Autumn Disintegration Page 21

  The pallets were of little interest. Some were broken, others had just been piled up awaiting collection by the next—

  A single cadaver suddenly threw itself at Hollis, grabbing hold of him and sending him tumbling over. His heart thumping, he struggled to right himself and get a grip on the rancid figure which had rushed him. Where the hell had it come from? He forced his hand up, gripped the foul-smelling creature’s neck and squeezed. His gloved fingers dug deep into its rotting flesh, ripping open its disintegrating trachea and allowing all manner of disgusting dribbles of decay to squeeze out and run down his arm. His composure quickly returning after the sudden surprise of the attack, he gradually managed to shuffle himself around and roll right over so that the corpse lay beneath him and he could use his weight advantage to the full. He stared into its revolting face—a mass of pus, dried blood, ripped skin, and an infuriatingly vacant expression which seemed to scream so what? at him—and wondered how something so pathetic and inadequate could catch him off-guard like that. Was it just the fact that he couldn’t hear properly, or was he losing his touch? His confidence wavering, he angrily grabbed a long-shanked screwdriver which he’d been carrying and plunged it into the monster’s left temple. In one side and out the other. He pulled it out again, stood up and gave the suddenly limp figure an angry kick to the gut to make sure it wouldn’t get up.

  “You okay, Hollis?” Jas shouted. “Having trouble?”

  “I’m fine,” he answered quickly, determined not let the others know what had just happened. He must have released the cadaver when he’d been scavenging around just now. He’d acted like a fucking amateur and he felt angry and scared. Angry because he’d been stupid and put himself at risk unnecessarily, scared because he hadn’t heard the body until it had been too late. He’d got away with it today, but the outcome could have been much worse. He’d hoped his hearing would have improved by now but, if anything, it was deteriorating. How the hell was he supposed to survive if he couldn’t hear? Hollis felt more exposed and vulnerable today than he had done when the rest of the world had first fallen dead at his feet. He wiped the gore off his screwdriver and put it back in his pocket as Jas approached.

  “We’re going to head off,” he said. “You ready?”

  Hollis nodded and followed him back toward the bus.

  The lower floor and half of the top floor of the huge vehicle had been filled. Struggling to find a seat, Lorna wearily climbed the narrow stairs and flopped heavily into a chair right at the front, well away from everyone else. The bus began to rumble and shake as Driver started the engine, then it slowly trundled forward. She could already hear the crashing of badly packed supplies and excited laughter and conversation coming from her fellow looters standing in the aisle downstairs. By the sounds of things they’d be lucky if there was any booze left by the time they made it back to the hotel. She closed her eyes, leaned back in her seat, and tried to shut it all out for a while.

  The bus turned around and powered back across the bridge over the canal. The sudden jolting movement threw her forward and she opened her eyes again. She gazed down over the dead streets of Bromwell. Even now, two months since it had first happened, it was hard to comprehend the full scale of the inexplicable devastation which surrounded her. She could see many bodies scurrying around in the shadows down below, dragging themselves around ceaselessly and tirelessly like busy worker ants but without purpose or direction. She couldn’t imagine a worse existence—condemned to haunt this dead world until such time that their physical form finally failed them. What had any of these people done to deserve this?

  Half an hour earlier, Lorna had watched Webb and Sean taunting a corpse. The pathetic, maggot-ridden creature had been sliced in half by Jas’s chain saw but it had still been moving. She’d watched it pull itself along the ground, the stump of its spinal cord dragging behind, leaving a crimson snail trail on the gray paving stones. Like kids teasing a stray dog, Webb and Sean had taken turns to lie down directly in its path, taunting it and playing chicken; waiting until the last possible moment before rolling away, then tricking the corpse into crawling after them in another direction. Stupid idiots. Didn’t they care that that used to be a person? Maybe they did. Maybe it just didn’t matter anymore.

  Maybe she was the one who’d got it all wrong.

