Disintegration

from the elements. She’s still decaying, but there’s nothing in there to speed up the decay like wind or rain. That means—”
    “—that she’s probably stronger and in better condition than most of the corpses outside,” Hollis said.
    “Maybe not stronger, but she’s certainly in better physical shape than most of them.”
    “So what you’ve got in there is the worst-case scenario?”
    “Something like that. By watching her and how she reacts, we can get an idea of how the rest of them are going to respond next time we have to head out from here. We can see what they’re going to start doing even before they’ve started doing it!”
    “So what have you learnt?” Harte asked, still not taking his eyes off the corpse.
    “That they’re becoming more violent and they’re starting to make decisions.”
    “Is that all? We could have told you that.”
    “And they think we’re a threat.”
    “And?”
    “And we’re not going outside again until we absolutely have to. We’re going to make our supplies last and sit this thing out.”

 
     
    28
     
    Gordon, Webb, and Caron, along with Ginnie, Sean, and Amir, began to unload food from the back of the bus. With six uncoordinated people trying to get in and out through the bus and hotel doors, frequent bottlenecks formed. After working hard (by his low standards) for almost half an hour, Webb took advantage of one such brief and unexpected delay to disappear for a smoke, stopping only to grab a four-pack of beer from a cardboard box he’d been keeping a very close eye on. Sean noticed him leaving and followed him around the side of the building, out of view of the others. He found Webb sitting on a low wall, opening a can of beer and lighting a cigarette.
    “Fuck me,” he cursed as Sean suddenly appeared. “You scared the shit out of me!”
    “Sorry, mate,” Sean said apologetically.
    “Thought you were one of the others come to find out why I’m skiving.”
    Sean shook his head. “Nah, I just felt like having a break and it looked like you’d had the same idea.”
    “Smoke?”
    “No thanks. I’ll have a beer, though.”
    Webb threw a can over to him.
    “Cheers,” he said, swigging on his drink. It was the first beer Sean had had for a couple of weeks since they’d run out. God, it tasted damn good.
    “So how have things been here?” Webb asked.
    “Boring,” Sean replied.
    “Boring?” Webb repeated, surprised. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! It’s the end of the fucking world! There are millions of dead bodies out there trying to rip us apart—how can it be boring?”
    “Do you see any bodies here?” Sean said, knocking back more beer and sitting down next to Webb.
    “Fair point, but you must have had to deal with some of them? Christ, we’ve been surrounded by thousands of the fucking things for weeks.”
    “I got here before they really started to turn,” he explained. “We’ve seen Martin’s pet corpse and how she’s changed, and we’ve seen others fighting from the window, but we’ve just stayed put.”
    “For nearly two months?”
    “Something like that.”
    Webb couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Next to him, Sean shivered with cold. He was dressed in a thin hooded fleece, T-shirt, jeans, and trainers. Webb, in comparison, was still wearing his heavy boots and blood-soaked biker trousers. He looked like he’d been fighting the dead for weeks on end without a moment’s rest. Sean looked like he’d just got home from college.
    “Don’t know how you’ve done it, mate. I’d have gone out of my fucking mind.”
    “It’s not the bodies that get to me,” Sean quickly said, glad to finally have a chance to say what he thought, “it’s that lot in there. They’re so fucking cautious. It’s sit here, do this, don’t make a noise, keep your head down … I’m fucking sick of it.”
    “Can’t you just walk?”
    “What?”
    “Can’t you just get out of here for a bit? I did it when we were back at the flats. I either used to sit in the car or find a few bodies to beat up.”
    “You went looking for them?”
    “Sometimes. It was pretty easy where we were. I’d get ahold of a few of them and batter the fuckers until there was nothing left but a pile of blood and bones.”
    “Don’t know if I could do that.”
    “Don’t be so fucking soft! Of course you could. It’s not difficult. Bloody things are dead. As long as you don’t do anything stupid you’ll be fine.”
    “But they