Disintegration

masonry at a time, now sat unused a short distance back. It was clear from Webb’s actions that the people remaining outside now were in the business of finding shortcuts. Safety and planning had been forgotten. It was now all about destroying the maximum number of corpses with minimum amount of effort.
    “I can’t watch,” Caron said, half-turning away but then looking back when curiosity got the better of her. Hollis stared intently as Stokes, Jas, Gordon, and Webb scuttled away to a safe distance, leaving Harte on his own trying to light the limp rag-fuse of a petrol bomb with the intermittent flame coming from a frustratingly unreliable cigarette lighter. A sudden flash of orange appeared which made him jump back with surprise. Realizing that the rag was finally lit, he hurled it toward the wall of cars. It ricocheted off the roof of a beaten-up 4 × 4 before exploding into flames. A chain reaction spread instantly across the petrol-soaked crowd, an arc of fire racing to the right and left and back out over the decaying hordes. Harte ran for cover.
    “Looks like it worked,” Caron said, relaxing again. The people down below congratulated each other and laughed and pointed as the bodies burned.
    “Thank God for that,” Hollis sighed. “They’re lucky it’s not them that’s on fire. If the wind had caught the fumes like last time they would have—”
    A sudden explosion tore through the air outside. Fuel had leaked from the damaged petrol tank of a hearse (complete with coffin and body) and the resulting ignition blew it up into the air, flipping the long, box-shaped vehicle up and over. Its charred chassis clattered back down to the ground several meters behind the spot it had originally occupied, crushing scores of unsuspecting corpses.
    Outside, the survivors ran for cover.
    *   *   *
     
    “Bloody hell,” grinned Stokes, “that was close. You could have been standing on top of that, Webb.”
    “I was standing on top of it a couple of minutes ago,” he replied, subdued. “Good job Harte took his time getting the fuse lit.”
    “Piss off,” Harte snapped. “It was your lighter that slowed things down, nothing to do with me.”
    “I think we’ve got a problem here,” Jas said ominously, taking a few tentative steps forward and peering through the heavy cloud of dense black smoke which was drifting low across the scene from the burning bodies and the blazing hearse. He shielded his eyes and looked down into the gap in the barrier where the hearse had originally been. The flames there had died down and now he could see movement.
    “What is it?” Gordon asked nervously, moving a little nearer but being careful not to get too close. At first Jas didn’t answer, instead pointing at the wide gap which had appeared in their defenses. A mass of furious bodies was beginning to quickly scramble through.
    “Block it up!” Jas screamed, his voice suddenly hoarse with panic. “Block the fucking hole up!”
    Webb and Stokes peered into the haze, still not sure what was happening. Harte immediately realized the danger and sprang into action, sprinting over to the nearest of the two diggers and hauling himself up into the cab. He started the heavy machine and rumbled toward the lumbering bodies, trying to work out how best to stop, or at least stem, the flow of dead flesh pouring through the ruptured barricade. Suddenly forced into action, Webb swung his nail-skewered baseball bat around with scant regard for his own, or anyone else’s, safety. Even Gordon was forced to fight. He battered a single crippled creature to the ground with a bloodied fence post, standing over it and repeatedly slamming the wooden post into its face, continuing even when the decaying monster had stopped moving. Stokes scampered out of the way and climbed into the other digger, hand on the ignition, ready to get involved only if he had absolutely no alternative.
    Harte blasted the digger’s horn. Still fighting, Jas looked up and stepped back out of the way as the vehicle moved toward him, rolling relentlessly over the dead and squashing them into the mud. On the other side of the breached barrier, a short distance into the advancing crowd, he could see the roof of the wreck of another car which he could use to block the hole left by the still-burning hearse. He accelerated again, carving another deep and bloody furrow through the sea of cadavers, then shunted his way out through the gap and into the crowd. He