Disintegration

speed at all the dead would have a chance, albeit just a slight one, of knocking him off-balance.
    Harte maintained his one-handed grip on the bike with all the strength he could muster as the powerful machine dipped from side to side. Jas steered skilfully around the occasional wandering cadaver and other random obstructions, trying hard to fathom his way through the bizarre and chaotic landscape. He’d been here many times before, but the myriad streets all looked broadly the same, and as the world decayed so everything seemed to be becoming less defined. He powered down a long, sweeping, tree-lined road and finally spotted a landmark which helped him focus and make sense of his surroundings again. They drove parallel with a long gray-stone wall which ran the length of one edge of a massive reservoir, then passed the shadowy shell of a once-thriving college. Even now, weeks after they had died, the imprisoned corpses of students pressed their decayed faces against the windows when they heard the bike approaching, looking for release from their dormitory and lecture-room tombs.
    Now Jas knew exactly where he was and where he wanted to be. They’d driven in a large loop which took them right around the back of the immense crowd at the bottom of the hill. Two sharp left-hand turns in quick succession and they were almost there. Harte looked up and could see the flats above them in the distance—a dark, imposing structure silhouetted against the ominous gray-white sky. Although their distance from home was unsettling, he was reassured by the fact that, from here, the building looked like an impenetrable gothic castle or fortress. He was distracted from his thoughts when Jas suddenly turned left again, nearly wrenching his shoulder out of its socket as the bike dipped to the side. They stopped and he flicked up the visor of his helmet.
    “What’s the matter?” he asked, glancing anxiously around. There were more bodies here, and he was already aware of several creeping, twisted figures which were emerging from the shadows on either side of the road.
    “Need to work out how we’re going to get out of here,” Jas replied, his voice muffled and quiet.
    “Don’t you think we should have thought about that before we came out?”
    Harte stared at a grotesque creature which limped closer to them. A huge chunk of flesh was missing from the right of its torso, as if something had taken a bite out of its side. It wore a pair of soiled pajama bottoms and slippers, and its awkward, lethargic movement caused more of its putrefied guts to spill out of the hole in its chest.
    “Are you listening to me?” Jas said angrily. Harte shook his head, cursing himself for being so distracted by the monstrosity he’d been watching and the trail of guts it had left on the road.
    “What?” he mumbled.
    “We’ll go around the back,” Jas yelled, driving a little farther forward, then stopping midway down what had once been an ordinary suburban street lined on either side with unremarkable, semidetached houses. He looked up to make sure he could still see the flats—no point creating a distraction that can’t be seen from up there, he thought—then gestured toward the nearest house. More bodies were hauling themselves toward them now. A group of three seemed to be moving together. “Open that gate!” he ordered, pointing to the narrow passageway which ran down the side of the house.
    Harte immediately jumped off the bike and ran down the driveway, pausing only to barge a lanky and particularly unsteady body out of the way, sending it tripping over onto the tarmac. He tried to force the wooden gate open but it wouldn’t move.
    “It’s locked,” he shouted to Jas, who had driven down the drive after him.
    “Of course it’s locked, you idiot!” he shouted back. “Just climb over and get the bloody thing open!”
    Inquisitive bodies were beginning to swarm down the driveway now, almost completely blocking the way out. Still holding on to the fuel can, Harte hauled himself up over the top of the tall gate and crashed down into the passageway on the other side, immediately picking himself up, turning around and sliding the bolt. As soon as the gate was open Jas drove toward him, barely giving him chance to get out of the way. Once he was through, Harte ran back and pushed the gate shut again, slamming it in the rotting face of a once-pregnant cadaver. The creature’s distended belly—still filled with the