looked he saw the crumbling, dying ruins of places he used to know. They were just fading shadows now, gradually dissolving away to nothing. His whole world had been raped and ruined beyond repair.
“Well?” Harte pressed impatiently.
“Take a right here, then go straight up the high street.”
“Think we’ll be able to get through?”
“Should do. It was partially pedestrianized. There wasn’t a lot of traffic around when it all kicked off.”
“How do you know?” Hollis asked, holding on as Driver swung the bus around to the right. Amir wiped away another tear, unable to look away from the disintegrating world outside.
“Because,” he explained, his voice suddenly full of emotion, “I used to live here and work here and I was here when it happened.” The bus rumbled forward, then took a gentle turn and began heading up the high street. “And,” he continued, pointing out of the window at the row of shops and businesses on the right hand side of the road, “because until all of this happened, the Bromwell Jewel was the best place to eat for miles around here.”
“Was that where you used to work?” Harte asked.
“That was my business,” Amir answered as they passed the blue-fronted building, its unlit signage now faded and dull and its windows covered with cobwebs and dust. “That place was my life.”
What remained of the people of Bromwell were beginning to emerge from the shadows. They slowly spilled out from dark, hidden corners and dribbled through doorways, alerted by the noise. Their numbers were surprisingly low.
“Why so few?” Harte asked as a gray-suited cadaver dragged itself out in front of the bus. He winced as the powerful vehicle slammed into it, its head smacking against the bottom of the windscreen and popping open like a blood-filled balloon. “Can’t all be down to Martin’s music, can it?”
“What else could it be?” Amir wondered. “I’m sure that’s got something to do with it, but look out there. Some of them are holding back.”
He pointed farther up the street. Harte and Hollis peered ahead, but the fact that the color seemed to have been drained from everything, bodies included, made it difficult to make out detail until one of the cadavers moved. Amir was right, though, some of the creatures in the shadows were definitely keeping their distance, staying out of the way until the bus had almost reached them and they had no option but to move. Harte turned and looked out the rear window. Behind the vehicle the scene was disappointingly familiar. The main street was full of corpses all dragging themselves after them.
“What’s all that about?” Amir wondered, his eyes wide, nervous, and bewildered.
“We’ve seen it before,” Hollis replied. “They’re not as dumb as you’d think. Sometimes they keep out of the way if they think they’re in danger.”
“Seriously?”
“You just watch them,” he continued. “When they’re isolated or there are just a few of them they tend to keep out of the way. Now look behind the bus. The immediate threat’s gone so they come out into the open and follow us.”
“So is Martin making things better or worse? If they’re easier to deal with on their own, shouldn’t we be trying to keep them apart?”
“Don’t know. There’s no right answer. Even if you’re only up against one or two of them, if they can’t see a way out, they’ll fight you whatever.”
“Now where?” asked Driver. The end of the street was looming. Amir forced himself to concentrate and look ahead again. The far end of town had been redeveloped over the last eighteen months with several large buildings having been built on reclaimed wasteland the other side of a recently restored canal. There was a supermarket there, as well as the usual entertainment and fast-food outlets that always seemed to crop up together. He’d spent the last six months cursing the place, blaming it for draining the life from the town and dragging his customers away. Now he couldn’t get there fast enough.
“Keep going to the end of the road, then take the bridge over the canal. We should find something up there.”
The bus clipped the back corner of a burned-out car and sent the wreck spinning toward the buildings on their left. It crashed into the bronzed-glass frontage of a large social security office, releasing a previously trapped pocket of bodies which immediately began to pick their way through the rubble and glass, then lurched along the rubbish- strewn road. Harte walked the length of the bus, pressed his face against the back window and watched them. From all directions cadavers were now streaming out onto the main street and following the vehicle like a herd. There were still many fewer bodies than he’d expected to see, but more than enough to cause them problems.
Driver forced the bus up over the narrow bridge which separated the redevelopment from the rest of the town, the sudden jolting movement violently throwing his passengers about.
“Jesus,” Hollis cursed, gripping the handrail tighter and struggling to stay on his feet. He looked out the door and peered down into the canal with disgust. The sides of the waterway were largely open with benches and shelters scattered along the tow path. Over the weeks vast numbers of dumb, uncoordinated bodies had fallen into the cloudy water. There were so many of them around the sides of the bridge that the canal had become a dark, murky quagmire filled with flesh. Bony, barely recognizable heads, limbs, and other body parts jutted out from the greasy green-gray sludge at unnatural angles. It occurred to him that the canal might actually help them in the same way that a moat protected a medieval castle. Some of the cadavers following the bus would no doubt manage to cross the bridge by chance, but many more would join the packed masses below already wallowing in their watery graves.
There were hardly any bodies on the other side of the canal. Harte was reassured by what he saw as he returned to the front of the bus. From left to right there was a large toy store, an electrical superstore, some kind of furniture and household goods outlet, a bowling alley, and a supermarket.
“Look for the loading bay,” he suggested, hoping that their usual tactics would work. Driver was one step ahead of the game.
“Good idea,” Amir said quietly.
“We’ve done this before,” Harte mumbled.
The once-white supermarket building appeared dirty and decayed. Weeds and moss had sprung up around the entrance and had begun to climb the walls, their surprisingly aggressive growth rates no doubt increased by the plentiful nutrients supplied by the remains of the dead shoppers lying nearby.
“Fuel,” Hollis said, nodding toward the supermarket filling station on one edge of the car park. This was an excellent find. There was a tanker on the forecourt. If they were lucky it would still be full. If they were unlucky the fuel would be in the tanks beneath the pumps. Wherever it was stored, this was good news. Maybe they could even drive the tanker back if it was still loaded up. Not today, but later in the week perhaps. Hollis forced himself to concentrate on getting the maximum amount of supplies today, that was why they were here. They could make plans for their next trip tonight as they rested in comfort back at the hotel and ate decent food and drank themselves stupid.
“Doors are closed,” Harte said as they drove past the main entrance, wiping out another trio of curious cadavers.
“Is that good?” Amir asked. He thought it was a strange thing to say.
“Absolutely!” he replied. “You want to try going into one of those places when the doors have been left open? Swarming with those fucking things, they are. They’re drawn to shops even after they’re dead!”
“Are you serious?”
Harte laughed. “No, but it is easier when they’re closed up. Thing is, they can get into buildings easier than they can get out.”
“Like the golf course?”
“Exactly, and the longer you leave it, the more you’ll find stuck inside. Just adds to the fun!”
“Fun?” Amir grumbled nervously. He was sweating profusely and trying hard to remain calm. The bitter sadness he’d felt since returning to Bromwell had now been replaced by absolute fear. He wished he’d stopped at the hotel. He couldn’t believe he’d actually volunteered to come out here. It had seemed like a long-overdue opportunity to break the monotony of his prison-like surroundings, but now all he wanted was to be back in his “cell.”
Driver skillfully coaxed the bus around a tight corner and into the loading bay, knocking down the “maximum height” warning sign which hung from a barrier overhead as he reversed into position. This place obviously hadn’t
