Disintegration

28

Gordon, Webb, and Caron, along with Ginnie, Sean, and Amir, began to unload food from the back of the bus. With six uncoordinated people trying to get in and out through the bus and hotel doors, frequent bottlenecks formed. After working hard (by his low standards) for almost half an hour, Webb took advantage of one such brief and unexpected delay to disappear for a smoke, stopping only to grab a four-pack of beer from a cardboard box he’d been keeping a very close eye on. Sean noticed him leaving and followed him around the side of the building, out of view of the others. He found Webb sitting on a low wall, opening a can of beer and lighting a cigarette.

“Fuck me,” he cursed as Sean suddenly appeared. “You scared the shit out of me!”

“Sorry, mate,” Sean said apologetically.

“Thought you were one of the others come to find out why I’m skiving.”

Sean shook his head. “Nah, I just felt like having a break and it looked like you’d had the same idea.”

“Smoke?”

“No thanks. I’ll have a beer, though.”

Webb threw a can over to him.

“Cheers,” he said, swigging on his drink. It was the first beer Sean had had for a couple of weeks since they’d run out. God, it tasted damn good.

“So how have things been here?” Webb asked.

“Boring,” Sean replied.

“Boring?” Webb repeated, surprised. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! It’s the end of the fucking world! There are millions of dead bodies out there trying to rip us apart—how can it be boring?”

“Do you see any bodies here?” Sean said, knocking back more beer and sitting down next to Webb.

“Fair point, but you must have had to deal with some of them? Christ, we’ve been surrounded by thousands of the fucking things for weeks.”

“I got here before they really started to turn,” he explained. “We’ve seen Martin’s pet corpse and how she’s changed, and we’ve seen others fighting from the window, but we’ve just stayed put.”

“For nearly two months?”

“Something like that.”

Webb couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Next to him, Sean shivered with cold. He was dressed in a thin hooded fleece, T-shirt, jeans, and trainers. Webb, in comparison, was still wearing his heavy boots and blood-soaked biker trousers. He looked like he’d been fighting the dead for weeks on end without a moment’s rest. Sean looked like he’d just got home from college.

“Don’t know how you’ve done it, mate. I’d have gone out of my fucking mind.”

“It’s not the bodies that get to me,” Sean quickly said, glad to finally have a chance to say what he thought, “it’s that lot in there. They’re so fucking cautious. It’s sit here, do this, don’t make a noise, keep your head down … I’m fucking sick of it.”

“Can’t you just walk?”

“What?”

“Can’t you just get out of here for a bit? I did it when we were back at the flats. I either used to sit in the car or find a few bodies to beat up.”

“You went looking for them?”

“Sometimes. It was pretty easy where we were. I’d get ahold of a few of them and batter the fuckers until there was nothing left but a pile of blood and bones.”

“Don’t know if I could do that.”

“Don’t be so fucking soft! Of course you could. It’s not difficult. Bloody things are dead. As long as you don’t do anything stupid you’ll be fine.”

“But they killed one of your people, didn’t they? I heard someone say the bodies killed a man.”

Webb took another swig of beer and looked out toward the horizon, avoiding eye contact.

“That’s right,” he answered, not wanting to say anything else about Stokes’s death but feeling obliged to keep talking to cover his tracks. “I was with him when it happened, poor bastard.”

“So is that why you’re here?”

“Suppose. That and the germs.”

“Germs?”

“Couple of the girls got sick and died. We got away before anyone else got ill.”

“Shit, I didn’t realize.”

“And you’re telling me you’re bored?”

Sean looked down at his feet, feeling suddenly foolish and naïve. He couldn’t deny his frustration, nor how the increasingly intense and relentless claustrophobia was getting to him. He’d risk putting his neck on the line just to get away for a while. Christ, what he’d have given to have seen some of the action Webb had described.

“They sit around at night and play cards, for fuck’s sake,” he moaned. “I tell you, it’s like being on a day trip to the end of the world with your fucking grandparents!”

“What about when you go out for supplies?”

“You’re kidding, aren’t you? We don’t. They won’t.”

“What d’you mean?”

“What do you think I mean? You’ve already heard Martin—he goes mental if you even mention it.”

“So how long’s it been since you last left here?”

“I haven’t. Got here less than a week after it started and I haven’t been anywhere since. I’m going out of my fucking mind.”

“So just go!”

Sean didn’t say anything for a few moments. He drank more of his beer, got up, walked away, and then stopped and turned back to face Webb.

“I can’t,” he reluctantly admitted.

“Why? Scared of what the folks will say?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“I tell you, mate, the whole fucking world is out there for the taking. If all you’re gonna do is sit here and moan about it, you might as well roll over and end it right now.”