Hollis shook his head dejectedly.
“That’s not it.” He sighed. “Didn’t help, though.”
“What, then?” she snapped.
“I don’t think it’s just because of what you were doing today, Webb. I think they were reacting to what we’ve all been doing down there this week.”
“Still don’t understand,” said Harte.
“For the last two days we’ve been pushing them around and smashing them up and burning a few hundred of them at a time.”
“So?”
“So, they’re running scared. Except they can’t run, because there’s too many of them and they can’t get away. The only option they’ve got left…”
“… is to fight,” Jas said, finishing his sentence for him.
“Exactly. They reacted when you got down there today Webb because they thought you were about to start laying into them again. And they’re climbing over the barrier now because they know that they can. They’ve seen others doing it.”
“No way!” Stokes laughed from the other side of the room. “Is anyone falling for this bullshit? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“Think about it,” Hollis continued. “They’re adapting to what’s happening around them. It makes sense.”
“None of this makes sense,” Gordon said.
“So what are we going to do about it?” asked Harte. “I hear what you’re saying, but can’t we just build up the barrier and sit tight?”
“That’s what I think,” Stokes said.
“First off, how? We don’t have enough stuff to build it up with—and anyway, I don’t think we can risk doing it. You saw what effect Webb going down there had on them this morning. If we start throwing our weight around again, even if we’re not directly attacking them, we’re going to push them over the edge and we’ll end up with a full-scale-pitch invasion.”
“So what are our alternatives? Sit here and do nothing?”
“There’s no way I’m just gonna sit in here, waiting for them to give up and keel over,” Webb protested. “No way am I going to spend all my time shut in this fucking building, waiting. There’s a fucking corpse in here too, don’t forget.”
“No one’s forgotten, Webb,” Hollis sighed. “I know it’s not ideal, but what’s the alternative? It’s either that or leave. We pack up and get out of here.”
Webb turned and looked out the window, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone. He didn’t know which was worse—the idea of staying put, or the prospect of heading out for good. The flats might have been cold, uncomfortable, and right on the edge of the biggest cess-pit of rotting human remains imaginable, but they’d been relatively safe here until now. None of them had any idea what they’d find elsewhere.
“There’s something else you need to know,” Caron said, standing in the doorway. Everyone looked around. No one knew how long she’d been there.
“What’s that?” Hollis asked, immediately concerned.
“It’s Ellie. She’s sick.”
“What do you mean?” he asked anxiously, fearing that he knew the answer to his question already. “Is she…?”
“Same as Anita,” she answered abruptly. “She said she felt sick last night but I didn’t think much of it. It’s early days, but her symptoms are just the same.”
“This thing’s going to wipe the whole fucking lot of us out,” Stokes said, putting into words what everyone was thinking.
20
Late afternoon. Another wave of bodies had managed to scramble over the barrier. Between them, Harte, Jas, Stokes, and Webb had fought back the ninety or so cadavers which had forced their way over during the fifth breach and had worked quickly to strengthen the blockade at the weak point which had been compromised. Stokes and Webb had been left outside to mop up the last few scrawny figures which had escaped the initial cull and encroached closer toward the survivors’ base.
“Five left, I think,” Stokes wheezed as he moved toward the remaining corpses. Webb shielded his eyes and surveyed the area around them. The sun was setting and was now framed in a narrow strip of clear sky between the horizon and a band of heavy gray cloud just above. The brilliant orange disc drenched the world in light, casting long, eerie shadows across the rubble. He soon saw the bodies that Stokes had spotted—trapped between a skip and a pile of masonry. One of them had fallen and become wedged in the way of the others. He swung his spiked baseball bat up onto his shoulder and headed down after Stokes. Tonight, more than ever, he was in need of therapy.
Stokes was already fighting by the time Webb reached the dead, doing all the damage he could to the trapped corpse with a chisel and a lump hammer. He’d found them in a tool box in the back of a car and was now using them as a makeshift dagger and mace. It was an indication of how the day’s events had altered the individual perspective of each of the survivors that a man as lazy and normally reluctant to fight as Stokes had, through sudden necessity, become remarkably aggressive. He yanked the fallen corpse up onto its feet and dragged it out of the way, immediately allowing the remaining bodies to move again.
“Let’s get this done and get back inside,” he suggested. “I’ve had enough for one day. I need a drink.”
Webb nodded, watching the bodies wearily haul themselves back out into space. Unexpectedly and, he thought, unfairly, they moved toward him
Panting with effort, Stokes shoved the lone figure away, then readied himself for its attack. It moved closer, lunging forward angrily with alternate steps, its unsteady movements the result of a broken right tibia which jutted out from an angry wound in its leg. He gripped his weapons tight, expecting it to throw itself at him like so many others had already done today. But instead it held back, rocking clumsily on its feet. It seemed to be sussing out its opposition—if, of course, it was capable of actually seeing anything through those dark, unfocussed eyes. The delay made the already anxious man feel even more uneasy. He decided to take the initiative, thrusting forward and swinging the lump hammer at the foul thing’s head. He caught its chin, wrenching its jaw bone out of its socket and leaving it dangling and deformed. Part of him wished he’d started fighting like this earlier because Webb was definitely right—getting rid of these abominations so aggressively was strangely therapeutic. It made him feel alive. It re-enforced the fact that he was so much better than these useless lumps of decaying gristle and putrid flesh.
“How you doing, Webb?” he yelled as the body fell at his feet. He stamped on its chest, feeling satisfaction as its ribs cracked beneath his boot.
“All right,” Webb replied, continuing to fight a short distance away. He’d already got rid of one body and had incapacitated another. It was on its knees just behind him. He’d broken both of its ankles and smashed its pelvis. Unable to fight back, it desperately tried to reach out for him, clawing wildly at the air. He ignored it, choosing instead to concentrate on another corpse which he’d just shoved facedown in the dirt. He repeatedly slammed the baseball bat down onto its back, ripping its flesh apart and sending a fountain of dark rivulets of blood and slimy scraps churning up into the air. Stokes looked around for his next victim. The fifth body actually seemed to be trying to keep out of sight. It moved behind the large yellow skip. Stokes simply went around the other way, then dragged it back out into the open and threw it to the ground. He dropped down on its exposed rib cage and hammered the chisel through its left eye.
Webb was still attacking the same corpse. He’d long since incapacitated it, but the urge to continue to violently disembowel the creature was strong. Battering it into oblivion and splattering its guts over the dust and rubble was helping him deal with the fear he’d felt since hearing that Anita had died and Ellie was ill. Stokes noticed the incapacitated cadaver behind Webb was still moving and he strode toward it purposefully, ready to put it out of
