Disintegration

15

The early morning sun unexpectedly broke through the layer of dull gray cloud which smothered the land. Hollis waited in front of the flats for Lorna. Down below them, the cull had begun again. It was before seven but neither the early hour nor their tiredness after yesterday’s exertion seemed to have put a damper on Jas, Webb, Stokes, or Harte’s enthusiastic desire to try and obliterate another swathe of bodies. This morning, to his great surprise, Hollis noticed that Gordon too had found himself an ill-fitting set of bike leathers and joined the others at the edge of the crowd. Dodgy hip or no dodgy hip, he finally seemed to have overcome his pathetic fears and inhibitions and was facing the bodies head-on. Either that or he found the prospect of sitting waiting inside the flats more nerve-wracking today. Every conversation he’d overheard since waking up seemed to have been about Anita and her worsening condition.

A wash of golden sunlight dappled the heads of thousands of the writhing bodies at the foot of the hill. He wasn’t sure why, but the one-sided battle unfolding below him somehow seemed different from yesterday, more ferocious. Maybe it was nothing more than the different perspective from which he was watching the fighting. Perhaps the bodies yesterday had been just as violent and animated as these, but they’d seemed less so because he’d been dealing with them at close quarters. Maybe it was just because people like Gordon and Stokes were less experienced and less capable when it came to hand-to-hand combat? Or were the bodies more animated, ready to retaliate after yesterday’s slaughter?

“You ready?” Lorna asked, startling him. He turned around and saw that she was standing just behind him. He grunted and climbed into the grime-splattered van he usually drove. He’d spoken to Lorna again briefly late last night and they’d taken it upon themselves to go out searching for drugs. If they didn’t do it, as she’d quite rightly pointed out, no other fucker would.

“So where to?” he asked as she sat down next to him and slammed the door shut. She knew the area far better than he did.

“There are three pharmacies near here,” she replied quickly. “Head for the one at the bottom of Bail Hill first. That was a pretty big one. There should be plenty of stuff there.”

“Okay.”

“You got any idea what we’re looking for?”

“No,” he replied as he started the engine and drove toward the maze of garages, tracks and streets behind the flats. “I suggest we just get in there and empty the shelves into the back of the van. We’ll worry about what we’ve got when we get back.”

* * *

Hollis slammed on the brakes outside the pharmacy, leaving the van parked on the pavement, as close to the door at the far right of the front of the building as he could get.

“Five minutes,” he told her, “that’s all.”

Lorna quickly disappeared inside. He paused for a second before following, stopping just long enough to look up and down the road to see what effect their sudden unannounced arrival had had. He counted around ten creatures crawling slowly toward them from both directions. No doubt there’d be hundreds more by the time he and Lorna were finished.

Lorna was already working when he got inside, collecting bottles of medicine and packets of pills in wire shopping baskets. She was nervously sweeping entire shelves clear with her arm and doing her best to catch what she could. She’d already filled three baskets. Hollis grabbed them and ran back out to the van.

Twice as many bodies as before now, maybe more. Christ, they were going to have to be quick.

“How are we supposed to know what any of this stuff is and what it does?” Lorna shouted across the shop as he returned. “Maybe there’s a book or something we could take?”

“Doubt it,” he said, grabbing the next two baskets and heading for the door again. “They’d have had it all on computer, wouldn’t they?”

“Suppose. Might be something, though. It’s worth having a look.”

He threw the baskets into the back of the van. Many more bodies now. Getting close. Too close.

“No time,” he shouted, collecting the final baskets. “We need to get gone.”

Lorna pulled open a heavy white door next to where she’d been working which, she presumed, would lead to an office or another drugs store. Maybe she’d find some information in there which would help her to—

A body lunged out from the shadows into the light, missing Lorna and throwing itself at Hollis, who stood in front of it, completely unprepared. Wearing the once-white coat of a pharmacist, now yellowed and soiled by seepage, the dishevelled corpse hurtled toward him with unexpected force and venom. Trapped behind the door for more than fifty days, its sudden release seemed somehow to energize and invigorate it. Its weight was insignificant, but its speed and velocity were enough to knock Hollis over. He tripped and fell back, smashing the side of his head against the back of the wooden counter. The pain was excruciating.

