Aftermath

we’re still busy trying to score points and fuck each other over. It’s fucking heartbreaking.”
    *   *   *
     
    They found the person they presumed had been the cigarette looter a short while later. Michael made the grim discovery around the back of a single detached house about half a mile outside the village. There were signs that there had been huge amounts of corpse activity all around the place—vegetation which had been crushed underfoot, collapsed fencing, a gummy brown residue coating everything, bones in the undergrowth. And right at the bottom of the back garden, hanging by its neck from the bow of a gnarled, ancient-looking oak tree with a huge trunk, was another corpse. Despite the level of its decay, in comparison to the countless others they’d seen they could tell this person had only died a few weeks ago—a month or so at most. This poor soul had probably cracked under the strain of trying to stay alive while being under siege from the dead. And the cruelest irony of all? From a little farther down the road you could see the castle. If that poor bastard had had the courage to look out and look up, he might have seen that he wasn’t alone.

 
     
    54
     
    The group was standing at the side of the road, sheltering under a tree and watching Michael and Kieran trying to geta dark blue Volkswagen van started. The wind whipped through the branches, giving them little protection and seeming to almost increase the ferocity of the rain, but they were past caring now. They were all soaked and numb with cold, every layer of clothing drenched.
    The van refused to turn over.
    “This is bloody stupid,” Howard moaned. “Give it up and try another car. Or let’s just keep walking. Anything but stand out here like this.”
    Michael kicked the wheel of the Volkswagen with frustration.
    “Howard’s right,” Lorna said. “We should keep moving. This isn’t helping anyone.”
    Michael kicked the car again.
    “How am I supposed to get back home when I can’t even get a bloody car started?”
    Howard emerged from under the tree, covering his head with the map. He pointed farther down the road. “Look, there are some buildings up ahead. We could stop there for a while. Warm up. Get some food inside us. Try and dry out a little…”
    Michael reluctantly accepted he was right. This wasn’t doing them any good. At least getting under cover for a short while would allow them to take stock and build up a little much needed energy for the final push toward Chadwick later today. Howard had checked the map just before they’d tried to get the van started, and had given them all the bad news that they’d probably covered less than half the distance they needed to. As desperate as Michael was to reach the port, the thought of walking as far again made his heart sink. And that was before they’d even thought about what they were going to do when they got there. No boat. No means of getting back to the island. No fucking point.
    Michael was too tired and dejected to discuss the situation any farther. He looked down at the ground, irrationally angry both with himself and everybody else, doing all he could to avoid making eye contact with anyone. In the undergrowth just ahead of him was a skull. It was yellow-white, every trace of flesh worn away, and as he watched a large, well-gorged, glistening worm crawled out of one eye socket, then slithered down and disappeared into its gaping mouth, like something off the cover of the cheap horror novels he used to keep hidden under his bed when he was a kid. His mom used to try and stop him reading them, concerned that he was too young and that they were a bad influence. If only she could see him now. In comparison to the world he’d been living in since last September, nothing he’d ever read or seen in any horror film felt even remotely frightening anymore. Just behind the skull was another one, lying on its side. And ahead of that, an arm or a leg, he couldn’t immediately tell which. And there was the distinctive curved shape of a spine and a butterfly-like pelvis, then the upright parallel bones of a rib cage … the closer he looked, the more it seemed the entire world had become one vast, never-ending graveyard. Did he and the others even have any place here any more?
    “Come on, mate,” Howard said, gripping his shoulder, trying to sound enthusiastic but failing miserably. “Not far now.”
    *   *   *
     
    The factory had produced car parts