Disintegration

hand. The windscreen of the van was covered in an almost opaque film of greasy stains and dripping gore and she couldn’t see much up ahead. Hollis repeatedly tried to use the wipers but all they seemed to do was make the problem worse, smearing the foul muck from side to side in a bloody rainbow arc of insipid yellows, browns, and grays. He frantically used the screen-wash, managing to clear just enough of the glass to be able to see through. “Turn left and we’re on the Kingsway Road.”
    Hollis swerved around a tight corner, then put his foot down again as the Kingsway Road stretched out in front of them. Apart from the fact it was crowded with the dead, it didn’t look anything like he remembered.
    “What next?”
    She looked down at her notes again like the co-pilot in a surreal, obstacle-strewn rally. Her assistance was vital. The almost never-ending waves of bodies made it virtually impossible to navigate by sight alone anymore. They were frequently packed so tightly together that it was hard to see where the road ended and the curb began.
    “Keep going for half a mile, go through a set of lights, then Shaylors should be on our right.”
    “Should be on our right?”
    “ Will be on our right,” she corrected herself. A sudden thump made her jump and catch her breath as a dismembered arm (it may even have been half a leg) spiralled up from a ruckus in the crowd and thudded against the windscreen, leaving a bloody stain—a sudden splash of crimson red in the midst of the putrid yellow grays.
    “Nice,” Hollis mumbled. “They’re virtually falling apart now.”
    “Just wish they’d hurry up and get on with it.”
    Hollis glanced into his rearview mirror but couldn’t see anything clearly.
    “Are they still behind us?”
    Lorna turned around in her seat and peered along the length of the empty van to look out through the rear window. She struggled to focus—the ride was increasingly uneven as they powered through and over the dead—before finally seeing the bright lights of Jas’s bike between the crisscrossing corpses. Farther back still, the bus continued to trundle sedately through the carnage. Its size and strength were such that it could move at a more pedestrian pace. It didn’t matter at what speed Driver drove, nothing was going to stop him.
    *   *   *
     
    Harte was transfixed by his surroundings. Everything seemed so different from when he was last here: instantly familiar and yet completely different, like looking at the world he remembered through a filter of grime. He held onto the back of the bike as Jas jolted up the curb, mounting the pavement and skillfully weaving through a gap between an overturned hot dog stand and the front of a furniture store, then leaning the bike the other way to avoid the grabbing hands of a corpse. Harte hadn’t seen as many of them this morning as he’d expected—hundreds, not thousands. His theory was that they’d gradually spread out from here like blood on tissue paper. This godforsaken place had always been busy, always heaving with too many people. He’d taught at a school just a few miles away and had always done all he could to avoid coming here. The Kingsway Road ran right through the center of some of the poorest parts of town, and the squalor and ruin here today appeared uncomfortably familiar. He could see some of the pitiful residents of this densely populated hellhole trapped behind the doors and windows of buildings as they passed. Some still moved incessantly as if they might be about to find some miracle escape route which had eluded them for the last couple of months. Others stood slumped against the windows, pointlessly pounding their fists against the dirty glass.
    Less than fifty meters in front of the bike and bus, the van had slowed down. Lorna wound down her window, stuck her hand out, and pointed over to the right. Knowing that was his cue to take the lead, Jas accelerated, roaring past the van toward Shaylors. The group of survivors, although frequently argumentative, unhelpful, and volatile, were occasionally surprisingly organized. They had developed a well-rehearsed routine for times such as this. The van dropped back, leaving Jas and Harte to get closer and suss out the surrounds of the building they were planning to loot.
    After dodging a small group of cadavers which had lurched perilously close, Jas drove across the wide car park at the front of the building at speed. Harte spotted a signpost marked