  38

  Webb, Sean, Amir, and Harte were drunk. Their successful excursion into Bromwell, coupled with the news that the helicopter had been heard flying nearby yet again today, left them feeling temporarily invincible. They, it seemed, were fully in control. Hollis and Jas watched them from the other side of the Steelbrooke Suite. Their noise was beginning to make Hollis nervous. The rest of the group had gone to bed, but he wasn’t going anywhere until these stupid, selfish fuckers had settled down. He didn’t want to think about what they might do if they were left unsupervised and, although the hotel grounds and surrounding area were relatively corpse-free, he wasn’t prepared to take any chances. Webb and Sean seemed more volatile than usual tonight, buoyed by the events of the day. Sean in particular had been unexpectedly aggressive when, less than an hour ago, Hollis had suggested to him that maybe he’d had enough to drink. Rather than antagonize them, Hollis had instead decided that the best approach was to give them what they wanted. Like leaving a fire to burn itself out, he planned on making sure they had enough booze to help them lose consciousness. It was the only way he could guarantee keeping them quiet.

  He heard footsteps in the corridor outside. He picked up his torch and went out to investigate. It was Martin. He looked tired and preoccupied.

  “Come to complain about the noise again?” Hollis asked.

  Martin shook his head. “Would it do any good?”

  “Probably not. What’s up?”

  “Just been down by the pool.”

  “And…? Got a problem with your pet?”

  “Don’t take the piss.” He sighed. “She’s acting strangely.”

  “Stranger than usual?”

  “It’s the noise this lot are making,” he explained, nodding toward the Steelbrooke Suite and cringing as Webb threw another beer bottle onto a pile of empties. “She’s not used to it and it’s freaking her out. We’ve survived here for as long as we have by keeping quiet and staying out of sight. What you’re doing now is going to undo all of that.”

  “Don’t be overdramatic. They’re just letting off steam, they’re not doing any harm. Listen, I’ll talk to them in the morning and—”

  “You don’t understand,” Martin snapped, his voice angrier but the volume still restrained.

  “What don’t I understand?” Hollis snapped back. “As far as I can see you’ve spent all your time locked in here with your head down. You haven’t actually seen what’s happening to the rest of the world. I have, and I know that we’ll be safe here.”

  “Come with me,” Martin interrupted. He turned and walked away, leaving Hollis with little option but to follow. He knew exactly where Martin was taking him, back to the body he kept trapped in the office so he could prove his point. But what point was he trying to make? Sure enough, they turned down the corridor which led to the swimming pool.

  “Look, Martin,” Hollis protested, “I promise you I’ll speak to them tomorrow. I won’t let this happen again. I’ll make them see that—”

  He immediately stopped speaking when they reached the window through which they usually watched the corpse. He shone his torch into the room and jumped back when the creature slammed against the glass. Its dead eyes followed his every move and its numb, unresponsive fingers clawed pointlessly at the window, leaving a crisscross hatching of blood-tinged, greasy smears. It slid along as he approached, keeping as close to him as it could.

  “Why’s she doing that?” he asked, suddenly concerned. “She’s never done that before, has she? She’s always tried to get out of the way, not followed like that.”

  “You see what I mean? She’s scared,” Martin hissed, turning back and walking away, almost
as if he didn’t want the corpse to hear. He disappeared down the west-wing corridor. Hollis followed, breaking into a jog to try and catch up. Martin stopped when he reached the foot of the staircase which led to the rooms on the first and second floors.

  “Thing is, Greg,” he whispered, “I know you’ve managed to stay alive by doing things your way, and that’s worked for you. Christ, the very fact that we’re both standing here now is proof that we’ve all succeeded.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  Martin thought carefully for a moment, choosing his words and finally beginning to calm down.

  “What I’m saying,” he began, “is that our methods of survival have to be adapted to our surroundings. Where you were before, it suited you to make a bloody huge noise and to fight and destroy them.”

  “And what about here?”

  “Here things are different,” he immediately replied.

  “How?”

  “We’re relying on the fact that they don’t know where we are.”

