Disintegration

and yet he still remained at the mouth of the road, standing and looking at the mass of bloody limbs and shredded flesh which lay all around him, attacking incapacitated corpses which were no longer a threat. He didn’t want to go down and fight with the others but he knew that he had to. Christ, even the dog was doing more than him. He watched it jump up at yet another cadaver and sink its razor-sharp teeth into the corpse’s arm, dragging it down to the ground. He tightened his grip on his meat cleaver and began to run forward again, determined to get involved. Then he stopped. What was that? He could hear another engine. Was it the van coming back? At first he couldn’t locate the source of the swirling sound. Was it coming from the road running between the hotel and golf course, or from the road junction at the end of the track or even the field? It sounded like it was behind him … He spun around to see the bus careering around the front of the hotel with Martin at the wheel. He turned sharp left and hurtled down the track toward Howard, who ran for cover as fast as his tired, heavy legs would carry him.
    “Move!” he screamed at the top of his voice to anyone who could hear him. Farther down the track Gordon looked up.
    “Christ,” he mumbled, grabbing hold of Lorna by the waist and pulling her away from the corpse she was carving up with her machete. She struggled to release herself from his grip, terrified for a second that it was one of the dead who had her trapped in its decaying arms. A little farther ahead Hollis continued fighting. He hadn’t heard anything.
    “Greg!” she screamed, looking around and quickly realizing what was happening. “Get out of the way!”
    Howard’s dog raced back toward its owner at full pelt, carrying half an arm in her mouth. Gordon pulled Lorna behind him, dragging her back up as she tripped over a bloody, headless torso, then pushing her into the hedgerow as the bus thundered past. It missed them both by the slenderest of margins, temporarily filling the world with deafening noise and a sudden hot blast of choking exhaust fumes.
    “Hollis!” she screamed again as the back of the bus filled the width of the road and he disappeared from view. She stood in the middle of the tarmac strip with Gordon and watched helplessly as the bus raced away, instantly wiping up the last few cadavers which had made it this far along the road, smashing them like flies on its windscreen. Wrestling herself free from Gordon’s well-meaning grip she ran down after it, stopping when she reached the area where Hollis had been standing.
    “Hollis!” she screamed.
    “Fuck me, that was close,” she heard him say from somewhere to her left. She looked around with relief and helped him up as he disentangled himself from the undergrowth. “Who the hell was that?”
    “Martin, I think,” she answered.
    “What does he think he’s doing?”
    “Trying to block the road or get rid of the bodies,” she replied. “Or both.”
    *   *   *
     
    The van blasted down the other side of the track at breakneck speed. Jas looked for the sharp, almost complete 360-degree turn that he needed to take the fork in the road back up to the hotel. At this pace it was difficult to see much—the hedgerows merged to look like a single, uninterrupted border around the hotel. Wait … there it was. He could see the back of the hotel sign now, and he could also see the sign to the golf club pointing up along the stretch of road they’d just come down. He slammed his foot hard on the brake and yanked the wheel around to the right, planning to make a three-point turn in the narrow space. Now facing the hedgerow, he crunched into reverse.
    “Shit,” Harte cursed, suddenly covering his head and diving over toward Jas. Jas looked up and, for the briefest of moments, was aware of the front of the bus thundering toward them.
    The massive vehicle and its makeshift, blood-covered snowplow punched into the side of the van, the force of impact sending it crashing into the hedgerow and showering the road with broken glass. The bus itself continued forward, its front wheels ramming up the muddy bank at the bottom of the hedge. Harte shook his head and checked himself for injuries. Jas, who could already see that they were both unharmed, shoved him back over into his seat.
    “Come on,” he said, jumping out onto the road. He rubbed his aching neck and turned back to look for Harte, who was struggling to get