With Jackson dealing with the nearest corpses and Kieran doing what he could with the digger, Harte concentrated on trying to clear the slush away from the road around the truck’s wheels. Some of it was compacted and he struggled to get the right angle to shift it. Jas reluctantly jumped back down onto the street, and Ainsworth followed Harte’s lead and began to clear around the front tires. Jas was panicking. For all his aggression and the authority he frequently tried to impose upon the group, it was obvious to Harte that he was losing his nerve.
“Get that fucking digger over here,” he yelled, his voice hoarse. “We need space. There’s too many of them.”
Kieran tried to do as h was told, but hit a piece of concrete street furniture on the pavement which had been hidden by the snow. He couldn’t get through. He tried reversing, but he was wedged in, and all the digger’s noise and stop-start movement was doing was attracting more and more of the dead. They were emerging from the shadows all around, dragging themselves around street corners and appearing from hitherto hidden places, the icy bonds which had previously held them captive seeming to weaken almost by the second.
As fast as Jackson was getting rid of the corpses, more seemed to be arriving. Harte wondered if he was the only one who could see what was happening. All the panic and bluster was causing their situation to rapidly worsen. Even if Driver was able to get the bus moving and Kieran managed to free the digger and get out of the way, there was a real danger that the sheer mass of dead flesh now advancing toward them might be enough to block the road and prevent them moving forward. The bodies were being channelled in their direction. He glanced up at Jas fighting near the front of the vehicle—the anger and desperation in his face, the effort he was continually having to exert just to stay alive—and he was immediately reminded of the time he’d spent trapped in the hotel. And in that split second he asked himself if being at the castle was any better. Different walls, a few different faces, but the same shit and the same problems. But it had to be better than being stuck out here, didn’t it? He wasn’t sure anymore.
He finished digging out the nearest wheel, then threw down his shovel, chucking it at a dripping corpse which seemed to have locked him in its sights, hitting it just above the pelvis and folding it in two. He checked the pockets of his thick winter jacket, patting himself up and down until he felt what he was looking for: his lighter. He grabbed hold of Ainsworth and spun him around. Ainsworth went for him, holding back at the last possible second when he realized it was Harte and not one of the dead.
“Tell Driver to kill the engine,” Harte ordered, looking him straight in the eye. “All this noise is just making things worse. Get everyone on the truck, get out of sight, and wait until it’s clear. I’m going to draw them away.”
“But how…?” Ainsworth started to say but Harte was already gone. He barged through the mass of corpses gravitating around the back of the truck, ducked down, and disappeared. Ainsworth did as he was told, working his way through the chaos to get close to Driver.
* * *
Harte pounded down the road, dodging the outstretched arms of a corpse in a crusty, blood-soaked blue hoodie, almost slipping on the ice. He picked himself up and carried on, veering over to the right and running toward a petrol station he’d spotted when they’d first arrived in Chadwick. All I need to do, he said to himself, is give them something else to focus on.
Way behind him the two engines had been silenced, but he could still hear those fucking idiots arguing. Jas was yelling pointless instructions at the others, Jackson was shouting equally pointless things back. Fucking morons.
There were two cars by the pumps on the petrol station forecourt, one facing in either direction, and a tanker parked a short distance away. Harte grabbed the handle of the nearepump, distracted momentarily by the violently animated and remarkably well-preserved remains of the female passenger of a red Audi, and also by the wild thumping of a dead man wearing a gore-soaked polo shirt bearing the logo of the petrol company, who was trapped behind the thick kiosk glass. He could feel the coldness of the pump handle even through his thick glove. He squeezed and managed to get a dribble of fuel out, taking care to spill it down the front of the pump and over the back of the Audi. And then the next pump, then the next. He ran over to the blind side of the tanker, where a wide hosepipe remained connected to an inlet valve. With no way of knowing whether the tanker was empty or full, he forced the valve open and pulled the hose away. The stench of fuel was sudden and overpowering, compounding the nervousness he felt.
I just wish this would all stop for a while.
Moving so fast that he couldn’t talk himself out of it, he reached into his pockets, pulled off his right glove with his teeth to get a better grip, and flicked his lighter.
* * *
The explosion was deafening; the heat and light it produced was enough to make it feel as if the sun had burst through the clouds again. There was a stunned silence inside the truck. No one moved. Jackson watched from the back of the digger as many of the dead began to turn and shuffle away, moving almost unbearably slowly, but moving away nonetheless.
“What the fuck did he just do?” Ainsworth said quietly, watching from the back of the truck with Jas and Bayliss. “I swear, he didn’t say anything to me about blowing the place up.”
Jas stared at the fireball. As if hypnotized, virtually all of the dead were now stumbling toward the flames, the men in the truck instantly forgotten. He scanned the street up ahead, but there was no sign of Harte.
“What do we do?” Bayliss asked. “We can’t just leave him.”
“Don’t see we have any option,” Jas replied. “No one could have survived that. What was the stupid fucker thinking?”
He was about to shout for Driver and Kieran to try moving again, to take full advantage of the distraction while it lasted, when Jackson sprinted past, hurtling toward the burning petrol station. Even from a distance he had to shield himself from the heat. The effects of the massive explosion had been devastating. Debris was scattered all around, smoking chunks of black surrounded by corresponding pools of space where the remaining snow had been melted away. The dead paid him little attention, even when they were close enough to attack. A few of them were burning—ignited by the intense heat even before they’d reached the flames, continuing to move until there was nothing left of them. With a deep, stomach-churning creak and crash, the forecourt roof collapsed, crushing everything below and fanning the flames still further. Great sheets of fire ate into it. Rolling clouds of toxic black smoke billowed up and drifted away.
Jackson tried to get closer but the heat was too intense. Jas jumped down and pulled him back, keen to get away. For the briefest of moments the two men squared off against each other.
“Leave it,” Jas said. “Harte’s had it. We need to get out of here.”
“But what if he—”
“He’s dead, and we will be too if we don’t move.”
He marched back to the truck, conversation over. Jackson stayed there a moment longer, trying to take in everything that had just happened. His eyes darted constantly around the devastation. More of the corpses, now almost completely ice-free, continued to stagger around him, moving toward the burning petrol station, their decay glistening in the bright, dancing light. Behind him, Driver started the truck.