Autumn: Disintegration (32 page)

“So those bodies outside,” she said as Harte dragged it back up onto its unsteady feet, “are all going to react like this?”

“We’ve got to assume so,” Hollis answered.

“Dear God,” mumbled Martin, covering his mouth in disbelief.

“Get rid of it,” Gordon said, backing off. “Please…”

Harte let go of the corpse and it staggered away for a few steps farther. He watched it for a moment, long enough for it to clumsily turn back around and start moving toward him again, then he barged it into the pool. The Swimmer waved its arms furiously, its frantic, uncoordinated movements keeping it afloat for a final few seconds before it was sucked below the surface. Martin watched until it was just a dark, unfocused shape on the bottom of the pool. Damn thing was still moving. Even down there, the damn thing was still moving …

48

“Helicopter,” Sean said simply, pointing out of Jas’s bedroom window, then turning and heading for the door.

Jas looked up. He was right. There, crawling across a dull sky peppered with gray and white clouds, was the helicopter again. He was sure it was the same one they’d seen previously. He scanned the skies behind it, desperately looking for the plane which had followed every time they’d seen it yesterday, hoping he’d see it again and disprove his evacuation theory. He stared up into the sky for what felt like forever but it wasn’t there. His heart sank. He was certain that meant they were running out of time.

“Aren’t you coming down?” Harte asked. Sean had already disappeared. Jas shook his head and remained sitting on the end of his bed, cradling a drink in his hands.

“No point,” he replied sadly. “I can stay up here and watch them fly away, no need to waste energy running downstairs to do it. Anyway,” he said, taking another swig of his drink, “they’ll be back later.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve been thinking about it.”

“And?”

Jas wearily got up and walked over to the window just in time to see the helicopter bank left before completely disappearing from view. “And the fact that the plane hasn’t come back this time tells me I’m probably right. First time it flew over yesterday it went from east to west, then it came back, then it did the same again. I said from the start I thought these people were packing up and moving out. Maybe two plane loads was enough to get them all away, and the fact they made so many trips so quickly yesterday kind of proves the point. I think the helicopter’s back to mop up anyone or anything they left behind.”

“So what are you saying?”

“What I’m saying is I think this might be the last time they’ll pass by. Another couple of flights at most, but I think this is it. They’ll fly back when they’ve done what they need to do and we won’t see them again.”

“You might be wrong.”

“I hope I am.”

Harte paused for a moment to consider the other man’s logic. His explanation seemed feasible. “So do you think it was the military or the government?”

“No idea. Probably neither. I doubt there’s anything like that left anywhere. No, I just think it’s a bunch of lucky fuckers who’ve struck gold. They’ve got someone who can fly so now they’re off to find somewhere where there are no bodies, no germs, and no arseholes like Webb and Martin.”

“I get the idea.”

Jas finished his can of beer and leaned against the window. Martin, Ginnie, and the others were outside now, standing around their pathetic message on the lawn, trying not to feel completely fucking useless. He turned his attention to the ever-growing crowd of bodies in the field over the road. Even now, even after they’d all done as they’d agreed and kept quiet since Sean and Webb had returned yesterday evening, still more of them were continuing to drag themselves back from the golf course. There had to be almost a thousand there now, maybe double that number, and they showed no signs of reducing. Who was to say the whole damn lot weren’t about to turn tail and start moving away from the music in some kind of bizarre slow-motion stampede? A few hundred breaking away weren’t a massive concern, but a few thousand … now that was a different matter.

“We need to do something,” he announced, the tone of his voice suddenly more positive and definite. “Sitting here and doing nothing isn’t an option anymore—we’ve tried that and it hasn’t worked. We’ve got to get that helicopter to see us next time because it might be our last chance.”

“Let’s be realistic about this for a second. Even if they do spot us, are they going to risk landing here?”

“Who knows? There’s enough space, but you’re right. Maybe we need to think about getting away altogether? We’re no better off here than we were at the flats. Exactly the same bloody problems, in fact—there are crowds of bodies getting closer and one of us is sick.”

