Disintegration

talking about?”
    “Maybe they’re waiting for us to drop our guard. Maybe they’re waiting for us to come out into the open so they can make their move and attack. They’ve got us outnumbered by more than a thousand to one.”
    “Bullshit,” Stokes said. “They’re not waiting for us.”
    “Like I said, we should just go out there in the morning and get rid of the whole fucking lot of them,” Webb shouted from the shadows. “And if we can’t get rid of them then we should just keep pushing them back until there’s at least a mile between the nearest one of them and me.”

 
     
    4
     
    “Where are we going?” sighed Driver. He picked a lump of dried food out of the end of his untidy month-long beard and flicked it under the table. Hollis held his head in his hands, then jabbed his finger down onto the map.
    “Kingsway Road,” he sighed. “Halfway down going towards town, just before you get to the station. Haven’t you been listening?”
    “That’s the old twenty-three route,” Driver answered, suddenly marginally more animated. “I know where you mean now.”
    “Thank God for that.”
    Hollis made momentary eye contact with Harte, who seemed to share his concerns about Driver. Christ, they didn’t even know his real name. He’d turned up at the flats in the bus he’d been driving when the infection had first struck. He’d picked up several other survivors along the way but had been disturbingly lapse and vague about everything that had happened. Lorna, one of his passengers, had told Hollis she’d found a woman’s carcass wedged under one of the seats. The smell of the decomposing grandmother had been strong enough for her to notice long before she’d spotted her tan-suede-booted foot sticking out. He’d been driving around with her rotting in the back of the bus for days and hadn’t even noticed.
    Less than forthcoming with any personal details, they had simply christened him with the unimaginative label of “Driver” because of his preapocalypse vocation. Good job they’d not adopted the same naming strategy for any of the others, Hollis thought to himself. Jas could have got away with “Security,” as could Harte with “Teacher.” Caron would probably have been quietly pleased to have been given the mantle of “Housewife,” although Gordon, the short and repressed warehouse manager, would probably have insisted they call her “Homemaker” in a pointless effort to be politically correct. He decided he would have christened Webb “Young Offender” and Stokes “Failed Store Manager and Alcoholic.” With few other distinguishing characteristics or traits, Ellie, Lorna and Anita would have all been labeled “Unemployed” and that, he decided, would have just been confusing. He didn’t like to group Lorna with the other two girls, although they were all of a similar age and background. He liked her. She had more about her than the rest of them.
    “What’s the name of this place we’re looking for again?” Harte asked, leaning over the map to get a better view. Caron looked at the business phone directory in her lap and ran her finger down the page.
    “Shaylors,” she answered, finally finding the right advert. “‘Wholesale cash and carry for retailers. Over twenty thousand lines including a wide range of fresh and frozen food, groceries, beers, wines, spirits, tobacco and nonfood items.’”
    “Sounds perfect,” Stokes chipped in. “Maybe we should move in there. It’d be a hell of a lot easier than going out looting all the time.”
    Sitting across the table, Jas shook his head. “You been down the Kingsway Road recently?”
    “You know I haven’t.”
    “Place was bad news before any of this started. It’s going to be a nightmare today. It’ll be crawling with corpses.”
    “Isn’t everywhere?”
    “Can’t we find anywhere safer to go?” Gordon piped up from his usual position by the window. “Do we really need to risk going so deep into town just to get booze and cigarettes?”
    “Last time I checked you weren’t risking anything, Gord,” Stokes said. “How long’s it been since you last went out?”
    “I’ve got problems with my hip, you know I have,” he answered quickly, rattling off his stock excuse. “Seriously, I’d just hold you all up and slow you down. I’ve been on the waiting list for a replacement for more than two years.”
    “Well, you’re not going to get your operation now, are you, mate? You might as well