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!”
“Shut up. It wasn’t my fault. At least I stopped them getting any closer.”
“No, you didn’t,” Hollis said quietly. “They stopped getting closer long before you started with your party tricks. It’s been days since any of them tried to get over the barrier.”
“Why is that?” Jas asked, suddenly more serious. “Why do you think they’re holding back?”
“They’re waiting for Webb to go back out there,” Stokes said, still laughing. “They’re waiting for you to entertain them, mate! Or maybe they want you to light another fire to keep them warm!”
“Fuck you, Stokes.”
Webb slumped against the wall and swigged his beer.
“Thought you were going to show us how to keep him under control,” Hollis said quietly.
“I am,” Stokes whispered back. “He needs putting in his place. If we tell him he did a great job getting rid of seven of them, he’ll be back out there tomorrow morning trying to do it again like he’s the fucking Terminator or something.”
Hollis could see Stokes’s point of view, but he wasn’t convinced Stokes continually put Webb down for any reason other than to make himself feel better.
“No one answered my question,” Jas said.
“What question?” Stokes mumbled ignorantly.
“Why do you think they’re holding back?”
“Who?”
“The bodies, you moron.”
“Well it ain’t because of Webb!”
Hollis stared out toward the vast crowd of corpses in the near distance. In the low light the thousands of individual figures seemed to have merged together and formed a single, unending mass of decaying flesh.
“No way of knowing for sure, is there?” he finally admitted.
“But what do you think?” Jas pushed. “What’s your gut feeling?”
“That they’re either too scared to come any closer or they’re biding their time.”
“Biding their time?” Stokes protested. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Maybe they’re waiting for us to drop our guard. Maybe they’re waiting for us to come out into the open so they can make their move and attack. They’ve got us outnumbered by more than a thousand to one.”
“Bullshit,” Stokes said. “They’re not waiting for us.”
“Like I said, we should just go out there in the morning and get rid of the whole fucking lot of them,” Webb shouted from the shadows. “And if we can’t get rid of them then we should just keep pushing them back until there’s at least a mile between the nearest one of them and me.”
4
“Where are we going?” sighed Driver. He picked a lump of dried food out of the end of his untidy month-long beard and flicked it under the table. Hollis held his head in his hands, then jabbed his finger down onto the map.
“Kingsway Road,” he sighed. “Halfway down going towards town, just before you get to the station. Haven’t you been listening?”
“That’s the old twenty-three route,” Driver answered, suddenly marginally more animated. “I know where you mean now.”
“Thank God for that.”
Hollis made momentary eye contact with Harte, who seemed to share his concerns about Driver. Christ, they didn’t even know his real name. He’d turned up at the flats in the bus he’d been driving when the infection had first struck. He’d picked up several other survivors along the way but had been disturbingly lapse and vague about
