Disintegration
reducing. Who was to say the whole damn lot weren’t about to turn tail and start moving away from the music in some kind of bizarre slow-motion stampede? A few hundred breaking away weren’t a massive concern, but a few thousand … now that was a different matter.
“We need to do something,” he announced, the tone of his voice suddenly more positive and definite. “Sitting here and doing nothing isn’t an option anymore—we’ve tried that and it hasn’t worked. We’ve got to get that helicopter to see us next time because it might be our last chance.”
“Let’s be realistic about this for a second. Even if they do spot us, are they going to risk landing here?”
“Who knows? There’s enough space, but you’re right. Maybe we need to think about getting away altogether? We’re no better off here than we were at the flats. Exactly the same bloody problems, in fact—there are crowds of bodies getting closer and one of us is sick.”
“But we’ve isolated Driver.”
“Good. That lazy bastard did nothing for me while he was fit and well, I’ll be damned if he’s going to kill me with his bloody germs now he’s sick.”
“We don’t know if he’s got the same thing yet. It might not be—”
Jas sighed. “Come on, don’t be soft. Of course it’s the same thing.”
Harte leaned back against the wall so he didn’t have to look out at the dead. “So now we’ve got all the usual questions to answer. How do we do it? How do we get away and where would we go?”
“If it comes to it we could just drive out of here the same way we came in,” Jas suggested. “And what about that exhibition center everyone was banging on about before we got here? Sounded like a pretty good place to aim for to me.”
“Still don’t know how you reckon you’ll get the helicopter to see us.”
“Fire!” he answered simply.
“What? You thinking of setting fire to the hotel?”
“No, you idiot, there’s no point doing that. I think we need to get out there and cause a bit of carnage in the fields. We need to start a few fires, maybe an explosion or two. Think about it. It’ll take the pressure off this place again, because those dumb dead fuckers will head for the fire, not the hotel. And if the helicopter pilot does come back, when he sees three or four decent-sized fires in close proximity to each other but out in the middle of nowhere, he’ll have to realize that there are people down here. If he looks hard enough, that’ll be when he spots their message on the lawn.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then we get in the bus and the van and we take advantage of the fact that the bodies are distracted to get the fuck out of here.”
49
Hollis had fallen asleep on a bench in the courtyard in the middle of the hotel. He’d only planned to sit down for a minute, but by his watch that had been a couple of hours ago. He was having trouble sleeping at night and was grateful that he’d managed to snatch some unexpected relaxation, even though it had left him feeling disoriented, nauseous and cold. He shook his head clear, sat up, and looked up into the cloud-filled sky above him. Disgruntled and uncomfortable, he got up and went inside to look for something to eat.
In many ways the long and empty hours like this were worse than the frantic, desperate times when they were running, fighting or both. At least dealing with crisis after crisis kept him feeling alive. Sean’s words yesterday evening had rattled around his head. “ You’re all dead ,” he’d said. Was he right? Was the gap between the living on one side and the dead on the other really narrowing as much as he’d suggested? If this is the quality of life we’ve got to look forward to, he thought sadly, then maybe he’s got a point. At least the dead can move around freely and without fear. Was it better to feel and think nothing, he wondered, than to have your head filled constantly with the kind of desperate, nightmarish thoughts which seemed to constantly plague him?
“I said, are you okay?” Lorna said, tapping his arm. She’d walked right up behind him and he hadn’t even noticed. Either he’d just been preoccupied, or his hearing was getting worse. He tried to convince himself that his thoughts had just been elsewhere, although the reality was that he could now hardly hear anything through his damaged ear. That terrified him. In a world where the slightest sound could make the difference between
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