Autumn: Disintegration Read Free Page B

you wash yourself down before you take one step inside. I don’t want to be stepping through your shit all night, okay?”
    Webb didn’t respond. He wasn’t interested in anything Jas or any of the others had to say. He tightened his grip on the van roof bars as they began to move away, then looked back over his shoulder, watching the smoke rise up from the burning crowds. One of the dead, its clothes and hair aflame, broke free and staggered after the van like the last firework on bonfire night, eventually dropping to the ground when its remaining muscles had burned away to nothing.
    Is that the best you can do? Webb thought. Is that all you’ve got left?

 
     
    2
     
    Cold, tired and angry, Webb stormed up to the third floor and headed straight for the communal flat where most of the small group spent much of their time. He barged into the living room, almost tripping over Anita, who was asleep on the floor.
    “You left me!” he yelled when he found her. “You bloody well left me!”
    Sitting on a threadbare sofa in the corner of the room, Lorna barely lifted her eyes from her magazine. Anita groaned at him to shut up.
    “Yeah,” Lorna mumbled, her voice devoid of any sincerity, “really sorry about that, Webb.”
    “You stupid bitch,” he continued, her apparent lack of concern only increasing his anger, “I could have been killed.”
    “Now there’s a thought.”
    “Didn’t you even notice I wasn’t there? Didn’t you realize the seat next to you was empty?”
    Lorna sighed and finally lowered her magazine.
    “Sorry Webb,” she said, her voice now overly sincere. “Truth was I did notice that you hadn’t made it back. Problem was I was trying to drive a van filled with cans of petrol through a crowd of dead bodies. I could either turn back to get you and risk being blown to kingdom come, or just keep going. We both managed to get home in one piece, didn’t we? I’d say I made the right decision.”
    “Bitch. You wouldn’t be so cocky if it was you that had been left behind. If I’d been in the van—”
    “Two things to say to that,” she interrupted, pointing her finger at him. “One, I wouldn’t have gone mooching around for fags when I’d been given a job to do. And two, you can’t drive.”
    “You always have to bring that up, don’t you? You’ve got a problem because I—”
    “No, you’ve got the problem. I couldn’t care less if you could drive two cars at the same time. I just think you need to start—”
    “Will you two shut up arguing?” Caron demanded as she entered the room carrying a pile of recently looted clothing. “You’re like a couple of kids. For crying out loud, look out of the window will you? The whole world’s dead and all you want to do is fight with each other.”
    “We don’t have to look out the window, Caron.” Lorna sighed. “We’ve just been outside, remember?”
    “And we’re all very grateful,” Caron replied calmly, refusing to allow herself to be drawn into the same pointless argument they had on a regular basis. “Thank you, both of you. Now will you please stop fighting and start trying to get on with each other?”
    “Yes, Mom,” Webb mumbled.
    Insensitive prick, Lorna thought. Caron had been a mother up until just over a month ago; until the day she’d spent almost an hour trying to resuscitate her seventeen-year-old son Matthew, oblivious to the fact that the rest of the world outside her front door had died too. Still, she thought, at least Caron was trying to come to terms with what’s happened, which was more than could be said for some of the others. She glanced over at Ellie, who was sitting in an armchair beside the door, cradling a plastic doll—a replacement for her seven-month-old daughter who had died in her arms on the first morning of the nightmare. Everyone knew it was wrong, yet Lorna couldn’t bring herself to say anything. Webb watched her too, scowling at the way she talked to the damn thing, and how she