“Yes, but—”
“But nothing. I doubt if any of us have caught anything.”
“How do you know? Anita has.”
“So how did she get it?” Gordon asked, clearly agitated. “She hasn’t been outside for ages. She’s been drinking the same water we have.”
“She might have had it before she got here,” Hollis replied, clutching at straws. “Maybe it takes a few weeks to show itself? Or she could have just got unlucky and eaten something that was contaminated.”
“I don’t like this,” he grumbled. “What if we catch it off her?”
“Then we’ll just have to deal with it, won’t we.”
“And how are we supposed to do that?”
“We’ll try and get her some drugs and keep her isolated. That’s all we can do for now.”
“But what if that doesn’t work?”
“For Christ’s sake, what do you expect me to do about it? Do you want me to go down to the edge of the crowd and see if any of the bodies used to be a doctor? Bloody hell, Gordon, just get a grip!”
“He does have a point, though,” Lorna said.
“I know he does,” Hollis admitted.
“We can’t just let her lie up there like this, can we?”
Hollis shook his head and stood up. He slowly paced away along the corridor, but then stopped and walked back. He stopped a short distance away where the light from the candles was just strong enough to catch the outline of his tired face.
“Maybe a couple of us should go out tomorrow and try to find her some drugs,” he suggested again. “Get some antibiotics or something. Hopefully that’ll do the trick.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Gordon shouted after him as Hollis walked away and disappeared into the darkness.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” his fading voice replied.
15
The early morning sun unexpectedly broke through the layer of dull gray cloud which smothered the land. Hollis waited in front of the flats for Lorna. Down below them, the cull had begun again. It was before seven but neither the early hour nor their tiredness after yesterday’s exertion seemed to have put a damper on Jas, Webb, Stokes, or Harte’s enthusiastic desire to try and obliterate another swathe of bodies. This morning, to his great surprise, Hollis noticed that Gordon too had found himself an ill-fitting set of bike leathers and joined the others at the edge of the crowd. Dodgy hip or no dodgy hip, he finally seemed to have overcome his pathetic fears and inhibitions and was facing the bodies head-on. Either that or he found the prospect of sitting waiting inside the flats more nerve-wracking today. Every conversation he’d overheard since waking up seemed to have been about Anita and her worsening condition.
A wash of golden sunlight dappled the heads of thousands of the writhing bodies at the foot of the hill. He wasn’t sure why, but the one-sided battle unfolding below him somehow seemed different from yesterday, more ferocious. Maybe it was nothing more than the different perspective from which he was watching the fighting. Perhaps the bodies yesterday had been just as violent and animated as these, but they’d seemed less so because he’d been dealing with them at close quarters. Maybe it was just because people like Gordon and Stokes were less experienced and less capable when it came to hand-to-hand combat? Or were the bodies more animated, ready to retaliate after yesterday’s slaughter?
“You ready?” Lorna asked, startling him. He turned around and saw that she was standing just behind him. He grunted and climbed into the grime-splattered van he usually drove. He’d spoken to Lorna again briefly late last night and they’d taken it upon themselves to go out searching for drugs. If they didn’t do it, as she’d quite rightly pointed out, no other fucker would.
“So where to?” he asked as she sat down next to him and slammed the door shut. She knew the area far better than he did.
“There are three pharmacies near here,” she replied quickly. “Head for the one at the bottom of Bail Hill first. That was a pretty big one. There should be plenty of stuff there.”
“Okay.”
“You got any idea what we’re looking for?”
“No,” he replied as he started the engine and drove toward the maze of garages, tracks and streets behind the flats. “I suggest we just get in there and empty the shelves into the back of the van. We’ll worry about what we’ve got when we get back.”
* * *
Hollis slammed on the brakes outside the pharmacy, leaving the van parked on the pavement, as close to the door at the far right of the front of the building as he could get.
“Five minutes,” he told her, “that’s all.”
Lorna quickly disappeared inside. He paused for a second before following, stopping just long enough to look up and down the road to see what effect their sudden unannounced arrival had had. He counted around ten creatures crawling slowly toward them from both directions. No doubt there’d be hundreds more by the time he and Lorna were finished.
Lorna was already working when he got inside, collecting bottles of medicine and packets of pills in wire shopping baskets. She was nervously sweeping entire shelves clear with her arm and doing her best to catch what she could. She’d already filled three baskets. Hollis grabbed them and ran back out to the van.
Twice as many bodies as before now, maybe more. Christ, they were going to have to be quick.
“How are we supposed to know what any of this stuff is and what it does?” Lorna shouted across the shop as he returned. “Maybe there’s a book or something we could take?”
“Doubt it,” he said, grabbing the next two baskets and heading for the door again. “They’d have had it all on computer, wouldn’t they?”
“Suppose. Might be something, though. It’s worth having a look.”
He threw the baskets into the back of the van. Many more bodies now. Getting close. Too close.
“No time,” he shouted, collecting the final baskets. “We need to get gone.”
Lorna pulled open a heavy white door next to where she’d been working which, she presumed, would lead to an office or another drugs store. Maybe she’d find some information in there which would help her to—
A body lunged out from the shadows into the light, missing Lorna and throwing itself at Hollis, who stood in front of it, completely unprepared. Wearing the once-white coat of a pharmacist, now yellowed and soiled by seepage, the dishevelled corpse hurtled toward him with unexpected force and venom. Trapped behind the door for more than fifty days, its sudden release seemed somehow to energize and invigorate it. Its weight was insignificant, but its speed and velocity were enough to knock Hollis over. He tripped and fell back, smashing the side of his head against the back of the wooden counter. The pain was excruciating.
Lorna grabbed a fire extinguisher from a bracket on the wall and brought the base of it crashing down on the back of the cadaver’s skull with a sickening crunch. It collapsed on top of Hollis, black clots of blood and other foul-smelling gunk dribbling out of its mouth and nose. Hollis kicked and scrambled underneath it desperately, more aware than ever of the germs and disease which might be thriving in the stodgy liquids dripping over him. Finally free, he dragged himself back up onto his feet, gagging in disgust as the remains of the pharmacist slid onto the floor. He angrily put his boot through its face.
“Fucking thing,” he cursed, gingerly touching his left ear. When he drew back his fingers he saw blood.
“Let’s go,” Lorna said, carrying another basket and moving toward the door. She stopped when she saw that almost the entire width of the glass frontage of the pharmacy was now a solid mass of dead flesh which reacted violently as she approached. Parts of the crowd appeared to try and recoil from her; others pushed harder against the dirt and cobweb-covered windows.