“But we’ve isolated Driver.”

“Good. That lazy bastard did nothing for me while he was fit and well, I’ll be damned if he’s going to kill me with his bloody germs now he’s sick.”

“We don’t know if he’s got the same thing yet. It might not be—”

Jas sighed. “Come on, don’t be soft. Of course it’s the same thing.”

Harte leaned back against the wall so he didn’t have to look out at the dead. “So now we’ve got all the usual questions to answer. How do we do it? How do we get away and where would we go?”

“If it comes to it we could just drive out of here the same way we came in,” Jas suggested. “And what about that exhibition center everyone was banging on about before we got here? Sounded like a pretty good place to aim for to me.”

“Still don’t know how you reckon you’ll get the helicopter to see us.”

“Fire!” he answered simply.

“What? You thinking of setting fire to the hotel?”

“No, you idiot, there’s no point doing that. I think we need to get out there and cause a bit of carnage in the fields. We need to start a few fires, maybe an explosion or two. Think about it. It’ll take the pressure off this place again, because those dumb dead fuckers will head for the fire, not the hotel. And if the helicopter pilot does come back, when he sees three or four decent-sized fires in close proximity to each other but out in the middle of nowhere, he’ll have to realize that there are people down here. If he looks hard enough, that’ll be when he spots their message on the lawn.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then we get in the bus and the van and we take advantage of the fact that the bodies are distracted to get the fuck out of here.”

49

Hollis had fallen asleep on a bench in the courtyard in the middle of the hotel. He’d only planned to sit down for a minute, but by his watch that had been a couple of hours ago. He was having trouble sleeping at night and was grateful that he’d managed to snatch some unexpected relaxation, even though it had left him feeling disoriented, nauseous and cold. He shook his head clear, sat up, and looked up into the cloud-filled sky above him. Disgruntled and uncomfortable, he got up and went inside to look for something to eat.

In many ways the long and empty hours like this were worse than the frantic, desperate times when they were running, fighting or both. At least dealing with crisis after crisis kept him feeling alive. Sean’s words yesterday evening had rattled around his head. “
You’re all dead
,” he’d said. Was he right? Was the gap between the living on one side and the dead on the other really narrowing as much as he’d suggested?
If this is the quality of life we’ve got to look forward to,
he thought sadly,
then maybe he’s got a point. At least the dead can move around freely and without fear.
Was it better to feel and think nothing, he wondered, than to have your head filled constantly with the kind of desperate, nightmarish thoughts which seemed to constantly plague him?

“I said, are you okay?” Lorna said, tapping his arm. She’d walked right up behind him and he hadn’t even noticed. Either he’d just been preoccupied, or his hearing was getting worse. He tried to convince himself that his thoughts had just been elsewhere, although the reality was that he could now hardly hear anything through his damaged ear. That terrified him. In a world where the slightest sound could make the difference between remaining undetected or being surrounded by corpses, how would he survive?

“I’m fine,” he replied, trying unsuccessfully to hide his depression. Lorna was getting to know him too well.

“I’m just going to steal a couple of bottles of wine and some food,” she told him, very matter-of-factly. “Come up to my room if you feel like a chat.”

“Okay,” he mumbled, watching as she turned and disappeared into the kitchens. For half a second he stupidly allowed his mind to wander. Why was she inviting him up to her room? Was it just to share a bottle, or was there more to it? He’d long looked at her and wished that he could have her, but he’d never got the impression that she felt the same way.
Don’t be such a fucking idiot
, he thought, angry that he’d allowed his mind to wander,
you’re old enough to be her father. She’s only interested in you as a friend. That’s the only kind of positive relationship that exists now. There’s no room in this fucked-up ruin of a world for sex, love and lust and—

Car engines. Coming from outside. He could hear several of them.

