Disintegration

3

On a fifth-floor balcony, illuminated only by a three-quarter moon hanging high in the empty sky above them, three men stood together, drank beer, and watched the dead.

“Is that a corpse?” Stokes asked, pointing down into the shadows below. Hollis peered into the darkness, momentarily concerned. The figure was moving with coordination and control and he relaxed.

“Nah,” he yawned, “it’s Harte.”

Hollis watched as the tall man walked over to the left side of the building and looked through the motley collection of buckets, bathtubs, wheelbarrows and paddling pools the group had left out front to gather rainwater. He half-filled a jug from a large plastic plant-pot then wandered back inside. For a moment everything was still and quiet again.

“So what exactly happened with Webb today?” Stokes asked, disturbing the silence.

“He’s a liability,” Hollis said quietly, leaning over the metal veranda.

“He’s a fucking idiot,” Jas said, standing just behind him. Stokes shuffled forward, maneuvering his sizable bulk around the limited space of the balcony so he could reach another beer. He snapped back the ring-pull and held the can out in front of him as the gassy froth bubbled up and dribbled over the edge. He shook his hand dry, took a long swig, then bustled back to his original position next to Hollis.

“He’s just a kid, that’s all,” he said, stifling a belch. “He’s all right.”

“He’s got to learn to keep himself under control and not get distracted.” Jas sighed. “We’ve all got to get smarter when we’re out there.” He stamped on an empty can, flattening it with a satisfying crunch, then picked it up and pushed his way to the front of the veranda between Stokes and Hollis. He flicked his wrist and hurled the can out into the darkness like a Frisbee, the moonlight allowing him to track its curved path downward. It clattered against a half-demolished wall near to the remains of the second block of flats a little farther down the hill. The sharp and unexpected sound caused a noticeable ripple of inquisitive movement within the ranks of the dead nearby. He could see a sudden momentary swell of interest among the tightly packed corpses on the other side of the wall of rubble and wrecked cars they’d erected to keep the hordes at bay.

“We’ve just got to be sensible,” Hollis said. “Just keep doing what we’re doing until they’ve rotted down to nothing. We’re not prisoners here. We’ll keep going out and getting what we need, when we need it. We’re in charge here. Those things will only ever be able to get to us if we let them.”

“Maybe we should leave Webb here next time,” Jas suggested. “He’s going to get someone killed.”

“He’s just a loose cannon,” said Stokes. “Don’t write him off. He just needs to learn how to keep himself under control, that’s all.”

“I’ve seen dead bodies in the streets with more control than him,” Jas grumbled as he stomped on another empty can.

“Don’t joke about it,” Hollis said, leaning over to one side as the second crushed can flew past his ear. “Did you see that one today?”

“Which one?”

“The one with the branch.”

“What are you talking about?” Stokes asked, confused.

“It was just after we’d filled the first van,” Hollis explained. “One of the dead came marching out through the middle of the crowd dragging half a bloody tree behind it.”

“Must have got itself caught up,” Jas suggested, sounding only half-interested.

“That’s what I thought,” he continued, “but I was watching it and…”

“And what?”

Hollis paused, not entirely sure what he was trying to say. “And I swear it was trying to pick it up and use it.”

“Use it for what?”

“A weapon, I guess. Maybe it was going to attack us with it.”

“You’re worried about being attacked by a corpse carrying a branch?” Stokes said, smirking. “Christ, mate, you’re going soft. There’s thousands of them out there, and they’re all ready to gouge your bloody eyes out. I don’t think we need to lose any sleep over one that thinks it’s going to kill you with a bit of tree!”

Christ, Hollis thought, Stokes could be a pain in the backside at times. He was an insensitive, uneducated prick.

“You fucking idiot,” he cursed, amazed that he was having to spell out his concerns, “it’s not what it was carrying that bothers me, it’s the fact it was carrying anything at all. Have you seen any of them carry anything before now?”

“No, but—”

“Exactly. The last thing we want is for them to start picking stuff up and starting to—”

“Are you sure it was carrying the branch?” Jas interrupted.

“I was only looking at it for a few seconds,” he admitted, “and there were loads of them around us.”

“Don’t get wound up about it, it was probably nothing. Like I said, maybe it just got caught up.”

“Maybe, but what if—”

“Never mind what-if,” Stokes snapped, “let’s just concentrate on what we know they’re capable of.”

“And what’s that?” Jas asked.

“Fuck all!” he laughed, his bellowing voice echoing around the desolate estate, bouncing off the walls of empty buildings.

“What I think,” Webb suddenly announced from the darkness behind them, “is that we should go out there tomorrow and start burning them again. And this time we should keep at it until there’s nothing left of any of them.”

“You’re a bloody pyromaniac, Webb. You’re the reason we had to go out there to get fuel again today,” Hollis reminded him.

“It’s got to be worth it to get rid of a few hundred of them, though, hasn’t it?”

“Problem is, you don’t get rid of hundreds, do you? How many was it you managed last time?”

“Fuck off,” Webb said, helping himself to the last can of beer. “At least I’m trying to do something.”

“Seven, wasn’t it?” Stokes laughed. “He takes two cans full of petrol right down to the edge of the crowd and he only manages to get rid of seven of them! You’ve got to try hard to be that useless!”

“Wasn’t my fault,” he explained angrily, “the wind changed direction before I could—”

“Funniest thing I’ve seen since all this started,” Stokes howled, “you running away from that fire with all those bodies just stood there watching you! Bloody priceless!”

“Shut up. It wasn’t my fault. At least I stopped them getting any closer.”

“No, you didn’t,” Hollis said quietly. “They stopped getting closer long before you started with your party tricks. It’s been days since any of them tried to get over the barrier.”

“Why is that?” Jas asked, suddenly more serious. “Why do you think they’re holding back?”

“They’re waiting for Webb to go back out there,” Stokes said, still laughing. “They’re waiting for you to entertain them, mate! Or maybe they want you to light another fire to keep them warm!”

“Fuck you, Stokes.”

Webb slumped against the wall and swigged his beer.

“Thought you were going to show us how to keep him under control,” Hollis said quietly.

“I am,” Stokes whispered back. “He needs putting in his place. If we tell him he did a great job getting rid of seven of them, he’ll be back out there tomorrow morning trying to do it again like he’s the fucking Terminator or something.”

Hollis could see Stokes’s point of view, but he wasn’t convinced Stokes continually put Webb down for any reason other than to make himself feel better.

“No one answered my question,” Jas said.

“What question?” Stokes mumbled ignorantly.

“Why do you think they’re holding back?”

“Who?”

“The bodies, you moron.”

“Well it ain’t because of Webb!”

Hollis stared out toward the vast crowd of corpses in the near distance. In the low light the thousands of individual figures seemed to have merged together and formed a single, unending mass of decaying flesh.

“No way of knowing for sure, is there?” he finally admitted.

“But what do you think?” Jas pushed. “What’s your gut feeling?”

“That they’re either too scared to come any closer or they’re biding their time.”

“Biding their time?” Stokes protested. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Maybe they’re waiting for us to drop our guard. Maybe they’re waiting for us to come out into the open so they can make their move and attack. They’ve got us outnumbered by more than a thousand to one.”

“Bullshit,” Stokes said. “They’re not waiting for us.”

“Like I said, we should just go out there in the morning and get rid of the whole fucking lot of them,” Webb shouted from the shadows. “And if we can’t get rid of them then we should just keep pushing them back until there’s at least a mile between the nearest one of them and me.”