Disintegration

sound coming toward them along a corridor on their right. It didn’t sound human, but it was moving much too quickly to be one of the dead. He instinctively looked around for a weapon, but immediately relaxed when the source of the sound appeared. A scruffy, black and white, medium-sized dog with short, wiry fur and a tatty red collar poked its head through the doorway then walked forward again, its claws rapping against the terra-cotta floor tiles as it moved. It stopped and cocked its head to one side, then glanced back over its shoulder. More footsteps, heavier this time and much slower. A tall and stocky, red-faced man who was hopelessly out of breath entered the room and grabbed hold of the dog’s collar.
    “Wow,” he said simply, shaking his head with disbelief when he saw the size of the crowd gathered in reception.
    “This is Howard Reece,” Martin said, introducing him. Howard shuffled forward.
    “Good to see you all,” he wheezed, relaxing and letting go of the dog again. It walked over to Lorna and began to sniff at her dirty, bloodstained trouser legs and boots. She leaned down and stroked its head.
    “Beautiful dog,” she said, ruffling its short fur. “What’s its name?”
    “I just call it Dog,” Howard replied.
    “Original,” Jas said.
    “She doesn’t care. I never wanted her. Bloody thing just attached herself to me when all this started,” he explained, “and now I can’t get rid of her.”
    “She’s good to have around,” Martin continued. “She’s got a good nose on her. She sniffs out the dead for us.”
    “What?”
    “They freak her out, send her wild.”
    “They freak us all out,” Harte mumbled.
    “But she catches their scent earlier than we do. She lets us know when they’re close.”
    “But what about her barking? Isn’t it a risk having her around?”
    “She’s not stupid,” Howard said as the dog padded back over to him and sat down at his feet. “She had a couple of close calls early on when they first started to react to us. She knows not to make any noise but she lets you know when they’re near. You can see it in her face and the way she moves.”
    “Bullshit,” Webb said. The dog just looked at him.
    “So where’s everyone else?” Jas asked, keen to get back to more important issues.
    “In the restaurant,” Amir answered. “Follow me.”
    He led the group across the reception area and into a corridor directly opposite the one from which Howard and his dog had just appeared. In silence they walked along a wall full of windows which looked out onto an enclosed courtyard—half-paved, half-lawn. Hollis noticed a sign on the wall at the foot of a glass-fronted staircase which pointed to WEST WING - ROOMS 1–42 . He assumed that the similar-looking part of the complex on the directly opposite side of the courtyard—an identical staircase at either end, three floors, many equally-spaced windows—was the east wing, and that it almost certainly had a comparable number of rooms to the west. He looked up at the mass of rectangular windows he could see from ground level.
    Christ , he thought, more than eighty rooms. If just a quarter of them are occupied then we’ve more than doubled our number . He remembered the disorientation, desperation, and cold fear he’d felt on the day everyone had died, and how much easier everything had felt when he’d finally found other survivors. The more people I’m with, he’d long since decided, the easier the ride should be . The potential of using the hotel as a long-term base was immediately apparent, as it surely had been for everyone else who had ended up here. It was strong, safe, secure, and a damn sight more comfortable than the flats where he’d spent almost all of his time since the infection had first struck. Proper beds, space to move around freely, kitchens, and no bodies …
    “Swimming pool,” Jas said, grinning as they passed another sign on the wall.
    “Out of action,” Martin immediately told him. “I’ll show you around properly later.”
    “All this space,” Caron mused, looking across the courtyard at the three-story block of bedrooms, trying to decide where she wanted her room to be. Now this was more like it. She’d become used to living her life surrounded by waste and rubbish. The interior of the hotel, however, appeared relatively well-kept. Sure it was dusty and everything smelled stale, and it might have only been a two-star hotel when she was used to three at least,