then maybe I’ll have to think again.