Disintegration

but stop. Stand still and you’ll have a hundred of them onto you in seconds. Keep moving and they can’t get you. You’ve got speed, strength and control on your side; you can be gone before they’ve even realized you’re there.” Panicking again, Webb tried to work out how he was supposed to keep moving when suddenly all he could see in front of him was a brick wall. He changed direction and dived to his left, circling around the back of the petrol station now. Just keep moving , he told himself again, willing his already tired legs to continue working. Another swipe of the baseball bat (and impaled head) knocked a trio of bodies off their feet and down onto the concrete. Those immediately behind fell over the fallen corpses in their hopelessly uncoordinated attempt to get to Webb. Stupid fuckers , he thought as he pushed another two of them away with a determined hand-off before dropping his shoulder, increasing his speed and scrambling up a slippery grass bank toward the road. He cursed as he pulled himself upright and started to sprint again, muscles burning with effort. The wide carriageway ahead was packed solid with corpses. Maybe it’s not as bad as it looks , he tried to assure himself as he barged into the nearest few. The dead had such a lack of color about them that it was sometimes difficult to make out any detail. Weeks of decomposition had eliminated almost all their distinguishing features. Different skin tones and colorings had been bleached away by decay so that the endless crowds now seemed to have mutated into a single dead race. Their ragged clothing was stained with so much dirt, dust, mold and seepage that they all now appeared to be wearing a kind of gray-green uniform. The upshot of all this, Webb decided as he threw a pretty decent punch at another one which had shown a little control and lashed out at him with gnarled, twisted hands, was that he couldn’t tell whether there were a hundred of them up ahead or a thousand.
    Just keep moving.
    Webb found himself in a narrow sliver of space, just room enough to be able to swing the baseball bat around again. He struck out in an aimless arc, not knowing what, if anything, he’d hit. He made contact with the neck and left shoulder of an awkwardly advancing dead pensioner, hitting it with sufficient force to throw its skeletal frame up into the air like a rag doll. The traffic warden’s head, still impaled, was loosened by the impact. Webb’s second swing, even lazier in aim but stronger than the first, was enough to dislodge the decapitated head completely. He looked up and watched in amazement as he scored a bizarre home run, the head spinning up through the gray sky high above the massive crowd. Distracted, he followed its flight until it crashed back down to earth. A sudden surge of bodies forced him into action again.
    Keep moving …
    The ground beneath his feet was unexpectedly slippery and uneven now. He looked down and saw that he was virtually ankle deep in a foul-smelling, sticky slurry of human remains. His nerves and adrenaline prevented his stomach from reacting to the gross stench of the bloody mire. He knew that this appalling mudslide of rotting flesh and dismembered body parts was, perversely, a good sign. This was the gruesome wake of the bike and two vans which had abandoned him. The group had made their base in a block of flats just over the next ridge, and this grisly trail would lead him home. If he could just keep his footing and keep moving forward he knew he’d probably be okay.
    Another unexpected rush of movement from the restless crowd on his right sent Webb tripping over. He landed on his backside, deep in the obnoxious mess, and gave silent thanks for the heavy motorbike leathers he wore whenever he was outside. The thick, waterproof material gave him some protection from the germs and disease which were no doubt thriving in the disgusting quagmire. All around him a seemingly endless number of cadavers slipped and scrambled to get closer, ignorantly trampling the remains of their brethren. Webb struggled to get back to his feet, the soles of his boots sliding in the greasy muck. He managed to roll over onto all fours—doing everything he could to avoid looking down and seeing exactly what his knees and gloved hands had just sunk into—before leaning on the baseball bat for support and forcing himself back up. Panting heavily, he threw himself into the next wave of bodies and ran toward the top of the