“The neighbors seem a little more restless today,” Caron said. She couldn’t bring herself to call them bodies or corpses, or use any of the thoughtless and disrespectful expressions the others used. At least none of them used that ridiculous Z word. She found it easier just to refer to them as the neighbors. Then, in her mind at least, she could shut the door and close the curtains on them and forget they existed, just like she’d done with that awful man Gary Ross who’d lived and died over the road from her on Wilmington Avenue.
“Some of them were a bit wild. Nothing we couldn’t handle.”
“So what happened with him?”
“Who—Webb?” Lorna replied, looking up momentarily. “Just what I said. He decided he’d go off looting, and I decided to teach him a lesson. I’m sick of the rest of us having to risk our necks because of him. Bloke’s a bloody idiot.”
“Sounds like he was nearly a dead idiot.”
“Maybe. He always makes things sound worse than they are. Anyway, serves him right.”
Caron closed her eyes and leaned against the glass. What had her life become? What had she done to deserve this? Trapped in this horrific place, surrounded by these horrific people. She looked up again and focused once more on the gray slate roof of her house in the distance. She squinted, hoping to block out the thousands of cadavers and make them disappear.
Wilmington Avenue was five minutes away by car, but number thirty-two and the world she’d left behind felt a million miles away.
3
On a fifth-floor balcony, illuminated only by a three-quarter moon hanging high in the empty sky above them, three men stood together, drank beer, and watched the dead.
“Is that a corpse?” Stokes asked, pointing down into the shadows below. Hollis peered into the darkness, momentarily concerned. The figure was moving with coordination and control and he relaxed.
“Nah,” he yawned, “it’s Harte.”
Hollis watched as the tall man walked over to the left side of the building and looked through the motley collection of buckets, bathtubs, wheelbarrows and paddling pools the group had left out front to gather rainwater. He half-filled a jug from a large plastic plant-pot then wandered back inside. For a moment everything was still and quiet again.
“So what exactly happened with Webb today?” Stokes asked, disturbing the silence.
“He’s a liability,” Hollis said quietly, leaning over the metal veranda.
“He’s a fucking idiot,” Jas said, standing just behind him. Stokes shuffled forward, maneuvering his sizable bulk around the limited space of the balcony so he could reach another beer. He snapped back the ring-pull and held the can out in front of him as the gassy froth bubbled up and dribbled over the edge. He shook his hand dry, took a long swig, then bustled back to his original position next to Hollis.
“He’s just a kid, that’s all,” he said, stifling a belch. “He’s all right.”
“He’s got to learn to keep himself under control and not get distracted.” Jas sighed. “We’ve all got to get smarter when we’re out there.” He stamped on an empty can, flattening it with a satisfying crunch, then picked it up and pushed his way to the front of the veranda between Stokes and Hollis. He flicked his wrist and hurled the can out into the darkness like a Frisbee, the moonlight allowing him to track its curved path downward. It clattered against a half-demolished wall near to the remains of the second block of flats a little farther down the hill. The sharp and unexpected sound caused a noticeable ripple of inquisitive movement within the ranks of the dead nearby. He could see a sudden momentary swell of interest among the tightly packed corpses on the other side of the wall of rubble and wrecked cars they’d erected to keep the hordes at bay.
“We’ve just got to be sensible,” Hollis said. “Just keep doing what we’re doing until they’ve rotted down to nothing. We’re not prisoners here. We’ll keep going out and getting what we need, when we need it. We’re in charge here. Those things will only ever be able to get to us if we let them.”
“Maybe we should leave Webb here next time,” Jas suggested. “He’s going to get someone killed.”
“He’s just a loose cannon,” said Stokes. “Don’t write him off. He just needs to learn how to keep himself under control, that’s all.”
“I’ve seen dead bodies in the streets with more control than him,” Jas grumbled as he stomped on another empty can.
“Don’t joke about it,” Hollis said, leaning over to one side as the second crushed can flew past his ear. “Did you see that one today?”
“Which one?”
“The one with the branch.”
“What are you talking about?” Stokes asked, confused.
“It was just after we’d filled the first van,” Hollis explained. “One of the dead came marching out through the middle of the crowd dragging half a bloody tree behind it.”
“Must have got itself caught up,” Jas suggested, sounding only half-interested.
“That’s what I thought,” he continued, “but I was watching it and…”
“And what?”
Hollis paused, not entirely sure what he was trying to say. “And I swear it was trying to pick it up and use it.”
“Use it for what?”
“A weapon, I guess. Maybe it was going to attack us with it.”
“You’re worried about being attacked by a corpse carrying a branch?” Stokes said, smirking. “Christ, mate, you’re going soft. There’s thousands of them out there, and they’re all ready to gouge your bloody eyes out. I don’t think we need to lose any sleep over one that thinks it’s going to kill you with a bit of tree!”
Christ, Hollis thought, Stokes could be a pain in the backside at times. He was an insensitive, uneducated prick.
“You fucking idiot,” he cursed, amazed that he was having to spell out his concerns, “it’s not what it was carrying that bothers me, it’s the fact it was carrying anything at all. Have you seen any of them carry anything before now?”
“No, but—”
“Exactly. The last thing we want is for them to start picking stuff up and starting to—”
“Are you sure it was carrying the branch?” Jas interrupted.
“I was only looking at it for a few seconds,” he admitted, “and there were loads of them around us.”
“Don’t get wound up about it, it was probably nothing. Like I said, maybe it just got caught up.”
“Maybe, but what if—”
“Never mind what-if,” Stokes snapped, “let’s just concentrate on what we know they’re capable of.”
“And what’s that?” Jas asked.
“Fuck all!” he laughed, his bellowing voice echoing around the desolate estate, bouncing off the walls of empty buildings.
“What I think,” Webb suddenly announced from the darkness behind them, “is that we should go out there tomorrow and start burning them again. And this time we should keep at it until there’s nothing left of any of them.”
“You’re a bloody pyromaniac, Webb. You’re the reason we had to go out there to get fuel again today,” Hollis reminded him.
“It’s got to be worth it to get rid of a few hundred of them, though, hasn’t it?”
“Problem is, you don’t get rid of hundreds, do you? How many was it you managed last time?”
“Fuck off,” Webb said, helping himself to the last can of beer. “At least I’m trying to do something.”
“Seven, wasn’t it?” Stokes laughed. “He takes two cans full of petrol right down to the edge of the crowd and he only manages to get rid of seven of them! You’ve got to try hard to be that useless!”
“Wasn’t my fault,” he explained angrily, “the wind changed direction before I could—”
“Funniest thing I’ve seen since all this started,” Stokes howled, “you running away from that fire with all those bodies just stood there watching you! Bloody priceless!”