Disintegration

holding on as Driver swung the bus around to the right. Amir wiped away another tear, unable to look away from the disintegrating world outside.
    “Because,” he explained, his voice suddenly full of emotion, “I used to live here and work here and I was here when it happened.” The bus rumbled forward, then took a gentle turn and began heading up the high street. “And,” he continued, pointing out of the window at the row of shops and businesses on the right hand side of the road, “because until all of this happened, the Bromwell Jewel was the best place to eat for miles around here.”
    “Was that where you used to work?” Harte asked.
    “That was my business,” Amir answered as they passed the blue-fronted building, its unlit signage now faded and dull and its windows covered with cobwebs and dust. “That place was my life.”
    What remained of the people of Bromwell were beginning to emerge from the shadows. They slowly spilled out from dark, hidden corners and dribbled through doorways, alerted by the noise. Their numbers were surprisingly low.
    “Why so few?” Harte asked as a gray-suited cadaver dragged itself out in front of the bus. He winced as the powerful vehicle slammed into it, its head smacking against the bottom of the windscreen and popping open like a blood-filled balloon. “Can’t all be down to Martin’s music, can it?”
    “What else could it be?” Amir wondered. “I’m sure that’s got something to do with it, but look out there. Some of them are holding back.”
    He pointed farther up the street. Harte and Hollis peered ahead, but the fact that the color seemed to have been drained from everything, bodies included, made it difficult to make out detail until one of the cadavers moved. Amir was right, though, some of the creatures in the shadows were definitely keeping their distance, staying out of the way until the bus had almost reached them and they had no option but to move. Harte turned and looked out the rear window. Behind the vehicle the scene was disappointingly familiar. The main street was full of corpses all dragging themselves after them.
    “What’s all that about?” Amir wondered, his eyes wide, nervous, and bewildered.
    “We’ve seen it before,” Hollis replied. “They’re not as dumb as you’d think. Sometimes they keep out of the way if they think they’re in danger.”
    “Seriously?”
    “You just watch them,” he continued. “When they’re isolated or there are just a few of them they tend to keep out of the way. Now look behind the bus. The immediate threat’s gone so they come out into the open and follow us.”
    “So is Martin making things better or worse? If they’re easier to deal with on their own, shouldn’t we be trying to keep them apart?”
    “Don’t know. There’s no right answer. Even if you’re only up against one or two of them, if they can’t see a way out, they’ll fight you whatever.”
    “Now where?” asked Driver. The end of the street was looming. Amir forced himself to concentrate and look ahead again. The far end of town had been redeveloped over the last eighteen months with several large buildings having been built on reclaimed wasteland the other side of a recently restored canal. There was a supermarket there, as well as the usual entertainment and fast-food outlets that always seemed to crop up together. He’d spent the last six months cursing the place, blaming it for draining the life from the town and dragging his customers away. Now he couldn’t get there fast enough.
    “Keep going to the end of the road, then take the bridge over the canal. We should find something up there.”
    The bus clipped the back corner of a burned-out car and sent the wreck spinning toward the buildings on their left. It crashed into the bronzed-glass frontage of a large social security office, releasing a previously trapped pocket of bodies which immediately began to pick their way through the rubble and glass, then lurched along the rubbish-strewn road. Harte walked the length of the bus, pressed his face against the back window and watched them. From all directions cadavers were now streaming out onto the main street and following the vehicle like a herd. There were still many fewer bodies than he’d expected to see, but more than enough to cause them problems.
    Driver forced the bus up over the narrow bridge which separated the redevelopment from the rest of the town, the sudden jolting movement violently