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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 DELIVERIES . Perfect. He pointed toward it and Jas accelerated again. A straight length of road, no more than one hundred meters long, stretched all the way along the side of the building down to a fenced-off loading bay. Jas drove into the bay, turned a tight circle, then drove back the way he’d just come and gestured for the others to follow. Another tight full turn and he disappeared again. Hollis put his foot down, then braked hard and skidded around the corner after him. A short distance behind, Webb and Stokes held on for dear life as they approached the turning in the bus. The swarming bodies suddenly seemed the least of their worries. How the hell was Driver going to get the bus around the corner and along the gap between the side of the building and the fence?
    “Bloody hell, are you going to get this thing down there?” Webb asked. Driver nodded confidently, checked his mirrors, and gently swung the bus around to the right to follow the others down the track.
    “We’ll be fine. They used to get trucks down here, didn’t they?”
    Driver carefully shunted the massive vehicle a few feet farther forward, then hard-locked the steering wheel. He took his time. A man who’d spent his life driving according to timetables and working regulations, he wasn’t about to start hurrying for anyone or anything. With a total lack of urgency or any visible emotion he continued to inch forward, craning his neck and lifting himself up on his seat to be sure the farthest forward corner of the bus