Disintegration

forced himself to look away and concentrate on the music still playing in the distance.
    What now? He tried to keep his head down as much as he could but he allowed himself to glance up momentarily and saw through the forest of tripping, sliding legs that the front of the building was now only a couple of meters ahead. The music was uncomfortably loud now, although it continued to be muffled down at ground level by the increased number of corpses swarming above and around him. They walked over him, oblivious to his presence, frequently standing right on top of him and not realizing. Damn things didn’t even know he was there.
    It was impossible to see with any certainty, but the congestion around the door up ahead didn’t look as bad as he’d expected. Sure, there was a huge number of corpses congregating around the building, but a decorative low wall or fence on either side of the door seemed to be channelling many of them away. Regardless, he was going to have to get up to get inside. He paused and lay still for a moment longer, collecting his thoughts and trying to steady his nerves. He’d managed to drag his baseball bat along with him. His only option now, it seemed, was to get up, smash his way through the crowd, and then batter the door—and any corpses that got in his way—with all the strength he could muster. Hopefully the speed and surprise of his attack would be enough to confuse the cadavers for a few seconds. By the time they realized what was happening, he hoped, he might already be inside. And what after that? He wished he’d listened more closely to Martin’s explanation of the layout of the building. From what he could remember there was a back entrance which he used to get in and out. An entrance which was connected to the road and which would enable him to get back to the hotel. Back to safety and food and drink and his room and then—
    Another decaying foot pressed down on the small of his back, pushing his face closer to the foul stench beneath him. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on what he was about to do, his guts churning with nausea and fear. Try and get a little closer, he decided, then just go for it.
    Webb slithered through the mud and grime until the ground dropped away slightly. He’d reached the top of a gradual low slope which had remained invisible until now, disguised by the number of bodies tightly packed around the building. The slope led directly to the wide double-door into the clubhouse. Taking a final deep breath of noxious-smelling, germ-ridden air, he hauled himself back up to his feet, knocking several cadavers down into the mud as he did so. Dripping with the odious, rotten slime, he lifted his baseball bat high and swung it around his head, hacking down a wide circle of disoriented creatures. Before any others could react he ran to the door, slipping and sliding precariously down the slope. For the moment it seemed to have worked, and it was immediately apparent why: in the fading light the dead could hardly see him. Their eyesight was poor and he looked almost the same as they did, just another indistinguishable gray blur. Camouflaged by the thick, sludgy layer of mud and decomposed human remains, he now wore the same gray-green-black uniform as the rest of them and had become virtually invisible. With the bodies so tightly packed and their footing so precarious, he knew that he suddenly had an unexpected few seconds of freedom to get into the building. Do it now , he told himself, his mind racing, before they realize .
    Webb hammered the baseball bat down on the clubhouse door. It immediately began to splinter and crack but it held tight. He swung the bat again, bringing it right over his head and crashing down on the door. The nails sunk into the wood and he had to yank them out as he prepared to strike for a third time. He swung the bat back, ready to heave it forward again, then pulled it back over his head with all the remaining strength he could summon up. This time it hit the door with a dull thud, and he saw that a chunk of flesh had been torn off a body behind him.
    He glanced back and saw that the farthest advanced cadavers were moving forward again, attracted by his sudden strong movements and the noise he was making. A large group of them were edging closer. It was impossible to see exactly how many but that didn’t matter. Many more were already following close behind. He shook the flesh off the end of the bat, heaved it back and swung it