Disintegration

there’s little chance of anyone catching anything.”
    “Caron’s right,” Gordon agreed, yawning. “We’ll struggle to find anywhere better than this. And the fact that you’ve kept the bodies at bay is an added bonus. The safety’s got to be worth a little discomfort.”
    “You’re just too scared to go outside, Gord,” Webb said. “It’s got nothing to do with the bodies or how much food there is.”
    “We’ll keep watching the Swimmer,” Martin said. “If she looks like she’s going to start causing problems then we’ll know it’s time to change our plans.”
    “The bodies are falling apart. They’re going to become less of a problem, not more,” Ginnie said, helping herself to more food.
    “Don’t count on it,” Harte started to say before being interrupted.
    “One of them bit me,” Webb said, suddenly animated, “and they killed Stokes.”
    “Christ, change the bloody record, will you?” Hollis sighed.
    “Well, I’m staying put,” Caron said again, standing her ground admirably. “You can all go back outside if you want to. I’ve got a suitcase full of books, a comfortable bed, and all the time in the world.”
    “What you’ve done here is incredible, and I think we’d be stupid not to stay,” Hollis agreed, “but I also think we need to get out and get supplies. It’s like Jas said—one properly coordinated trip out there and we could set ourselves up for weeks, maybe even months. Just think about it, safety and comfort.”
    “But it’s taken weeks to get the bodies away from here,” Howard protested. “You’re just going to bring them straight back again.”
    “Sure, we’ll excite a few hundred of them, but once we’re back we’ll batten down the hatches and sit and wait for them to disappear. Martin can keep playing his music to them and within a couple of days no one will be any the wiser.”
    “Makes sense. I’m in,” Amir volunteered, surprising the other residents of the hotel.
    “And me,” Sean agreed quickly before anyone else had a chance to speak.

 
     
    30
     
    Martin stood outside at the back of the kitchens, sheltering from the wind behind an overflowing waste bin, and tucked his trousers into his socks. He pulled on a hat, zipped up his warmest coat and dragged his bike out of the passageway where he stored it. The world was reassuringly dull and gloomy and he was pleased. He liked it like that. It was early morning and no one else had yet emerged from the individual bedrooms they’d claimed as their own late last night. His breath condensed in icy clouds around his face as he straddled the bike and listened and waited. There it was. Thank God for that, he could still just about hear it in the distance. He always found it easier to do this when the music was still playing. His heart thumping in his chest and his mouth dry with nerves, he began to pedal away from the hotel.
    He’d ridden this route so many times now that he’d carved a muddy furrow across the once well-tended gardens and lawns at the back of the main building, right the way over to the boundary fence. Slowing down as he reached the edge of the estate, he edged his front wheel forward through the gap he’d made, looked up and down the empty road on the other side, then pushed through and began pedaling again. It was easier now that the ground beneath his wheels was solid and even. He could move quickly and with much less effort here and he felt relatively safe, shielded from the rest of the world and the risk of attack by the thick, virtually impenetrable hedgerows on either side of the road. He could occasionally see them moving on the golf course through the gaps between the branches and leaves—those stupid, staggering, aimless creatures—but he remained invisible to them. They’d blocked both ends of the road with cars belonging to dead hotel guests and nothing was going to get through.
    He could clearly hear the music now, a beautiful, lilting tune carried gently on the air, underscored by the steady belching thump-thump-thump of a generator. Only one of the stereos was still playing. The fuel must have already run out in the generator powering the other machine, he decided. Good job he’d got access to plenty more from the various vehicles abandoned locally. He and Howard had built up a store close to the back of the clubhouse. Enough, he hoped, for several trips a day for a few more weeks at least. I have to keep the music playing , he told himself as he