Disintegration

surprise, Hollis noticed that Gordon too had found himself an ill-fitting set of bike leathers and joined the others at the edge of the crowd. Dodgy hip or no dodgy hip, he finally seemed to have overcome his pathetic fears and inhibitions and was facing the bodies head-on. Either that or he found the prospect of sitting waiting inside the flats more nerve-wracking today. Every conversation he’d overheard since waking up seemed to have been about Anita and her worsening condition.
    A wash of golden sunlight dappled the heads of thousands of the writhing bodies at the foot of the hill. He wasn’t sure why, but the one-sided battle unfolding below him somehow seemed different from yesterday, more ferocious. Maybe it was nothing more than the different perspective from which he was watching the fighting. Perhaps the bodies yesterday had been just as violent and animated as these, but they’d seemed less so because he’d been dealing with them at close quarters. Maybe it was just because people like Gordon and Stokes were less experienced and less capable when it came to hand-to-hand combat? Or were the bodies more animated, ready to retaliate after yesterday’s slaughter?
    “You ready?” Lorna asked, startling him. He turned around and saw that she was standing just behind him. He grunted and climbed into the grime-splattered van he usually drove. He’d spoken to Lorna again briefly late last night and they’d taken it upon themselves to go out searching for drugs. If they didn’t do it, as she’d quite rightly pointed out, no other fucker would.
    “So where to?” he asked as she sat down next to him and slammed the door shut. She knew the area far better than he did.
    “There are three pharmacies near here,” she replied quickly. “Head for the one at the bottom of Bail Hill first. That was a pretty big one. There should be plenty of stuff there.”
    “Okay.”
    “You got any idea what we’re looking for?”
    “No,” he replied as he started the engine and drove toward the maze of garages, tracks and streets behind the flats. “I suggest we just get in there and empty the shelves into the back of the van. We’ll worry about what we’ve got when we get back.”
    *   *   *
     
    Hollis slammed on the brakes outside the pharmacy, leaving the van parked on the pavement, as close to the door at the far right of the front of the building as he could get.
    “Five minutes,” he told her, “that’s all.”
    Lorna quickly disappeared inside. He paused for a second before following, stopping just long enough to look up and down the road to see what effect their sudden unannounced arrival had had. He counted around ten creatures crawling slowly toward them from both directions. No doubt there’d be hundreds more by the time he and Lorna were finished.
    Lorna was already working when he got inside, collecting bottles of medicine and packets of pills in wire shopping baskets. She was nervously sweeping entire shelves clear with her arm and doing her best to catch what she could. She’d already filled three baskets. Hollis grabbed them and ran back out to the van.
    Twice as many bodies as before now, maybe more. Christ, they were going to have to be quick.
    “How are we supposed to know what any of this stuff is and what it does?” Lorna shouted across the shop as he returned. “Maybe there’s a book or something we could take?”
    “Doubt it,” he said, grabbing the next two baskets and heading for the door again. “They’d have had it all on computer, wouldn’t they?”
    “Suppose. Might be something, though. It’s worth having a look.”
    He threw the baskets into the back of the van. Many more bodies now. Getting close. Too close.
    “No time,” he shouted, collecting the final baskets. “We need to get gone.”
    Lorna pulled open a heavy white door next to where she’d been working which, she presumed, would lead to an office or another drugs store. Maybe she’d find some information in there which would help her to—
    A body lunged out from the shadows into the light, missing Lorna and throwing itself at Hollis, who stood in front of it, completely unprepared. Wearing the once-white coat of a pharmacist, now yellowed and soiled by seepage, the dishevelled corpse hurtled toward him with unexpected force and venom. Trapped behind the door for more than fifty days, its sudden release seemed somehow to energize and invigorate it. Its weight was insignificant, but its speed and