Aftermath

becoming harder to distinguish: winding tracks covered in sludge-like decay, the curbs disappearing into the undergrowth. Exposed bones were becoming increasingly visible through the abhorrent mire, looking like the fallen branches of trees after a particularly violent storm.
    After reaching the top of a hill, Harte caught a glimpse of the ocean in the distance. Twenty minutes to go, give or take, and only a few miles left to cover. The sight of the water gave him renewed hope that he’d get to the marina in time, and that he’d be able to tell Cooper and the others what had happened back at the castle. A bend in the road obscured his view momentarily, but within seconds he could see the ocean again, and this time he could see the town too. He accelerated, arms locked as he struggled to keep control down a steep incline and then, just before it disappeared below the treetops, he saw it. Perched back on top of the multistory car park was the helicopter.
    Another long, straight climb and an equally long and frantic descent, and he’d finally reached a part of the road network he was sure he recognized. He’d definitely driven into Chadwick this way with Jas, Driver, and the others on that ice-cold, snow-covered morning just before he’d taken leave of them all and disappeared. Part of him wished he’d stayed where he’d been hiding in the apartment a little farther up the coast. Much as the isolation had been becoming increasingly hard to handle, staying there alone would have been infinitely easier than the brief return to Cheetham Castle he’d made yesterday. He couldn’t help thinking he was to blame for the chaos he’d left back there. If he hadn’t led the helicopter to them, they’d have been none the wiser. Maybe the people at the castle would have been okay without him. Perhaps they’d have lasted through the final days of the dead without incident as Jas had wanted. Sure, they wouldn’t have had an easy time of it, but maybe they’d have coped. They had so far—well, most of them, anyway. He thought he’d been doing the right thing, but all he’d done was put other people in danger.
    The right thing for who? he asked himself as he struggled to keep the car moving at speed. Me or everyone else?
    Harte swung the car around a tight corner, a little over a mile short of the very center of town now, maybe a mile and a half from the marina. His wheels skidded on a greasy sheen of frot and compacted decay, and for a heart-stopping moment the back end of the souped-up Fiesta threatened to slide out of control. Harte recovered and kept his foot down on the accelerator. And then, as he drove the wrong way around a roundabout to aim toward the marina, he saw something which made him accelerate again. He had to look twice, unsure if it was just his mind playing tricks.
    It wasn’t.
    The rotor blades on top of the helicopter were spinning.
    He pressed down hard on the gas, gripping the steering wheel tighter as he plowed into and drove straight through two corpses. There were more bodies around here—a sure sign he was close. When he next looked up, he could see that the helicopter had taken off and was hovering above the car park roof.
    Harte looked down at the road again and instinctively slammed on his brakes. One of the remaining dead had dragged itself into the middle of the tarmac. It was crawling along on its hands and knees, too weak now to stand up straight, and because of its low height he almost didn’t see it in time. He wrenched the wheel hard left, skidded around the crawling corpse, then threw the car back the other way.
    Now the helicopter was definitely climbing. He could see it rising up above the rest of the buildings. A flash of light distracted him—the sun glinting off a window—and he looked down and saw another corpse in the road directly ahead. This one was upright, arms outstretched in a clichéd pose, brown rags of soiled clothing and saggy flaps of skin hanging off what was left of its emaciated frame like sticky robes. It was too late to avoid it, so he simply kept driving. The body dissolved on impact, showering the car with a gutful of wet yellow-black gore, and the foul distraction was such that Harte didn’t see a small pedestrian crossing in the middle of the road. He reacted late and hit a concrete traffic island at full speed, the impact with the front driver’s-side wheel hard enough to send the car spinning around through a complete 360-degree turn. Thrown back