Disintegration

“It’s simple, really. I play music to them and they think we’re in the clubhouse.”

“You play music?” Gordon said in disbelief. “Are you serious?”

“I don’t stand there with a guitar serenading them, if that’s what you’re thinking. We set up a couple of portable generators and I leave CDs playing on repeat until the fuel runs out. They think we’re sitting in the clubhouse so they crowd around it and stay away from here. Because there are so many of them and so few ways onto the golf course, once they get through the holes in the fence, it’s almost impossible for them to get back. Might sound a little unusual, but it works.”

“There’s no doubting that,” Jas muttered under his breath.

“I have to go up there two or three times a day to change the music and refill the generators, but—”

“Sorry, but can we get inside?” Caron asked nervously. “I don’t care if there aren’t any of them around, I don’t like standing out here.”

Martin moved first, picking up his bike and leading the way to the front of the hotel complex. He took them inside, up a few low stone steps and through a wide glass door with arched windows on either side into a long, open-plan reception area. Lorna collapsed onto a dusty brown leather sofa and gazed at her surroundings, still unable to take it all in.

“You okay?” Hollis asked, concerned. She looked at him and smiled.

“Just trying to get my head around everything. I never thought we’d find anywhere like this.”

“If you could all just check in at reception,” Martin laughed as he leaned his bike against the side of the ornate wooden desk, “I’ll get your keys and have someone take you up to your rooms!”

Amir shook his head and sighed. “Silly bastard, he’s been waiting to say that to someone since we first got here!”

Harte looked around anxiously. He could hear something. It was a clack-clack- clacking sound coming toward them along a corridor on their right. It didn’t sound human, but it was moving much too quickly to be one of the dead. He instinctively looked around for a weapon, but immediately relaxed when the source of the sound appeared. A scruffy, black and white, medium-sized dog with short, wiry fur and a tatty red collar poked its head through the doorway then walked forward again, its claws rapping against the terra-cotta floor tiles as it moved. It stopped and cocked its head to one side, then glanced back over its shoulder. More footsteps, heavier this time and much slower. A tall and stocky, red-faced man who was hopelessly out of breath entered the room and grabbed hold of the dog’s collar.

“Wow,” he said simply, shaking his head with disbelief when he saw the size of the crowd gathered in reception.

“This is Howard Reece,” Martin said, introducing him. Howard shuffled forward.

“Good to see you all,” he wheezed, relaxing and letting go of the dog again. It walked over to Lorna and began to sniff at her dirty, bloodstained trouser legs and boots. She leaned down and stroked its head.

“Beautiful dog,” she said, ruffling its short fur. “What’s its name?”

“I just call it Dog,” Howard replied.

“Original,” Jas said.

“She doesn’t care. I never wanted her. Bloody thing just attached herself to me when all this started,” he explained, “and now I can’t get rid of her.”

“She’s good to have around,” Martin continued. “She’s got a good nose on her. She sniffs out the dead for us.”

“What?”

“They freak her out, send her wild.”

“They freak us all out,” Harte mumbled.

“But she catches their scent earlier than we do. She lets us know when they’re close.”

“But what about her barking? Isn’t it a risk having her around?”

“She’s not stupid,” Howard said as the dog padded back over to him and sat down at his feet. “She had a couple of close calls early on when they first started to react to us. She knows not to make any noise but she lets you know when they’re near. You can see it in her face and the way she moves.”

“Bullshit,” Webb said. The dog just looked at him.

“So where’s everyone else?” Jas asked, keen to get back to more important issues.

“In the restaurant,” Amir answered. “Follow me.”

He led the group across the reception area and into a corridor directly opposite the one from which Howard and his dog had just appeared. In silence they walked along a wall full of windows which looked out onto an enclosed courtyard—half-paved, half-lawn. Hollis noticed a sign on the wall at the foot of a glass-fronted staircase which pointed to WEST WING - ROOMS 1–42. He assumed that the similar-looking part of the complex on the directly opposite side of the courtyard—an identical staircase at either end, three floors, many equally-spaced windows—was the east wing, and that it almost certainly had a comparable number of rooms to the west. He looked up at the mass of rectangular windows he could see from ground level.

Christ, he thought, more than eighty rooms. If just a quarter of them are occupied then we’ve more than doubled our number. He remembered the disorientation, desperation, and cold fear he’d felt on the day everyone had died, and how much easier everything had felt when he’d finally found other survivors. The more people I’m with, he’d long since decided, the easier the ride should be. The potential of using the hotel as a long-term base was immediately apparent, as it surely had been for everyone else who had ended up here. It was strong, safe, secure, and a damn sight more comfortable than the flats where he’d spent almost all of his time since the infection had first struck. Proper beds, space to move around freely, kitchens, and no bodies …

“Swimming pool,” Jas said, grinning as they passed another sign on the wall.

“Out of action,” Martin immediately told him. “I’ll show you around properly later.”

“All this space,” Caron mused, looking across the courtyard at the three-story block of bedrooms, trying to decide where she wanted her room to be. Now this was more like it. She’d become used to living her life surrounded by waste and rubbish. The interior of the hotel, however, appeared relatively well-kept. Sure it was dusty and everything smelled stale, and it might have only been a two-star hotel when she was used to three at least, preferably four, but the floors were clean and the rooms she’d so far seen were tidy and, if she really was condemned to spend the rest of her days suffering and scavenging with these people, at least it looked like she’d now be able to separate herself from them from time to time. Imagine that—the luxury of being able to close and lock the door behind her and shut everyone else out. She was sick of trying (and failing) to look after people and clean up for them and sort out their pointless, petty squabbles. Maybe now she could just stop and spend her time looking after herself.

At the end of the corridor a sudden sharp-right turn led the group along the farthest and shortest edge of the rectangular courtyard, parallel with the reception area they’d originally entered. They passed an empty meeting room and a bar. The rows of half-full optics behind the wooden counter caught the attention of several of the new arrivals. Webb attempted to make a quick detour but was jostled back on course by Harte. They followed Amir through a set of swinging double doors into a restaurant. Two people—a middle-aged woman and a tall, thin, and much younger man—immediately got up from where they’d been sitting slouched around a table playing cards and walked toward them.

“Ginnie and Sean,” Amir announced. Harte acknowledged them with a nod and looked hopefully around the large, empty room.

“Where are the others?” he asked.

“There are no others,” Martin replied. “Just the five of us.”

“And a dog,” Webb added unhelpfully.

“That’s all?” Jas said, surprised. “Just five?”

“Yes,” he answered. “I was working here when it happened and Howard found me a couple of days later. We found Ginnie and Amir when we were out looking for supplies, and Sean found us when he heard us driving around.”

“So that’s it?”

Martin appeared perplexed. “You sound disappointed.”

“I am,” he admitted. “This place is great. I thought there’d be loads of people here.”

“Well, we haven’t exactly been broadcasting the fact that we are here very loudly. We don’t want those