Disintegration

19

“What are we gonna do?” Harte asked, slumping in a chair and holding his head in his hands. Four hours had passed since the bodies first breached the barrier. They’d broken through three more times since, smaller advances which had been quickly contained. “Those damn things out there are learning! They’re copying each other, for Christ’s sake!”

“The obvious answer is to try and make the barrier stronger,” Hollis replied, “but I don’t think that’s going to help.”

“Of course it’s going to help, you prick. How can it not help?”

“I don’t think we’re looking at the problem the right way.”

“What?” Harte grunted. He wasn’t in the mood for riddles.

“Are you talking about the bodies?” Jas wondered.

“Thing is,” he explained, “I don’t think it matters how they got over the barrier or if they’re going to do it again, I think we need to be working out why they’re doing it.”

“That’s bloody obvious,” Lorna interrupted. “It was Webb. We saw you standing out there, throwing stones at them.”

Hollis shook his head dejectedly.

“That’s not it.” He sighed. “Didn’t help, though.”

“What, then?” she snapped.

“I don’t think it’s just because of what you were doing today, Webb. I think they were reacting to what we’ve all been doing down there this week.”

“Still don’t understand,” said Harte.

“For the last two days we’ve been pushing them around and smashing them up and burning a few hundred of them at a time.”

“So?”

“So, they’re running scared. Except they can’t run, because there’s too many of them and they can’t get away. The only option they’ve got left…”

“… is to fight,” Jas said, finishing his sentence for him.

“Exactly. They reacted when you got down there today Webb because they thought you were about to start laying into them again. And they’re climbing over the barrier now because they know that they can. They’ve seen others doing it.”

“No way!” Stokes laughed from the other side of the room. “Is anyone falling for this bullshit? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Think about it,” Hollis continued. “They’re adapting to what’s happening around them. It makes sense.”

“None of this makes sense,” Gordon said.

“So what are we going to do about it?” asked Harte. “I hear what you’re saying, but can’t we just build up the barrier and sit tight?”

“That’s what I think,” Stokes said.

“First off, how? We don’t have enough stuff to build it up with—and anyway, I don’t think we can risk doing it. You saw what effect Webb going down there had on them this morning. If we start throwing our weight around again, even if we’re not directly attacking them, we’re going to push them over the edge and we’ll end up with a full-scale-pitch invasion.”

“So what are our alternatives? Sit here and do nothing?”

“There’s no way I’m just gonna sit in here, waiting for them to give up and keel over,” Webb protested. “No way am I going to spend all my time shut in this fucking building, waiting. There’s a fucking corpse in here too, don’t forget.”

“No one’s forgotten, Webb,” Hollis sighed. “I know it’s not ideal, but what’s the alternative? It’s either that or leave. We pack up and get out of here.”

Webb turned and looked out the window, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone. He didn’t know which was worse—the idea of staying put, or the prospect of heading out for good. The flats might have been cold, uncomfortable, and right on the edge of the biggest cess-pit of rotting human remains imaginable, but they’d been relatively safe here until now. None of them had any idea what they’d find elsewhere.

“There’s something else you need to know,” Caron said, standing in the doorway. Everyone looked around. No one knew how long she’d been there.

“What’s that?” Hollis asked, immediately concerned.

“It’s Ellie. She’s sick.”

“What do you mean?” he asked anxiously, fearing that he knew the answer to his question already. “Is she…?”

“Same as Anita,” she answered abruptly. “She said she felt sick last night but I didn’t think much of it. It’s early days, but her symptoms are just the same.”

“This thing’s going to wipe the whole fucking lot of us out,” Stokes said, putting into words what everyone was thinking.