  Rather than explain further Martin began to climb the stairs and beckoned Hollis to follow. He sprinted up each flight until he’d reached the top floor. Halfway down the corridor was room West 37—his room. He opened the door and went inside. Hollis walked with him into his remarkably clean, comfortable, and well-ordered living space. Martin stood at the window which overlooked the car park and the countryside below. Hollis moved closer. He couldn’t see anything but the usual never-ending blackness.

  “What exactly am I supposed to be looking at?” he asked.

  “Down there,” Martin replied, opening the window slightly and pointing. The air outside was cold. Hollis shivered as a blustery gust hit his face.

  “What?” he asked again.

  “Look down there on the other side of the road. What can you see?”

  Hollis stared, his eyes slowly becoming used to the outside gloom. He could see the thick, protective hedgerow which enclosed the hotel grounds and the gap where the narrow road ran around its perimeter. Beyond that was the hedge on the other side of the road which bordered the golf course and surrounding fields. There was some movement in the field immediately opposite. Corpses. He couldn’t see how many.

  “There are a few bodies. Nothing out of the ordinary. Why?”

  “Because that is out of the ordinary.”

  Hollis leaned forward again. He could see the tops of as many as fifteen, maybe twenty bobbing heads moving in the field on the other side of the road. He couldn’t see what the problem was. A noise from downstairs—a sudden torrent of drunken, shouted abuse from Harte—distracted him. It affected the bodies too. As soon as they heard it they shuffled closer to the hedge.

  “But there are still only a handful of them,” Hollis protested. “They’ll probably be gone in the morning.” He was tired and cold and was beginning to get annoyed with Martin.

  “You’re not listening to me.” Martin sighed. He shut the window and sat down on the corner of his bed.

  “I am listening, I just don’t see what the problem is.”

  “Christ, Greg, I thought you’d understand.”

  “Sorry…” he mumbled, shrugging his shoulders, not actually sure what he was apologizing for.

  “You might be used to having that many bodies around. You might be used to having hundreds more, thousands even. We’re not.”

  “But we can sort them out. They’re not a concern, believe me.”

  “Thing is,” Martin continued, “we did have that many here to start with, but we dealt with them. We distracted them and we fooled them. We tricked them into moving away with the music and we lit a couple of fires on the golf course, then we locked ourselves down and kept quiet and out of sight. From what I’ve heard, you did the opposite. You just carried on like nothing had happened.”

  “Well, not quite, but—”

  “You did! As far as I can tell from what you’ve said, you kept going out to get your food and your fuel and your booze and whatever else you wanted.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “I’m not criticizing what you’ve done.”

  “You sound like you are.”

  “Well, I’m not. I’m just saying that in your situation back where you were based, that approach worked. You can’t do that here. You can’t keep going outside and you can’t keep making the kind of noise that those bloody drunks downstairs have been making all evening.”

  Hollis was struggling to understand.

  “I still don’t know why you’re getting so upset—”

  “I’m not upset,” Martin protested. “I’m concerned.”

  “What about? Come on, spell it out for me. What is it that’s bothering you tonight? We knew we were going to attract a few of them.”

  “I understood that, but I’ve been watching the bodies out there for a couple of hours now, Greg. Their behavior is changing. We’ve had them this close before, but they’ve always disappeared by now. Those things out there tonight aren’t going anywhere. The music’s still playing and there’s still a big enough crowd to keep them on the golf course, but it doesn’t seem to be working like it usually does. Christ, man, they’re moving in the opposite direction!”

  Hollis looked out again, carefully considering the frightened man’s words.

  “What about the helicopter?” he asked. “It flew over again today, didn’t it?”

  “Yes. What about it?”

  “We need to do something to make them see us.”

  “Is this relevant?”

  “I think so. How are we going to attract their attention without attracting the bodies too?”

  “I don’t know. I was thinking about marking a message on the lawns or something like that.”

  “Might work. Some kind of beacon would be better, though. They won’t see your message unless they fly right over us and happen to be looking down.”

  “I know…”

  “The point I’m trying to make is that we’re going to have to risk making our presence known at some point. And we can deal with the dead, Martin. We’ve done it before. Bloody hell, Webb alone has torched hundreds of them.”