Lorna grabbed a fire extinguisher from a bracket on the wall and brought the base of it crashing down on the back of the cadaver’s skull with a sickening crunch. It collapsed on top of Hollis, black clots of blood and other foul-smelling gunk dribbling out of its mouth and nose. Hollis kicked and scrambled underneath it desperately, more aware than ever of the germs and disease which might be thriving in the stodgy liquids dripping over him. Finally free, he dragged himself back up onto his feet, gagging in disgust as the remains of the pharmacist slid onto the floor. He angrily put his boot through its face.

“Fucking thing,” he cursed, gingerly touching his left ear. When he drew back his fingers he saw blood.

“Let’s go,” Lorna said, carrying another basket and moving toward the door. She stopped when she saw that almost the entire width of the glass frontage of the pharmacy was now a solid mass of dead flesh which reacted violently as she approached. Parts of the crowd appeared to try and recoil from her; others pushed harder against the dirt and cobweb-covered windows.

“Bloody hell,” Hollis moaned under his breath. “How the hell are we going to do this?” They were used to being hounded by huge crowds of corpses wherever they went, but this felt different. Had they just managed to spook themselves by talking about the bodies getting smarter, or were some of the creatures on the other side of the glass really demonstrating behaviors which appeared conscious and controlled? It felt like they were waiting for the two of them to come out into the open, almost as if they knew they’d have to leave sooner or later.

“Are we going to stand here waiting for Christmas, or are we going home?” Lorna asked, trying to hide her mounting unease.

“No such thing as Christmas anymore,” he replied. “Ready?”

“Think so,” she mumbled, sounding far from sure.

“Get closer to the door.”

Without questioning him she moved forward. The bodies were just inches away now, separated from her by a single sheet of glass. One of them seemed to be pushing at the door. Fortunately it was pushing the hinged side and it was never going to open, but its intent was clear.

Hollis disappeared back into the shop and picked up the bloodied fire extinguisher Lorna had used moments earlier. Still wincing with the pain behind his ear, he lifted the red metal canister above his head and threw it at the section of window farthest from the door. It thumped against the toughened glass, cracking it but not breaking through, then dropped to the ground with a sonorous thump and rolled into a display rack. Many of the bodies immediately began to shuffle nearer to the noise. Hollis picked up the extinguisher again and this time slammed it into the glass like a battering ram, doing enough damage to shatter it and causing huge, jagged shards to fall out of the metal frame. The dead immediately began to force their way inside, ignorant to the daggers of broken glass which sliced their feet.

Without stopping to look back Hollis ran over to Lorna, pulled the door open and pushed her through. She dropped the basket of medicine she’d been holding, sending packets and bottles flying. With the bulk of the crowd distracted, pouring through the broken window, they barged their way through the rest of the bodies. Hollis dropped his shoulder and waded into them as Lorna crouched down and wormed her way through, managing to scramble back into the van first.

Hollis was surprised by the dead’s dogged resistance. Most of the dumb creatures had fallen for his ploy and were still pushing and jostling to get into the shop through the smashed window. Others were standing firm—still weak, still clumsy and still uncoordinated, but undeniably more determined than they ever had been before. He struggled with a particularly aggressive cadaver with a huge black hole in its face where its right eye should have been, until Lorna grabbed hold of his collar and yanked him back into the van. Many more bodies were shuffling toward them again. They needed to go.

“What the hell are you doing?” he jabbered nervously with surprise as he fell back into his seat. He knocked another rancid figure back onto the street and slammed the door shut. It was dark inside the van. Emotionless faces were pressed up against every window.

“We need to go,” she replied, watching through a gap in the bodies as the pharmacy quickly filled with dead flesh. “We need to get out of here.”

He started the engine—the noise immediately causing the still-growing crowd to become even more animated—and drove forward, dragging several of the rotting shells beneath the wheels of the van and churning them into the ground. Lorna turned around in her seat and watched as a smaller section of the crowd marched after them lethargically.