Disintegration

curved to the left around the foot of a large hill. Several hundred meters ahead was a traffic island, sign-posted with names which didn’t mean anything to Hollis, who searched for something familiar. He thought he could remember the route to the exhibition center Driver had talked about, but like everyone else his nerves were shattered and he needed reassurance.
    “Any ideas?” he asked hopefully.
    “Second exit,” Lorna replied, her voice sounding nervous and unsure. Hollis steered the van around the roundabout, flinching slightly as he plowed into a lone body which had foolishly tripped into his path.
    “I need a piss,” Jas said, banging on the side of the van.
    “What do you want me to do about it?” Hollis snapped.
    “Well, you could stop the van and let me out,” he answered, annoyed. “I’m not going to do it in here.”
    “And I’m not going to stop.”
    “Don’t be stupid, Hollis, I’m bloody desperate.”
    “You’ve got to stop,” Webb chipped in. “Come on, I need to go too.”
    “Just piss in a bottle or something and throw it out of the window. I’m not stopping. Look what happened back there.”
    “That was different and you know it.” Jas sighed. “That was the middle of a town, for Christ’s sake. There’s nothing around here.”
    “You reckon? Look over there.”
    He pointed to an area of land over to the right of another roundabout. A number of corpses were gathered outside a dilapidated petrol station and service area, milling around between the pumps and outbuildings. When they heard the noise of the engines they immediately began to herd toward the road in a ragtag group.
    “So what?” Webb protested. “There’s fifteen of them, twenty at most. Bloody hell, Hollis, any one of us could sort that number out on our own back at the flats.”
    “Yes, but we’re not at the flats now, are we?”
    “A corpse is a corpse. Doesn’t matter where it is.”
    “I know that, but we don’t know the area.”
    “It’s all fields, for fuck’s sake. There’s nothing to know.”
    “Things are different when we don’t know the area. Look what happened earlier. You don’t want to be caught out by a hundred of them when you’re stood there with your dick in your hands.”
    “Come on, Hollis, stop making excuses. Just stop the van for a minute so we can have a piss.”
    “No.”
    Hollis put his foot down and increased his speed, making a point and powering toward the first of the group of cadavers which had staggered out into the road. He swerved around them and accelerated again, racing ahead down a long straight, leaving the bus trundling after them, struggling to catch up.
    “You fucking jerk,” Webb hissed. “Just because you’re scared you’re going to make the rest of us suffer. You know what I hate most about you?”
    “I don’t give a shit Webb. Just shut up!” Hollis ordered, silencing the whining little idiot in the back as he swung the van around a sharp right-hand turn. His speed was such that two of the wheels temporarily left the ground, then crashed heavily back down. “Jesus Christ,” he cursed, slamming on the brakes, bringing the speeding vehicle to a sudden, lurching halt just inches away from the side of an abandoned truck which blocked the full width of the road.
    Behind him Driver had accelerated to catch up and now struggled to stop the bus in time. Jas turned around and braced himself for impact. The distance was deceptive but there was no collision, just a bloody thump when a lone corpse stumbled out in front of the still-moving bus and was hit and thrown against the back of the van. He watched as it slid slowly down the glass. By the time it had dropped to the ground the vehicle behind was still. He could see the relief on Driver’s normally expressionless face.
    “Oh that’s just bloody perfect,” Lorna moaned, looking at the obstruction in front of them. “What the hell are we supposed to do now?”
    Decayed figures immediately began to converge on the two vehicles, flinging themselves forward and hammering on their metal sides.
    “Now do you believe me?” Hollis shouted, turning around to face Webb and Jas in the back. “You see, according to your logic there shouldn’t be any bodies around here but look, there are loads of the damn things. Do either of you want to go for your piss now?”
    He was right. Inexplicably the dead were again swarming all around them. Jas didn’t want to look for explanations or prolong his