Disintegration

help.”
    “Christ, she’s not a dog!” Caron screamed, crying now. “You can’t just put her down!”
    “I’ll do it,” Harte said, surprising the others. “Give her some dignity…”
    “ Dignity ?” she yelled in disbelief. “Where’s the dignity in being murdered?”
    “There’s more dignity in dying quickly and quietly at the hands of one of us than there is lying in a dirty flat, surrounded by thousands of dead bodies and in so much pain that you lose your mind.”
    “No one’s trying to force you to do anything, Caron,” Jas said, his voice a little calmer, quieter and less emotional than the others. “All we’re saying is that we can’t afford to take Ellie with us. If you want to stay here and nurse her then that’s up to you.”
    Caron didn’t answer at first. She stared angrily into the darkness, her mind filled with so many painful thoughts and impossible decisions that she couldn’t make sense of any of it.
    “When did you last check on her?” Lorna asked. Again, Caron didn’t answer. She tried asking another question. “Have you seen her this evening? Did you go up there after the bodies first got through this morning?”
    “I haven’t seen her for hours,” Caron eventually replied, having to force herself to spit the words out. “I haven’t seen her since early this morning.”
    “Why not? I thought you’d—”
    “I’m too scared,” she admitted. “I don’t want to go in there anymore after what happened to Anita, all right? I don’t want to catch what she’s got.”
    “Then there’s your answer,” Harte said under his breath as Caron’s sobbing filled the room.
    “The longer we leave this, the worse it’s going to get,” Jas said. “If the germs don’t get us then those bastards outside will. Look what they did to Stokes.”
    “Poor bastard didn’t know they were there until they’d got him,” Webb said from where he’d been sitting on the floor next to the arm of the sofa. He swallowed hard and hoped that the others were sufficiently wrapped up with their own problems not to notice his sudden nervousness.
    “You’re right,” Hollis agreed. “We’ve all seen it. Their behavior is changing. They’re more aggressive, and they’re working together.”
    “So where would we go?” Gordon asked, begrudgingly beginning to accept that leaving now looked like their only option. Silence.
    “In the summer,” Driver suddenly announced, “I used to drive the two-twenty-two out of Catsgrove.”
    “Fuck me, Driver,” Harte gasped. “I didn’t even know you were in here!”
    “He’s always in here,” Lorna muttered angrily. “Lazy bastard never goes anywhere else.”
    “What were you saying?” Hollis asked, trying to pick out Driver in the darkness.
    “I used to drive the two-twenty-two,” he repeated. “Day trips to the coast.”
    “What? You want to go to the seaside? You’re a fucking idiot,” Webb cursed.
    “On the A197 out of town,” he continued, unfazed, “you pass this bloody huge exhibition center. Make a good place to go, that would. Out in the country. Loads of space. Nothing else for miles.”
    The room was suddenly, completely silent. Even Caron had stopped crying to listen to Driver and think about his suggestion. Hollis wondered why he’d waited until now to speak up. Whatever the reason, he was glad that Driver finally had.

 
     
    22
     
    After a sleepless night and an hour spent collecting her belongings from her flat, Caron climbed the stairs to the room where Ellie laid. Her nervousness increased with each step she took. She couldn’t believe she’d allowed herself to be coerced into doing this. She clutched a polyethylene bag full of drugs in her hand but didn’t know whether she’d be able to use them. She didn’t even know if she’d be able to go into Ellie’s room this morning. The stench had been appalling when she’d last checked on her. She’d made a halfhearted attempt to clean her up but the mess had been too severe. Ellie’s bedding was heavily soiled but, as Hollis had pointed out, the poor girl was bound to be long past the point of caring now. It would have caused her more distress to get her up and clean her than to leave her lying in her own shit.
    The cold wind blew through an empty window frame, gusting into Caron’s face like a slap across the cheek. She walked down the final long, dark corridor and reached the door to Ellie’s flat. She was too scared to go in, too scared to