Hollis immediately sprinted through to the front of the hotel, bursting through the main reception doors and running down the steps into the car park. He jumped to one side as a silver estate car careered toward him and tried to flag it down. Harte, behind the wheel, accelerated and swerved past. A blue executive saloon driven by Amir with Webb in the passenger seat beside him followed close behind, then a third car, a beaten-up, dark green family-sized hatchback driven by Sean, powered past. Where the hell were they going? Did they realize how much noise they were making? He turned around and saw Jas moving toward the van. He ran to stop him, trying desperately to get to him before he opened the driver’s door.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Hollis said, slamming the door shut as Jas tried to pull it open.

“Just leave it, Hollis,” he replied, barging him out of the way.

“You’re not taking the van,” he yelled, throwing himself forward again. Jas, a good eight inches shorter but much stronger, wrapped his arms around Hollis’s waist and swung him around, throwing him down onto the gravel. Before he could pick himself up Jas had climbed into the van, locked the door and started the engine.

“Just get inside and keep out of the way,” he shouted through the half-open window.

“You fucking cowards!” Hollis screamed, hammering on the side of the vehicle as it started to move. “Why are you running? All you’re going to do is let them in here.”

“We’re not running,” Jas hollered back. “Not yet.”

He put his foot down on the accelerator and drove away from the hotel. Hollis ran a few meters after him, but it was pointless. As the van disappeared around the curve in the track he turned and sprinted back inside to warn the others.

*   *   *

Jas stopped at the fork in the road. The three cars traveling ahead of him were having to shunt themselves around to take the tight turning and follow the other branch of the track up past the fields and toward the golf course. He waited anxiously for them to get out of the way. Despite the length of his car Harte had already managed to complete the tight maneuver with the minimum of effort. Amir, however, was struggling. He shunted his car backward and forward, backward and forward, making inches of progress at a time. Jas tried not to think what effect the sound of his over-revving engine would have on the crowds of dead bodies gathered nearby. As he waited to move he reached into his jacket pocket and took out his wallet. He unfolded the photo of his beautiful wife and children, long dead but still a huge part of him, and kissed it. He hadn’t looked at them for a couple of days, and that made him feel guilty. But he’d thought about them, he reassured himself. He’d thought about Prisha, Seti, Annia, and their mother almost every waking hour since he’d lost them.

“Have I got this right, Harj?” he asked, looking into the last remaining image of his wife’s deep brown eyes. “Or are we just about to fuck everything up?”

Sudden movement caused him to quickly put the picture away. Amir had finally made it around the corner. Sean wasn’t far behind—a textbook three-point turn and he disappeared behind the fence. Jas put his foot down again and followed, roughly yanking the van around the tight bend, crashing into the hedge on either side, no longer concerned about the noise. The three other cars had stopped again a short distance ahead. Harte was out and was running to the car which Sean and Webb had moved yesterday to get into the field. With Webb’s help he managed to shunt it far enough out of the way to leave the gate clear. Even from his position at the back of the queue Jas could see that a huge gathering of bodies had almost immediately amassed on the other side of the gate. They pushed forward angrily, rattling the low metal barrier. Webb sprinted for cover and climbed back into the middle car with Amir as Harte flicked the latch and shoved the gate open, knocking the cadavers at the front of the group backwards. They immediately surged forward again but it didn’t matter. Back behind the wheel of his car, Harte accelerated into the field and sent them flying. Amir and Sean followed, both cars crunching through gravel then pounding over the uneven mud. Jas brought up the rear, glancing back in his mirror momentarily and watching the gate swing shut again. It wasn’t locked, but it would have to do for now. Hopefully the sudden arrival of the four vehicles in the field would be enough to distract the crowds of slothful figures. Judging by the vast numbers of them already stumbling toward him, that certainly seemed to be the case.

As they’d arranged, Harte veered off to the left, plowing into a wave of corpses and driving down the slope of the field toward the very bottom, right-hand corner, diagonally opposite to the gate they’d just entered through. He looked back over his shoulder to make sure that Jas was following. Behind him the van thumped through the sea of lethargic figures, wiping out many of them. There were hundreds of the fucking things here, many more than he’d expected and far more than had been visible from their vantage point back at the hotel. Jas accelerated again, following the curve of the blood-soaked scar Harte had left across the field.