“Fair point, but you must have had to deal with some of them? Christ, we’ve been surrounded by thousands of the fucking things for weeks.”
“I got here before they really started to turn,” he explained. “We’ve seen Martin’s pet corpse and how she’s changed, and we’ve seen others fighting from the window, but we’ve just stayed put.”
“For nearly two months?”
“Something like that.”
Webb couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Next to him, Sean shivered with cold. He was dressed in a thin hooded fleece, T-shirt, jeans, and trainers. Webb, in comparison, was still wearing his heavy boots and blood-soaked biker trousers. He looked like he’d been fighting the dead for weeks on end without a moment’s rest. Sean looked like he’d just got home from college.
“Don’t know how you’ve done it, mate. I’d have gone out of my fucking mind.”
“It’s not the bodies that get to me,” Sean quickly said, glad to finally have a chance to say what he thought, “it’s that lot in there. They’re so fucking cautious. It’s sit here, do this, don’t make a noise, keep your head down … I’m fucking sick of it.”
“Can’t you just walk?”
“What?”
“Can’t you just get out of here for a bit? I did it when we were back at the flats. I either used to sit in the car or find a few bodies to beat up.”
“You went looking for them?”
“Sometimes. It was pretty easy where we were. I’d get ahold of a few of them and batter the fuckers until there was nothing left but a pile of blood and bones.”
“Don’t know if I could do that.”
“Don’t be so fucking soft! Of course you could. It’s not difficult. Bloody things are dead. As long as you don’t do anything stupid you’ll be fine.”
“But they killed one of your people, didn’t they? I heard someone say the bodies killed a man.”
Webb took another swig of beer and looked out toward the horizon, avoiding eye contact.
“That’s right,” he answered, not wanting to say anything else about Stokes’s death but feeling obliged to keep talking to cover his tracks. “I was with him when it happened, poor bastard.”
“So is that why you’re here?”
“Suppose. That and the germs.”
“Germs?”
“Couple of the girls got sick and died. We got away before anyone else got ill.”
“Shit, I didn’t realize.”
“And you’re telling me you’re bored?”
Sean looked down at his feet, feeling suddenly foolish and naïve. He couldn’t deny his frustration, nor how the increasingly intense and relentless claustrophobia was getting to him. He’d risk putting his neck on the line just to get away for a while. Christ, what he’d have given to have seen some of the action Webb had described.
“They sit around at night and play cards, for fuck’s sake,” he moaned. “I tell you, it’s like being on a day trip to the end of the world with your fucking grandparents!”
“What about when you go out for supplies?”
“You’re kidding, aren’t you? We don’t. They won’t.”
“What d’you mean?”
“What do you think I mean? You’ve already heard Martin—he goes mental if you even mention it.”
“So how long’s it been since you last left here?”
“I haven’t. Got here less than a week after it started and I haven’t been anywhere since. I’m going out of my fucking mind.”
“So just go!”
Sean didn’t say anything for a few moments. He drank more of his beer, got up, walked away, and then stopped and turned back to face Webb.
“I can’t,” he reluctantly admitted.
“Why? Scared of what the folks will say?”
“No, it’s not that.”
“I tell you, mate, the whole fucking world is out there for the taking. If all you’re gonna do is sit here and moan about it, you might as well roll over and end it right now.”
29
Eight o’clock. Pitch black outside. Everywhere silent. The entire group sat around tables in the restaurant and ate. Howard’s dog prowled up and down, sniffing the air hungrily and grabbing at whatever scraps happened to fall her way, but the amount of waste was negligible. Those who had been living in the hotel were starving, the meager rations they’d so far survived on were nothing compared to the relative riches the others had brought with them.
“I never used to like tomatoes,” Ginnie said excitedly as she helped herself to another serving of lukewarm chopped, canned tomatoes, “but my God, this tastes good!”
Caron and Hollis exchanged glances across the table. What had these people been eating? Caron asked the question.
“Not much,” Howard replied, just visible in the candlelight at the other end of the table. “I reckon I’ve lost a couple of stone.” He lifted up his baggy sweater to reveal an equally baggy T-shirt. “Few more stones to go yet, mind,” he added, patting his wide belly.
“I don’t understand why you haven’t just gone out for supplies,” Harte said. “There’s a town just down the road, you could have been there and back in a couple of hours. And you’ve got those trucks too. If you’d filled one of them you’d have had enough to last you weeks, months even.”
“We just haven’t wanted to risk going out there,” Martin answered. “Okay, so we’ve gone hungry, but none of us are starving and we’ve been safe so far. I know what I’d rather have.”
“I’d have risked it,” Sean said from a table a short distance away where he was sitting with Webb and Jas.
“We all agreed, Sean,” Martin sighed. “There were only five of us here. We’d have been taking too much of a chance.”
“You all agreed,” he protested. “I don’t remember getting to have much of a say. You’d decided before I even knew you were having a discussion.”
“It was for the best, Sean. Come on, son, everything’s worked out okay, hasn’t it?”
Sean grunted and carried on eating. He found it a little easier to stay calm and not lose his temper now that he wasn’t so hungry. Christ, it was good to taste so many different flavors again. It was all tins and packaged convenience food, but it was more than he’d had in a long time. And beer! Although the lager made the cold night feel colder still, the numbing effect of the alcohol was worth it.
“There are more of us here now,” Amir said quietly. “Kind of changes things, doesn’t it?”
“Does it?” Martin asked, thoughtfully chewing a mouthful of food.
“Of course it does. Now there’s more than twice as many of us, maybe we could risk going out?”
“We don’t need to. They’ve brought plenty of stuff with them.”
“You think?” Jas interrupted. “We brought as much with us as we could, but it’s not going to last forever. Seems to me we’ve got no choice but to go out some point.”
“You don’t understand. It’s not as easy as that.”
“I do understand. I understand perfectly well. I understand that if we’re all going to stay here then we’re going to need a lot more food than we’ve got at present, and I also understand the bodies a lot better than you do too. We’ve dealt with thousands of them at a time.”
“But it’s not as black and white as you’re making it sound,” Martin protested. “Our safety relies on them not knowing we’re here. If you go out there and start throwing your weight around, you’ll attract their attention and before you know it—”
“I think we’re talking about one trip outside, two at the most. Surely that’s not going to have too much of an effect if you keep playing your music to them?”
“They’re starting to work things out,” Hollis warned. “You can’t just assume that—”