Disintegration

get used to the pain and start pulling your weight.”
    “Let it go,” Hollis sighed. He wasn’t in the mood to referee yet another slanging match. Truth be told, he didn’t want to risk being out in the open with someone as weak and useless as Gordon anyway.
    “Sounds good,” Ellie said, sitting on the windowsill, cradling her doll and kicking her legs. “Get me some fags, will you? Me and Anita are down to our last couple of packs.”
    “Think about your baby,” Stokes said with a smirk. Webb bit his lip and looked away, trying not to laugh.
    “Where is Anita, anyway?” Jas asked, glancing around the room.
    “In bed,” Ellie answered.
    “In bed?” he repeated. “Bloody hell, it’s like a holiday camp here. What’s she doing in bed?”
    “Says she feels sick. Says it’s something she’s eaten.”
    “I reckon it’s just another one of her excuses, lazy cow,” Stokes said, for once putting into words what just about everyone else was thinking. Anita seemed to be able to find a way of getting out of doing practically anything.
    The bickering continued around him, but Hollis concentrated on the map on the table, doing his best to shut out the constant, pointless noise. They’d been systematically working their way through all the large supermarkets and stores on this side of town. Once they’d cleared a store out and stripped it down to bare bones, they crossed through it on the map and moved on to the next. Their strategy had worked well so far, but the danger was increasing. Their trips outside were now taking longer and thorough planning was necessary. Problem was, he thought, with this shower of tossers the risks were dramatically increasing too. He knew he could count on Jas, Stokes (despite his obvious faults), Harte, and Lorna, but as for the rest of them …
    “I said, when are we going to do it?” Stokes asked, slapping his hand down on the table when he didn’t get an answer, making Hollis jump.
    “What?”
    “Do we go now or leave it until later?”
    “We should just get it done,” Hollis replied. “Let’s get out of here, get back, and then have a bloody good drink.”

 
     
    5
     
    Jas pushed his bike out of the front lobby of the flats and wheeled it over toward the other vehicles. Hollis acknowledged both him and Harte, who climbed onto the back of the bike to ride pillion. Next to Hollis in the larger of the group’s two vans sat Lorna, quiet and pensive and chewing her lip nervously, unaware he was staring at her. He often found himself watching her. She had a spark of energy and life about her. Even now, about to head out into the grim, dangerous and unpredictable ruin of their world, she remained remarkably positive. She was wearing a trace of makeup and had tied her hair up neatly. She did something different with her hair almost every day. It said something about her that she still took pride in her appearance. He, on the other hand, hadn’t brushed his teeth for more than a week.
    The hydraulic hiss of the doors of the bus opening on the other side of the car park distracted Hollis. He watched as Driver let Stokes and Webb on board. Before disappearing inside, Webb glanced along the length of the bizarre-looking vehicle. Once just like any other double-decker bus, over the weeks the group had cannibalized and fortified it to the best of their limited abilities. Barbwire had been spooled along both sides in an attempt to make it as difficult as possible for the dead to reach the survivors inside. Sheet metal had been bolted to its otherwise flat front to form a rudimentary pointed plow, perfect for cutting through the incessant crowds which gathered around them whenever they left the relative safety and calm of the flats.
    The air, so eerily quiet and still most of the time now, was suddenly filled with noise as, one by one, the engines were started. Lorna shuffled forward in her seat and peered through binoculars down into the gray sea of cadavers. Even from this distance she could see that they were already beginning to react to the rumble of the machines.
    The geography of the area around the block of flats had made the ugly concrete building a surprisingly effective base. Its location, perched three-quarters of the way up a steep hill, made it difficult for the bodies to get close easily. Some of them, those less damaged or decayed than the rest, were occasionally able to drag themselves through the desolation and get closer to the survivors, but were easy