  “He might well have, but there are thousands more waiting out there.”

  “Waiting?”

  “Yes, waiting. Waiting to find out where we are. Driving around in bloody trucks and buses, lighting beacons and making a bloody noise like you lot have done today is just going to bring them straight back to us. You’re going to start a chain reaction. Once a few of them know where we are, the whole bloody lot will follow.”

  39

  At first light, at Martin’s request, Hollis walked with him up to the clubhouse where he set the music playing. It was the first time in weeks that Martin had walked rather than cycled along the track which ran around the western edge of the hotel grounds. Without his bike he felt as if he’d traveled much farther than usual, and the perceived increase in distance made him feel even more vulnerable and exposed. If he hadn’t had Hollis with him he doubted he’d have dared make the trip on foot. Keen to gain a better appreciation of their location, Hollis had insisted they initially continue down the narrow lane to get closer to the bodies they’d seen last night.

  Martin pointed through a gap in the hedge to help Hollis get his bearings. He glanced back over the wall of tall laurel bushes behind him at the hotel. He could just about see Martin’s room on the top floor, the angle indicating that they were roughly level with the area they’d observed last night. Crouching down, he peered through the mass of tangled branches in front of him. On the other side of the hedgerow was a large, open field.

  “Is this still the golf course?” he asked, his whispered voice barely audible. “Couldn’t really see last night.”

  Martin shook his head.

  “No, this field’s part of a farm. The golf course starts another couple of hundred yards further up the road.”

  Hollis could see numerous bodies staggering around. There appeared to be at least as many as the
re had been previously, maybe even a few more. His view was limited and he looked for another gap.

  “I’ve never seen this many here before,” Martin hissed. “There’s only ever been a handful here at a time, and they’ve always been moving towards the music, not away from it.”

  Hollis continued to watch the dead. Although some were clearly still trying to move toward the source of the distant sound, others were definitely traveling in the opposite direction. Some remained standing in the same place, constantly shuffling but never straying more than a few meters away at a time. He could only assume they were gravitating toward the hotel or at least toward the remains of the crowd which had been gathered in this area last night. Whatever the reason, their actions seemed to add weight to Martin’s earlier argument. Hollis wondered whether he had really underestimated the effect of their arrival and the noise of the bus—and the drunks—yesterday. More to the point, maybe he’d underestimated the steadily increasing levels of intelligence and control which the dead seemed to be exhibiting here.

  “There still aren’t that many,” he mumbled, taking care to keep his voice low but struggling to find the right volume because of the constant pain and muffled sound in his damaged ear. He shifted position again, not able to see as much as he wanted. “A few more hours of silence and I’m sure they’ll disappear. It’s not been that long. Once we explain to the others what’s happening they’ll—”

  He stopped speaking immediately as a corpse rushed toward him. It crashed into the other side of the hedgerow and tried to stretch its gnarled hand out through the tangled undergrowth. He tripped back in surprise, and then moved closer again when the initial shock had faded.

  “What is it?” Martin asked anxiously, keeping a safe distance.

  “Got a lively one, that’s all,” Hollis replied. He looked into the dead monster’s face through a gap in the branches, satisfied that it couldn’t reach him. He couldn’t tell if it had been male or female. Its skin was heavily pockmarked and decayed and its top lip had been torn away, exposing its yellowed teeth. A large flap of skin hung down from the side of its head, covering its ear. Its eyes, however, although dark and unfocused, appeared relatively undamaged. Hollis realized that the damn thing was staring straight at him. Its sight may well have been limited, but the creature in the field was watching his every move. It suddenly threw itself into the hedge again, reaching out as far as it could. He watched in disgust as savage thorns and branches stripped rotting flesh from its bones. Two now; another corpse, alerted by the sudden movements of the first, rushed forward also. Then another, then another. Within seconds at least five of the decaying monsters were clamoring at the hedge close to where Hollis was standing. Surprised and unnerved by their unexpected ferocity, he turned back and silently ushered Martin along the road toward the clubhouse.