He’d almost made it up onto the seventeenth green when his tires, their grooved treads already filled with mud and rotting flesh, lost all traction and began to slip and slide back down the bank again. He frantically tried to steer himself back into control but it was no good—the drop away was too severe and the car leveled off. The engine straining and screaming with effort, he managed to keep moving forward at speed for a few more meters, until the front driver’s-side wheel thumped into a low tree stump, forcing it up into the air. The battered blue car spiraled over and over and down, finally coming to rest on its crumpled roof in the middle of a stagnant stream.
* * *
Sean had spotted an opening, a way to still be able to do what he’d agreed to do for the others and then get the hell away from this godforsaken place and the fools and cowards he’d found himself trapped here with. He’d driven around haphazardly for a while, waiting for Harte and Amir to do what they had to do and taking a welcome opportunity to obliterate as many corpses as he was able. He drove in circles three-quarters of the way up the field, keeping an eye on the van up ahead as Jas tried unsuccessfully to track down Amir and Webb. The majority of the bodies in the field were still stumbling toward the burning wreck of Harte’s car, attracted to it by the ferocity of the flames which were continuing to spread through scores of tinder-dry corpses. A sizable number of other cadavers, he noticed, had somehow managed to swing the gate at the top of the field open and were beginning to work their way along the road, spreading out in both directions. He wasn’t unduly worried. The van would wipe them out on its way back to the hotel.
Through the crowd he caught sight of Jas again and decided it was time. He didn’t know what the delay had been, or why he hadn’t seen Amir’s car set alight. Whatever the reason, there was no point waiting any longer. He stopped the car just short of halfway up the field, almost parallel with Harte’s burning wreck, and gave a loud blast on the horn. Many cadavers immediately turned, shuffled toward him and began to thump their decaying fists against the windows. More important, the van also turned in his direction, smashing the lethargic creatures out of the way as it thundered along. It was almost completely covered in blood and gore. Scraps of skin and bone had wedged themselves into every available crease and crevice of its metal body. Flesh dripped off its headlamps and down the grill of its bonnet. When it was close enough that he could see Jas and Harte inside, Sean turned around and, as agreed, soaked the back of the car with fuel. The van pulled level and Harte beckoned him to move faster. He opened the sunroof and hauled himself out through it.
“What are you doing?” Jas yelled, winding down his window.
“Go,” Sean replied.
“What?”
“Just go! I’m not coming back.”
“What do you mean? Come on!”
“What do you think I mean?” he shouted. “I’m sick of that fucking hotel. I’m getting out of here.”
“Are you stupid?”
“Might be,” he answered. “Anyway, when you find Webb, tell him I’ll wait down at the road junction for an hour, then I’m going.”
“Going where?”
“Back into town.”
“You
“I just don’t want to go back inside,” he said, “that’s all. Now piss off so I can torch this bloody car.”
Before Jas could say anything else Sean lit a match and dropped it through the sunroof into the back of the car. As the vapors ignited he slid down onto the bonnet, then pushed himself away and sprinted into the crowd. He was out of sight almost instantly, swallowed up by the constantly swaying figures which filled the field and surged toward the light and noise.
Jas shoved the van into gear and motored away, willing the tired vehicle to move quickly through the swarming hordes. Just a few seconds later and the stockpile of fuel in the back of Sean’s dark green car behind them exploded, turning it from an ordinary vehicle to a deadly weapon in an instant.
“You going after him?” Harte asked, craning his neck to look for Sean in the carnage.
“Fuck him,” Jas grunted angrily.
“What now, then? Do we look for Amir and Webb?”
As with the first explosion, the sudden ball of smoke and flame that had just belched up into the sky was proving to be more of a distraction than the van. The dead converged on the remains of Sean’s car like a hunting pack.
“Five minutes,” Jas announced. “That’s all we can give them.” He wasn’t interested in what might have happened to Amir and Webb, he just wanted to know why they hadn’t done the job they’d been sent to do. Pair of useless fools. He cursed himself for leaving the two of them together.
50
“Shit,” Howard cursed as the second car exploded in the distance. Hollis didn’t hear anything but jumped up when he saw the other man’s reaction. Sensing trouble he ran back outside, leaving the others standing dumbstruck in the courtyard in the middle of the hotel. He sprinted down the steps and out into the car park to see a dark cloud of smoke belching up into the sky above the top of the tall hedgerow. A distance to the left—at least several hundred yards, he estimated—the dirty pall from the first blast continued to climb into the air.
Back in the courtyard, Caron sat down at the edge of the overgrown lawn and poured herself a large glass of wine.
“Idiots,” Martin muttered nervously. “What in Christ’s name do they think they’re doing?”
“Helping,” Lorna insisted.
“Helping? How the hell is this helping?”
“At least they’re doing something,” Gordon said from the opposite side of the courtyard.
“Doing nothing is better than something,” Martin protested. “Doing nothing is exactly what we all should be doing. All this is going to do is bring the bodies back here to us.”
“They might bring that helicopter as well,” Caron mumbled, knocking back her wine, already half-drunk.
“Just give them a chance,” said Lorna.
Martin paced up and down anxiously.
“Think about it, Martin,” Gordon continued, desperately trying to calm him and diffuse his increasing panic. “This might actually help. They’re drawn to fire. Someone said yesterday that they were getting used to the music —well, maybe this will keep them occupied for a while longer and get rid of a few hundred of them at the same time.”
“A few hundred?” he barked furiously. “A few hundred? Do you have any idea how many of them are out there? There are thousands and thousands crammed onto that bloody golf course.”
“And you’ve said yourself that they can’t get off it.”
“No I haven’t. I said we’d made it difficult for them, not impossible. The music’s kept drawing them in until now, and the fact there have been so many of them moving in the same direction has kept them penned in. If they start turning back in large numbers we’re screwed.”
“But they’re still on the other side of the road, behind two fences that they’ll never manage to get through.”
“If there are enough of them alight they could burn their way through,” Martin suggested, his logic suddenly screwed by his nervous fear.
“That’s hardly likely,” Caron grunted, sniggering into her wine glass.
“If it comes to it I’ll stand on a ladder chucking buckets of water over them,” Gordon said, irritated.
“We haven’t got enough water,” Martin immediately answered back. The conversation was becoming ridiculous.
Howard’s dog, which had been sitting at Lorna’s feet, stood and pricked up its ears.
“What’s the matter?”
The dog sniffed the air. As Lorna leaned down to stroke its head, it suddenly bolted. It ran at full speed across the courtyard, weaved through the marbled-floor reception area and jumped down the steps. Hollis spun around when he caught sight of it out of the corner of his eye, then watched as it hurtled toward the track leading
